CONTENTS
- What IS rape culture?
- How does rape culture effect US society?
- Rape culture in the military?
- Rape culture in prisons?
- Female rapists?
- More information
- Unreported rapes & why
- Fale reports/accusations
- Misc. topics
- What to do about victims
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1. What IS rape culture? Where did the phrase come from?
Rape culture is a concept that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society, and in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape. The phrase was first used in a 1975 documentary about prison rape.
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2. How does rape culture effect US society?
As a matter of fact, it largely doesn't. Outside of prison and the military, there is no rape culture to speak of. Rape is not in any way normalized, excused, or encouraged.
In the USA rape is typically seen as a heinous crime akin to cannibalism or pedophilia. It wasn’t always this way, but things do change over time and anti-rape PSAs are a thing. Statistically, women are much more likely to report a rape than they ever have been, yet occurrences of rape have been steadily falling for years (a 50% decline from 1993-2012, although some say it’s a 60% decline, and the Department of Justice points out that it’s an 80-85% decline since the 1970s). The rate of rape peaked in 1979 and has been decreasing ever since, although reporting rape has increased. According to the FBI you're about 10 times as likely to get your car stolen; rape and murder are the most uncommon crimes.
Studies have shown that while 10-20% of women have been raped in their lifetime, in 2007 fewer than 1% of college women were raped that year. In 2012 the University of Texas had 18 reported rapes out of approximately 50,000 students on campus, which is 0.036%. Of Yale University's 14,000 students, 8 assaults were reported in 2013 (0.057%) and 6 students were found guilty. Other universities report similar numbers. Even accounting for unreported rapes (and the numbers for this happen to be incredibly unreliable, being primarily guesswork) numbers are still very low for the chance of being raped on a college campus. More information here. In a study of 7,667 university students, up to 13.3% of men reported being raped. Another study which surveyed 4,446 women found that under 2% of women had been a victim of completed rape between 1996 and 1997 and about half them didn't think it was rape. The oft-quoted "1 in 4" figure has never really held weight, given how the study was conducted, and it's been said that the actual rate is 1 in 40 or even lower. Universities are also generally biased against men accused of rape and assume they're guilty until proven innocent; a man can be found guilty of rape even when there's reasonable doubt. Many proceedings are mishandled though, so it's clearly not working out for women or men. Some individuals and organizations have been accused of profiting off rape and may not actually be interested in lowering rape numbers.
In Canada, between 1999 and 2009, no more than 3.5% of women over the age of 15 reported sexual assault happening to them, amid cries of “rape culture.” Oddly enough, these studies have excluded men completely, as if the organization erroneously believes that it is impossible for men to be raped or sexually assaulted. Another study showed that the majority of sexually abused youth in British Columbia were male, with about 80% of sexually exploited boys being preyed upon by women, and few (if any) services were available to help the male children - only female children had government resources.
According to RAINN, there is an average of 237,868 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the USA. Another section on their website states “An average of 207,754 Americans (age 12 or older) are victims of sexual violence each year.” Because of the differences in numbers and wording, this should make people pause. Why does one page give 30,000 more victims, and why does neither number match what the Department of Justice found (306,479) in 2008? It’s also worth noting that “rape”, “sexual assault”, and “sexual violence” are all considered different things.
1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men are said to be victims of rape, with 9 out of 10 victims in 2003 being female. For the first statistic, however, that comes from a “violence against women” survey done in 1998 by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Since 1998 was a while ago, let’s look for an update.
The CDC published its latest report on sexual violence in 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
Before even getting to the statistics, there’s a problem on page 17. There are two different definitions of rape being used, but one isn’t strictly called rape. It’s called ”made to penetrate” which primarily deals with male victims of rape.
So when you look at the statistics for rape alone, females heavily outnumber males. However due to the CDC re-categorization of rape, there are two rows to look at instead of one. Tables 2.1 and 2.2 (pages 18 and 19) have the details for women and then men. If you add everything up, men were 43% of victims of unwanted sexual experiences in 2012 (not counting prison). Of 13,943,000 reported events, 6,027,000 victims were male.
