Rape: Survival and Safety

The Orange County district attorney’s office decision not to prosecute a reported rape case because officials doubted that they had enough evidence to get a conviction shouldn’t confuse women about what to do if threatened by a rapist.

Rape is a violent crime that deserves vigorous prosecution. Prosecutors as well as police, assault victims and the public all agree on that. The decision not to prosecute in this instance was based on the facts of the case. The prosecutors decided that although they didn’t doubt the woman’s report, and were not insensitive to her predicament, they didn’t believe that they had enough evidence to secure a conviction.

One factor that led them to that determination was that the woman reportedly never impressed on her alleged assailant that she wasn’t consenting. She said that she didn’t do so because she had been taught that, faced with rape, she had a better chance of survival if she did not struggle.

It is difficult to second-guess the district attorney’s decision not to prosecute. But the case does raise two issues. One is the fear by some that the decision may lead some women to conclude that if they don’t try to fight off a rape attempt the law will believe that they somehow agreed to sexual relations. The other is what a woman should do when faced with sexual assault.

There is some confusion over what the experts believe that a women facing a potential rapist should do. Some still think that a victim may be more likely to survive an attack by submitting. There are others who now advocate resisting. Rapists, they say, try to take advantage of the fact that women are raised to be helpful, kind and polite. And most recent studies do indicate that the odds of a woman being raped or injured are significantly reduced by some form of immediate resistance.

All agree, however, that the first and foremost concern is survival and safety, and not worrying about building a case for prosecution.