Could we end rape?

Ratna Raman

ONCE, the noun rape had affiliations with the botanical world. Rapeseed oil was consumed in different parts of the world, so were the leaves and seeds. Turnips were also termed rapes. Recoiling perhaps from such hideous association, turnips are no longer known by any other name and oil produced from rapeseed is generically referred to as ‘canola’. Mustard  is now the preferred usage.   

Unfortunately, the verb ‘rape’ continues to corrode lives. The earliest usage of  ‘rape’, in the 14th century  Middle English (rapen; rappen), came from Latin (rapere; to seize; violate) and Old French (rapir; to abduct). 

Ovid’s Metamorphosis, narrating tales of women raped by kings and gods, influenced the work of England’s court poets. Renaissance painting and sculpture breathed life into myths depicting the rape of Leda by Zeus in a swan’s shape. Titian’s Rape of Europa (1560) portrays Zeus  as a bull. Leda founded Greek civilisation while Europa became the Queen of Crete. In Hungarian mythology, Emese, mother of Almos, legendary Magyar ruler (9th century), was supposedly impregnated by the mythological Turul bird.

Shakespeare’s poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) documents rape as a hideous sexual assault and records trauma and anguish, possibly for the first time. Tarquin’s rape of Lucrece, wife of a friend and fellow Roman Collatine, leaves her shamed and distraught. Making this onslaught public, Lucrece kills herself. Tarquin and his family are subsequently banished.

The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope’s five-canto mock-epic (1714) refers to the forcible snipping off of a lock of hair. The violence of rape  shifts through such sleight of hand narrative to occupy a space of male ardour inspired by female coquettishness. 

Nineteenth century Hungarian sculpture celebrates Emese’s impregnator. The coat of arms of the Hungarian army, the Counter Terrorism Centre and the Office of National Security carry Turul designs and motifs to date. Yeats’s Leda and the Swan shows Leda ‘mastered’ by rape. The Rape of Europa is also a 20th century novel  and film detailing Nazi plunder of art treasures in WWII.

Rape continues to be glossed over worldwide because myths and representations of rape feed continually into male fantasies of power and conquest. Opinions such as “boys will be boys” or that “20 minutes of action cannot cost a man 20 years” demonstrate a failure to recognise the brutality inherent in rape.

Three Idiots (2009) repeatedly showcased the word balatkar (rape) generating offensive humour. Honey Singh’s song proudly announces Mai Hoon Balatkari. A Bollywood star declared that his son would grow up and be a rapist. Another recently equated the physical weariness brought on by celluloid shadow wrestling with the condition of a raped woman. Such insensitive utterances remain a matter of grave concern. “When rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy” is an abhorrent expression that continues to be used. 

Rapists must be apprehended and punished and female vulnerability must no longer be interpreted as implying consent. We need to rewrite myths, enforce laws cognisant of the rights of victims and harness public outrage in order to free society from the scrouge of rape.