For the rape statistics, you have to collapse the two definitions of rape into one, because that makes sense doesn’t it? If someone is forced (against their will) to have sexual relations with someone else, it should be rape, and thus have one category instead of two. So for each gender, we add rape + made to penetrate. 1,270,000 victims were female and 1,267,000 victims were male, which means 49.94% of rape victims are male. Outside of prison. While this sounds like a lot of people, and it is, it's less than 1% of the population, which is exactly what research says about university campuses. According to the CDC report above, and prison rape statistics, there were about 2,837,000 rapes in 2010. The population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538 in the 2010 census. That’s 0.91888% of the population. With both sexes included, and almost equal numbers of men and women being victimized that year.
So here we have a problem. RAINN is generally regarded as an excellent source of information on rape and sexual assault, but they’ve contradicted themselves and used outdated information. The CDC and DoJ have shown that many of their “facts” are incorrect.
To summarize: rape and sexual assault is about 50-50. Male victims and female victims should be given equal attention and assistance because they are affected almost equally.
Unfortunately, that’s not what currently happens. People are only beginning to recognize that men can be assaulted, and those victims still don’t have much of a voice yet. Society as a whole believes that only women can be raped, and this is something government organizations echo. From 1927 to 2012, the FBI used “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” as its definition of rape for its annual Uniform Crime Reports. This definition by default ignores male victims and female perpetrators. So when people claim all rape victims are women - well, if official definitions of rape say men can't be raped, then of course women are going to be the majority. Definitions of rape need to be standardized and inclusive for people of all genders.
65% of the male survivors who tried to tell a therapist, doctor, teacher or other professional were not believed the first time they disclosed. Overall, 86% of those who tried to tell anyone were not believed the first time they disclosed. This is a societal problem where people incorrectly believe men cannot be raped, for a variety of reasons.
We actually have a second problem as well. The Department of Justice carries out its own research, and their numbers for rape and sexual assault are VERY different from what the CDC has found, likely due to how things are defined. Some researchers have said the CDC's numbers are impossibly high although many others agree with the CDC.
Here's the 2010 report from the DoJ: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf
In 2010, 232,600 women and 17,400 men were the victim of completed rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. Only about half of these were reported to the authorities, for a variety of reasons. This is a vast improvement over the 60-90% statistics other sources have quoted, and these numbers overall are even less indicative of rape culture than the CDC study. With 250,000 victims, that was 0.081% of the 2010 US population. If you only count completed rapes, that number decreases to less than half.
In a DoJ report that focused on college women, it included "verbal threats" under "sexual violence," falsely inflating rape figures. 49% of the alleged rape victims said they weren't raped, and 5% said they didn't know if it was rape or not. So essentially, the researchers didn't believe women and told them what their own experience was, which sounds a bit sexist.
The FBI has their own report: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/violent-crime/rape/rapemain.pdf
Note that I personally dislike the FBI reports due to their definition of rape, which states that rape only happens to women and men can never be raped (their definition was updated for 2013 but it's still not that good). However - "The rate of forcible rapes in 2012 was estimated at 52.9 per 100,000 female inhabitants." Assuming that all American women are uniformly at risk, this means the average American woman has a 0.0529% chance of being raped each year, or a 99.9471% chance of not being raped each year. That means the probability the average American woman is never raped over a 50-year period is 97.4% (0.999471 raised to the power 50). Over 4 years of college, it is 99.8%. Thus the probability that an American woman is raped in her lifetime is 2.6 percent and in college 0.2 percent. Reported rapes are lower than the estimate, as expected - 27 per 100,000 women. This varies by state; New Jersey is the lowest at 11.7 per 100,000 (0.01%) but Alaska seems to have the highest rate of rape at 79.7 per 100,000 women (0.08%).
The National Institute of Justice reports the average rate of victimization to be between 0.16% and 1.7%.
So... rape culture in the USA? No, unless you're talking about prison or the military. If US culture actually encouraged or condoned rape, numbers would be astronomically high. Instead, rape and sexual is the lowest it's ever been. In a worst case scenario, up to 1% of the entire population (including both men and women) will fall victim each year, but the rates of rape continue to decline for the general population.
