# Rape is a crime of power, not sex. ALWAYS true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106 "2006-04-18T01:48:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/21 "2006-04-18T13:37:20Z")
I don’t have a cite for it because I forget where I read it. Even though cognitively we assume rape has nothing to do with sex it has been found that most rape victims are in their fertile years (12-40ish). So procreation has something to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![lskinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@lskinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lskinner)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/22 "2006-04-18T14:18:14Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > So…sex has nothing to do with sex? Huh. That’s the point. They are being silly and self-contradictory. They also claimed that (1) women are the same as men and should be treated equally and (2) women are different from men and should be treated differently. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/23 "2006-04-18T14:25:48Z")
> [@lskinner](#): > > Since you are in college, you will be exposed to a lot of PC nonsense. Just pay proper lip service to it and forget about it. When I was in college, the women’s studies majors said that (1) all sex is rape and (2) rape has nothing to do with sex. It was also claimed that it’s impossible for “people of color” to be racist. Really? Every single one of them, huh? I dated a women’s studies major once. She liked it hot and raunchy. I don’t recall her crying “rape.” ---
**Author:** ![Gladstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90db22/32.png) [@Gladstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gladstone)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/24 "2006-04-18T14:31:07Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Really? Every single one of them, huh? > > I dated a women’s studies major once. She liked it hot and raunchy. I don’t recall her crying “rape.” I believe **Iskinner** used the disclaimer “when I was in college…”, indicating that whatever followed this was likely to be an anecdote. ---
**Author:** ![lskinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@lskinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lskinner)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/25 "2006-04-18T14:36:27Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Really? Every single one of them, huh? Every last one. In fact, I commissioned a survey of the women’s studies majors. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/26 "2006-04-19T16:21:37Z")
**Cartooniverse** , your cite is a password-necessary newspaper article (I know I could Bug Me Not but I’m a bit lazy on that at the moment.) I had no idea she just passed & I wasn’t trying to rub salt into any wounds. I would suggest looking at the woman’s own writing though: > [@](#): > > A human being has a body that is inviolate; and when it is violated, it is abused. A woman has a body that is penetrated in intercourse: permeable, its corporeal solidness a lie. The discourse of male truth—literature, science, philosophy, pornography—calls that penetration violation. This it does with some consistency and some confidence. Violation is a synonym for intercourse. At the same time, the penetration is taken to be a use, not an abuse; a normal use; it is appropriate to enter her, to push into (“violate”) the boundaries of her body. She is human, of course, but by a standard that does not include physical privacy. She is, in fact, human by a standard that precludes physical privacy, since to keep a man out altogether and for a lifetime is deviant in the extreme, a psychopathology, a repudiation of the way in which she is expected to manifest her humanity. > > — Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, chapter 7 > > Male-dominant gender hierarchy, however, seems immune to reform by reasoned or visionary argument or by changes in sexual styles, either personal or social. This may be because intercourse itself is immune to reform. In it, female is bottom, stigmatized. Intercourse remains a means or the means of physiologically making a woman inferior: communicating to her cell by cell her own inferior status, impressing it on her, burning it into her by shoving it into her, over and over, pushing and thrusting until she gives up and gives in— which is called surrender in the male lexicon. In the experience of intercourse, she loses the capacity for integrity because her body—the basis of privacy and freedom in the material world for all human beings—is entered and occupied; the boundaries of her physical body are—neutrally speaking— violated. What is taken from her in that act is not recoverable, and she spends her life—wanting, after all, to have something—pretending that pleasure is in being reduced through intercourse to insignificance. > > — Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, chapter 7 I’m sure there are other examples easily found. This to me is a pretty depressing worldview that the heterosexual sex acts most humans enjoy and which created all of us are acts of violation and domination. Fortunately I’ve had girlfriends (not to mention a mother!) who disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/27 "2006-04-19T17:28:21Z")
Sounds like poor Andrea Dworkin just never met the right man. To address the cases where rape would be less obviously about “power” or “dominance” I might suggest weaseling (as opposed to rhinocerosing) the language a bit and saying rape is about choosing to dominate oneself _less_. For that is, I believe, what prevents men from all becoming rapists at some point in their lives–the willingness to dominate his own urge to take what he wants. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/28 "2006-04-19T18:31:31Z")
