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“Rape Trap” Condemned in South Africa by Women’s Groups

One one hand we’re told to take all precautions possible, on the other, told not to adapt to a violent culture.

You might remeber Feministing reporting on the “rape trap” anti-rape device being introduced in South Africa in response to their astronomical rates of sexual violence. Once an artistic concept developed by a Swedish woman “to contribute to the debate on men’s sexual violence against women in society,” this tampon from hell is becoming a reality in a country where over 50,000 rapes occur in a year.

The tampon-like device, invented by a woman, supposedly protects women from rapists by cutting into a man’s penis.

It has sparked an empassioned debate over the high number of rapes committed each day in the country and the authorities’ apparent failure to tackle the issue.

Activists are outraged and want to stop it going on sale alongside tampons in chemists and supermarkets next month.

…The device, which Sonette Ehlers, its inventor, has patented, is worn like a tampon but is hollow. In the event of a rape, she said that it would fold around the rapist’s penis and attach itself with microscopic hooks. It is impossible to remove the clamped device without medical intervention.

“We have to do something to protect ourselves. While this will not prevent rape, it will help identify attackers and secure convictions,” Ms Ehlers told the Johannesburg Star.

Women’s groups were immediately outraged by the introduction of this product to store shelves, beginning a debate quite like the one we are having on the very topic this week:

“This is a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society,” said Charlene Smith, one of South Africa’s most prominent campaigners against rape.

“It is vengeful, horrible, and disgusting. The woman who invented this needs help.”

The inventor of the device, Sonette Ehlers insisted she did not hate men.

“Something needs to be done, and women are crying out for me to go ahead,” she told the BBC’s World Today programme.

Ms Ehlers has patented the tampon-sized device, and expects it to go on sale next month.

Lisa Vetten, of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) said it was “a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape by wearing these devices”.

Ms Ehlers’s critics argue that it would be better to educate men not to rape in the first place, rather than just to catch them after the deed.

But the inventor insisted: “I’m not an educator – I will go for those they can’t educate.

The question seems to be whether or not women should adapt. Women’s groups say no, women aren’t raping themselves, it is the men who need education. And interestingly enough, they believe that the use of such a device is misandrist toward rapists (?). Perhaps I’m missing something. Others believe that whatever is necessary to protect oneself should be employed, be it pepper spray or barbed tampons. In South Africa, a woman has a greater chance of being raped in her lifetime than learning how to read.

I don’t know what sort of value to place on this concept, other than to say that the idea that a woman’s last resort is an anti-rape device inserted into the vagina because rape and sexual assault are so prevalent is absolutely horrifying. As Jessica of Feministing asks, have we given up the idea that men can willfully stop raping women?

These things do not occur in a vacuum. Rape is systematically used against women and children as an act of war. Myths prevail, primarily in regions of the African continent, that sex with a virgin will cure a person of HIV/AIDS, accounting for the alarming rate of baby and child rapes in the region.

The overwhelming question is Why? In part, the culture of violence is a legacy of apartheid.

At the root of the problem, says Dr Rachel Jewkes, a senior scientist with the South African Medical Research Council, is men’s attitude towards women.

“In South Africa you have a culture where men believe that they are sexually entitled to women. You don’t get rape in a situation where you don’t have massive gender inequalities.

One of the key problems in this country is that people who commit rape don’t think they are doing anything wrong.”

Is this a problem that can be solved with barbed tampons or education? Neither? Both? I don’t know either way. But this makes my chest ache.

HT: Feministing and Krista


19 thoughts on “Rape Trap” Condemned in South Africa by Women’s Groups

  1. Who says there can’t be both and? Perhaps what is needed is education and consequences. One of the mitigating factors seems to be that there are no real repercussions. I think that this may deter a few, but as rape is not a crime of sex it (the anger) might might be manifest in some other way. I also wonder what happens the first time a woman forgets to remove the device when she goes home to her husband. Yep, this is definitely a hard one, I can see the rationale on both sides of the argument.