The Williams Institute has their own analysis of the CDC/DoJ studies, along with some other studies. Their findings are similar to mine.
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3. Rape culture in the military?
The military excuses or dismisses rape as if it isn't an issue, although it definitely IS a problem. Rape is never okay. The Pentagon refused to release information for many years, for example. Knowledge about rape and sexual abuse has only come to light in recent years and it's highly traumatic to experience such things.
The Pentagon estimated that in 2012, 26,000 service members experienced “unwanted sexual contact,” which includes rape, attempted rape and unwanted sexual touching. Of these, an estimated 12,100 were women and 13,900 were men.
One investigation found that women were 3 times more likely to report an incident, with 1 in 5 females and 1 in 15 males in the United States Air Force reporting sexual assault. There are 61,506 women and 264,446 men in the Air Force which means 12,301 women and 18,511 men reported an assault, making men 60% of the victims.
According to an article by TakePart, ”nearly 100,000 women have been assaulted in the military [between 2006 and 2012].” Is that a problem? Absolutely. But that’s 100,000 women in 6 years. Between 2003 and 2004, approximately 80,000 men showed signs of sexual abuse. In just two years and that’s only the men willing to be screened by the Department of Veterans Affairs (who say that 20% of women and 10% of men show signs of having experienced sexual trauma). If rates average to be the same, from 2006-2012 that’d be 100,000 women and 240,000 men.
Again, since there are so many more men than women in the military (it’s 85% male and 15% female)… the numbers aren’t what they seem from percentages alone. The actual number of victims is slightly more telling in most circumstances.
As of 2010 there are 1,430,000 active and 851,000 reserve military. That comes out to 1,938,850 men and 342,150 women. Assuming 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience sexual trauma, as the VA implies… that would be 193,885 men and 68,430 women, making men 74% of the victims.
This also means that 11.5% of service members are raped or sexually assaulted each year, which is a bit more than 10 times the rate non-military non-inmate people experience sexual violence.
Additional information:
http://www.gq.com/long-form/male-military-rape
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- According to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), it was estimated that 216,000 inmates were sexually assaulted while serving time in 2008, compared to 90,479 rape cases outside of prison.
- Other sources estimate that 300,000 men and 5,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted in prison each year. Just Detention International says it’s 200,000 people annually, which is a low estimate, but from 2010 to 2011 they state it’s 300,000.
- 94% of sexually abused youth in correctional facilities (about 9.5% of boys according to the DoJ) reported being abused by female staff.
- There are also higher percentages of female-on-female rapes than male-on-male rapes in prisons, in addition to the fact that staff-on-inmate sexual abuse is more common than inmate-on-inmate abuse.
- Up to 16% of prisoners may be rape victims.
- Prison officials either don't care about rape in their prisons, or they allow prisoners to do it as a reward for cooperation.
Some people claim that prisoners aren’t important since they’re criminals. Politicians refuse to address the problem of rape in prisons. Some actually insist that prisoners deserve rape. Some more facts on prison in general:
- The prison population is 93% male. There are now 7.2 million Americans incarcerated, on probation, or parole. This is an increase of more than 290 percent since 1980.
- Many prisoners are not serving sentences for violent crimes.
- The Innocence Project has freed hundreds of prisoners who never committed the crimes they were put in jail for.
- Since 1976, the Department of Justice showed that men are more than 10 times as likely to be executed than a woman for a similar crime.
The “93% male” figure might seem unusual to some, as women do commit crimes. It’s unlikely that 93% of criminals are men, isn’t it? You would be correct in thinking this. The unfortunate truth is that women tend to get lighter sentences than men for the same crimes, and are acquitted more often, yet few people dare call attention to this gender gap. Feminists in the US and UK have actually called upon the justice system to ban giving jail time to women.
An example of gender bias: A 2004 study of teacher sexual misconduct. 4% of female teachers are punished or reprimanded, despite students reporting almost equal numbers when it came to teacher gender (57% male, 43% female). Almost 100% of male teachers are punished.
