Nevertheless, it is right to protect the identity of alleged rape victims. Rape is not like any other crime. It is a violent act, but it is not (ITALICS) only a violent act. It is also deeply personal, deeply wounding and psychologically damaging in many cases.
To insist that the involvement of the sexual organs is irrelevant is simply to ignore everything we know about life and human nature.
Naming a rape accuser makes a possible victim available for further torture. Already we're hearing about "vaginal tearing" in the Bryant case. Assuming for a moment that the woman was raped, what sort of agony would it be to hear your intimate anatomy and other details of your assault openly discussed while your name and picture are slathered across newspapers and television screens?
It's not about stigma; it's about sanity. I know few women who would submit themselves to that kind of public airing. If such scrutiny were automatic, we could reasonably predict that fewer victims would come forward and more rapists would walk.
That said - and given the emotionally charged circumstances of any sexual encounter - it's equally unfair to put a potentially innocent man through the life-ruining gauntlet of a public rape accusation. I'm not worried about Kobe Bryant should he be acquitted. He'll have all the free press he needs to set the record straight.
I do worry, however, about the falsely accused ordinary man who has no such media access and whose community will remember him only in terms of rape. In fairness to innocent men, as well as to raped women, we should name no one until a verdict is reached.
In so doing, we'd minimize added trauma to rape victims and probably see fewer false charges and ruined lives. Of course we'd also be deprived of the salacious gossip that keeps the 24/7 media machine lubricated and running through the dog days of summer. Oh well.