Term Paper on "Rape on October 17, 2005"

Term Paper 7 pages (1845 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Rape

On October 17, 2005, the Associated Press reported that according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, murders across the United States fell for the first time in five years during the year 2004, however rapes actually increased (Sherman pp). In fact, the number of rapes has increased in three of the past four years by.8% to 94,635 rapes reported in 2004, up more than 750 rapes reported in 2003 (Sherman pp). The F.B.I. data shows that rapes are up nearly 5% from the year 2000 (Sherman pp).

In the March 22, 2001 of Hypatia, Eric Reitan notes that during recent years there has been considerable public controversy over how rape should be defined (Reitan pp). Rape is a potent word that is laden with emotive and evaluative significance, and to reference a sexual act as rape is to attach the harshest sort of condemnation (Reitan pp). Reitan points out that in the wake of sustained critiques of a patriarchal system that has understood rape as basically a violation of the property rights of men, feminist scholars have proposed alternative definitions that "re-conceive" rape according to the experience of women (Reitan pp). Historically, the concept of rape has severed to protect a man's right to exclusive sexual access to his woman, while the feminist re-definition of rape empowers women to assert control over their own bodies (Reitan pp).

This re-definition of rape has met with varying degrees of resistance, especially from men who might recognize that their own sexual behaviors might qualify as rape (Reitan pp). Norman Podhoretz writes that the definition of rape, which has in the past always been understood to mean the use of violence or the threat of it to force sex upon an unwilling woman, is now being broadened to include a whole range of sexual relations that have never before in all of human experience been regarded as rape" (Reitan pp).

Podhoretz actually accuses feminists of engaging in "a brazen campaign to redefine seduction as a form of rape," and reasons that "everyone has always understood that it was rape when a man used a weapon or physical violence or threat of it to force a woman into sex" and that feminists have extended the concept so that the use of "verbal and psychological" means to overcome a woman's resistance constitutes rape...but overcoming a woman's resistance by "verbal and psychological means has in the past been universally known as seduction" (Reitan pp).

Lois Pineau offers a sub-class definition of rape, known as date rape, which is non-aggravated sexual assault, nonconsensual sex that does not involve physical injury or explicit threat of injury, and is often mistaken for seduction (Reitan pp). In July 2000, Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Amanda Vanstone, said that the latest research from the Australian Institute of Criminology indicated that date rape was an under-reported crime (Date pp). Vanstone highlighted the fact that sex through physical violence is clearly viewed as rape, date rape, on the other hand, may not involve physical violence (Date pp). There are other forms of coercion to obtain sex that is also considered rape, such as "fear of violence, detention, intoxication with alcohol or a drug, and deception can all be factors relevant to whether the woman has consented (Date pp). Vanstone said that date rape has been an offence for a very long time, yet only recently has been acknowledged as a serious social problem (Date pp). According to a 1996 survey, almost 90% of rape victims know the perpetrator, and of these victims, some 25% were the current partner, boyfriend or date of the victim in the twelve months prior to the survey, and if previous partners are added in, the percentage is as high as 37% (Date pp). However, date rape is rarely reported to law enforcement authorities, and most surveys indicate that the number of sexual assaults reported to the police are only the tip of the iceberg (Date pp).

Mitchell Merback writes that it is commonly understood among social scientist that Western legal culture enables the ideological construction of rape "principally through the control of discourse, or 'talk,' in the courtroom, a privileging of the defendant's power to reconstruct and thereby represent events. Most of these straggles over representation hinge on the issue of consent" (Merback pp). And the issue of consent is a slippery legal concept in any society that accepts as normative some degree of coercion in sexual relations (Merback pp). However it is not only ethical norms and existing relations of domination that produce standards for what constitutes voluntary agreement, the historically shifting conceptions of human consciousness also play a part (Merback pp). For example, what becomes the standard for consent when the victim's ability to give consent has been enfeebled by unseen forces, such as date-rape drugs (Merback pp).

In 1998, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that 371 out of 100,000 women would become the victim of rape each year, and incidences could reach as high as one-in-four when attempted rape and coercion are also considered over a woman's lifetime (Burke pp).

On college campuses rapes are usually committed by someone known to the victim, and according to one study, 30% of college men disclosed that they would rape a woman if they could be assured that they would never be caught (Burke pp). Another study found that 26% of college men admitted to having made a forceful attempt at sexual intercourse that resulted in observable distress to the woman, such as screaming, fighting, pleading, or crying (Burke pp).

According to resent research, college students appear to be at a higher risk for rape than the general population (Burke pp). Women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are most likely to be the victim of sexual assault, often with the victim, rapist, or both, under the influence of alcohol and drugs (Burke pp). One study revealed that 39% of male students surveyed indicated that it was "all right" to force sex if a girl was "stoned" or "drunk" (Burke pp).

Research conducted shows that rape-tolerant attitudes are one of the most common contributors to the high prevalence of rape among college students, and that people who accept rape stereotypes, adversarial sexual beliefs, and traditional sex role attitudes demostrate a greater acceptance of rape, and generally condemn the victims (Burke pp). Research further suggests that males consistently hold more rape-tolerant attitudes that may be related to actual involvement in sexual violence (Burke pp). Rape tolerant attitudes are generally comprised of the following:

1). Adversarial sexual beliefs: beliefs such as women are responsible for rape.

2). Traditionality: women are viewed as passive, sweet, and gentle, unlike men who are seen as aggressors, initiators, and proud of their sexual ability.

3). Acceptance of rape stereotypes: attitudes that prostitutes cannot be raped, rape only occurs when the victim has a weapon, or it is not definitely rape if a woman is intoxicated or wearing revealing clothes.

Burke pp).

Most research indicates significance for empathy and prior victimization of rape of knowing a rape survivor (Burke pp).

According to the National Violence Against Women survey, more than half of all women report an experience of attempted or completed rape and/or physical assault, and while both men and women are victims of rape, women are disproportionately affected, in fact, one in six women compared with one in thirty-three men report having experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes (Hensley pp).

A large proportion of women who are sexually assaulted or raped experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder within two-week following the assault (Hensley pp). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -Text Revision from the American Psychiatric Association groups posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms into three clusters:

1). Intrusion (re-experiencing of the trauma, including nightmares, flashbacks, recurrent thoughts)

2). Avoidance (avoiding trauma-related stimuli, social withdrawal, emotional numbing)

3). Hyperarousal (increased emotional arousal, exaggerated startle response, irritability)

Hensley pp).

Most women experience these symptoms in the immediate aftermath of rape, however PTSD continues to persist in survivors at lifetime rates between 30% and 50% (Hensley pp).

When symptoms continue for three months or longer and meet the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for chronic PTSD, then it is more likely that survivors will also experience "comorbid" disorders including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, and they are also more likely to experience greater physical distress such as chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, headaches, upset stomach, back pains, acne, and indigestion, during the year following rape and have the need to utilize medical services at higher rates than do women who have not been raped (Hensley pp). Women who have been injured during the attack, were threatened by the perpetrator that they may be hurt or killed, have a history of prior assault, or have experienced negative interactions with family, peers, or law enforcement systems, are at a higher risk for chronic posttraumatic stress syndrome (Hensley pp).

There are several important issues that mental health counselors need to explore when counseling a survivor of… READ MORE

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