The Assange case and the following rape-debate in Sweden

[Daniel Kraft]

Some of you might have read Judith Hermans book Trauma and Recovery. I feel it is a beautiful work because she brings together so many different aspects of trauma. One of the things I remember from that book is that she describes how the awareness of trauma has varied throughout the last century.

Herman stresses how a greater awareness of trauma in society helps trauma victims to be able to look for help and to get heard in courts as well as in other places in society. The lesser the awareness of trauma in society at a certain time, the greater risk that trauma is not recognized by psychiatry. Traumatized patients might be diagnosed as borderline or schizophrenic instead.

Maybe some of you have followed the recent development in Sweden following the arrest order of Julien Assange. For those of you who don't, I would like to put it to your attention, because I think it is has a lot to do with mental health.

What happened was that when two Swedish women accused Assange of rape, and the Swedish police wanted to question him, several high profile writers in the US wrote ironic and condescending articles about these attempts to question Assange. Like for instance Michael Moore and Naomi Wolf.

As a Swede I was baffled by this. To me it seemed totally normal that the police and judicial system should investigate the accusations.

After a one week a reaction developed in Sweden on Twitter. People, mainly women, started talking about sexual experiences ”in the greyzone” on Twitter (under the hash-tag #talkaboutit - #prataomdet) and on blogs, and this also got a lot of attention in print media. This movement did not want to comment on the question of guilt of Assange, but felt that it was absolutely vital to support the alleged victims against the ferocious attacks nationally and internationally.

Now a few months later, I feel that very important things were debated in a very enlightening way. The Swedish word for rape is combination of ”take” and ”violence” - it means literally ”taken with violence”. So it is difficult for us to use the word rape for situations where no violence was involved. Maybe the relaxed and informal context of social media helped us to begin to talk about this greyzone where sex can be forced or coercive without any outright violence being displayed. Many brave people wrote about their personal experiences with these difficult issues. Both men and women told about their experiences about demanding sex in the wrong way and about having remorse and anxiety after going to far in sex.

These are complex issues and maybe the complexity of social media itself helped in reflecting this complexity. It was not one voice or one central point that developed, but hundreds of people that wrote at the same time, without any particular coordination except for the blog that collected these stories.

As I said earlier, I feel that this movement is very important in the greater context of how we talk about trauma in a society. When issues concerning trauma are brought to the foreground, the denial lifts (at least a bit), and it becomes easier for trauma victims to get adequate help, and to get recognition for their suffering.

Eventually, thanks to the #talkaboutit-movement, the picture in media seem to have become a lot more nuanced (see these articles in Ms and Slate).

Please comment and let me know about your thoughts about this. I am also curious to know how much of this that you have followed in the US and in other countries.

(I am a psychologist in Stockholm, Sweden - psykologDanielKraft.se and my blog: DetKänsligaBarnet)

[Roelof A Bijkerk]

Sorry, I have sat here for too long trying to respond, when I had initially decided NOT to get into this discussion. I can't post things because there is so limit to the number of words I'm not aware of and half my post gets deleted; my clipboard malfunctions and scrambles or deletes things. I have had to delete something like 20 posts because of this. I don't know who is getting emails of posts I already deleted. I'm not getting into this discussion anymore, as I didn't want to to begin with. What Naomi Wolf says, speaks for itself. I don't find it condescending.

And now, if the legal system truly was interested in rape victims and healing, they would be interested in trauma in general, and they would be interested in understanding how this affects human behavior, and they would have acquired the know how to heal trauma in general, whether it's a rape victim or what went on in the life of a sociopath criminal to make him behave the way he does and why he's lost sight of his own humanity. And then this would be weeded from society, rather than maintained.

