Virginia, I completely was on the same line of thought when reading Marcus. It does make it an interesting point that in the ideal world, rape would not be embedded in the society with the opinion of women being passive and able to be raped but that we can find a way to prevent it. Rape and culture are very interesting to compare. In some cultures, women are married off to men only if they are virgins and pure....but that is not necessarily asked of the man. I found this following quotation to catch my attention: "A rapist's ability to accost a woman verbally, to demand her attention, and even to attack her physically depends more on how he positions himself relative to her socially than it does on his allegedly superior physical strength. His belief that he has more strength than a woman and that he can use it to rape her merits more analysis than the putative fact of that strength, because that believe often produces as an effect the male power that appears to be rape's cause." (pg 390) This is another interesting viewpoint of rape and society.