Rape
Related: crime - rape (fantasy) - representation of rape in fiction - sex crime - violence
"Rape is an act of desperation, a confession of envy and exclusion. All men- even, I have written, Jesus himself- began as flecks of tissue inside a woman's womb. Every boy must stagger out of the shadow of a mother goddess, whom he never fully escapes....Women have it. Men want it. What is it? The secret of life..."(Vamps & Tramps p. 32) - Camille Paglia
"Indeed, the existence of rape in any form is beneficial to the ruling class of white males. For rape is a kind of terrorism which severely limits the freedom of women and makes women dependent on men...This oppressive attitude towards women finds its institutionalization in the traditional family." --Susan Griffin in Rape: The All-American Crime, an essay which appeared in the September 1971 issue of Ramparts.
"I've seen some soft-porn movies, which seem to have the common theme that a great many women would really like to be raped, and after being thus 'awakened to sex' will become lascivious nymphomaniacs. That... provides a sort of rationale for rape: 'they want it, and anyway, it's really doing them a favor'" -- Male respondent, Hite, 1981, p. 787.
Definition
Rape is a crime of engaging another person into sexual activity without consent of the person. It is is regarded by many as one of the most grievous crimes, surpassed only by murder. The dictionary definition of the word rape includes any serious and destructive assault against a person or people, but in contemporary English the term is overwhelmingly associated with sexual assault. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape [Aug 2004]
Sexual Assault [...]
Sexual assault is a violent crime consisting of unwilling sexual contact with another person. Often the act is accomplished by force sufficient to cause physical injury. At other times, even though no lasting physical injury is sustained, the psychological damage done by this intimate violation is substantial and calls for tact and sensitivity from persons who would help the victim. In Western countries, forcible rape is considered a medical emergency and survivors are encouraged to call for help to report this criminal act and medical emergency. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault [Aug 2004]Sexual Abuse [...]
Sexual abuse is physical or psychological abuse that involves sexual behavior. Most forms of sexual abuse are crimes in most countries. Forms of sexual abuse include rape, indecent assault and indecent exposure.
Women and children are the most frequent victims of sexual abuse, but men can also suffer from it. Most sexual abusers are male, but there is a significant minority of female sexual abusers.
Sexual abuse is non-consensual, and should be distinguished from consensual sex, or activities such as BDSM. Many activities which are acceptable between consenting partners would constitute sexual abuse if forced on a non-consenting person. It should be noted that people under the age of consent are presumed to be unable to give consent to any form of sexual activity. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse [Jul 2004]
Sexual Violence [...]
Wikipedia redirects Sexual Violence to Rape http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence [Aug 2004]"Rape" among animal species
It is difficult to determine to what extent the idea of rape can be extended to intercourse in other animal species, as the defining attribute of rape in humans is the lack of informed consent, which is difficult to determine in other animals.However, it is clear that sometimes an animal is sexually approached by another animal and penetrated while it is clear that it does not want it, e.g. it tries to run away. This has led to some people describing forcible penetration in animals as "natural" behavior, with the connotation that rape in humans is also "natural". This is the subject of considerable controversy. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape
Bibliography
The bibliography contains literature about the history of rape, sexual child abuse, forced prostitution and sexual violence in general. Articles, books and other tools, dealing exclusively or in parts with the topic, are listed. Print and electronic resources are considered. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are available online, for example, electronic abstracts or full-texts of print articles. http://de.geocities.com/history_guide/horb/The Genocide Hypothesis
If there was only one man left in the world, and only one woman. And she wasn't into it, but without intercourse humanity would die? Surely rape in that case would be better than murder, or genocide, which is what her continued and consistent refusal would be, possibly the extinction of all intelligent life in the universe? -- Momus, source: http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3501134Violence and Sex
"Modern feminism's most naive formulation is its assertion that rape is a crime of violence but not of sex, that it is merely power masquerading as sex. But sex is power, and all power is inherently aggressive. Rape is male power fighting female power. It is no more to be excused than is murder or any other assault on another's civil rights. Society is woman's protection against rape, not, as some feminists absurdly maintain, the cause of rape." - Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae
Sociobiological theories of rape
Some animals appear to show behavior which resembles rape in humans, in particular combining sexual intercourse with violent assault, such as observed in ducks and geese.It is difficult to determine to what extent the idea of rape can be extended to intercourse in other animal species, as the defining attribute of rape in humans is the lack of informed consent, which is difficult to determine in other animals.