But this is meant to be about rape culture, not how the prison systems in most countries happen to be broken. That would be a lengthy post in itself.
Prison statistics:
Inmates in 2010. 2,266,832
As of December 31, 2009 the female prison population of federal and state prisons in the United States was 113,462. (5% of the total inmate population)
In 2011-12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months. The estimated number of prison and jail inmates experiencing sexual victimization totaled 80,600 — however, if you go by the percentages and calculate everything yourself, the number comes out to 84,683.
There are 206,968 federal prisoners, 1,311,136 state prisoners, and 748,728 prisoners in local jails. Federal+State=1518104, and 4% of that is 60,724. When you add 3.2% of jail inmates, you get a grand total of 84,683.
Additional info:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/oct/24/shame-our-prisons-new-evidence/
http://www.justdetention.org/en/listserv/2013/051613.aspx
http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/nprec/20090820154837/
https://nplusonemag.com/issue-13/politics/raise-the-crime-rate/
Using a snapshot technique, which examines the inmate population on a single day, the report states that 80,600 inmates held in prisons and jails had been sexually victimized in the preceding 12 months. Accounting for inmate turnover, however, the BJS estimates that roughly 200,000 people were sexually abused in detention in that period — a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2007, the year the BJS issued its first report of this kind.
Female inmates, compared to their male counterparts, were significantly more likely to report having mental health problems (65.6 vs. 30.0%, respectively), a substance abuse disorder (43.3 vs. 27.1%, respectively), and a chronic physical condition (58.1 vs. 30.8%, respectively).
32 per 1000 (female) and 15 per 1000 (male) inmates reported having any nonconsensual sexual activity. But because there are a lot more male inmates, that means more male victims (approx. 32,301?) than female victims (approx. 3,631?).
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If you combine prison statistics with CDC statistics, 41% of all rapists are female. When you go by the CDC report alone, 79.2% of men (1,003,464 victims) reported being raped by women. 2% of women reported a female rapist. The Department of Justice says that almost 20% of rapists are female yet only 1% of people arrested for rape in 2010 were female. This is why I personally have an issue with the “tell men not to rape” campaigns - because they erase thousands of male victims of sexual abuse and excuse the actions of female rapists. If such a feminist campaign succeeded, and male-on-female rape dropped to 0%, there would still be a lot of instances of rape in the USA. Portraying women as victims, and the only victims, contributes to the concept of rape culture by allowing female rapists to walk free and invalidating the sexual trauma some men may have recieved. As many as 1 in 6 men have been raped or sexually abused before the age of 18.
Things such as “slut shaming” can also be attributed to women, and not primarily men as stereotypes often dictate. It’s also true that men are often coerced into sex and women do try to force themselves on men (subtle or not). A study of US college women found that 12% of the respondents reported ever using any type of force strategy, 43% reported using a coercion strategy, and 92% reported using a seduction strategy to initiate sex (another study here). Over half of college men have said they were sexually victimized at least once since the age of 16. There are actually 40+ empirical studies that demonstrate that it is not rare or uncommon for women to use sexual coercive behavior towards men through sexual assaults, sexual intimidation, and sexual violence (even when it's pedophilia). Both genders are guilty of such behavior.
In many areas of the world, rape is defined solely as an act a man performs on a woman, which is exceedingly incorrect (it erases female-on-male rape, female-on-female rape, and male-on-male rape). According to some sources it's not statutory rape if a woman has sex with a boy under the age of consent, although it would be statutory rape if the genders were reversed. In the USA, if a female rapes a male, she can sue for child support if she becomes pregnant from raping him. Somehow this is accepted by many people.
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6. More information on rape culture
http://hagakura.tumblr.com/post/66760100466
Other relevant posts are tagged as rape or rape culture.
