Dating: How's your luck? - Page 351

Ever since the term Date Rape was coined by doctor Mary Koss in 1987, a convoluted piece of legislation of the same name has been injected into the United States of America’s court system. Over the last two and a half decades, this law has been proven ineffective and destructive for a vast majority of the female population while simultaneously keeping the justice system gridlocked with litigant’s arbitrary and contradictory allegations of abuse. Having date rape being illegal is fallacious for a multitude of reasons. It is ineffective; it conflicts with laws already put in place, utilizes the term rape incorrectly, based upon unreliable evidence, creates more victims, and hurts the victims of date rape more than the actual event.
Date rape has nothing to do with rape. The Federal Bureau of Investigation classifies the term rape as a violent crime. Furthermore, rape has nothing at all to do with sex, just ask a feminist. They will gladly point out that rape is about having dominion, power, and control over someone. Date rape is defined as a sexual act that rarely involved violence. That means date rape is a sexual crime not a violent crime. It is disingenuous and irresponsible to attach the word rape to a crime that is virtually absent of violence.
The term date rape is interchangeable with term sexual assault. Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented. With sexual assault laws already on the books, the date rape law could be adjudicated from arbitration without issue, date rape cases could be easily converted to sexual assault charges, and the criminal litigation process would be streamlined. This simple move would make rape cases less complicated and confusing while correctly classifying date rape as a sexual crime.
Having date rape illegal doesn’t prevent the prevalence of rape, but increases the amount of victims, further exacerbating the problem. Victim is the priciest sell in this world. The victim feels the most and suffers the best. Once you label someone as a victim, the more likely a person is to be victimized. When you have been victimized by someone, the arousal of that encounter etches a pattern into the brain, the brain then tries to master that arousal by attracting perpetrators that are prone to the kind of abusive behavior they fear, and the cycle of victimization continues. This phenomenon is called traumatic reenactment, where a survivor of previous abuse compulsively seeks out the same acts of abuse for the remainder of their lifetime. While date rape is awful and should be avoided at all costs, acknowledgement that you are powerless in a situation is far more painful than the actual indent. If a person never sees themself as a victim, the pattern never emerges, thus the cycle of abuse never begins.
Most rape victims report that revisiting the trauma of a date rape committed against them while testifying against their alleged assailant is more damaging to their mental and emotional psyche than the actual sexual assault. When the justice system does more damage than a rapist you know something is fundamentally broken within American legal practices. In several circumstances, federal criminal court judges have actually ordered rape victims to appear at the rapists…I mean therapists office. The victim has to relive the trauma in perpetuity by talking to the psychologist about the event ad nauseum. It is much healthier to accept what happened, chalk it up to making poor life choices, and move on.
Alcohol is one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs for women. Alcohol is also the most common intoxicants involving date rape. Women's erotic placidity is much more different than a man’s. Studies conducted measuring genital blood flow concludes that; women do not inherently know what turns them on. In women’s biological psychology, there is a schism between how her body is responding to a stimulus and what she reports to her brain consciously. From this information we can deduct that a women’s ability to gauge how her body is responding to sexual encounters can become compromised. Adding the consumption of alcohol to the picture further complicates the issue making a date rape case next to impossible to prove within a reasonable doubt. Therefore the vast majority of date rape cases lack the validity to be tried in a court of law.
Recovering for a traumatic event is completely dependent or the victim’s intrinsic motivation to endure adversity. Some people get dealt a bad hand in life and half to work that much harder than to overcome the obstacles placed in front of them. Nobody has ever gone on to live a productive and meaningful life by obsessing over one obstacle, suing the obstacle, spending years of their life and thousands of dollars putting the obstacle on trial, and throwing the obstacle in jail. Letting a specific event define your standing in the world is tantamount to wasting the greatest gift the world has bestowed upon them, life. Date Rape is a perfect excuse for becoming depressed and surrendering your worth to the court system, relying on lawyers to “come in like a wrecking ball” and fight for what’s left of their plaintiff’s dignity. Or they overcome adversity, accomplish tremendous feats, and become the hero of their own story. Stop blaming environmental factors for getting into precarious situations, take responsibility for your own actions, and learn from both good and bad experiences.