Editor | Helen Cothran |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Sexual violence |
Publisher | Greenhaven Press |
Publication date | 2003 |
Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
Pages | 218 |
ISBN | 0-7377-1240-6 (hardback) 0-7377-1239-2 (paperback) |
Sexual Violence: Opposing Viewpoints is a 2003 book edited by Helen Cothran. It presents selections of contrasting viewpoints on four central questions about sexual violence: what causes it; whether it is a serious problem; how society should address it; and how it can be reduced. The book is part of the Opposing Viewpoints series.
Chapter | Viewpoint | Author | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Why Consider Opposing Viewpoints? | |||
Introduction | |||
Chapter 1: What Causes Sexual Violence? | 1. Rape Is a Natural Biological Act | Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer | Excerpt from A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (MIT Press, 2000, hardcover, ISBN 0-262-20125-9; 2001, paperback, ISBN 0-262-70083-2). |
2. Rape Is Not a Natural Biological Act | Barbara Ehrenreich | From "How 'Natural' Is Rape? Despite a Daffy New Theory, It's Not Just a Guy in Touch with His Inner Caveman", Time , January 31, 2000. | |
3. Pornography Causes Sexual Violence | Fear Us | From "Pornography", 2001, FearUs.org. | |
4. Pornography Does Not Cause Sexual Violence | American Civil Liberties Union | Reprint of "Why the ACLU Opposes Censorship of 'Pornography'", December 11, 1994. | |
5. Traditional Male/Female Roles Promote Sexual Violence | Alyn Pearson | Excerpt from "Rape Culture: It's All Around Us", off our backs , vol. 30, August 2000. | |
6. Rape Is Frequently Used as a Weapon of War | Barbara Crossette | Reprint of "An Old Scourge of War Becomes Its Latest Crime", The New York Times , June 14, 1998. | |
7. Schools Often Contribute to Child Sexual Abuse | Economist | Excerpt from "Passing the Trash: Sex Offenders", The Economist , April 6, 2002. | |
Chapter 2: Is Sexual Violence a Serious Problem? | 1. Rape Is a Serious Problem | Mary P. Koss | Excerpt from "Acquaintance Rape: A Critical Update on Recent Findings with Application to Advocacy", 2000, Community Assessment Tool. |
2. The Prevalence of Rape Has Been Exaggerated | Neil Gilbert | Excerpt from "Realities and Mythologies of Rape", Society , vol. 35, January/February 1998, p. 356-7. | |
3. Child Sexual Abuse Is a Serious Problem | Rebecca M. Bolen and Maria Scannapieco | From "Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse: A Corrective Metanalysis", Social Service Review , vol. 73, September 1999, p. 281. | |
4. Some Professionals Exaggerate the Problem of Child Sexual Abuse | Thomas D. Oellerich | Excerpt from "Identifying and Dealing with 'Child Savers'", Issues in Child Abuse Accusations , vol. 10, 1998, pp. 1–5, 7. | |
5. Child Sexual Abuse By Priests Is Widespread | Andrew Sullivan | Reprint of "They Still Don't Get It: How Can a Church That Judges So Many Faithful Cover Up Its Own Offenses?", Time , vol. 159, March 4, 2002, p. 55. | |
6. Child Sexual Abuse By Priests Is Not Widespread | Wilton D. Gregory | Reprint of "We Must Be Ceaselessly on Guard", National Catholic Reporter , vol. 28, March 1, 2002, p. 15. | |
Chapter 3: How Should Society Address Sexual Victimization? | 1. Women Should Tell Their Stories of Sexual Victimization | Martha T. McCluskey | From "Transforming Victimization", Tikkun , vol. 9, March/April 1994, pp. 54–57. |
2. Women Should Avoid Claiming Status as Victims | Katie Roiphe | Excerpt from The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (Little Brown & Co., 1993, hardcover, ISBN 0-316-75431-5; Back Bay Books, 1994, paperback, ISBN 0-316-75432-3). | |
3. Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse Are Valid | James Lein | Excerpt from "Recovered Memories: Context and Controversy", Social Work , vol. 44, September 1999, 481–499. | |
4. Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse Are a Hoax | Rael Jean Isaac | Excerpt from "Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes", Women's Quarterly , Summer 2001, p. 7. | |
5. Battered Woman Syndrome Is a Valid Defense | Douglas A. Orr | Excerpt from "Weiand v. State and Battered Spouse Syndrome", Florida Bar Journal , vol. 74, June 2000, p. 14. | |
6. Battered Woman Syndrome Is Not a Valid Defense | Joe Wheeler Dixon | Reprint of "Battered Woman Syndrome", January 2002. | |
Chapter 4: How Can Sexual Violence Be Reduced? | 1. Chemical Castration Can Help Reduce Sexual Violence | Christopher Meisenkothen | Reprint of "Chemical Castration — Breaking the Cycle of Paraphiliac Recidivism", Social Justice , vol. 26, Spring 1999, pp. 139–54. |
2. Chemical Castration Is Unconstitutional and Often Ineffective | Larry Helm Spalding | Excerpt from "Florida's 1997 Chemical Castration Law: A Return to the Dark Ages", Florida State University Law Review , 1998. | |
3. Community Notification Laws Can Help Reduce Sexual Violence | Alan D. Scholle | Excerpt from "Sex Offender Registration" Archived 2006-06-03 at the Wayback Machine , The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin , vol. 69, July 2000, p. 17. | |
4. Community Notification Laws May Be Ineffective | Joshua Wolf Shenk | Reprint of "Do 'Megan's Laws' Make a Difference?", U.S. News & World Report , vol. 124, March 9, 1998, p. 27. | |
5. Rape Shield Laws Are Necessary | Mary E. Bahl | Reprint of "Rape Shield Laws: Who Really Needs Protecting?", Impact Press, 2000. | |
6. Rape Shield Laws Are Unfair | Cathy Young | Reprint of "Don't Shield Juries from the Truth in Sex Cases", The Wall Street Journal , April 20, 1998, p. A19. | |
For Further Discussion | |||
Organizations to Contact | |||
Bibliography of Books | |||
Index | |||
Misogyny is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced for thousands of years. It is reflected in art, literature, human societal structure, historical events, mythology, philosophy, and religion worldwide.
A proportion of victims of rape or other sexual violence incidents are male. Historically, rape was thought to be, and defined as, a crime committed solely against females. This belief is still held in some parts of the world, but rape of males is now commonly criminalized and has been subject to more discussion than in the past.
John Stoltenberg is an American author, activist, magazine editor, college lecturer, playwright, and theater reviewer who identifies his political perspective as radical feminist. For several years he has worked for DC Metro Theater Arts and is currently its executive editor. He has written three books, two collections of his essays and a novel. He was the life partner of Andrea Dworkin for 30 years and has lived with his husband, Joe Hamilton, for over 15 years.
The Perfect Matrimony or The Door to Enter Into Initiation is the first of approximately seventy books written by Samael Aun Weor. It was first published in 1950 then revised and expanded in 1961.
Insight on the News was an American conservative print and online news magazine. It was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate founded by Unification movement founder Sun Myung Moon, which at the time owned The Washington Times, United Press International, and several newspapers in Japan, South Korea, Africa, and South America. Insight's reporting sometimes resulted in journalistic controversy.
Sexual tension is a social phenomenon that occurs when two individuals interact and one or both feel sexual desire, but the consummation is postponed or never happens. A common scenario is where the two individuals function in proximity, such as co-workers or in a group of friends, but do not have sex to avoid awkwardness or for other reasons. Sexual tension does not have anything to do with the actual act of sex but is everything that leads up to it.
