Jophiel wrote:
Another vote that there is no legal distinction between rape and date rape. "Date rape" is a social term, not a legal one. I went a-lookin' for any bona fide "date rape" laws back in the previous thread and failed to find any.
Wow. Welcome to the point I've been making for months now.
Rape is rape. It always has been. My point is about "date rape", which is, as you finally seem to understand, a social term.
A woman who is sexually assaulted by her date has been raped. Always has. Even before the term "date rape" was coined. My argument is that since the term "date rape" came along, and since people like Dr Koss have started redefining what exactly constitutes "sexual assault" (and those two are directly connected), we've seen a rise in cases where there's no evidence that a rape occured other then the woman's claim.
I'm not in anyway saying that a claim of rape is *wrong*. I am saying that the push for social awareness on the issue of date rape has led to massive increases in false accusations of rape. I'm also saying that IMO, the reason for this is that the social term "date rape" includes within it the concept that any sexual encounter that a woman decides was undesirable can and should be considered a rape.
It's not a difficult concept to wrap your mind around. What really changed when the term "date rape" came into the social picture? Did it suddenly make women who were attacked by their dates realize they'd been raped when they didn't before? Did it suddenly make a woman who'd been drugged and assaulted realize that it wasn't just friendly affection, but was in fact rape? I don't think so. Those things happened before the term appeared. They were always considered rape. Nothing changed, legally or otherwise in terms of those scenarios. What really changed was the idea that *any* situtation in which a woman engages in sexual activity without fully and directly choosing beforehand to do so, constitutes rape, regardless of the means by which the sexual encounter occured.
One need only look at Koss's study in which she concluded that one in four college age women had been raped to see this phenomenon in action. Of course, her definition of rape included women who'd been intoxicated when they had sex, or could be shown in
any way to not have directly and consciously chosen to have sex. IIRC, 60% of the women she tallied as having been raped, not only did not know they'd been raped, but continued to date the guys they'd apparently been raped by, and had subsequent additional sexual encounters with those same men.
It's not that the legal terms or definitions have changed. It's the social ones that have. It's a matter of what some prosecuting attorney will consider to be "coercion" that determines whether a charge of rape is filed. And that definition has changed in many people's minds, largely as a result of people like Koss actively working to change those things. My argument is that because of this virtually *any* sexual encounter between a man and a woman can be considered rape. By Koss' definition it's very likely that every single male on this forum has commited rape at some point. Ever bought a girl a drink at a club hoping to "get lucky" later that evening? If you succeeded then you raped her. Think that's unfair? So do I. But unfortunately, many prosecuting attorneys, especially those dealing with rape cases, are starting to use those guidelines when deciding to prosecute a case.
So yeah. I still stand by my statements. The effect of the label "date rape" is that any woman can choose after the fact to charge a guy with rape after a sexual encounter, and there's a good chance that the DA will file charges based solely on her claim. You can argue about the definitions all day long. But ultimately, it's how the idea ends up changing how these charges are approached that matters. And I kinda confused how, when we see case after case of false allegations for all sorts of petty reasons, no one seems to "get" that this is a horribly bad way to decide what is and isn't rape.
