Poll: Sexual Assault

[Neurotic Void Melody]

This is something i believe necessary to discuss. A couple of close members of family have suffered these experiences...as far as they would admit. Who knows what else other members i dont speak to much, have experienced. Plus whether im told everything or not. However i did use to hang with some manipulative predatory males when young and stupid and boy, it really fckin disgusts me how they are so willing to deceive to get what they want. Also i grew up with bad male impressions around in general, so you could say im cautious around my own gender at least. It seems that all it takes is just that one thing that makes us care and empathise for others, to be overshadowed by the lustfull selfish side. Its a problem whether you admit it or not.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What do you think lays the foundation for rape culture? The rate of rape you have described in your society is so alien to me, even having talked with loads of girls/women about this stuff here.

In large part, it's because people don't see it as a problem under the conditions it's most likely to happen. The last US state to make marital rape a crime did so in 1993. Up until then, it was assumed that the woman did (or ought to) consent to sex with her husband, just because they were married. This attitude hasn't fully gone away. It's not seen as "legitimate rape" if they were married, or in a relationship, or had been, or he buys her a drink, or any number of other things which people still believe entitles him to sex.

The common view of rape is when a virtuous and sober women (one of Us) is attacked in a dark alley by some scary guy, preferably a minority (one of Them). This is only the case for a very small amount of rapes. If it doesn't fit this limited narrative, it doesn't count. It's very important that the rapist isn't like us, because we are good people who don't do that.

 

[Ikaruga33]

Can I just point out the problem with using a poll on a site like this?
I'm presuming that the majority of users on this site are male, like most gaming websites.
Hence, results are going to inevitably be skewed towards men, just because we make up the majority of people who are taking the poll.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Can I just point out the problem with using a poll on a site like this?
I'm presuming that the majority of users on this site are male, like most gaming websites.
Hence, results are going to inevitably be skewed towards men, just because we make up the majority of people who are taking the poll.

In what way is it skewed? You just separate the male and females and then compare the ratios. However, the most disturbing thing in this poll, is that about HALF of the men have felt threatened, but then the extremely terrifying thing is when you look at how the vast majority of females have been. Out of the the 30 women who responded thus far, only 6 have never felt threatened due to their gender.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

The 1/5 statistic is actually false and based on shoddy research methods. Real number is probably something from 1/10 to 1/7, not that it's necessarily much better but that's not even including a high prevalence of false reports.

There's no compelling evidence that there is a 'high prevalence of false reports' in sexual crimes, unless you use different criteria for shoddy research for that. It's a compelling myth that men like to believe women lie about it - guess it's more comforting.

 

[lunavixen]

This can include groping, manhandling, and more serious crimes, especially in colleges, where such crimes often go unreported.

I often see this 'often unreported' line, to which I always have the same questions. According to who? How do they know? How can anyone know how much of anything goes unreported?

Rape and sexual assault/indecent assault ARE under reported crimes, mostly because people feel ashamed or afraid to report what's happened to them, especially in smaller communities where people are closer knit. Rape isn't about sex, it's about power, the power that the rapist gets over the victim. I'm one of the luckier ones who've only had minor incidences involving indecent assault, groping and catcalls mostly.

Don't want to live in fear? Carry a pistol.

And what of those people in countries where carrying a firearm in public is illegal?

 

[Lilani]

Join the police or become a detective, or even just carry a Glock in your purse.

Of course, I forgot, people who are the victims of crime are to blame for not being part of law enforcement. Obviously any rich businessperson who gets mugged in the street is to blame for being a businessperson instead of a police officer. People shouldn't choose careers based on what they enjoy most or what they're best at, after all. That's just stupid. And people who can't join law enforcement due to physical or health deficiencies? Fair game.

 

[Megalodon]

This can include groping, manhandling, and more serious crimes, especially in colleges, where such crimes often go unreported.

I often see this 'often unreported' line, to which I always have the same questions. According to who? How do they know? How can anyone know how much of anything goes unreported?

Rape and sexual assault/indecent assault ARE under reported crimes, mostly because people feel ashamed or afraid to report what's happened to them, especially in smaller communities where people are closer knit.

