Abstract
In his book The Differend, Lyotard proposes a unique theory of the victim as one who has suffered a wrong that is not presently recognized in law and exists instead as a differend, or a form of suffering that cannot be phrased in a shared idiom. Where "vulnerability" refers to the ability to be wounded, Lyotard's theory of the victim points up a second-order vulnerability: the ability to be wounded and to then have that wounding effaced, in language, by others, by the law. In this article I draw on Lyotard’s theory to think about feminist efforts to reform rape law and ameliorate its effacement of various forms of rape.