ABSTRACT
With the aim of theorizing a transformed ideological frame that renders visible the complainants' subaltern perspectives, I turn in this chapter to a relatively new cultural explanation for acquaintance rape, and gender struggle more generally ± male/female miscommunication. Although a miscommunication account of rape has been heralded `as a progressive alternative to the victim precipitation model with its associated victim-blaming' (Crawford 1995: 123), I suggest that its particular manifestation in these adjudication processes does not eliminate victim-blame. On the contrary, fragments of this new model are incorporated seamlessly into more traditional ideologies surrounding sexual violence, leaving intact the overarching assumption that women are responsible for rape. For example, while not held accountable for rape on the basis of their `provocative' dress or their `promiscuous' sexual past, the complainants discussed in this study were nonetheless held accountable for not communicating their lack of consent clearly and unambiguously. Indeed, the miscommunication model of date rape, as it is manifest in these adjudication processes, is the utmost resistance standard in disguise: because the complainants' signals of non-consent did not take particular forms, their resistance to Matt's sexual aggression was deemed as weak and equivocal ± such equivocation being tantamount to consent.
