There is No Such Thing as a “Classic Rapist”

http://www.care2.com/causes/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-classic-rapist.html#ixzz37VSNNHul

I mean I could write a whole other blog post about these remarks but I digress. The point is that Judge Mettyear is clearly misinformed about what rape is. There is no such thing as a “classic rapist.” Men don’t just lose control and rape women. Being drunk doesn’t mean a woman can’t be raped. This man didn’t have sex with his victim, he raped her.

Messages like this are not only incredibly insensitive to victims, but dangerous for everyone. When we believe that these types of myths are reality, victims start to question what happened to them and are reluctant to report, people don’t understand what consent really look likes, attackers might not know they are raping women, rapists go free, rapists rape again, rape cases aren’t investigated, the list goes on and on.

The results are devastating. Consider the rape crisis on college campuses. Women in college are highly susceptible to rape, yet a new report reveals that nearly half of colleges and universities haven’t looked at a single case of rape and 20 percent don’t investigate all the incidents they report to the feds. Perhaps one of the reasons this is happening is because even administrators aren’t sure what qualifies as rape.

It’s high time we dispel myths about rape and start creating real understanding of what sexual assault looks like in all it’s forms. First, and foremost, rape isn’t a crime that is predominately committed by strangers. In fact, 73 percent of sexual assaults are committed by a non-stranger and 38 percent of rapists are a friend or acquaintance of the victim. Perhaps we’ve held tight to the myth of stranger danger because we don’t want to live in a world where we think people we know can commit rape, but unfortunately the majority of perpetrators are the people who are closest to the victims. We can also lay the dark alley and bushes myth to rest because more than 50 percent of sexual assaults actually occur within 1 mile of the victim’s home.