Male Rape Stereotypes

Women who commit sex offenses was largely overlooked by the public, until recently (Cain & Anderson, 2016, p. 5). It is normal for one to automatically associate men with sex crimes. Yet past research as well as previous criminal cases has proven that women commit sex crimes, just as men do. However, women and men are not treated the same by society or the judicial system, nor do they have the same impacts on their victims. Although it is very rare instances when women commit sexual offenses, more research and advancements made towards the specific topic of female sex offenders. It is also clear that majority of the research on sex offenders fails to even consider the female sex offender (Carpenter, 2013, p. 162).

In New York rape is categorized as a hate crime, and the definition of rape in that state is forced penile penetration of a vagina. Such a limited definition is problematic for other kinds of rape victims. This could send a message to victims who are male or experienced a different kind of rape such as penetration of a foreign object or other sexual harassment. When they need to send a clear message that every rape because no two rapes are alike, that they will receive justice for the specific act committed against them. Rape Culture affects the justice system and the way a man is prosecuted by trivializing and chastening the

In “Riding the Bull at Gilleys,” Scully and Marolla depict the psychopathological and the socio-cultural models of rape. The psychopathological model is a representation of what psychotherapist have used for years to explain the reasoning behind rape. With this model, rape is the result of an eccentric mental dysfunction, which symptoms include involuntary and uncontrollable sexual impulses. These sexual impulses may be temporary, repetitive, long lasting or brief. This model also implies that male sexual aggression is abnormal, therefore; psychologists do not seek any other rational explanation. Mainly, the psychopathological model ignores any correlational factors linking male sexual aggression to learned social behavior.

“Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.”

Rebecca Solnit’s article focuses on the ways male violence negatively affects women. Harassment from men directed at women keep women from speaking up, and many women are living in constant fear of male violence. They live in a constant state of fear because they are aware male violence is taking place around them. Women are also afraid of potential male violence because men openly express authoritative behavior. She explains men feel they have the validity to control and abuse women. Specifically, a man will approach a woman with the expectation that the woman will return the man with a sexual favor. For example, “a woman was stabbed after she rebuffed a man’s sexual advances while she walked in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood late Monday night…”

Almost two-thirds of sexual assault is committed by someone known to the victim. Yet rape and sexual assault are one of the least reported crime in the united states with only 39% of attacks being reported to the police each year. Rape culture has been present throughout history in the entire world and sadly it continues to exist. Rape culture needs to be talked about more openly, so victims are not afraid to accuse their rapist or attacker. Communities should come together to create a culture of care and stop shaming men, women, and children into victim blaming. Educating society about what is right and wrong while offering victims support can potentially prevent rapes from occurring and putting the sick people who committed the crime into prison.

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.

Common phrases college students toss around during their time spent on campus are “freshman 15”, “syllabus week”, or “rape culture”. Culture is understood to be something that people engage in together as a society. Rape culture is when people of a society excuse or tolerate sexual violence. It is when sexual assault, rape, and harassment are ignored, belittled, normalized, or made into jokes. Rape Culture is when pop music tells women “you know you want it” because of these “blurred lines” (Thicke), when society supports athletes who are charged with rape and then calling their victims career-destroyers, when companies create advertisements using women in order to promote business, when people believe that girls allow themselves to be raped,

Rape is one of the most widespread and ubiquitous violent crimes facing America, making laws regarding rape and the judicial processing of rape increasingly important. The judicial process itself deters both rape reports and rape convictions. Not only does the judicial processing or rape cases itself deter reports and convictions, but it also has a negative impact on the moral and mental well being of the victims who decide to pursue their cases.

Or is rape perpetuated by a small number of men who are at their core, predators? It can also be questioned, is rape a clearly definable crime or are there grey areas? A report from the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network expressed concern that “emphasizing rape culture makes it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions” (RAINN, 2015). This report was submitted to the White House in order to offer recommendations to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault policy program; feminist pushed back at this claim pointing out that we live in a patriarchal society, “it shouldn’t be difficult to hold accountable the individuals who commit acts legally defined as rape, while we also discuss how prosecuting rapists is made difficult by those who blame victims and make excuses for men’s violence, all of which is related to the way our culture routinely glorifies other type’s of men’s violence (war, sports, and action movies) and routinely presents objectified female bodies to men for sexual pleasure (pornography, Hollywood movies, and strip clubs)” (Marcotte, 2014). The late feminist Gerda Lerner defined patriarchy as “the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in the society in

Structural humiliation is a theory that suggests that an underlying cause of crime, particularly white collar crime, is the inherently unequal nature of modern society (Schlegel & Weisburd, 1992). Structural humiliation builds upon historical patterns of oppression and translates these habits into modern day behavior; though we, as a society, may reject these principles through our laws or morals, groups that traditionally have less social standing and political power may always be targeted (LeClair, 2016). Structural humiliation helps to explain and describe why respected people in powerful positions may be empowered to prey upon people in societally marginalized positions (Schlegel & Weisburd, 1992). The collection of film clips provided

The creation of Tennessee’s rape shield law was enacted as a response to the outdated and sexist views that women that engaged in sexual activity in their past were more than likely to have consented to have sex with an accused defendant in a rape case (Rape and Sexual Assault, 2010). Subsequently, as a result of these beliefs, many women fail to report their rapes for fear of being judged prejudicially based on their reputation, previous behaviors, thus resulting in their re-victimization in court. Additionally, the protections provided under Tennessee’s Rape Shield Law acknowledged that parts of the victim’s sexual history may be irrelevant to their current case; therefore rape shield laws limited the use of a victim’s prior sexual history

Our group of researchers decided to conduct a study in order to gather information on the rise of sexual assault allegations. We were interested in concluding whether or not the rise of sexual assault allegations in the media tested the validity regarding those accusations. Since Penn State has been exposed to a number of sexual assault scandals in the past few years, Penn State students were an ideal focus group because most students are familiar with our subject. With our phenomenon being a sensitive topic for a handful of our subjects, we decided to conduct a study in which all of our subjects could remain anonymous. Thus, we created a survey composed of nine questions, keeping in mind that this topic can be triggering for

According to Hasset-Walker & Lateano, “gender bias present in some U.S laws defining rape as a crime committed by a man against a woman or noting that while a female be found of guilty of rape is she assist a male in committing the crime, she cannot commit a rape individually.” (p. 65) With the lack of research studies along with criminal case studies geared towards female sex offenders, mostly sex crime laws tend to be establish for a male

Recently, the general topic of rape has been widely discussed through various media platforms. Rape is the act of sexual assault of another person without their consent. With this in mind a prevailing notion is that marital rape does not occur, however, numerous cases have proven otherwise. Initially, husbands were not commonly put on trial for spousal rape. Each state now identifies rape within a marriage as an illegal act, and nearly all indict the felony in the identical style that rape within strangers would be accused for. It is apparent, however, that some states do not handle offenders of spousal rape with proper justice. Through certain faulty laws and their implementation, it has become evident that the legal system regarding marital rape may be unethical and contribute to sexism in American society.