moral panics and rape hysteria
Rape hysteria creates horrible injustices, depriving the accused of due process (those accused of rape on campus), or depriving people of their good name based on associations and prejudice (Catholic priests). The hysteria is not just stupid, it is fundamentally unjust.
And here is my big issue: when people are being not just normally stupid, but slack-jawed-and-drooling stupid at the service of injustice, then I doubt their motives. It is a willful stupidity serving a nefarious cause. The argument being employed by the campus-hysterics “women don’t lie about rape so they must always be believed” is not reason-based but power-based: it is cult thinking and thought stopping. It is designed to crush dissent and opposition and remove the rights of the accused. (dp monahan)
In the UK, 11% of rapes are reported to the police, and in the USA only 2% of rapists are convicted. I’m familiar with these figures but I still find them sickeningly shocking.
DP Monahan clearly lives in another reality where rape is not such a big deal. In fact, for people like him, our overriding concern in the face of crime and injustice should be ensuring that potential criminals keep their ‘good name’, not creating a safe arena where victims finally feel they can come forward.
To ensure I’m not going to biased sources, I thought I’d get my information on US campus rape from what is assuredly Monahan’s favourite news outlet – Fox News.
Fox News reported in September last year that:
Nearly 20 % of female college students have been sexually assaulted, according to a White House task force. I suspect the true number is significantly higher. Many young women are reluctant to report it. They keep it secret for fear of embarrassment, shame, retribution, and the trauma of reliving the nightmare during legal or disciplinary proceedings. I get it. There are repercussions. Victims are especially afraid of being stigmatized or ostracized within the tight, insular social circles on campus.
Fox News reported two days ago that:
Sommers says the real number of college women who are victims of sexual assaults that would measure up to the standards of a criminal court is about 1 in 40. She said the 1-in-5 figure cited by the administration includes verbal threats and is derived from surveys in which respondents are asked “an artful combination of straightforward and leading questions” and categorize all sex that occurs while the female is intoxicated as rape.
I’m disgusted by this term ‘rape hysteria’ that is clearly being used to belittle and trivialise this issue. Even if the above source was correct – there would be 1 in 40 women on American campuses who experience a sexual assault that could go to criminal court: that’s the absolute minimum from someone pushing an agenda to undermine the official government figures. I would say that is serious enough for some form of moral panic.
But let’s face reality, the first Fox News reporter believed it was probably even higher than the 1 in 5 figure. The attention this problem is being given isn’t hysteria. It’s clearly a long overdue attempt to address it.
Seems epidemic people want you to shut up about rape.
It’s bad enough living it once. The again at the hospital, then again more questions from police, again when you have to go down and identify then, again before court briefings, again in court, and each time they ask for parole. Yeah I understand why some women don’t report it..
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Add on to that the knowledge that loads of idiots like Monahan are keen to doubt the victim, and more concerned about the ‘good name’ of their fellow men.
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Another idiot speaks then. He can come try me on for size now that I’m not a 14 year old girl and the odds aren’t 5v1 and I now carry. I think 45 cal castration is in order for anyone who tries now!
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I’ve written about the benefits of castration before, and received a thoroughly chilly response. Most odd.
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“Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
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Maybe Monahan has some personal bitterness issues having been humiliated by romantic prospects. I genuinely think that’s probably the case for most men who are keen to latch on to this kind of angle on an issue where women are consistently receiving poor treatment on top of tragedy. No concern for countless victims of sexual abuse, but horror at the thought of the occasional miscarriage of justice. How the scales balance. I wonder if he feels so passionately for all those black men on death row.
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True. I’ve seen that also. Happens a lot and if his personality shows through this well on the internet then I am sure 99% of women see right through him in person. /hug Vi
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“<emMaybe Monahan has some personal bitterness issues having been humiliated by romantic prospects.” – That would certainly go far to explain his fascination with guns, their barrels remain rigid.
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FOX news? Talk about appeal to false authority.
The 1 in 5 Stat is based on a voluntary survey preformed on 2 campuses. It is not scientific.
Rape, an act of violence, is extremely serious. The people peddling the false statistics are not.
Crime must be prosecuted with respect for the rights of the accused. The hysteria is designed to skip over due process.
But Violet obviously lives in a fantasy land where Emmitt Till got just where he deserved.
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Do you watch Fox News, DP?
Further, are you a subscriber to Glenn Beck?
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No and no.
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No and no.
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You have a problem with Fox News? Don’t get all intellectual in your sources. Your whole attitude reeks of mindless Fox brainwashing. What’s your favourite news source then?
