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Debate:Date Rape
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[  ][  ][  ][  ][  ]Should there be a separate criminal offence of date rape? |
This article is based on a Debatabase entry written by Tom Hamilton. Because this document can be modified by any registered user of this site, its contents should be cited with care.
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[ ]Background and Context of Debate:So-called ‘date rape’ or ‘acquaintance rape’ is rape carried out by someone known to the victim, whether in the context of an ongoing sexual relationship or in a context such as a date (hence the name) in which the man may wrongly expect sexual intercourse to be on offer, and fails to comply with (or, perhaps, misunderstands) the woman’s refusal. Following some high-profile cases in which men have been cleared of raping women who were known to them, in which the non-conviction turned on the question of the reasonableness of the alleged rapist’s belief in his alleged victim’s consent, there have been calls for a separate offence of date rape, carrying a less severe penalty than rape by a stranger, in order to recognise the unique problems posed by cases like these. Note that so-called ‘date rape drugs’ such as Rohypnol, which render women unconscious and/or incapable of giving consent to sex, have absolutely nothing to do with date rape as it is defined here – there is no question mark in such cases over the rapist’s reasonable belief in his victim’s consent, and the widely reported difficulty in obtaining convictions is a result of the fact that the victim cannot remember anything. |
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[ ][  ][  ][  ][  ]Severity of crime: Is the severity of rape greater than that of date rape? | |
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[  ][ ]Yes‘Date rape’ is not as serious as rape from a stranger: It is not entirely unreasonable for a man to think that somebody he knows well and with whom he is in a sexual relationship may want to have sex with him. A woman may give out conflicting signals in a potentially sexual situation, or ambiguously withdraw her consent. All of this is very different from violently sexually assaulting someone the man has never met before whom he cannot reasonably expect to consent - this deserves a much heavier penalty. The punishment for rape exceeds the crime of date rape, making jurors unlikely to punish date-rapers at all: Rape rightly carries a very severe penalty. Many jurors, who see date rape as less serious than stranger-rape, are unwilling to convict if they know that they will be responsible for giving life imprisonment to someone who made what they see as no more than a tragic mistake with his girlfriend. There are examples of judges making comments to juries which encourage them to take date rape less seriously than stranger-rape - meaning, in the absence of a separate offence, that there may be no conviction at all. |
[ ][ ]NoRape is rape, regardless of whether the couple know each other, or have had sex before: Consent to sex on previous occasions does not in any way imply consent on this occasion. If the man has not established that the woman is consenting, then he has no excuse. Indeed, being raped by someone you know well involves a betrayal of trust which is not present in stranger-rape; it would be misleading to suggest that it is any less traumatic for the victim than stranger-rape. Judges’ and juries’ failure to see date rape as being just as bad as stranger-rape is dangerous and needs to be challenged, not reinforced by introducing a ‘less serious’ level of criminal offence which fits their prejudices. Beliefs like ‘If a woman lets a man drive her home, she’s asking for sex’, ‘If a man pays for dinner, the woman owes him sex’, or ‘Certain forms of kissing and intimate touching make sexual intercourse inevitable’ are simply wrong - we should work against them, not with them. |
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[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][  ]Consent issues: Can consent be unclear? Can the women ever fail to clearly convey "no"? | |
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[ ][ ]YesFirm clarity in expressing "no" is critical, and is the woman's responsibility: Of course no means no. But it is not unreasonable for a man to assume that his partner is consenting until such time as she makes it clear that she is not - and it is her responsibility to make that clear. We should not punish men whose partners fail to communicate with them as severely as men who clearly know that there is no likelihood of consent being given. Because the extent of "consent" can be very unclear in date rate crimes, the conviction always runs the risk of being arbitrary: This is not the case in stranger rape cases; the lack of consent is usually perfectly clear, making the appropriate punishment much easier to determine. Because the issue of "consent" is so different between date rape and stranger rape, it would be appropriate for there to be a separate classification and court treatment of date rape. It is not reasonable to expect formal consent be given every time a couple has sexual intercourse: Are they supposed to fill in a form? There has to be an element of spontaneity within sexual relationships. Given this, having non-consensual sex with a regularly consenting sexual partner, although obviously a criminal act, is not as serious as having non-consensual sex with someone you know for certain is non-consenting. |
[ ][ ]NoNo means no: Accepting that a misunderstanding of the withholding of consent is an acceptable defence to the most serious rape charges - albeit not against the reduced charge of date rape - reinforces the role of sex as a tool of male power over women, in which the responsibility is on the woman to withhold consent rather than on the man to obtain it, and in which a man’s failure to take a woman’s withholding of consent seriously is seen as significantly less serious than committing rape against a stranger. Being raped is not the victim’s fault. Only fully consensual sex is fine: Non-consensual sex is rape. The fact that spontaneity is sexy and filling in forms - which in any case we don’t advocate - is a turn-off is beside the point; the desire for spontaneity must not be used as a cover for rape. To use a different example, contraception can sometimes interfere with spontaneity, but most people are prepared to allow for this given the benefits. Getting consent may be annoying, but it provides the undoubted benefit of certainty that you are not a rapist. Deal with it. |
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[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]Unreported date-rape: Would making date rape a separate offense resolve the problem of date-rape incidence going unreported? | |
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[ ][ ]YesHaving a separate offense for date rape would encourage more women to speak up and feel confident of success in court: There is a striking discrepancy between the number of rapes and the number of convictions for rape. In the UK, fewer than 10% of women who tell Rape Crisis that they have been raped go on to report this to the police. For these cases, the conviction rate is below 10%. One reason why women don’t report that they have been raped is that they recognise that date rape is (rightly or wrongly) regarded in court as a less serious offence than stranger-rape. Introducing a separate offence of date rape would encourage more women to report that they had been raped, because they would be more prepared to see themselves as rape victims and more confident of being successful in court. |
[ ][ ]No
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