Essays & Speeches

A Men's Rights Movement Viewpoint on Rape Laws, Policies and Related Issues
Anthony Nazzaro, to Fordham School of Law, April 9, 1998

My purpose today is to familiarize you with a men's rights movement viewpoint on current rape laws, policies and other related issues.

False rape accusations
One of the most controversial topics today is false rape accusations.

Myth: False rape accusations do no significant harm to an innocent victim.
Fact: A false rape accusation has the potential to destroy an innocent man's life emotionally as well as financially.

Myth: False rape accusations against men are rare.
Fact: Even the disputed 8.6% figure given by the FBI is three to four times the false report rate when compared to all the other crime categories.

Myth: Actively prosecuting false rape accusations would expose women to prosecution whenever the man is acquitted.
Fact: Prosecution of false accusations under existing law covering perjury and malicious prosecution would require clear and convincing evidence that the woman deliberately lied. Such evidence can only exist if the woman did indeed deliberately fabricate the charge. No such evidence could exist if the woman were truly raped or believed herself raped.

Some possible reasons for a false accusation are:

• Revenge, because of rejection
• Extortion or blackmail
• Protection of reputation (of a married or underage woman)
• Jealousy (having an obsessive attraction)
• Or, a reinterpretation of consensual sex for any number of reasons

The unspoken crime of prison rape
It is shameful that prison rape is not prosecuted more today with all that we have discovered about learned abusive behavior. Prison rape is not usually even included in commonly used rape statistics. Many people believe there isn't a public outcry because it involves male prisoners whom most believe are getting what they deserve. It is the worst kind of sexual violence because, being of a homosexual nature, it additionally carries with it the devastation of violating the victim's sexual preference. Stephen Donaldson, president of "Stop Prisoner Rape" in an op/ed article in The New York Times, stated, "We set in motion a truly vicious cycle of sex abusers who one day will return to our communities and victimize our citizens."

Marital rape law
New York State should have kept its spousal sexual assault law written as it was, that it is only rape when the perpetrator is not married to the victim. The charges should be aggravated assault or spousal sexual assault which carry the lesser charge of misdemeanor, rather than the more severe felony rape charge. An actual letter from a man serving many years in a Boise, Idaho prison stated, "I can see a woman who is raped by a stranger, that she would feel totally violated and become traumatized. But a woman who has had sex with her husband hundreds of times and is forced one night should either demand he get counseling or divorce him." A marriage in good standing usually carries with it the expectation of a mutual sexual relationship and should not be equated with stranger or acquaintance rape.

Limiting the responsibility to men
Blamelessness, due to drunkenness, is a legal doctrine which is a woman-only excuse. It holds that a woman who is seduced after she has been drinking can accuse the man of rape on the grounds that she was too drunk to know that she was yielding to his advances, therefore unable to give legal consent. But a man cannot use the same defense and argue that he couldn't be guilty of sexual assault because he was too drunk to know what he was doing. If, however, a woman gets stopped for driving while intoxicated, charges are filed regardless of her gender. She is held accountable in this case, but treated like a child when sex is the issue. 

Blamelessness, due to low IQ. A man can be charged with rape because the woman involved had a developmentally-disabled status that was unbeknownst to him.

Blamelessness, due to multiple personality disorder. A man can be charged with rape because he didn't get the consent of all the woman's personalities or the particular personality in control of her body at the time of intimacy.

Statutory rape
The unchastity standard should be reinstituted because it took into account the underage victim's life experience or past sexual history. Charging Joe Buttafuoco with statutory rape because Amy Fisher was a month under the legal age is a travesty. It totally discounted that she had been having sex for years and was actually paid for it via an escort service. In fact, in a Florida decision, Judge Jerry Lockett ruled that the same right of privacy that guaranteed 15-year-old girls the right to have an abortion also assured them the right to engage in consensual sex without being considered "jail bait."

Alleged rape victim versus alleged rapist media disclosure policies
Is it proper for news organizations to name the accused but not the accuser? The media, which has the power to destroy people's reputations, should instead recognize our standard of American justice: That the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Naming only the accused prejudices the public's opinion by the implicit assumption that the accuser is a victim whose identity needs protection while the accused must be guilty in not receiving any identity protection. Furthermore, concealing an accuser's identity can tempt unscrupulous or disturbed women into abusing the criminal justice system. In their attempt to eradicate double standards, most men's rights organizations demand either disclosure or non-disclosure of both parties' names because if an alleged rape victim still has a negative stigma today, being an alleged rapist must certainly have one also.

Men's reproductive rights
Since the state (since 1996) cannot by law force motherhood upon women, the state should not be able to force fatherhood upon men. Roe vs. Wade changed the rules for women, giving them the choice to deny motherhood. Yet the rules for men remained exactly the same. Allowing men to have equal reproductive choice would not deny choice to women. It would only eliminate their expectation of having their choice financed by men. Karen Decrow, former president of the National Organization for Women, saw the dilemma that legalized abortion might eventually mean the end of paternity suits. She stated while a member of Serpico's defense team, "If women have the right to choose if they become parents, men should have that right, too."

AIDS and DNA testing for suspects
We believe in mandatory AIDS and DNA testing for prosecuted rape suspects. We feel that scientific advancements should be used to safeguard the victims or prove the guilt in rape cases. Conversely, we feel that Governor Pataki is signing into law a ban on mandatory polygraph test when the District attorney feels that the allegation is suspect. This is wrong.

Our Consensual Sex Statement has been handed out on many college campuses as a result of all the date rape accusations of a few years ago. Sex contracts were discussed on The Maury Povich Show as well as other talk shows and has been the topic of many newspaper articles.

Another myth about rape that I'd like to dispel is that sex has nothing to do with rape. Women's organizations have successfully indoctrinated the public into believing that rape is about violence and not sex. Quite the contrary, rape is about sex in both the act and motive. Violence is the mans of getting what the rapist wants in some cases and the perverted sexual turn-on in others.

In conclusion, regarding the laws that govern men and women...Law--good law--should be fair, logical and gender-neutral in design and application.

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