If we want to be literal, then all crimes are probably under reported, as it only takes a single instance of someone not reporting a crime for it be 'under reported', and I'd be surprised if 100% of any crime gets reported to authorities. What you haven't shown is that rape and sexual assault are often unreported. You asserting that they ARE under reported does not offer any insight into the degree of under reporting, which would have to be very large to justify the fuss being made about it.

So my questions stand. Who claims these crimes are 'often unreported'? How do they know? How do you prove how much of anything goes unreported?

 

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

This can include groping, manhandling, and more serious crimes, especially in colleges, where such crimes often go unreported.

I often see this 'often unreported' line, to which I always have the same questions. According to who? How do they know? How can anyone know how much of anything goes unreported?

Rape and sexual assault/indecent assault ARE under reported crimes, mostly because people feel ashamed or afraid to report what's happened to them, especially in smaller communities where people are closer knit.

If we want to be literal, then all crimes are probably under reported, as it only takes a single instance of someone not reporting a crime for it be 'under reported', and I'd be surprised if 100% of any crime gets reported to authorities. What you haven't shown is that rape and sexual assault are often unreported. You asserting that they ARE under reported does not offer any insight into the degree of under reporting, which would have to be very large to justify the fuss being made about it.

So my questions stand. Who claims these crimes are 'often unreported'? How do they know? How do you prove how much of anything goes unreported?

You do understand the concept of people talking to other people right? I know four women who have been raped at least once for a fact. I have known six other women who have told me that they have been raped and I had no reason to suspect they were not telling the truth. Not one of those women reported being raped. These are just the people that have specifically told me. So to answer How people know they are often unreported. People talk to other people. Like in this thread where multiple women have said that they have been raped. I don't know if any of those times were reported, but I am assuming they were not.

You see people know and talk to other people, that is why people know rape is often not reported. Twelve instances of rape of women I have known to zero reported. And you can add that to the women one this thread.

Not included among those ten women I have known, was another woman who's stories of rape were hard to believe. I can not know if they were fabricated, just that they were the only stories that came from someone who's word comes into question. Two of her stories involved policemen being the rapists, her last story did not. She also did not report her three times.

It is shitty of me to not take that woman at her word, that is something she would have to go through when reporting her case. If you were going to report a gang rape by policemen and your character is questionable by people you know, it is understandable that you would not bother reporting that.

If you chose to include that woman then that makes fifteen times from eleven women I have known being raped, and zero reported.

Edit: Actually it is over fifteen times one of the women I was talking about had been raped continually from her step-father. The amount of times actually becomes impossible to know. And technically she did tell her mom, her mom just chose to ignore it.

You also have to take sex slaves into account. You are right there is no way to know the exact number of rape that goes unreported. It is stupid to believe it does not vastly out number the ones that do get reported.

Not related to above quote:
Having a gun was not an option for most of these women, would not have helped in most of these situations, and probably have gotten one of them killed if she had one.

 

[LetalisK]

Yes, it's part of my job. The inmates, while more than happy to mentally mess with my female counterparts, they're far less likely to strike them since at least half of the other inmates would lose their minds and curb stomp them out a strange sense of traditionalism. Even the most unbearable female has to really push it in order to get on the "Might get blasted in the face" list. Conversely, being The Man in both gender and social relationship, blasting me in the face is a badge of honor, so I have to constantly watch my back.

Also, from what I hear, the Women's block is notorious for their gross sexual harassment of male employees. Thankfully, they don't really allow men to work the Women's block besides helping out because of some of the...interesting circumstances in that block.

 

[peruvianskys]

1 in 3? That sounds ridiculously high for a realistic number. I have even trouble believing a 1 in statistic since their has been a fair amount of studies that have disproved it.

Indigenous women face the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.

 

[Pete Oddly]

Every female friend of mine has had to deal with some level of sexual harassment, save for one. At least three of them have admitted to being date raped, and all of them have dealt with various incidents of groping, stalking, and in one case workplace harassment from a superior. A very close friend of mine was not only date raped when she was a teenager, but used to live in an apartment where the landlord would proposition her for sex in exchange for lower rent.

