>I think part of the problem here, as evidenced by the recent
>discussion, is that it is not clear that rape is a sexually motivated
>crime. Rape involves sexual organs and sometimes penetration. But
>the psychological community, the last I heard anyway, copnsiders rape
>to be "power" motivated.
I think maybe there is still a problem here. I've known more then a
few people for whom all sex is power motivated in to one degree or
another. Are these people jerks? Probably. Are they rapists? I
think this would be taking things a bit far. I've been giving this a
lot of thought, and I think that a large part of the problem (for me
anyway) is that people want to to know if rape (or queer bashing ect)
are sexual or just flat out criminal, and they don't want to just
look at what the excepted defintion is, the want to _really_ know.
But this assumes that there is a _real_ meaning to words like sex,
crime, violence, ect, appart from how they are used. Believing this
is to believe in the platonic forms, which I think is a mistake. Is
rape sexual? It is if people (but which people? How many people?)
decide that it is. there is no meaning in any act untill it is given
to it.
Yours,
M. Lister
Philosophy Student
Boise State University
list3793@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx