Rape myth

Rape myths are prejudicial, stereotyped, and false beliefs about sexual assaults, rapists, and rape victims. They often serve to excuse sexual aggression, create hostility toward victims, and bias criminal prosecution.

Extensive research has been conducted about types, acceptance, and impact of rape myths. Rape myths significantly influence the perspectives of jurors, investigative agencies, judges, perpetrators, and victims. False views about rape lead to victim blaming, shaming, questioning of the victim's honesty, and other problems. Determination of the guilt of the accused, and sentencing for sexual crimes, are also influenced by these beliefs.

Rape myths originate from various cultural stereotypes, such as traditional gender roles, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and misunderstanding the nature of sexual assault. Matthew Hale, a British jurist in the 17th century, suggests that rape is "an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved and harder to be defended against by the party accused, tho [sic] never so innocent". His historical thoughts invisibly support many rape myths seen today, and continue to be reproduced in rape trials.

Rape myths first became a topic of research during the 1970s, when a number of studies and books explored the concept. In 1974, for example, feminist writer Susan Brownmiller decried "male myths of rape" which "deliberately obscure the true nature of rape" in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. The same year, criminologists Julia and Herman Schwendinger studied common misconceptions about rape, including the notion that rape was impossible - i.e., that any woman who really wanted to could prevent a rape—the idea victims of rape were "asking for it," and the idea that men rape because of "uncontrollable passions." They termed these misconceptions "sexist myths" which "influence the treatment of women victims." Both Brownmiller's work and the Schwendingers' study suggested that rape myths perpetuated male violence against women by placing blame on the victim, excusing the rapist, and minimizing or justifying the act of rape.

In 1980, Martha Burt published the first major study of rape myth acceptance. Burt defined rape myths as "prejudicial, stereotyped and false beliefs about rape, rape victims and rapists" which create "a climate hostile to rape victims." Burt's definition has been widely used.

In 1994, Kimberly A. Lonsway and Louise F. Fitzgerald defined rape myths as "attitudes and beliefs that are generally false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny and justify male sexual aggression against women."

Some scholars, such as Gerd Bohner and Heike Gerger, have argued that descriptors such as "false" and "widely held" should not be included in a formal definition of what rape myths are since myths are often constructed in a way that are impossible to falsify, (as in the example, "many women secretly desire to be raped," where "secret" desire cannot be disproven) and the degree to which rape myths are "widely held" or accepted may vary over time. Bohner has offered an alternative definition of rape myths as "descriptive or prescriptive beliefs about rape (i.e., about its causes, context, consequences, perpetrators, victims and their interaction) that serve to deny, downplay or justify sexual violence against women."

While scholars disagree somewhat on how to precisely define the concept of rape myths, and rape myths can vary across different cultures and societies, there is a general consensus that there are four basic types of rape myths: those that blame the victim for their rape, those that express doubt or disbelief about victim's reports of a rape, those that exonerate the rapist, and those that suggest that only a certain type of victim gets raped.