Rape is an act of violation of a victim’s rights: the rights of total control over one’s own body. It is an immoral act that has severe consequences which reduce the victim to a self-defensive and a self-pity person. This is because the victim involved will always feel misused due to lack of self-defense or her/ his provocative ways that lead to him/her being raped. It is a common phenomenon in the society today to see that the victim of rape will always be viewed as a woman who will most likely be blamed as being the cause of the act. The argument may range from her dressing code to her confrontation or association with the accused. As a result of these reasons in addition to physical and psychological pain, the victim will tend to blame and pity herself as well as become self-defensive.
As mentioned earlier, rape is a serious crime that should never be committed against a person as it is exclusively terrible in its long-time effect. This is because the act’s aftermath is associated with an abiding sense of shame and fear. This makes it complicated when it comes to quantifying statistically the sense of deep violation. In an attempt to minimize the occurrence of rape, there have been massive undertakings involved in data collection and analysis. Surveys have been conducted by society, human-based organizations as well as the defense or security departments in analyzing the magnitude and other aspects related to rape. It is important to note that according to Gensler. Et.al (p. 17), “rape ranges from the broad (coercing an individual to engage in any sexual act) to the specific (forcing a woman to submit to sexual intercourse).” This can be done through force to engage in sexual activities on instances where the physically unable person is unable to resist due to life threats, physical force and use of substances to make someone unconscious or kidnapping among others (Mackinnon, p. 180).
According to a survey by the FBI in the United States, in 1990, 102,560 cases of rape were recorded and an almost equal figure of attempts to rape. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistic, more than 130,000 victims of this data were women. Among these cases, there were about 680,000 ones that were completed forcible rapes. According to American Justice Department, there will always be 8 percent of women who in their lifetime will be rape victims or victims of attempted rape. However, according to Mackinnon (p. 317), “by conservative definition, rape happens to almost half of all women at least once in their lives” (Gennaro, p. 261)
In an attempt to bring out the clear face of rape, there has been an argument by the Feminist activists who claim that the low FBI data does not reflect the right information regarding rape cases. This is because the FBI data only portrays the figure of the reported cases only despite the fact that rape is one crime that is significantly under-reported. In addition, despite the fact that the “Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Survey” claimed to have randomly interviewed 100,000 women, this is considered as being flawed since the women were never questioned directly concerning rape. It appeared that only in cases where women were being questioned about general information regarding criminal victimization was the only instance where the interview was operational (Corey et.al, p. 35).
A clear picture of rape is established by a survey conducted by Koss and her associates of “1992 National Women’s Study.” In her survey, Koss, according to Mackinnon (p. 519), “expressed the orthodox gender feminist view that ‘rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture.” Together with her associates, Koss interviewed more than 3,000 women from college nationwide, in a random selection. These women were subjected to questions regarding sex violation and other sub-questions about the exact nature of the violation. These questions included the possibility of being alcohol influenced their emotions at the time of the event and after the event, whether they were resistant and the type of resistance they applied, as well as what way they can effectively label the event (Banks, p. 46).
In the survey, Koss regarded one being raped if she agreed with one or all of these questions; first, if one had sexual intercourse after being given alcohol though she never wanted to have sex; if a man used physical force, such as arm twisting as a threat and unwillingly you were engaged in sexual intercourse; and if the man used the same physical threats and forced you in the sexual act such other than pennies, penetration of other objects or anal or oral intercourse without your willingness. According to this survey, Koss and her team came up with a conclusion that in this chosen number of women, 15.4 percent were victims of rape, while 12.1 percent were victims of attempted rape. This gave a total of 27.5 percent of rape victims in the survey whose answers fit Koss’s rape description: “penetration by penis, finger, or another object under the coercive influence such as physical force, alcohol, or threat.” According to (McConnell, p. 413).
Nevertheless, rape victims had a different picture concerning the action. Among the women who Koss termed as rape, only a quarter of them agreed they were raped. Koss explains that among the women she considered as being raped, only 27 percent of them labeled themselves as victims of rape. 49 percent considered the situation as a “miscommunication,” 14 percent termed the action as “not a rape but rather a crime,” while 11 percent indicated that whatever happened, they had no feeling of victimization. In addition to her survey, Koss states that sexual victimization included giving in to sex play, such as kissing, fondling and petting among others with the exclusion of intercourse, if they are under pressure and not self-willingness influenced. She recorded that 53.7 percent of her interviewees were sexually victimized (Sttiphan, p. 174).
