Acquaintance Rape
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Acquaintance rape is
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
that is perpetrated by a person who knows the victim. Examples of acquaintances include someone the victim is dating, a classmate, co-worker, employer, family member, spouse, counselor, therapist, religious official, or medical doctor. Acquaintance rape includes a subcategory of incidents labeled
date rape Date rape is a form of acquaintance rape and dating violence. The two phrases are often used interchangeably, but date rape specifically refers to a rape in which there has been some sort of romantic or potentially sexual relationship between ...
that involves people who are in romantic or sexual relationships with each other. When a rape is perpetrated by a college student on another student, the term campus rape is sometimes used. Most rapes are perpetrated by a person known to the victim. However, acquaintance rape is less likely to be reported than stranger rape. Thus, crime statistics often underestimate the prevalence of acquaintance rape compared to national surveys. The legal consequences of acquaintance rape are the same as for stranger rape.


Origin of the term

Studies distinguishing between stranger rape and those by a person known to the victim go back to the 1950s, when a study examining American police rape files from 1958 and 1960 found about half were alleged to have been committed by men who knew their victims. The phrase acquaintance rape was first used in print in 1982 by feminist writer and activist Diana Russell. She used it as an umbrella term to cover all rapes involving people who know one another, in her write-up of a study of 930 women in San Francisco in which she found that 35% reported having experienced rape or attempted rape by an acquaintance, compared with 11% who reported being raped by strangers. In 1988 American feminist writer Robin Warshaw published '' I Never Called It Rape'', the first major book on acquaintance rape.


Prevalence

Most
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
is committed by someone the victim knows. In the United States, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) has reported that 45 percent of sexual assaults are committed by an acquaintance and an additional 25 percent by a current or former intimate partner. A 2004–05 study of 30 predominantly European countries by the United Nations Research Institute found about half of rape victims knew their rapists, over a third by name. 17% were a colleague or boss, 16% a close friend, 11% a former partner, and 7% a current partner. In a major 2009
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
study of rape cases across Europe, it was found that 67% of rapists were known to the victim, with most being a current or former partner. In Europe, the most common rape location is in the home of the victim or rapist. In the U.S., acquaintance rape frequently takes the form of
date rape Date rape is a form of acquaintance rape and dating violence. The two phrases are often used interchangeably, but date rape specifically refers to a rape in which there has been some sort of romantic or potentially sexual relationship between ...
or
gang rape In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrato ...
. A 1987 survey of 7,000 students at 25 schools found that one in four had been a victim of rape or attempted rape, and 84% of those knew their attacker. The same study found that 16% of male students who admitted rape, and 10% who admitted attempting it, said they had not been acting alone. In 1985 the
Association of American Colleges The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is a global membership organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. It works to improve quality and equity in undergraduate education and advance liberal education ...
published a report describing what were then called "trains", in which multiple male students rape a woman who is incapacitated by drugs or
alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...
. In a survey of 24 documented cases of alleged college gang rapes reported in the 1980s, 13 were perpetrated by
fraternity A fraternity (; whence, "wikt:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal order traditionally of men but also women associated together for various religious or secular ...
members, nine by groups of athletes, and two by men unaffiliated with a formal group. In a U.S. National Women's Study, 20% of rapists were described as friends, 16% as husbands, 14% as boyfriends, and 9% non-relatives such as handymen, coworkers and neighbours. A 1992 study of reported rapes in inner-city and suburban
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
found 80% of rapes of adult women were perpetrated by strangers, often by men who abducted them at gunpoint on their way to work or broke into their houses. However, the majority of rapes of girls under 16 years of age were perpetrated by people known to them, usually family or friends, and sometimes gang members. In
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, anti-rape campaigns tend to focus on "custodial rape": that is, rape of a woman by a man in a custodial position with higher status than hers, such as a landlord, policeman, or employer. A 2005 study by the World Health Institute found that in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
almost all sexual violence is perpetrated by the husband or boyfriend of the victim.


Types

Acquaintance rape is a broad category that includes all rapes except those perpetrated by people previously unknown to the rape victim. Acquaintance rape by definition includes all
date rape Date rape is a form of acquaintance rape and dating violence. The two phrases are often used interchangeably, but date rape specifically refers to a rape in which there has been some sort of romantic or potentially sexual relationship between ...
and marital and other intra-family rape, as well as rape perpetrated by people such as classmates, co-workers, friends, neighbours, and people in business, employment or caretaker relationships.
Prison rape Prison rape or jail rape is sexual assault of people while they are incarcerated. The phrase is commonly used to describe rape of inmates by other inmates. It is a significant, if controversial, part of what is studied under the wider concept ...
,
gang rape In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrato ...
, child rape and
statutory rape In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behaviour). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sex ...
are often also forms of acquaintance rape.
War rape Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has b ...
and corrective rape fall under the category of acquaintance rape if the parties have met before the rape took place. Rape of domestic and migrant workers by their employers has been reported in many countries including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.


College samples

Although date rape is a sub-section of acquaintance rape, many studies conducted with college student samples include both acquaintances and dating partners in the same category. All of the following studies on rape victimization among college women cited in this sub-section include non-dating acquaintances (for example, family members, friends, or classmates) as well as dating partners (such as boyfriends) in their questions on the characteristics of the rape perpetrator. Some studies have estimated that 90% of rapes perpetrated against college-age women are acquaintance rapes (Crawford et al. 2008; Fisher et al. 2000). A 2007 study by the National Crime Victims Research & Treatment Center that surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 5,000 women, including 3,000 college women, found that, among the college women, over 50% of forcible rapes and about 70% of drug-facilitated or incapacitated rapes were perpetrated by an acquaintance (Kilpatrick et al. 2007).


