Dating in a rape culture

[realibrad]

This chart does seem to support your assertions:

(I found it while googling around so it may not be completely applicable. The data appears to be from Canada 😱 )

Women are more than twice as likely as men to be sexually assaulted. Men appear to be 50% more likely to be physically assaulted or robbed.

The biggest difference I see is in how each crime and victim are treated.
This isn't likely to ever happen to a man who was robbed:

Stopping victim blaming would go a ways to fixing part of the problem.

I agree with you that everyone should be responsible for their safety. However no one should be blamed for the illegal actions of another.



While it's great that cell phones can partially mitigate the risk, he's missing the point that women still have that risk to deal with.

Does your graph of sexual assault include male rape? Only recently has the law recognized that a woman can rape a man. Its possible that the graph you posted did not include this. I would assume assault would include this, but I have seen many times where it was not.

 

[Rakehellion]

Women are more than twice as likely as men to be sexually assaulted. Men appear to be 50% more likely to be physically assaulted or robbed.

The perpetrator in the majority of those cases is likely a man.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The comic doesn't look unreasonable to me. shorty is an ugly creepy guy with incredibly blue balls, however, so even though he's probably not a rapist, his ability to have casual hook-ups is drastically reduced because women make risk-reward evaluations around him.

 

[Rakehellion]

Does your graph of sexual assault include male rape? Only recently has the law recognized that a woman can rape a man. Its possible that the graph you posted did not include this. I would assume assault would include this, but I have seen many times where it was not.

So sexual assault is okay if it isn't rape? Why separate it into two categories?

 

[MajinCry]

Blue Max is being daft as usual; claims without sources.

I'm going to go with the British Home Office 'n' say that it's around 3%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#British_Home_Office_study_.282005.29

The researchers noted that some of these classifications were based simply on the personal judgments of the police investigators and were made in violation of official criteria for establishing a false allegation. Closer analysis of this category applying the Home Office counting rules for establishing a false allegation and excluding cases where the application of the cases where confirmation of the designation was uncertain reduced the percentage of false reports to 3%. The researchers concluded that "one cannot take all police designations at face value" and that "[t]here is an over-estimation of the scale of false allegations by both police officers and prosecutors." Moreover, they added:

The interviews with police officers and complainants' responses show that despite the focus on victim care, a culture of suspicion remains within the police, even amongst some of those who are specialists in rape investigations. There is also a tendency to conflate false allegations with retractions and withdrawals, as if in all such cases no sexual assault occurred. This reproduces an investigative culture in which elements that might permit a designation of a false complaint are emphasised (later sections reveal how this also feeds into withdrawals and designation of 'insufficient evidence'), at the expense of a careful investigation, in which the evidence collected is evaluated.[17][18][19]
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On the same page, it says that the FBI gave a statistic of 8%, but that involved all sorts of fucked up conclusions, in order to make the stat that high.

FBI reports from 1996 consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%.

This estimate was criticised as meaningless by academic Bruce Gross:

Many of the jurisdictions from which the FBI collects data on crime use different definitions of, or criteria for, "unfounded." That is, a report of rape might be classified as unfounded (rather than as forcible rape) if the alleged victim did not try to fight off the suspect, if the alleged perpetrator did not use physical force or a weapon of some sort, if the alleged victim did not sustain any physical injuries, or if the alleged victim and the accused had a prior sexual relationship. Similarly, a report might be deemed unfounded if there is no physical evidence or too many inconsistencies between the accuser's statement and what evidence does exist. As such, although some unfounded cases of rape may be false or fabricated, not all unfounded cases are false.[2]
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Yeah, I'm going with Governing bodies 'n' organizations of that sort, rather than Blue Max's unsubstantiated claims.

 

[realibrad]

So sexual assault is okay if it isn't rape? Why separate it into two categories?

Always good to see you commenting.

Any logical person would see that I was wondering if the numbers for male sexual assault might actually be higher than what was shown in the graph.

