On Date Rape Analysis

Analyzing an Extended Essay: On Date Rape

We live in a society that is filled with dangerous crimes such as rape and date rape, where one cannot simply trust another. Date rape is a little different from rape in terms that the rapist is someone the victim knows or had some kind of romantic connection between them. Date rape happens most commonly to young girls and in colleges. In “On Date Rape”, Paglia argues that women should be responsible for their actions and its consequences in a case of a date rape. However, the author fails to present a valid argument as she includes fallacies such as double standard, appeal to fear, and false analogy. Throughout the argument, Paglia uses double standard to validate her point that women should be

Notice how it’s rarely black or Hispanic women who are making a fuss about this in the media or on campus…” (Paglia, 144). According to Paglia’s argument, white women from rich background are more likely to complain and report a rape, whereas, colored women are to stay quiet about it. The author indicates that because these girls are white and come from a protected family, they should be more responsible for their actions and familiarize themselves with the reality. This is a fallacious argument that does not support her claim. Paglia makes another double standard argument when she appeals, “This is male sex. Guess what, it’s hot. Male sex is hot” (145). She is basically saying that man cannot control their feelings and his desire for a woman simply because he is a man. She adds on, “There’s an attraction between the sexes that we 're not totally in control of” (145). Double standard can be seen here because the author judges the date rape based on the gender. It is the girl’s fault for getting drunk and hanging around a guy, and guys are guys, they cannot control their attraction. Using these two evidences of double standard, Paglia

False analogy is comparing two or more things that are not in essence similar and suggest that since they share certain characteristics, they share others as well (Cooper, 146). Although going to a guy’s room drunk does not sound like a good idea same as leaving the car key as if wanting someone to take it. But these two things are not necessarily comparable. The author compares the guy to a thief who would voluntarily take the car key instead of returning it to the owner. In the author’s opinion, guys are the ones controlled by their desires instead of controlling their desires. Paglia continues on by saying, “The police and I– have the right to say to you, ‘You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?’”(145). This might be possible for the person who left car key on the hood, but it is very inappropriate and inhumane thing to say to a rape victim. The victim never gave permission to the rapist; going to someone’s room does not mean that she is agreeing to being raped. In my assumption, the author must have made this comparison due to the fact that she was never raped before, which makes her unqualified to make a comparison of such grief to a simple robbery. She also lightly says that, “If I ever got into a dating situation where I was overpowered and raped, I would say, ‘Oh well, I misread the signals.’ But I don’t think I