Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:20:43.479Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rape and Persuasive Definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Keith Burgess-Jackson
Keith Burgess-Jackson*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX76019-0527, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

If we [women] have not stopped rape, we have redefined it, we have faced it, and we have set up the structures to deal with it for ourselves.

[T]he definition of rape, which has in the past always been understood to mean the use of violence or the threat of it to force sex upon an unwilling woman, is now being broadened to include a whole range of sexual relations that have never before in all of human experience been regarded as rape.

In 1989 the philosopher and self-described feminist Christina Sommers published a short essay — ‘an opinion piece,’ she called it — that was eventually developed into and published as a philosophical article. In this essay Sommers criticized ‘feminist philosophers’ (her term) for being ‘oddly unsympathetic to the women whom they claim to represent.’ Specifically, Sommers accused these philosophers of ignoring the ‘values of the average woman’ and of being caught up in an ‘ideological fervor.’ To emphasize her point that the so-called feminist philosophers have lost touch with ‘the average woman,’ Sommers wrote that ‘One must nevertheless expect that many women will continue to swoon at the sight of Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett O'Hara up the stairs to a fate undreamt of in feminist philosophy.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 415 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I can also be reached via e-mail: kbj@uta.edu.

References

2 Roberts, Cathy Women and Rape (New York: New York University Press 1989), 116Google Scholar

3 Podhoretz, Norman ‘Rape in Feminist Eyes,’ Commentary 93 (1992), 6–7Google Scholar

4 The quotations are from Sommers, Christina ‘Feminist Philosophers Are Oddly Unsympathetic to the Women They Claim to Represent,’ The Chronicle of Higher Education 36 (11 October 1989) B3Google Scholar. The expanded version of this essay appears as Sommers, Christina ‘Should the Academy Support Academic Feminism?’ Public Affairs Quarterly 2 (1988) 97–120.Google Scholar Sommers says the comment about Butler, Rhett and O'Hara, Scarlett was meant ‘humorously.’ Christina Sommers, ‘Argumentum Ad Feminam,’ Journal of Social Philosophy 22 (1991), 13.Google Scholar

5 Mitchell, Margaret Gone with the Wind (New York: Macmillan 1936)Google Scholar. The motion picture of the same name, based on the book, was released in 1939.

6 Friedman, Marilyn “‘They Lived Happily Ever After”: Sommers on Women and Marriage,’ Journal of Social Philosophy 21 (1990), 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar (ellipsis in original; citation omitted)

7 Sommers, Christina ‘Do These Feminists Like Women?’ Journal of Social Philosophy 21 (1990), 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar (brackets and emphasis in original)

8 Friedman, Marilyn ‘Does Sommers Like Women? More on Liberalism, Gender Hierarchy, and Scarlett O'Hara,’ Journal of Social Philosophy 21 (1990), 86 (emphasis in original)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 That in itself is an interesting criticism. Why must Friedman render her beliefs consistent with the beliefs of others?

10 Sommers, ‘Argumentum Ad Feminam,’ 13–15Google Scholar

11 The term ‘persuasive definition,’ like ‘argument,’ is used to refer to both an activity ('You're engaged in persuasive definition’) and the product of that activity ('That's a persuasive definition’). I use the abbreviation ‘PD’ to refer to both of these, leaving it to the context to indicate which is intended.

12 By ‘connotation’ I mean emotive meaning. Later I will use the word in a technical sense, to refer to the intension (as opposed to the denotation or extension) of a term.

13 I should say a word or two about the type of theory I have in mind. Social scientists as well as philosophers propound ‘theories of rape,’ but social-scientific theories are almost always theories of the cause of rape. These theories offer causal explanations of the phenomenon. See, for example, Baron, Larry and Straus, Murray A. Four Theories of Rape in American Society: A State-Level Analysis (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1989)Google Scholar. The social scientist typically begins with an understanding of rape and investigates its causes and consequences. Sociologists Baron and Straus, for example, adopt the definitions of ‘rape’ given by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (in the Uniform Crime Reports) and the Department of Justice (in the National Crime Survey). See ibid., 40. The philosopher, in contrast, inquires into the nature of rape. The philosopher wants to know what rape is; the social scientist wants to know what causes rape, given an understanding of what rape is.