Now I’m having a WTF moment 'cos I thought Dworkin died months ago… _checks it out_ …actually, about this time last year. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/29 "2006-04-19T19:15:15Z")
**Malacandra’s** right: that cite is for April 12, 2005. According to Stephen Pinker’s _The Blank Slate_, this theory originates in Susan Brownmiller’s book _Against our Will_, and suggests that “rape had nothing to do with an individual man’s desire for sex but was a tactic by which the entire male gender oppressed the entire female gender.” He quotes Brownmiller: > [@](#): > > Man’s discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times . . . from prehistoric time to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function . . . it is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which _all_ men keep _all_ women in a state of fear This is, of course, absurd. The italics are in the original, and suggests that if Joe rapes Susan, it’s part of a process that I am using to keep Lisa frightened. Pinker goes on to say that the theory is one of the all-time great mass delusions: “It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.” He goes on to describe these reasons in detail. THe evidence might be the most interesting part: > [@Pinker](#): > > -Coerced copulation is widespread among species in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it is not selected against an may sometimes be selected for. It is found in many species of instects, birds, and mammals, including our relatives the orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. > -Rape is found in all human societies. > -Rapists generally apply as much force as is needed to coerce the victim into sex. They rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury, which would preclude conception and birth… > -Victims of rape are mostly in the peak reproductive years for women…with a mean [age] in most data sets of twenty-four…the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability or by their likelihood of holding positions of power. > -Victims of rape are more traumatized when the rape can result in a conception. > -Rapists are not demographically representative of the male gender…the young males who allegedly have been “socialized” to rape mysteriously lose that socialization as they grow older. > -Countries with far more rigid gender roles than the United States, such as Japan, have far lower rates of rape, and within the United States the sexist 1950s were far safer for women than the more liberated 1970s and 1980s All in all, I think it’s a dangerous canard, unsupported by the evidence. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![sailornaruto39](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@sailornaruto39](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailornaruto39)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/30 "2015-05-31T15:34:17Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > **Malacandra’s** -Countries with far more rigid gender roles than the United States, such as Japan, have far lower rates of rape, and within the United States the sexist 1950s were far safer for women than the more liberated 1970s and 1980s > Daniel Isn’t the insuation that sexism reduces rape rather dagerous? What could gender roles actually have to do with it at all? I know this is an old post but I came across it while looking into the topic. ---
**Author:** ![sailornaruto39](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@sailornaruto39](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailornaruto39)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/31 "2015-05-31T15:35:22Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Just so we are clear. [Andrea Dworkin](http://www.nysun.com/article/12084) died in her sleep this past Saturday evening, in Washington,D.C. She was married to a man, though she was out as a lesbian. > > In fact, she never said sex was rape ( see cite ). And, > > Apparently she wrote from experience as well as from observing and working with others. A powerful mind. > > Cartooniverse Was their relationship sexual? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/32 "2015-05-31T15:56:56Z")
I think most of the time when it comes to the men involved in rape it is mostly about the sex for the man. Obviously there are cases of rape where the sex part is a distant second but those STM to be the extreme pathological individuals. From the woman/victim’s point of view, its not that they had sex they weren’t interested in, its that they were forced to have sex and felt powerless/vunerable. So from that point of view it is about power. So, when you are talking about the rape power dynamic are talking about the motivations or the consequences. So IMO, its fine to talk about “power” for half the problem and silly/PC correctness/feminism gone off the range for the other half of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/33 "2015-05-31T16:05:16Z")
> [@](#): > > -Countries with far more rigid gender roles than the United States, such as Japan, have far lower rates of rape, and within the United States the sexist 1950s were far safer for women than the more liberated 1970s and 1980s That would be rates of **reported** rape. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/34 "2015-05-31T16:09:14Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I think most of the time when it comes to the men involved in rape it is mostly about the sex for the man. Obviously there are cases of rape where the sex part is a distant second but those STM to be the extreme pathological individuals. To say ‘mostly about the sex for the man’ is very ambiguous. When it comes to the motivating factors if it was only horniness that motivated men the incidence of rape would be much higher. Something else triggers men to do more than make fools of themselves in order to get laid, it’s going beyond that to use force to engage in sex with an unwilling person. These factors can’t be measured in precise percentages that would allow a quantification of ‘most’ but we can see that there is some triggering factor which does not occur in most men. It may be stupidity or sociopathy or sadism or intoxication or lust for power or even cultural norms but it can’t be merely ordinary sexual desire in a society that condemns it. