Is Rape a Product of Sexual Desire or an Exercise of Power

Is Rape a Product of Sexual Desire or an Exercise of Power

Introduction

In this essay, I will form a discussion by exploring and investigating upon the question 'Is rape a product of sexual desire, or the exercise of power?' In terms of expanding the discussion, the paper will attempt to define the concept of 'rape' and provide evidence by using theoretical and criminological literatures. The report also discusses about the feminist perspective about the rape and it is general perception that rape is an exercise of power instead of sexual desire (Carrabine 2009, pp. 12). Pornography can be characterized as material whose prime reason is to arouse sexual needs of its consumer, the report also highlighted this issue with relation to the sexual power and it's exercise. The discussion will open by clear definition of the legal term of 'rape' and then go into exploring whether there rape can be argued as a act of 'sexual desire' or whether there is any reality of it being 'an exercise of pure power'. This will provide a descriptive analysis and perception of the concept and present an understandable insight towards the question.

Discussion

The reason to present an essay on the question 'Is rape a product of sexual desire, or an exercise of power?' primarily because we already have acknowledge the understanding that rape is a criminal offence, it is illegal to commit this act, but however, many statistics have shown that a majority of rape cases are not presented in the courts in a justifiable manner(Carrabine 2009, pp. 18). A lot of rape offences are not seem to be taken too seriously in terms of it being quite easy for an offender to get away with committing 'rape' as opposed to committing a criminal offence of say burglary or GBH (Carrabine, Cox, Lee, Plummer & South, 2009, 85). In the book: Confronting rape and sexual assault author said that:

“When the crisis counsellor leaves, I scan the hospital's "Recovering from Rape" brochure: REMEMBER .... You did nothing to provoke the attack. You are not at fault. You are the victim of a violent crime. Men do not rape because of sexual desire; they rape to humiliate, control. and degrade. Rape is a violent assault on the body and leaves emotional scars which can take weeks. months. or years to resolve. Each person is unique and must work through this emotional trauma in their own individual way. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to deal with this stressful time.”

For a long time many women's groups have advocated for the idea that rape is about power. They have argued that it is about the relationships between men and women, and the “expected” relationships between men and women in a patriarchal political system. To explain, the “expected” relationships say that men should have more power than women, and historically this has largely come from their physical size and economic power. Men have been the breadwinners, businessmen ...