Cover Story:
DATE RAPE
A Third Rail Special Report by P. Melissa Fisher

The word rape strikes fear into the heart of every woman, and statistics show that there is good reason for this—especially for college-age women. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) there were seventy-two rapes for every 100,000 women in America in 1995, that equals out to one American woman being raped every two minutes. But there is some good news, according to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) the number of rapes and sexual assaults has gone down by sixty-five percent. However, sadly, all rape statistics are approximate due to the low numbers of cases reported.

There are several dangerous misconceptions about rape. Many of them are included in the following ideology of a typical attack: it is usually perpetrated by a drunken stranger who lures his victim off of the deserted street and/or in some secluded place in the dead of night. The truth is that two-thirds of victims of rape or sexual assault know their assailants. According to the Staten Island Advance, there were sixty-one rapes reported on Staten Island between January 1 and November 6 2005, which is thirty more than were reported the year before. The paper’s November 13th front-page story quotes Deputy Chief Michael Collins of the New York Police Department (NYPD) as saying that“[o]ut of those reported this year [2005], forty-six have been so-called ‘acquaintance’ rapes where the victim and the offender were known to each other.” That means that more that seventy percent of these rapes have been date or acquaintance rapes.

Date rape is not just the most common form of rape and sexual assault overall, it is by far the most common form of attack on women age sixteen to twenty-five, as women in this age bracket are at a four-times greater risk of being the victim of a date rape than any other age bracket. In other words, a good number of the women on the average college campus are the ages that put them at this increased risk. In fact, forty-seven percent of the victims who reported an attack knew the assailant. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ), for every 1,000 women attending college, there will be thirty-five incidents of rape in a given academic year. Given the fact that the College of Staten Island (CSI) has approximately 13,000 students, with more than half of those being women, the likelihood of female students becoming the victim of a date or acquaintance rape in this academic year is probable. In 2003, two forcible sex offenses were reported as having occurred on campus. How many CSI students might have been victimized off campus? And this is just a small part of what makes this crime so frightening.

Since in the case of date rape, the victim and the attacker are known to each other, it becomes the burden of the victim to prove that the she was not a willing participant in the sexual encounter. Additionally, since many dates take place in bars, the assailant might have been drinking—but it’s likely that the victim was too, making the case even more difficult to prove—this is true in ninety percent of date or acquaintance rape cases.

Drinking also creates another form of danger for women and date rape. The media has done a fair job at making the risk of date rape drugs well-known but has failed to adequately explain what they are and how they are used. The Federal Government Source for Women’s Health Information (FGSWHI) defines these date rape drugs as those “that are sometimes used to assist a sexual assault. Sexual assault is any type of sexual activity that a person does not agree to. It can include inappropriate touching, vaginal penetration, sexual intercourse, rape, and attempted rape. Because of the effects of these drugs, victims may be physically helpless, unable to refuse sex, and can’t remember what happened. The drugs often have no color, smell, or taste and are easily added to flavored drinks without the victim’s knowledge.” It goes on to say that although they use the term “date rape,” most experts prefer the term “drug-facilitated sexual assault.” These drugs have been used to help people commit other crimes, like robbery and physical assault, and have been used on both men and women.

The organization lists three major types of date rape drugs on its website. They are: GHB, which comes in a clear odorless liquid, a white powder or a pill; Rohypnol a pill that dissolves in liquids; and Ketamine, a white powder. These drugs are all tasteless, colorless and odorless. There is a new more detectable form of Rohypnol that turns blue when it comes in contact with liquid, but the original, undetectable form is still available.

Date rape drugs will have such effects on the body as: relaxation; drowsiness; dizziness; nausea; problems seeing; unconsciousness (black out); seizures; can’t remember what happened while drugged; problems breathing; tremors; sweating; vomiting; slow heart rate; lower blood pressure; sleepiness; muscle relaxation or loss of muscle control; drunk feeling; problems talking & seeing; stomach problems; hallucinations; lost sense of time and identity; distorted perceptions of sight and sound; feeling out of control; impaired motor function; convulsions; out of body experiences; numbness; aggressive or violent behavior; slurred speech; coma and even death.

There are ways of avoiding being victimized by the date rape drug. Both RAINN and FGSWHI agree that for safety reasons, never accept a drink in an open container or leave a drink unattended—even to go to the bathroom. Just as a designated driver is a buffer against drunk driving, a designated friend can remain sober and help prevent both drugging and reckless drunken behavior. Another helpful safety precaution is to always be aware of the surroundings, particularly on dates when most of these rapes occur.

In addition to those low-tech options, science is stepping in. Watch Your Drink coasters were developed to help combat the crime of drug-facilitated sexual assault, more commonly known as ‘Drug Rape’. On each coaster there are two separate testing areas. The coasters are simple to use; they are coated with a reactant that changes color to Blue if the ‘Knock-Out Drug’ (GHB, Roofies or Ketamine) is present. The test only takes seconds to perform, and is as easy as placing a couple of drops from the drink in question onto the active test spots by using a swizzle stick or even one’s finger. These coasters are a simple, convenient way to alert potential victims and end the risk of these attacks.

