Film Analysis: Is This Rape? Sex On Trial

Although Field’s study was conducted within the US, rape myths have manifested within western culture as well. Clearly demonstrating this was a documentary aired on BBC Three (2015) titled “Is This Rape? Sex on Trial”. The documentary used a fictional scenario of a man inserting his penis into a woman’s mouth after a party, where alcohol was consumed, which 24 females and males (12 females and 12 males) were asked to vote was this rape. Throughout the documentary notions of “she didn’t physically tell him to stop” or “she was leading him on by flirting with him at the party” were used to justify the suspect’s actions and caused a debate. Although the two studies provide a valuable insight into public perceptions and the effects of rape myths, the samples used within the two studies were of 16-21 year old males and females, thus producing limitations to the generalizability of the studies as it only focuses on one age group. Polit and Beck (2010) state generalizability is vital for research as without it, there is no evidence based practice within the studies. …show more content…
The notion of non- deserving and deserving victims provides the foundation to positivist theory. In basic terms, those who are determined as a victim are done so through the thoughts surrounding a deserving victim characteristics. Those with “undesirable” characteristics can contribute to their victimization, for example if a woman had been drinking at a club and later was raped, the alcohol she consumed would be an “undesirable” characteristic and as a result it would be a contributing factor as to why she was raped. This results in the victim being unworthy of sympathy from the public (Goodey,