Women say some rape victims should take blame - survey. BBC. 15 February 2010.
Key passage:
"A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests. Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.
One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker's house for a drink."
So this kind of goes against feminist thinking. The word rape thanks to people like Susan Brownmillar, has meant that men who rape are akin to the devil incarnate. That women who have been raped are victims and they will be forever condemned to a life of unhappiness.
But this study shows that most women don't believe this. That human sexuality is very complex.
I come back to the pertinent issue. What is the appropriate punishment for rape? Should there be a law against it? My view is that only for stranger rape should there be a law against it. Relationship rape, there should be no law against it. You might say that that would mean there would be no justice for the victims of rape. That being raped by someone you know is often worse than a stranger. But if everyone knew there was no law against it, then that would change our interpretation of the sexual act previously known as rape. If a man raped his female friend, because the woman would know that what had happened was not illegal, her perception of what had happened to her would be different. She would see it as less of a bad thing. Because society was not saying it was a bad thing, there would be no social pressure for her to perceive the experience as a horrifying experience. Currently there is this social pressure for women to be victims. Far from empowering women, does this not diminish women's sexuality?
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