Further, there has been an indication of an ignored violation of sexual and physical assault of women by their husbands. These have been the most underreported rape cases in the Criminal Justice System. The biggest contributor of this is associated with beliefs that the rape or battered victims are core determinants of their victimization. They are considered as the “askers,” “deserving”, and even “enjoying” their victimization. According to the survey, most of the women who report being raped by their husbands are often ignored or maltreated by justice agencies. Despite this being a form of a moral crime, “marital rape” fails to legally exist. This is so because according to Corey. Et.al (p. 140), “it is considered that a woman cannot be raped by her husband, since the ‘crime’ of rape is ordinarily and legally defined as forcing sexual intercourse on someone other than the wife of the person accused.” It is also considered that “marital rape” implies a cross-road interpersonal communication within the family.
However, sexual intercourse includes force or even one using threat against victims which is unlawful. However, according to the moral theory of Kant’s moral imperative, it is not always right to use a moral system in persuading moral actions. He argues that it is important noting that moral cases are best judged from consideration of the subject. He further argues that the results or the consequences of an action do not necessarily indicate moral deliberation because they are themselves morally neutral. Accordingly, it is only goodwill in a person’s subjective preferences that expresses the moral or lack of it in any action undertaken. From this argument, it is therefore right to say that rape is wrong because it fails to bring out good to both parties involved in the action. During raping action, the offender is centered on maximizing his or her own positive outcome (Gensler. Et.al, p. 417).
Despite the fact that moral systems might by themselves fail to justify how positive or negative action is, it is agreeable that sexual intercourse is two-party goodwill. However, rape fails to present this fact since one party is looking forward to attaining gratification at the expense of the other party’s victimization. Either when taking it from a broad perspective of persuading a person to engage in sexual intercourse, forcefully making a person surrender to the action or in marital rape cases both are done with a motive of gratifying one’s desires without regard of equitable distribution of the rights.
On the other hand, according to natural law, a man has no right to rape a woman as the woman does not belong to him. The rapist’s victim is considered not to belong to the offender because she has not agreed to have sexual intercourse with him or what can be termed as “a relationship with him.” Therefore, they are considered to lack any understanding between them. This is because she has not accepted or has not given herself to have intercourse with the man. The natural law emphasis that the reason she does not belong to the rapist is that according to Sttiphan (p. 27), “her body belongs to her. In addition, her body belongs to her, and it is hers and hers alone to do as she will because she lives in it. In marital rape as well as in other rape cases, it can be said that even though the husband or the rapist possesses the rape victim’s body, it is the victim who lived in that very body even before the event, during the event and it is her who will continue living in it after the event.” This naturally indicates that she has full right to her body. According to Gensler Et.al (p. 51), “this explains why she does not belong to any man that comes along and decides to have her. If they do not have her permission and agreement, then they are rapists”
One of the criticisms against this argument (thesis) might be that, most often, the victims are the callers of the action. This as stated earlier, might be argued to come from their dressing mode, their interactive mode and illegal behaviors such as denial of conjugal rights in a married couple. This is however not a strong stand because every individual has a capacity for exercising self-control, without mentioning that any person has a right over his/her own body. More importantly, from the definition of legal sexual intercourse which calls for agreement of both parties, it is going against other persons’ rights when one decides to take over his or her body control.
Another criticism might state that rape is a phenomenon in the animal kingdom since it is a reproductive strategy. This may further argue that according to Banks (p. 216), it is difficult to determine what constitutes rape among animals, as the lack of informed consent defines rape among humans.” Despite this argument from socio-biological theory, human beings are the only animals that were created with the special instinct of differentiating between what is right and what is wrong. More importantly, they were given the power to influence, as well as to govern their internal drives which causes them to externally act. This enables men to control their sexual impulses and desires which can enable them to avoid rape cases (Guttmann & Thompson, p. 76).
In conclusion, overriding another person’s rights over his or her body control through rape is not only immoral but also an illegal and punishable action. Many of the people who undergo sexual victimization and mostly rape have a hard time progressing on with their life normally due to fear of another attack and shame from the action. The majority of the rape victims are women though there are also cases of rape on men. According to moral theories, any action that involves more than one person needs to be based on agreement on the two parties for equal distribution of the desired outcome. Additionally, it is worth noting that everyone belongs to his/her own body thus has total control over it. Therefore, it is against moral principles to acquire individual positive outcomes at the expense of another person’s victimization, or forcefully undermine another person’s right on her body control as it is rape cases.
Works cited
- Banks, Cyndi. Criminal justice ethics: theory and practice. New York: SAGE. 2004. Print
- Corey, Gerald. Et. Al. Issues and ethics in the helping professions. New York: Cengage Learning. 2007.Print
- Gensler, Harry. Et.al. Ethics: contemporary reading. Routledge. 2004. Print
- Guttmann, Amy & Thompson Dennis. Ethics and politics: cases and comments. Belmont: Thomson/ Wadsworth. 2006.Print
- Mackinnon, Barbara. Ethics: Theory and contemporary issues. Belmont: Wadsworth. 2008.Print
- Sttiphan, Emily. Christian ethics, issues and insights. Waitsfield: Concept Publishing Company. 2007. Print