Foa, P. (1981). "What’s wrong with rape?" In M. Vetterling-Braggin, F.A. Elliston, & J. English, (eds.), Feminism and philosophy (pp. 347-359). Littlefield: Adams & Co.

OVERVIEW

According to the author:

It is clear that rape is wrong...Dispute begins, however, when we attempt to account for the special features of rape, the ways in which its wrongness goes beyond its criminal character.

The author rejects the notion that rape is wrong because it goes against the law of God—or even against the law of nature. "Acting unnaturally is not acting immorally unless there is a moral design to the natural order—and there is no such structure to it."

Seeing the special wrongness of rape as an attack of a stronger person against a weaker one is demeaning. In their paper, "Rape and Respect," Marilyn Frye and Carolyn Shafer view rape’s special wrongness in two ways:

• It uses a person without her consent in an act against her best interests.
• It reinforces the social prejudice that says that women lack, and ought to lack, the full privileges of personhood—the freedom to be and to move as they will.

Pamela Foa offers "a different explanation: The special wrongness of rape is due to, and is only an exaggeration of, the wrongness of our sexual interactions in general." She believes, "contrary to the Frye/Shafer theory...that liberated men and women—people who have no doubts about the moral or ontological equality of the sexes—can and do have essentially rape-like sex lives."

Very significant in this chapter is the comparison of the "halo of contamination" that surrounds prison hostages and rape victims. At Attica prison, those sent in by Governor Rockefeller shot and treated the guards exactly like the prisoners. Gary Wills (The human sewer. [1975, April 3]. New York Review of Books, p. 4.) compares the response to the guards contaminated by their association with the prisoners with that of a southern white girl violated by a black. Careful scrutiny of such situations reveals that both are "a public pollution—to be purged." The attitude of Americans toward rape victims must be honestly examined.

American girls, according to Foa, are raised on the "slippery slope argument" that says a girl is not to trust pleasurable sexual feelings. Boys also learn this argument and deduce that they should ignore a girl’s protests. "...Boys are instructed NOT to be attentive to the claims of girls with respect to their desires and needs. And girls are instructed NOT to consult their feelings as a means of, or at least a check on, what behavior they should engage in."

The author hopes for a healthier society in which "men and women might engage in that behavior that gives them pleasure as long as that pleasure is not...against anyone’s will...and does not involve them with responsibilities they cannot or will not meet."

This author believes that a society committed to the legitimacy of sexual pleasure will by its openness move from the rape model of sexuality to honest friendship between lovers.

IMPLICATIONS

1. Society must deal with the epidemic of rape—child and date rapes, gang rapes, lethal rapes, those which leave the victim alive, and rapes within marriage.
2. We must determine what is so terribly wrong about rape.
3. We must honestly examine our secret attitudes toward rape victims—and ask tough questions about our sexual attitudes.
4. How does our society produce so many rapists? How can this trend be reversed?

Dean Borgman cCYS