I find the people who dismiss or diminish these issues mostly do so out of ignorance. I don't want to label every guy who says things like "sexism doesn't exist anymore" or "feminists are overreacting man-haters" a misogynist asshole, because I believe a good portion of them simply do not have the frame of reference needed to understand such a heavy issue. They have either never experienced this sort of harassment, or don't have many female friends/acquaintances and so dismiss these issues out of hand.

 

[peruvianskys]

I mean the statistic for women in general. It's the kind of statistic you would expect to find in some of the poorest crime-ridden areas imaginable, not somewhere like a fairly successful 1st world country like the US (at least as a whole, there are pockets of shitholes like Detroit but they don't represent the entire country).

The figure comes from the DoJ federal crime statistics. It could very well be that specific groups like indigenous women and women of color experience rates even higher than 1 in 3, which skews the results. But all reputable agencies put the number between 1 and 3 to 1 and 5 nationally.

 

[Megalodon]

This can include groping, manhandling, and more serious crimes, especially in colleges, where such crimes often go unreported.

I often see this 'often unreported' line, to which I always have the same questions. According to who? How do they know? How can anyone know how much of anything goes unreported?

Rape and sexual assault/indecent assault ARE under reported crimes, mostly because people feel ashamed or afraid to report what's happened to them, especially in smaller communities where people are closer knit.

If we want to be literal, then all crimes are probably under reported, as it only takes a single instance of someone not reporting a crime for it be 'under reported', and I'd be surprised if 100% of any crime gets reported to authorities. What you haven't shown is that rape and sexual assault are often unreported. You asserting that they ARE under reported does not offer any insight into the degree of under reporting, which would have to be very large to justify the fuss being made about it.

So my questions stand. Who claims these crimes are 'often unreported'? How do they know? How do you prove how much of anything goes unreported?

You do understand the concept of people talking to other people right? I know four women who have been raped at least once for a fact. I have known six other women who have told me that they have been raped and I had no reason to suspect they were not telling the truth. Not one of those women reported being raped. These are just the people that have specifically told me. So to answer How people know they are often unreported. People talk to other people. Like in this thread where multiple women have said that they have been raped. I don't know if any of those times were reported, but I am assuming they were not.

You see people know and talk to other people, that is why people know rape is often not reported. Twelve instances of rape of women I have known to zero reported. And you can add that to the women one this thread.

Not included among those ten women I have known, was another woman who's stories of rape were hard to believe. I can not know if they were fabricated, just that they were the only stories that came from someone who's word comes into question. Two of her stories involved policemen being the rapists, her last story did not. She also did not report her three times.

It is shitty of me to not take that woman at her word, that is something she would have to go through when reporting her case. If you were going to report a gang rape by policemen and your character is questionable by people you know, it is understandable that you would not bother reporting that.

If you chose to include that woman then that makes fifteen times from eleven women I have known being raped, and zero reported.

Edit: Actually it is over fifteen times one of the women I was talking about had been raped continually from her step-father. The amount of times actually becomes impossible to know. And technically she did tell her mom, her mom just chose to ignore it.

Having a gun was not an option for most of these women, would not have helped in most of these situations, and probably have gotten one of them killed if she had one.

You also have to take sex slaves into account. You are right there is no way to know the exact number of rape that goes unreported.

So, this is a whole bunch of unsupported anecdotal claims. Personal experience cannot be used as reliable metric to asses the generalised state of society, given its inherently highly subjective nature.

Although I will point out I've never mentioned guns in this thread, so I don't know why you felt the need to bring them up in response to my questions.

It is stupid to believe it does not vastly out number the ones that do get reported.

No it isn't. It is stupid to believe something asserted without corroborating evidence. You say unreported rape vastly outnumbers reported rape, then prove it. Give me statistics, cite me something more reliable than personal anecdotes. Justify your position. My current position is that I don't know the rate of unreported rape. Therefore I do not trust the opinions of people who claim to know the rate without presenting any robust proof of their claims. If you can present convincing evidence that the vast majority of rapes go unreported, please do so. Until then I will continue to treat all such claims as baseless speculation.

