Arts & Entertainment

January 23rd 2013 * Over the Edge

THE TRUTH WEIGHS NOTHING

ON CONSENT AND PUNK ROCKERS: GAZA SINGER JOHN PARKIN ADDRESSES RAPE ACCUSATION

JORDAN TUCKER

ART AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Salt Lake City-based band Gaza, is facing
controversy as lead singer John Parkin fields
accusations that he raped a woman. The report
surfaced on the accuser’s Tumblr account in
October in a detailed account of the experience.
John Parkin responded in a statement:

“Let me first say that this rape allegation is
entirely untrue. Throwing this sort of accusation
up on the internet is reckless and completely
slanderous...Rape infuriates me, and I never
see red like I do when I hear about it. This is
not a subject or an accusation I take lightly.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that
I could never and would never force myself
on anybody... Women’s rights and all forms of
social justice are causes [GAZA] champion.
I would encourage this person as well as any
other who feel they have been assaulted to go
immediately to the police.”

To which the woman, unnamed, responded:

“Minutes after Jon raped me, I told him that
he raped me. I repeated this multiple times in
the hours after the rape. I didn’t just “throw
the allegations up on the internet” I confronted
him personally and he responded violently. [he
said] “Throwing this sort of accusation up
on the internet is reckless and completely
slanderous.” Not slander, because its true. Not
reckless, because I already told him about it
personally and he decided not to deal with
it. Everything about his statement is a blatant
lie. No word from John yet, by the way. So
much for caring about women’s rights.”

The two people had apparently been dating
when, according to the blogpost, he assaulted
her as she slept. Gaza is most well-known for
being an extremely pro-social justice musical
act. Their past albums have all come across
as very pro-woman, pro-choice, and pro all
the stuff that would lead you to believe that
whomever is singing it is unlikely to be a
rapist. However, Hitler was a vegetarian and
a Christian who was strongly against cruelty
towards animals and loved painting and notions
of peace. On the woman’s blog, she describes

xriotnrrrdx.tumblr.com

herself as an anarchist and defends not calling
the police because she felt that it would not
have been taken seriously, and that hopefully
contacting John Parkin himself and talking to
him about it would have a more direct affect
than waiting for the police officers to decide on
their highly personal matter for them.

Within North American culture, very often
we find that the issue of rape is treated as
something inconvenient, where the accuser
(often a woman, but occasionally a man) is just
crying out for attention and trying to destroy the
reputation of the man who has raped her. 1 in 4
women will be the victim of some sort of sexual
assault within their lifetime.

According to Stats Canada, the rates of sexual
assault in Canada have remained stable for the
past ten years. However, police-reported data
suggests a steady decline in the reporting of
such offences by victims. Fewer than one in ten
sexual assault victims report the crime to the
police.

According to Stats Can, 58% of victims did not
report their incidents to the police because they
did not feel it was important enough. So while
we’re dealing with a lot of rape going on, we’re
not seeing a lot of reporting. What gives? Part
of the problem is perhaps women are taught
to believe that “boys will be boys” and that if
they are raped, it is their fault. See the tired and
horrifying idea that a girl walking around drunk
off her tits in a miniskirt is somehow deserving
of the rape she suffered because she did not take
the precaution of staying at home drinking tea
and reading a Jane Austen novel. Um, teach
rapey dudes to keep their dicks in their pants
and not think that a drunk girl automatically
means someone who is available to you as a
sexual commodity. Drunk people deserve to
go home and take off their shoes and eat drunk
perogies with their friends, no matter what they
are wearing. No one deserves assault.

In other news, if a couple happens to be making
out in bed, and one partner decides they’re no
longer into doing the dirty, the other partner
has to respect that. No, you don’t automatically

get to have sex with that person just because
you’ve got a boner/your vag is wet. It’s about
understanding that there are two people
involved in the arrangement, both of whom
need to be fully consenting for the sex to take
place. The mentality surrounding the idea of
“cockteases” seems to be this: sexy person
presented sexiness to myself. Sexy person got
sleepy/was otherwise uninterested in having
sex with me for whatever reason, I am still
interested in having sex. Solution: guilt-trip
them/force them physically into believing that
they somehow owe me their body, because the
universe revolves around my genitals. Hold
up right there, Captain Entitlement! No one
owes you any sexy candy, just like how you
don’t owe anyone sexy candy either. It’s about
treating whomever you are with as a person,
and not just as a convenient bit of really realistic
sexdoll. This notion of sexual privilege and
treating someone as an object is similar to the
idea of “friendzoning”, in which someone
assumes that because they are kind to a person
they are attracted to, they are automatically
owed a romantic relationship. The possibility
that the person of their desire is allowed to pick
and choose their own friends and lovers based
on their own criteria never seems to enter the
equation.

So while John Parkin likely means to offer help
when he says that the woman who accused him
of rape should call the police, he does sort of
neglect to take into account the cultural pressure
to victim-blame that surrounds rape culture. He
does not take into account how, while he might
have not considered his actions rape, they may
have terrified and frightened his ex for the rest
of her life. Just looking at the comments page on
articles about the purported rape is horrifying:
the automatic knee-jerk response of fans of the
band is that this man could not possibly have
raped someone, and that this woman is an
attention-seeking, loud-mouthed inconsiderate
jerk because she is upset about an experience
that she felt was rape. She says it was rape, he
says it wasn’t. And the truth of that encounter lies
between those two individuals, and hopefully
the law or a trusted mediator. It is beyond any
journalist or blogger to comment on what

xriotnrmrdx.tumblr.com

occurred between John Parkin and the unnamed
women.. None of us will ever truly know what
happened in that bedroom. Speculation on
that is cruel and counterproductive. What we
can discuss, however, is the way we choose
to react to such stories in the press. We can
discuss the mindset we choose to adopt when
we hear of such a terrible bit of news. Yes, in
a perfect world, the unnamed accuser would
go to the police. Both she and the singer
would undergo therapy. Justice, and healing
would be administered as necessary. But until
the knee-jerk reaction to such a story is more
one of compassion and empathy for everyone
involved, and less of judgment and vitriol , we
are not going to be able to have such a utopia.
Until we are able to hear about a rape and,
instead of assuming that one party is innocent
while the other is a hellbeast, fully consider
systematic and societal pressures that would
cause either party to behave the way they did,
we will see no improvement for anyone.

When a victim of a violent crime can know
that their telling of their story will be met with
gravity, and understanding, and not just “omg
that’s my favourite band don’t put him in jail
you suck cocktease” then maybe we’re getting
closer. It’s telling that the woman at hand, and
apparently women in Canada, don’t feel that
reporting such a crime to the police is worth
doing. In some ways, it isn’t: while in general,
sexual offences are less likely to be cleared by
the police than other types of violent offences,
only a third of sexual offences actually have
charges laid against the perpetrator. Custodial
sentences more likely for sexual offences
versus other violent crimes tried in adult courts
but conviction rates are lower. So, in closing:
rape victims should do whatever they feel will
make them feel safest after an attack. Cops, no
cops, whatever. And perhaps it is time for our
communities and governments and schools
and families to consider what message we’re
sending to children and adults about the nature
of assault, and how we will willingly shift our
perception of alleged crimes based on who
is the accuser and the accused. While the old
adage may be “innocent until proven guilty”,
we must not forget that “innocent because I like
them” is a pretty sorry excuse that helps no one.