It has been a few hours since I sat down in front of the keyboards trying to get something out of my head, through my fingertips, and unto the screen in front of me! But i don't know how to approach this. My habit is to hyper-dramatize whatever I write and overly complicate my thoughts, which most of the time works in reverse and drives me away from a probable solution! Yet I can not stop thinking about a single keyword; why?
I just finished writing a paper on rape, its causes, and prevention, exclusive to my societal context, but I'm not entirely happy with it! As a criminologist, we are taught to analyze every tiny intricate detail to find out new approaches to any issue at hand from the very beginning. This is common in every social science discipline except, in terms of criminology, it paves the path for contradicting theories to come into the light! The same goes for rape as a sociological phenomenon. It is full of so many opposing theories and hypotheses, it is confusing. Contradiction in a discipline is a good thing isn't it? Allows competition, constructive criticism, new reproaches to further develop the field. Except for criminology, it causes bias in research. That is the reason I am stuck in why! Why such a heinous act occurs, I wonder! If we can solve this piece of the puzzle, we might drastically reduce rape in its entirety. no less than a paradox, one might say
To explain the "why," you don't have to be a social scientist or a criminologist, per se. You can think of any reason, and it will partially be accurate while fitting into almost any case study. But, to take preventive measures, precision matters. Let me present an example that explains it a little better. Fairly recently, there had been a movement to revise legal provisions of rape as a crime mandatory punishable by death. So that it has a deterrence effect to it. The punishment would be more symbolic due to its severity, and so offenders might calculate the pain and pleasure of the act and deem the gratification not worth it. But the death penalty for rape does not create much deterrence. Here is why.
Giving or not giving Consent. This is the most crucial part of any sexual activity. All of the individuals participating must give explicit Consent. Now, we all know what Consent is. But how do we communicate Consent? Does it have to be verbal? Or hints might suffice? See the problem? Most people actually don't understand what Consent is. To some, only provocative dresses are enough as an invitation to sex. And to some, it has to be spoken out loud. But, in legal provisions, as the burden of proof falls on the victim, they only have to prove that they did not ask to have sex as in it has to be verbal. Or if the victims claim that they did not say anything, yet intercourse took place, it is punishable. As simple as that. But this is open to severe manipulation. As you can neither prove Consent without submissible evidence nor can you dismiss it. So what happens is, in most instances, only the most violent rapes, ones with bruises or visible marks or severe blunt trauma which lead to death, can be considered as evidence.
Now you might be wondering, as far as you can tell from experience, you never heard of a rape from which the victims got away unscathed or without any physical injuries. Then you might be unfamiliar with rape which is never reported. A staggering 70% of the rape never gets reported. Because, first, it comes with social stigma, and second, marital rapes are almost legal.
Now, let us go back to the question, why?. Sexual gratification as a primary motivator is a good guess. Explains some of the cases and even most marital rapes. But, it actually is not the primary motivator. Because nowadays, it is almost elementary to fulfill one's sexual desires. You are one phone click away from paid sex or content that does the same. That is why rape as a crime of passion is explained by most feminist scholars as to assert dominance over the other gender through fear. A prominent example of such is rape as a tool of war or to ascertain power over minorities.
Then again, those theories fail to explain the pervasive ones, such as statutory rapes, necrophilia, or pedophilia. Those are better explained by the psychological theories as acts born out of disassociation with reality and environmental design.
Yeah, looks like we have solved rape as a criminological phenomenon all under a thousand words. Oh, only if was that easy, we might have saved millions of lives and billions in judicial expenses. As almost none of the theories explain why men get raped or why members of the LGBTQ have to go through sexual abuse by their own peers.
This is why most preventive measure to force a decline in the graph of the ever-increasing rate of rape or sexual abuse never works. We still don't know why! One might say it would be better to stop looking at why and educate kids properly to break the taboo surrounding sexual stereotypes. Except, even in such a liberal and sexually open country as the US, where sex education is very well conferred, one in every three women goes through sexual abuse once in their life, which is even more than in the developing world. There is no denying that women empowerment, learning self-defense, carefully designed policies to ensure safer work environments did help reduce rape. But the takeaway from this is that the violence increased and survivability for the victim decreased. Now more death due to sexual abuse gets reported than ever before.
Well, who knows, someday the situation might change for the better or worse. Till then, it is up to us to be more considerate towards those who need it most.
Commenting as I read
This is not the case with most sexual activities as most of it is implied. A man/woman feels a certain entitlement to their partner's body and most times sexual advances are non-vocal and their acceptances as well.
No word is said.
This is a dangerous line. As explained earlier. Consent in most cases are non-verbal.
However, coercion can be physical and emotional. This makes it difficult to establish a case against a rapist who hasn't been physical but manipulative. So it is a complicated one.
This is why rather than having a narrow definition of rape is counterintuitive. The facts of the case must be examined. However, there are is little to prove in many such rape cases. It offers the word of the victim against that of the rapist.
So you see the problem dont you? In legal terms, the punishment for rape is already quite sophisticated! It deals with the offence rigorously! But it does not deter a future rapist from commiting the act as the 'why' of the act is very hard to pinpoint! Thus there is no effective preventive measures. It is like you have the medication to remedy a viral disease, but no vaccine.
Interesting article. However, I have thoughts about one paragraph in your article.
Commenting as I read
A major debate in this day and age is whether American laws should treat "statutory rape" as a strict-liability offense or as an intent crime. What seldom ever seems to get talked about regarding this debate is the fact that sexually promiscuous and even reckless adolescents are taking wrongful advantage of the statutory-age-of-consent laws in more ways than society can imagine. The topic of statutory-rape laws here in the United States of America has become as controversial as gun-control laws.
Back in 2013, there was a tug of war among experts on how broadly the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) was going to define pedophilia. Up to that point in time, hebephilia had been nothing more than a social construct and had never been reclassified as a psychiatric disorder, and Dr. Raymond Blanchard and others like him were already talking about splicing it into the definition of pedophilia, which would have had serious consequences if these individuals had been successful at doing so.
American men are now looking overseas to find suitable wives inasmuch as the Me Too Movement has placed too many dangerous obstacles in their pathway for them to safely seek out an American woman to marry. It's a mad, mad world that we now live in, especially here in the United States of America.