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.
You're drawing a conclusion not in evidence. You are implying that their perceptions of the event were altered during the interview. In fact there is no innate knowledge of what constitutes the legal definition of rape, or really any other crime, for that matter. It is all learned information.
In many cultures, especially those back in the day, where there were marriages at all, they were probably arranged, and certainly the idea of female consent was not high on the list. If you were able to sit down and ask them whether they were raped in any of the above situations, they'd stare at you in bewilderment.
The point is that consent issues are fuzzy, even to those involved, even to the ultimate victims. Did they imply consent by being friendly (many rape victims search their own behaviors for blame)? Do they know what level of consent the law considers the trip point?
Being "informed" and being "convinced" can lead to the same "realization." You show no evidence to determine which is the root cause.
Do you think that they're really so different from their mothers?
Have you ever talked to their dads? LOL.
Oh, I do. That's what gets you. :-)
Stay Safe !
Pray for GW and The Truth
Did you know that according to WAR, you'd be a female harrasser for a statement like that?
Fortunately, we have a sense of humor here. :-)
Yes, as far as I know.
Absolutely, but their golden boy committed the crime, so it's overlooked. After all, they don't want to lose their right to slaughter their own offspring.
Good question. If he weren't a supporter, they would probably like to, but they'd still run into the anatomical issue.
Now, don't make me get graphic here! LOL. ;-)
If you boil down the feminist thinking on rape, it often seems to reduce to "sex with men." As often as not, they promote the message that sex (with men) is not meant to be enjoyed, or that the woman should at least feel guilty for giving a man pleasure. They encourage women to constantly worry about the motives, pleasure level, etc. of their partners rather than simply enjoying sex. It is like concsciously deciding to live a life of abject poverty in order to avoid paying taxes.
The irony is that they create an atmosphere of politically correct sexual prohibition that inhibits women sexually as much as the Catholic church or aberrant puritanism ever did.
You're absolutely right, and, on another note - if a woman has consensual sex with, say, her boyfriend's brother, or has a one-night stand, isn't guilt actually normal? Guilt doesn't indicate rape.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.