14 sommers calls herself a feminist; I have no problem with that. But friedman is also A feminist and she sommers clearly differ on this important matter of feminist Concern. To distinguish them, I use the lable ‘radical feminist’ for friedman and those who share her outlook. Sommers might be thought of as, and occasionally calls herself, a liberal feminist. I discuss liberal and radical theories of rape in part VI.

15 Stevenson, Charles Leslie ‘Persuasive Definitions,’ Mind 47 (1938) 331-50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Stevenson, Charles L. Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1944), ch. 9, esp. 210-11Google Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated, parenthesized numerals in the text refer to pages of the 1938 article.

16 Stevenson retreats from this position in Ethics and Language, which appeared six years after the article in Mind. He cautions in the book against ‘castling] a general disparagement on persuasive definitions.’ ‘The practical question,’ he says, ‘is not whether to reject persuasion, but which persuasion to reject. Not all persuasion is that of the mob orator; and the evaluation of persuasion, like the evaluation of anything else, is not a matter that lends itself to hasty generalizations’ (Stevenson, Ethics and Language, 215 [emphasis in original])Google Scholar. In Part IV of this essay I suggest that at least one type of PD — the type that clarifies a vague but emotively charged term — is legitimate.

17 For a discussion of the distinction between nominal ('word-thing’) and real ('thing-thing’) definition, the former of which concerns the meaning of symbols and the latter of which concerns the nature or essence of things, see Robinson, Richard Definition (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1954Google Scholar; reprint ed. 1965), passim.

18 Parenthesized numerals in the text refer to pages of this book.

19 Govier, Trudy A Practical Study of Argument, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth 1992)Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 96 (italics in original). All other quotations from Govier are from this page of her textbook.

21 I should make good my claim that contemporary treatments of PD vary widely in quality. Another good, although ultimately unacceptable, treatment is given by Hurley, Patrick J. in A Concise Introduction to Logic, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth 1994).Google Scholar The problem with Hurley's treatment is that he claims PDs work ‘by assigning an emotionally charged or value-laden meaning to a word,’ as in“‘Abortion” means the ruthless murdering of innocent human beings’ (ibid., 92). But that is neither required nor suggested by Stevenson or Robinson. For them, it is the definiendum, not the definiens, that has emotive meaning and is exploited by the definer. Frank Harrison says that’ A persuasive definition is any type of definition used to convince the receiver to accept or reject a claim in which the definiendum occurs.’ Harrison, Frank R. III, Logic and Rational Thought (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing 1992), 465Google Scholar (italics omitted). This definition is far too broad; it includes all types of stipulative definitions as well as theoretical definitions. Howard Kahane, who, interestingly, discusses PO in his chapter on fallacies, implying that it is a fallacious form of reasoning, says that it is a ‘device’ that ‘consists in defining oneself into victory.’ Kahane, Howard Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction, 6th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company 1990), 307Google Scholar. By this point, I submit, we have left Stevenson, Robinson, and the traditional understanding of PD far behind.

22 There are other ways besides PD to change attitudes.

23 I have no theory of the origin of emotive meanings, or of why certain words have the emotive meanings they do, or of how (if at all) emotive meanings change (they certainly seem to). I assume that there are emotive meanings and they can and do change.

24 A word with negative emotive meaning is said to be derogatory or pejorative; a word with positive emotive meaning is said to be laudatory or euphemistic. At any rate, that is how I use the terms in this essay.

25 I assume that in most cases -and I know there are exceptions to this rule - extension and intension are inversely related. That is to say, as intension increases, extension decreases; and as intension decreases, extension increases. Moreover, I assume that, logically speaking, intension determines extension. So if I redefine a term so as to decrease its intension, I thereby increase its extension. This is what radical feminists are accused of doing in the case of ‘rape,’ as we shall see.

