It’s Academic

So, I got my JSTOR on. It’s a database of academic journals. I’ve been hitting the books, and I have a few things to say. First, I needed to find the proper legal name for relationship rape. There isn’t one. Here are the options, because it is willy-nilly out there in academia across subjects.

Intimate Partner Sexual Assault (IPSA)

Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse (also known as IPSA)

Acquaintance Rape / Sexual Assault

Marital Rape

Date Rape

Etc.

Okay then, what the hell is it?

Most of the legal scholarship seems to place it under domestic violence and lump it together. Okay, fair — but far more insidious than, forgive me, run-of-the-mill domestic violence. Trust me, I’ve been through both. The odd thing was that it came up most often with family law and child custody. It’s like women don’t report until later… oh wait, that’s a total fact according to every bit of research. Women report when the relationship ends. Trauma bonding is a real thing. Just remember that.

I am trying to be unbiased in my research as I was trained to be. I’m still not there structurally on the book because now I’m working on a whole academic thing. I know it’s all over the place, but would anyone expect less from me? I need to keep it tight, though. I’ll put the academic basis in the front matter. It’s going to look a little something like this:

• Preface: my story, briefly but mainly my interaction or lack thereof with prosecutors 

• Introduction: academic

• Part 1: clinical framework

• Part 2: legal framework

• Part 3: prosecutorial framework/ putting it together

• Afterwards/maybe appendix don't know what to call it yet:  defense framework (brief, but putting it there to see the possible converse)

• Appendix 1: annotated case law by subject

• Glossary of psych terms

• References

And, like, standard front and back matter.

I think this setup will be most useful. I want it readable and a handy reference. I’m still not sure about citations. I have this weird APA/Bluebook citation mix, and I need to standardize it. My first instinct is, of course, Chicago Manual of Style because I know it like the back of my hand. I don’t think footnotes are necessarily good for a primer, though. And CMOS is just not the correct style — it should either be APA or Bluebook.but Bluebook is footnotes. It will take up 3/4 of the page in footnotes if I don't in line it.

However, ChatGPT, who I now refer to as the Governess because she said I scold her like a Victorian Governess that has been naughty.  has me doing this end-of-paragraph hybrid parenthetical citation because she thinks lawyers would like it. But I don’t want to look like a dumbass who can’t cite things properly, even though it does read way better. Damn you, AI.

Is this stupid?

This is my next topic: is this just a fucking stupid idea, or can I help someone by doing it? Am I just getting my research obsession on? And graphic design obsession. I have a few choices for mockups right now.

Basically, it’s just a simple intro to applicable psych along with case law. That’s the idea. Here you go — don’t even have to search for it. Let me hand you this with everything there, and you go do lawyer shit with it. Lawyers doing lawyer shit with a little guidance to send them off in the right direction and see these are NOT impossible cases.

But would anyone take it seriously? That’s why I’m trying to make sure it is so well referenced, because these are not my subjects. I’m just a researcher. History. I will argue that encompasses law as well as social science. Hell, I taught law and psych at a high school. High schoolers are not lawyers, though. But that is also the argument — a high school psych student can explain it as long as he only smoked one joint instead of two that morning.

The more I read, the clearer it becomes that this gap isn’t accidental. Relationship rape sits in the cracks between disciplines, buried in footnotes, softened by labels, and pushed into categories that don’t quite fit. That’s where survivors get lost. This isn’t about me proving I belong in academia or law. It’s about taking what already exists, organizing it, and putting it directly into the hands of people who are supposed to use it. If this helps one prosecutor see a case differently, one lawyer frame an argument more clearly, or one survivor understand that what happened to them already has a name, then it’s not stupid. It’s necessary.