ftape victims sexual scapegoats
Forcible rape is sexual intercourse without
consent It is a violent, often brutal crime.
"I'm glad I'm a fast talker. I thought he was going
to kill me a couple of times," said a girl who we'll call
Ann. She was raped last year on campus.
"I was scared to death, blindfolded and tied, and
he was walking around the room. You are scared to
the point that you can't move."
Stories by Ken Kirk
Ann was one of the two UNL coeds who reported
being raped last year. Gail Gade, chief of UNL
Campus Security, said some campus rapes are
unreported. Lancaster County Attorney Paul Douglas
said more than half the rapes committed are
unreported.
Susan Griffin wrote in the September, 1971 issue
cf Ramparts, "A woman who was raped in Berkeley
was asked to tell the story of her rape four different
times right out in the street", while her assailant was
escaping. She was then required to submit to a pelvic
examination to prove that penetration had taken
place.
"Later, she was taken to the police station where
she was asked the same questions again: 'Were you
forced?' 'Did he penetrate?' "Are you sure your life
was in danger and you had no choice?' This woman
had been pulled off the street by a man who held a
10-inch knife ar her throat and forcibly raped her."
"She was raped at midnight and was not able to
return to her home until five in the morning. In her
words, 'The rape was probably the least traumatic
incident of the whole evenina If I'm ever raped
again... I wouldn't report it to thftpolice because of all
the degradation...'
And the attackers...
"In Florida in 1964, I was charged with assault
with intent to commit rape. But the way I was
treated by the police was incredible. It was as if I was
a new recruit on the force. A captain in the sheriff's
office of the jail took me into his office and gave me
a cup of coffee and took out his handkerchief and
wet it in the sink and helped me clean up my face,
which was scratched.
"He looked at me and said, 'Damn women always
causing trouble for everybody.' He did not treat me
like a criminal at all. And my lawyer kept asking me,
'Are you sure she didn't do things to encourage
you?" (A radio interview, KGO San Francisco
reprinted in Ms., December 1972)
A UNL student, Susan, who was assaulted during a
trip to Europe, said she didn't report it to police. The
girl, an artist, went to the man's apartment to see
some of his art work. When she got to his apartment,
he attacked her.
"Why bother contacting the police? What kind of
case could I present. No one forced me to go," she
said.
"It's a scary thing. I just wanted to get away. I was
afraid of what the man might do to me if he got a
hold of me again," she added.
Susan, who now lives with her boyfriend, said she
'wouldn't have received sympathy from a jury. She
said her morals don't live up to accepted standards.
She said other girls who she knows haven't
reported being attacked because it cau2S a scandal.
"It's not worth going through all the hassles to get
revenge."
She said she wouldn't report being attacked even
in Lincoln. "They would drag all my past life into the
case. I don't really want it brought before the public.
And maybe they'll judge that it's my fault," Susan
said.
Scandal, degradation, fear of reprisal and an
inability to prove the case in court help cause
unreported rapes.
Although unhappy with police questioning, court
appearances and defense questions about her morals,
Ann said, "there's no other way you can do it. It's
due process of the law."
The attackers of the two UNL girls, who reported
being raped last year, were convicted and are in
prison. In Nebraska rapists serve at least one year
with a maximum of 50 years.
Ann said she was questioned extensively by UNL
Campus Security and spent hours with city police and
attorneys. She also made three court appearances.
She said the trial was horrible, but less disturbing
than the attack. "Anything would have been better.
At leost then (the trial) I knew that I wasn't going to
be killed," Ann said.
page 10
She said she received "a lot of shit" for not
putting up a fight. But, she said, it was such a
physical mismatch that "It would have been stupid to
defend myself."
She also said that because she was white and her
attacker black, "the defense attorney tried to make
me look like a rich little white girl, who couldn't tell
one black from another."
Ann's attacker had been accused before, she said,
but the girl always withdrew the complaint before the
trial because of pressure from him. She said she
received "a lot of shit" from blacks after the incident
Her rape was responsible for the increased
dormitory security measures taken last year, she said.
Gade said that after a rape is reported, UNL
Campus Security attempts to get as much
information from the victim as her emotional state
will allow. He said they get a description of the
assailant, where it happened and when, so they can
search the area immediately.