"No More Excuses" by DNF
PermutationOfNinjas has some good posts on rape culture and related topics.
http://imminentdeathsyndrome.tumblr.com/post/81637002010/
Other related articles:
"Researching the ‘Rape Culture’ of America" by Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers (PDF here)
"Myths about rape myths" by Hellen Reece
"When Men Are Raped" by Hanna Rosin
"The Campus Rape Myth" by Heather MacDonald
"The rape epidemic is a fiction" by Kevin Williamson
"Seven problems with 'rape culture' theory" by Will Shetterly
"Is it one-in-four, one-in-125, or one-in-1,876?" by the Community for the Wrongly Accused
http://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf
http://www.ifeminists.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.1248
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/definition-of-rape-is-shifting-rapidly.html?_r=0
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RAINN estimates that 54-60% of rapes go unreported, but because these rapes are NOT reported, it is VERY difficult to know what the statistics actually are. It’s also estimated that 90% of rapes go unreported if the man is the victim. An infographic circulating around Tumblr and other websites attempts to portray its own statistics, but it is wrong. (Another view on its debunking here)
I should also note here that some of RAINN’s statistics are compiled incorrectly or use unreliable/outdated sources, so their information should rarely be taken as 100% truth until they update everything (allegedly RAINN is currently in the process of doing so).
There are a variety of social reasons why rape goes unreported or the victim doesn’t pursue legal action against the rapist. In 75% or more of rape cases, both the assailant and victim personally knew each other (74-81% for attempted/completed rape according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics). In 60% of all cases, the rape took place in a location the victim would have assumed was safe (generally their own home, or the home of a friend/relative). Some rapists are not yet old enough to go to prison, so while they may face punishment, they don’t go to jail for their crime.
Around 70% of all rapes involved drugs or alcohol, either ingested by the assailant or the victim. From this last fact, we can see that responsible drinking and responsible use of drugs would lower the rate at which rape occurs. Alcohol has been described as “the number one date rape drug” due to its inhibition-lowering properties. Alcohol or other drugs was a factor with 75% of the men and 55% of the women in reported acquaintance rapes on college campuses. While rape is always the fault of the rapist, not the victim, it is important to note that it’s possible to take precautions against being raped. Alcohol and other drugs do not promote or cause rape, but being safe and responsible is statistically guaranteed to make a person more safe. People can die from substance abuse, both in college and outside of college. Feminists (and others) who claim safety precautions are “victim blaming” are incorrect. Construction workers and people with dangerous jobs take precautions in the name of safety when they believe they could be in a potentially dangerous environment, and translating this to everyday life is perfectly logical - not victim blaming. It’s not the victim’s fault if something bad happens to them; it’s not their fault if their precautions were overcome; but to take no precautions at all? That would be foolish.
Many women and men do not understand what rape IS. When a rape occurs, the victim does not always believe they should report the crime or they don’t know who to tell. A 2009 study released by the Center for Public Integrity, titled “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice,” offers this explanation: “Many victims don’t report at all, because they blame themselves, or don’t identify what happened as sexual assault.” A DOJ study found that students who had been raped gave the following reasons for not reporting the crime: 44.4% did not want family to know, 46.9% did not want other people to know, and 42.0% lacked any proof that the incident had happened. A lack of proof is surprisingly common, but that doesn’t mean rape did not occur.
The California Women’s Law Center has this to say about why women and men may not report rape:
Many victims freeze as a result of intimidation or coercion, or do what their assailant asks in order to prevent further harm. This may still be considered rape. Victims often dissociate during a sexual assault. They feel disconnected from their body as a way to get through the attack, and the shock that follows may prevent them from recognizing or reporting a sexual assault. Rape does not always happen in extraordinary circumstances, and the assailant may act as if nothing happened. These circumstances and more can create confusion, and make it difficult for the victim to acknowledge that they were sexually assaulted or raped. Further, if the victim knows the assailant, it may be difficult for the victim to recognize the fact that someone they know could do something so egregious.
"But why do so many rapists not go to prison?!" This explains why it’s uncommon for rape to be reported, even though people are more likely than ever to report rape. Most people don’t want to report someone they know, or they don’t want the information to become public knowledge. You can also see that the sentencing for rape is about the same as homicide, making low numbers no less reasonable than the ones for murder cases. There’s also the fact that rape is more difficult to prove than murder due to how evidence is collected. This is especially true when a rape goes unreported or otherwise unmentioned for several years; evidence fades. When a person is murdered, there will just about always be evidence. Some claim that "only 3% of rapists will ever spend a day on jail" but this has been debunked multiple times. Felony convictions are sought for 80% of rape arrests, half of which are convicted, and 8 out of 10 plead guilty to rape. The average term imposed is 14 years while the average time served is just under 3 years.
