Rape

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Rape is a form of assault involving the non-consensual use of the sexual organs of another person's body. The assailant can be of either sex, as can their target.

Rape is generally considered one of the most serious sex crimes and can be very difficult to prosecute. Sexual violence can also be a war crime under international law. Consent may be absent due to duress arising from the use, or threat, of overwhelming force or violence, or because the subject is incapacitated in some way such as intoxication and/or underage innocence. In some cases coercion might also be used to negate consent.

There is no universally accepted distinction between rape and other forms of assault involving one or both participant's sexual organs. Some criminal codes explicitly consider all kinds of forced sexual activity to be rape, whereas in others only acts involving a coupled penis and vagina are included. Some restrict rape only to instances where a woman is forced by a man. Other assaults involving sexual organs in some way may then be grouped under the term sexual assault. In some jurisdictions rape may also be committed by assailants using objects, rather than their own body parts, against the sexual organs of their target.

Men who rape women are often seen as the most common type of rapist but, in fact, men who rape other men (in prison) are probably the most common type of male rapist in the US today due to the drastic decline in the rape of women by men (Kipnis, Laura (2006), The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability). In recent years, there have been an increasing number of female assailants being convicted for the rape of men. However, due to social, and political, and legal double standards, female rapists who rape other women are almost never caught or convicted[6]. Due to incorrect social steoreotypes and reverse-sexist double standards, research on female rapists is rare to the detriment of their victims both female and male [7].

Contents 1 History of rape 2 Definitions of rape 3 Types of rape 4 Effect of rape 5 Sociobiological analysis of rape 6 Loss of control and privacy 7 Challenges to conventional assumptions 8 College campus rape 9 Media Attention 10 Notes 11 Further reading 11.1 Academic and reference books 11.2 Others 12 External links

[edit] History of rape

Main article: History of rape

The word rape originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. The word originally had no sexual connotation and is still used generically in English (see rape (word)). The history of rape, and the alterations of its meaning, is quite complex. The Latin term for the act of rape itself is raptus.

Many developments in law took place during the twentieth century. These included landmark decisions by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that defined rape as an institutionalized weapon of war and a crime of genocide. The first female judge of the tribunal Navanethem Pillay played a key part in those decisions. Similarly, many other changes occurred through the development of the feminist movement and perceptions of women's rights.

[edit] Definitions of rape

In most jurisdictions the crime of rape is defined to occur when sexual intercourse takes place (or is attempted) without valid consent of one of the parties involved. It is frequently defined as penetration of the anus or the vagina by a penis. In some jurisdictions the penetration need not be by penis but can be by other body parts (e.g. one or more fingers, i.e. digital penetration) or by objects (e.g. a bottle), or may involve the forcing of a vagina or anus onto a penis by a female assailant.

Other jurisdictions expand the definition of rape to include other acts committed using the sexual organs of one or both of the parties, such as oral copulation and masturbation, for example, again enacted without valid consent.

The lack of valid consent does not necessarily mean that the victim explicitly refused to give consent. Generally, consent is considered invalid if it is obtained from someone who is:

• Under any kind of duress (force, violence, blackmail, etc.)
• Judgementally impaired or incapacitated by alcohol or drugs (legal or otherwise)
• Mentally impaired whether by illness or developmental disability
• Below the age of consent defined in that jurisdiction

In Pakistan, under the Hudood Ordinance in force from 1979 to 2006, the definition of rape required a woman to have supporting evidence from four male eye-witnesses. The sexual act was otherwise considered adultery.

Statutory rape refers to a sexual act that is considered rape by the law regardless of whether it was coercive or consensual. Such laws are common and exist in order to prevent adults from having sex with minors who are deemed legally unable to give effective informed consent.

Sexual activity involving a person below the age of consent is often known as statutory rape although some jurisdictions prefer terms such as "unlawful sexual intercourse" to avoid the forcible connotation of the word.

