Staind singer stops concert to demand audience members stop ‘molesting’ teen

[Barrister]

There is a seperate - and much lower - statistic for men who claimed to have been raped. That would I think account for the vast majority of male-on-male rape.

This statistic is for men who were forced to do the "penetrating".

Most prision rape, or even male-on-male rape, would not I imagine take the form of "penetrate me now, or else".

I don't know enough about male rape to have an opinion on this, despite having tried to look into it before. Rape of men is the most under-reported crime out there, as I recall.

I'd have to read the full survey. It strikes me as odd that they have different categories for "rape" (aprox. 1.4%) and "being made to penetrate someone else" (Aprox. 5%). Is the latter a rape or not? I have no idea. It sounds like it, though. So for men, there is 'rape-rape' (which I assume means being penetrated against one's will) and this other category.

Probably if every catcall on the street, every drunk grope, every morning after regret was classified as sexual assault they're able to massage the statistics up to 1 in 5.

But to suggest 1 in every 5 women is dragged into the bushes, jesus give me a break.

There's one hell of a middle ground between "every catcall and every drunk grope" and "dragged into the bushes".

Very few rapes are strangers grabbing a woman into the bushes.  Most rape victims know their attacker.

[Ideologue]

According to the same survey, 1 in 20 men were "made to penetrate someone else".  This was really surprising to me. Seems there are monsters on both sides of the equation. 

It depends on your definition of "made."  Wheedling, pleading, wearing-down, c'mon-just-do-it "rape" probably accounts for a sizeable percentage of sexual activity.  It should really be taken out of the ambit and simply sneered at as pathetic rather than demonized, because for one thing it's not 1% as traumatic.  There's so much difference between the woman who let a regular sexual partner sleep next to her and wound up essentially consenting to having sex with him, even though she didn't "want" to (a situation close to every person alive has been in, including males), and what happened to say, for example, my ex, that they don't seem to fit the same category.

[Barrister]

False rape accusations are also part of The Problem.

No.

Not that false accusations never, ever happen, but they are by no means a problem, never mind part of The Problem (whatever the hell that is).

The thing is - there's very little upside to falsely reporting rape.  If you're a woman you're going to be disbelieved by certain people in any event.  Your sexual history is going to be dragged through the mud.  You're going to be forced to testify and re-live the experience.

Look, in my anecdotal but, you know actual first hand and professional experience, "false accusations" only came up in a few very limited situations.  First we had someone of very diminished capacity to begin with so when she said she didn't want sex it was hard to tell if she was honestly remembering what happened.  And second in dealing with young girls and high levels of parental disapproval.

[Malthus]

There's one hell of a middle ground between "every catcall and every drunk grope" and "dragged into the bushes".

Very few rapes are strangers grabbing a woman into the bushes.  Most rape victims know their attacker.

For example, the statistics in the survey quoted upthread.

Among female rape victims, perpetrators were reported to be intimate partners (51.1%), family members (12.5%), acquaintances (40.8%) and strangers (13.8%).

Only 14% were stranger-rapers. Just over half were one's partners.

[Ideologue]

And I know my post was kind of rape cultury.  Maybe that incident wasn't the best example; she did say "no," which I guess is good enough.

[Malthus]

According to the same survey, 1 in 20 men were "made to penetrate someone else".  This was really surprising to me. Seems there are monsters on both sides of the equation. 

It depends on your definition of "made."  Wheedling, pleading, wearing-down, c'mon-just-do-it "rape" probably accounts for a sizeable percentage of sexual activity.  It should really be taken out of the ambit and simply sneered at as pathetic rather than demonized, because for one thing it's not 1% as traumatic.  There's so much difference between the woman who let a regular sexual partner sleep next to her and wound up essentially consenting to having sex with him, even though she didn't "want" to (a situation close to every person alive has been in, including males), and what happened to say, for example, my ex, that they don't seem to fit the same category.

The problem is how to deal with this statistically.

Putting that sort of "rape" into a different category would give a significantly different outcome than lumping it in with, to use the current meme, "rape-rape".

In this survey, they appear to have put male "rape" into two different categories (that is "rape" on the one hand, and "being made to penetrate another" on the other). There is no similar division for rape of females ... meaning, that the statistics look a lot different, depending on how you define them.

Erasing this division gives you this:

Women raped, lifetime: 18.3%

Men raped, lifetime: 6.2%

= Women are almost three times as likely to be raped as men

Keeing this division gives you this:

Women raped, lifetime: 18.3%

Men raped, lifetime: 1.4%

= Women are more than thirteen times as likely to raped than men.

In short, radically different conclusions, each defensible with the same data.

[merithyn]

I think everyone agrees that a relatively sober person taking advantage of a passed-out or highly intoxicated person is rape. (And I've known women who have raped men that way and saw nothing wrong with it, which made me sick.) But outside that very obvious transgression, it's just too damn hard to really define what makes it rape when drinking. And I do believe that too many rape-advocates are using these situations inappropriately to "pad the numbers".

I don't know. Let's say one person is somewhat intoxicated and the other is very intoxicated yet the latter initiates the sexual activity. Is it rape if the latter person decides in the morning that they didn't "really" want to have done that?

That's my point. It's a very gray area.

[derspiess]

No.

Yes. 

Not that false accusations never, ever happen, but they are by no means a problem, never mind part of The Problem (whatever the hell that is).

