Two men were convicted of raping a young woman, who is now in her 20s. The men, Boakye Osei (30), of Tooban, Burnfoot, and Kelvin Opoku (33), of Cill Graine, Letterkenny, were sentenced to nine years in prison for their crime. The latter of the two men continues to blither about how he is innocent, and that the victim/survivor set him up by rubbing his DNA on a condom. 

Wait, SAY WHAT NOW?

The victim/survivor stated that on a scale of 1-10 of drunkenness, she was a 10 and about to pass out. Does that sound like someone who had the mental capacity to somehow rub a man’s DNA on a condom in order to set him up for rape? Not to mention the fact that the rapist is relying on an outdated, disgusting trope that sets up women as manipulative bitches who falsely accuse men of raping them.

The perpetrators in this case are foul humans. They deserve to every day of that nine years in jail.

And the foulness of these rapists makes the Irish Times headline even more repulsive. These men offered a lift to an obviously intoxicated woman and then raped her. The headline that she was “blind drunk” suggests that the victim/survivor had fault in this scenario.

Disgusting.

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By declining to review a Kentucky law mandating that pregnant women undergo vaginal ultrasounds before they can have an abortion, the Supreme Court has allowed this statute to take effect. This procedure is designed to humiliate vulnerable women, and it also constitutes rape by a foreign object. Kentucky should immediately repeal this misogynistic legislation.

I wrote my doctoral dissertation on sexual assault, and I have read hundreds of historic and current laws that address the actions that constitute rape. And I can say with authority that Kentucky’s vaginal-ultrasound requirement definitely falls under the sexual-assault umbrella in many parts of the world, including the United States.

In a bygone era, rape laws were written narrowly to include only forcible penetration of the vagina by the penis; force was myopically defined to require the use of physical violence. Other types of nonconsensual penetration were included in a different, and lesser, class of crime. Plus, in many places around the world and in many states in the US, sexual activity other than “traditional” penis-in-vagina sex was already illegal in the form of “anti-sodomy” laws. In some places, a rape survivor’s father or husband was compensated for the loss of value of his “property.”

But, in the second half of the twentieth century, states began to give more protections to women, who claimed sexual agency of their own. Sexual assault became a major issue in the 1970s, highlighted by the landmark publication of Susan Brownmiller’s revolutionary book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” in 1975. Rape within marriage is now illegal in all 50 states (though this crime remains under-prosecuted and difficult to prove in court). Men are now seen as “legitimate” victims of rape. Oral and anal rape are criminal acts. Nonconsensual penetration by an object is also illegal.

We have come a long way in naming the lived experiences of survivors of sexual assaults and in criminalizing the variety of ways in which people use sex as a weapon. Indeed, calling them rape is an important step in itself.

But we cannot be complacent in our belief that lawmakers want to criminalize all forms of forced sexual contact. Indeed, the Kentucky statute legalizes rape.

In Kentucky, women seeking abortions must submit to a vaginal ultrasound. It is not a voluntary procedure, and therefore the ultrasound probe inserted into the vagina constitutes forcible penetration without any type of meaningful consent. Acquiescence to the procedure in this context constitutes a constrained choice. In economics, a constrained choice occurs when a rational actor assesses the best choice in a situation in which her options are “constrained” by a limiting factor. In Kentucky, the woman must choose between having the ultrasound and thus being allowed to have the abortion; or, not having the ultrasound and thus being forced to carry the pregnancy (or resorting to an illegal and unsafe abortion). Thus, the “choice” is not really a choice at all; it is not meaningful or affirmative consent. You don’t have to be Captain Olivia Benson to identify the coercion in this situation.

Moreover, the Kentucky abortion law, by the state’s own legal code, constitutes third-degree sexual abuse, defined as: “Subjecting another person to sexual contact without the victim’s consent,” a class-B misdemeanor. It could also be first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, if the person seeking the abortion is a minor, since the doctor in this situation is an authority figure.

The requirement that the doctor describe the fetus to the woman, and that, if possible, the doctor force the woman to hear the fetal heartbeat, is a disgusting version of paternalism. This requirement assumes that women do not understand the meaning of an abortion, and so the law—written largely by men—steps in to explain (or “man-splain”) to the woman what she is really asking for. This implication is insulting, degrading, and infantilizing.

