Mistress Nadenu wrote:
While I understand why the term "date rape" came about, I don't like it. I don't think we should distiguish between types of rape. Rape is rape. Just because one girl may know her attacker and another girl is getting jumped at night on her way to her car doesn't make the end result any different.
labels, labels, I fu[/b]ucking hate labels
And this is *exactly* what I've been trying to get across. Rape is rape, regardless of whether you know the person or not. My issue with "date rape" is that in the process of adding the classification, we added in other things that never were rape.
And it's not just in the legal classifications. It's also in the public perception as well. Does Joph's example law define Ambrya's "left out in the woods" scenario as rape? No. It doesn't. Why then does Ambrya think it *should* be rape?
I'm not just looking at one particular law, or one particular scenario. I'm looking at a general direction that this issue has been going in and becoming more and more disgusted by it. Realize that the perceptions and beliefs of the public are what push for laws to be changed. 25 years ago no one would consider Ambrya's scenario to be rape. Today, many people will think it's rape, and perhaps some of them will try to change the laws to reflect that.
That change in perception has come about largely as a result of lobbying by various groups against the whole "date rape" set of crimes. Again. It's not just what laws have been passed, but in what ways the perception of rape and sexual responsiblity have changed over time. It's my personal opinion that this change has not been to the benefit of either sex. Men are more at risk of arbitrary rape allegations. Women are put in yet another social catagory that assumes they are unable to take care of themselves.
It's about the trend. You're all trying to be way to literal here, and missing what I'm saying. In your haste to look up definitions and laws, you're missing the point. It's about *how* the laws and perceptions about rape have been changing. It's about looking at those changes and seeing a pattern. To me, it's an obvious one. We've been steadily removing the responsiblity of sex from the shoulders of women and putting it on the men. If you want freedom and equality, then it goes both ways. You must also take responsibility for the decisions you make and the actions you take. That goes for *both* sexes. A man is responsible for how he treats a woman, and vice versa. But currently, the public perception, and in many cases the law, are biased towards the socially percieved "victim sex": women. The bias and the perception are *both* wrong IMO.
And sure Joph. I'd agree with you that punishing women who cry rape falsely would be a good idea. But guess what? It almost never happens. The reason it never happens is because one of the fundamental concepts behind the whole issue we're arguing is that if women feel they there's a risk to backlash upon themselves for charging a man with rape, many women might not do it. Or do you remember all the statistics about how many women are raped and don't come forward out of fear, not just of their attacker, but of a society that might not believe her, but label her as a **** instead? The very women's rights groups who pushed for those changes in the first place are just as opposed to what you're suggesting. That's why you rarely see women suffer any punishment for wrongly accusing a man of rape.
And honestly, I can understand it. One of the points I've been making is that in some cases, rape is simply impossible to determine. While you guys can call me callous for this, let's be honest. If there are no physical signs of rape, and no witnesses to the act, any trial automatically becomes one person's word against another. Either way, it's going to be unfair, and many mistakes will be made. And odds are, you aren't going to get a conviction in that case. While the laws have only changed to a slight degree, the willingness of DAs to press charges in those cases has increased dramatically in the past 15 years.
That's where I see the problem lying. The current situation does *nothing* to increase the rate of convictions for rapists. All it does is make it easier for women to falsely accuse men of rape. And along the way, we've got more people redefining rape in ridiculous ways (Ambrya's scenario). And yeah. This all came about during and as a result of the "date rape" craze. So that's what I'm going to blame for it.