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The Feminist Version of Rape (Cathryn Crawford)
The Washington Dispatch ^ | August 15, 2003 | Cathryn Crawford

Posted on 08/15/2003 7:38:41 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds

There is a movement in this country to push women towards a victim status, towards an attitude that implies that a woman is simply a passive person, someone whom men can and will always take advantage of, both in public and private life. This movement is fomented and spearheaded by the liberal feminists, who believe that men are monsters and women are powerless victims against them (a clear contradiction to true feminism).

The symptom of this movement is that the liberal feminists have taken hold of the word rape and its connotations and associations and twisted it to mean something that it was never meant to. Rape, by definition, is anyone forcefully, through harm or threat of harm, forcing another person to have sex with them - there must be a clearly expressed lack of consent and/or coercion by force or threat of force. According to New York law, "forcible compulsion" ( i.e. rape) is defined as "to compel by either the use of physical force or a threat express or implied which places a person in fear of immediate death or physical injury to himself, herself, or another person."

However, this definition, which is widely mirrored in all fifty states, has been watered down. According to Dr. Andrea Parrot, a psychiatry professor at Cornell University who specializes in studying date rape, "Any sexual intercourse without mutual desire is a form of rape. Anyone who is psychologically or physically pressured into sexual contact is as much a victim of rape as the person who is attacked on the streets."

Now university counselors can convince twenty year old girls that since their boyfriend whined until they finally had sex with them, they’ve been raped. After all, under Dr. Parrot’s definition, that is classified as psychological pressure.

In many studies performed, especially those that focused on date rape or acquaintance rape, the women who were interviewed said that they did not realize that they had been raped until the interviewer described rape scenarios involving psychological pressure. These women did not feel violated, and the counselors and interviewers have to convince them that they have, indeed, been raped.

For example, the most comprehensive and most widely stated study for on-campus sex crimes is Mary Koss’s Ms. Campus Project on Sexual Assault. It was conducted through surveys, and it speculates that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. However - Koss obtained her data concerning the "incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression" with a 10-item survey featuring questions such as, "Have you given in to sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because you were overwhelmed by a man's continual arguments and pressure?" and "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force to make you?". Questions 9 and 10 (which also refer to the use of force or threats of violence) seem to fit the conventional picture of rape, but consider question 8: "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?" According to psychiatry, this question would be "double-barreled": What, exactly, is it asking? The meaning could change simply by what questions were asked leading up to this specific one. Does this mean that after a man buys you a drink and then you have sex with him, he has raped you? Did the girl express that she “didn’t want to,” or did the “didn’t want to” feelings come after the fact?

There has to be a clear boundary between what is and isn’t rape. Rape is not confusion or negative feelings after sex. Rape is not feeling that you don’t want to have sex, but giving in to please your boyfriend. That simply isn’t rape. Rape is when you are forced to have sex with someone, against your will, and when you clearly express that you are not complying with the situation.

This new way of defining rape, the feminist version of rape, gives women a way to simply be a passive victim, externalizing any feelings of guilt and shame about the sexual encounter and forcing responsibility onto the other person involved. Sadly, because of this attitude, rape is becoming just another everyday occurrence, something that some girls say with a shrug, as though it’s a normal part of life and is no big deal. Date rape has become the new campus hot button, and it has become so normal that girls discuss it as though it’s a trivial, almost normal thing to experience.

This attitude not only cheapens the value and independence of women, it sets women up for failure, and teaches them that they are victims of predatory men. More importantly, it trivializes sexual violence by making it something that is no longer horrible, but something that is typical and representative of the whole of society. It has become an expectation, and when true sexual trauma occurs, it gets swept away in the tide of indifference that this attitude has fostered.

Cathryn Crawford is a student from Texas. She can be reached at feedback@washingtondispatch.com.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: cathryncrawford
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To: Cathryn Crawford
**Does this mean that if a man buys a woman several drinks and she gets drunk and sleeps with him, it's rape?**

If she's so drunk and cannot give proper consent, perhaps so.

41 posted on 08/15/2003 8:37:21 AM PDT by mrs tiggywinkle
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To: Cathryn Crawford
...depending on the circumstances!
42 posted on 08/15/2003 8:37:41 AM PDT by mrs tiggywinkle
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To: Cathryn Crawford
**That, in fact, trivializes the trauma of true rape victims**

agreed.

43 posted on 08/15/2003 8:38:51 AM PDT by mrs tiggywinkle
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To: mrs tiggywinkle
This was a long time ago, and at the time she was only 13... The guy who did it got time in the county farm, he was 16 at the time.

When it got out, he had a whole passel of friends, relatives etc... waiting for him. Country Justice...
44 posted on 08/15/2003 8:39:37 AM PDT by Chad Fairbanks (The wages of sin are death, but by the time FICA and SSI are taken, it's just sorta tired feeling)
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To: Centurion2000; Scenic Sounds
Rape is violence or threatened violence.

