We need to call it rape
A survivor's attempt to change the rape laws gets hung up on semantics
By Mary Elizabeth WilliamsTopics: Rape, Lara Logan, Lydia Cuomo, Michael Pena, Legitimate rape, Andrew Cuomo, New York, New York Police Department, Life News
On a workday morning in the summer of 2011, schoolteacher Lydia Cuomo was brutally sexually assaulted at gunpoint by off-duty cop Michael Pena. At the time, he told her he was going to blow her head off. He forced himself on her, vaginally, anally and orally. In court later, Pena admitted to sexually assaulting her. As Cuomo says now, “I feel like essentially I had a silver platter of a rape case. I had witnesses, I had DNA, I had my own testimony, I had two cops. I had them saying, ‘We admit he sexually assaulted you.’” But then she found out that in the eyes of New York state, she had not been raped.
Despite all the seemingly clear-cut circumstances of her attack, Cuomo’s case was snagged by the fact that while Pena admitted the oral and anal assault, he initially denied ever penetrating her vaginally. And that, in New York, means she wasn’t raped. At Pena’s trial, he was found guilty of criminal sexual act and predatory sexual assault charges. She later said, “It was like, oh my God. I’ve sat through this. I’ve waited for this. And this jury just told me ‘You were sexually assaulted, but you weren’t raped.’” Last June, Pena finally pleaded guilty to raping her, in the strict, New York state-approved sense of the word, giving Cuomo at last some measure of vindication.
Cuomo had high hopes this week that this sort of fiasco would soon come to an end. With the support of Gov. Cuomo (no relation), she went to Albany to lobby for her proposed “Rape Is Rape” bill, which would add forced anal and oral sex to the definition of rape and carry the same legal consequences.
But soon after she stood next to Sen. Catharine Young, R-Cattaraugus County, at a news conference, one in which Young spoke about the need for changing the loopholes in the law, she received a surprise. Without telling Cuomo, Young had quietly dropped the oral and anal assault provision from the bill.
Young’s new bill is still an attempt to make rape convictions easier to obtain – it lowers the burden of proof from vaginal penetration to “contact.” But Young apparently got cold feet about whether juries would be able to accept the broader understanding of rape. She told the Daily News Thursday she’d feared it would be more difficult to secure convictions.
The definition of rape varies widely from state to state — and in several states the word doesn’t even exist within the criminal code. In New York, rape is defined as “sexual intercourse” in its “ordinary meaning.” Raping a person with an object is “aggravated sexual abuse” and oral and anal assault are “criminal sexual acts.” (To its credit, New York does at least acknowledge that a rapist can be a “he or she.”)
It’s a shockingly backward – and ultimately dangerous – notion to perpetuate, that rape is something that can only be done within a very narrow context. And because of it, crimes like the horrific 2011 attack on Lara Logan are chalked up as “not a rape” and “not as bad as rape.” It tells rapists and would-be rapists that any other violation is a lesser offense, for which they will pay a lesser penalty. But worse than that, it tells survivors that their experience was a lesser one. “It’s semantics, but semantics are really important. As a survivor, hearing the word solidifies what you went through and helps you to move on,” says Cuomo. “Who runs around saying, ‘I was criminally sexually acted upon last year?’”
Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
Conservative group blames military sexual assault on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal
-
Is Pittsburgh the next Portland?
-
Tornado survivor to Wolf Blitzer: Sorry, I'm an atheist. I don't have to thank the Lord
-
Donald Rumsfeld worried that marriage equality will lead to polygamy
-
San Francisco Giant Jeremy Affeldt apologizes for homophobic past
-
Wall Street firm's "Golden Pitchbook" is totally sexist, full of lies
-
Federal court strikes down Arizona abortion ban
-
I'm not achieving my dreams!
-
The most popular Tumblr porn
-
Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation
-
Snapchat is secretly storing your photos
-
Peace Corps to allow gay couples to volunteer together
-
Facebook's hate speech problem
-
Rand Paul: Congress should apologize to Apple, not the other way around
-
When my home was destroyed
-
Okla. mother's tearful reunion with her 8-year-old son
-
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
-
Study: Salt Lake City is gay parenting capital of the U.S.
-
You are less beautiful than you think
-
"Ghetto" tour lets you gawk at New York's poor
-
Teen activist to meet with Abercrombie CEO
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid "totally different" from Sandy aid
Jillian Rayfield
-
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
Facebook's hate speech problem
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
Daniel D'Addario
-
Inhofe and Coburn: Red state hypocrites
Joan Walsh
-
GOP attorney general candidate tried to force women to report miscarriages to police
Katie Mcdonough
-
Beltway scandal machine breaks, knows nothing about America
Joan Walsh
-
Tornado survivor to Wolf Blitzer: Sorry, I'm an atheist. I don't have to thank the Lord
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
Zach Galifianakis to take formerly homeless woman to "Hangover 3" premiere
Prachi Gupta
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com

41 points42 points43 points | 6 comments

21 points22 points23 points | 2 comments
From Around the Web
Presented by Scribol
-
Diane Gilman: Baby Boomers: A New Life-Construct -- From "Invisible to Invincible!" -
Susan Gregory Thomas: Why Divorced Boomer Moms Don't Deserve The Bad Rap -
British Nanny Offered An Annual Salary Of $200,000 -
Arianna Huffington: What I Did (and Didn't Do) On My Summer Vacation -
Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Maybe Happiness Begins At 50




5 Home Depot Hacks
Comments
8 Comments