Part I: When is it rape?

What is acquaintance rape? While students and counselors around the country are still trying to come up with an acceptable definition of acquaintance rape, a Daily Pennsylvanian poll distributed last week revealed that University students generally agree on what actions constitute the crime. Figures from five potential date rape scenarios in the poll showed that most of the 1265 students surveyed called the same incidents rape. In most of the questions, at least 83 percent of men and women agreed on whether the woman had been raped or not. In fact, University students called more episodes rape than people of their age group have done in similar scenarios in surveys around the country. But since students here -- both men and women -- are able to recognize when behavior is rape, some might wonder why rape is still such a problem on campus. According to many experts, the issue of acquaintance rape is not as clear as the poll's results might indicate. They said it is a rather large, rather unmanageable problem for college students today. In some cases, students commented on the polls that they were unsure how to answer a question, either because it was ambiguous or because they did not understand the issue. Several students wrote in the answer of "maybe," even though that option was not given on the poll. "It's very muddled and it's not going to get any clearer unless we talk about it," University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich said this month. "If you feel at all confused, you're not alone." Kuprevich said even when he was a recruit in the Detroit Police Academy taking classes about rape law, he was still unable to settle many of the same issues. "You sat and you listened and you read the statutes so you could spit them out and recite them," he said. "But every time you asked a question, the answer was 'that's a grey area.' " After 23 years of law enforcement experience, Kuprevich was still unable to definitively answer some of the acquaintance rape questions on the poll. One of the problems, Kuprevich said, is that no two rape cases are ever alike. The way a victim reacts during and after the rape, the way the rapist reacts and treats the victim, the way a victim receives support -- all these factors make a rape case unique. Below are students' responses to the five scenarios, and how Kuprevich and Penn Women's Center Director Elena DiLapi each worked through the complicated issues. · Jane is at a party at Jim's house. Both of them are drunk and have been flirting all night when Jim asks Jane to his room to see his record collection. She agrees, and Jim helps her up the stairs to his room. Jim starts kissing her. Jane says she wants to go home, but when she stands up, she falls back down on the bed in a semiconscious state. Jim and Jane have sex. Is this rape? Most students polled agreed that Jane was raped in this scenario: 80 percent of the male students said it was rape and 86 percent of the female students said so. These numbers are consistent with national surveys, including a Time magazine poll last June, in which 77 percent of the men and 88 percent of the women said it is rape when "a man has sex with a woman who has passed out after drinking too much." At issue in this scenario is Jane's ability or inability to make a clear decision about having sex. Kuprevich said police would have to review how drunk the woman was and decide if her judgment was impaired. Kuprevich said if Jane was unable to agree to have sex with John, and was then "taken advantage of," it is clearly rape. But Kuprevich added incidents like this are hard to prove because they are often cases of misunderstanding. He said John may have thought Jane's inability to say "no" was her way of saying "yes." "In order for John to make himself safe from being accused, he has to get help and take Jane home," Kuprevich said. "There was a point where you would say 'She's on the bed, let's do it.' Today if you do that as a man, you place yourself in jeopardy of going to jail." According to Kuprevich, at least one of the people involved has been drinking, usually excessively, in 75 percent of acquaintance rape cases. He said if both parties were drunk, it could still be rape because the law does not consider drunkenness an excuse for rape. He said it does not matter how drunk the people are, or even which person is more drunk. Alcohol only becomes an issue when one person intentionally tries to intoxicate the other. The police commissioner added that Pennsylvania law places equal responsibility in the hands of the man and woman for drunken behavior. But Kuprevich insisted that this does not mean a drunk woman is any way to blame for being raped. "I do not believe if you choose to imbibe alcohol, you share responsibility for sexual assault," Kuprevich said. One female senior commented along the same lines, saying that "rape is not in any way caused by alcohol -- it's caused by a blind misunderstanding of what the word 'no' means." To DiLapi, the issue in the scenario has nothing to do with alcohol. She said there should be no misunderstandings about sex -- that unless a woman explicitly says "yes" to having sex, the man should stop and understand her to have said "no". "Unless Jane said 'yes,' it's rape," DiLapi said. · Dan and Deb have been together