26 This needs to be qualified. In principle, there is no limit to the number of people one can reach or affect with a single PD. In practice, given limitations of attention, interest, and means of communication, one can affect only a subset of all people, perhaps a very small subset- perhaps a single-member set. A political figure with access to mass media can obviously change more attitudes than someone not similarly situated- a philosopher, for example.

27 Earlier I said that I would not address the issue of how emotive meaning originates or changes. I would also like to stay clear of the issue (which is not philosophical anyway) of whether all words in natural languages such as English have emotive meaning, whether positive or negative and whether strong or weak. It seems plausible to me that many words do, but equally plausible that some do not - for example, newly coined terms. The word ‘rape,’ which is the focus of this essay, has emotive meaning, so I need not resolve the issue here.

28 An anonymous reviewer for this journal points out that some (re)definitions simultaneously increase and decrease the term's extension. The reviewer's example is 'democracy.’ Suppose the term is initially defined as ‘voting rights and property rights for men,’ then redefined as ‘voting rights for men and women.’ As the reviewer rightly points out, the extension has increased because it now includes women, but decreased because it now excludes property rights. I ignore this complexity in what follows, since, as the reviewer observes, nothing substantive hinges on it.

29 This is shorthand for 't assigns a new intensional meaning to “W,” which has the effect of increasing “W“'s extension.'

30 Robert Martin defines ‘persuasive definition’ as follows: ‘When a word has acquired laudatory (or derogatory) overtones, it is sometimes redefined in accord with a speaker's evaluations. For example, even though the usual usage would count rock music as music, somebody who hated rock might refuse to call it that, because of the word's laudatory overtones. (“Nothing that loud is music!”)’ (Martin, Robert M. The Philosopher's Dictionary, 2nd ed. [Lewiston, NY: Broadview 1994], 66 [emphasis in original]).Google Scholar

31 Podhoretz, ‘Rape in Feminist Eyes.’ Parenthesized numerals in the text refer to pages of this article.

32 The first quotation is from the response of Frank S. Zepezauer. The second and third are from the response of Daniel R. Simon. Both responses were published in Commentary 93 (1992), 6. Podhoretz clarified his position in a rejoinder to these and other writers, part of which I quoted at the outset of the essay.

33 Gilbert, Neil ‘The Phantom Epidemic of Sexual Assault,’ The Public Interest (1991), 61, 64Google Scholar; see also idem, ‘Realities and Mythologies of Rape,’ Society 29 (1992) 4–10.Google Scholar

34 Roiphe, Katie The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus (Boston: Little, Brown 1993), 54Google Scholar. Subsequent references to this work are given in parentheses in the text.

35 Morgan, Robin ‘Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape,’ in Lederer, Laura ed., Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (New York: William Morrow 1980), 136.Google Scholar Morgan is well aware of, and presumably embraces, the implications of this definition, for she says ‘It must be clear that, under this definition, most of the decently married bedrooms across America are settings for nightly rape’ (ibid., 137). The reader will note the similarity of Morgan's view to that of Friedman as set out in Part I. Both emphasize the initiation of intercourse.

36 Medea, Andra and Thompson, Kathleen Against Rape (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1974), 12 (emphasis added)Google Scholar

37 MacKinnon, Catharine A. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1989), 245 (emphasis added)Google Scholar

38 Acquaintance Rape: Is Dating Dangerous? (Rockville, MD: American College Health Association 1987) (emphasis added). See also a brochure prepared and distributed by the Division of Student Affairs of the University of Oregon, which defines 'coercive rape’ as the use of ‘verbal pressure to engage a person in intercourse against her or his will’ (CARE [Creating a Rape-free Environment] [1990] [emphasis added]).

