Less than 3% of rapists are convicted, and the thing is for some that's too much.
When was it legal before hand? Have you never studied history? Rape of wives was legal until a couple of decades ago because women were seen as legal property of their husbands. For centuries, rape was only illegal if a woman was a virgin, and no woman who was not wealthy could be considered of sufficient virtue. Therefore rape was legal in all but very few cases. In fact, legal statutes often designated the crime as "deflowering a virgin" or kidnapping with nefarious intent, rather than rape, which was not itself illegal.
Now it is exceedingly difficult to prosecute rape cases because as we have seen, people will always defend rapists--whether they are a football player on their favorite team, someone like Julian Assange or Woody Allen, they've decided are more valuable than the lives of women and children. And the fact is many people will always consider the lives of rapists they see as part of their side as superior to women, and plenty of women, disgustingly, share that view, as we have seen when liberal/progressive or even Russian shills like Assange are accused of rape. The so-called progressive position on Assange was to deny the rape charges and warrant, willfully refuse to examine any of the legal documents when presented in black and white, and instead ape his comments and those of his lawyers as supposedly factual. It was disgusting and a perfect example of rape culture in action. Even knowing he is a cut out for the Kremlin, we see people continue to defend him because rape is always something that some need to see deligitimated in order to maintain their own power over women, or for women their own status as defined by their attachment to men.
Now Betsy Devos has rolled back the Obama administration's use of Title IX to try to induce college campus to continue to allow rapes to go unpunished, something that has been notorious on virtually every campus in America. We saw men, not just on the right, in outrage over those policies because the lives of the rapists are more valuable than mere women.
We are told women who dress a certain way get what's coming to them, that men shouldn't be held responsible for their own actions, shouldn't have to seek consent or avoid forcing themselves of women who are drunk or unconscious. We've seen people defend videos of men raping women who are passed out. That is the rape culture that we are told doesn't exist.
Anytime anyone dares mention rape culture on this site, we are told the fact that any man is ever punished means that no such thing exists. Not only that, we see constant claims that men are treated unfairly by women who dare to lodge charges of rape.
Rape is essential to the violent enforcement of the established social order. It keeps women in line, just as restrictions on abortion and killings of African Americans do. It is a means of enforcing power and hierarchy. Efforts to prop up and even roll back the social order with white men at the top and women and people of color are experiencing a dramatic resurgence. A rapist sits in the White House, and millions of Americans either voted for him or helped him gain power by attacking a woman who dared to exceed her place and run for president. Yet Trumpism isn't the only attack. Some have seized upon his victories to demand that the Democratic Party abandon civil rights and reproductive rights in favor of the increased wealth and privilege of white men. For all the cries about "establishment," what we see is an unyielding commitment to maintaining the established social order--power and hierarchy that is far stronger and more enduring that any governmental action, hierarchy that goes back centuries. And not only is there renewed commitment to propping up that hierarchy, we see arguments that "economic justice" requires returning to the early-to mid-20th century--that every time when women were property and the Democratic Party enforced Jim Crow and allowed lynchings to go unfettered.
And now, we see the greatest outrage is not that rape goes virtually unpunished but that a poster dares to talk about it the fact he fears it will become legal.
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