Diana E. H. Russell was a feminist writer and activist. Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, she moved to England in 1957, and then to the United States in 1961. For the past 45 years she was engaged in research on sexual violence against women and girls. She wrote numerous books and articles on rape, including marital rape, femicide, incest, misogynist murders of women, and pornography. For The Secret Trauma, she was co-recipient of the 1986 C. Wright Mills Award. She was also the recipient of the 2001 Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association. She was also an organizer of the First International Tribunal on Crimes against Women, in Brussels in March 1976.
Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these. It has been used to describe and explain behavior within social groups, including prison rape and in conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire societies have been alleged to be rape cultures. It is associated with rape fantasy and rape pornography.
Opposing Viewpoints is a series of books on current issues which seeks to explore the varying opinions in a balanced pros/cons debate. The series attempts to encourage critical thinking and issue awareness by providing opposing views on contentious issues. The online versions are managed by Cengage Gale and the print versions are available through Rosen publishing.
The Juventud Rebelde is a Cuban newspaper of the Young Communist League.
The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism on Campus is a 1993 book about date rape by author and journalist Katie Roiphe. Her first book, it was reprinted with a new introduction in 1994. Part of the book had previously been published as an essay, "The Rape Crisis, or 'Is Dating Dangerous?'" in the New York Times Magazine.
Christianity and domestic violence deals with the debate in Christian communities about the recognition and response to domestic violence, which is complicated by a culture of silence and acceptance among abuse victims. There are some Bible verses that abusers use to justify discipline of their wives.
The sex industry consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related services, such as prostitution, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs and sex-related pastimes, such as pornography, sex-oriented men's magazines, sex movies, sex toys and fetish or BDSM paraphernalia. Sex channels for television and pre-paid sex movies for video on demand, are part of the sex industry, as are adult movie theaters, sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs. The sex industry employs millions of people worldwide, mainly women. These range from the sex worker, also called adult service provider (ASP) or adult sex provider, who provides sexual services, to a multitude of support personnel.
Discussions of LGBT rights at the United Nations have included resolutions and joint statements in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), attention to the expert-led human rights mechanisms, as well as by the UN Agencies.
There exists a diversity of feminist views on prostitution. Many of these positions can be loosely arranged into an overarching standpoint that is generally either critical or supportive of prostitution and sex work. The discourse surrounding prostitution is often discussed assuming sex workers are women, but those in the field of sex work and prostitution are not always women.
Campus sexual assault is the sexual assault, including rape, of a student while attending an institution of higher learning, such as a college or university. The victims of such assaults are more likely to be female, but any gender can be victimized. Estimates of sexual assault, which vary based on definitions and methodology, generally find that somewhere between 19 and 27% of college women and 6–8% of college men are sexually assaulted during their time in college. In 2007, 23 psychologists conducted a study in which 47% of women in the United States have been sexually assaulted or raped in the past year. This was very beneficial to many other researchers in the same field.
Feminist views on BDSM vary widely from acceptance to rejection. BDSM refers to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and Sado-Masochism. In order to evaluate its perception, two polarizing frameworks are compared. Some feminists, such as Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia, perceive BDSM as a valid form of expression of female sexuality, while other feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Susan Griffin, have stated that they regard BDSM as a form of woman-hating violence. Some lesbian feminists practice BDSM and regard it as part of their sexual identity.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
Violence against men is a term for violent acts that are disproportionately or exclusively committed against men or boys. Men are over-represented as both perpetrators and victims of violence.
Pornification is the absorption by mainstream culture of styles or content of the sex industry and the sexualisation of Western culture, sometimes referred to as raunch culture. Pornification, particularly the use of sexualised images of women, is said to demonstrate "how patriarchal power operates in the field of gender representation". In Women in Popular Culture, Marion Meyers argues that the portrayal of women in modern society is primarily influenced by "the mainstreaming of pornography and its resultant hypersexualization of women and girls, and the commodification of those images for a global market". Pornification also features in discussions of post-feminism by Ariel Levy, Natasha Walter, Feona Attwood, and Brian McNair. Pornography began to move into mainstream culture in the second half of the 20th century, now known as the Golden Age of Porn. Pornification is a product of the widespread availability of porn on the internet.