25 years old and deep in debt

[Darth Wagtaros]

I'm here aren't I.

We have no proof of that.  You might not even be named Neil.  Or your account could have been hacked. 

[Eddie Teach]

If Neil didn't exist, VM would have to invent him. Or find someone else.

[Jacob]

IIRC the stat is based on a survey that asked if you have ever been raped or the object of unwanted sexual advances. 

Think about it, do you really think that one out of four women you know have been raped?

I know some women who've been raped or had pretty close calls. I know a few guys who've told me about mistakes they've made in the past which were basically date rape. I used to work with a guy who tried to rape a friend of mine at a work party, and who'd tried to pull something similar a few years earlier on another woman... and from what I know from working with him from years, the things he said and his general attitude I'm pretty confident that these were not isolated incidents but rather his approach to women and life in general.

MiM and Neil's posts are also pretty good examples of how many people react to discussions of rape - with dismissal and ridicule. I don't know what the number is; it could be 1/4, it could be 1/10, or it could be 1/2 - but I don't think it would materially affect how guys like MiM or Neil would react to the number, nor how widely it would be reported. In my experience, women (men too for that matter), don't really want to put that very personal violation into the public sphere to be judged and ridiculed, so I expect it's not something it's easy to get good numbers on.

There is, of course, also the issue of definition; if you dismiss cases where it's social pressure, reduced capacity, some sort of blackmail or whatever then you'll find there are fewer cases of rape than if you include cases where someone doesn't want to have sex but feel they have not choice. Similarly, you can dismiss various degrees of sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances as irrelevant or not and that will impact the number.

Bottom line is that however you define it the number is still too damn high. If you have never heard a story from a woman in your life about them being sexually harassed or worse consider the possibility that it's not because no woman you've ever known has ever experienced such a thing, but rather that you're not someone they're comfortable discussing such topics with.

[Count]

IIRC the stat is based on a survey that asked if you have ever been raped or the object of unwanted sexual advances. 

Think about it, do you really think that one out of four women you know have been raped?

I know some women who've been raped or had pretty close calls. I know a few guys who've told me about mistakes they've made in the past which were basically date rape.

same here.

[Ideologue]

IIRC the stat is based on a survey that asked if you have ever been raped or the object of unwanted sexual advances. 

Think about it, do you really think that one out of four women you know have been raped?

I know some women who've been raped or had pretty close calls. I know a few guys who've told me about mistakes they've made in the past which were basically date rape. I used to work with a guy who tried to rape a friend of mine at a work party, and who'd tried to pull something similar a few years earlier on another woman... and from what I know from working with him from years, the things he said and his general attitude I'm pretty confident that these were not isolated incidents but rather his approach to women and life in general.

MiM and Neil's posts are also pretty good examples of how many people react to discussions of rape - with dismissal and ridicule. I don't know what the number is; it could be 1/4, it could be 1/10, or it could be 1/2 - but I don't think it would materially affect how guys like MiM or Neil would react to the number, nor how widely it would be reported. In my experience, women (men too for that matter), don't really want to put that very personal violation into the public sphere to be judged and ridiculed, so I expect it's not something it's easy to get good numbers on.

There is, of course, also the issue of definition; if you dismiss cases where it's social pressure, reduced capacity, some sort of blackmail or whatever then you'll find there are fewer cases of rape than if you include cases where someone doesn't want to have sex but feel they have not choice. Similarly, you can dismiss various degrees of sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances as irrelevant or not and that will impact the number.

Bottom line is that however you define it the number is still too damn high. If you have never heard a story from a woman in your life about them being sexually harassed or worse consider the possibility that it's not because no woman you've ever known has ever experienced such a thing, but rather that you're not someone they're comfortable discussing such topics with.

I'm gonna pretend this is what I wrote in reply.  Good job, Jake.

[garbon]

Bottom line is that however you define it the number is still too damn high. If you have never heard a story from a woman in your life about them being sexually harassed or worse consider the possibility that it's not because no woman you've ever known has ever experienced such a thing, but rather that you're not someone they're comfortable discussing such topics with.

That's unfortunately true.

[Brazen]

Sadly there are few women my age (and I suspect of all ages) who when younger were not subjected to an occasion that by the modern definition and increased awareness would count as rape or sexual assault. But we were led to assume it was a situation we had got ourselves into and were more likely to bottle it up out of shame rather than discuss or report it.

[Malthus]

IIRC the stat is based on a survey that asked if you have ever been raped or the object of unwanted sexual advances. 

Think about it, do you really think that one out of four women you know have been raped?

I know some women who've been raped or had pretty close calls. I know a few guys who've told me about mistakes they've made in the past which were basically date rape. I used to work with a guy who tried to rape a friend of mine at a work party, and who'd tried to pull something similar a few years earlier on another woman... and from what I know from working with him from years, the things he said and his general attitude I'm pretty confident that these were not isolated incidents but rather his approach to women and life in general.

MiM and Neil's posts are also pretty good examples of how many people react to discussions of rape - with dismissal and ridicule. I don't know what the number is; it could be 1/4, it could be 1/10, or it could be 1/2 - but I don't think it would materially affect how guys like MiM or Neil would react to the number, nor how widely it would be reported. In my experience, women (men too for that matter), don't really want to put that very personal violation into the public sphere to be judged and ridiculed, so I expect it's not something it's easy to get good numbers on.

