Defining Rape and Rapists

Neal King and Martha McCaughey in their Op-Ed article on rape (Aug. 13) err by broadening beyond recognition the definition of rape, and by doing so rob it of its true meaning. By their definition, if a parent prods a reluctant teen-ager into taking out the garbage by threatening to withhold his or her allowance that would be at least child abuse.

If the definition of rape is to retain any validity and any power to shock or repel, it must be distinguished from seduction or trickery or other non-violent forms of coercion or persuasion.

The world is full of people who use money, power or sheer fraudulent charm to get other people to do their bidding or to fulfill their pleasures or fantasies. While such actions hardly qualify as charitable or considerate they are qualitatively distinct from what is really rape. Rape is “forced entry” of the body of a person against their conscious will. That is precisely where the outrage, the element of degradation and humiliation and terror, is present.

I can appreciate the authors’ anger at the way sex games are played in our society and their desire to see relations between the sexes established on a more equal and mutual basis. But, by blurring the distinction between rape and nonviolent forms of sexual exploitation, they do their cause a disservice.

RABBI GILBERT KOLLIN

Pasadena