Vices are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

[Waldo Tunnel]

VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
A Vindication of Moral Liberty

by Lysander Spooner

VICES are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

CRIMES are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of
another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his
own
happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no
interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime - that is, the design to injure
the
person or property of another - is wanting.

It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal
intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property
of
another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal
intent.
He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any
malice
toward others.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and
recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as
individual
right, liberty, or property; no such thing as the right of one man to
the
control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and
coequal
rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as
such,
is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd
as it
would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.

[Wayne Mitchell]

Waldo Tunnel quoted Lysander Spooner:

> It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime
> without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent
> to invade the person or property of another. But no
> one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent.
> He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and
> not from any malice toward others.

This is obviously and blatantly over-simplified. For one thing, it
neglects acts of indifference. The drunk driver cannot be said to
intend any harm to, or even any encroachment upon, those he endangers on
the highway, but he certainly commits a crime.

--

Wayne M.

[Dakota]

Good point.

[Witziges Rätsel]

On 1/29/2013 3:54 PM, Waldo Tunnel wrote:
>
> VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
> A Vindication of Moral Liberty
>
> by Lysander Spooner
>
> VICES are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.
>

[ snip ]

Is slipping and falling a vice?

[raven1]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:20:37 -0600, Dakota <ma...@NOSPAMmail.com>
wrote:

Likewise, a person who starts a fire by carelessly discarding a
cigarette butt can be held accountable for it, even though there was
no intent to cause harm.

[Jenny6833A]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:54:53 PM UTC-7, Waldo Tunnel wrote:
> VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
>
> A Vindication of Moral Liberty
>
>
>
> by Lysander Spooner
>

> <snip>

>
> Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and
>
> recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as
>
> individual
>
> right, liberty, or property; no such thing as the right of one man to
>
> the
>
> control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and
>
> coequal
>
> rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

And no such right exists, or ever has.


Having said that, I do agree with the thrust of the (poorly reasoned) article.

The proper basis for laws should be "No _tangible_ harm, no foul." Where 'tangible' excludes 'being offended or embarrassed or ...."


:-)

Jenny

[Waldo Tunnel]

On Jan 29, 7:01 pm, Wayne Mitchell <gwmitchell...@pobox.com> wrote:
> Waldo Tunnel quoted Lysander Spooner:
>
> > It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime
> > without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent
> > to invade the person or property of another.  But no
> > one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent.
> > He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and
> > not from any malice toward others.
>
> This is obviously and blatantly over-simplified.

Yes and no. It is simplified but not over simplified, IMO.

>For one thing, it
> neglects acts of indifference.  The drunk driver cannot be said to
> intend any harm to, or even any encroachment upon, those he endangers on
> the highway, but he certainly commits a crime.

Right. In this essay Spooner ignores acts of what we would today call
criminal negligence. But also note this is irrelevant to his point,
which is:

"In vices, the very essence of crime - that is, the design to injure

the
person or property of another - is wanting.

[Wayne Mitchell]

Waldo Tunnel quoted Lysander Spooner:

> "For a government to declare a vice to be a crime,
> and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify
> the very nature of things. "

Okay, I'll grant that the words "as such" may be important here. A
community may sometimes see fit to criminalize a behavior which Spooner
would define as a vice, not because of its direct effect, but because
the likelihood of indirect costs, to the family of the addicted and to
the public, is very high.
--

Wayne M.

[Waldo Tunnel]

Which is why it can be refreshing to read the philosophy of a purest
on the subject, like Mr Spooner, who was quite a guy.

[Waldo Tunnel]

Spooner was distinguishing between vices (in the text which you
quoted, above) and crimes (in the text you left out, below):

[Waldo Tunnel]

On Jan 31, 9:29 am, Jenny6833A <Jenny68...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:54:53 PM UTC-7, Waldo Tunnel wrote:
> > VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
>
> >                         A Vindication of Moral Liberty
>
> >                               by Lysander Spooner
>
> > <snip>
>
> > Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be
> >made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth
> >no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such
> > thing as the right of one man to the control of his own person
> > and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of
> >another man to the control of his own person and property.
>
> And no such right exists, or ever has.

