SALON

Thursday, Feb 14, 2013 6:32 PM UTC

We need to call it rape

A survivor's attempt to change the rape laws gets hung up on semantics

By

Topics: Rape, Lara Logan, Lydia Cuomo, Michael Pena, Legitimate rape, Andrew Cuomo, New York, New York Police Department,

We need to call it rapeRepresentative Catharine Young

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

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.

Next Article

You Might Also Like

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

Gripping photos: The people of the Turkey protests (slideshow)

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • The protests take on a festive element as police forces move out of the park and square. Wearing a gas mask, this young man dances to traditional Turkish music in front of Taksim Square’s Ataturk Monument.

  • In Gezi Park since March 31st, this protester, originally caught off-guard by the Government’s teargas and water cannons, went out and bought a Russian army mask from WWII, preparing for what was to come.

  • This rambunctious boy seems to be enjoying the chaos. After taking this picture he threw a stone at the already destroyed building in the background.

  • Forming a line, the police face off directly with protesters in Taksim Square. After a while, they retreated and there was a general cheer – a back-and-forth dance that has been common since the beginning of this protest.

  • An elderly woman in Gezi Park reads the news. The tent community occupying the park was violently destroyed on June 16th.

  • Many different groups had set up booths to promote their cause in Taksim Square and Gezi Park. Standing in front of one, this man waves his flag while posing with conviction.

  • Many home-remedies are used to minimize the effects of tear gas. This woman has put a milky solution on her face, removing her mask after the tear gas dissipated. Before sunrise, the police came again for another round of teargasing.

  • People capitalize on the uprising -- selling flags, beer, gas masks, sky lanterns and spray paint to name just a few of the popular items.

  • On Monday morning, June 11, the police execute a strong offensive. Many plain-clothed police officers, like the ones seen here, clash with protesters in the side streets away from the main stand-off in Taksim.

  • The authorities seem to be most aggressive in the night, pushing protesters away from the square and park. After being teargassed this young woman catches her breath with other protesters on Siraselviler Street.

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 8 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Study: Young people are more liberal than they think they are.
63 points64 points | 22 comments
vote
Virginia Man Pleads Guilty To Forging Newt Gingrich Primary Signatures: Adam Ward pleaded guilty to 36 counts of voter fraud and perjury
79 points80 points | 6 comments
vote
How cash secretly rules surveillance policy: Today's congressional hearing was a joke. The reason: Firms like Booz Allen bankroll and own Congress. Here's how
41 points42 points | 6 comments
vote
Here Come the Edward Snowden Truthers
51 points52 points | 18 comments
vote
The internal war between House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings blew up again Tuesday, when Cummings released the full transcript of a five-hour interview with the conservative Republican IRS screening manager.
40 points41 points | 6 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves": Growing up primate

Recommendations