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All news sources have their biases, Fox isn’t better or worse than the rest; the problem is TV as a medium, it tends to be manipulative. I’d rather read.
For straight news, Wall Street Journal, I guess. For news with heavy editorializing, probably Instapundit. For magazines, Commentary.
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Hey Violet, I posted on the site you quoted from. If it’s okay, I’d like to also post it here in case it never comes out of moderation:
What I found interesting in the OP’s response to you is that his position necessarily entails making the exact same error in judgment that he’s accusing others of. We’ll see if he catches the irony in my response.
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The facts are not in question. So sad you identify with the hysterics.
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LOL
You have to assert facts first in order for them to not be in question. Your entire post and comment was one long-winded rant about how unfair it is for people to get wrongly accused of sexual assault. Where are your statistics for how rape hysteria has increased false reporting? Where are your statistics for the percentage of false reports? Where are your numbers indicating the rate of innocent people in prison serving rape convictions versus people who actually did it?
By all means, allege some facts and then we can talk about whether or not they are in question.
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1) The “entire post” was not about rape, so stop lying you dishonest bastard.
2) The assertion that 1 in 5 college girls are victims of sexual assault was gathered by unscientific means. No honest sociologist would accept them. But you are a lying bastard, so you like fake facts.
3) Facts: Videogames do not cause violence, Dungeons and Dragons do not cause Satanic worship, you don’t get AIDS from public bathrooms, daycare centers are not run by Satanic sex cults, Catholic priests are not more likely than other men to rape children, Battle flags don’t kill people, but that does not matter to you because you are a lying bastard.
4) You are a lying bastard.
How is that for facts?
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I’m just wondering if you’re this stupid naturally, or if you took lessons.
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So being a lying bastard is an indication of intelligence? I must be dumb.
I don’t go on other people’s blogs and lie about my intentions, and I don’t go on to lie about the contents of their blogs to third parties, because unlike you, I am not a lying bastard.
You lying bastard.
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UMADBRO?
Other than failing to completely distinguish the content of your post with your gem of an idiotic comment that was quoted above, feel free to quote me where I have misspoken elsewhere.
This’ll be great.
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Alright, that was a bit terse of me. What I should have written was “most of your quoted comment was broad accusations with no data in support of it.” But my point still stands.
You didn’t cite the 1 in 5 college girls statistic, Violet did. Instead, you’ve just baldly alleged that it’s gathered by unscientific means.
Instead of making stuff up and then getting butthurt when you get called out on it, try actually looking up information to support your view. There actually is information out there that shows innocent people are being falsely jailed for rape.
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I did site the 1 in 5 statistic on my blog. I did not bother to explain the unscientific nature because it is absurd that girls at Columbia university are more likely to be sexually assaulted than their counterparts on Indian Reservations.
The rest of the examples (there were 8) are well known moral panics with no basis in reality. The information is available no farther than Wikipedia. I feel no need to provide footnotes for a WordpPess blog post, nor should I.
But I appreciate your backing off the distortions.
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Okay, I admit that I looked at the wrong blurb when I checked your post again.
There also could be reasons for why the Columbia students have higher instances of reported rape. Have you looked at the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on college rape at all? They’re generally considered to be the most impartial source when it comes to criminal reporting.
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It’s so nice when genuine Christians come over to my spot to demonstrate how the love of the benevolent god God and his son Jesus make them morally superior. And just even nice people to have a chat with.
“… you dishonest bastard…. But you are a lying bastard…you are a lying bastard… a lying bastard.”
And all to someone who was perfectly civil to you (even after such rudeness) and is making a valid point. He’s not lying, there was a minor inaccuracy in his comment in that the entire comment was concerned with people being falsely accused, and only part of the post. So what? Not lying – mistype, exaggeration, inaccurate. Bastard? Shame on you, you squirrel murdering bastard. (An example of when it would be appropriate). Dickhead.
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He presented himself falsely on my blog and totally misrepresented the content of the post in question on yours. It was insulting behavior and I called him out on it.
I don’t regret calling him out, but I could have done so more tactfully.
To his credit he apologized and was civil afterwards.
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The facts are not in question. So sad you identify with the hysterics.
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I hate, hate, hate when stories of false accusations come out. Of course, no one should be punished for what they did not do. But I hate the backlash. Every single time we have to hear about how this one case clearly means that almost all other cases are false too.
NO.
All the research and reports state that sexual assault is tragically underreported and demeaningly underconvicted. Every time these stories come out, it causes much of the world to dig in their unbelieving heels and leaves the victims convinced they should never come forward.