On what basis do you say this? That no government ever granted such a
right? If not these rights, what rights do you think exist and what
is the difference?

>
> Having said that, I do agree with the thrust of the (poorly reasoned) article.
> The proper basis for laws should be "No _tangible_ harm, no
> foul." Where 'tangible' excludes 'being offended or embarrassed or ...."

He was drawing a real distinction between vices and crimes. Today,
both things can be outlawed. However it still remains that a vice is
not a crime. In law the distinction is between malum in se and malum
prohibitium offenses. Malum in se requires mens rea and malum
prohibitium does not.

Ciao

[raven1]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 11:16:45 -0800 (PST), Waldo Tunnel
<waldo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Jan 31, 9:29 am, Jenny6833A <Jenny68...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:54:53 PM UTC-7, Waldo Tunnel wrote:
>> > VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
>>
>> >                         A Vindication of Moral Liberty
>>
>> >                               by Lysander Spooner
>>
>> > <snip>
>>
>> > Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be
>> >made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth
>> >no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such
>> > thing as the right of one man to the control of his own person
>> > and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of
>> >another man to the control of his own person and property.
>>
>> And no such right exists, or ever has.
>
>On what basis do you say this? That no government ever granted such a
>right? If not these rights, what rights do you think exist and what
>is the difference?

*Cough*. Leaving aside the question over what rights do or do not
exist, the idea behind "rights" is that they are innate. Government
exists in a free society to protect and enforce them, not grant them.

[Burkhard]

For a better reasoned approach, the point of reference is arguable
Joel Feinberg's massive four volume study on "The Moral Limits of the
Criminal Law". The first two volumes deal with harm to others, 3 with
harm to self, and the final one with harmless wrongdoings. He takes
generally a similar take as Spooner, both are based in John Stuart
Mill's "harm principle".(or to put in in another way, both emphasise
violations of what Isaiah Berlin called "negative freedom - being free
from violation of my rights - over positive freedom - being free to
pursue my dream of happiness)

There is also a substantive body of work that deals with the criticism
of this, and most of it comes from the centre left rather than the
conservative right (though there are sometimes unexpected alliances,
e.g. between feminist criminologists and very very conservative ones)
On the opposite end are at the moment so called "zemiologists" who
emphasise structural harms over individual wrongdoings.

Regardless of the position you ultimately take the debate does show
just how difficult it can be to express these ideas precise enough,
with the two main lessons
a) the devil (am I allowed to use that term? never mind) is in the
detail
b) the Spooner approach works best for those who are already
privileged

Let's use your formulation to illustrate what is meant by this. You
say "tangible harm" The problem of negligently inflicting harm was
already brought up - now, as long as actual harm was caused, Spooner
and other libertarian minded folks can just about deal with it. But
what about abstract harm that does not materialise? Is it
impermissible for a government to make it a criminal offence for say
nuclear reactor owners to avoid safety regulations? As long as nothing
has happened ("tangible") no harm no foul eh? What with even more
abstract offences like "driving without insurance" - here your crime
is not to put measures in place to deal with a harm you "might" case
in the future.

What's with "diffuse harms"? The main debate here is in environmental
criminal law. The extreme test case is harm against the environment
that really does not affect any human, at least not any one living now
(future generations may disagree) , like a company dropping oil at
remote part of the wilderness? Now, some right wingers accuse
environmentalists of course exactly of bringing in a "religious
morality" of some form of Gaia worship through the back-door, where
"sin against nature" becomes a crime. While this may be true for some
advocates, I'd say that many don't, yet the Spooner approach could de-
legitimise their concerns rather prematurely.

