Rape is defined as the performance of sexual activity with another person without that person’s consent. This is an act that is illegal in the eyes of the law and punishment for this crime can vary from one country to the other. Rape can happen with a total stranger or with a person that the victims knows. The stereotype of the crime which usually involves some perfect stranger jumping a lone woman walking at night and having his way with her in some dark alley does not give a general picture of what rape is.
Teenagers who go out on dates and end up getting drunk so much that their date takes advantage of their drunkenness to have sex with them without their consent is also rape. These occurrences are referred to as data rape and they occur just as often as rape committed by total strangers (Homeier). Still, there are those who advocate that the circumstances involved in date rape should set it apart from typical stranger rape in terms of how the crime is treated.This paper directly rejects this idea and thus upholds that date rape and stranger rape should be treated and regarded in the same manner and that penalties applied by law should not differ from one to the other. As rape is defined any absence of consent by one of the parties in a sexual activity constitutes to that party being a victim of the crime.
This is very significant because that absence of consent is primarily what makes any sexual situation turn into rape.A partner may become violent with his mate as much as he wants but so long as the two are sharing a consensual sexual activity, the female cannot complain after the activity that she was raped. On the other hand, no matter how gentle the male was in performing the sexual act and even if the female did show signs of involuntary bodily receptiveness such as having an orgasm during the activity, if the female did not grant the male permission to commit the sexual act then she was raped.Thus this shows that it is the absence of consent and not the situation present that makes the act. Hence, the crime itself cannot be treated differently for different situations so long as the essential element of lack of consent is present and proven.
Those who advocate for the separate treatment of date rape and stranger rape claim that in date rape, the female is usually part to blame for the actions of the male. At times, the two may have already been engaging in some indirect forms of sexual activity to which the female was consenting.They claim that the male cannot solely be blamed for letting his lust take him over because of the presence of female motivation even if just implicitly. This argument is wrong because it transfers the burden of the crime from the doer to the victim. Every person should be responsible for his or her own actions. The female’s indiscretion while possibly contributing to the male’s motivation does not take away the fact that it is the male that ultimately had the choice whether or not to rape the female.
It is already enough burden for the woman to bear that she was raped and it is just right for the male who raped her to take responsibility for it. Rape can take many forms and may occur in different places, but what should remain constant is society and government’s treatment of the crime for all the possible circumstances of its occurrence. Therefore, date rape and stranger rape should be treated and regarded socially and legally in the same manner.
