By Daniel Kakuru
Franco Mulakkal, a Roman Catholic bishop, has been acquitted by a court in the Southern state of Kerala in India.
His malfeasance? Rape.
No, he didn’t rape a worthless house help. Neither was it a nameless street vendor. According to the charge sheet, he repeatedly raped a Catholic nun between 2014 and 2016 in Kerala while he was the helmsman of the Order of the Missionaries of Jesus. He might have rambled out of the court building like Lwanda Magere off the battlefield, but the degradation is already done to his name.
A little over two years ago, the career of Denzel Mwiyeretsi was on the verge of coming to a grinding halt. The latter, a then employee of the Vision Group and former Big Brother housemate, was incriminated by a legion of women on social media who avowed that he had raped them. Disciplinary committees involving his employers sat and deliberated on this matter. Social media was up in flames; we all volunteered our pedestrian opinions.
Denzel might have pulled through all this in one piece, but he was licking his wounds like a Viking warrior who went to war and missed both victory and Valhalla.
On the 16th day of the 2000 September, an Indian man, Vishnu Tiwari who was three and twenty years old then was heisted by the scruff of the neck and tucked away into the dungeons over a rape accusation. The complaint had been filed by a woman, her husband and father-in-law, and they argued that he had raped and beaten her up when she was five months pregnant.
Things happened fast. Three years on from his arrest, he was convicted of rape by a Lalitpur court and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment. Shortly afterwards, it was decided that he would be a jailbird for the rest of his life.
In early 2021, the Allahabad High Court acquitted him after deeming that the charges were false. He had served twenty years in jail in spite of his innocence.
But what is rape?
According to Wikipedia, it is a type of sexual assault involving penile penetration carried out against a person without their consent. It may be carried out by sheer brutal force or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent such as is the case in mental derangement and unconsciousness.
I once dated a girl who knew not what it meant to lie down with a man. Our first humping session is a story I do not like to recount. Yes, we were horse and carriage. Her mind was willing, but her body wasn’t exactly sure. I drew my stabbing spear. Held it between my hands and took aim. She shrieked in pain. Grabbed my spear. Pricked it with her sharp finger nails. I fear to tell what followed. By morning, I was like an ox that had tilled 1000000 acres of land. My muscles were aching. My back was giving way. I had done everything except the dancing.
Why? Because she had resisted.
Every time a woman comes out and accuses a man of having raped her, it is likely that the grain and chaff are inextricably mixed up. There are glaring flaws bound to be found in her story. There are exaggerations and embellishments. The truth is, unless her consciousness is altered; unless he has friends to hold and restrain her limbs; a woman cannot be raped.
It takes the strength of an animal for a man to successfully hold down a conscious woman and rape her. It takes busying all his limbs with restraining her aggressive movements. Keeping her screaming mouth shut. Maintaining his erection in spite of his upset mental state. Overcoming the friction that comes with the dryness of a vagina that is being forced to host an unwelcome guest.
Take a closer look at Bishop Franco Mulakkal’s case. Poor man is nothing but a celibate old cleric, having lived for the past six decades hoping to find his paradise in the afterlife. He might know little to nothing about sex. Even if the sex were to be consensual, this man of God would have imminent difficulty locating the right hole to insert his spear. Denzel Mwiyeretsi’s predicament is worse. As if being short like a bucket is not bad enough, he is not necessarily gifted with the kind of biceps required for a man that should hold and rape a conscious aggressive woman from Northern Uganda.
Is rape a complete impossibility? Certainly not. However, most of these rape accusations are an after-thought. This precisely explains why we get to know the story six months or so after the incident. This explains why we hear of people having been allegedly raped more than once by the same person before they file complaints.
Now, do not flex your muscles. I am a worthless human whose wild thoughts shouldn’t bother you.
The writer is nothing but a #MugOfPorridge
