Gina Tangelo

December 13, 2016

English 10
Miriam Rock

Rape Views in Modern Culture: Is it a Problem Now?

Rape is viewed as one of the most common forms of sexual assault. In

the story of Callisto in Ovids Metamorphoses, one of the many stories

focused on rape, Jupiter becomes interested in her and decides to rape her

on a whim. The rape stories in Ovid have shaped how modern culture views

rape. Rape is viewed as a form of sexual assault and normally happens to

women sadly. It is a problem that is trying to be fixed by allowing people to

start speaking up. For example, there are college women have different kinds

of views of rape, some of them being considered good and the others being

considered bad according to modern standards. Rape and race is also a

problem, though now no one really focuses on race. There are also many

rape cases known publicly, one of them being the case of Lee Kaplan. These

rape cases could be of women or young girls who were either kidnapped,

abducted, just raped in the street, or they just werent being careful and

couldnt defend themselves. It could also be in the house and the females

are being raped by their lovers or their own parents. While rape still happens

to Callisto and in modern culture, now we view it more as a problem instead

of something that can be joked about as another form of normal sex.

Callisto was raped by Jupiter and ended up being viewed badly by the

rest of the people. Jupiter saw Callisto, who was a virgin at the time, and

automatically became interested in her. He then decided to rape her,

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impregnating her as well (Ovid 68). A quote from the text shows how she

obviously didnt want to be raped. When Jupiter was trying to rape her:

Callisto fought back/but indeed what man could a girl be a match for, let

alone Jupiter? (Ovid 68) This shows that she tried to fight back but she

couldnt because apparently no one could stand up to Jupiter because he was

just that powerful. The way that Callisto was viewed after she was raped was

cruel. When her belly was exposed and everyone found out that she was

pregnant, Diana said: So this was your crowning insult adulterous whore

she exclaimed- becoming pregnant? You had to make your wickedness

public and testify my Joves disgrace by having a baby (Ovid 70). Diana

basically thought that Callisto slept with Jupiter willingly and was not forced

into it at all just because of the growing belly. Diana ended up turning Callisto

into a wolf as well since sleeping with Jupiter was that horrible. In this story

rape was viewed as a disgrace and no one thought of it as a problem to be

prevented but more as a somewhat sin.

After being raped, Callisto didnt act like the innocent girl she used to

be before it happened. The rape was not something that settled in easily for

her because she was supposed to stay a virgin since she was known as the

Arcadian virgin (Ovid 67) and then all of a sudden shes pregnant and no

one knows what to do. She didnt want to look at anyone because she was

too ashamed of herself. She didnt want anyone to suspect that anything was

wrong, hence why she tried to hide her belly for as long as possible. She

knew exactly how people would react to seeing it and that wasnt something

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that she wanted. She was also extremely ashamed of herself because of

Diana. Callisto used to be a soldier in Phoebes troops and Diana liked her

the most, hence why Diana was so mad at her for this (Ovid 67). After being

turned into a wolf she never stepped foot into the shady forest but she

wondered around the common fields or in front of her old house (Ovid 71).

She was afraid to be seen by others because they would have known it was

her and just make things even more difficult for her. She didnt seem to see

herself as what she had become and wished that none of this had ever

happened.

Ovid viewed rape in a way that contradicts most modern views. An

English writer said that Ovids language makes it clear that the rape he is

talking about to is forced sex, not abduction, a confusion in Latin that carries

over into early modern English. By saying that women enjoy such force, Ovid

changes the view of rape into consensual sex (Garrett 40). The women didnt

want to be raped though according to what Ovid believes he presents several

varieties of rape in his stories in which they seeming want to be raped

(Garrett 41). In some stories and English culture, it is said that force is

pleasurable for women, a fact that Ovid seemed to believe (Garrett 37-38). It

is also said that women could easily prevent rape but man can find ways to

his mistresss secret desires (Garrett 45). This reveals that modern culture

doesnt exactly see rape as the biggest concern, which is similar to Ovid

since he didnt even think of rape as rape but more as consensual sex. These

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facts show that some aspects of modern culture view rape as another form of

consensual sex.

A survey done by Kathryn Ryan and Jeanne Kanjorski on college

students determined the likelihood of forced sex or sexual humor. There is

sexual humor among romantic partners and yet it can still be harmful (Ryan

and Kanjorski 744). Women, of course, are less accepting towards rape than

men are though there are even some college women who have sexist and

rape-supportive beliefs and attitudes (Ryan and Kanjorski 744, 746). The

phrase likelihood of forced sex is used quite a bit in the text. It is used to

see how likely someone is to rape someone else or how likely they are to

force someone into sex (Ryan and Kanjorski 748). The likelihood of forcing

sex is said to correlate with sexual aggression in men (Ryan and Kanjorski

751). There is also a great relationship between the sexist humor and the

likelihood of forcing sex and sexual aggression (Ryan and Kanjorski 751).

