One has to sneer at the
inconvenient marriage between Germany’s politically correct left and its politically incorrect right, over the “sexual assaults” which allegedly took place in Cologne’s cathedral square on New Year’s Eve.
Even now, no-one - and that includes the police - really knows what happened. BBC
And yet, without knowing what really happened, the official world, the media and the public have gone off half-cocked over the issue. (Actually, full blown cocked.)
Just months ago, Marine Le Pen, of the Front National found herself dragged into court for saying that Muslim public praying in streets was like an “occupation.” Now But aside from the squirming as the multi-cultural, Kumbaya Left finds itself embraced-in-schadenfreude by the cultural integrity volk at PEGIDA, the real issue is the danger of language and how our species’ supposedly superior capacity for articulated howling turns us into beasts worse than hyenas.
Shrieking headlines — not just in the tabloid press — have screeched about women “running the gauntlet,” “sexual attacks” and “rape-fests.” If one asks if anyone was actually “raped,” as in unconsented vaginal intercourse, the answer is an indignant accusation of misogyny.
So let’s go back to basics.
The word “
assault” derives from the Latin
ad-saltus meaning to leap or jump at. It does not require any contact because the harm is in the spooking. This makes the concept of “
sexual assault” rather problematic.
Is rushing to embrace someone a sexual assault? If so, how is it distinguished from a gushing co-sharing of our common humanity? If “sexual assault” refers to a “jumping at” which is sexually motivated, how do determine a person’s motive?
Unfortunately, to make matters less clear, the word “assault” is commonly used as the equivalent of a “
battery” which originally meant a hitting of some sort.
Now, a
rape could be called a
sexual battery, because the essence of rape is that the male penis is used an instrument of violence on the person. But in that case the word “rape” is sufficient to describe what happened.
Alas, to make matters more unfortunate, the legal definition of “battery” is not limited to hitting but encompasses any “
offensive touching, howsoever slight.”
This creates a whole host of uncertainties in its own right. But in the context of “sex crimes” it can be supposed that a “sexual assault” is coterminous with a “sexual battery”
What then constitutes a offensive sexual contact which is not rape? Well... tit-grabbing, crotch groping and butt slapping come to mind. An attempt to make close, labial contact might also qualify.
But since an “assault” does not require contact, vague hand motions accompanied by lewd and leering remarks would also qualify.
The ultimate result is that the term “sexual assault” encompasses a very wide spectrum of conduct.
This is not to say that crotch grabbing is nice (or, in the current puritanically correct lexicon, “appropriate”). It is to say that some sexually motivated “offensive” touching is not as serious as rape.
No one, male or female, likes “unwanted” sexual attention. A wink from someone we find incredibly hot, is just as incredibly welcome. Oh lucky day! That same act — the wink — from someone we are not in the least interested in is annoying, icky, repugnant. That’s why bitches snap. It’s natural. It’s also the luck of the draw.
What distinguishes what happened at Cologne from Rio’s
Carnevale? Not much. Inebriated, happy males, venting their sexual urges by whistling, making lewd comments and perhaps groping is not the
Rape of the Sabines.
What would the world say of same Pious Nellie, who walked out of the festive crowds at Rio complaining (indignantly) about being “sexually assaulted” ? C’mon, comes to mind.
In ordinary circumstances, a male butt slapping a woman at work or in the supermarket, without being signaled to do so, could rightly be reproved with a misdemeanor. But walking into a crowd of foreseeably inebriated party goers on New Years Eve??? What were the women thinking? That they were going to sing
Nun Danket?
Well... this is Germany and not Brazil. So perhaps a certain Buddenbrooksian Pall hangs over things. Still it would be nice to know what happened before the press works itself up into a frenzy over the
sexual holocaust on
RapsNacht.
