The Problem With Grey Rape

Written by Danielle Paradis and cross-posted with permission from Fem2pt0. Recently, in an article for the Good Men Project , I referred to “grey rape” a term popularized by Cosmopolitan in a 2007 article titled “The New Kind of Date Rape.” I continue to place scare quotes around the term because while it does the work of communicating the issue that I am trying to talk about, it is also a term that can lead to victim-blaming—and that is not something I ever want to do. “Grey rape” implies that rape occurs on a spectrum. In order to discuss the problematic issue of rape being on a sliding scale, some key terms and ideas need to be identified and expanded upon. This idea of ‘grey rape’ is surrounded by context…. Read more »