RAPE: the implication of incomplete definition.

I was shocked when she told me she had had sex. Then I wanted it to be a joke. But it wasn't, she assured me: she had gone to visit him, and one thing had led to another; she just didnt know what came over her. Not that I was against exploring one's sexualitythe; age of sexual conservation as moral probity is gone. But she barely knew him. And why didnt she tell me before going to visit him? I had tried as best I could to be a good father. We talked about almost everything: from sex to counting her cycles, to algebra. If a boy winked at her in class, I was the first to know. I could say I knew her enough to say my daughter couldnt be so loose as to make out with a stranger, an old friend whom she hadn't seen or heard from in a long time.
I became confused. Something was wrong somewhere, but I just couldnt tell what. I tried probing her for signs of rape, because rape is also language and thoughts and reminiscence and feelings:

"You mean, he had sex with you?"
"Yes".
"And you wanted it?"
 "I dont even know."
"Did you scream or put up any kind of resistance?"
"I don't remember. But I remember begging him to use a condom".
"Did he oblige?"
"Yes".

My daughter, a consenting adult, went behind my back to see a guy. And maybe just to have a nice hangout. Did she go there with her mind made up to get laid, or to resist if the guy tried, or without thought of anything at all? I can press charges if somehow she realises she didn't quite make up her own mind herself. If someone made up her mind for her, could it be rape?

It's sad, the number of rapes that have been reported on social media in the last few weeks. This has seen groups mobilize and go for marches, demanding justice for victims. Thats not exactly any news, neither is it any concerted efforts to permanently end the problem; reactionary talks and protests around sexual harassment and rape happen almost every year.
The march of pop culture has seen woman completely objectivified. And women are adjusting, by design or accident, to these deprecating moulds. A good music video with misogynist lyrics will have ladies bearing their breasts and shaking their butts in it. How do we react when, in a movie, the main male character grabs a woman by the arm and kisses her despite a cursory resistance? Of course, we try to rationalize: does she want him? Is she trying to play hard? Is the guy aware she likes him?
In fact, it's difficult drawing the line on what amounts to sexual harassment and asserting one's masculinity today. And its heartbreaking that ladies contribute to this fad, too: "I want a real man who can take charge," they say. You never know when her resistance meant she needed you to be a man; to ignore the shakara resistance and take charge.

Rape is a very serious issue. I know of victims who still haven't come out of the trauma and stigma. And whatever the reason, be it mental disorder or a gazillion curses from their village dibias, rapists should be punished (I strongly suggest emasculation for serial rapists). I think society would need more than laws and a collective revulsion against the act to put a stop to it.

But rape is also a very complex, ambiguous thing. I have not set out type to whine about what everyone else is whining about. When I listen to talks about rape, I often cringe at how they over-simplify things. I must say this to ladies, who are often victims: rape is not curable; its only avoidable.
From my research, 60% rapists (especially here in Nigeria) are not exactly your normal kind of Crime Inc. psychopaths and masochists who target certain kinds of girls to chain to beds and do Fifty Shades of Gray with. They are very normal people, who grew up in normal homes. Some of them are fathers, uncles, bankers, lawyers, lecturers, students, even priests. If that is anything to go by, it simply means only two out of every ten rape cases are carried out at gunpoint, say, by a complete stranger on a street corner. Or perhaps a little less than that. The other two will be for statutory rape.

Most of the rape and sexual harassment cases I have come across have had me confused. Especially when I try putting them in context. Much like the popular TBoss and Kemen case at the last BBNaija reality TV, you get to find out about the intimacy (not to say relationship) between the parties. Most times, they have known each other for quite a time. In three out of six of these major rape cases, the parties have even been sexting on WhatsApp or Facebook chat. The guys had invited the girls over a couple of times. Sometimes, the guys would have fixed meetups, taken the girls out on normal dates, and they would have enjoyed their time together. The guys almost always claim to have properly wooed these ladies, and have gotten what amounted to sufficient "green light" in a society as retarded as ours: the way the girls took their calls, the way the girls shared their problems or made demands, and finally when the girls agree to visit them in their houses.

Now, most of these girls admit they could tell from the very outset the intentions of the guys before visiting them in their houses. "But I didn't expect he would force himself on me" is a variant of the usual addition to the narrative. This is not a generalization, but the bulk of rape victims dress up from their homes, doll up to the very fingernails, pay their own fares (or sometimes have the word of their rapists to cover for the fares) and go to their rapists' houses. Most of them will not tell anyone where they were going to; not their parents, definitely. Few tell their friends. Most of them admit to knowing the visits weren't quite safe, but went anyway, determined not to give in, should the guys ever dare to ask or lure them to sex.

It's really hard to believe rape victims couldn't read the signs. And the last victim I interviewed admitted she read them. But then she was prepared to shout and break his head if he tried anything funny. Sadly, all she can remember now is that, although she put up some resistance, she slept with him.

Now, notice the language: she slept with him. Thats legal. Once a lady agrees she slept with the guy, then it's not considered rape. Theres something suspicious about saying he slept with her; it has an undertone of force, violation. Thats why most of us talk about rape in terms of force: the guys force themselves on the girls against their will. My observation is that this kind of rape is the least, although the most reported. Drug facilitated sexual assault is hardly reported here in Nigeria, even though they abound. No one is looking into how to tighten drug regulation and distribution. And there are lots of these drugs out there in chemist shops and pharmacies, sold with little or no restrictions. So, when a guy spikes the girl's soft drink with an aphrodisiac and the girl drinks and becomes uncontrollably aroused, what do you call that? Drops of the very popular aphrodisiac, Spanish fly, sold in chemist shops, in a bottle of drink or injected into a pack of juice has been proven to induce a certain sensation in ladies to the extent of begging to be laid.
The major problem here is this, as a quick google search should reveal: due to the banning of traditional Spanish fly for the toxicity of its active ingredient, Cantharidin, producers still hide under the name to produce aphrodisiac with replaced active ingredient. Although most of them claim their new active ingredients are made from female hormone derivatives, and therefore safe, the reality may be that these companies simply add Benzodiazepines which have tranquilizing effects, but have been known to have very fatal side effects.


It's true, there's no way we can establish rape without the conscious testimonies of victims. But will it be wrong to say that the present agitations thrive on victims? So, to get the sympathy of these movements, you must be a proper victim: raped by force. But there are more victims who don't know, or are not sure, they are victims. I heard of a case where the doctor told the patient she needed instant sex with him to activate the drugs he had administered to her. Who is making a case for that? Where is it written on protest placards? We keep telling girls one thing: that if youre not grabbed by force, then its not rape. I do not have the statistics for how many girls have lost their lives to over-dose of these date-rape drugs in their drinks. There must be so many of them.

I have begun researches into the science, ethics and politics of abortion in Africa. In abortion, as in rape, it is often difficult to tell where the free voliton of the individual victim ends and where the manipulation of an external agent, company or system begins. That amoral cascade is something we cannot right with moral pontifiations. We need to first see it for what it is, not what it should be. With this much insecurity in our society, the recent claims by Obianuju Ekeocha on CNN that African women do not bother about, or ever need, abortion is rather spurious. The problem with Africa is that we love to hide behind the smokescreen of warped moralism;a position premised on constant denial.