Access

Now, while it is my opinion that all males are rapists, I also think the focus of many liberal white feminists on “date rape” is extremely self-serving. It is certainly true that girls and women have most to fear from males they trust, but extending unwarranted trust to “dates” is an altogether different thing than the trust that little girls have in male relatives, for example. Little girls have little choice in the matter of their guardians, whether temporary or permanent, while heterosexual women do have some choice when it comes to “dates.” Rather than acknowledge, though, that all “date” rapes could be prevented by refusing to cloister oneself alone with males in a “romantic” context, most liberal white feminists focus their energies on begging males to honor the trust women have in them.

This completely invisibilizes the fact that trust means different things depending on the specific relationship a rapist has to his victim(s). The trust that girls, mentally or physically disabled women, female prison inmates, and even female worshipers (in certain environments) must have for their wards or guardians is not voluntary. Girls and women in these situations are dependent upon male relatives, male nurses and orderlies, male guards, and male clergy in ways that heterosexual women are decidedly not dependent upon male “dates.” Because of this dependency, girls and women who are raped under these circumstances have even less recourse than do women who choose to consort with rapists (under the flimsy auspices of never having suspected the male in question to be capable of rape, despite his possessing all the equipment necessary to do so).

Why is it that these women can, on the one hand, see that a woman is most at risk of rape in the company of men who are known to her, while on the other hand, limiting the scope of “men who are known to her” to potential “dates”? They beg the well-to-do, “polite,” white males they’d like to marry not to rape them, but they scoff at the notion that these same males ought not be let anywhere near girl-children or female patients, etc. If a woman is most likely to be raped by the males known to her, the simple solution for those who do have a choice is to limit one’s interactions with males. Feminist energies should be spent on preventing male access to girls and women who don’t have a choice.