Social Issues
Understanding date rape as a social issue is important due to the wide acceptance of rape myths. Rape myths are false excuses for when rape is okay and leads to victim blaming.
For instance The Institute for Relationship Intelligence says:
- Two thirds of teens in one survey said it was okay for a boy to force sex on a girl if they’d been dating for more than six months.
- A large number said it was okay if the boy/man had spent a lot of money on her.
- One in three said it was okay if the girl had been sexually active before.
Rape myths reflect and are reflected by political and sociological differences in ways of viewing gender roles, personal responsibility, and social norms. In 1998, the issue of date rape was raised in the United Kingdom when the popular soap-opera Brookside featured a story in which character Nikki Shadwick was date raped. The issue of date rape was lesser known at the time. The following year the first charity of victims of date rape was established in the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: Date Rape
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