 

[maninahat]

When I was a waiter, I was sexually harassed by both men and women on a number of occasions. In general, I do feel threatened by virtue of the fact that on a night out, I feel at risk from other guys who've had a bit too much to drink and are looking for a fight with other guys. I think that is gender specific, in that if I were a woman, they wouldn't be looking to me for a possible challenge to their precarious masculinity... though that doesn't mean I wouldn't feel any less scared as a woman for other reasons.

 

[Fox12]

SNIP

There are social workers, police officers, scientists, and doctors who work with rape victims. However, even if said workers realize the individual has been raped, if said individual refuses to press charges then the crime is often buried. There are also rape victims who admit to being raped, sometimes years later, that refuse to press charges. Furthermore, experts in the field of psychology have studied the psychological impact of rape on human beings. There are legitimate reasons for why a person would refuse to press charges in that situation. Intimidation, social pressure, psychological trauma, ect. Many rape victims have spoken about their experiences, and these anecdotes tend to reaffirm fears that these crimes are unreported.

We may not have hard statistics on the number of unreported rapes, because duh. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't strong evidence to support the idea that many such crimes are either unreported or hushed up. Experts in the field, who make livelihood out of this research, have good reason to believe this. The whole reason this discussion exists is because we don't know the extent to which this is unreported. The whole reason title 9 legislature in accordance with rape exists is because we don't know to what extent this crime is unreported. That doesn't mean there isn't good reason to expect that people are falling through the cracks, though.

 

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

This can include groping, manhandling, and more serious crimes, especially in colleges, where such crimes often go unreported.

I often see this 'often unreported' line, to which I always have the same questions. According to who? How do they know? How can anyone know how much of anything goes unreported?

Rape and sexual assault/indecent assault ARE under reported crimes, mostly because people feel ashamed or afraid to report what's happened to them, especially in smaller communities where people are closer knit.

snip

snip

So, this is a whole bunch of unsupported anecdotal claims. Personal experience cannot be used as reliable metric to asses the generalised state of society, given its inherently highly subjective nature.

Unsupported? How I told you four times I know as fact. If you mean that there is no report, then how can a report be prof of something not being reported?

Personal experience is how I know rape often goes unreported. Which I said was the answer to the question: How do you know(rape often goes unreported). I answer your question of the difficulty in proving how many rapes going unreported later in the post. In the sentence right before the sentence you singled out. Here is the whole paragraph.

You also have to take sex slaves into account. You are right there is no way to know the exact number of rape that goes unreported. It is stupid to believe it does not vastly out number the ones that do get reported.

No it isn't. It is stupid to believe something asserted without corroborating evidence. You say unreported rape vastly outnumbers reported rape, then prove it. Give me statistics, cite me something more reliable than personal anecdotes. Justify your position. My current position is that I don't know the rate of unreported rape. Therefore I do not trust the opinions of people who claim to know the rate without presenting any robust proof of their claims. If you can present convincing evidence that the vast majority of rapes go unreported, please do so. Until then I will continue to treat all such claims as baseless speculation.

Stupid-lacking intelligence or common sense. Do you got a better word for it? To which I will add I do not claim to know the rate, I say to believe it does not vastly out number reported rape is stupid.

Although I will point out I've never mentioned guns in this thread, so I don't know why you felt the need to bring them up in response to my questions.

You are right, you did not. I should have put that as a post script so it would not have looked like I was addressing the gun issue as a response to your post.

 

[thedailylunatic]

I'm going to play some serious devil's advocate here.

I'm a man and I've been a victim of sexual assault. Thankfully it only happened once and it didn't get very far. A beefy jock at a party in college didn't like the way I was talking to his girlfriend, so he cornered me in a room, pinned me down on a bed and slowly worked his hand down my pants as he stared at me with gleeful, monstrous eyes. God knows what would have happened if my best friend didn't have some crazy sixth sense and hadn't nearly brained the bastard with a handle of vodka. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be hateful about what I'm going to say next but at least know going into it that I know what it's like to feel completely powerless and to be so paralyzed with horror that you can't even scream.

