Re: Some prison statistics

Vanessa Yaremchuk (vanessa@ugrad.cs.ualberta.ca)
Wed, 16 Jun 1999 00:26:39 -0600 (MDT)

On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Timothy Bates wrote:

> Apparently this "rape = power not sex" meme, though powerfully transmitted,
> has very little empirical support (read "seems wrong every time it is
> tested"). People use to power (rape) to have sex, not vice-versa.
>
> While theoretically and perhaps even introspectively the power meme may
> appear valid, an abundance of sexually available people appears to reduce
> the frequency of rape. Ergo, the (admittedly monstrous and amoral) rapist
> chooses sex and is happy to get it without the bother of having to rape
> someone. This result seems incompatible with the "rape is not about sex"
> hypothesis.

This is interesting. It does not explain why people who are married or who have girlfriends/boyfriends still commit rape though. Nor does it explain why little old ladies sometimes get raped. Wouldn't the tendancy be for primarily sexually attractive people to get raped if it is about sex?
How would this explain prostitutes getting raped? Clearly they provide easy access to sex, yet there are many cases of prostitutes being raped.
If you could point me in the direction of the article (or other source) where you found the information about incidence of rape decreasing when available sex partners increases I'd be very interested to read it.

Vanessa



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