Is there less rape these days?

[Martinus]

A lot, more than half, of the females my age that I know have considered themselves to be raped, or have had an attempt.

Wtf that can't possibly be right. Unless lascivious glances are rape now.

I can't even guess as to percentages, but the huge majority of rapes are between people who know each other.  Calling them a "date rape" is a term that seems to diminish the severity because usually they aren't on anything resembling a date, merely acquaintances or friends.  But once the alcohol starts flowing one party starts to get ideas, and when there are no witnesses around...

Berkut, I don't know if what I'll call "stranger rape" is down or not.  It was always a fairly unusual crime, the whole idea of the pervert lurking in the bushes.  You do see a minority of offenders who are surprisingly prepared - you do get rapists who wear condoms and rubber gloves, and even shave off all body and public hair.  But it has always been that most rape victims know the identity of their perpetrator.

But DNA does very little to help in the rapist known to the victim.  Now occasionally we do get the rapist that foolishly denies ever having sex, so once the DNA comes back we can establish he's a liar and he's done for.  But if he's "smart" he simply claims "I don't know, she wanted it that night".  And with beyond a reasonable doubt its awfully hard to prove when its one word against another, no matter how unlikely it seems that the 17 year old girl would consent to have sex with the 44 year old man...

Yeah, this is pretty much what I thought would be the case.

I suppose the only group of perps who would have their lives made more difficult because of DNA searches are repeated offenders, whose DNA is already on the records, and who are careless/ about what they do.

[Martinus]

Violent crime overall has dropped in the last 30 or so years, but I don't recall if rape is following the overall trend or not.   It's generally agreed as best as I can tell that social factors are more important in this trend than new crime-fighting technology.

Yeah, I would assume there are less unreported, unprosecuted rapes between non-strangers (including spouses), because social awareness of rape and sexual abuse has changed immensely over the last 50 years or so.

I would be surprised if the rates of "stranger rape" went down, though.

[Martinus]

A lot, more than half, of the females my age that I know have considered themselves to be raped, or have had an attempt.

Wtf that can't possibly be right. Unless lascivious glances are rape now.

He said "or have had an attempt". A girl slapping or pushing away an over-eager drunk guy at a party would count then.

[saskganesh]

dunno. I do know some countries are getting better at rape statistics.but there are a few methodological problems, including false reporting, underreporting and yeah, definition.

accordingly, Canada is 2nd/per 100,000 pop in rapes worldwide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

[Slargos]

dunno. I do know some countries are getting better at rape statistics.but there are a few methodological problems, including false reporting, underreporting and yeah, definition.

accordingly, Canada is 2nd/per 100,000 pop in rapes worldwide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

Those are pretty old.

IIRC, there were about 12500 recorded in Sweden in 2007 which means 138/100,000

Same as South Africa. Hilarious. 


Edit: Woops. Wrong. Let me recheck..

No, there were 14500 "sexual crimes" of which 5600 were rapes. Statistics agency reports 57 per 100,000.

Of which 262 led to sentencing.

Love it.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

we have such pleasant topics on Languish. :p  I think the Real world is less CSI-ish than we thinnk.

[Valmy]

He said "or have had an attempt". A girl slapping or pushing away an over-eager drunk guy at a party would count then.

Cool when I have had drunk women draping themselves on me and grabbing my ass in bars can I count that as being raped also?

Because that would be sad.

I am sure they mean that the dude tried to do something more substantial than that, because otherwise it just means they hang out with drunk people.

[garbon]

Cool when I have had drunk women draping themselves on me and grabbing my ass in bars can I count that as being raped also?

Because that would be sad.

I am sure they mean that the dude tried to do something more substantial than that, because otherwise it just means they hang out with drunk people.

As Camille Paglia has said, girls are now trained to cry rape at the drop of a dime. Had a sexual encounter that you feel guilty or awkward about afterwards? You must have been raped!

[Caliga]

On a related note, Princesca is training to be a crisis counselor for chicks or some crap like that right now for some volunteer agency here.  The other night she attended a talk given by a woman who claimed to be a rape survivor, and she was all "she's totally making that up".

I don't remember all the details, but apparently she claimed she was at a bar and some guy GHBed her and took her out back and raped her in the bushes for like 7 hours, and then he tried to get away but his car wouldn't start, so when she called 911 from her cell he was like "I'll wait here for the cops to arrive so they can help me with my car".  When they got there she told them what happened but she said they laughed at her and didn't believe her, and instead of taking her to the police station to get rape kit tested, they took her to Waffle House.

[Barrister]

Cool when I have had drunk women draping themselves on me and grabbing my ass in bars can I count that as being raped also?

Because that would be sad.

I am sure they mean that the dude tried to do something more substantial than that, because otherwise it just means they hang out with drunk people.

As Camille Paglia has said, girls are now trained to cry rape at the drop of a dime. Had a sexual encounter that you feel guilty or awkward about afterwards? You must have been raped!

That's the kind of thing Camille Paglia says to get attention.

What do you call it when there's a house party and everyone's drinking heavily.  The girl wakes up with her panties in the corner and semen dripping down her leg.  She doesn't have a boyfriend, doesn't remember sleeping with anyone, and yet DNA tests reveal that it was her step-uncle.

Step-uncle says "sure she was drunk, but not that bad and she totally came on to me and did a little strip dance in front of me first".

That's a little more than feeling awkward about sex.

[Berkut]

But rather considerably less than a provable case of rape. For all you know, he is telling the truth.

[garbon]

What do you call it when there's a house party and everyone's drinking heavily.  The girl wakes up with her panties in the corner and semen dripping down her leg.  She doesn't have a boyfriend, doesn't remember sleeping with anyone, and yet DNA tests reveal that it was her step-uncle.

Step-uncle says "sure she was drunk, but not that bad and she totally came on to me and did a little strip dance in front of me first".

That's a little more than feeling awkward about sex.

How do you know she didn't willingly participate in it but then felt guilty afterwards?

[Barrister]

But rather considerably less than a provable case of rape. For all you know, he is telling the truth.

That's a perfectly fine case of sex assault and I'd feel comfortable running it.

[Barrister]

What do you call it when there's a house party and everyone's drinking heavily.  The girl wakes up with her panties in the corner and semen dripping down her leg.  She doesn't have a boyfriend, doesn't remember sleeping with anyone, and yet DNA tests reveal that it was her step-uncle.

Step-uncle says "sure she was drunk, but not that bad and she totally came on to me and did a little strip dance in front of me first".

That's a little more than feeling awkward about sex.

How do you know she didn't willingly participate in it but then felt guilty afterwards?

That's why I threw in the step-uncle - someone she would never have consented to sex to (or so she says), and not some cute boy she's always had a crush on...

[ulmont]

But rather considerably less than a provable case of rape. For all you know, he is telling the truth.

Absent some other reason to believe the step-uncle or the girl's word over the other, yes.

Still doesn't mean there wasn't a rape (or a consensual sexual encounter; hypothesize at will).