The Brazilian Penal Code defines rape as unconsensual vaginal sex. Therefore, unlike most of Europe and the Americas, male rape, anal rape, and oral rape are not considered to be rape crimes. Instead, such an act is a "violent attempt against someone's modesty" ("Atentado violento ao pudor"). The penalty, however, is the same.

The definition used by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgement was ""a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive". ^[1]

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[edit] Types of rape

Main article: Types of rape

There are several types of rape, generally categorized by reference to the situation in which it occurs, the sex or characteristics of the victim, and/or the sex or chacteristics of the perpetrator. It is important to note that almost all rape research and reporting to date has been limited to male-female forms of rape. Research on male-male and female-male is beginning to be done. However, almost no research has been done on female-female rape. Such widespread research biases and social double standards can and do cause systemic biases in how rape is reported and acknowledged. Therefore, this section is far from a complete summary of how rape is perpetrated in all it's forms. Sometimes animals are accused of rape, yet sometimes it is unclear who was doing the raping in these situations.^[2] Women can be charged with rape, it is usually in underage male situations,[8], however it can be rape of an adult on some few occasions.[9]

[edit] Effect of rape

After being raped it is common for the victim to experience intense, and sometimes unpredictable, emotions, and they may find it hard to deal with their memories of the event. Victims can be severely traumatized by the assault and may have difficulty functioning as well as they had been used to prior to the assault, with disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits, for example. They may feel jumpy or be on edge. In the month(s) immediately following the assault these problems may be severe and very upsetting and may prevent the victim from revealing their ordeal to friends or family, or seeking police or medical assistance. This may result in Acute Stress Disorder. Symptoms of this are:

• feeling numb and detached, like being in a daze or a dream, or feeling that the world is strange and unreal
• difficulty remembering important parts of the assault
• reliving the assault through repeated thoughts, memories, or nightmares
• avoidance of things -places, thoughts, feelings- that remind the victim of the assault
• anxiety or increased arousal (difficulty sleeping, concentrating, etc.)
• avoidance of social life or place of rape

In 1972, Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holstrom embarked on a study of the psychological effects of rape. They interviewed and counseled rape victims at the emergency room of Boston City Hospital and observed a pattern of reactions which they named Rape Trauma Syndrome.^[3]. They defined this as having two components which they called the Acute and Reorganisation phases.

During the Acute Phase the survivor may experience shock and disbelief, or feel frozen, and may attempt to disconnect themselves from "the person who was raped". They may feel humiliated, confused, dirty, ashamed, or at fault for the assault, particularly if the assailant was an acquaintance. Extreme nightmares, heightened anxiety, frequent flashbacks, and a strong attempt to disconnect from one's emotions are common, as is denial - trying to convince oneself that the assault did not actually occur. If raped by an acquaintance the victim may try to protect the perpetrator.

Victims may respond to the rape in either an expressive or a controlled way. The expressive way involves obvious outward effects and emotions such as crying, shaking, rage, tenseness, ironic and uncomfortable laughter (part of their denial), and restlessness. The controlled way occurs when the victim appears to be quite calm and rational about the situation, even if facing severe internal turmoil. There is no single response to rape; every individual deals with their intensely traumatic emotions differently.

After the acute phase, the Reorganization Phase begins and the survivor attempts to recreate the world that they once knew. This stage may last for months or even years following the assault and despite their best efforts this phase is often riddled with feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and anxiety. Emotions such as anger, anxiety, denial, and loss (of security) surface. Development of an inability to trust is a frequently consequence of sexual assault. This loss of the fundamental need for security can wreak havoc on the survivor’s life, causing them to feel powerless and not in control of their body. They may feel unsafe, which can cause a heightened state of anxiety as well as difficulty with intimate relationships. Victims may attempt to return to normal social interaction (i.e. go out to social engagements) and find themselves unable to do so and their attempts to re-establish themselves in relationships may be hindered by a lack of trust.

Survivors often isolate themselves from their support network either physically or emotionally. The survivor may feel disconnected from peers as a result of the perceived personal experience. The shattering of trust can adversely affect intimate relationships, as survivors may have a heightened suspicion of others' motives and feelings.