39 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary

40 Podhoretz offers the following as a reductio ad absurdum of the radical-feminist position on rape. The radical-feminist definition of ‘rape’ (he says) implies that some (many? most? all?) acts of seduction are rape; but no (not many? not all?) acts of seduction are rape; therefore, the radical-feminist definition of ‘rape’ is false or otherwise unacceptable. This does not mean that Podhoretz believes seduction to be morally permissible, of course, for he may view it as a vice, as the leading of another into immorality or sin; but that is a different vice from rape. His charge is that the radical feminist conflates two concepts — seduction and rape — that ought to be kept separate.

41 This interpretation is supported by something Stevenson says in Ethics and Language: 'The purport of [a PD] is to alter the descriptive meaning of the term, usually by giving it greater precision within the boundaries of its customary vagueness’ (Stevenson, Ethics and Language, 210Google Scholar [emphasis added]). The word ‘usually’ conversationally implies that PDs do not always do this.

42 Robinson gives no more guidance on this point than Stevenson. He says that PDs 'aim at altering the descriptive meaning of a term’ (168), but doesn't tell us whether that meaning must be clear, univocal, and static. He does say at one point that ‘All words are ambiguous’ (153), so presumably there can be PDs of ambiguous words. Govier does not address the issue.

43 This appears to be the sense in which Stevenson uses the term ‘vague.’ He writes: 'Ethical terms are more than ambiguous; they are vague. Although certain factors, at any one time, are definitely included among the designata of the terms, and certain others definitely excluded, there are many others which are neither included nor excluded. No decision has been made about these, either by the speaker or by the dictionary. The limits of the undecided region are so subject to fluctuation, with varying contexts and varying purposes, that it becomes arbitrary, so far as common usage is concerned, to specify where one sense of the terms leaves off and another begins’ (Stevenson, Ethics and Language, 34-5 [italics in original]).Google Scholar

44 It is interesting that metaphors are so widely used in defining ‘vagueness.’ There is the metaphor of a line separating two classes ('the borderline area’), overlapping white and black patches ('the gray area’), and an eclipse ('the penumbra’).

45 By definition, there is no area 2 in the case of nonvague terms, so if PD is possible in that situation it must consist of application of the (nonvague) term to objects that are clearly outside its extension.

46 I cite two examples: in law, the vague word ‘negligence'; in physics, the vague word 'energy.’ These words were not invented by practitioners of those fields but were appropriated by them from the common stock. In each case, the (re)definition is designed to reduce or eliminate vagueness so as to remove doubts about the term's applicability to particular objects. For an illuminating discussion of precising definition, see Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 90-1.

47 Stevenson, Ethics and Language, 153 (emphasis added)Google Scholar

48 There is an irony here - if not an outright inconsistency - that should not go unnoticed. I have argued that the term ‘PD’ is ambiguous. In only one of its two senses is there anything objectionable about it. But the term has a negative emotive meaning. Those who accuse radical feminists of engaging in PD are themselves engaged in PD, for they (re)define the term in such a way as to extend it to all cases of (re)definition, even those that are normatively innocuous, the aim presumably being to transfer the negativity of the term to those alleged to be engaged in PD.

49 In the remainder of the cases I use gendered pronouns to reflect my assumption that the alleged rapist (A) is male and the alleged victim (B) female. This is in keeping with the fact that the overwhelming majority of rapists are male and the overwhelming majority of rape victims female.

50 This case derives from Allan Jacobs, who wrote ‘I was reminded of a college classmate who boasted to me that he drove a girl he was dating to a lonely place many miles from campus [under pretext, presumably]. He then gave her a choice between having sexual intercourse or walking back’ Jacobs, letter to Commentary, 5).

51 I'm talking about linguistic intuitions, intuitions about whether the term ‘rape' applies or does not apply. These differ significantly from moral and other intuitions with which I am not at the moment concerned.