False accusations are news because they are so rare. Sexual assaults aren’t news because they happen everyday.
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I partly agree with you, there does need to be education about how to report rape. It is a serious crime, which ought to be punished.
But that does not excuse false statistics or fantasies that college girls are are frequent victims of rape.
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The 1 in 5 study was flawed, but then it was repeated nationwide. The same result was found. The statistic is not overstated.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/17/one-in-five-women-in-college-sexually-assaulted-an-update/
The Confederate flag you pictured in your post was the one flag of the Confederacy, but it resembled the American flag too much to be properly recognized during battle and was replaced with others, one of which is the Confederate flag we recognize today. That doesn’t change its history, obviously. I know of no one that has claimed that a strip of fabric kills people, except of course when used as a murder weapon…
Catholic priests may not abuse at rates higher than other males, but they do have a special authority that most other men don’t have. That’s where the fear comes in.
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I will check your article.
The current mania to ban the battle flag is a moral hysteria. The battle flag means many things, it is possible to fly it without racist intent. Why not live and let live?
I have a few priest friends: they were heartbroken about be suspected of perversion over nothing other than false association. The moral panic did not distinguish, There were victims,
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It is unfortunate that all priests have been lumped together. It reminds me of the overstated danger of strangers for kids. There is a danger, but most harm comes from people we know, not strangers. Yet, there are cases of parents being arrested and their kids being taken away for letting them play alone outside for a short time.
Given present and historical racial tension, I think intention matters less than result. If we do not recognize the full meaning and origins of racist symbols, we contribute to continuing racism. Racism can and does kill people.
I do not dismiss the problem of hysteria based on inaccurate information. I strongly disagree with some of the examples you chose.
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Why crush a symbol that somebody holds dear? I’m a thorough Northerner with ancestors killed fighting for the Union at Fredricksburg. The battle flag was largely promoted by Democrats, a party I despise more than I do the Republicans.
But even I can see that someone flying the flag probably identifies with the gallantry of Southern Infantry, or with the healthy idiosyncraticies of Southern culture, and not institutional segregation which is a thing of the past.
Culture is a many layered thing. Time has done so much of the work of purification.
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Because it is a dangerously divisive symbol of inequality that promotes racism in the name of tradition. Institutional segregation and racism hasn’t vanished. It just isn’t on the law books. Culture is a multilayered thing. In the case of the Confederate flag, it is a thing steeped in racism, slavery, bigotry, violence, and treason. Are those the gallant Southern ways people are trying to remember? I’ve never heard an argument for veneration of the Confederate side that didn’t intensely sugar-coat everything. The individuals were complicated, their cause was not.
I’m not suggesting we rip the flag from people’s hands, that fixes nothing. I’m simply calling on my fellow humans to face fact rather than crying heritage. The Confederate flag is not a positive symbol in any way.
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The primary causes it symbolizes are conservatism, resistance to change, and racial superiority.
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Not a positive symbol? Says you. Why should you have the right to define other people’s cultural symbols? It would be like me complaining about menorahs.
Also, it should be pointed out that racism does not in fact kill many people anymore. Race motivated murders in the United States are extremely rare. Whites murdering blacks over race is statistically negligible.
The young man who shot up the church was a homicidal maniac first, racist second. If it hadn’t been race it would have been Islam, or anti-government paranoia, or the environment, or abortion.
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You’re conflating menorahs with Confederate flags? Really? No one gets to redefine the history and origins of a symbol.
I don’t even know where to begin with your commentary on racism. Less people die as a result of racism so we should let our racist heritage stand unopposed? You think that’s a good argument? Racism is a lot more insidious and usually less obvious than murder.
Did you know that the FBI rarely classifies white criminals that go on rampages as terrorists? The media always portrays them as mentally ill before anything else. Meanwhile, anyone with brown skin that goes on a killing spree is almost always classified as a terrorist by the FBI and the media doesn’t waste much thought on the state of their mental health.
Most mentally ill people are not violent. They certainly never get close to planning a mass murder. A steady diet of extremism and hate can twist a sound mind and it can make the terrible difference in an unbalanced mind.
You’ve bought into a mentality that is bad for our world. I beg you to reexamine both your thought-process and the facts.
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Monahan isn’t worth reasoning with MJ, he has an answer for everything – or so he believes.
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He’s the only man I know who can strut sitting down.
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How nice it must be – to know everything. *sigh*
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Yes, insofar as I have no business telling Jews or Rednecks what should be special to them or how they should celebrate their heritage.
Transformation and appropriation of symbols goes on all the time. It has happened with the Battle Flag in two generations.