That said, the 1 in 5 statistic is based on extremely crap science. It was based on a very limited, very skewed survey which didn't actually accept what women said but instead extrapolated rape based on, say, responding 'yes' to "Have you ever had sex with a man after he had given you alcohol?" It's complete BS.
See here:
"Sexual assault in America: Do we know the true numbers?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNsJ1DhqQ-s

Another thing I'll say is that I haven't felt much fear in my life based on my gender, but a lot based on my race. I'm brown and ever since puberty I've had to deal with prejudice, fear and hatred based on often sexualized stereotypes of Latin men. I can't describe what it's like, year after year, to look into thousands of people's eyes and see them look back at me like I'm a dangerous animal.

Then I got falsely accused of rape. A girl that I was dating and madly in love with decided that she'd have a better shot of getting back together with her ex if she'd accused me of assaulting her. It was completely horse****. Her story kept wildly changing depending on who she was talking to and what she wanted. The worst wasn't the thought that I was going to prison for something I didn't do or the way people looked at me; it was doubting my own sanity.

Then she recanted. Phew! That was a load off, right? Back to life, right? Not really. I can't count the number of times I've put a gun in my mouth or wandered just a little too close to a ten-story drop or stared fixated at a roadside tree while driving, and every single time I think about her. I've had people close to me get sick, die and go insane... but this was hands-down the worst thing that ever happened to me. If I ever get found someday with my brains splattered against a wall, this is what did it. In five years or fifty, I'm never going to completely get over it.

That's the thing that gets me deep in my guts when people go on anti-rape crusades. People I love have been raped too but... that really isn't what the "anti-rape movement" is about. It's about radical gender feminists trying to hijack an issue that everyone cares about. Radical feminists don't believe in empowering women to defend themselves; they believe in brainwashing men into not raping women by telling them to be less "masculine" (guess which one prevents more rapes?). Radical feminists don't believe in false rape accusations; they believe that ALL sex is rape. Radical feminists don't believe in equality; they depend on recycled sexualized racist tropes to fuel their agenda.

Feel like I'm taking this a bit far? Prominent "anti-rape movement" ideologues literally say that false rape accusations don't happen. At most, they'll trot out a 2% statistic that is completely unsourced. The Kanin study, probably the most sound study on false rape accusations, pinned the rate of false accusations at closer to 40%.
See this Slate article for a somewhat balanced view of it:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html

That's the thing about the Social Justice types: facts aren't on their side so they have to make up crap like the 1 in 5 statistic to get people to listen to them. The problem is that their ideas are INSANE and they harm women and probably WORSEN the scourge of rape/sexual-assault. Every minute they spend on trying to "deconstruct the gender binary" is a minute they could have spent empowering women to protect themselves. Worse, these Ivory Tower academic ***holes say that reasonable precautions like buddy systems or portable date rape drug tests or handgun training are SEXIST because they're victim-blaming! They're not the defenders of victimhood; they're industrial producers of it!

So yeah... advocacy for rape victims? I'm on board 100%. Advocacy for man-hating, anti-science crazy bull? HELL NO.

EDIT:
People who question the prevalence of false rape reports should remember that the people who are making them AREN'T SUFFERING TRAUMA. 100% of the bull**** reports get reported while ?% of the real ones do. Is it really surprising that somewhere around 40% of rape complaints that actually make it to the police are demonstrably false? A lot of rage gets directed at men who have suffered from false rape complaints when it should really be directed at the women who make them. They're the ones screwing over real SA victims.

 

[thedailylunatic]

Aside from incidents involving three of my mother's many boyfriends... In middle school, I had a group of three girls stalk me for about a year and a half. Was chased down, tackled, and molested on my way home from the bus stop on more than one occasion. However, my understanding is that their 'leader' was the only one who was actually interested, the other two just followed along with what she told them to.

