ABSTRACT
Rape trials are horrible. So is non-consensual penetration of the vagina by the penis. It is assault. Violation. And yet, it is the victim of rape who feels ashamed. Dirty. Why is it that rape is equated with degradation and shame? What conception of women and the body does such shame assume? These questions are central to the issue of how women are judged, and point to rape as a concern of standards as much as of assault. Shame is an implicit judgment against the complainant who is made to feel dishonourable, unworthy ... indecent. Tart. This is particularly obvious in the humiliation that women so often suffer in rape trials; trials which, as the case of Julia Mason demonstrates, become as much a judgment of the woman complainant and her honour as of the man and rape.1