Just a bit, but not much, easier for him are situation is where there
is "some" harm, but highly diffused - again typical example
environmental issues. Is it "tangible harm" when my company pollutes
the air, and statistically increases the danger of illness for some
people (with them typically not able to show causality in an
individual case) ? That's where the zemiologists come in an emphasise
who abstract structures can be harmful for us - and soon the
distinction between sin and harm blurs even more. If I waste food,
which perpetuates an economic structures where the poorest starve (in
Berlin's term, their positive freedom to happiness is infringed) is
that (just) a vice (of greed, or gluttony) , or should we maybe think
of it in terms of harmful action that can also be criminalised?

What with things like gun control - as you now, the argument of the
NRA is " why shoudl law abiding citizens suffer, they do not cause
harm", but is merely having or enabling a culture where weapons are so
easily available a "harm"?

What with action that in itself is not harmful but harm woudl incur
if everybody did them (the so called free rider problem) - like say
not paying my tax? Where is the _tangible_ harm in that? Is it just
the vice of greed or selfishness, or a crime against collective
interests?

You say: "being offended " does not count. What about making hard porn
movies of the BDSM nature which depict woman as objects (maybe
catering for rape fantasies) Is this just a vice, or is there a
diffuse harm of perpetuating power structures that subjugate, and with
that indirectly harm, woman, so that the criminal law might be an
appropriate response? What with general "oversexualisation of society"
e.g. in advertising - as I said, where feminist criminologists and
conservatives suddenly and surprisingly find common ground in saying
that some vices can be harmful, in the long run, and sufficient for
some legislative action.

You say: or embarrassment. Is that really totally true? As far as I'm
concerned, consenting adults can do in their own home do pretty much
whatever they like (I might draw the line by putting ice in single
malt Whisky , mind, a capital offence if ever there was one) But
when i go to a nice restaurant, and the couple on the neighbouring
table want to live out their "watersport" fetish right then and there,
is it just me being prude, or is there a role for the law here, and
the harm not easily captured by "the word "embarrassment".

I'm not saying for any of these points the claims are right - but I
say they are serious enough that they can't be just dismissed glibly
as "you falsify a vice into a crime". Unless you take a fundamentalist
(anarcho-libertarian ) view like Spooner, which ultimately benefits
the strong and already privileged most, it shoudl at least be possible
to debate them and decide where there is an overarching interest for
regulation, even if it does not fit neatly into the schema of "one
individual inflicting intentional and direct harm on another, against
their will and without legitimate excuses"

[Jenny6833A]

Jenny6833A (that's me, folks) wrote

> The proper basis for laws should be "No _tangible_ harm, no foul." Where 'tangible' excludes 'being offended or embarrassed or ...."

Waldo doesn't seem to agree.

By saying "tangible harm" I did not exclude reasonably predictable future harm of a tangible kind. I support safety regulations for nuclear reactors, laws requiring liability insurance, environmental regulations, payment of taxes, gun control, etc. In all these cases, the harm we seek to prevent (whether current or future) is highly probable and demonstrably real.

Your examples of BDSM movies and watersports in a restaurant don't seem to carry much weight. Yes, you may be offended outraged, or embarrassed by such stuff, but there are plenty of good reasons to prohibit them that don't rely on your (alleged) personal emotional trauma.

I defined my term 'tangible harm' as excluding 'being offended' or 'being embarrassed' or ....

First, I'll stipulate that such emotional upset can be absolutely real. Crucially, emotional upset can also be convincingly faked. There's no way to tell the difference.

If you're familiar with the term 'brainwashing' you'll agree that humans can be conditioned to have strong, negative, emotional reactions to just about anything -- including, for example, the sight or smell of red roses.

If such an emotional reaction is real, does that mean that I must not grow red roses in my front yard? Am I required to defer to someone else's social conditioning?

If someone convincingly _fakes_ a strong, negative, emotional reaction to the sight or smell of red roses, does that mean that I must not grow red roses in my front yard? Am I required to defer to someone else's _pretense_ of social conditioning?