But in retrospect, the reason I resisted was because I had difficulty believing that anyone could actually be interested in me. Had I recognized their affection as genuine (Which I now believe to have been the case), then I would have probably asked her out. Too late now, I suppose. To be totally honest, I kind of miss it. (The being stalked part, not the being molested part). There's something... intriguing about being pursued so doggedly by someone. The idea that you occupy so much of their thoughts and time is romantic.

Holy... that's pretty ****ed, man. Trust me, I've been with crazy: you dodged a bullet. People who mix coercion and attraction like that don't make good relationship material. I'm not trying to crap on your idea of romance but... dude, I've been there and you do NOT want what's behind Door Number Stalking.

 

[thedailylunatic]

I too unfortunately, was violently raped before the age of 14 by a 24 yr old man I had never spoken to. I Have had other family members raped as well as many friends. Hell, one girl in my school was gang raped in the parking lot during a football game and nothing was ever done about it although the whole damn community knew about it at the time. People heard her screaming for help and no one would help her.
...
I am sure I probably forgot something there but tried to include what I could remember off the top that I thought would qualify.

EDIT: To be clear I am going to add reported or not reported by each to be clear to make sure this is not confused.

Just curious: what's the deal with your neighborhood? Is it the illegals or just failure of rule-of-law (for the record, I'm Hispanic; I'm just asking because I legit want to know)? That stuff is seriously f***ed. Reminds me of the ghetto I moved to for college. Girlfriends from out of town would always think i was nuts when I wouldn't let them walk the neighborhood alone at night. I'm DC born 'n' raised and everybody knows that girls don't take the Green Line alone at night.

Glad you're armed at least! Friendly reminder: just keep training until it's muscle memory! Stay safe! I'll be saying a prayer that, if you ever need to use it, you'll shoot true. <3

EDIT:
2 things:

1) I understand your point about victim-blaming, but respectfully disagree. Yeah I think it's BS when people are "liek omg get a gun!" But, at the same time, I'm a fundamentally science-driven person and the science just isn't behind the gender feminist practices of "changing men" to get them to "stop raping." Rape is kind of like murder; it's the kind of thing you stop/avoid rather than prevent through positive discourse. I don't blame anyone who's been raped for being raped, but that won't stop me from taking and encouraging tangibly proactive steps to keep women from getting raped in the future.

I had a life-changing experience a few years ago: a girl at a club, drunk as all get out, literally walked up and passed out in my arms. I was carrying her around the godawful place trying to find her friends when a guy walked up claiming to know her. I asked him her name and he guessed wrong. I'm guessing you can imagine how much I've wanted to murder this piece of s*** in the most violent emotion I've ever felt.

I move on because I'm busy taking care of the girl and, after the bartender tells me "oh yeah we don't do cab calls or let patrons use house phones" (the filthy bastard), I take her outside. There I call her a cab, direct the cabbie to her house, make sure she pays him in advance, then take a picture of his badge number and text it to her best friend in case he gets any ideas. She gets in the cab and everything's ok.

Then my girlfriend loses her s*** at me. Let's call her Social Justice Warrior Princess. She went ballistic on me for abandoning her during fun party time to "help some stupid drunk slut," her own previous devotion to the "anti-rape movement" be damned. I literally kept a psycho from making off with this girl and all she cared about was her own petty jealousy. I learned two things that night: the "abuser is the only one to blame" schtick is often used by people too lazy to stick their necks out for victims AND sometimes the best anti-rape defense isn't a gun, but someone who gives a f*** about you watching your back (though a .40 S&W JHP isn't the worst friend in the world either). That's why, no matter how lost I get at a party, I'm always keeping an eye out for people who are vulnerable: because I know in my guts that ideology prevents a lot less rape than nosy Boy/Girl Scouts like me who do the right thing at the wrong time.


2) Probably the reason why you scare off nice guys and attract creeps is a combination of attractiveness and an aggressive aspect/aura. The nice guys can't take the heat and the creeps want to fuck with you because you're a symbol of how worthless they are by comparison. I'm sorry, but it's not an easy problem to "fix." One of my best friends is the same way (totally hot and totally badass) and she managed to reliably connect with nice guys by learning to identify them and be a little more vulnerable with them than she's used to being. Takes practice, but she says it pays off. =)