1./ Rape is not about men or women in their differences. It’s about society as a whole. When a woman is raped, she’s the primary victim and sufferer but she has a network of family and friends that will also bear the scar in varying degrees. We need to understand and accept this.

2./ In response to statements like;

“Sex is so freely available.”
“Ashawo is cheap.”
“How can you enjoy it if your partner isn’t responsive.”

Rape is not always about sexual gratification.

The reasons why rape happens are as many& as diverse as the reasons why theft occurs.

3./ We can probably never explore them all.

In addition to, or apart from sexual gratification, rape is a power play. It’s about dominance& a desire to inflict pain on the victim.

Remember those cases about the boyfriend who gathered with his friends to rape his girlfriend?

4./ Or ex-girlfriend because she cheated on him? There were several such cases in my Uni days. It wasn’t about sexual pleasure. It was a warped desire to humiliate the “errant girlfriend.”

Remember the cases of rapists inserting heated boiling rings in their victims vaginas?

5./ It wasn’t about sexual pleasure either. So that answers the question about that.
There are some who rape for sexual pleasure. Some of those ones can only find pleasure in the pain and resistance of their victims.

6./ Some others rape for money and other rituals including those who have HIV and erroneously think that sex with a baby or a virgin will cure them.

Due to the nature of the crime of rape, the larger percentage of perpetrators of the crime are men.

7./ There are female rapists, but this isn’t about them.

This is more about the reactions on social media each time there’s a rape case. The polarities. Down with men! Men are evil! Men are scum! And many more.

8./These do not answer the issues nor do they really help the discourse. More disturbing is the men who make declarations like “Men are indeed scum.” etc. These statements may pander to a certain group in the course of the discussions but do they really help to address the issue?

9./ Blame gaming and name-calling may assuage some feelings of righteous and even unrighteous indignation but beyond that, what else?

To the men who are quick to own scum hood at times like this, if you have a son and you’re teaching him proper behaviour,

10./ will you begin from a point of “Men are scum?”

If he says to you; “Dad are you scum? And Grandpa as well as Uncle XYZ. . . Are they scum?”

Will you then begin to explain the exceptions and the finer points of scumhood to your 10 year old son?

11./ Let’s stay focused on the issues and deal with the scourge of rape and a broken society without polarizing or pandering. Directly or indirectly, this affects us all.

Say NO to rape.