Now, admittedly, aversion to red roses is rather uncommon. Let's try a few examples of the every day kind that cause emotional upset in some fine (or not so fine) Americans, Brits, etc: gays, gay marriage, atheism, atheists, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, nudity, and so on.

In none of those examples can an opponent demonstrate tangible harm of the sort that Jefferson had in mind when he said,

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

As far as Ol' Tom was concerned, injury meant financial harm or physical harm. He's talking tangible, demonstrable, unfakable harm. He's not talking about real or faked emotional upset.

I'm an active nudist and nudist activist. I've been in half-a-dozen fights over the years in which some group of outraged (or seemingly outraged) assholes try to close down the local clothing-optional beach. They never NEVER allege any harm to themselves or others, now or in the future. They don't because they can't.

It's always "Nudity is immoral, therefore it must be stopped." "I'm outraged that such horrors are taking place, therefore those bare people must be arrested and jailed." "I am deeply offended by such goings on, therefore it must be stopped." And there's always the staple. "It's the children!" is uttered incessantly and with great emotion but without any explanation of what "the children" have to do with the matter at hand.

And, in most cases, the deciders of such things have also been brainwashed to suffer emotional upset at the mere thought of unclothed human beings. They nod their heads sagely, don't question the allegations of outrage and offense, and don't ask in what way the complainers have suffered injury of the Jefferson kind. Instead, they 'reason' that they'd be outraged too, so therefore the beach must go.

The whole mess, each and every time, boils down to people claiming emotional affront. It's "I don't like it so you can't do it."

Which brings us back to gays, gay marriage, atheism, atheists, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, ... and red roses.


"... nudity is the evil the State seeks to prevent ..."

-- Chief Justice William Renquist

"Turn your eyes away, if it's such a big deal to you."

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

"If someone walks by such a public display, “… he can avert his eyes.”

--Justice Anthony Kennedy

:-)

Jenny
(who should, I suppose, mention that Scalia and Kennedy were talking about religious displays on public property, not about nudity on public property. When it comes to nudity, their 'reasoning' reverses.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Burkhard]

On 24 Feb, 03:15, Jenny6833A <Jenny68...@aol.com> wrote:
> Jenny6833A  (that's me, folks) wrote
>
> > The proper basis for laws should be "No _tangible_ harm, no foul." Where 'tangible' excludes 'being offended or embarrassed or ...."
>
> Waldo doesn't seem to agree.

Do you mean me? The examples you cite below came from my reply, not
Waldo's post as far as I can see As to whether I ultimately agree or
disagree, see the last para:

"I'm not saying for any of these points the claims are right - but I
say they are serious enough that they can't be just dismissed glibly
as "you falsify a vice into a crime".

So I'm saying that the statement of the rule needs refinement - and as
soon as you do this, you'll find it becomes much more difficult than
it may appear. I agree with all your examples of behaviour that should
NOT be criminalised - but to describe this abstractly (and laws need
to be reasonably abstract and general ) is tricky to say the least,
and the formulation as suggested I think does not capture it - it is
too wide in some cases and too narrow in others.

>
> By saying "tangible harm" I did not exclude reasonably predictable future harm of a tangible kind. I support safety regulations for nuclear reactors, laws requiring liability insurance, environmental regulations, payment of taxes, gun control, etc. In all these cases, the harm we seek to prevent (whether current or future) is highly probable and demonstrably real.

That's good to know, though I doubt that as originally formulated
these things would be covered - there can be potential harm which, IF
realised, will be tangible, but that does not make it tangible harm,
or so it seems to me. Not sure if the issue is that they are "highly
probable", or that this should be a criterion - rather, we combine
typically seriousness of risk and probability of it materialising -
hence safety regulation even in "low probability - high impact"
industries such as nuclear reactors.