Perhaps the most shocking fact about date rape is men’s attitudes about it. Unfortunately, the cliché about men thinking that they deserve sex in exchange for the money they spent on dinner and a movie still holds true in several cases. Even worse, RAINN states that thirty-three percent of men would commit date rape, if it could go undetected. In fact, nearly eight percent of men have committed acts that would fit the legal definition of rape, but don’t realize that their behavior was criminal at all, according to the USDOJ. All too often, the women who were their victims don’t realize it either. According to studies done at Texas A&M and UCLA, fifty-four percent of the male teens felt that forced sex was acceptable if the woman said yes and then changed her mind; thirty-nine percent of them thought that forced sex was permissible if he spent a lot of money on her; fifty-four percent believed it was okay if she “led him on,” and thirty-six percent believed that it was all right if he is so turned on that he thinks he can’t stop. The law says that forced sexual intercourse or sexual contact is never okay, and is punishable by jail time and a lifetime as a registered sex offender.

Perhaps the problem is that the public is unsure of what the legal definition of rape is. An online legal dictionary states rape, by law, is the crime of sexual intercourse (with actual penetration of a woman’s vagina with the man’s penis) without consent and accomplished through force, threat of violence or intimidation (such as a threat to harm a woman’s child, husband or boyfriend). What constitutes lack of consent usually includes saying “no” or being too drunk or drug-influenced for the woman to be able to either resist or consent. Defense attorneys often argue that there had to be physical resistance, but the modern view is that fear of harm and the relative strengths of the man and the woman are obvious deterrents to a woman fighting back. Most people don’t realize that no physical force is necessary to fit this definition, just the lack of consent or sufficiently impaired judgment as to be unable to give consent. That’s right guys, taking advantage of a drunk girl constitutes rape.

The effects of this crime on its victims are far worse. The psychological damage of rape is so severe and varied as to have been designated with their own collective name: Rape Trauma Syndrome. RTS has distinctive stages as the Rape Victims Association describes it: the acute or short-term stage manifests in two different styles, the controlled style and the expressive style.

A victim who uses the expressed style behaves in very much the way society has come to expect and even trivialize. They maybe agitated and restless, talk a lot, cry, swear, shout, and laugh. The ones that demonstrate the controlled style have a more difficult road, because their behavior makes them appear that nothing as traumatic as a sexual assault could have happened to them. They contain their emotions; most of the survivor’s energy is directed toward maintaining composure. They may sit calmly, respond to questions in a detached, logical way, and downplay their fear, sadness, anger, and anxiety. Both of these styles of emotional response reflect different ways of dealing with a crisis. A person may also exhibit characteristics of both styles.

Along with those issues, certain other psychological patterns are likely to emerge. The victim may turn to substance abuse to numb the pain and emotional stress of dealing with the rape. She also is far more likely to fall victim to an eating disorder. This may be because she is attempting to regain lost control in her life by controlling her eating, or because she wants to make herself unattractive to men in an attempt to prevent another attack. Nearly half (forty-four percent) of the women who become victims of date rape attempt suicide

Brett C. Trowbridge PhD, JD agrees with this and quotes an expert witness as saying “[I]n every rape victim I have seen they exhibit consistent symptoms… For example, body soreness, guilt, shame, feelings about the trial, nightmares and flashbacks are all common symptoms that rape victims experience.”

Unfortunately, these symptoms don’t just go away. According to the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) states that once through the acute stage, the victim goes into the underground phase. In this period, the victim tries to go on with life as if nothing happened. They won’t want to discuss anything about the attack; they just want to forget all about it. “Some people may remain in this underground stage of years and may appear ‘over it,’ despite the fact that emotional issues are not resolved,” reports KCSARC.

If and when the victim passes the underground stage, she is finally ready for the reorganization stage. She is somehow reminded of the attack and may develop fears or phobias. These fears and phobias may be related to the attack, but they can be more generalized, according to KCSARC. This could lead to violent fantasies of revenge. And any eating and/or sleep disorders the victim might have overcome may return in the reorganization stage.

Women do need to be smart about rape. They need to know how to protect themselves. But men also need to learn that “no” means no; it is not just playing hard to get. Men need to realize that prostitutes, not dates, get paid for sex. If a man buys a woman dinner and a movie, he has no right to expect to be repaid with any sexual activity. They need to know that, even if the encounter was completely nonviolent, it might have been rape. Date rape drugs are not the only way to drug a woman into consent. Legally, any man that gets a woman drunk and takes advantage of her is a rapist. Most of all a man thinking this might be a good way to get laid needs to know that, for a few moments’ sexual gratification, he may be destroying a woman’s life forever—as well as his own.