RAPE IS NOT AN ACT OF LOVE

This January 16th, I was acquitted of charges of battery. The charge was battery because in Illinois rape is defined legally as ‘the penetration of a woman by a man over 14 years of age’. I had attempted to rape Chester, a 34 year old man, with two other women last April.

William Chester had written an article in the Chicago ILLINI, the student newspaper at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle Campus. In this article, Chester stated – supposedly in a parody – that he thought women enjoyed being raped; that rape was a pleasurable thing and that he wanted to be raped; Any woman knows to say rape is something to be enjoyed is perpetuating the male mythology about rape. The other two women and myself reacted in an anarcho-feminist manner; we attempted to comply with Chester’s wish to be raped.

William Chester came to us of his own free will. We had written notes and told him we were going to rape him. He reacted like an overaged adolescent who thought he was going to get some nookie. When the roles were reversed and we lowered him to the floor, trying to remove his pants, he became hysterical, screaming and crying, trying to fight us off. A We held him still (we stopped trying to rape him because it would be too traumatic) and we tried to explain to him that rape was not enjoyable, that it was a hostile act against women usually forced upon them.

We did not attempt to beat the shit out of him. We held him to keep him from hurting us. We let him go when several of his friends appeared and it looked like it was going to turn into a brawl.

Chester went to the police and swore warrants against us. I had a name warrant and turned myself in. The other two women Chester did not know. Eventually one of the other women was caught.

Chester said if we would apologise, he would drop the charges. As the trial dragged on through months (with continuances) the other woman did apologise.

Finally, we came before a judge. It was a bench trial. Because I had an extremely competent woman lawyer, I was acquitted on a directed verdict. The judge agreed with my lawyer that the complaint sworn out against me was insufficient and garbled. Legally, battery is defined as ‘touching in an insulting or provoking manner or causing bodily harm’. My charges stated that I had ‘leapt upon and beat William Chester.’

Chester and his lawyer, outraged at having been beaten by a woman, tried to have me re-tried and re-arrested. Again we went to court, and against the motion for re-trial was defeated. Now Chester has stated to the press that my lawyer gave the judge a bribe. The judge is trying to get Chester on contempt of court.

The press took this whole incident as a cutesy, human interest story and gave it a lot of coverage. It is unfortunate that so many actual rapes receive no coverage at all, and that when a man is threatened, the media leaps upon it.

Fredrika Baer

From the anarcho-feminist Siren Newsletter – Chicago)

reprinted in Black Flag: Organ of the Anarchist Black Cross, v.3, n.5 (Aug.-Sept. 1973), p.12, available at https://files.libcom.org/files/bf3-5.pdf