There is, of course, also the issue of definition; if you dismiss cases where it's social pressure, reduced capacity, some sort of blackmail or whatever then you'll find there are fewer cases of rape than if you include cases where someone doesn't want to have sex but feel they have not choice. Similarly, you can dismiss various degrees of sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances as irrelevant or not and that will impact the number.

Bottom line is that however you define it the number is still too damn high. If you have never heard a story from a woman in your life about them being sexually harassed or worse consider the possibility that it's not because no woman you've ever known has ever experienced such a thing, but rather that you're not someone they're comfortable discussing such topics with.

There is no doubt that sexual violence is a serious problem. However, there is also no doubt that the statistics used to demonstrate this are not very reliable.

The problem is that the definition is pretty elastic. If you include "unwanted sexual advances" you would, honestly, get a very high, and perhaps universal, number - I've had those myself, from both men and women, and I'm hardly the main target. OTOH there is considerable underreporting for the reasons you note.

To say this is not to "dismiss and ridicule" the problem or the victims of it. I disagree that the numbers are of no significance. The reason for generating the numbers in the first place is so as to rank the significance of the problem vs. other problems. This leads advocates of all sorts into a sort of spiral of escalation - how many have been sexually assaulted, how many have been a victim of racial or sexual discrimination, how many have been bullied, etc. Given that resources to do something about these various problems are limited, saying that they are all of the first importance as demonstrated by statistics showing a high incidence of incidents is functionally the same as saying that none of them are.

That being noted, there is no doubt that for cultural reasons this was an issue fundamentally underplayed and swept under the carpet in the past.

[merithyn]

I know some women who've been raped or had pretty close calls. I know a few guys who've told me about mistakes they've made in the past which were basically date rape. I used to work with a guy who tried to rape a friend of mine at a work party, and who'd tried to pull something similar a few years earlier on another woman... and from what I know from working with him from years, the things he said and his general attitude I'm pretty confident that these were not isolated incidents but rather his approach to women and life in general.

MiM and Neil's posts are also pretty good examples of how many people react to discussions of rape - with dismissal and ridicule. I don't know what the number is; it could be 1/4, it could be 1/10, or it could be 1/2 - but I don't think it would materially affect how guys like MiM or Neil would react to the number, nor how widely it would be reported. In my experience, women (men too for that matter), don't really want to put that very personal violation into the public sphere to be judged and ridiculed, so I expect it's not something it's easy to get good numbers on.

There is, of course, also the issue of definition; if you dismiss cases where it's social pressure, reduced capacity, some sort of blackmail or whatever then you'll find there are fewer cases of rape than if you include cases where someone doesn't want to have sex but feel they have not choice. Similarly, you can dismiss various degrees of sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances as irrelevant or not and that will impact the number.

Bottom line is that however you define it the number is still too damn high. If you have never heard a story from a woman in your life about them being sexually harassed or worse consider the possibility that it's not because no woman you've ever known has ever experienced such a thing, but rather that you're not someone they're comfortable discussing such topics with.

Well said.

[merithyn]

Sadly there are few women my age (and I suspect of all ages) who when younger were not subjected to an occasion that by the modern definition and increased awareness would count as rape or sexual assault. But we were led to assume it was a situation we had got ourselves into and were more likely to bottle it up out of shame rather than discuss or report it.

Yep. Short skirts and booze = your own damn fault no matter how many times you said no.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Sadly there are few women my age (and I suspect of all ages) who when younger were not subjected to an occasion that by the modern definition and increased awareness would count as rape or sexual assault. But we were led to assume it was a situation we had got ourselves into and were more likely to bottle it up out of shame rather than discuss or report it.

Yep. Short skirts and booze = your own damn fault no matter how many times you said no.

Standard lawyer tactic is the 'bitch was asking for it' defense. 

[Barrister]

Sadly there are few women my age (and I suspect of all ages) who when younger were not subjected to an occasion that by the modern definition and increased awareness would count as rape or sexual assault. But we were led to assume it was a situation we had got ourselves into and were more likely to bottle it up out of shame rather than discuss or report it.

Yep. Short skirts and booze = your own damn fault no matter how many times you said no.

Standard lawyer tactic is the 'bitch was asking for it' defense.

Sex assault is an unbelievably hard crime to prove.  All defence has to do is raise a reasonable doubt about whether she consented or not.

[merithyn]

Sex assault is an unbelievably hard crime to prove.  All defence has to do is raise a reasonable doubt about whether she consented or not.

It doesn't help when there are enough people still around who always blame the victim, regardless of the facts on hand.

[Barrister]

Sex assault is an unbelievably hard crime to prove.  All defence has to do is raise a reasonable doubt about whether she consented or not.

It doesn't help when there are enough people still around who always blame the victim, regardless of the facts on hand.

Very true.  A colleague was just telling me an anecdote from the other day when, at a pre-trial conference (and therefore off the record) the trial judge asked the Crown if the victim was, you know, promiscuous.

[merithyn]

Great. Glad to know that women are still considered second-class citizens in the courts.