These facts reveal that most women view rape as a problem while some had

some rape supportive beliefs, different from how Ovid had women rape as in

his metamorphoses. Ovid had the women view rape almost like cheating and

that the women who got raped was the one in the wrong instead of the other

way around. The facts also reveal that some men think that rape and sexual

assault can be funny though its not a matter to be joked about. This also

shows how one factor in men can lead to many others regarding rape.

There was racism in the criminal justice system among those who were

convicted of rape, who the victims were, and how they felt about it, causing

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for unjust judgements. Today, most rapes happen between people of the

same race and of all races (Sapp, Farrell, Johnson, Hitchcock 205). For a long

time in American history, the criminal justice system was racist when it came

to the rapes of European American and African American women (Sapp,

Farrell, Johnson, Hitchcock 205). White says that European American men are

hardly ever punished for claims or actual cases of rape of African American

women (Sapp, Farrell, Johnson, Hitchcock 205). The difference in the way

African American males and females attitudes towards rape are said to be

caused by sexism and rape myths (Sapp, Farrell, Johnson, Hitchcock 206).

Since African American women have been looked at incapable of being

raped, the myths served as the reason for those European American men

who raped them as they wished (Sapp, Farrell, Johnson, Hitchcock 205).

These facts reveal that European Americans were never punished for rape,

which is somewhat similar to Ovid. Ovid wrote his stories so that men were

never considered to be the ones that did anything wrong. These facts are

different from Ovid because in his metamorphoses there was never a

problem with race because it is assumed that everyone was the same race, a

fact that has changed today.

The case of Lee Kaplan raping several young girls displays that some

parents dont address rape and abuse as a problem. Rape in modern times is

viewed as something that needs to involve the police and is a dangerous

thing. Lee Kaplan took several girls now between the ages of 8 and 17 into

his house as his wives (Bever). Some of them were his own children

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(Bever). Five of them were sisters all from the same family. He tricked the

initial victim into sleeping with him and under that guise, he was able to

sexually molest these sisters (Bever). Police know that he has abused two of

the five sisters though, unfortunately, there is no evidence that Kaplan

abused the other three (Bever). The mother of the sisters knew that one of

her daughters was sleeping with Kaplan and yet she didnt do anything to

prevent it or take any action towards it like calling to police or reporting the

man (Bever). This case study shows how some parents dont view rape as

something that they should go to the police about. This case is also similar to

Ovid in a way because in some of his stories the women were tricked or

convinced to be raped. This also shows how some family members would

actually abuse and rape their kids, something that Ovid didnt view nor write

about in his stories.

In conclusion, though there are still some problems with how rape is

viewed and how to solve the problem as a whole, its getting better. Now we

dont look at people who have been raped like Diana did to Callisto. We now

try and address the problem as it comes so that we dont have women sitting

in the dark. There is no longer racism when dealing with rape cases so now

every time someone does it, the person is punished if caught by the police.

Stories like Lee Kaplans are serious problems and sadly not all stories are

shared for the world to know about. Rape stories are now viewed as a

problem and yet back in Ovids time rape wasnt viewed as something of

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concern. Today women can be helped with this raping issue and are not

looked down upon anymore for being raped.

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 Works Cited

Bever, Lindsay. "Man Used Godlike Sway to Take Six Young Girls as His wives."
Washington Post. N.p., 7 Nov. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

Garrett, Cynthia E. "Sexual Consent and the Art of Love in the Early Modern
English Lyric." Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900, vol. 44, no. 1,
2004., pp. 37-58 Research Library. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

Ovid. Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation. Trans. D. A. Raeburn.

London: Penguin,
2004. Print.

Ryan, Kathryn M., and Jeanne Kanjorski. "The Enjoyment of Sexist Humor,
Rape Attitudes, and Relationship Aggression in College Students." Sex
Roles, vol. 38, no. 9, 1998., pp. 743-756 Research Library. Web. 16
Nov. 2016

Sapp, Marty, et al. "Attitudes Toward Rape among African American Male and
Female College Students." Journal of Counseling and Development:
JCD, vol. 77, no. 2, 1999., pp. 204-208 Research Library. Web. 16 Nov.
2016.