Another area of research referred to as "second victimization," has to do with the caustic and interrogatory way the police and medical staff sometimes treat people who allege rape or sexual assault.

Sexual assault can affect an individual forever, changing them into someone living in a constant state of turmoil. In extreme cases the outcome may be suicide.[10]

[edit] Sociobiological analysis of rape

Some argue that rape, as a reproductive strategy, is encountered in many instances in the animal kingdom (ie: ducks, geese, and certain dolphin species).^[4].^[5] It is difficult to determine what constitutes rape among animals, as the lack of informed consent defines rape amongst humans. See also Non-human animal sexuality.

Some sociobiologists argue that our ability to understand rape, and thereby prevent it, is severely compromised because its basis in human evolution has been ignored.^[6] Some studies indicate that it is an evolutionary strategy for certain males who lack the ability to persuade the female by non-violent means to pass on their genes.^[7]

American social critic, intellectual, author and teacher Camille Paglia and some sociobiologists have argued that the victim-blaming intuition may have a non-psychological component in some cases, because a few sociobiological models suggest that it may be genetically-ingrained for certain men and women to allow themselves to be more vulnerable to rape, and that this may be a biological feature of members of the species.^[8]

[edit] Loss of control and privacy

Rape has been regarded as "a crime of violence and control" since the 1970s. Psychological analysis literature identifies control as a key component in most definitions of privacy:

• "Privacy is not the absence of other people from one's presence, but the control over the contact one has with them." (Pedersen, D. 1997).
• "Selective control of access to the self." (Margulis, 2003)

Control is important in providing:

• what we need for normal psychological functioning;
• stable interpersonal relationships; and
• personal development. (Pedersen, D. 1997)

Violation of privacy or "control" comes in many forms, with sexual assault and the resulting psychological traumas being one of the most explicit forms. Many victims of sexual assault suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, which also center around control issues. Therefore, some argue that it makes more sense to look at the issue of sexual assault as an invasion of privacy (Mclean, D. 1995):

The more comfortable a person is with talking about invasion of privacy and in insisting that he or she has privacy that deserves respect, the clearer that person’s understanding of rape will be…

Approaching rape through the concept of privacy helps bypass certain social stigmas.

[edit] Challenges to conventional assumptions

Many reports suggest that rape statistics are not reliable because some kinds of rape are excluded from official reports altogether, (The FBI's definition for example excludes all rapes except forcible rapes of adult females by males), because a significant number of rapes go unreported even when they are included as reportable rapes, and also because a significant number of rapes reported to the police cannot be verified and possibly did not occur.^[9]

In addition, rape by women is a barely understood phenomenon that is widely denied in most societies and one that usually causes surprise, shock, or utter revulsion.^[10]

In the United States, the adjusted per-capita victimization rate of rape has declined from about 2.4 per 1000 people (age 12 and above) in 1980 to about 0.4 per 1000 people, a decline of about 85%. ^[11]

[edit] College campus rape

Some studies indicate a particular problem with rape on college campuses. The subject attracts attention because of the presence of many young men and women, often experiencing their first years away from home together, in an environment where prior controls, supervision and discipline are to a great extent removed, and where youths are in a position to engage in adult behavior with some anticipating new activities and freedoms, whilst others are left more vulnerable and less supervised.

In the United States, students are allegedly most vulnerable to rape during the first few weeks of the freshman and sophomore years. According to the U.S. Justice Department, 3.8% of college women and 1.7% of men were victims of completed rape within a six month period, and in 90% of the cases the attacker was known to the victim. In a typical college career, one-fifth to one-fourth were victims of attempted or completed rape. According to one 1992 study, one out of twelve college aged men and one in every twenty college aged women committed rape, making each responsible for an average of three rapes. ^[12] [11]

The Department of Justice study also found that in "about half of the incidents categorized as completed rapes, the women or man did not consider the incident to be a rape." [12] According to the Journal of Counseling and Development, women aged 16–24 are at the highest risk of sexual assault. One study has concluded that as many as one in four college aged females has been a victim of either rape or attempted rape. ^[13]

