What if cops started handing out tickets for sexual assault?
The idea that our police services and judicial system are set up to serve and protect their citizens is a wild misnomer when it comes to sexual assault. They actually deter its reporting. This deterrence isn’t a formal mandate, but in reality, it’s how they work.
In the current nightmare surrounding Sarah Thomson and Rob Ford, most of what I’m reading is the typical slew of trash coming from the peanut gallery that is the internet – people who feel they have enough expertise to critique, to act as judge, jury and executioner. As soon as stories like this hit the news wires, my brain goes into avoidance mode, where I try to not trudge too deeply into the depths of the comment sections to prevent me from wanting my eyes pried out with a stick.
One comment you can always count on reading: “if this really happened, why didn’t she go to the police?” For those who have never had the pleasure of dealing with the police in any matter, let me tell you: it’s not fun. The incident that triggered involving them is often exacerbated with that very involvement. Loss of work, administrative headaches, second-guessing, and stress for starters. When the situation is sexual assault, the misery grows exponentially. There are endless stories from victims whose situations were made worse with reporting, not the least of which is victim blaming. When they come forward, the last thing they need is to be harassed by the police, by family, by friends, by colleagues. This happens time and time again, their lives ripped apart by an incident that often doesn’t get better once it’s made public. So please stop asking why Thomson — or anyone else in a similar situation — didn’t go to the police. You are not helping.
Our systems of protection are necessary, yet broken. They don’t have much in place to deal with the spectrum of sexual assault. Why would I waste my precious time to report someone who groped me? I really don’t need my life fucked up so I can have others blame me for what happened, then probably watch the groper go free. I’ve been pawed, pinched, grabbed countless times in my life. This is what it’s like to be a woman. This is our normal. So no, I’m not going to call the cops every single time, despite the fact that it’s illegal and these assholes should be punished.
The last time I was sexually assaulted was at the opening of an art exhibition I was hosting. The costly event required months of planning, so the asshole who managed to pinch my ass twice before I yelled at him got off scott free because I wasn’t about to ruin all that work by marching to the police station. Especially since I was in a dress through which you could see my panties, and the art I was exhibiting was of nude women wrapped in rope. Because that would have gone over ever so well.
But what if cops started handing out tickets to these assholes, the ones who commit “lesser” offences? (Not to diminish the type of assault, but this system would need to differentiate between an ass-pinch and penetrative rape.) Consider a system that handed out sexual offence tickets just like traffic violations: I could have looked down the street to find a cop, called them over, and said asshole would get a slip of paper that stated an infraction had taken place, based on laws that would automatically make him guilty, much like a traffic ticket. He would then have to either pay the fine (let’s start them at $100) or set a court date. If it had been something more sinister, I or the judge could decide to press further charges.
Traffic law is quite black and white. Whether or not you’ve broken the law, the onus is on you to dispute it if you choose. If you want to avoid all the red tape, you pay the fine. If you want to avoid the fine or loss of points, you don’t break the law in the first place (like not speeding) or you go to court to fight the charge. Under this new system for assault, get so many tickets and further consequences take effect, like say, driver’s license suspension or it goes on your employment record. Nothing like having “repeat sex offender” appear next to your social insurance number.
Could sex assault tickets act as a deterrent? Could they act as some kind of medicine for those of us who have to endure this bullshit over and over again?
Though I’m just in early stages of this concept, I’m sure I’ll find a few problems with it. ‘Men Rights Activists’ will be the first to point out the possibility of an increase in false accusers – you know, the plethora of women who want their lives blown apart by charging people with sexual assault just for fun. There’s tons barely any of those.
Abuses exist in any system, so MRAs will have to get over it. Issues with implementation and annual costs, stress on judicial system schedules, etc will arise. On the surface, however, I like this idea more and more. It starts to shift the blame where it belongs: toward the accused and away from the accuser. I bet you’d see a pretty steep decline in illegal behavior from those who think a grope here or rape threat there is merely something at which to laugh. I can here people saying “Pffft, you can’t say anything anymore for fear of being ticketed”. Well, that wouldn’t be so fucking bad. So long, rape jokes and kissy noises.
We have no systems in place that can deal with the spectrum of sexual assault. It’s an all-or-nothing game. And when all you want is to continue with your life without the hassle of victim-blaming cops, friends, and colleagues, it’s no wonder that percentages of reporting don’t even hit double digits.
This may all sound dystopic, but until someone can come up with a better solution to report lesser sexual assaults without feeling like we’re wasting our time, is a ticket system really so bad? Let’s at least get some kind of conversation started so people like me in my skimpy dress at an art show, or a politician at the committee reception, don’t feel like we just have to stand back and take it.
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Got a question about sex in art, relationships, parenting? Send Sonya a note at dearmadame@torontostandard.com. Anonymity assured.
Sonya JF Barnett, also known as “The Madame,” is the founder of an erotic arts community called The Keyhole Sessions and the co-founder of SlutWalk Toronto. Follow her on Twitter @KeyholeSessions.
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