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Rape among college students
Rape among college students
Rape among college students
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How many of you know someone who has had something stolen from them? How many of you know someone who has been held at gunpoint? How many of you know someone who has been date raped? You might and not even know about it. In 1985, Mary Koss, a professor at Kent State University, surveyed approximately 7,000 students on thirty-two campuses on behalf of Ms. magazine and found that one in eight women were the victims of rape. Experts estimate that as many as 90 percent of all rapes are never reported. But When you hear the word "rape," what do you think of? If you imagine a stranger jumping out of the bushes on a dark night and attacking someone, you are only partly right--because most rapes are not committed by strangers but by men who know their victims, who often have gone out with them previously and are supposedly their friends. Acquaintance rape is forced, unwanted intercourse with a person you know. It can be that cute neighbor, the blind date your friend set you up with, even your husband of boyfriend. The fact is, if you said no, it’s rape. Date rapes typically occur when a woman is alone with a man. If you go to a man's room or apartment or even get into his car alone, you are vulnerable. Date rapes can occur when others are relatively close by; for example, they can take place in an upstairs bedroom while fifty people are attending a party on the first floor. Alcohol and drugs are sometimes a significant factor in date rape. Many victims say later that they drank too much or took too many drugs to realize what was going on; by the time they realized their predicament, it was too late. Sometimes a woman passes out and awakens to find a man having sex with her. On the other hand, some date rapes occur when alcohol is not involved or when the victim has had little or nothing to drink but the man has been drinking and becomes sexually aggressive. Mixed signals are another element in date rape. The woman acts in a friendly manner; the man interprets this friendliness as an invitation to have sex. "No" is heard as "maybe" and even a strong protest can be ignored under the delusion that women say "no" when they mean "yes." Some men find it sexually exciting to have a woman struggle. If the woman protests only mildly, the man may think he is merely "persuading" her, not forcing her to have sex (He may think the
Rape can happen to anyone. Women from different cultures, races, ages, and economic level are all vulnerable. It does not matter who you are or where you live, although women of lowest status are most vulnerable to rape, and so are Hispanic and African American women. (An...
According to the Rape Crisis Council of Pickens County, one out of every four females will be sexually assaulted in their college years. However, rape counts for only seven percent of the college...
One of the most common misconceptions about rape is that is it committed by strangers most of the time. However, this is not the case. Date rape is an epidemic affecting tens of thousands of people across the world at staggering rates. The rape stereotype in our culture today is a jumping out of the shadows type of rape. Most people think that when someone is raped either their house is broken into and they are attacked, they are kidnapped, or something along those lines. Actually, 84% of women know their attacker (Hammond). This can become problematic for our society because victims are looking out for an attack that most likely will not take place, while ignoring assaults that are far more likely.
Victims of rape are almost always asked if they were flirting, drinking, or dressing in a manner that may have been interpreted as giving consent, despite whether they did actually give consent or not.
The first type of acquaintance rape is the beginning date rape. This form of rape happens within the first few dates while the couple is still getting to know each other. College students usually do not have sex on the first couple of dates, so the biggest cause is most likely not miscommunication. In this case, the perpetrator probably thinks that he will have a better chance of not being accused of rape because he knows his victim. The date is more of a plot than a social gathering to get the female alone and take advantage.
When people think of rape, they might think of a stranger jumping out of a shadowy place and sexually attacking someone. But in fact there different forms of sexual assault. Acquaintance Rape also known as date rape, is one of the most common among female adolescents and college students. About 60% of all reported rapes are committed by someone the victim knew. Rape is a crime of violence, and you can be arrested, prosecuted and properly punished by the law.
When the victim reports the incident to the police there is a long process that follows to convict the rapist. For date rape, which may be a result of teenage drinking or drug use at parties, there is a low percentage rate of the rapist going to jail because society does not understand that no means no. Because of this it is very hard for victims to get justice. For example, there was a girl in West Ch...
It was once acceptable for men to have full control over women, declaring when they will marry and when they will have children. However, over the past centuries, women have established a place in society, proving themselves much more than someone's property. This is why the word “rape” today is not taken lightly. According to findlaw.com, “Rape generally refers to non-consensual sexual intercourse that is committed by physical force, threat of injury, or other duress.” When one does not give consent to sex, it is considered a felony, possibly putting the rapist in jail. Contrary to sexual assault, “Sex is reified as penile-vaginal intercourse while an extremely diverse group of pleasurable and sexually stimulating activities are dismissively relegated to the category of foreplay...” (Reinholtz, Muehlenhard, Phelps, & Satterfield, 1995.) Although consented sexual intercourse is much more out in the open and accepted in society, the problem of rape is still very relevant behind the scenes.