Community samples

The National Crime Victims Research & Treatment Center compared rape rates of college students and community women. (Kilpatrick et al. 2007) The study found that, compared to college students, women in the general population had higher rates of lifetime rape (18% vs 12%) and lifetime forcible rape (15% vs 6%). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey conducted by the
Centers for Disease Control The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is headquartered in Atlanta, ...
(CDC) found that 41% of women with lifetime prevalence of rape had been assaulted by an acquaintance, and more than half (51%) were raped by a current or previous intimate partner (Black et al. 2011). Among rapes that were facilitated by alcohol or other drugs so that the victim was unable to fellate, virtually all cases (93%) were perpetrated by an acquaintance or an intimate partner. This survey also included male respondents. Although the overall lifetime prevalence of rape was lower for men than women (1 in 71, or 1.4%, men vs 1 in 5, or 18%, women), similarly half of rapes of men involved acquaintances (52%) and 15.1% by a stranger. Typically, perpetrators of male rape were other men.


Motivations

Acquaintance rape is a broad category, and so the motivations of acquaintance rapists are varied. However, researchers say that acquaintance rapists generally share common characteristics: the ability to enjoy sex even with someone who is intoxicated, crying, pleading, resisting, vomiting and/or unconscious, and an exaggerated sense of entitlement and lack of guilt, remorse, empathy and compassion for others. Researchers say acquaintance rapists' primary motivation is sexual gratification, and that they tend to see their actions as seduction, not rape. A study of 15 upper-middle-class American non-stranger rapists found many described their fathers as both physically and emotionally distant, and expressed hostility towards women and a desire to dominate them, and held hyper-masculine attitudes. One researcher theorized that men who have healthy relationships with their fathers may have less need to define themselves in opposition to women and be less inclined to "hypermasculine displays of male superiority." Researchers say gang rape is motivated by a desire to show off, to be part of a group, or fear of being ostracized by other men or boys if they don't participate. Researchers say marital rape is not about sex and is instead about control, power, violence and humiliation.


Effects

The large majority of rape victims do not sustain physical injury apart from the penetration itself. Contrary to what is often assumed, stranger rape is less likely to cause physical injury than acquaintance rape, particularly rape by a current or former intimate partner: 24% of women raped by a stranger sustain physical injury additional to the penetration, compared with 40–50% of women raped by a current or former partner.


Reporting

The circumstances of the rape and relationship between the victim and the perpetrator do not change the legal definition of rape. Although acquaintance rape is well-represented among rapes that are reported to authorities, surveys show that they are much more likely than stranger rapes to go unreported. One American study found that less than 2% of victims of acquaintance rape had reported their rape to the police, compared with 21% of those raped by a stranger. Cases involving acquaintances that are not reflected in crime statistics have been labeled hidden rape (Koss et al. 1988). For example, one national survey of college women showed that 29% of stranger rapes versus 3% of acquaintance rapes were reported to the police. The findings are similar among community women where 34% of stranger rapes and 13% of acquaintance rapes are reported (Kilpatrick et al. 2007). Among the reasons that acquaintance rapes may not be reported are that victims do not self-identify as rape victims. Not realizing or not choosing to view as rape an experience that involved force or alcohol/drug-facilitated penetration when unable to consent has been called unacknowledged rape. It is a well-accepted finding first reported in the late 1980s (Koss et al., 1988) repeated in the early 2000s (Fisher et al., 2003) and most recently replicated by Kilpatrick et al. 2007. Unacknowledged rape is more common in college students raped by acquaintances (23%) compared to strangers (55%). Among community women, those who acknowledge the incident as rape are more likely to report than those who do not (21% vs 6%). Women who had been drinking alcohol or using drugs at the time of the rape are less likely to report the experience to authorities (Kilpatrick et al. 2007; Fisher et al. 2003). Other reasons that rape victims who have been raped by a known perpetrator may be less likely to report are feelings of shame, self-blame for the rape, fear of not being believed, not wanting to stir up controversy in social or familial circles, and not wanting to get their acquaintance in trouble (Kilpatrick et al. 2007). These feelings are all encouraged by traditional
rape myth Rape myths are prejudice, prejudicial, stereotyped, and false beliefs about sexual assaults, rapists, and rape victims. They often serve to excuse sexual aggression, create hostility toward victims, and bias criminal prosecution. Extensive resea ...
s that perpetuate the stereotype that acquaintance rapes are not “real” rapes (Estrich, 1987).


References


Citations


Sources

* * * * Fisher, B.S., Cullen, F.T., Turner, M.G. (2000)
The Sexual Victimization of College Women
Research Report. Washington, D.C. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. * * Kilpatrick, D.G., Resnick, H., Ruggiero, K., Conoscenti, L., & McCauley, J. (2007)
Drug facilitated, incapacitated, and forcible rape: A national study
Washington, D.C. U.S. Department of Justice. * * * Tjaden, P. & Thoennes, N.(2000)
Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Finding from the National Violence Against Women Survey
Washington, D.C. National Institute of Justice. {{Authority control Rape by type Sex crimes