There is a really nasty double-standard in the way child rape cases are reported. I did a search and immediately alighted on the following report (emphasis is mine):
A 36-year-old village woman has been charged with first-degree rape, a Class B felony, after being accused of raping a 12-year-old boy.
Police arrested Tara Porter of 3 Bartlett St. on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 8. An intensive investigation followed a report early that afternoon from the Child Abuse Hotline, which was notified anonymously that a sexual relationship was going on between the two, Ellenville Police Chief Phillip Mattracion said. . .
The relationship had reportedly gone on for about six weeks.
On what planet is it acceptable to refer to a rape of a 12-year-old child as “a relationship”? We have become enlightened enough as a society to stop referring to little girls who are raped as being “in a relationship” with their rapists. Isn’t it time to recognize that when this crime is perpetrated against boys it is just as horrible and unacceptable?
Until such crimes are defined strongly and exclusively as rapes and not “relationships”, we can’t expect victimized boys to report being raped more often.
The reason why there is such a reluctance to refer to sexual abuse of boys with the word rape is the long-standing patriarchal belief that women are always passive objects of sexual acts and can never be active subjects of sex. This is one of several issues where the beliefs of so-called radical feminists and anti-women defenders of patriarchy coincide.
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