Recent Trends in Rape

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Recent Trends in Rape

Introduction

A recent United Nations report suggests that, on average, over 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape are reported each year worldwide, while the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that nearly 200,000 incidents of rape or sexual assault occurred in 2005 in the United States alone. Because most rape victims are women, these data suggest that approximately one in six women in the United States become the victims of actual or attempted rape each year, excluding the countless rapes that go unreported. Although rape is a serious offense punishable by law, there exists no consensus regarding the precise definition of this crime. Legal definitions of rape vary from state to state and are subject to continual debate. Conflicting understandings of exactly what constitutes “rape” highlight the inevitable difficulties that arise in any attempt to legislate the sexual encounter. English common law defined rape as the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will. In contemporary legal usage, rape generally refers to unwanted sexual intercourse that involves the use of force and the lack of consent. Yet there is widespread disagreement regarding the meanings of “penetration,” “force,” and “consent”—the primary elements of this legal definition.

Discussion

Defining rape is a complicated exercise as different definitions abound in legal, media, academic, and political discourses. Feminists are not in agreement on whether rape should be considered a sex crime or a crime of violence. A rigid definition has normative significance, so the definition of rape requires a degree of flexibility and contestation. That said, rape can be defined as the assault by a person involving sexual contact with another person without that person's consent. This definition is not explicit about the range of sexual contact or abuse involved, nor is it explicit about the gender of the survivor/victim and perpetrator. This ambiguity lends itself to a number of factors. For instance, this definition of rape is cautious not to explicitly identify perpetrators of rape as “men” as a result of the debates concerning the multiple forms of rape, including male-to-male rape. Additionally, the explicit identification of “men” as perpetrators bears the potential to individualize rape, rescinding responsibility for these acts of violence from the state or patriarchal cultural practices. On the other hand, some argue that gender neutrality regarding definitions of rape assumes that rape can be desexualized and that the social norms of heterosexist and patriarchal societies can automatically change. These assumptions are deeply flawed and potentially injurious to women.

Feminists have long labored for a legal definition of rape, and ongoing country-specific debates concerning the juridical definition of rape shed some insight into the complexity of a universally applicable definition of the term. The legal restrictions that regulate what does and does not constitute rape often depend on what does or does not appear to be an effect of violence. The term rape is implicitly linked with numerous and often-contested meanings and contestations about power, desire, morality, and justice and the legal laboring for a definition reflects ...