52 Gilbert, ‘Realities and Mythologies of Rape,’ 10Google Scholar

53 Jacobs, Joanne ‘Trivialization of Rape Definition Is an Insult to Real Victims,’ The Dallas Morning News (23 December 1990), 9JGoogle Scholar

54 In case 2b the word has a negative emotive meaning and one (re)defines it so as to decrease its extension. Those who insist on applying ‘rape’ only to clear cases of rape, when in fact there are unclear cases, can be accused of doing this. I have argued that there are in fact unclear cases — in other words, that the word ‘rape’ is vague.

55 Podhoretz, reply to letters, 7

56 The theories are elaborated and applied to various issues in the law of rape in my book Rape: A Philosophical Investigation (Aldershot, Hampshire: Dartmouth Publishing Company, forthcoming). Portions of this part of the essay have appeared in Keith Burgess-Jackson, ‘Statutory Rape: A Philosophical Analysis,’ The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 8 (1995) 139-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 ‘Trespass’ is defined in law as ‘An unlawful interference with one's person, property, or rights. At common law, trespass was a form of action brought to recover damages for any injury to one's person or property or relationship with another' (Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed. [St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company 1979]). S.v. 'trespass.’ Emphasis added.). Criminal trespass is a trespass in which one enters or remains ‘upon or in any land, structure, vehicle, aircraft or watercraft by one who knows he is not authorized or privileged to do so’ (ibid.; emphasis added).

For elaboration, discussion, and in some cases criticism of this theory, see Comment, ‘Forcible and Statutory Rape: An Exploration of the Operation and Objectives of the Consent Standard,’ The Yale Law Journal 62 (1952) 55–83Google Scholar; Thomas, Keith ‘The Double Standard,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959) 209-10, 212-13, 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Medea, and Thompson, Against Rape, 13, 112Google Scholar; Brownmiller, Susan Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster 1975), 17,18,301, 376-7Google Scholar; Brundage, James A. Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1987), 47-8, 55, 56, 209-12; 249-50, 530-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Posner, Richard A. Sex and Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1992), 71.Google Scholar

58 Any woman's sexuality is valuable in this view, but that of a virginal, chaste, or sexually inexperienced woman is most valuable of all. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday distinguishes two types of society, what she calls ‘rape-prone’ and ‘rapefree.' One ‘theme’ of the former type is that women are (and are understood as) the property of men. See Sanday, Peggy Reeves ‘The Socio-Cultural Context of Rape: A Cross-Cultural Study,’ Journal of Social Issues 37 (1981) 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In some ‘rape-prone' societies, Sanday writes, ‘women comprise the medium of exchange’ (ibid., 15).

59 ‘[T]he law on statutory or common-law rape originated to protect property, not virtue. It is a heritage of feudal times when marriage rights and wardships were valuable property rights. It may be noted that originally in the law of divorce, only the husband was allowed a divorce, and only on account of adultery. The theory was property. Adultery was considered a contamination of a man's property— his wife — as well as a ruination of the bloodline. (The feudal lord, however, was allowed the jus primae noctis, the right of the first night.)’ (Slovenko, Ralph ‘Statutory Rape,’ Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 5 [1971], 161)Google Scholar. See also Porter, Roy ‘Rape — Does it Have a Historical Meaning?’ in Tomaselli, Sylvana and Porter, Roy eds., Rape: An Historical and Cultural Enquiry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1986), 217Google Scholar: ‘From Old Testament Jewish codes up to feudalism, rape was treated primarily as theft, as a property offense, but one perpetrated against men’ (italics in original).

60 MacKinnon, Catharine A. ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence,’ in Bartlett, Katharine T. and Kennedy, Rosanne eds., Feminist Legal Theory: Readings in Law and Gender (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991; originally published 1983), 186Google Scholar

61 ‘Traditionally, rape was the offense of depriving a father or husband of a valuable asset— his wife's chastity or his daughter's virginity. Sexually conservative men and women continue to value these assets’ (Posner, Sex and Reason, 395Google Scholar [citation omitted]).

