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Mary-Jo Waterbury
Dr. Jessica Willis
SOCI 321
8 December 2014
Final Paper
I know what rape is. It’s when a man forces a woman to have sex with him. I know why
it happens. It happens because men want sex so bad they’ll do anything to get it. I know what
domestic violence is too. It’s when someone is hurt by another person. Why does it happen?
Many reasons, but not these examples that most people typically think of. It could be anger or
jealousy or because they don’t know any other way to treat those closest to them. Never once did
sex, gender, and sexuality differences cross my mind as explanation for domestic violence or
rape, but could it be true?
Rape: “any form of unwanted sexual behaviour that is imposed on someone…including
sexual harassment, verbal abuse, leering, threats, exposure, being forced to watch pornography,
unwanted touching, incest, penetration, mutilation, and ritual abuse” (1). In this way, rape is
more than just unwanted sex with somebody. It’s when the spouse of someone forces or
threatens them into unwanted sexual activities such as a blow job or even fondling. It’s when a
medical practitioner convinces someone to undergo an unnecessary intimate examination. It’s
when a friend of someone has sex with them while they’re passed out from drinking too much.
Our society does a poor job of educating people on the broad spectrum of rape. Many people,
including victims of rapists and rapists themselves, think of rape as just having sex with an
unwilling person. As explained, rape is far from that, and I’m not surprised there are many

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people out there that don’t realize they are victims of rape or have raped someone themselves.
The awareness of rape is actually extremely low.
This lack of awareness can be represented by the chapter I Never Called It Rape, in the
book Debating Sexual Correctness, by Robin Warshall. In this personal story, Robin explains her
experience of having one of her ex-boyfriends trick her into an abandoned house and threatened
to kill her unless she had sex with him. Scared of the possible outcomes of the situation, she
figured having sex with him would result in both her safety and freedom, so she complied. After
three years, she realized she had been raped. In her explanation of this realization, she said,
“Since my attacker had been my boyfriend, with whom I had had sexual intercourse with before,
I never attached the word rape to what had happened. Rape, after all, was what vile strangers did
to you” (2, pg. 255). Her explanation is the popular belief of many people regarding rape.
Unfortunately, it is far from the truth.
Most victims of rape know the person who raped them. This makes it very difficult for
the victim to wrap their minds around the idea that they have been raped. This is especially true
of wives who are raped by their spouses. In the chapter Doing Gender and Doing Gender
Inappropriately, by Barbara Perry, one female describes her experiences as the wife of a man
who took advantage of her marriage to him. She said, “He used to call me at work to come to
him at once because he wanted sex. I used to work on Saturday and he didn’t so he wanted me
home” (3, pg. 339). Obviously not interested in sex, her husband would demand that she drop
everything she was doing to have sex with him wherever he was and whenever he wanted. That
is a form of rape that most people remain unaware of. Another less subtle example of rape
between spouses is, “In 1989, Curtis Adams was sentenced to 32 years in prison for torturing his
wife in a ten-hour attack. After she refused anal sex, Adams handcuffed his wife, repeatedly

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forced a bottle and then a broomstick into her anus and hung her naked out the window—taking
breaks to make her read biblical passages adjuring women to obey their husbands” (3, pg. 337).
Not only are Adam’s actions of forcing a bottle and broomstick up her anus an act of rape, but,
by his actions, Adams also portrayed domestic violence.
Domestic Violence: “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one
partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner” (4). This includes
“any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce,
threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone” (4). Domestic violence, along with rape, is
underreported and happens on a regular basis. According to The Penguin Atlas of Women in the
World, by Joni Seager, 31% of women in the United States say they have experienced physical
abuse by a male or intimate partner (5, pg. 29). It also says that “22%-35% of women who visit a
hospital emergency room in the United States do so because of domestic violence” (pg. 28). We
can try to attribute occurrences of domestic violence and rape to emotionally unstable people, a
child who was raised incorrectly, or people who have had experiences similar to the way they’re
acting; however, these explanations aren’t the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is our social constructions of gender, race, and sexuality. Some
people may wonder why men are typically accused and commit acts of domestic violence and
rape more often than women. This is because men are raised and taught to be masculine. Being
masculine entails that a man is dominant, maintaining power and control, over everyone who is
supposed to be subordinate to him including women and minority races and sexuality groups
(homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexual, Black, Native American, African American, Asian, etc.).
Many men have the mentality that it is their marital right to have sex with their wife whenever
they want if they so please. Others say that, in general, rape is a man’s right. Women are made to

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have sex and nothing else, and if a man wants sex, he should take it. For some people, this is
shocking, but this concept of dominance and justifiable rape and violence didn’t just develop in
the 20th century and 21st century. It also played a part in the way White, European men colonized
America.
In the chapter Rape and War Against Native Women, by Andrea Smith, the “colonials
used violence and rape (mutilation) of Indians to “eradicate” their very identity and humanity”
(3, pg. 325). So, in order to assert their dominance over the Natives, the colonials raped and
killed many Native people, especially Native women, with the logic that if they killed off Native
Women, Natives couldn’t reproduce. In this way, White men maintained their masculinity and
power. The Indians were either killed, mutilated and tortured, or taught they were animals and
forced to act like civilized, White people. The Indian’s bodies were considered ‘dirty’ and
“rapable”. They weren’t “pure” in the colonial’s eyes; therefore, their bodies weren’t deemed to
deserve integrity and could be violated by any means.
The LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer) community also gets viewed and
treated similarly as a result of their ‘freakiness’ and gender, sex, and sexuality deviances. In the
chapter Who’s Body Is This Anyway?, by C. Jacob Hale (a man born intersex-a person with the
‘wrong’ genitalia for their body), brings up an interesting thought. He explains that the
mutilation of genitalia should not be a means by which a person attempts to “fit in” with society,
but rather, it should only matter who a person is instead of what society says a person is based on
their genitalia. The latter of this idea relates to how rape and domestic violence are used to
control and maintain dominance over a person. If a person’s genitalia or sex, what makes a
person male or female, can be controlled by another person via rape (mutilation) and domestic
violence, then their power over themselves and who they are can be controlled as well. In other

