Effectuating Social Change for Rape and Sexual Assault - Essay Example

Rapes, especially date rapes are a common phenomenon in the United States though a huge part of statistics are not available since most of the cases go unreported and those that are reported do not represent a significant figure of the total number of rapes that happen. Some of the victims of rape cases feel that they were raped because of their actions, they were drunk, they dressed provocatively or they were in risky areas where incidents of rape are likely to happen. These social disorders or deviant behaviors as we may refer to them, have become a major problem in the society that we are living in and a quick and a long lasting solution has to be found to protect our people and future generations from these criminal acts.

In this thesis, we will try to look at ways to change the perception towards rape and the way rape and sexual assaults are handled in order to minimize such cases in future. In 2008, almost 90,000 new cases of rape were reported in America with only 25 per cent of the perpetrators being apprehended. Further statistics show that 91 per cent of the victims were women while men were only 9 per cent, perpetrators of this vice are mostly men who constituted about 99 per cent of all the reported cases while only 1 per cent were women.

Rape victims in America are entitled to a free forensic examination in line with VAWA 2005, which is a program to stop violence against women and gives grants to those states that comply with the free forensic examination to rape victims. Sexual assault in many cases is a result of a deeper problem in the perpetrators that is manifested through them raping their victims, According to Groth; a rapist may be driven by anger where he rapes a victim because of a deeper anger towards the victim or to get back at someone close to the victim.

Another reason is that the rapist may have problems and inadequacies that make him want to feel he has control, is strong or he is capable. A sadistic sexual assaulter associates pain with sexual pleasure and derives sexual pleasure when struggling with the victim, seeing him in pain and being helpless gratifies him sexually. Sometimes societal factors influence the rapists or sexual assaulters to participate in these vices, some of these factors include poverty, social environment, norms, economic factors, theories about sexual assault, culture and the sex industry.

Poverty coupled with the notion of and examples of successful men raising great families, cause a potential rapist to enter in to a crisis about his masculine identity since he cannot provide for a family if he has one and this leads one towards aggression and rape to exercise control over his partner. The social and physical environment in which people live in also contributes greatly to incidents of sexual assault, for instance living in a society that uphold a male entitlement to sex may expose ladies to more chances of rape than a society that abhors the vice.

In some environment, even the law enforcing authorities may be reluctant to punish offender in cases where it is a date rape or a sexual assault involving married couple (Basile, 2002). The norms of a society also play a huge role in ensuring rape occurs or not, in a society where male violence is encouraged against women, the likelihood of sexual assault happening is high since the women may not have a say in rejecting sexual advances from the