Tenn. State Senator Doug Henry, on allowing a rape exemption on anti-abortion laws: “Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse. Today it’s simply, ‘Let’s don’t go forward with this act.’ ”

In other words, if a woman isn’t chaste—however Henry defines chastity—she had it coming. Which was pretty much the attitude back when Henry was “learning these things” which is why successful rape prosecution was so much rarer than it is today.

And if a woman says “don’t go forward” that doesn’t mean it’s against her will if the man doesn’t stop?

Henry subsequently apologized and insisted he wasn’t saying what it appears he’s saying, but it appears he’s saying it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Injustice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.