62 Murphey, Dwight D. ‘Feminism and Rape,’ The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 17 (1992), 21Google Scholar

63 The Justicing Notebook of William Hunt, 1744-1749, Crittall, E. ed. (Devizes 1982), 41Google Scholar (quoted in Porter, ‘Rape— Does it Have a Historical Meaning?’ 217Google Scholar)

64 ‘Battery’ is defined in law as ‘the unlawful application of force to the person of another’ (Black's Law Dictionary). There are three elements: (1) an act or omission; (2) mens rea (intention or negligence); and (3) a harmful result (either bodily injury or offensive touching) (ibid.). Porter, the historian, writes that ‘Very gradually the law [of rape] came round to its more modern form. Statutes and commentators alike reiterated its gravity (in England the offense remained capital until 1840), but opinion gradually came to stress that the true injured party was the woman [rather than some man to whom she was related]’ (Porter, ‘Rape— Does it Have a Historical Meaning?’ 217 [citation omitted]).Google Scholar

65 ‘What might otherwise be a battery may be justified; and the consent of the victim may under some circumstances constitute a defense’ (Black's Law Dictionary).

66 Feinberg, Joel The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, vol. 3: Harm to Self (New York: Oxford University Press 1986), 54Google Scholar; see also Medea, and Thompson, Against Rape, 14Google Scholar; Estrich, Susan Real Rape (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987), 103-4Google Scholar; Geis, Gilbert ‘Rape-in-Marriage: Law and Law Reform in England, the United States, and Sweden,’ The Adelaide Law Review 6 (1978), 303Google Scholar; H. E. Baber, ‘How Bad Is Rape?’ Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 2 (1987), 126, 134; Douglas N. Husak and George C. Thomas III, ‘Date Rape, Social Convention, and Reasonable Mistakes,' Law and Philosophy 11 (1992) 95-126

67 ‘Rape is a violation of a woman's sexual self-determination’ (Medea and Thompson, Against Rape, 14 [emphasis in original]).

68 See Davis, Michael ‘Setting Penalties: What Does Rape Deserve?’ Law and Philosophy 3 (1984) 89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Shafer, Carolyn M. and Frye, Marilyn ‘Rape and Respect,’ in Vetterling-Braggin, Mary Elliston, Frederick A. and English, Jane eds., Feminism and Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams 1977), 342Google Scholar

70 Posner, Sex and Reason, 388Google Scholar; cf. Shafer, and Frye, ‘Rape and Respect,’ 334Google Scholar: ‘Since we share the public view that rape is morally wrong and gravely so, and since we would not want to say that there is anything morally wrong with sexual intercourse per se, we conclude that the wrongness of rape rests with the matter of the woman's consent’ (citation omitted).

71 Davis, ‘Setting Penalties,’ 93Google Scholar

72 See MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 185Google Scholar

73 Davis, ‘Setting Penalties,’ 89Google Scholar

74 For claims and arguments to this effect, see Gordon, Margaret T. and Riger, Stephanie The Female Fear: The Social Cost of Rape (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1991; originally published 1989), 45-6Google Scholar; Mehrhof, Barbara and Kearon, Pamela ‘Rape: An Act of Terror,’ in Koedt, Anne Levine, Ellen and Rapone, Anita eds., Radical Feminism (New York: Quadrangle Books 1973), 228-30Google Scholar; Roberts, Women and Rape, 24, 28-9, 46, 132Google Scholar; hooks, bell Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End Press 1981), 27Google Scholar; Brownmiller, Against Our Will, 49, 185, 256, 391Google Scholar; Davis, Angela Y. ‘We Do Not Consent: Violence Against Women in a Racist Society,’ in Women, Culture, and Politics (New York: Random House 1989; originally published 1987), 37, 42, 47Google Scholar; Weis, Kurt and Borges, Sandra S. ‘Victimology and Rape: The Case of the Legitimate Victim,’ Issues in Criminology 8 (1973) 72, 92, 94Google Scholar; Pauline B. Bart, review of Intimate Violence: A Study of Injustice, by Julie Blackman; The Female Fear: The Social Cost of Rape, by Margaret T. Gordon and Stephanie Riger; Battered Women as Survivors, by Lee Ann Hoff; Women and Rape, by Cathy Roberts; and Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus, by Sanday, Peggy Reeves in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (1994) 527-8Google Scholar; Morgan, ‘Theory and Practice,’ 134Google Scholar; Medea, and Thompson, Against Rape, 11–12Google Scholar; R., Julia and Schwendinger, Herman Rape and Inequality (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications 1983), 21.Google Scholar