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words, rape and domestic violence can cause a person to feel confused about their identity or feel
they don’t have one.
Take this question for example; is a person still a virgin after they have been raped? The
chapter The Ambiguity of Sex and Virginity Loss, by Laura M. Carpenter, explains how in
instances like these, virginity becomes an ambiguous, or uncertain, concept. Some people may
say the person is no longer a virgin physically or say that they still are because they didn’t make
a psychological choice to give it away. But many people define the loss of virginity differently.
Some people define the loss of virginity as vaginal sex while others define it as having anal or
oral sex, masturbating, or even being fondled by another person. This said, it’s difficult for a
person who has just been raped to establish their status as a virgin or non-virgin; however, the
virginity of any person who has been raped or a victim of domestic violence is ultimately for that
person to decide, and often is a confusing and emotional choice, especially for women. A
women’s virginity is prized far higher by society than a man’s; women are expected to stay
sexually ‘clean’ or ‘pure’ till marriage. As the notion of purity in women is widespread
throughout females, so is the notion of terror and fear of men’s dominance in the forms of rape
and domestic violence.
In the chapter Doing Gender and Doing Gender Inappropriately, one person says, “One
case of domestic violence against a women reminds other women that they are subject to violent
control by men” (3, pg. 336). The same applies with rape. If women hear several accounts of
men raping or abusing women, the fear of them becoming a victim one day escalates as this
concept of men’s dominance over women can be applied everywhere. But it’s not only women
that experience the terror of potentially experiencing such violations and harm. Minority races
and sexuality groups, men and women alike, also experience similar experiences and terror from

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hearing that a member of their sex, gender, race, or sexuality group has been raped or is a victim
of domestic violence. In simple terms, rape and domestic violence are more than just a woman’s
struggle. It’s a worldwide problem that affects both men and women in various different social
groupings.
There is hope though. In the chapter Goodbye to the Sex-Gender Distinction, Hello to
Embodied Gender, by James W. Messerschmidt, it says, “…there is nothing about women’s
biology that causes women’s subordination, rather, difference and inequality between women
and men are socially determined phenomena that can be socially changed” (3, pg. 49). In other
words, the biology of people can’t explain why rape and domestic violence or the need for
dominance over others occurs, but a deeper look into our social order and biases can. Again,
never once did sex, gender, and sexuality differences cross my mind as an explanation for or root
problem of domestic violence and rape, but could it be true?
One idea that has been recently presented to me is destroying the concepts of gender, sex,
and sexuality all together. It’s difficult to try to imagine a world without gender, sex, or
sexuality, but if society were to abolish gender, sex, and sexuality in and of itself, what would
that look like? For one thing, there would be no educational and social process by which all
males learn they need to maintain dominance, control, and power over the world and the people
that live in it. There would be no need for women, minority race groups, and the LGBTQ
community to act and be treated as subordinates. There would be no way for anyone to have
dominance over or seize control of another person’s body and identity based on their sex, gender,
or sexuality. Everyone would be equal in our society as a person instead of a tool or property.
There would still be occurrences of rape and domestic violence as no society can reach
perfection, but I feel the numbers would decrease dramatically. Judith Lorber, in the chapter she

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wrote called A World Without Gender, describes her idea of what our world would be like
without gender, sex, or sexuality. In her description, she says, “Charity, honesty, and competence
are as evident as corruption, double-dealing, and shoddy work—people are people. So there is
still murders, wars, and other forms of violence although perhaps through an ethical
environment, societies might develop in which people are taught how to handle anger and
conflict in positive ways” (3, pg. 408). Without gender, sex, and sexuality to split the people in
our society apart, this idea may be completely feasible. Regardless, the question remains: would
people really purposely destroy the preordained social order of our society to create a whole new
kind of social order, which has never before been established, with the potential to produce full
equality to all people?
I’d like to think so.

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Sources
1. BRISSC. "What Is Rape?" What Is Rape? N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.brissc.org.au/resources/for/for_1.html>.
2. Stan, Adele M. "I Never Called It Rape." Debating Sexual Correctness: Pornography,
Sexual Harassment, Date Rape and the Politics of Sexual Equality. New York:
Delta, 1995. 255. Print.
3. Ferber, Abby, Kimberly Holcomb, and Tre Wentling. Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The
New Basics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. 41-47, 49, 150-151, 325, 336,
337, 339, 408. Print.
4. "Domestic Violence." Front Page. The United States Department of Justice, n.d. Web. 03
Dec. 2014. <http://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence>.
5. Seager, Joni, and Joni Seager. "Domestic Violence." The Penguin Atlas of Women in the
World: Completely Revised and Updated. 3rd ed. New York, N.Y.: Penguin,
2003. 28, 29. Print.