Other articles:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/22/sex-booze-and-feminism.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/can-she-consent-to-sex-after-drinking/article17158564/ (alt.link)
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FALSE REPORTS/ACCUSATIONS OF RAPE
No one has conducted a comprehensive national study to determine the rates of false rapes, for a number of reasons, so statistics vary wildly from area to area. False accusations/reports can number anywhere from 1.5% to 90% depending on what you look at. In the 1980s Eugene Kanin and Charles McDowell conducted separate studies of false rape reports, and found that approximately 30-60% of reports were false. However, it’s important to note that these studies are a bit old and hotly debated, giving them questionable validity in my opinion; others disagree.
With regard to the 1994 study performed by Eugene Kanin (PDF here), 41% of cases during a 9-year period were declared false "... by the complainant’s admission that no rape had occurred and the charge, therefore, was false." The police only labeled a case as false when the alleged victim said that no crime had actually happened, and even then the police tended to believe that she had still been the victim of a crime. "Rather than proceed with the real charge of rape, the argument goes, these women withdrew their accusations to avoid the trauma of police investigation. [...] Although we certainly do not deny the possibility of false recantations, no evidence supports such an interpretation for these cases." Kanin previously looked into false allegations on university campuses (1985-1988) finding that "...university women, when filing a rape complaint, were as likely to file a false as a valid charge." This study does, however, seem to imply that rape is (or was) most common on a university campus than anywhere else (an average of 21 per year on-campus versus an average of 12 per year off-campus).
False reports are something important to think about, given how life-changing they are for countless people. Not only can they result in the death of the wrongfully accused, they make real reports less legitimate. The more false reports there are, the less likely people will believe actual reports. Lying about rape trivializes the experiences of actual rape victims in addition to other consequences.
Some claim that 2% of all rape reports are false, and therefore women are unlikely to lie about rape. The first thing we notice, upon researching the original 2% statistic, is that it never existed in any tangible form (alt). The number was made up decades ago with exactly zero sources to give the 2% claim any credible backing. Of 20 studies on false reports of rape, two of them do say the rate is 2%. However, fifteen studies say false reports could be 10% or higher (five of these say the rate is over 40%).
The FBI reports that in cases where they can obtain DNA evidence, 25% of the accused are innocent - a rate which has remained constant for at least 7 years. The NIJ reports that DNA testing excludes 26% of men convicted for rape as suspects.
Regardless of the numbers, it has been proven multiple times that false reports DO exist, sometimes appearing due to racism (2), and some have made the news (2) (3). What’s interesting is that the first recorded story about false rape accusations dates back to around 1500 BCE.
More information:
http://disneyvillainsforjustice.tumblr.com/post/77260426451/
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Schrodinger's Rapist
- This is a nonsensical concept created by radical feminists simply for the purpose of demonizing men. It literally serves no purpose other than to spread paranoia and hate.
- "Schrodinger's Rapist" is supposed to be a way of talking about rape culture, where a woman can't know if a man is a rapist or not and therefore she must treat him like a potential rapist.
- According to the Department of Justice, 232,600 women were the victims of completed or attempted rape in 2010. As rapists tend to rape, and thus end up with multiple rapes/victims, this probably means fewer than 232,600 male rapists exist in the USA. Since rape is on a heavily downward trend and the current US population is about 317 million... you get the picture. The VAST majority of people are not rapists nor will they ever be. Acting as if the majority of men are rapists is ridiculous, because a tiny percentage of men are likely rapists.
- 42.3% of women are assaulted by former/current intimate partners. 33.8% are assaulted by acquaintances, 10.4% are assaulted by family members, and 11.4% of rapes and sexual assaults are committed by strangers (source: Department of Justice). A woman has about a 0.0084% chance of being raped by a stranger.