A survey from the Association of American Universities of 150,000 students found that more than one in four women experience sexual assault during their four years in college. Over the four year college period, 27.2% of female students are victims of unwanted sexual contact that ranges from touching to rape (6). Sexual assault is far too common and it is an epidemic that faces many students in college. Many students suffer from the consequences of sexual assault, which is a result of many social and cultural deficiencies, but it can be fixed through a multifaceted approach. The problem of sexual assault can be fixed through the education of the community, a positive and helpful school environment, and classes focused on prevention.
Traditional or common knowledge views of rape portray the act as something a crazy stranger commits on another stranger. However, this is simply not the case. The vast majority of rapes, sometimes up to 70%, involve a victim who was previously known to the offender (Woods and Porter 2008). The data does not totally support this view, however. This is because only an estimated 18% of acquaintance rape is reported to the police (Woods and Porter 2008). For comparative purposes, an estimated 79% of stranger rape is reported. Research suggests that each type of forcible rape has a more frequent setting (Woods and Porter 2008). When a rape happens indoors, the victim is more likely to have had a close personal relationship with the offender (Woods and Porter 2008). In fact, the rape usually occurs in either the offender’s or victim’s home (Woods and Porter 2008). The National Institute of Justice reports that women are raped dramatically more than men are; 18% of women report being raped at least once in their life, in contrast to just the 3% of men who report being raped in their lifetime (Tjaden and Thoennes 2006). Of minority groups, 34% of American-Indian women report being raped in their lifetime, the highest percentage of any group; the lowest percentage is Pacific Islander women, of whom only 7% report being raped in their lifetime (Tjaden and Thoennes 2006). The data suggests that rape occurs at an early age. Nearly a quarter of female rape victims and nearly one half of male rape victims were younger than 12 years old when first raped (Tjaden and Thoennes 2006). The percent of victims first raped when younger than 18 years of age is nearly three quarters for men and over half for women (Tjaden and Thoennes 2006). “Women who w...
Statistics show that 17.7 million womean in the us in the are victims of rape.In addtion 1 out 6 people are victims of attemped rape or completed rape. Only three percent of men are raped. 1 out of 33 are raped in their lifetime. Men and women are the only ones affected by his situation children are so affected fifteen percent of victims are children under twelve years old , twenty nine percent are twelve to seventeen years old forty four percent are under the age of eighteen and eighty percent are under the age of thirty. Girls are four times m...
Stranger rape is more likely to be reported to the police than it would if they were raped by someone they know, because they don’t know the person who sexually assaulted them. But if assaulted by a family member, friend, or neighbor they tend to keep that a secret because they might be afraid of what they might do or if anyone would believe them. 4 percent of women will be rape by someone they do not know then by someone they do know (MANN). The victim has to battle with their feelings of being betrayed of their trust and can lead to a deeper emotional, and spiritual scars that can leave physical scars, and the humiliation of being rape by a stranger.
When most people hear the word “rape”, they automatically think of the attacker being a stranger forcing themselves upon another and doing unwanted sexual things to the victim. However, the most common form of rape is called acquaintance rape or date rape. Acquaintance rape is defined as forced or manipulated sexual contact by someone you have met and had interactions with a couple of times (Sarmiento, 2010). According, to American Rape Statistics, approximately 28% of victims are raped by their significant others, 35% by acquaintances, and 5% by other relatives (APR, 2011). Jean Hughes, who has done an abundance of research on acquaintance rape, has found that nearly 60% of all rapes reported have fallen under the label of acquaintance rape. (Hughes & Sandler, 1990). There are many cases of date and acquaintance rape within the college environment. Dr. Stephen Lawyer and his colleagues did research on 134 undergraduate women; they wanted to figure out what percentage of these women experienced rape by force or the use of drugs. They concluded that nearly 26.9%, 93 participants said they had been sexually assaulted at some point in their life since the age of 14. Of this 26.9%, 5.4%, 17 participants reported a total of 28 forcible assault ...
The society we live in is rape-conducive, rape-friendly, if you will. Despite the anger I feel joining those two words together, I know the sad paradox holds within it a great deal of truth. We are a violent society that has shrouded rape in mystery and shame. To stop this nightmare’s venomous crusades, all people must wage a private war to eradicate their own acceptance of the savage crime. While it is only a minority of men that actually commit rape, it is everyone’s silence that tells them it’s ok.