The most destructive myths about rape
have cast women in the role of being responsible for the rapist’s act.
According to this view, women secretly “want” to be raped and really enjoy the
experience. This nonsensical notion has
led at least one rapist to give his name and phone number to his victim so she
could “get together” with him again. His stupidity led to his immediate arrest.
Lurking beneath the surface of this myth are some commonly held misconceptions:
women find overpowering men irresistible; women’s rape fantasies indicated a
real-life sexual desire; and women dress and act provocatively to “turn on”
men, who somehow are the hapless victims of their own reactions to this
deliberate provocation.
Closely
allied to this view of the woman as instigator is the idea that “she was asking
for it, and she got what she deserved. “ According to Susan Brownmiller, a
feminist journalist and author of a book Against Our Will, offers an
explanation of rape:
The
popularity of the belief that a woman seduces or “c--k-teases” a man into rape
by incautious behavior, is part of the smoke screen that men throw up to
obscure their actions. The insecurity of women runs so deep that many, possibly
most, rape victims agonize afterward in an effort to uncover what it was in
their behavior, their manner, their dress that triggered this awful act against
them.
Most research shows that rapists look for targets they see as
vulnerable (e.g. women walking by themselves, appear unfamiliar with where they
are) rather than women who are dressed in a certain way or who have a
particular manner of appearance. The
“provocation myth loses its credibility when it is recognized that many rape
victims are elderly women or young children. Furthermore, it is a little like
believing people should dress in old, worn-out cloths in order to prevent
having your purse being snatched, thus misplacing responsibility from the
criminal to the victim.
Rape
Patterns
Forcible
rape is the most common form of rape reported. Here, the act of penile
penetration is achieved by force or the threat of force. Several subcategories
of forcible rape can be distinguished, although most of these are not legally
defined terms.
Date
and Acquaintance Rape
A
survey of
acquaintance rape at 32 different colleges showed that one out of ten women had
been raped in the previous year, and one in six had been the victim of an
attempted rape. Fifty-seven percent of the actual rapes occurred on dates, and
in 84 percent of the cases, the victims knew their assailant. Other studies
suggest that women are four times more likely to be raped by someone they know
than by a stranger.
Men
who commit rape
There
has not been much research on men who commit date rape. Some seem to be driven
by a traditional view of the male’s role as sexual aggressor, which leads them
to misinterpret cues (even direct, verbal statements) from the woman. Others
are simply intent on “scoring,” believing that male-female relations are a sort
of game and that the woman “owes” them sex.
Male
attitudes about women and rape are slowly changing to a more understanding
nature, but there are still some men who see women as sex objects. Much more
education is needed to understand sexual rights and the impact rape has on the
individual.
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