Rape and Sexual Offenses

Experience of Rape

Stereotypes about rape abound. Many believe that those who rape must be mentally insane. Most rapists, however, score normally on standard psychological assessments. Many believe that strangers usually commit rapes. In fact, acquaintances and intimates commit the vast majority of rapes. Perhaps the most intimate kind of rape, marital rape, is itself an enormous problem. Many believe rape is usually interracial. In fact, rape is overwhelmingly intraracial, except when it is used as a weapon of genocide or ethnic conflict.

Many believe that men cannot be raped. In fact, the sexual abuse of boys is widespread. One in seven men and one in three women in the United States were sexually abused as children. Male (as well as female) rape and sexual abuse in prison and other institutional settings are problems worldwide. In addition, men may be raped by other men when they are perceived to be gay or transgendered because they do not fit cultural norms of masculinity.

Many believe rape does not occur unless the offender uses violent physical force or a weapon. The typical rape, however, involves no weapons and little to no physical force. Many believe that rape does not happen unless the victim physically resists her attacker, when in fact victims often suffer physical paralysis and mental disassociation, which cause silence and passivity and prevent them from resisting.

After a rape, victims may suffer many physical repercussions, including unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and bruises, cuts, or worse. However, the psychological harm of rape—including shame, fear, anger, a feeling of chronic peril, a shattered sense of self, and suicidal ideation—is often worse. Many victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms include intrusion (recurrent thoughts, nightmares, or flashbacks), hyperarousal (irritability or an exaggerated startle response), and avoidance (social withdrawal or emotional numbing).

Although many believe that victims promptly report a rape to police or other local authorities, most victims around the world never report the sexual violence they suffer. In many communities, to report a rape is actually to risk punishment, as the victim herself may be punished for admitting to having had sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Formal and informal punishment of rape victims ranges from public disgrace and social ostracism, to actual imprisonment for fornication or prostitution, to becoming the victim of a socalled honor killing by family members who believe the only way to cleanse the family name of the stain of illicit sexual intercourse is murder of the rape victim.

Despite the massive social and public health crisis that it represents worldwide, sexual violence continues to be shrouded in shame, victims continue to be blamed and despised within their own communities, and the law continues to struggle to offer victims justice.

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