However, it is clear that sometimes an animal is sexually approached by another animal and penetrated while it is clear that it does not want it, e.g. it tries to run away. This has led to some people describing forcible penetration in animals as "natural" behavior, with the connotation that rape in humans is also in some way "natural". This is the subject of considerable controversy.
Some sociobiologists argue that our ability to understand rape and thereby prevent and treat it is severely compromised because its basis in human evolution has been ignored. Sociobiological theories regarding rape as adaptive are highly controversial, and not accepted by mainstream science. Many people regard these theories as a justification of rape. See sociobiological theories of rape for a fuller treatment of this controversy. . --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape#Sociobiological_theories_of_rape [Oct 2004]
Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape (1975) - Susan Brownmiller
Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape (1975) - Susan Brownmiller [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"Pornography, like rape, is a male invention, designed to dehumanize women, to reduce the female to an object of sexual access [...] The staple of porn will always be the naked female body, breasts and genitals exposed, because as man devised it, her naked body is the female's 'shame', her private parts the private property of man, while his are the ancient, holy, universal, patriarchal instrument of his power, his rule by force over her. --Susan Brownmiller, 1975
Dehumanization is a process by which members of a group of people assert the "inferiority" of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization (such as a state) or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions, as with some types of de facto racism. State-organized dehumanization has been directed against perceived racial or ethnic groups, nationalities (or "foreigners" in general), religious groups, sexes, sexual minorities, disabled people as a class, economic and social classes, and many other groups. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization [Jan 2006]
Objectification refers to the way in which one person treats another person as an object and not as a human being. This is commonly used to refer to the way the mass media, in particular advertising, is perceived by some as portraying women as sex objects (although this treatment now increasingly also extends to men). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification [Jan 2006]
See also: feminism - rape - shame - pornography - anti-pornography
Books
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A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion - Randy Thornhill [1 book, Amazon US]
- Evolution, Gender, and Rape - Cheryl Brown Travis [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Leading a group of determined scholars, Travis-professor of psychology and chair of women's studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville-conducts a comprehensive refutation of A Natural History of Rape by biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer (2000), which proposed that men are biologically predisposed to raping women because (in our evolutionary past) the act supposedly increased men's chances of reproducing. Contributors to this book regard the duo as evolutionary psychologists who practice unsound, narrow-minded science. The critiques aimed at Thornhill and Palmer include their dismissal of feminist arguments that rape has as much to do with dominance as it does with sex, their refusal to seriously account for sociocultural factors that affect rape rates, their use of data on scorpion-fly mating as correlational to human behavior and their lack of data comparing the reproductive success of rapists to nonrapists. Some of the thinkers offer compelling alternatives. One research team offers the theory that forces in family structures, school, work and the individual interconnect to shape rape's incidence. Most of the contributors write for fellow academics, though "Of Vice and Men: A Case Study of Evolutionary Psychology" is accessible, and "What Is `Rape'?: Toward a Historical, Ethnographic Approach" shows in clear language how biases can shape scientific observation. Even evolutionary straw mama "Primeval Pru" makes an appearance, with her perennial dilemma over choosing a suitable mate. Though the book is separated into 17 distinct sections, there's plenty of overlap in contributors' critiques, which highlights the collection's message that rape is a phenomenon that requires an interdisciplinary approach. Yet while contributors argue that media coverage of A Natural History exploited the public's desire for easy answers to abhorrent social behavior, too much of their own prose here is intimidating and unwieldy. --From Publishers Weekly, amazon.com