  2. What will the criminal do after his injury? Will he limp away and leave the victim alone? Or will sexual assault become physical assault and perhaps murder?

    I once heard someone advise that a kick to the groin is not a good tactic in a fight not because it won’t drop a man to the floor but because he’ll be a lot angrier when he gets up.

    The device pictured also reminds me of a fictional device from the book Snow Crash. In the book, the device injects the rapist with a hypodermic full of tranquilizers. Also in the bok, the character wearing it, in the heat of passion, forgets that she’s wearing it, leaving her to wonder why her partner is suddenly so much less passionate.

  3. It is wrong to expect all women to forego a means of self-defense, or prevent them from using it, in order to preserve an ideal held by some women.

    Charlene and her friends have noble motives, but they have no business telling other women how they can or can’t defend themselves, or expecting women who are victimized to act as if they are not. It’s like saying bulletproof vests cause gun violence and should be banned, before addressing the guns’ (and gunners’) roles.

    South Africa is not a safe place for women, and anyone who tells South Africa’s women to put themselves at risk as if it were perfectly safe, when she knows full well it isn’t, is THOUROUGHLY negligent.

  4. There’s something about this device that makes the hairs on the back of my neck just stand up straight. All I keep thinking is that instead of decreasing the amount of violence against women as intended, it will actually increase it because rapists may well be savvy enough to search for the string to pull it out and, if found, use it against their intended victim (as many weapons of protection end up being used against the owner) or the rapists will be cruel enough to use some inanimate object first for the purposes of vaginal penetration. In either case, I’d expect discovery of the device to increase the brutality of any attack. This, and the possible increase of the already popular infant/child rape in the country, would be legimitate reasons of concern I’d expect to be raised by rational people. I cannot begin to fathom Charlene Smith’s statement:

    “This is a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society,”

    What, praytell, does Ms. Smith think the nature of rape and violence against women is, men who love and respect women so much they can’t help but express it through the tenderness of violation?

  5. I am personally uncomfortable with the idea of women wearing a barbed tampon in the hopes that it will ward of potential rapists. I agree with what others have said here: the rapist will only be angrier, they’ll catch on, etc. But I also think this might not work because we don’t know if women and young girls will use them. I know this may sound odd, but bear with me here. Say you have various aid and relief groups passing these out for free. Will women and young girls use them? If South Africa is as dominant a patriarchy as people say, will men permit women to wear the device? If myths such as sleeping with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS are prevalent, why would they allow women to wear these tampons? I also know that in some areas of Nigeria (the african country i’m most familar with) many people believe that using tampons can make a woman less of a virgin. Not to equivocate all african countries, but will those same beliefs be translated in South Africa? Because if these barbed tampons are distributed and then women are not able to use them out of fear and/or cultural and social norms, then all we are doing is providing the rape culture yet another excuse to say women aren’t doing enough to protect themselves from rape.

    I am not saying that the above in guaranteed to happen. Frankly, I could be dead wrong about this. Its just that I noticed that people are debating whether or not this should be allowed without thinking about whether or not the tampon would be used in the first place.

  6. Here’s what I’m wondering about. If this think works the way I think it does, couldn’t it potentially draw blood? The penis is already inserted in this case, so anything that would draw blood would increase the risk of HIV infection for both the woman and the man.

    So it would seem to do some harm to women in that it exposes them to infection.

    Unless I’m wrong abuot the whole drawing blood thing.

  7. If it’s a single attacker, then I believe the amount of pain he was in would probably prevent him from doing much but screaming and dropping to the ground. So I think the “he’d just hurt her worse” statement doesn’t apply, unless he knew her and would try revenge later. With multiple attackers it would not be of as much use.

    As a weapon, it is far from perfect. Even if it works as intended, with a reservoir that keeps any blood from getting in the woman, the potential for malfunction makes it nearly as dangerous to the woman as the assailant. She might statistically be better off learning how to use a knife and some self-defense moves.

