The History Of Rape

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Introduction Traditional sex scripts of men and women create for a rape-supportive culture (Check & Malamuth, 1983). Rape is a logical extension of our sex role socialization process that legitimized coercive sexuality. Through these scripts men are taught to take initiative and persist attempts of sexual intimacy. Traits of dominance, aggression and violence are idolized (Martin, Taft & Resick, 2007). Women, on the other hand, are taught to not indicate their sexual interest or engage freely in sexuality. They should possess qualities of being passive, submissive and sexual gatekeepers (Martin, Taft & Resick, 2007). Marital rape is considered to be an extreme version of sex-role socialization due to concepts such as “wifely duty,” the belief that it is the wife 's duty to sexually please her husband. Past research suggests that sex-role socialization fosters rape-supportive beliefs in both men and women (Martin, Taft & Resick, 2007). Studies have also demonstrated individuals who held more traditional gender-role stereotypes were more likely to minimize the serious …show more content…

In the United States, patterns of socialization exist that encourage men to feel they are expected to gain sexual access from reluctant women. They are more likely to be put in the position of decision maker and initiator in hetero-sexual relationships (Glass, 2002). Sex-role stereotypes encompass expected behaviors of both genders and through sexual scripts, guide expectations of how men and woman should interact with each other as strangers. Even though stranger-rape seems to be the least accepted type of rape scenario, men are often excused for being sexually aggressive while women are blamed for certain actions they

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