- If you actually think "Schrodinger's Rapist" is a term which has merit, you are misinformed and/or paranoid. It has no place in any first-world country.
- "Meet the Predators" estimates 4-8% of the population could be rapists, which seems like an over-estimation (the CDC and DOJ both find that less than 1% of the US population will fall victim of rape or attempted rape), but two studies found that 90% of rapes seem to be committed by serial rapists (60-70% of rapists are repeat offenders who average 6 assaults, and 60-70% of victims are drugged or intoxicated) who are likely to be perpetrators of other violence as well. Rapists are also responsible for a hugely disproportionate share of intimate partner violence and child abuse, and it's been theorized that rapists are mentally damaged. The 2002 Lisak/Miller study notes that 4% of men were repeat offenders and 2% had committed one rape in their lifetime (the majority of rapists - 70% - targeted women who drank alcohol). The other 94% had never raped, or attempted to rape, anyone. The Stephanie McWhorter study estimated that 8% of Navy men were repeat rapists with an average of 6 victims, and less than 25% of the rapes were against strangers.
- A post on the subject
The Slutwalks and "don't teach me what to wear, teach men not to rape"
- As men can be raped, and women in other countries (Iraq, Iran, etc) may wear very conservative clothing that makes them difficult targets, it doesn't make any sense to draw attention to a woman's clothing as related to rape in any way. Literally anyone can be raped, and by a person of either gender. Stuff like this just paints women as the sole victims of sexual violence (they aren't) and erases male victims (again) in addition to female perpetrators.
- Men already understand that they shouldn't rape people, and anti-rape PSAs continue to appear. Rapists are generally serial rapists and social deviants responsible for multiple crimes. Rapists do not seem to care about "teaching" or laws; they are sick (possibly brain-damaged) individuals who will rape even after being taught not to.
"Rape jokes cause rape" or "rape jokes contribute to rape culture."
The topic of rape outside of North America:
- Laws in India were changed to be gender-neutral, so male victims of rape could be addressed, but feminists managed to reverse this despite it being a step toward equality between genders. Rape laws are still gendered as a result. Indian women are also legally able to stop a divorce if their husband wishes to divorce them.
- In Israel, feminists opposed changing rape laws to something gender-neutral. According to attorney Ruth Eldar of the Noga Center of the Ono Academic College, "The bill will cause women to stop complaining to police when they are raped... The law treats men and women as being equal when it is obvious that in these matters, the men are the stronger ones." The Justice Ministry stated that the amendment is necessary "because the current wording applies only to men. Although it is rare, there is a possibility that a woman may rape an adult male or female and therefore the law should stipulate that this, too, is forbidden."
- In the UK, rape is only rape if the victim is penetrated by a penis and did not consent to the action, which isn't the worst definition but still not quite inclusive enough. This definition does not address penetration via object or the existence of female rapists. So it's about halfway there: it acknowledges M->F and M->M rape, but not F->F or F->M.
- New Zealand's Labour Party has expressed a desire to make all sex rape by default, where the accused would be guilty until proven innocent ("...it would be rape unless the defendant could prove it was consensual"). Things like this are why some men are filming their sexual encounters - it's sometimes a legal necessity. (2) (3)
- The United Nations defines rape as “sexual intercourse without valid consent” which is probably what the definition should be since it's gender-neutral. Instead, most definitions of rape disregard male victims.
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10. IF SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS BECOME A VICTIM OF RAPE OR SEXUAL ASSAULT
Try to talk to them. Assure the victim that it was not their fault, because it wasn’t.
Encourage reporting the assault but don’t force the issue. They may not wish to go to the police/authorities for a number of reasons. If they do wish to file a report, offer to help or simply go with them. Do not do anything yourself; the victim needs to do it. Don’t betray their trust and do things behind their back.
Share resources such as RAINN or Pandora's Project. Rape and sexual assault can be highly traumatic and may require counseling. This is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just another person to talk to.
For transgender/LGBT individuals, there's a list at KnowYourIX which includes FORGE. For men, there are sites like 1in6 and MaleSurvivor.
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