An odd thread. Mostly threads are either discussion threads, or about music/or songs and technique - but this one involves an argument about the issues involved and about the technique, and whether it is appropriate to the issues.

It seems to me that there are really two intertwined narratives here. One is the account by the raped girl of her situation, addressed both to the community of the rapist which is implicated in the act and protects the rapists, and to her own community which deplores the act, but sees her as shamed by it, and is willing to exclude her; and the other is a challenge to outsiders to become aware of this terrible injustice, and to respond to it, rather than shrugging it off as just one of those things.

That's a very complicated set of narratives to get across. The meaning of the rape to each of those three imagined audiences is different. There are several layers of oppression involved. There the rape as genocide, there's the rape in itself as sexual oppression, there's the consequence of teh rape as sexual oppression.

I think it's quite possible in a song to directly address a subject and directly argue a case, passionately and effectively. But I'm not sure it's possible to do it in that way at the same time to more than one imagined audience.

Presenting a story without comment is one way of trying to deal with that difficulty. "Here is what happened - now you've got to decide what to do about it." But at the same time this whole business of untangling the different meanings of rape is somnething that needs exploring. As the arguments in this thread have indicated. And I'm not aware of many songs that have tried to explore them.