He said they must determine whether the claim is
legitimate. A pelvic examination is necessary to
determine intercourse. He said they never take a
negative attitude toward the victim, they always try
to believe her story.
Douglas said rape is easy to allege, but difficult to
prove in court especially with no bruises or torn
clothes. He said the defense attempts to show that
the girl has poor morals, consented, that she enticed
the attacker, that no intercourse took place or that
the accused wasn't the attacker.
In a recent ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court
said that a woman about to raped only has to make
"reasonable resistance in good faith" in order for her
assailant to be convicted of rape.
The court's ruling upheld the conviction of
Richard Campbell for raping a UNL student last year.
She claimed he threatened to beat her unless she
submitted. Campbell's defense was that she had not
resisted "to the upmost"
Supreme Court Judge Hale McCown said: "Where
resistance would obviously be useless, futile or
foolhardy, it is wholly unrealistic to require
affirmative direct demonstration of the utmost
physical resistance as proof of the female's opposition
and lack of consent."
Douglas said the rape trial is traumatic, but he
knows of no other way to pursue it. He said rape is
distasteful to talk about on a witness stand in front of
a judge and jury, but not as distasteful as other
crimes, such as sodomy.
He said the victim usually doesn't know the
attacker. But when the two have had sexual relations
before and the girl claims she was raped, Douglas said,
it is difficult to prove.
Gade said sometimes a girl will allege rape when
she has consented. He said it usually is done out of
fear of pregnancy or for revenge against a boyfriend,
who has hurt her.
He said the average 18 or 19 year old is reluctant
to discuss the gory details of the attack with male
police officers. He said Campus Security will have a
policewoman handle rape cases in the future.
Gade said the two rapes last year were the first
reported in at least 10 years. Gade said he would
cooperate with and maintain the confidence of any
girl who reports a sexual assault.
"It takes a lot of nerve to report a crime of this
type, but it's the right thing to do.. .to try to get him
before he attacks somebody else," Gade said.
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Portrait of a rapist as a lover
The typical rapist has little success at marriage
usually with a short courtship and a short marriage,
according to James Cole, UNL associate professor of
psychology.
According to research on sexual offenders in
Preliminary crime statistics for
1972 show a 1 1 per cent
increase in the number of
forcible rapes reported. A 19 per
cent increase in reported rapes
occurred in surburban areas,
according to the FBI Uniform
Crime Reports.
In 1972 violent all crimes
increased one per cent, while
the number of all crimes reported
S dropped three percent. There
Plvas a five per cent increase in
the number of forcible rapes
reported in 1971.
Lancaster County Atty. Paul
Douglas said 208 rapes were
reported in Nebraska in 1971.
prison, Cole said, 25 to 30 per cent of rapists are
violent and aggressive. For them hostility is necessary
for sexual satisfaction, he said.
Many of these men are impotent and, because of
their impotence, fear women, which causes hostility.
This type of rapist is non-discrimatory. Age or beauty
make no difference to him, Cole said. Often this type
also is involved in non sexual violent crimes, he said.
According to Cole these men justify rape by saying
the woman gave in or that she enjoyed it, which is
often a deliberate distortion. He said they mistake a
victim's fear as pleasure.
Amoral delinquents makeup about 10 to 15 per
cent of the rapists now in prison, Cole said. This type
of rapist sees women as sexual objects which provide
sexual release and wants them without guilt. Cole said
these men rely mainly on threats, but resort to
violence when necessary.
Cole said the most dangerous rapist is the passive,
model adolescent, straight "A" type who explodes in
a fit of sexual aggression. While these psychotic sex
offenders compose asmall proportion of the rapists
in prison, they are the most dangerous because they
are unpredictable and often kill their victims.
Another category of rapists could be considered
the double-standard aggressor, Cole said. This type
believes that there are good and bad women. They
respect good women, but think that they can take
advantage of bad women.
Another type of convicted rapist is the man who
was at the wrong place at the wrong time, Cole said.
A woman may consent to intercourse, but because
she is disturbed or suffers guilt feelings, she might
claim rape, he said.
Wednesday, may 2, 1973
daily nebraskan