See, I questioned if his data included something that until recently was not see as rape. Did you see that part? Its in there.

The issue is if sexual assault means assault of all types, or if the graph was built on something else which has happened many times before.

In no what shape or form did I come close to say sexual assault is okay. You will need to take off your idiot filter to understand things correctly.

 

[umbrella39]

I (state your name) a member in good standing of the He-Man Woman Haters Club... Do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women and not play with them or talk to them unless I have to. And especially: never fall in love, and if I do may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours - or until I scream bloody murder...

 

[Spungo]

Meeting for the first time in a public place is a sensible thing to do - whether or not rape culture exists.

You need to understand that feminists define rape as anything that upsets them.
Stalking them = rape
Sending flowers and refusing to fuck off already = rape
Disagreeing with them on twitter = rape
"male gaze" = rape
Asking her weight = rape
Asking if she has a job = rape

So sexual assault is okay if it isn't rape? Why separate it into two categories?

Stealing bubble gum and cutting off a man's head are both crimes, so we should put them in the same category. /feministlogic

The problem is that you need evidence to convict someone. Even if you did steal a ton of stuff from me, I can't have you thrown in jail unless I can prove it rightfully belonged to me. I've experienced this before. When I was a kid, another kid stole my bike. I told the appropriate authorities, including parents, but they couldn't do anything because I had no evidence. A few days later, I used a big stick to remind that kid who owned the bike. I was warned not to "harass" him again.
In the world feminists want to create, anyone can be thrown in jail based on accusation alone. I could claim you broke into my house, show absolutely no proof of this, and you would be thrown in jail. If someone suggests the courts should require proof that crimes were committed, feminists would say "This proves we live in a theft culture. I shouldn't need to prove that I was robbed."

The correct solution to rape is shown in the documentary film I Spit on Your Grave (1978).

 

[Exophase]

I'm open to some statistics showing rates of false accusations being similar or higher than actual rapes. Data from reputable peer reviewed studies please.

MRA-types like to claim it's > 40% and feminist-types < 4% but it's really quantity that can mostly not be measured. At best data could support upper and lower bounds that are very far apart.

In most cases of rape accusations there is not strong material evidence that there was and wasn't consent. And by strong material evidence I mean something that's far below the standard that should be necessary for conviction. Further muddying things is that usually the accused was in a romantic relationship with the accuser, often one that already involved consensual sex, so there isn't much avenue to argue that consensual sex would be out of place between the two. There isn't usually claim of resistance or violence, or enough time has passed that there's no evidence of it.

 

[realibrad]

Let me show you part of the problem. This is from the CDC.

Results: In the United States, an estimated 19.3% of women and 1.7% of men have been raped during their lifetimes; an estimated 1.6% of women reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey. The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.

Wow, reading that would make it seem like rape to men almost never happens right? It clearly says that the sample of men were too small to to produce anything useful. But wait, what is the very next part of that report?

An estimated 43.9% of women and 23.4% of men experienced other forms of sexual violence during their lifetimes, including being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences. The percentages of women and men who experienced these other forms of sexual violence victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey were an estimated 5.5% and 5.1%, respectively.

Wait...what? The first part said that men reported being raped so infrequently that it was not a meaningful measurement. Then, the next part says that when you include the other things, the rate goes to 5.5 and 5.1%

Well, that is because women are raped more then men, but men have other forms of sexual violence. But wait, did I read that other part right?

including being made to penetrate

What the fuck? How is a man sticking his dick in a woman who does not consent rape, but a woman forcing a man's dick into her not rape?


So, its correct to say that men represent the majority of attackers. But, sexual assault happens to men and women.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm

That is from the CDC study from 2011.

 

[Rebel_L]

And how much do women experience this today? Seems like it's easier now for people to bring up hypothetical illustrations or historical incidents than current examples. My impression is that most of society's treatment of rape and victim blaming has already changed, and that's a good thing.

Call out this crap if and when you see it happening, of course. But I have a hard time accepting that the numerous claims that this is still the status quo and what women have to go through.