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/35 "2015-05-31T18:26:44Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I agree with you, **Argent Towers**. What’s more, if we’re to believe the oft-repeated tidbit that an overwhelming majority of rapes happen by someone the victim knows (boyfriend, husband, date, “friend”, neighbor), then I think it’s possible that a majority of rapes are sexually motivated. > > I think the idea that rape isn’t about sex came about because people were trying to get folks to stop blaming the rape victim. If a rape is about sex, then there’s the temptation to blame the woman: she was being too sexy, or sluty or whatever. By saying that rape isn’t about sex, we’re saying it’s not caused by her sexuality. I’m glad we’re not as likely to blame the victim anymore, but we seem to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Rapes where the rapist is not known to the victim are relatively rare (that’s not to say it doesn’t happen). There’s a wealth of statistics to back this up and it would be blindingly obvious to those whose work (e.g. police, lawyers and judges) means they see a cross-section of rape cases going through the criminal justice system. I honestly don’t know where the idea that rape is not about sex, but about power. I must admit I am highly skeptical that this is the case and I have never seen any evidence (as opposed to speculation) to back this claim. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/36 "2015-05-31T18:44:48Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > WI have no doubt that the rape of the “dark alley” sort, where a woman walking along is seized at random by a rapist and dragged into an out-of-the-way place and raped, is a crime of power. That is, it is being perpetrated by someone who gets off on the feeling of overpowering someone and is actually turned on at the idea of forcing himself on somebody. If he “gets off” on the feeling of overpowering the victim, is “turned on” at the idea of forcing himself on somebody, then the crime is still about sex. Even if it doesn’t matter for the perpetrator whether the victim is attractive or not, it doesn’t make it not about sex. If it wasn’t about sex, then he wouldn’t feel the need to rape them, since being able to impose his will upon the victim in whatever way, would satisfy him. Penetration (or in general any sexual activity) could be a way, but anything else would do. He would be more likely to become a manager of the little tyrant kind to satisfy his needs (and perfectly legally on top of it). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/37 "2015-05-31T19:10:30Z")
> [@sailornaruto39](#): > > Isn’t the insuation that sexism reduces rape rather dagerous? What could gender roles actually have to do with it at all? > > I know this is an old post but I came across it while looking into the topic. I pulled out Pinker’s book. He does not make that insinuation. He does claim that targeting sexist attitudes might not be the best way of combating rape. Rape is inflicted by a minority of men. And its prevalence does relate to the degree and quality of the rule of law. So he focuses on that as well as on an evidenced based approach to crime reduction. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/38 "2015-05-31T19:49:00Z")
> [@lskinner](#): > > S When I was in college, the women’s studies majors said that (1) all sex is rape and (2) rape has nothing to do with sex. . Not entirely serious I guess, but that potential contradiction leads to the actual point which is that maybe rape is about power not ‘sex’ (in the best sense) but consensual sex (in the practical sense) is also often about power, and also not just ‘sex’ (in the best sense). And the latter goes both ways to a much greater extent than rape. Forcible rape of males by females is freakishly rare; it’s almost always the other way around or else homosexual. But consensual sex as a power game by females is not necessarily any less common than by males. That’s not to morally comparing the two things, just to say there’s some grain of truth in both 1) and 2). It’s not as total a contradiction as it seems. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/39 "2015-06-01T00:06:58Z")
> [@A.R.Cane](#): > > I think many here are confusing motive and method. > Let’s substitute the word “dominance” for “power”. Lust may, or may not, be a motivation, but w/o enthusiastic consent any sexual act is dominance over the victim. > If you drive your date into the boonies and tell her, “put out or get out”, and she consents, it’s still dominance. > Even statutory rape is often an act of dominance. > Sexual attraction, on the part of the perpetrator, may be part of the motivation, but it’s still about dominance. Except in the case of a frat boy raping a passed out girl I would say that’s more cowardice than dominance. That goes for men who drug a woman to rape her as well. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2015, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106/40 "2015-06-01T00:50:16Z")
I believe it was Steven Pinker who wrote (maybe he way quoting someone else) something to the effect of: “If rape is never about sex, that would make sex the only thing in the world that nobody is willing to use violence to obtain.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-is-a-crime-of-power-not-sex-always-true/353106.md?page=3)