So, I want to urge Kentucky to prove that this law is not a form of legalized misogyny: the state should pass a new law that requires men seeking erectile dysfunction medications to submit to a formal medical measurement and description of their penises.

Or, Kentucky could do the right thing and repeal the mandatory ultrasound statute.

The two boys are the youngest people ever to be found guilty of murder in Ireland. As a result, there was no precedent for how to sentence the boys, and Justice McDermott exercised some discretion in meting out punishment. In Ireland, murder carries an automatic life sentence, but the young age of the boys was a mitigating factor. The judge was quoted in the Irish Times as saying, “Her family will have to bear their grief for the rest of their lives. At least you will have the opportunity to reconstruct yours in a positive way.” And, he posed a challenge to them, “Will you take it?” I hope that they will, because Ana Kriegel will never have that opportunity.

Both boys will serve their time in Oberstown child detention facility until they turn 18, at which point they will be transferred to a prison for adult offenders. Although the verdict was handed down in the spring, sentencing was delayed until this week so that the boys could undergo psychological evaluations. The Court also considered the victim-impact statement given by Ana’s mother, Geraldine. Ana’s mother expressed how much they miss their daughter, and how this grief will stay with them for the rest of their lives. She said, “Life without Ana is no longer a life, nor is it even an existence–it is a misery that we must endure for the rest of our lives.” 

Boy A now acknowledges that he murdered Ana (though he denies the sexual assault), but Boy B continues to deny any involvement in the murder. Their acceptance of responsibility will likely be a factor when the court revisits their sentencing in 12 or eight years, respectively.

Ana Kriégel. Photo credit: Irish times.

The press mishandled the reporting of Ana Kriégel’s murder. Gruesome details of the killing and the state in which Ana’s body was found have been published in newspapers in Ireland and around the world. Ana’s parents have to live with the agony of their daughter’s death, and they also have to live with the knowledge that millions of people know what happened to her. At the same time, the boys responsible for killing Ana have been given legal protection: their names have been withheld, and people in the courtroom can be prosecuted if they reveal the boys’ names to the public. 

This contradiction is deeply disturbing. Some people have argued that the boys’ names should be revealed now that they have been found guilty, and that their families should have to live with shame as Ana’s family must live with her death.  But an “eye for an eye” does not seem to be an appropriate response. Rather, the media should be more sensitive in publishing the gory details about the murder of a teenager. Nothing can be gained by publishing the private information about the two guilty parties. 

The other controversial issue is one of appropriate punishment for this crime. Ana lost her life, and it is easy to argue that the people responsible should also lose theirs–at least by withering away in prison. And yet, the boys were 13 years old when they committed the crime. Should 13-year-old children be kept behind bars for decades for any crime? Consider, even if they live just to be 70, that they will have spent 57 years in jail. 

This question leads to a larger philosophical quandary about the purpose of custodial sentences in the criminal-justice system. Clearly, people who are duly convicted of crimes need to be punished for doing so, or we would have no system of justice to speak of. But can a custodial sentence also serve to educate and rehabilitate offenders? Or, do violent offenders forfeit their futures because they have essentially opted out of society?

As an American, I struggle with this last question. Our prisons overflow with nonviolent offenders (mostly for drug crimes) and with people who committed a series of minor offenses but find themselves incarcerated for long periods under so-called “three strike” laws–because it’s a great idea to apply the rules of baseball to meting out punishment for criminals? Until 2005, states were allowed to execute people for crimes committed when they were under 18 (and 22 such executions happened between 1976 and 2005). 

Or, with time, counseling, and education, could Boys A and B heal and become positive members of Irish society? We don’t know the answer to that question, which is why their sentences will be periodically reviewed by the courts. They deserve the opportunity, though. And I know it offends people to hear that the murderers of an innocent, vivacious teenage girl “deserve” anything. 

Yet history is replete with stories of people who did terrible things, served their time, and became better people. Many of these people were nonviolent offenders such as Frank William Abagnale, the protagonist of Catch Me if You Can, who is a fraud consultant for the US government. But, consider also the case of Kweisi Mfume, who was involved in crime (the degree of involvement is controversial) and fathered five children while still a teenager; he went on to become president of the NAACP and a US Congressman from Maryland. And, there is the impressive historical work of Michelle Jones, who spent decades in prison for murdering her four-year-old daughter, and became a graduate student at NYU. 