>
> Your examples of BDSM movies and watersports in a restaurant don't seem to carry much weight. Yes, you may be offended outraged, or embarrassed by such stuff, but there are plenty of good reasons to prohibit them that don't rely on your (alleged) personal emotional trauma.

You think so? OK, maybe sanitation rules in the watersport example,
but they can use plastic blankets I suppose, and quite frankly, even
more common sex is not something I necessarily like to see practised
next table when I want to have a dinner.

Nor would I base it on my "personal emotional trauma" - but nobody
does, at least not in my experience. When people say that they want
behaviour X prohibited because they find it offensive, this is in my
experience always just shorthand for: I don't think it is good for a
society to be like this". Just have a look e.g. at the "arguments" the
homophobe lobby brings - this is not: I just feel offended by gay
marriage" but "I am concerned about the survival opf an institution
such as the family which plays an important role for social cohesion
and raising kids".

Now, you have a choice. You can say that this is nothing but "after
the fact" rationalisation of personal emotional reaction - fine, but
I'm pretty certain the same charge can be levelled against prohibition
of Snuff movies (where the killing is merely enacted, of course) or
the watersport example - it will be possible to make some tenuous link
to more general social harm, but that will be possible with all of
these claims.

Or you accept them, and then you need a better demarcation why they
should be in, and others not.

And what with my example of harm to the environment that does not
impact on humans? Just out of interest...

> I defined my term 'tangible harm' as excluding 'being offended' or 'being embarrassed' or ....

That is one of the problems I have with it. Privative definitions are
always problematic, and hence considered "bad practice" in most
treatise on methodology. If you define "mammal" as "not a fish", you
don't learn a lot about mammals - and you are in danger of creating a
false sense of consensus: we could all agree that a fish isn't a
mammal, and still some of us think that insects are mammals... Same
here, an easy agreement on the specific examples we don't think of as
harmful (being gay, Muslim, atheist etc) could hide that we do not
mean at all the same thing when we say that "tangible harm only"
behaviour should be criminalised.

>
> First, I'll stipulate that such emotional upset can be absolutely real. Crucially, emotional upset can also be convincingly faked. There's no way to tell the difference.

Increasingly there is, fmri for instance, but that 's by the by (and
I'm on record in my professional capacity against the use of fmri in
courts anyway :o))

>
> If you're familiar with the term 'brainwashing' you'll agree that humans can be conditioned to have strong, negative, emotional reactions to just about anything -- including, for example, the sight or smell of red roses.
>
> If such an emotional reaction is real, does that mean that I must not grow red roses in my front yard? Am I required to defer to someone else's social conditioning?
>
> If someone convincingly _fakes_ a strong, negative, emotional reaction to the sight or smell of red roses, does that mean that I must not grow red roses in my front yard? Am I required to defer to someone else's _>pretense_ of social conditioning?

A clear "no" to the second, but I'm not sure that we can get a good
general rule from it. There are lots of behaviours we make criminal
even if it can be difficult to prove if the harm occurred. Rape with
its notoriously low conviction rate is a good example. I for one was
quite happy that it was rightly extended to marital rape, even though
the proof of the lack of consent is even more tricky than in your
example a reaction to roses (which can be tested, after all, now, and
was not just a mental state I had in the past)

A qualified "no" to the first - but I don't think that it has to do
with the criteria under discussion. If you grow roses and someone with
an allergy suffers an allergic reaction from it, then that is for all
intends and purposes a "tangible harm", so by your definition shoudl
be covered. The issue here is simply that "being a tangible harm" is
always only a necessary (at best) , not a sufficient condition to make
behaviour illegal, and there are lots of reasons why we often permit
behaviour that causes harm. Consent is an obvious one, protection of
other good another (hence the right of the police to inflict harm on
people)

In the roses case, it is simply efficiency - and hence the recognition
that laws tend to cater for the majority (if almost everybody were
allergic to roses, they'd be most probably a prescribed plant) and the
ease with which you can avoid being subjected to that harm (which
brings us partly back to consent) : If I walk into a rose garden, I
give implicit consent to be exposed to roses. As long as I can easily
avoid it, that's my problem.

