by Oriabure Iyayi

In Japan, sexually explicit imagery and text is available in public and largely uncensored. Yet, Japan has one of the lowest rates for rape in the world. That’s right, with “assaults” out in the open and in public, Japanese men don’t go around raping everything in sight because they have been “provoked” and “must rape something”.

As a member of the legal profession, I am aware that one of the many stratagems employed in the defence of a client is that of blaming the victim. So, you say to the judge, “Well, yes, he did it, but if the victim had done x, y, or z (which any reasonable person would have done) then the said crime would not have occurred. Therefore, my client is only guilty of the misfortune of having had the victim for a victim.” Or something along those lines. It doesn’t work, mind you, and all it does is help paint lawyers as slime balls who are worse than their clients.

Nowhere is this strategy used more than in cases of rape. Rape, as we all know, occurs when one person has sexual/carnal knowledge of another without that person’s consent. It may involve the use of force, threats of force or other forms of coercion. Sometimes, the victim may be drugged in order to facilitate the rape. When faced with such a scenario, the usual response to an overwhelming mountain of physical evidence is to say to the court, “Well, she was asking for it!”

How, exactly, was the victim “asking” for it, you wonder? Well, it can then be pointed out that she wore provocative clothing, or walked provocatively, or she smiled at the perp, and he took that as an invitation to sex. Throw in the often used perception that women say no when they mean yes, and you have a rather toxic stew. Of course, in developed countries of the world, such tactics only get your client a nice long stretch in the penitentiary, where he’ll probably get a taste of what it feels like to be the prey rather than the predator. In such countries, any notion of the victim inviting the rape has been totally rejected by the courts, and a man is meant to exercise self control or face the consequences.

In other countries, however, where the rights of women are often trampled upon with impunity, the “blame the victim” tactic is alive and well. So, it wasn’t really a surprise to read an article on rape in Nigeria in which the author one Kenechi Uzochukwu, enthusiastically exhorted women to cover themselves up andstop attacking men with their provocative outfits. According to this writer, men have absolutely no self control when it comes to rape, and as such, when a provocatively dressed woman walks by one of us, we immediately slake our lust on the next female who wanders by, regardless of how she is dressed, or even her age.

At first, I tried to take the view that Mr. Uzochukwu was simply being provocative for provocation’s sake, like one of those American shock jocks, or the utter cretins on talksport radio in the UK. You know the type, they say things merely to wind people up and get you to listen to their shows and call in to vent your rage at their stupidity, then they’ll abuse you even more. Once you recognise what their game is, you can simply change the station. The problem with that sort is that there are those unable to discern what they’re after and thus tend to take them quite seriously.

However, it is one thing to say that Obama is trying to ruin America and is a communist, in order to get a rise out of people, and quite another to say that women attack men with indecent dressing, and men have no choice but to rape them in retaliation! And, as much as I tried, I could not squeeze the slightest hint of irony or sarcasm from his article, and as such I had to conclude that he was being deadly serious, and that is rather alarming seeing as he holds the title of “Superblogger” on YNaija.com where the article was published.

He says “all crimes are triggered or provoked.” Yes, when you work hard and purchase a car, you provoke the kidnappers who come for you by flashing your “wealth” as it were. Banks provoke armed robbers by keeping cash in their vaults, and when some psycho attacks and murders you, you triggered your death by existing. He says men “must rape something” and that as women are the major victims of rape, it falls to them to reduce the occurrence of the crime. Hear him:

“Many times rape victims did not in any way provoke or encourage it, but someone else did. The very indecently dressed lady passing through a side street might be lucky not to be raped, but she has aroused a man standing in the area, the next female passing through same street might not be so lucky. In an area where provocative dressing is prevalent, such as a university campus, sexual tensions are high, and a lot of children in that area are not safe. A sexually aroused man is a time bomb waiting for an opportunity.

Women dressing to kill should bear in mind that they are putting innocent children and other decent women in danger.”

One has to wonder which cave Mr. Uzochukwu has spent his entire life living in, and one must also wonder whether he was born of a woman, or raised by one, or has ever met one. One must assume that when he points to the hill which houses his cave and grunts by way of invitation, women tend to give him a very wide berth, and as such he is left to his own febrile delusions of being under attack from women and their clothes.

Here’s something Mr. Uzochukwu is unaware of, seeing as his cave is probably cut off from the rest of the world: in Japan, sexually explicit imagery and text is available in public and largely uncensored. Yet, Japan has one of the lowest rates for rape in the world. That’s right, with “assaults” out in the open and in public, Japanese men don’t go around raping everything in sight because they have been “provoked” and “must rape something”. It would seem therefore, that in at least that country, self control (which Mr. Uzochukwu derisively dismisses as “much chanted”) is alive and well. In contrast, South Africa (which is hardly famous for pornography) has one of the highest rates of rape in the world.

His blame of women’s dressing for the rape of children must be the most batshit insane claim in the entire article. The idea that a man would be so aroused by one woman’s dressing that he would be driven to rape is not new. To stretch that “defence” to cover a man who has raped a child is a dangerously unhinged notion, and one that not even the most desperate of paedophiles would dare utter. That Mr. Uzochukwu could come up with it, and elaborate on it helps to prove that his is a uniquely twisted mind.

In essence, his article is the most insulting piece of hogwash I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and while he deserves the opprobrium which has been heaped upon him, he also deserves sympathy and a heck of a lot of psychiatric help. It can’t be easy living in a cave with only one’s insane ranting for company, look at what it did to Gollum. And on that note, we can perhaps anticipate that Mr. Uzochukwu’s next literary masterpiece shall be in defence of murder and cannibalism.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.