I wrote my dissertation on sexual assault in the Republic of Ireland, so I know that this nation’s history is also replete with cases in which violent sexual predators have not received appropriate levels of punishment for their offenses–but this is not such a case. Justice McDermott meted out a harsh custodial sentence, and one that is especially unusual in a country that recoils from incarcerating minors. I am glad that he believes in the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption–and I’m equally glad that I did not have to choose the punishment for these boys. 

I wrote my dissertation on sexual assault against women and teenage girls in twentieth-century Ireland. I’ve published an article on the crime that used to be known as “unlawful carnal knowledge of a teenage girl aged 15 to 17” that demonstrated that Irish law did not really care about this crime. In fact, in almost all cases that were prosecuted, the girl in question had become pregnant as a result of the encounter. The law cared about pregnancy outside of “wedlock,” but did not really care about the trauma to the teenage girls in question, or their ability to say yes or no to sex. Jury verdicts reflected this–in large part, though not exclusively, because juries for most of the 20th century were all male, and girls were seen as tempting Eves.

How far have we come? Well, the following story appears in today’s Irish Times: “Man slept with underage girl his son was dating, court told”. The article describes a situation in which an adult man in his early 40s had repeated sexual encounters with a 15-year-old girl. He took pictures of her in “compromising” positions. She performed oral sex on him, and they had intercourse on many occasions. The man has been charged with 31 counts of having intercourse with a child (under the 2006 Sexual Offences Act). He has also been charged with 8 counts of “defilement of a child” for the acts of fellatio. The man denies all of this, despite the girl’s testimony and text messages that prove the relationship.

There are so many problems here that, as a historian, I’m not equipped to count them all.

1. The Irish Times should be ashamed of itself for this headline. The man “slept with” an underage girl? No, the man raped an underage girl. There is no legal concept of a 41-year-old man “sleeping with” a 15-year-old girl. By definition, that act is illegal because a 15-year-old girl cannot consent to sex with an adult man. The editors of the Irish Times should know this and the paper’s headlines and writing should reflect this.
2. The man took photos of the teenage girl in “compromising” positions. Why wasn’t he charged with anything related to child pornography? These photos probably still exist. They could have been uploaded to the Internet (or, more likely, the dark web), and they could still be used against the victim/survivor, who is now an adult woman in her mid-20s.
3. The article focuses on the fact that the first time the man met the victim, she was wearing a very short white miniskirt, that turned him on. Why is this fact relevant to anything? It’s not relevant to whether the crime took place. It’s not relevant to consent, which is not a factor in statutory rape cases anyway. The only purpose served by the focus on her miniskirt is to sexualize a teenage girl and mitigate the man’s responsibility in the case because she was wearing an outfit that one could classify as “provocative.” [She was likely trying to turn on her boyfriend, the man’s son, not the 41-year-old man.] This harkens back to the old fashioned idea that women were tempting men, and that the male sex drive is so powerful that men simply cannot resist. Surely we’ve moved past that notion in 2019, right?
4. Why does the law distinguish between sexual intercourse and oral sex here? Both acts are SEX. Both occurred with an underage girl and a man in his 40s. This distinction is absolutely draconian. The acts of oral sex should be classed as rape also. A teenage girl cannot anymore consent to fellatio than she can to vaginal intercourse, and the law should not distinguish between these offences.

Here we can see that there are enduring problems with the ability of Irish law to protect underage girls (and boys, too) from sexual predators. The law doesn’t take seriously the inability of teenagers to consent to sex with older men. Thankfully, the law does accept the legitimacy of consensual sex between teenagers. Progress has been made.

But the law, and apparently the writers for the Irish Times, still buy into gendered tropes about how a girl was dressed and different types of sex (vaginal, oral, anal). I am eager to see the verdict in this case, to see whether the Irish people accept these tropes. Will the jury acquit this man because of the girl’s miniskirt? Will they accept the idea that the 15-year-old girl consented to sex, and therefore the crime wasn’t so bad, even though the law says differently? The girl didn’t become pregnant from the encounters, so if things are basically the same as they were 50 years ago, the jury will acquit the man because without a pregnancy, the crime really wasn’t so bad.

Stay tuned for the verdict.