75 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. For an excellent discussion of the nature and implications of insult as a social phenomenon, see Mohr, Richard D. Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and Law (New York: Columbia University Press 1988), 57–62Google Scholar. Mohr's immediate concern is with insults to gays, but his analysis goes well beyond that.

76 For evidence that many rapists do have degradation, humiliation, or insult as a motive for their actions, see Gordon, and Riger, The Female Fear,45-6Google Scholar; Roberts, Women and Rape, 28-9Google Scholar; Schwendinger and Schwendinger, Rape and Inequality, 21Google Scholar. Degradation is compatible with any number of different mindsets. Compare the following, all of which degrade: (1) My intention, plan, or purpose is to have sex with X without X's consent; (2) I know that X does not consent to sex, but I'll go ahead anyway; (3) I know that there is a significant likelihood that X does not consent to sex, but I'll go ahead anyway; (4) I don't care whether X consents; I'll go ahead; and (5) (I fail to even consider the possibility that X may consent); I'll go ahead. There is considerable debate between liberals and radicals concerning the requisite mental state, if any, for rape. My point here is that ‘R degrades V’ does not entail ‘R's motive is to degrade V.’

77 The claim is not that all, most, or even many rape victims/survivors experience rape as degradation, although studies and personal testimony suggest that many do. See, e.g., Roberts, Women and Rape, 29Google Scholar; Lynne N. Henderson, ‘What Makes Rape a Crime?’ review of Real Rape, by Estrich, Susan in Berkeley Women's Law Journal 3 (1988), 223Google Scholar (italics in original): ‘I had never confronted the utter helplessness of rape, of knowing that it just did not matter that I existed; that I did not want this; that I was a human being; not a thing to be invaded, punched, or possibly killed'; ibid., 226 (italics in original): ‘Rape denies that you are a person, that you exist.'

78 See MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 185, 200 n. 41Google Scholar; May, Larry and Strikwerda, Robert ‘Men in Groups: Collective Responsibility for Rape,’ Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 9 (1994), 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar. May and Strikwerda distinguish two types of oppression: systematic and organized. All organized oppression is systematic, but not all systematic oppression is organized. Organization implies group action and intention, as when a corporation makes and implements a decision. But men are not organized to rape; they do not act as a group with a single intention. They do have common interests, however; they are more or less likeminded (the paradigmatic case being a mob); and they all benefit, as men, from the occurrence and standing possibility (to women) of rape. May and Strikwerda conclude that ‘in some societies men are collectively responsible for rape in that most if not all men contribute in various ways to the prevalence of rape, and as a result these men should share in responsibility for rape’ (ibid., 135).

