Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1443447
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 JANUARY 2022 Raphael Vassallo OPINION If rape is not 'gender-related'… what the heck is? I don't know if you followed the police's 'crime conference' about Paulina Dembska's murder last Thursday… but there was a mo- ment which took me all the way back to my schooldays: specifi- cally, to a particular French les- son when I was in Form 3. Naturally, I'm talking about the 'good old days' here: you know, when 'boys were boys'… 'girls were girls'… and each were sent to their own separate (maxi- mum-security) schools. So the classroom I am talking about - back in around 1984, or thereabouts – was composed uniquely, and exclusively, of boys. Around 30 of us, to be more precise… and every one just as visibly bored as I was, at the prospect of yet another 45 minutes of 'conjugating French verbs'. Until suddenly, without warn- ing, the teacher boomed out a single, startling syllable… and it rang around the classroom like a rifle-shot. 'SEX!', he roared. And just like that: all 30 of those male teenagers sat bolt upright in their chairs, as if in- stantly electrified. I would even wager that: never before - in the entire history of De La Salle Col- lege, Cottonera - had so many students, paid so much atten- tion, to a single word uttered by any teacher… even if (as it hap- pens) for such a miserably short time…. Because in case you were won- dering: that early encounter with the word 'SEX!' ending up last- ing… well, about as long as any early encounter with the real thing itself, I suppose. "Right!", our teacher cheeri- ly continued, "Now that I have your full, undivided attention… yes, this lesson is going to be about sex. Because French verbs 'have sex', too, you know; only in their case, we call it 'gender'…" Well, what can I say? Just as quickly as it had descended, all that excitement and anticipation was instantly replaced by the sound of some 30 disappoint- ed teenagers, all simultaneously groaning in exasperation… All the same, however: the experience did teach me two fundamentally important les- sons (actually three, if you also include: 'how to be grammati- cally accurate, while swearing at French people of different gen- ders')…. The first is that it is actually quite correct to say that 'verbs have sex' (Let's face it: it's not for nothing that so many of us think French grammar is – if you'll excuse the expression - 'f***ing hard'…) But the second is that… yes, actually: the words 'gender' and 'sex' are indeed all-but exact syn- onyms of each other. Not, per- haps, in the sense that they can always be used interchangeably (for let's face it: 'Right Said Fred' wouldn't have had quite such a massive hit, with a dance-track called: "I'm Too Gender-y For My Car"…) And by the same token: the typical Maltese cat-caller might very easily shout out 'Aw, Sex!' at any old random, female pas- ser-by… but he's not likely to taunt his victim with an 'Aw, Gender!', is he? (Even because it just doesn't transition quite as seamlessly, into: '… Ejja l'hawn, ħa nagħmillek baby!') Nonetheless: at a broader level, it is perfectly true that 'sex', and 'gender', both amount to rough- ly the same thing. And – just in case you're wondering wheth- er I'd forgotten all about that police press conference, in the meantime – this is precisely why we tend to categorise crimes of a generally sexual nature, as… well… 'gender-based crimes'… And incidentally, it also rais- es the entirely seperate issue of how other members of the same gender – in other words: rough- ly half the entire country, either way – are likely to react… …not only to the crimes them- selves, of course; but also, to how the police – and other authori- ties, including the law-courts, etc. – actually go about inves- tigating and prosecuting them, when they occur. When it comes specifically to the crime of rape, however: BOTH those meanings of the word 'sex' suddenly step right up into the spotlight. Not only will the victim have been chosen specifically on the basis of 'his or her' (but let's face it: way more often, 'her') gen- der… but the crime itself would have been committed specifical- ly for the purpose of 'having sex', too. Now: it obviously doesn't al- ways follow, that the motive will necessarily have been equally 'sexual' in nature. There are, af- ter all, plenty of other motives to coerce people into violent, penetrative sex… that may have nothing to do – or next to noth- ing, anyway – with 'sexual grati- fication' at all. Leaving aside certain excep- tional circumstances - such as warfare, for instance: where 'mass-rape' is often used as a means of ethnic cleansing – we also know of (or at least, can picture) individual cases, where rapists may have been motivat- ed by the equally primal urge to 'dominate' others… or to hu- miliate others… or to somehow impose (or re-assert) their own 'power' over others… But then again: isn't 'sex' about all that, too? Doesn't it also, by definition, entail 'power strug- gles' of its own? And aren't those the very same struggles that lie directly at the heart of the en- tire discussion we are having in Malta right now? You know: the same discussion which was so dramatically – and brutally – catapulted right back to the very top of the national agenda, by the horrific rape and murder of Paulina Dembska on New Year's Day…? OK, by this point you might be seeing where all this is headed. For yes: like many other people, I was disconcerted (to say the least) to hear the Police Force so cavalierly dismissing the idea that this crime – regardless who committed it, by the way (not that I should really need to re- mind everybody, but… Abner Aquilina is still 'innocent until proven guilty', remember?) – was even 'gender-related' to be- gin with… … for all the world as though – and this, believe it or not, is a direct quote from the police conference itself – "there was no specific targeting of the sex of the victim"… …and even then: this happened just literally a few hours after the same Police Force had arraigned their prime suspect, specifically on charges of: not just murder, but also RAPE. ('Vaginally, anal- ly and orally', please note – all details that emerge from the same bill of indictment)…._ I don't know: it almost makes you wonder if those police of- ficers even took any French classes at school at all… But hey! Let's not make the usu- al mistake of 'jumping to conclu- sions.' (Let's try 'pole-vaulting' instead: it's much faster, and more fun…) For to give that police con- ference its full due: we were also assured that the results of this investigation – you know: the one that led the police to pre-emptively rule out any 'gen- der-based' motives, in this par- ticular crime – will soon be 'pre- sented in court'. I suppose we shall have to wait and see, then, how the prosecu- tion will actually succeed in pull- ing off such an unlikely stunt. Be- cause unless there's something I'm missing, in all this: their job is now to secure a conviction for the (presumed) killer… when the Police themselves seem to argu-