Rape

This morning at breakfast, I read two letters to the editor in the Hartford Courant. They concerned a satirical article published in the CCSU campus newspaper, The Reporter, by writer John Petroski, who published a satirical piece called “Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It.” The full article can be read below.

After the piece was published, on February 8, this came out:

The editors of The Recorder, in another statement released Thursday, said they regretted the harm the article caused, adding they would not have published it if they had realized how people would react to it. Yet at the same time, the statement defended Petroski as a gifted satirist whose intended message “fell on deaf ears.”

The statement said television news coverage of the controversy has been one-sided.

“John has been grossly misrepresented,” the statement said. (source)

Later, facing increased criticism for the article, Mr. Petroski, a 23-year-old sophomore history major, was fired from his position as the newspaper’s opinion editor. He finally apologized.

“When I hear about girls crying or feeling suicidal over something I wrote, it doesn’t make me feel so good,” Petroski told the gathering of more than 100 students and faculty who had turned out to discuss the issue. “I’m concerned about you, and I want you to hang in there.”

Petroski then addressed the victims of sexual assault who had been most damaged by the article, which appeared in last Wednesday’s edition of the student newspaper The Recorder under the headline “Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It.”

“I apologize sincerely,” he said to the group of women who, in the days since the article was published, had publicly identified themselves as rape victims in a show of protest against the article and the paper.

One student, Nicki LaPorte, had won a rousing ovation from the audience after tearfully condemning the article earlier during the forum.

“I am not a victim of rape, I am a survivor of rape,” LaPorte said. (source)

The paper’s editor, Mark Rowan, also stated...

“It’s definitely going to make me more sensitive to this issue,” said Rowan, a 21-year-old senior who hopes to pursue a career in journalism after he graduates. “Up until now, I had always seen the world from the narrow vantage point of a 21-year-old white male, but now I see that it needs to be broadened.” (source)

This all prompted me to send the following letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant.

This morning, I read two Letters to the Editor in regards to the “rape controversy” surrounding the satirical piece on rape composed by John Petroski, the opinion editor of The Recorder, the paper at CCSU.

In the first letter, “Nothing Funny About Rape”, Evelyn Berg rehashes some of the article’s main points, where Mr. Petroski tries to enlighten us to the “benefits” that rape has given to society; that it can be a “magical experience”; that it is a blessing to “ugly women” because, “If it weren’t for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn’t drunk?”

Evelyn’s letter is followed by a letter entitled “Overreaction To Satire”, by Kenneth Dimaggio, Assistant Professor of Humanities at Capital Comm. College in Hartford. In his letter, Professor Dimaggio calls us the “illiterate mediocre masses”, who have overreacted to the article and states that we, being mediocre and all, simply cannot, or do not, understand satire. He then goes on to say that Mr. Petroski could possibly have done a better job, and ends up turning his little letter into a critique on satirical writing technique.

What is missing in all of this is something so simple that it apparently has eluded both Mr. Petroski and Professor DiMaggio. Rape is not a crime of passion, that will show “ugly women” the “joy of intercourse”. Rape is a vicious crime of hate and power. Nothing more. It has absolutely nothing to do with sexual desire, and it should be seen as such. As an educated man, I appreciate satire, but this crossed the line.

If Mr. Petroski and Professor DiMaggio feel differently, I would be interested to hear their opinions after both of them have been raped. My bet is they would tell a much different story from their experience and would both agree that perhaps, from a literary point of view, that “joy” was really a poor choice to describe the experience, and that it wasn’t so “magical” after all.

As for Mr. Petroski, The Reporter, and CCSU, they still don’t get it. Action should result in the firing of Mr. Petroski, and CCSU should be held to a higher standard, because this isn’t education. And, if I were a victim of rape, and found this article forcing me to relive horrible memories of the “joy” of rape, I’d most be likely be filing a lawsuit for compensation against my added suffering.

Maybe then, they would see the point? Probably not. But what do I know? I’m just part of the “illiterate mediocre masses”.

Bill Cannon
Coventry

Two points:
1) Satire is extremely difficult. It takes a gifted writer to pull it off. As one observed,

Professor Russell Brown, supervisor of studies for English at University of Toronto Scarborough, remarked that Petroski’s article made it difficult to determine intent until the final paragraph, while many students would have stopped reading earlier in disgust or confusion over poor arguments and offensive remarks.

“Simply, it’s poorly done. With good satire like Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, there is at least an underlying feeling of being impossible in seriousness, and here there was none of that ’till far too late.” (source)

2) Do we have free speech in this country? Yes, we do. Can you write articles that will, intentionally or unintentionally emotionally harm others, or incite violence against certain groups? Yes, you can. But, that doesn’t mean that there will be no consequences to doing that. I think that John Petroski has learned that in a very hard way. Let us hope that his apology wasn’t just done for show, and that he truly grows from this experience.

Click below to read the original piece published by Mr. Petroski, which has since been pulled from The Reporter.