Rape Victims Condemned and Dismissed: Then and Now

Jerry Plotkin and three others gang raped an acquaintance. Plotkin pleaded not guilty: He was a sexual libertine; he did what he wanted without limits. Through innuendo he implied that his victim was a libertine, too. Proof: she’d had sex without marriage. The jury acquitted: A woman who’d had sex outside of wedlock could not be raped.