Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

Two politicians on opposite sides of the Atlantic and of most political questions have decided to have a go at rebranding rape.

George Galloway has declared that Julian Assange is innocent of the crime. He has not declared this on the basis that he thinks that there has been some case of mistaken identity or that he believes the women accusing Assange are liars. Instead he argues that if everything they have said is true, Assange's actions do not constitute rape. Apparently the rape they describe only constitutes "really bad manners"

Of course, Galloway's credibility in matters moral is suspect as he described the fall of the Soviet Union as the worst day of his life and saluted the "indefatigability" of Saddam Hussein.

Todd Akin is a Republican Congressman seeking election to the Senate. Republicans did not want him to win his primary, but Democrats certainly did. With a not very subtle tactic of criticising him for being "too conservative" Democrats found ways of making him appealing to Republican primary voters. While he is certainly extreme, it was his ability to garble what he was trying to say that made him especially attractive to Democrats. This has paid off in just a few days.

Asked about his views on abortion in cases of rape, Akin claimed that pregnancy is rare in cases of "legitimate rape" going on to claim that "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down".

What he seems to have meant was ridiculous, but his way of expressing it made it even worse.

Nobody thinks that Akin meant that some rapes are "legitimate". Quite the opposite. He seems to have been talking about he would classify as the worst type of rapes. His 'clarification' adds little. He says he meant "forcible rapes". This is to distinguish those rapes from, well, what? Voluntary rapes? The concept is an obvious oxymoron. "Forcible rape" is a redundancy.

It is true that some rapes are accompanied by additional violence – over and above the inherent violence of forcible violation. Was Akin claiming that a rape carried out by intimidation was more likely to produce pregnancy than one carried out actual battery? If so, he is wrong, and also counselling, by implication, women to resist in a potentially dangerous way. Battery, unless borderline lethal, would be very unlikely to affect the risk of pregnancy.

Akin has apologised, but his incoherence is making things worse. His clarification showed he had little understanding of the concept of rape and almost no knowledge female anatomy. Asked if he would withdraw from the race in favour of a stronger candidate he replied "I am not a quitter", which, as Larry Sabato has pointed out is a quote from Richard Nixon, the only US President ever to, er, quit.