The myths of rape culture in the Alves trial: from 'he didn't say no' to vaginal injuries

Still in Spain, as in the rest of the world, certain ideas and stereotypes surround sex that in reality have nothing to do with it but with power and the conception that women are the property of men. It is rape culture: the beliefs or behaviors that support the idea that sex is a right for men that women must satisfy. When that happens, sex stops being sex—desire, reciprocity—and becomes violence.

Phrases like “women say no when they mean yes,” “she was dressed like a whore,” “she was asking for it,” or “why didn't she leave there?” are examples of the system of rape culture myths collected by the UN to describe this concept. Some of these ideas have been filtered throughout the process and the trial of Dani Alves, which ended this Wednesday night after three sessions in which the only opportunity for the defense – with the forensic evidence, the peripheral evidence, the statement of the victim and the witnesses—was to discredit the victim, the 23-year-old woman who reported him for trying to force her to perform fellatio, slap her, insult her and rape her in a bathroom at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona on December 31, 2022. .

Below, the moments in which the false myths of rape culture have crept into the trial and how the Prosecutor's Office and the court's forensic experts have dismantled some.

The guilt of the victims themselves

“Initially, she did not want to report for fear of the repercussions it could have, she said she felt guilty about what happened and we had to tell her that she was not guilty of anything.” That was what the police officer who spoke with the victim on New Year's Eve 2022 told the trial. Rape culture doesn't just operate on men; It is, as its name indicates, a social structure. According to the UN, this culture is “omnipresent”, “It is engraved in our way of thinking, speaking and moving through the world.”

In this case, these ideas are what lead a woman to feel responsible for her own aggression. Therefore, as specialists and institutions have been demanding for decades and the law on sexual freedom was introduced as mandatory, anyone who works in processes for sexual crimes must know and recognize these false beliefs to tackle them and eliminate biases, from the agents of the Forces. and Security Forces to health professionals or the judiciary.

“Did the complainant say no?”

“Did the complainant tell him that she did not want to have sex, did she push him away, did she make any gesture to indicate that she did not give her consent?” the lawyer, Inés Guardiola, asked her client, Alves, this Wednesday.

Since the entry into force of the law of only yes is yes, consent must be affirmative. Just a few days ago, the violence against women prosecutor, Teresa Peramato, explained to this newspaper why this change was important, which also has to do with one of the ideas of rape culture, the one related to the fact that Sometimes women mean yes when they say no—and even though in this case the victim expressly stated that after entering the bathroom, she wanted to leave but couldn't.

For this reason, until not long ago and still now, it seems that “they must resist, cry or fight against this act,” Peramato alleged. “When we know that on many occasions, and this has already been confirmed by the Human Rights Court, many women – and minors – remain paralyzed during an attack, not knowing what to do. [la llamada inmovilidad tónica]and if you are in shock“If you are unable to resist, with the no means no model, what is meant by consent?” he added. The coroner who treated the victim that night explained during the trial that her reaction in the bathroom, where she was paralyzed, is perfectly normal — “it is a defense mechanism of the body, it cannot be controlled,” he said.

“We were both enjoying it there”

“No, at no time did he say anything to me. We were both enjoying it there and that's it, nothing more,” Alves answered when the lawyer asked him the previous question.

Alves' response is similar to that of so many others accused of sexual crimes. In the case of La Manada, the aggressors also responded in this way on several occasions and even one of the judges who issued a dissenting vote spoke of “joy and joy” in what later led to a conviction for multiple and continuous rape. This perception of sex as individual enjoyment, totally absent of reciprocity, is linked to the idea of ​​power, of right to put on paper for the first time in 1975 by the American journalist and writer Susan Brownmiller in Against our will: men, women and rapewhere she presented rape as an act of power and not passion, a tool of control over women.

Almost 40 years later, Alexandra Rutherford, professor of psychology at the University of York, reviewed that book where she included examples of historically widespread clichés that sometimes extend to the present, such as that “women actually enjoy being raped.” Or also that “women say no when they want to say yes.”

Neither the before nor the after

Another of the common ideas of rape culture that Rutherford included in that review is that “women ask for [ser violadas] dressing provocatively.” That is to say, how women dress or what they do or what attitude they have has not only a relationship but is also the cause of the aggression they suffer.

In the Alves trial, that idea was leaked on several occasions. For example, when Inés Guardiola, the former player's lawyer, asked the victim's friend and cousin: “Did you see her dancing hugging Alves?” or “did her friend brush her buttocks against the accused's private parts?” It was the prosecutor, Elisabet Jiménez, who this Wednesday, during the last session, explained: “Just because a woman accepts a drink or goes up to a booth does not imply that she has sexual interest.”

As established by the sexual freedom law through the modification of article 709 of the Criminal Procedure Lawneither the before nor the after of the attack are elements that justify it and, therefore, the president of the court is entitled to limit the questions in this sense and will only admit them if they are justified.

The “yes”: neither eternal nor extensible

The Mosso with whom the victim spoke on the night of December 31, 2022, told him that he had voluntarily accessed the bathroom but that later, when he wanted to leave, he could no longer. Alves' lawyer, with this testimony, insisted throughout the process that the woman had given her consent and that she never revoked it. “Any other person in the same position as Alves would have understood exactly the same thing as him,” she argued. Therein lies the problem: the erroneous presumption that a dance, going to a private room or a kiss always and without exception means a yes for any other sexual practice.

In the background of the law of only yes is yes, that is, in the background of the last decades of advances in sexual violence and how to guarantee the sexual freedom of women, is, among other things, that this freedom be continuous and without conditions: that a yes at 10:00 p.m. It can disappear at 10:05 p.m. or that a yes to a kiss is not a yes to a penetration. The yes is revocable at any
time and in any context.

What the wounds (do not) show

In the midst of rape culture is also inserted this phrase that psychology professor at the University of York Alexandra Rutherford collected in 2011 to describe the phenomenon: “Anyone who fights hard enough can resist rape.” This implies that only when there are signs of that struggle can it be understood that there was aggression, that is, that a rape depends on the capacity and intensity with which a woman resists.

At the trial, Alves's defense tried to argue that no rape had occurred because there were no vaginal injuries. “Is it essential that there be vaginal injuries for there to be rape?” asked the prosecutor.

It is not. Research for decades establishes that lubrication is not associated with consent or even desire, and that vaginal discharge during rape is sometimes due to a physiological defense response. Already in 2004, Roy Levin, an expert in the physiology of sexuality from the United Kingdom, published the largest review of the existing literature to date on this issue —Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects experiencing forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation—, to examine “whether unsolicited or nonconsensual sexual stimulation can cause unwanted sexual arousal or even an orgasm.” The conclusion: “Arousal and orgasm do not indicate consent” so those issues “have no intrinsic validity and should be ignored.”

Telephone 016 assists victims of sexist violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not registered on the telephone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact via email [email protected] and by WhatsApp at the number 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation telephone number 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency situation, you can call 112 or the National Police telephone numbers (091) and the Civil Guard (062). And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, from which an alert signal is sent to the Police with geolocation.

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