Jenni Mrkva

Professor Dunham
English 1201
March 9, 2019
Annotated Bibliography
My essay will help explain why date rape isn’t always black and white. I want to

understand why “no” does not mean “no” to some people, where our education has failed us, and

what we can be doing to better understand this topic. What can we be doing to further educate

men and women, rapists and victims, that rape is not ok, but that falsely accusing someone is not

ok, as well?

Bailey, Brad. "Why Prosecutors Find It Difficult To Prosecute Date Rape Cases." 15 February

2017. https://www.bradbaileylaw.com/legal-blog/2017/february/why-prosecutors-find-it-

difficult-to-prosecute-d/.

In his article, Brad Bailey breaks down some of the reasons behind a date rape victim’s

choice to not come forward or to wait to come forward. He suggests one of the reasons is that it

is a classic he said, she said situation, and usually there are no other witnesses to testify. He also

says that jurors are often skeptical for various reasons and see that there is room for doubt.

Brad Bailey is a well-known attorney in the Boston area. His firm specializes in sex

crimes. This is very helpful to my research because he sees this type of situation frequently and

has firsthand knowledge of what happens once these cases go before a jury.

I plan to use this information in my essay by figuring out ways that we can overcome

these obstacles that are mentioned in the article.

Bruce, Madeline. "Why Students Need to be Educated on Rape and Sexual Assault." Affinity

Magazine. 2017. http://affinitymagazine.us/2017/08/18/why-students-need-to-be-

educated-on-rape-and-sexual-assault/

Madeline Bruce discusses important statistics in her article. She mentions that many

schools do not have the basic sexual education that is seemingly necessary at an earlier age due

to the amount of sexually active teenagers.

Bruce was a student studying English at the time she wrote the article and is hoping to

become a journalist one day. There were no links in her article showing where she got her

statistics from, however, I am less focused on the actual numbers and more of the fact that she

was right on point when she said that some schools do not even teach sexual education.

I plan to use the information for my essay by showing that establishing sexual education

at an early age will help in assisting the "gray" area of date rape be a little less blurred.

DeSantis, John. "When ‘No’ is not Enough / Lack of Evidence can Make Date Rape Difficult to

Prove." Star News 26 June 2005.

http://www.ncdsv.org/images/WhenNoisNotEnoughtLackEvidence.pdf

John DeSantis brings up quite a bit of valuable information in his article. He discusses

many different aspects of date rape, from what law enforcement officers have to say about the

topic, that there is a program for men to help educate other men on the issue of date rape, and

alarming statistics about date rape from the CDC.

 DeSantis is a writer for the Star News out of Wilmington, North Carolina. His article

talks about several different programs, people, and statistics, which, when I Googled to verify,

were correct.

The information in his article will be very valuable to me when I am writing my essay.

He referenced several different organizations that I am going to look into for further research.

One of the biggest things that stuck out to me when I read the article initially was the very last

sentence, which reads "silence is not consent."

Newman, Sandra. "Why Men Rape." 30 March 2017. https://aeon.co/essays/until-we-treat-

rapists-as-ordinary-criminals-we-wont-stop-them.

In her article, Sandra Newman discusses the many different theories on date rape

throughtout the years. She breaks down the theory and explains why none of them were correct.

Many of the theories were based on the premise that the woman was to blame for "seducing" the

man, and he, therefore, could not control himself.

Newman's well-written article has many links throughout when she is referencing a

theory, idea, or person. Her article is fact based and non-emotional. Her breakdown of the

theories throughout the years makes it easy to see why date rape is such a huge issue to this day.

Her article will give me many things to go on for my research, but my biggest takeaway

is her claim that since very few rapists actually get prosecuted, it seems to be an "easy" crime to

commit with little to no repercussion.

Raphael, Dana A. The Effect of Sexual Education on Sexual Assault Prevention. 2015.

http://www.womennc.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-WomenNC-

ResearchPaper-Effects-ofSexEduc-on-PreventSexAssault_Dana-Raphael0415.pdf

In her research paper, Dana Raphael discusses sexual education around the world and in

different areas of the United States. She talks about the effects of abstinence-based education

and where teens and young children get their sexual education from.

This was a very well-written research paper in 2015 by Raphael, who wrote it for a class

at Duke at the time. Her paper is organized and there is a works cited page at the end, as well as

citations throughout the paper.

I will be using the parts of her paper that I discussed above regarding abstinence-based

education and how little sexual education children actually receive from their parents and

teachers. She cites several studies that were done regarding these topics and I will be looking

further into them, as well.

Smith, Tovia. "To Prevent Sexual Assault, Schools And Parents Start Lessons Early." 9 August

2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/08/09/487497208/to-prevent-sexual-assault-schools-

and-parents-start-lessons-early.

This article, written by Tovia Smith, touches on all the "basics" of the subject of rape,

starting with educating the children at a younger age. She says that kids as young and five and

six years of age are able to understand the basic principals of boundaries.
 The article mentions organizations that are working towards teaching not only kids, but

everyone anti-violence lessons. One thing about this article that I liked as far as credibility is

that at the end of it, there were edits and dates that the edits were made. The original article

made a few errors and it was important enough for them to correct the mistakes. That speaks

credibility to me.

This article brought up topics within date rape that are tricky to navigate and touched on

them. I will be using those ideas and further researching them for my paper, as well as some of

the other topics that were touched on in the article.

Stamoulis, Kathryn. "Teaching our Sons not to Rape." 21 January 2015.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-teen-age/201501/teaching-our-sons-

not-rape.

Kathryn Stamoulis discusses her experience working with both rapists and those that

have been raped in her article. She touches on some great points that seem like they are common

sense, but clearly are not.

Stamoulis has her Ph.D. in psychology. She teaches a psychology class and is a therapist.

The article shows her expertise in this field. As a mom of two boys, this article caught my eye

and really made me think. As a mom to a boy herself, Stamoulis basically said that it is the sons

that are predominatly doing the raping. Her article has links to various studies that she

references. As someone who works in the field that she does, I find her very credible.
 One of the biggest takeaways I got from this article was that in rapes where a male is the

victim, there is a 93% likelyhood that another male is the perpetrator. This shocked me and for

my essay I will be looking more into the reason(s) why that is.