The sound of the words pierce a knife into American idealism. For some it may be easier to cope with the concept of "sexual assault" or hear the more lyrical "acquaintance rape". The fact remains that "date rape" has become a serious problem in the United States. Date rape is not the stereotypical "man in the bushes with a knife" type of scenario. Date rape is when the victim actually knows the rapist. They may be classmates, have mutual friends, or even have dated one another, but the rapist and the victim have established some sort of relationship. .
"Judging by news and entertainment media, the problems of date and acquaintance rape have reached crisis proportions in recent years. A search in the database Nexus turns up 54 mentions of date or acquaintance rape in the New York Times during the past two decades - nearly half of them in the last year. Television shows such as "A Different World", "21 Jump Street" and numerous made - for - TV movies have featured date - rape themes. Oprah, Phil, Geraldo, and Sally have each taken a crack at the subject" writes Gutman (1) Because of this ever-increasing problem there has also been an expansion on discussions and in the media, that place an emphasis on male-female relationships. .
Author Deborah Tannen has also added to the media frenzy with her essay "Sex, Lies, and Conversation." Tannen thoroughly examines the different methods of communicating between the sexes, and how they "are wreaking havoc with marriage." (Tannen 2).
Camille Paglia's essay "It's a Jungle Out There" and Susan Jacoby's .
essay "Common Decency," each discuss the very serious and violent crime of date rape. Although these three women are writing about gender issues, Tannen's essay on communication cannot even be compared with the seriousness of the other essays. Assuming that there is a probability that a man could innocently misread a woman's signals and not know that she didn't want to have sex, is just as pathetic as attempting to draw a parallel between an essay on miscommunication and an essay on rape.
