RAPE

Rape

Rape

Introduction

In the violent landscape inhabited by primitive woman and man, some woman somewhere had a prescient vision of her right to her own physical integrity, and in my minds eye I can picture her fighting like hell to preserve it. After a thunderbolt of recognition that this particular incarnation of hairy, two-legged hominid was not the Homo sapiens with whom she would like to freely join parts, it might have been she, and not some man, who picked up the first stone and hurled it.

How surprised he must have been, and what an unexpected battle must have taken place. Fleet of foot and spirited, she would have kicked, bitten, pushed and run, but she could not retaliate in kind. The dim perception that had entered prehistoric woman's consciousness must have had an equal but opposite reaction in the mind of her male assailant. For if the first rape was an unexpected battle founded on the first woman's refusal, the second rape was indubitably planned . . . . This accomplished, rape became not only a male prerogative, but man's basic weapon of force against a woman, the principal agent of his will and her fear. His forcible entry into her body, despite her physical protestations and struggle, became the vehicle of his victorious conquest over her being.

Guiding Assumptions

Philosophically, I strongly endorse the idea that 'objectivity' as a quality in general and specifically in research is not possible and, more to the point, not desirable. However, I am also philosophically disposed to the act of clarifying one's biases and assumptions at the outset. In keeping with this perspective, then, I should like to describe my approach to this project.

A second factor identified in past research that is related to increased likelihood of sexual offending and victimization is the adolescent's dating and sexual history. Vogel (2000) found that males entering college who self-reported aggressive and/or illegal sexual behavior started having sex at an earlier age and reported having more sexual partners than did nonaggressive males. More relevant to our focus on high school students, Hall and Flannery (2003) found that rape victimization among adolescents was significantly related to membership in a peer group that was sexually active. Another study reported that high school seniors engaged in unwanted sex because they "thought their friends were doing it" (Jackson et al, 2000). Other recent research finds that the number of dating partners, dating frequency, and previous sexual intercourse increases the risk of sexual victimization among female adolescents (Silverman et al., 2001). This research suggests that as dating and sexual experiences increase so too do adolescents' risk of victimization or proclivity for offending.

A third factor that emerged in some research is the relationship between academic achievement and sexual offending. Fehrenbach et al. (2003), for example, found that only 57% of their sample of adolescent sex offenders was placed in the appropriate grade level. Adolescent sex-offenders have also been found to have high rates of learning and/or behavioral difficulties at school; 71% of ...