White Victim Rapes The Black Male example essay topic

Webster's Dictionary describes rape as the crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse. Rape is a crime in which most women cannot defend themselves. The fear of rape plagues every woman at some point or another in her life. The traumatic effects of rape vary from mild to severe, from psychological to physical. This paper will evaluate rape, as well as the effects it has on women, the theory behind male dominance and patriarchy, and differences in demographics.

"Rape is a crime that combines sex and violence, that makes sex the weapon in an act of violence". (Kimmel 257) Because of this, rape is often traumatic for the victim of a rape. Many victims undergo what is known as rape trauma syndrome, ". ... rape trauma syndrome, consisting of an acute stage, where the primary response is fear, followed by a reorganization stage, characterized by phobias, insomnia, sexual dysfunctions, and major changes in life-style". (Chandler et al pp. 248) These are some of the psychological side effects that women must endure after the rape. There are also other factors, relating to the individual that effect rape trauma they include, "age, prior sexual experience, ethnicity, and response of significant others to the victim.

Factors relating to the sexual assault, such as degree of violence and the relationship between the victim and the assailant also affect trauma". (Chandler et al pp 249) Overall, is is safe to say that there are many psychological effects of rape that allows women to fear the attack of a rape. In many rape situations, the victim is raped by an acquaintance, therefore the victim is less likely to report the rape. "About 15 percent of college women report having been sexually assaulted; more than half of these assaults were by a person that the women was dating". (Kimmel 233) If more than half of the sexual assaults and rapes are committed by a person that a women is dating or at least knows, then the people that are the rapists are the everyday Joe's walking down the street, not the psychotic rapist that women are on the look out for.

"Moreover, 20 to 50 percent of women have sustained sexual coercion at least once while dating". (Burke et al 272) This statistic shows that when women are in a relationship they are much less likely to report a rape. "Women tend to report sustaining sexual abuse significantly less than men report inflicting it" (Burke et al 280) This statement means that men and women have a very different idea of what is considered rape or other forms of sexual abuse. In general, men feel like if they take a woman out for dinner or to a movie, or make some sort of effort, that the woman is indebted to them. For their payment, they expect some sort of sex or sexual activity.

"Though both men and women feel entitled to pleasure, and both have their first sexual experience because they want to, men still seem to believe that entitlement also covers acting on it-even when the woman doesn't want to". (Kimmel 232) The idea that men feel like they are entitled to sexual gratification after a date, and the fact that our culture makes women feel like they owe the man, makes date rape a much more common than it should be. The cultural norm that this idea creates could be one of the leading causes in the fact that most rapes go unreported. With the education of both men and women, that this type of coercion is wrong, the common of date rapes will hopefully soon be a thing of the past. "Paranoia concerning the protection of white women from sexual assault by black men is a legacy of American slavery that has frequently served as a focus for racist exaggerations about black men" (La Free 312) Interracial rapes seem to cause the greatest sensation in the news, when the victim is white and the rapist is black. When a black man violates a white women, the news as well as the public becomes very angry.

Why is it though that the public never hears about a white man raping a black woman? According to La Free, there is a higher proportion of black offender-white victim rapes than white offender-black victim rapes. "For blacks, greater occupational and social equality breaks down racial barriers imposed by the sexual stratification system and makes greater black-white interaction possible. As barriers fall, blacks become more willing to seek out whites as acquaintances, friends, and sexual partners".

(La Free 314) So as the boundaries created by race have started to fall, black men and women feel that it is okay to seek out white people as sexual partners. Since the fear of white groups has diminished, black men no longer fear being killed or tortured if they rape a white woman, although some research shows that in black offender-white victim rapes the black male receives a more harsh punishment than a white male would in the same situation. "Thus, Curtis interprets the rape of white women by black men as 'the penultimate way for a black man to serve up revenge on his white oppressor... ' " (La Free 315) What this means is that because of the fact that racial barriers have been somewhat removed from many aspects of a life for a black man, he feels like he can punish white men by raping white women. La Free also suggests that black rapist-white victim rapes are "more likely to involve: strangers; incidents which occur away from the victim's residence; and incidents where the offender had no right to be at the scene". (La Free 316) This implies that in rapes where white men are the offender, they usually know the victim, however, in cases where black men are the rapist, they tend to be strangers.

Abortion is a very controversial issue in our society. However, people tend to feel differently about abortions for rape victims. The contrivers y over the abortion issue is that if a woman is responsible enough to go through the actions to become pregnant, she should be able to have the child. Churches believe that abortion is murder.

However, if a woman is raped, she did not give her consent to have sexual intercourse with the offender. According to Schuman and Scott, although there are many people that have mixed feelings about abortion, in other words they believe that it is okay at some times, but at other times they feel that it is wrong, the most extreme pro-life people still believe that abortion is wrong "when pregnancy results from rape or incest". (Schuman and Scott 786) In these situations, however, pro-choice believe that women have as much right to choose what happens to their body. According to Kimmel, in some states abortion is only legal in "cases of rape or of a threat to the mother's health" (Kimmel 255).