[Roelof A Bijkerk]

I've had to already remove numerous posts, because I had difficulty with my clipboard; and then had to reorganize what I'm saying because things were scrambled. I would ask that no more of my emails containing deleted posts are reposted, numerous as they are. My responses are here, not in an email from a deleted post. The reason the post from the email wasn't there was because I had deleted it. I had deleted it because I had decided not to respond, but now am thrust into this discussion against my decision. Mr. Kraft says: "To me it seemed totally normal that the police and judicial system should investigate the accusations." You only have to look at the evidence to see that Sweden has basically NEVER responded this way, and that there are MANY cases of rape where there is clear evidence that never get to court. Also, we're not talking about evidence so far, we're talking about allegations which pretty much contradict themselves. You say "intercourse with a sleeping woman is in my view rape." What I understand, the woman who was sleeping (and these are just allegations) stated that he started having sex with her when she was asleep, then woke up but then never pointed out that she felt it was not consensual. And we don't really know what happened because these are just allegations which truly are none of our business. It's a whole media hype. Why are we even discussing allegations of another (and there's no way we could really know what happened)? And added to that these allegations basically contradict themselves. And as Naomi says: Alright. So, again and again and again, Assange consulted with the women about what they wanted, and they didn’t say no. And to me as a feminist — and this is why I’m hearing from so many rape victims around the world — and of course the issue needs to be discussed more, obviously, but the reason, as a feminist, I am distraught about this miscarriage of justice is that you can’t —- you’re not respecting women by casting them as unable to assert what they want, unwilling, you know, to speak about what they wish.

[Daniel Kraft]

Mr Roelof A Bijkerk sent me this comment - but it was somehow lost... so I publish it again:

I've not responded to this because it just gets over saturated, which it
already is.
To begin with, this whole issue with Assange is, from what I've heard and
researched, so clearly having nothing or rather the opposite to do with caring about
reporting or reported rape cases, instead it's about covering up their lack of
attention with pretense. I understand that the whole case triggers people who have
suffered rape, because of the media attention, but that's the intentions of the
corporate media. And this doesn't promote sensitivity towards rape victims, instead
it uses the need for attention as a political bait while maintaining the need for
attention as a resource for political bait. And the immense difference between how
this case was handled and how other cases are handled points out to clear politcal
motivations. In Sweden, there are MANY cases that never get to the courts, cases
where there is clear evidence, these cases didn't get to court, hadn't gotten to
court wh
en there was this whole issue and now still haven't gotten to court. Cases where
there's clear evidence, but in the Assange case there's the most unclear evidence
which there is almost possible, and this depends on interpretation. I don't find
Naomi Wolf's responses condescending, in contrast I find in this debate that it's
the other party that's condescending:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/20/naomi_wolf_vs_jaclyn_friedman_a the other
person's arguments Naomi says the following: "this is the only case I’ve ever
seen in 23 years of supporting rape victims which is based on multiple instances of
consent.

If you read these allegations, he took off Miss A’s clothes too quickly for her
comfort. She tried to tell him to slow down, but then, quote, "she allowed him to
undress her." This is what the report says. The second woman says she woke to find
him having sex with her. When she asked whether he was wearing a condom, he said no.
Quote, "According to her statement, she said: 'You better not have HIV.'" He
answered, "Of course not." Quote, "She couldn’t be bothered to tell him one more
time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had
unprotected sex before."

So, if you’re going to treat women as moral adults and if you’re going to take
the issue of rape seriously, the person who’s engaging in what he thinks is
consensual sex has to be told, "I don’t want this." And again and again and again,
these women did not say, "This is not consensual." Assange was shocked when these
were brought up as complaints, because he had no idea that this was not a consensual
situation. Miss A kept Assange in her home for the next four days and threw a party
for him.

So, because I take rape seriously, because I’m aware that in 23 years, you know,
in Sweden, which has been criticized by Amnesty International for disregarding rape,
for letting rapists go free, because you have a better chance in Sweden, if you’re
a rape victim, of, you know, dying in an accident or getting breast cancer than
having a serious rape allegation prosecuted or getting any kind of legal hearing,
according to Amnesty International’s report "Case Closed" — it’s because of
that that I know that these charges are utterly, utterly atypically handled. In 23
years, I’ve never seen any man in any situation this ambiguous, involving this
much consent, have any kind of legal process whatsoever. And all over the world,
women who have been gang-raped, brutally raped, raped in alleyways, pimped,
prostituted, trafficked, you know, their rapists go free."

[Daniel Kraft]

My response to mr Bijkerk:

Thanks for your comment!

I feel that the #talkaboutit-movement really did reflect all these nuances and dilemmas about talking about rape difficult sex-situations. It is a complex subject, really.

My short answer to your comment is that intercourse with a sleeping woman is in my view rape, or at least morally questionable. I will read your comment again later and write more.

All the best /Daniel