As a young female, I constantly am aware that I face the danger of being attacked and raped anytime I go somewhere alone. Because rape is a crime that discriminates against no one, it is a fear I am sure everyone shares. According to the Rainn.org website, approximately 383,000 people, including men, were raped and sexually assaulted in 1999 alone — mostly girls between the ages of 16 and 18. It is no question perpetrators of these crimes deserve to be jailed so they may never commit these offenses again, but are some men being mislabeled as rapists when really they are victims of miscommunication?
Unfortunately, the difference between rape and consensual sex is not as clear as it might seem. Rape legally is defined as forcing sexual intercourse against someone’s will, but in recent years the claims of rape have expanded beyond the traditional scenarios of girls being attacked in dark alleys. We now have amassed an entirely new idea of rape: one that begins not with force, but with permission.
A prime example is the recent California Supreme Court case of a 17 year-old-girl and two teenage boys. The girl attended a party and allowed two young men to undress and fondle her. Admitting that she enjoyed these activities, she then allegedly consented to having sex with one of the young men. According to the case files, after a few minutes the girl tried to pull away and repeatedly said that she “had to go home.” Because the young man did not immediately stop having intercourse with her when she said these words, he has been charged with rape and now will carry the stigma of being a rapist his whole life. Should we really be calling what he did rape?
The Justices in the majority of the 6-to-1 decision defend their ruling by saying it was clear the girl did not wish to continue having intercourse, and therefore after saying “I have to go home,” the boy was forcing sex on her.
I, however, agree with the one dissenting Justice who brought up very important unanswered questions. How long after a woman says “no” does a man have to stop? Is being tenacious the same thing as forceful? And most importantly, should the punishment for a man not stopping soon enough be the same as someone who brutally raped someone without their permission at all?
Rape is a horrible crime that constitutes an unimaginable violation of privacy and puts an equally unimaginable emotional toll on the victim. To say a crime where a girl first gives consent and then takes it away is the same as one where a girl does not have a choice to begin with is an extreme overstatement.
I am in no way trying to defend the thousands of rapists who deserve that title every year. Nor do I mean to imply that the teenage boys in this case are completely innocent. No doubt they pressured the girl. Both parties made mistakes in this case, though. The girl needs to take responsibility for her own actions. Why did she not kick, punch, bite, scream, cry?
If someone was doing something that I felt was rape, I sure would have been doing more than saying, “I have to go home now.” Where the Justices say it was clear she was telling him to stop, I think it is more than plausible that the boy misunderstood what she was saying. Maybe he thought she was just trying to get him to hurry. The girl may not have wanted sex, and she may have been uncomfortable with what was going on, but this was not rape — this was miscommunication. At what time did “I have to go home” become “no!”?