I was at a conference in Los Angeles a few years ago where the primary topic of conversation was how states should address the hundreds of thousands of rape kits that have been shelved for decades, without any investigation.
After one of the breakout sessions, a survivor of rape approached and asked me:
Is rape actually a crime?
My answer: It’s not a given in America, or other parts of the world.
In the U.S., rape is our least reported major felony, and our least successfully prosecuted.
Only 4% of reported rape cases ever see the inside of a court room, and only a small portion of those result in a conviction.
It’s one of the things that drove me to write a book about sexual violence in America,
where rape and sexual assault are not treated as brutal crimes,
but as a wearying dance of he said/she said and fervent denials where victim’s voices are largely disregarded.
Rape is the only thing that’s both a weapon of war and offered up for a sure-fire laugh at a comedy club.
When rape is framed by accused perpetrators as either a “misunderstanding” or an “outright lie,” their assertions are often enough for most people to nod their heads in agreement.
As such, rape and sexual abuse are not taken seriously by many of our most important institutions.
It is not by chance that the victims of this violent felony are mostly women, children and individuals from marginalized populations
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2025/01/23/sexual-assault-donald-trump-pete-hegseth-michelle-bowdler
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