A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Sermons / ADVICE FROM THE CLERGY : On Rape and Society

As we see the crime of rape reaching endemic dimensions, there is no doubt that such a program should be integrated into medical school curricula, a need illustrated by recent news of an emergency room doctor who failed to recognize a rape case.

I do not feel that this epidemic, as a menace eroding the fabric of a civilized social life, is studied enough. In discussing rape, criminologists consider punitive actions, sociologists observe it in statistical terms, people of religion describe it as a sin, while feminists and other intellectuals abhor it as an act of violence against women. While all of this is correct, there are other aspects that are overlooked. Rape is an act of violence, but it is within a sexual context.

In a society like ours, the crime of rape is not triggered by sexual hunger. Rather, this crime is a result of sexual abundance--abundance to the point of being cheap and dull. There is a divorce between sexual acts, holiness and intimacy. There is complete unawareness of privacy as a part of human dignity, modesty as an enhancement of beauty and self-restraint as a value that sets human beings apart from the rest of the animal world. When examined closely, this growing epidemic represents a sociological paradox: Our society is one of relative sexual license. Yet, a crime deeply rooted in sexual frustration, violence in a sexual context, is much more prevalent than in societies with limited sexual access.

Of course, I realize that I see both the problems and solutions through the prism of my personal moral and religious convictions. However, we might reduce rape if we as a society:

-- Refuse to accept violence in general as a legitimate way of dealing with each other, even when angry or victimized;

-- Realize that the preponderance of pornography portrays women as objects of sexual satisfaction, and mythologizes the warped conception that “women want to be raped”;

-- Come to terms with the notion that the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment ends where other people’s rights begin. Certainly, being raped stands in the way of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;

-- Relegate sex to its role as an expression of love and intimacy in a monogamous relationship, and realize that this, rather than promiscuity and unlimited sexual license, is the way to sexual fulfillment.

In the context of such revisions, it seems clear that rape would certainly diminish.