And, as Scenic pointed out, if a woman is passed out and a man takes advantage of her, that also is rape.

I believe that that is specifically stated in the law in most states.

45 posted on 08/15/2003 8:39:45 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford (Traficant is a real conservative who will stomp out the socialist rats but good!)
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To: Chad Fairbanks
13?! Dear God...
46 posted on 08/15/2003 8:40:38 AM PDT by mrs tiggywinkle
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To: Billthedrill
These are not happy people,

There are some very unhappy people out there and the legal system just doesn't offer much help to them. There are of course women who do in fact misuse the legal system in this area, but they have to fabricate a story in order to do so. The law of rape hasn't changed all that much despite the views of what another poster above called the Liberal Clitorati.

47 posted on 08/15/2003 8:41:21 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (All roads lead to reality. That's why I smile.)
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To: Scenic Sounds; Billthedrill; Chad Fairbanks
I'm not arguing that the law is wrong.

I am arguing that the attitude that is being fostered among women by liberal feminists is wrong.

48 posted on 08/15/2003 8:44:03 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford (Traficant is a real conservative who will stomp out the socialist rats but good!)
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To: Scenic Sounds
"....some of them just are just asking for a good licking. ;-)


And even like it?

49 posted on 08/15/2003 8:45:49 AM PDT by justshe ("Do you trust a Democrat to protect America?")
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To: Scenic Sounds
GREAT JOB AS USUAL.
50 posted on 08/15/2003 8:45:52 AM PDT by Quix (DEFEAT her unroyal lowness, her hideous heinous Bwitch Shrillery Antoinette de Fosterizer de MarxNOW)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
The more women claim to be raped (of course, I am not trivializing true rape), the more use that word will get, and the more common and everday it will become.

It might be true that the misuse of the term rape by some will affect the perceptions of others, but keep in mind that (unlike, say, securities regulation) sex is a topic that nearly everyone deals with in their everyday lives. You shouldn't become too old in this country before you begin to separate and learn to distinguish between consensual and nonconsensual sex. I think most folks have little difficulty distinguishing between sex that is nonconsenual and consensual sex which is later regretted. And, for those who can't make that distinction, we have the legal system to remind them.

51 posted on 08/15/2003 8:48:08 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (All roads lead to reality. That's why I smile.)
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To: Scenic Sounds
The new line is no means no. Right!
52 posted on 08/15/2003 8:49:24 AM PDT by novacation
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To: Scenic Sounds
INTSUM
53 posted on 08/15/2003 8:50:17 AM PDT by LiteKeeper
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To: Cathryn Crawford
"Rape is a question of consent. Rape is not, however, negative feelings after sex, feeling guilty after sex, or giving in to someone who is pestering you for sex. It's simply not."

OK then, what do you call the negative feelings after not having sex?

54 posted on 08/15/2003 8:50:42 AM PDT by HighWheeler
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To: Centurion2000
Any woman that can't figure out how to say NO and mean it should not be able to claim rape. Rape is violence or threatened violence.

Yeah, rape is just intercourse without consent. Intercourse without consent is a form of violence.

55 posted on 08/15/2003 8:51:03 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (All roads lead to reality. That's why I smile.)
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To: mrs tiggywinkle
Yeah... it's a long sorry story, and being a 15 year old kid at the time it really opened up my eyes about a lot of things. Remind me to tell it to you sometime, when I have nothing better to do...
56 posted on 08/15/2003 8:52:07 AM PDT by Chad Fairbanks (The wages of sin are death, but by the time FICA and SSI are taken, it's just sorta tired feeling)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
YES! You are absolutely right!
57 posted on 08/15/2003 8:52:53 AM PDT by LiteKeeper
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To: Scenic Sounds
University campuses are rife with posters about "date rape", and throw around the completely bogus statistic that 1 in 4 women will be date raped in their lifetime. I even found a statistic saying that 1 in 5 dates end in rape. That's outrageously wrong.

The constant barrage of incorrect info that young women are confronted with serves to solidify the notion that women are powerless, especially in sexual relationships with men.

This is a classic feminist outlook.

58 posted on 08/15/2003 8:52:54 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford (Traficant is a real conservative who will stomp out the socialist rats but good!)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
"The more women claim to be raped (of course, I am not trivializing true rape), the more use that word will get, and the more common and everday it will become. "



One must also factor in, however, that the increase in reporting/claims of reported rape, is due in part to a 'safer' atmosphere to actually REPORT the incident. Most rape victims are no longer brutalized on the witness stand by defense attorneys ("cotton vs nylon panties" as a sign she wanted it type defenses).
59 posted on 08/15/2003 8:53:37 AM PDT by justshe ("Do you trust a Democrat to protect America?")
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To: LiteKeeper
YES! You are absolutely right!

Somebody appreciates me. :-)

60 posted on 08/15/2003 8:53:56 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford (Traficant is a real conservative who will stomp out the socialist rats but good!)
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