for 10 months and have had sex numerous times. One night Deb does not want to have sex. She says no and pushes Dan away. Dan thinks she is being "playful" and they have sex while Deb continues to resist. Is this rape? Would it be rape if Deb had acted "playfully" a few times in the past when she wanted to have sex? Would it be rape if the couple had never had sex before? Again, most students -- 89.8 percent -- said this scenario is an example of rape: 86 percent of the men and 94.4 percent of the women. On the third question, the numbers were even more unilateral, with 95.1 percent of the men and 97.6 percent of the women calling the incident rape. But the students were split on the second question. When considering Deb's "playing" in the past, nearly half the men polled -- 47.7 percent -- thought it was no longer rape, and 25 percent of the women agreed. Kuprevich, who said Deb was clearly raped, blamed this mentality on the old concept that "bad women say 'yes' and good women say 'no,' but mean 'yes.' " "It's the old adage that 'No doesn't always mean no,' " Kuprevich said. "And it has to be put to rest." The police commissioner said societal perceptions of rape are slowly changing, pointing to new laws which acknowledge spousal rape and acquaintance rape as felonies. "The rules of society are changing," Kuprevich said. "The problem is they're in a state of flux because they haven't changed all the way." But Kuprevich said that in a case like Deb's and Dan's "it doesn't matter what his perception is," rape is rape. DiLapi agrees. The Women's Center director responded to this scenario without hesitation: "yes, no, no." She also said this scenario is an example of "old-fashioned" beliefs about women lingering on, noting that Dan did not believe that Deb's "no" meant "no." "Generally, I think [acquaintance rape] happens because of the society we live in which says men are superior to women," DiLapi added. Looking at it another way, June's Time magazine poll asked men and women if they believed "some women like to be talked into having sex." Over half of the men and women said yes -- 69 percent of the men and 54 percent of the women. · Eve wears a low-cut blouse and a short skirt to a bar that has a reputation as a "scam scene." She is known for sleeping around, as is Eric whom she starts to flirt with. After a few drinks she invites him to her room, and they begin to kiss. Eric takes off her blouse and Eve tells him that she does not want to have sex. They have sex despite Eve's continuing verbal objections. Is this rape? Would it be rape if Eve were not wearing "provocative" clothing and not known for "sleeping around?" Would it be rape if Eve did not say no, but physically resisted Eric? Overall, 87.4 percent of the students polled said this is an example of rape. Of male students, 82.8 percent called it rape and of female students, 93.7 percent agreed. When Eve was not wearing "provocative clothing" and did not have a reputation for "sleeping around," an additional six percent of men said it was rape. Only one percent more women called it rape. In the third question, when Eve uses physical resistance but says nothing, the percentage of women calling it rape dropped 10 percentage points. The percentage of males calling it rape stayed almost the same. To Kuprevich, this scenario was an unquestionable case of rape. He said that under the law, a woman need only utter the word "no" to have a case for a rape charge. But he said the problem with cases like this one, as with most other acquaintance rape cases, is that there are no witnesses, and there might not be any physical evidence that Eve was raped. DiLapi found that this scenario was obviously rape. She said the fact that Eve did not say the word "no" in the third question does not change the fact that Eric forced her to have sex. "Women say 'no' in many differnt ways," DiLapi said. "Men should have sex only when a woman says 'yes.' " One point of contention for men and women on the issue of acquaintance rape is how much blame to put on the victim of the assault. In this case, for instance, some have argued that Eve's past history of promiscuity and her provocative dress were too great a temptation for Eric. In last spring's Time survey, 70 percent of the 18-34 year olds polled said women should not be blamed for a rape if they dress provocatively. But in the 50+ age bracket, the percentage was much lower -- only 41 percent said a woman should not be at all blamed. According to Kuprevich, this discrepancy in beliefs among different age groups is one reason why rape cases are so hard to win. Grand juries and district attorney's offices are made up of people older than students, and these people are more removed from the relatively new issue of acquaintance rape. "We're talking about a different generation, a different norm," Kuprevich said. And here again, the laws surrounding acquaintance rape are fuzzy. Kuprevich said that while Pennsylvania law does not require a woman to struggle in order to charge that she was raped, the statute also allows a defendant to use that fact in his defense. "If [a woman] doesn't resist enough, she has to know she may not be able to prosecute," Kuprevich explained. "It's like tongue in cheek sometimes when I read it."

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