Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - Pál Csontos: Is Political Correctness Politically Correct? A Tour along the Alleyways of the Shambles Called Political Correctness

incidents and behaviors ranging from crimes legally defined as rape to verbal harassment and inappropriate innuendo'" (Beard 3), while date rape gets the specification of "acquaintance rape that occurs during a prearranged social engagement" (15). The latter entry expression is further clarified through the following: Among the offenses specifically categorized as sexual assault in a landmark study on date rape conducted by Maty P. Koss of the University of Arizona is 'intercourse as a result of intentionally getting the woman intoxicated.

' The Koss study found

, perhaps not uncoincidentally, that 43 percent of the victims interviewed had not previously realized they had been raped. (15) Katie Roiphe's extract also starts with concerns about the Koss report and contends that "measuring rape is not as straightforward as it seems" and that "what is being called rape is not a clear-cut issue of common sense" (8). Furthermore, she adds that the "so-called 'rapeepidemic' on campuses is more a way of interpreting, a way of seeing, than a physical phenomenon. It is more about a change in sexual politics than a change in sexual behavior" (8). She expresses her worries about date rape pamphlets as vehicles that call into question all relationships between men and women and about feminist definitions of rape that "do not exist in a realm completely separate from the law" (9). The most shocking revelation she lists, however, is the one about what we could term "delayed recognition." Becoming an actual prisoner (out) of political correctness looms over the horizon for anybody who translates the anecdote about the novelist Martin Amis to their respective terms. When he spoke at Princeton University in 1992, Amis "included a controversial joke: 'As far as I'm concerned you can change your mind before, even during, but not after sex.'" Roiphe states that the reasons this joke is funny, and the reason it's also too serious to be funny, is that in the current atmosphere you can change your mind afterwards. Regret can signify rape. (...) Since verbal coercion and manipulation are ambiguous, it's easy to decide afterwards that he 35