79 See, for example, Mehrhof, and Kearon, ‘Rape,’ 228-33Google Scholar; Peterson, Susan Rae ‘Coercion and Rape: The State as a Male Protection Racket,’ in Vetterling-Braggin, Mary Elliston, Frederick A. and English, Jane eds., Feminism and Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams 1977) 360-71Google Scholar; MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 200 n. 41Google Scholar; Card, Claudia ‘Rape as a Terrorist Institution,’ in Frey, R.G. and Morris, Christopher W. eds., Violence, Terrorism, and Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991), 296-319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 May and Strikwerda have recently argued that men are collectively responsible for rape, and therefore, since all men benefit from the practice of rape, each individual man is responsible as well. See May and Strikwerda, ‘Men in Groups.’ This adds a certain symmetry to the radical argument. All men, even those who do not themselves rape, are responsible for rape; all women, even those who are not themselves raped, are victimized by rape. The benefits of rape extend beyond individual men; the harms of rape extend beyond individual women. For a discussion of one important way in which women as a class are harmed by rape, see BurgessJackson, Keith ‘Justice and the Distribution of Fear,’ The Southern Journal of Philosophy 32 (1994) 367-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 It is a mistake to read MacKinnon as advocating the erasure of the line between rape and so-called normal sexual intercourse— that is, as making all intercourse rape. Critics are being uncharitable when they ascribe that view to her. It is not MacKinnon's view that all sex is, let alone must be, rape, although, under conditions of patriarchy (male dominance), very much of it is. What MacKinnon advocates is redrawing the line, not eliminating it. Some acts that are now considered normatively and legally acceptable (sex) would be considered unacceptable (rape). For discussion of this point, see MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 189.Google Scholar

82 See ibid., 187-90.

83 There is an ongoing debate both within feminism and between feminists and nonfeminists about whether rape is sex or violence. Those who say it is sex emphasize the fact that it involves the sex organs and that men derive sexual pleasure from it. Those who say it is violence claim that women experience rape as violent. The radical says this is a false dichotomy. Rape is both sex and violence. Rape is violent sex. It is sex in which part of the ‘kick,’ part of the pleasure, part of the plan, is subordination— or what I am here calling ‘degradation.’ For a discussion of this issue, see MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, 173-4.Google Scholar

84 See my essay ‘On the Coerciveness of Sexist Socialization,’ Public Affairs Quarterly 9 (1995) 15-27.

85 MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, 174 (italics added)Google Scholar

86 ‘Perhaps the wrong of rape has proved so difficult to define because the unquestionable starting point has been that rape is defined as distinct from intercourse, while for women it is difficult to distinguish the two under conditions of male dominance’ (ibid.; citation omitted).

87 See Bartky, Sandra Lee ‘Narcissism, Femininity and Alienation,’ Social Theory and Practice 8 (1982), 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar (footnote omitted): ‘Sexual objectification … occurs when a woman's sexual parts or sexual functions are separated out from her person, reduced to the status of mere instruments or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her'; Roberts, Women and Rape, 46Google Scholar: ‘Rape is the turning of a woman into an object for the rapist's use only.'

88 MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 182Google Scholar; see also ibid., 245. In a recent essay, MacKinnon says that rape, whether in or out of wartime, ‘is always an act of domination by men over women’ (MacKinnon, Catharine A. ‘Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace,’ in Mehuron, Kate and Percesepe, Gary eds., Free Spirits: Feminist Philosophers on Culture [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1995] 382).Google Scholar

89 Another way to put this is that, when R rapes V, R harms V qua individual but also qua woman. Analytically, there are two harms. The liberal recognizes ('sees’) only the first; the radical recognizes both.

90 See MacKinnon, ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State,’ 186.Google Scholar

91 For a parallel discussion of how the term ‘sexual harassment’ functions, see Grimshaw, Jean Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1986)Google Scholar. Grimshaw says that the term ‘sexual harassment’ both describes and prescribes. It is a ‘proposal’ that’ certain sorts of sexual attention should be seen (like other things) as an unpleasant, intrusive and coercive imposition’ (ibid., 87).

92 I thank three anonymous reviewers: two for making constructive and helpful criticisms and one for bolstering my ego by making no criticisms at all, constructive or destructive, while recommending publication. A version of this essay will appear, under the same title, as a chapter of my forthcoming book Rape: A Philosophical Investigation, to be published by Dartmouth Publishing Company in its Applied Legal Philosophy series. I thank the Managing Director of Dartmouth Publishing Company, John L. Irwin, for allowing me to publish the essay here. It is dedicated to my teacher and dissertation director, Joel Feinberg — and no, the doctrine of respondeat superior does not apply.