Force requirement?

Rape is a growing problem in today’s society and frankly the research is rather shocking when looking at the statistics. 1 in 5 women college will be raped, and that number I find rather hard to wrap my mind around considering how many females are in this class, statistically a couple of us will become victims of sexual assault. When it comes to the force requirement, I have a problem with the overall requirement and believe that it should be abolished. For some individuals, rape is not rape unless there was some type of force involved and that force has to be shown in court. I do not agree with this as there are some instance in which force might not have been used and therefore if we applied a legal definition then this would technically not be considered rape. I believe that the force requirement is causing more harm than good for victims, as it is up to them and their attorney in order to prove that force was used in order for this to be rape.  Just because force was not used does that mean that someone was not raped even if they say no? 

In my eyes of course not! Rape is rape as long as the person said no and therefore the force requirement should be abolished. It is not fair to the victim to say that since there was no force, they were not raped. At the end of the day, they were raped because they said no and the defendant proceeded anyways. The author brings up the idea that without the force requirement, then innocent individuals could be falsely convicted of rape. With this, she presents us a scenario in which a girl says “no” to actual intercourse, but then they get annoyed and they ask for other sexual activities and she says nothing and then they proceed to do “other sexual activities”. She didn't say anything as she took this as he was insisting on it. So in a situation like this, there might not have been force but does that mean it was not rape? To me no, the girl did not want to engage in any type of activity and out of fear she did not say anything. Physical force might not have been applied however a type of mental force was applied and the girl felt like the person was insistent and therefore there was force but could that be shown? No, it is not something that can be shown but it can be expressed. At the end of the day, if you had sex with someone who did not want to engage in sexual intercourse then you are guilty of rape. You do not need the force component, because for not everyone that can not be easily proven. If the evidence is against you and the facts are there then you are not being falsely convicted of rape even without the force component.