Darcy Richie: Calling for a new dialogue on rape

Last week, Claire Simon walked out of a club hand in hand with a man she met earlier in the week. Spring break had proven fruitful for bonding and meeting gorgeous men. Having lost her friends somewhere around her fifth drink, she proceeded to her hotel chaperoned only by this male companion. As payment for the trip, he showed her to her room. As payment for the trip, he made Claire and himself a drink. As payment for the trip, he ignored her almost inaudible cries of "don't."

Her cries weren't loud enough to make him stop. She only struggled through half of it and prayed during the rest because as her fear began to outweigh the alcohol, she succumbed to his strength and his ability to strangle her to death at any moment, if that was even "his thing."

Even more, he seemed to get off on her struggling, feeling her cries erotic and her weakness powerful. Finally, they were both silent. He pranced off her body, zipped his pants and whispered, "How do you feel?" as if she simply had too much to drink and he had just put her to bed, as if he hadn't just changed her life forever.

But despite my anger over the issue, this is not a statistical analysis of rape, nor is it a story about Claire. It's a story about the man who took her home.

In our society, we regularly demonize but rarely scrutinize. Acquaintance rape is still rape and it's still about power. But perhaps in examining the male role in rape, we can begin to better understand why one in four women are raped. Maybe we could see why a media sexualization of females translates, for so many men, into a justification to touch, fondle and use force or coercion to lure their female acquaintances into unwanted sexual intercourse.

Despite efforts to bring to light the prominence of acquaintance rape or to recognize its legitimacy, there is still a picture in too many females' heads of a large, intimidating man jumping from dark corners when the protection of a crowd unexpectedly disappears. We rarely picture the helpful co-worker who has driven us home on many occasions or the gorgeous guy who we try to talk to every other day after class.

The scary thing is that the prominence of rape, and more specifically acquaintance rape, tells us that these might be the men to fear. The thing about acquaintance rape that makes a particular statement about men in this society is that this type of rape is not committed by some deviant, but rather by the people we are closest to, the people we trust, the people who know us best.

What if statistics are so high for acquaintance rape (in this circumstance, specifically for male-to-female rape) because there is something inherent in men that motivates them to need this power? Psychologist Mary Koss and colleagues have documented research about the prevalence of acquaintance rape and rape in general, primarily on college campuses. In her study, the demographic profile of the 3,187 female and 2,972 male students was similar to the makeup of the overall enrollment in higher education within the United States.

The findings indicate that one in four women surveyed had been raped, and 84 percent of those women knew their attacker. This is not just a number, but also a real image; think about it when you walk into a classroom dominated by women.

More relevantly, one in 12 male students surveyed had committed acts that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, but 84 percent of those men who committed rape said that what they did was definitely not rape.

What messages are men receiving through the media and through our words about how women are to be treated? The idea that so many men are painfully confused about their role in the sexual experiences they have, along with the prominence of rape, suggests one truth: that we have overemphasized the female fear in our message about rape, while neglecting the man's role. We teach women about safety and protection from the scary men in dark alleys. We teach women that acquaintance rape is still rape despite their sexual history and despite their relationship with their aggressor. We teach women that they deserve to be respected. But what are we teaching men?

We do not continue this dialogue of respect for women with young men. Perhaps the inherent characteristic of men that motivates them to rape is a struggle to define what it actually means to be a man through messages of dominance, aggression and an uncompromising demeanor. Perhaps as men struggle to self-express, the idea that sex is a commodity is something tangible that they can hold on to.

Claire's experience exemplifies our general message about rape: women beware. We usually use this kind of story to teach women to protect themselves. But these statistics won't change until we address the perspective of men and why they rape.

Darcy Richie is a senior urban studies major from Birmingham, Mich. Strange Fruit appears on Wednesdays.

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