Acquaintance Rape

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Date Rape is a misleading term, which describes a serious crime that is misunderstood and under-reported. For many women, the word “rapist” evokes images of a psychotic stranger in an alley. But more often than not, a rape victim knows her attacker. He’s a seemingly nice guy-a date, a good friend, a casual acquaintance, a classmate, or even a coworker-who suddenly becomes forceful or even violent, and makes her have sexual intercourse against her will. This is called acquaintance or date rape. Rape, regardless of who commits it is a felony sexual assault that leaves the victim injured and traumatized. 60 % of rapes are acquaintance or date rapes. The number of date rapes in the U.S. is higher than most countries around the world. About 100,00 rapes are reported each year while the FBI believes this is only 1/8 of the actual amount of rapes. One college professor stated in an article that date rape is “more common than left handedness, alcoholism, and heart attacks.” T!
he Women’s Resource center found that 1 in 4 women will be a victim of date rape or attempted date rape in their lifetime. These horrifying numbers can be partially attributed to the fact that 30% of teens have experienced sexual intercourse by the age of 15. Also, the age of rapists is declining, boys younger than 13 are being arrested for date rape.
Date rape has existed for many centuries. However, it was not a well-known offense. Date rape was first mentioned in the 20th Century in a book called Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller in 1967. Before the mid 70’s date rape was rarely prosecuted and when it was the effort often failed. Than in the 80’s people began waking up and noticing that just because a woman is on a date doesn’t mean she wants sex. In date rape cases it is often the man’s word against the woman word because there is no evidence. In addition, sometimes the victim had willingly had sex with the attacker in the ...