While I agree that there is change in the victim blaming status quo, I think you overestimate how widespread that change is.

Another point of easy friction is that due to the nature of rape and how hard it is to prosecute, the advice that someone without a victim blaming attitude can give is more or less the same as before. Hearing the same words even with a different intent tends to open up wounds that are far from fully healed.

 

[Exophase]

While I agree that there is change in the victim blaming status quo, I think you overestimate how widespread that change is.

I think that at the very least people will now generally keep their victim blaming to themselves because they know it won't be well received.

Another point of easy friction is that due to the nature of rape and how hard it is to prosecute, the advice that someone without a victim blaming attitude can give is more or less the same as before. Hearing the same words even with a different intent tends to open up wounds that are far from fully healed.

Whose wounds exactly? Are you referring to people who were raped in the past and blamed for it, and raped again today and given well-intentioned advice? Or does this apply to large groups like all women?

 

[Rebel_L]

I think that at the very least people will now generally keep their victim blaming to themselves because they know it won't be well received.

Depends on what circles you run in

Whose wounds exactly? Are you referring to people who were raped in the past and blamed for it, and raped again today and given well-intentioned advice? Or does this apply to large groups like all women?

Victim blaming was always part of the larger scope of discrimination against women. Most women still experience active discrimination throughout their lives, to a lesser extent than in the past, but you are kidding yourself if you think we are anywhere near equality yet.

 

[Exophase]

Victim blaming was always part of the larger scope of discrimination against women. Most women still experience active discrimination throughout their lives, to a lesser extent than in the past, but you are kidding yourself if you think we are anywhere near equality yet.

Regardless of what discrimination is received I don't agree with the concept that it's opening old wounds when one woman experiences something that relates to something another woman experienced in the past. People are individuals, not part of an identity hivemind.

Society places a lot of pressure on women and men to conform to certain roles and behaviors and when they go outside of these norms they're met with resistance and discrimination. We're only allowed to acknowledge one side of that, I guess because a minority of men are the ones who are mostly accepted in positions of power and recognition.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Gamergaters still mostly defend Cosby out of anger that his raping being publicly exposed has taken away one of their favorite tools: pills.

maxxy appears to be one of those gaters. his contempt of women is palpable.

 

[realibrad]

Depends on what circles you run in




Victim blaming was always part of the larger scope of discrimination against women. Most women still experience active discrimination throughout their lives, to a lesser extent than in the past, but you are kidding yourself if you think we are anywhere near equality yet.

And men face different issues. People treat people shitty. There is nothing wrong with trying to change that. For me the issue is trying to help one group with an issue(s) that effect more than just that group. When you look at the CDC study and see that 5.5% of women and 5.1% of men in the study reported some sort of assault in the past 12 months, then you see its a pretty equal problem. Zero is the number we should shoot for, but it does not help anyone to misrepresent numbers. Those percentages include thins that might not be equally distributed and that is fine to look into, but lets not pretend that sexual assault is a gender specific problem.

 

[Rebel_L]

Regardless of what discrimination is received I don't agree with the concept that it's opening old wounds when one woman experiences something that relates to something another woman experienced in the past. People are individuals, not part of an identity hivemind.

People also belong to groups, and as such identify as groups as well as individuals. Its not like victim blaming for rape is something that is a secret most women have never heard of. And its also not like I'm saying that my concept of opening old wounds is a positive thing. It's actually rather negative and unhelpful. But it is a thing, and to me at least understandable.

Society places a lot of pressure on women and men to conform to certain roles and behaviors and when they go outside of these norms they're met with resistance and discrimination. We're only allowed to acknowledge one side of that, I guess because a minority of men are the ones who are mostly accepted in positions of power and recognition.

I dont think its possible to have that conversation here without it quickly devolving into the standard shouting match most discrimination threads end up in.