    The hue and cry over it seems a bit misguided, unless the govt. of S. Africa were actually promoting this over other rape-prevention measures. Since they don’t seem to be doing much about the problem as it is, you can hardly blame this weapon for making the situation worse.

    The best possible outcome is that this weapon’s very existence calls more attention to the desperate plight of African rape victims, leading to more effective measures.

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  9. I just had a similiar thought, Sydney. Considering that being a virgin apparently makes you a target for rape, it seems that virgins would be the ones to benefit most from such a device. (If it works.) But will virgins actually use them? Tough to say.

  10. Once the knowledge of women wearing barbed tampons become common knowledge, what’s to stop rapists from using anal rape instead? The anus is only an inch or so away, and is an easier a way to transmit AIDS/HIV.

    I’m more in favor of increased self-defense knowledge for a start. Knowledge in weapons use as another. Obviously this isn’t perfect either, but it seems a better idea than the above device.

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  12. Ah, now if you could get the rapist in the nose with this device, it might be worthwhile. No worse than a knife, but much more visually compelling.

    Wearing one — well I don’t think I would trust wearing a bare spike like that inside my body.

  13. I knew it! I just knew that if this thing ever made it to market there would be a huge-ass backlash! Whether it works or not is not the issue; what’s really at the root of the outcry is the notion that women could become unrapeable. It’s too upsetting for devotees of patriarchy to contemplate!

  14. It amazes me that anyone could see this as anything but self-defense. While I am certain that the questions raised over womens’ safety during use and the likeliness of use are all valid I can not understand why anyone who considers themselves female-friendly, let alone feminist, could be against this device. (Caveat: if it could hurt a woman then I would say a re-design would be in order) I’m sorry, but what is worse?
    A.) Being raped, possibly infected with HIV, posssibly becoming pregnant, the law being difficult with apprehension, (and this applies to many societies, not just Arican) and no way to defend/revenge yourself
    or
    B.) Being raped, possibly infected with HIV, probabaly not becoming pregnant, the law being less difficult with apprehension (I assume these are not easy to remove from the penis without surgicle intervention) and a well-known possible defense which all our rape-prevention classes have failed to provide us with?

    When self-defense classes were the ne plus ultra of fighting rape here in the U.S., no one sugested that theresult would be more children and babies being raped. Even given any societal differences, does anyone have a good explanation as to how this differs from those self-defense classes?

    Or is it merely the age-old fear of a woman with a vagina as her weaon (or a weapon in her vagina) that is arrousing these comments?

  15. This device is more of a trap than a form of self defense. Once the trap is common knowledge it will have very little value as it can apparently be easily defused (pulled out).

  16. I don’t think this is a very good form of self-defense, because it won’t actually stop a woman from being raped. It’ll just maim her attacker AFTER he’s already penetrated her.

    Seriously, as a symbol, it has some power, as the shock that men register upon seeing it proves, but as a genuine defense against rape or as a tool to try and reduce rape I don’t know if it has much value.

  17. I think a lot of the people protesting have never been raped. They have never sat in a courtroom while their smug rapist explained that it was consensual, while a denfense lawyer ripped you reputation, motives, and “story” to shreds. I too wish much more could be done via education, law, and socitial perogatives, but until then – cry me a river for the “men” who are punished with this.

  18. Even given any societal differences, does anyone have a good explanation as to how this differs from those self-defense classes?

    A rapist can’t fish around in a victim’s bodily cavities and remove an education before proceeding.

  19. Vengeful, yes. Horrible and disgusting, sure–but so is rape and those who dismiss it. I can understand the anger behind creating/wanting such a device, but I don’t think it will help.

    Also, if it “works” you’ll have been raped–yes, you “stop” someone from raping with his penis, but you’re still going to have to deal with the traumatic effects of an attack. And you will possibly have further exposure to HIV.

    And–you don’t need a working penis to rape or sexually assault someone. You can use a finger, a stick, a bottle, a pool cue (visions of the Haidl gang in Orange County).

    However, one would think the women’s groups in SA would have pointed these things out. This invention is the result of feeling angry and helpless.

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