They absolutely are a problem and part of The Problem.  I think Meri sort of agreed with me on that point.  Every well-publicized rape case that turns out to be a false accusation damages not just the falsely accused, but more significantly all actual rape victims.  It plants a seed of doubt in people's minds when they hear of future rape accusations. 

The thing is - there's very little upside to falsely reporting rape.  If you're a woman you're going to be disbelieved by certain people in any event.  Your sexual history is going to be dragged through the mud.  You're going to be forced to testify and re-live the experience.

From a rational perspective, you're right.  But you know not everyone thinks rationally all the time.  It can be done to try & cover up or excuse them from an embarrassing consensual encounter.  It can be done out of pure spite.  Or it can be done for publicity.  Which again, to a rational person sounds insane but there are famous examples (Tawana Brawley, the Duke Lacrosse incident).

Look, in my anecdotal but, you know actual first hand and professional experience, "false accusations" only came up in a few very limited situations.  First we had someone of very diminished capacity to begin with so when she said she didn't want sex it was hard to tell if she was honestly remembering what happened.  And second in dealing with young girls and high levels of parental disapproval.

It doesn't have to happen often to be a problem.

[Barrister]

I think everyone agrees that a relatively sober person taking advantage of a passed-out or highly intoxicated person is rape. (And I've known women who have raped men that way and saw nothing wrong with it, which made me sick.) But outside that very obvious transgression, it's just too damn hard to really define what makes it rape when drinking. And I do believe that too many rape-advocates are using these situations inappropriately to "pad the numbers".

I don't know. Let's say one person is somewhat intoxicated and the other is very intoxicated yet the latter initiates the sexual activity. Is it rape if the latter person decides in the morning that they didn't "really" want to have done that?

That's my point. It's a very gray area.

It's not grey at all (at least in the legal analysis - actually proving it can be different).

No means no.  If at any point either arty indicated they did not want sexual contact, then any further contact would be sexual assault.

Regret after the fact though has nothing to do with it - it's all in what happened during the act.

[merithyn]

No.

Yes. 

Not that false accusations never, ever happen, but they are by no means a problem, never mind part of The Problem (whatever the hell that is).

They absolutely are a problem and part of The Problem.  I think Meri sort of agreed with me on that point.  Every well-publicized rape case that turns out to be a false accusation damages not just the falsely accused, but more significantly all actual rape victims.  It plants a seed of doubt in people's minds when they hear of future rape accusations. 

The thing is - there's very little upside to falsely reporting rape.  If you're a woman you're going to be disbelieved by certain people in any event.  Your sexual history is going to be dragged through the mud.  You're going to be forced to testify and re-live the experience.

From a rational perspective, you're right.  But you know not everyone thinks rationally all the time.  It can be done to try & cover up or excuse them from an embarrassing consensual encounter.  It can be done out of pure spite.  Or it can be done for publicity.  Which again, to a rational person sounds insane but there are famous examples (Tawana Brawley, the Duke Lacrosse incident).

Look, in my anecdotal but, you know actual first hand and professional experience, "false accusations" only came up in a few very limited situations.  First we had someone of very diminished capacity to begin with so when she said she didn't want sex it was hard to tell if she was honestly remembering what happened.  And second in dealing with young girls and high levels of parental disapproval.

It doesn't have to happen often to be a problem.

I agree with every point derspeiss says here.

One very public false accusation can undo a decade of forward progress for all those victims to come. That's a major issue.

[merithyn]

It's not grey at all (at least in the legal analysis - actually proving it can be different).

No means no.  If at any point either arty indicated they did not want sexual contact, then any further contact would be sexual assault.

Regret after the fact though has nothing to do with it - it's all in what happened during the act.

The bolded part is kind of important in this discussion.

By my understanding of the law in the US, if a person is drunk, they do not have the capacity to give consent, so it's implied no, even if the person says yes. But what happens if both are drunk and both say yes? Neither had the ability to give consent, and yet they had sex. So, who's to blame? Is it rape?

[Barrister]

It's not grey at all (at least in the legal analysis - actually proving it can be different).

No means no.  If at any point either arty indicated they did not want sexual contact, then any further contact would be sexual assault.

Regret after the fact though has nothing to do with it - it's all in what happened during the act.

The bolded part is kind of important in this discussion.

By my understanding of the law in the US, if a person is drunk, they do not have the capacity to give consent, so it's implied no, even if the person says yes. But what happens if both are drunk and both say yes? Neither had the ability to give consent, and yet they had sex. So, who's to blame? Is it rape?

You have to be drunk the point where you're incapable of giving consent - i.e. you're unconscious or no longer capable of speaking comprehensibly.

Having sex while drunk is still perfectly legal, to the relief of university students everywhere.

[merithyn]

You have to be drunk the point where you're incapable of giving consent - i.e. you're unconscious or no longer capable of speaking comprehensibly.

Having sex while drunk is still perfectly legal, to the relief of university students everywhere.

Oh. Well, that makes it much less gray, as it's usually kind of hard for two unconscious people to engage in coitus. Not impossible, but definitely harder.

[Barrister]

I agree with every point derspeiss says here.

One very public false accusation can undo a decade of forward progress for all those victims to come. That's a major issue.

Well then, I didn't think I'd see the day.

I have found an issue where I'm more feminist than merithyn.

[Valmy]

If Merithyn was a Feminist blogger she would have ripped to shreds to left to die by the internet Feminist purity patrol long ago.