 

[Exophase]

People also belong to groups, and as such identify as groups as well as individuals. Its not like victim blaming for rape is something that is a secret most women have never heard of. And its also not like I'm saying that my concept of opening old wounds is a positive thing. It's actually rather negative and unhelpful. But it is a thing, and to me at least understandable.

I wonder if that's really how people think. Because that doesn't make any sense to me. I can't empathize with that at all.

I'm part of a "group" that was targeted, eg my grandmother had siblings who were killed in the holocaust. But if I'm exposed to something about it I don't feel like I'm suffering the opening of any wounds over it. And I don't believe my reaction in general is any different than anyone else's would be. Because I haven't actually experienced it or suffered because of it.

But maybe this is just me. Then again, being conditioned to feel a certain way could also make someone react more negatively. If you're constantly hearing that your group is oppressed and long suffering and that the world is very unfairly set against them then I'm sure that'll color your views vs if you were never exposed to that.

I dont think its possible to have that conversation here without it quickly devolving into the standard shouting match most discrimination threads end up in.

Oh well, maybe with someone else some other time.

 

[Rebel_L]

And men face different issues. People treat people shitty. There is nothing wrong with trying to change that. For me the issue is trying to help one group with an issue(s) that effect more than just that group. When you look at the CDC study and see that 5.5% of women and 5.1% of men in the study reported some sort of assault in the past 12 months, then you see its a pretty equal problem. Zero is the number we should shoot for, but it does not help anyone to misrepresent numbers. Those percentages include thins that might not be equally distributed and that is fine to look into, but lets not pretend that sexual assault is a gender specific problem.

I agree. The problem is often that its not easy to try and make improvements across the board and so we tend to focus on one area at a time. Protected classes in law should be an obsolete concept if we ever reach a true equality. In the mean time we muddle through on our way to get there bit by bit. Do we always choose the right bits to focus on? No. But moving ever forward is a good thing.

The OP's cartoon wasnt about sexual assault, it was about how risk assessment is currently different for women vs men in an online dating situation and the frustrations that can cause when one side is unable to see things from the others perspective. If more males were aware of how many men are sexually assaulted it would probably make it much easier for men to identify with a women who is being cautious as they may be more cautious themselves.

 

[realibrad]

I agree. The problem is often that its not easy to try and make improvements across the board and so we tend to focus on one area at a time. Protected classes in law should be an obsolete concept if we ever reach a true equality. In the mean time we muddle through on our way to get there bit by bit. Do we always choose the right bits to focus on? No. But moving ever forward is a good thing.

The OP's cartoon wasnt about sexual assault, it was about how risk assessment is currently different for women vs men in an online dating situation and the frustrations that can cause when one side is unable to see things from the others perspective. If more males were aware of how many men are sexually assaulted it would probably make it much easier for men to identify with a women who is being cautious as they may be more cautious themselves.

The biggest issue I have with the cartoon is the reaction. Yes, she is protecting herself which is totally fine to do. He did not lash out at her, but the response is unequal.

He thinks it pretty messed up, she responds "Its not my fucking job" and "your being an asshole about this".

The issue is very much about trust. She is saying she does not trust him, and I understand that from her view, but he did not insult her. In the comic, he overreacts and she overreacts to his overreaction to an even greater degree.

 

[SlowSpyder]

So... much... diversity...

 

[Jaskalas]

I think most people would place the emphasis on trying to avoid getting raped, murdered and dumped in a ditch, rather than "Hah! The jokes's on you, rapist! I left evidence behind that will hopefully get you caught!".

It's a herd immunity type of situation. People still think they won't get caught. Change that mentality and far fewer criminals will risk their own hide.

Gone are the days when you'd enter a stranger's house, and the whole world wouldn't know about it.

 

[realibrad]

So... much... diversity...

Huh?

 

[Exophase]

We should talk about some of the other articles on this site too. Like this one:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/05/i-dont-date-white-men/

 

[Victorian Gray]

We should talk about some of the other articles on this site too. Like this one:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/05/i-dont-date-white-men/

And? You seem to have a point that you wish to make.