[edit] Media Attention

• In January 2007, there was outcry over a controversial explicit scene in the movie Hounddog where Dakota Fanning plays a 12 year old girl who is raped.
• A young male rapist has been attacking other males in the Houston, Texas suburb of Baytown. The last reported attack was on November 30, 2006. This is unusual in that some serial male-on-male rapes are not reported in part due to the emasculating and humiliating nature of this crime as felt by its victims.^[14]
• 2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal
• An ongoing problem with sexual assault in the U.S. military has resulted in a series of scandals that have received extensive media coverage.
  • Tailhook scandal
  • Assaults on trainees at Aberdeen, MD, 1996
  • Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal
• Take Back the News
• The Accused, a 1988 movie about rape.
• A controversial storyline involving a brutal and violent rape appeared in 2005 on General Hospital.
• In the episode "Shout" on the television show Degrassi: The Next Generation, the character Paige Michelcuck was date raped at a party.
• In the recent films The Hills Have Eyes and The Hills Have Eyes 2, brutal rape scenes have been included with no meaning to the plot. The Hills Have Eyes 2 also showed clips of the rape scene(s) in the previews.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Fourth Annual Report of ICTR to the General Assembly (1999), accessed at [1] March 23, 2007
2. ^ [2]
3. ^ Burgess A., & Holmstrom L. (1974). Rape Trauma Syndrome. American Journal of Psychiatry.
4. ^ Gowaty, P.A. & Buschhaus, N., "Functions of aggressive and forced copulations in birds: female resistance and the CODE hypothesis," American Zoologist (1997).
5. ^ Gowaty, P.A. & Buschhaus, N., supra.
6. ^ Thornhill, R., & Palmer, C.T., A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (MIT Press, 2001).
7. ^ Thornhill, R., & Thornhill, N.W., "Human rape: an evolutionary analysis," Ethology and Sociobiology (1983).
8. ^ Paglia, C., Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale University Press, 1990).
9. ^ Dick Haws, "The Elusive Numbers on False Rape," Columbian Journalism Review (November/December 1997).[3]
10. ^ Myriam S. Denov, Perspectives on Female Sex Offending: A Culture of Denial (Ashgate Publishing 2004) - ISBN 0-7546-3565-1.
11. ^ Anthony D'Amato. Porn Up, Rape Down. Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 913013
12. ^ Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, 1992
13. ^ Warshaw, R. (1994). I never called it rape. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.[4]
14. ^ Porretto, J., "Rapist targets young men in Texas," Prescott Herald (12/2006).[5]

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Academic and reference books

Reference books

[edit] Others

• de Becker, Gavin (1998). The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence. New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-22619-8 (recognising and handling dangerous people and situations)
• Doe, Jane (2003). The Real Story of Jane Doe. Toronto: Random House.
• Ghiglieri, Michael P. (1999). The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Violence. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999. ISBN 073820076X.
• Hillers, Marta. A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City. Translated by Anthes Bell. ISBN 0-8050-7540-2.
• McElroy, Wendy (2001). Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 0786411449.
• Kipnes, Laura, The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability. ISBN 0-375-42417-2.
• Sebold, Alice (1999). Lucky: A Memoir. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0684857820. (author recounts her own rape at the age of 18)

[edit] External links

• Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN)
• After Silence, Non-Profit Online Community for Rape Survivors
• Rape Crisis Information Pathfinder Research
• An Abuse, Rape and Domestic Violence Aid and Resource Collection
• Speaking Out About Rape
• Pandora's Aquarium, a message board for rape and sexual abuse survivors
• The Awareness Center, Inc. (Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault)
• Men Can Stop Rape
• Rape Victim Advocates
• When It Happens To Men
• Rape of Tamil Women: Sri Lanka's Weapon of War
• Sexual Assault Care Centre Scarborough, An extensive resource for victims/survivors of rape/sexual assault.