> Now, admittedly, aversion to red roses is rather uncommon. Let's try a few examples of the every day kind that cause emotional upset in some fine (or not so fine) Americans, Brits, etc: gays, gay marriage, atheism, atheists, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, nudity, and so on.
>
> In none of those examples can an opponent demonstrate tangible harm of the sort that Jefferson had in mind when he said,
>
>         "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
>
> As far as Ol' Tom was concerned, injury meant financial harm or physical harm. He's talking tangible, demonstrable, unfakable harm. He's not talking about real or faked emotional upset.
>
> I'm an active nudist and nudist activist. I've been in half-a-dozen fights over the years in which some group of outraged (or seemingly outraged) assholes try to close down the local clothing-optional beach. They never NEVER allege any harm to themselves or others, now or in the future. They don't because they can't.

That's not my experience - there is typically "something" that looks
in a bad light like a "social glue" argument - and they are at least
of the type you may want to use yourself with snuff movies etc. In the
case of nudity, the argument I have heard (rarely, as in the
countries I know best, Germany and the UK, it is somewhere between
accepted and actively promoted) is the increased sexualisation of
society and with that increased violence against woman etc etc. NOT
that I say that these are convincing, mind, just that they have the
same form as arguments you may want to avail yourself of

>
> It's always "Nudity is immoral, therefore it must be stopped." "I'm outraged that such horrors are taking place, therefore those bare people must be arrested and jailed." "I am deeply offended by such goings on, >therefore it must be stopped." And there's always the staple. "It's the children!" is uttered incessantly and with great emotion but without any explanation of what "the children" have to do with the matter at hand.

What do you make of the "naked rambler", who has gained quite some
notoriety in my country?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gough

While I think the criminal law is entirely inappropriate to deal with
him, he is not restricting his activity to a secluded beach but in the
open.

If you think that his case is at least less obvious an example for
lawful behaviour, then the crucial point in your example has again
nothing to do with harm per se, but by the ease with which anyone
who objects can prevent the harm from coming his way if so desired
(that is, it is restricted to secluded spaces of like-minded people -
again a consent issue) .

Your quotes of Scalia and Kennedy go into that direction. Now,
speaking just for myself, I would rather not have naked people running
around in shopping malls, theatres, my lectures and other public
places, not due to "moral" concerns (I really could not care less) but
aesthetic ones. I full accept that this is as intangible as "moral
offence" and a result of cultural conditioning (think of the Ferengi
in Startrek where the norms for females are the other way round) but
it does contribute to my quality of live. So again the issue seems to
be not if it is harm or not, but one of "who can reasonably be
expected to take the "costs" - and that could be e.g. that if nudists
want to be naked in a designated area that I can avoid, the cost is
reasonably on me to avoid it, while the "cost" to find such an area
etc is reasonably on them (that is no nude persons in my lectures
e.g., unless explicitly instructed to do so for sound scientific
purposes)

No problem with that, but then again your original proposal would need
to incorporate this. The focus is away from the question of harm to
"what minimisation of harm strategy is the most sensible, giving
actual numbers of people and their preferences in a population".

> ...
>
> read more »

[Ken Arromdee]

In many cases, the harm done by rape is chiefly, or even entirely, emotional
upset. Do you therefore suggest that the punishment for rape should be as
light as the punishment for, say, slapping someone?
--
Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee

Obi-wan Kenobi: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."
Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no 'try'."

[Dakota]

On 2/26/2013 5:05 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
> In many cases, the harm done by rape is chiefly, or even entirely, emotional
> upset. Do you therefore suggest that the punishment for rape should be as
> light as the punishment for, say, slapping someone?
>

You dismiss the shame, self loathing, and fear that can accompany rape
as mere "emotional upset." Some rape victims never fully recover from
experiencing the trauma caused by the violent crime of rape.