Acquaintance Rape Essay Research Paper Date Rape

Acquaintance Rape Essay, Research Paper Date Rape is a misleading term, which describes a serious crime that is misunderstood and under-reported. For many women, the word rapist evokes images of a psychotic stranger in an alley. But more often than not, a rape victim knows her attacker. He s a seemingly nice guy a date, a good friend, a casual acquaintance, a classmate, or even a coworker who suddenly becomes forceful or even violent, and makes her have sexual intercourse against her will. This is called acquaintance or date rape. Rape, regardless of who commits it is a felony sexual assault that leaves the victim injured and traumatized. 60 % of rapes are acquaintance or date rapes. The number of date rapes in the U.S. is higher than most countries around the world. About

100,00 rapes are reported each year while the FBI believes this is only 1/8 of the actual amount of rapes. One college professor stated in an article that date rape is more common than left handedness, alcoholism, and heart attacks. The Women s Resource center found that 1 in 4 women will be a victim of date rape or attempted date rape in their lifetime. These horrifying numbers can be partially attributed to the fact that 30% of teens have experienced sexual intercourse by the age of 15. Also, the age of rapists is declining, boys younger than 13 are being arrested for date rape. Date rape has existed for many centuries. However, it was not a well-known offense. Date rape was first mentioned in the 20th Century in a book called Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller in 1967.

Before the mid 70 s date rape was rarely prosecuted and when it was the effort often failed. Than in the 80 s people began waking up and noticing that just because a woman is on a date doesn t mean she wants sex. In date rape cases it is often the man s word against the woman word because there is no evidence. In addition, sometimes the victim had willingly had sex with the attacker in the past. One type of date rape, which is very common, is sex with reluctant consent. This type is very hard to prosecute. In this case over a period of time a woman is pressured and eventually has sex. However she regrets it after because it was never her intentions. Only about 5% of rape victims report it and less than 5% of rapists go to jail. Date rape is a growing problem on college campuses.

Two factors that contribute to this are co-ed dorms and an increase in drugs and drinking. An attacker often uses drugs or alcohol to make the victim more vulnerable. A problem that arises on campus is that the victim wants to keep it quiet so the school often avoids using outside law enforcement and handles it in their own way. For example, at the College of William and Mary a student s only punishment for rape was being barred from any dorm or fraternity house other than his own for 4 years. In 1990, a federal law called the Campus Security Act was made which required colleges to collect data on rape and other campus crimes. Schools were required to publish the crimes statistics annually. This Act was amended in 92 to divide rape into forcible and non-forcible. Forcible rape

includes date rape and any other violent form of rape while non-forcible included incest and statutory rape. The change showed a huge difference in statistics between 90 and 92 with much larger numbers. In her report at the University of Arizona professor Mary Koss said that 25% of female college students were victims of rape or attempted rape. And 8% of college men admitted to rape or attempted rape. These are very scary numbers. In addition 57% of rapes on college campuses are date rapes. Victims of date rape have the hardest time getting over the trauma of being raped, which leaves a long lasting emotional scar. 1 out of every 3 women who are date raped considers suicide. Rohypnol also know as Roofies is used by many attackers in date rape cases. The effects of the drug are