Americas racist heritage should be noted with historical interest. It can’t be opposed because the slaves were freed, lynch mobs are gone, Bull Connor is dead, it is no longer 1963, the President is black. I’m not saying the residual effects of institutional racism might not remain, eg: blacks lagging behind whites, but to blame that on white people keeping them down is silly. To think some Redneck waving the battle flag is causing hate is absurd. Let him enjoy his flag and whistle Dixie and stop “opposing heritage” whatever that is supposed to mean.
So creepy white boys might get excited over the Nordic Race while creepy black boys get excited over Islam. I don’t care what you call it, it is the same thing.
First the creepy then the cause. If we wanted to stop these mass killings our doctors, police and politicians would come up with ways to profile these kids and get them treated before they shoot up abortion clinics or shopping malls. But that is too hard so instead they throw a fit over a piece of cloth. It is easier to bully rednecks than do something useful.
Your mentality is creating shrill harpies wandering America looking for things to ban and people to punish, to no positive effect.
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We have clearly circled the drain here. I’m letting go. Ignorance may be bliss for a few, but it is damning the rest of us.
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Thanks for chatting. You seem very nice and I’m sorry if I always come off as a jerk.
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Our conversation was mostly civil. I appreciate that. Clearly, it is rare to disagree with someone on the internet and not let it devolve into personal attacks.
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“I’m sorry if I always come off as a jerk.” – If that were true, you wouldn’t display such consistency in that area. My advice, sea kelp.
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Oh no, I’m usually nice, even on the internet. I think the problem is my Avatar. Maybe I should get one with kittens in it.
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That would certainly be an interesting test, wouldn’t it? Somehow, I suspect your personality would manage to slink past even the most inoffensive of images.
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“The young man who shot up the church was a homicidal maniac first, racist second. If it hadn’t been race it would have been Islam, or anti-government paranoia, or the environment, or abortion.” – That’s an assumption without basis in fact.
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It is an assumption, but based in fact.
There are no patterns of creepy over-medicated boys doing this sort of thing? Since the motive varies from creepy boy to creepy boy, it is reasonable to suppose the motive is not the cause of the creepiness.
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I don’t suppose, in your rush to escape logical thought, that it occurred to you that there are creepy boys who don’t involve themselves in any of those activities – your mother’s son, for example – there’s no evidential cause and effect there.
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While the vast majority of creepy boys do not commit mass murder, the vast majority of mass murderers are creepy boys.
Therefore it is obviously the creepiness, and not the ideology, that drives these killings.
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The confirmation study was a telephone poll.
Drunken hookups seem to account for 60% of the “assaults”. The article even has one girl saying “he was drunk too, it was like we were raping each other.” Maybe she should report herself to the police? By that absurd logic the number of rapes on campus should almost double, since you have to include the all poor drunken frat boys too.
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You seem determined to undermine women’s experiences. The main problem with sexual assault in our culture is consent. We don’t ask for it, we don’t get it, we don’t demand it. We act like asking is ‘unsexy’. Cases in gray areas doesn’t mean worry is overstated, it means we need a cultural overhaul.
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I’m determined to cut through the crap. Lets not call a drunken hookup a rape, OK? It is certainly stupid, often regrettable, perhaps even a sin, but it is not an act of violence.
If a boy and girl get drunk and have sex, there is no consent and they are therefore raping one another, shall we throw them both in jail?
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If someone is too drunk to give consent, you shouldn’t have sex with them. If both people are too drunk to give consent, they shouldn’t have sex.
Introducing alcohol into a situation does not absolve someone of criminal activity. If I get drunk and get behind the wheel of a car, I am responsible for my actions. If alcohol lessened the severity of crimes, every criminal would take a few shots before carrying out their plan.
I’m suggesting that we completely overhaul how we think about consent so that we don’t have to question whether a crime was committed, we’ll know.
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So the boy and girl who get drunk and have sex should both go to jail for the crime of mutual rape?
Or (more rationally), if you get drunk and decide kill somebody, you are still responsible for your choice; and a girl who gets drunk and decides to have sex is still responsible for her choice.
I’m not arguing for indiscriminate fornication and binge drinking, but people should be treated like adults and hysteria should not inform public policy.
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I never said that either one should be jailed. I said we should change our ways so that such circumstances don’t happen. It is possible to give consent and revoke it, but as most girls know, that can be a dangerous choice for many reasons. We are socialized against asserting our desires. This isn’t a simple matter of someone changing their mind after the fact.
I’m not just talking about women, by the way. Women commit sexual assault too and male victims are even less likely to report.
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When it comes to sex women hold all the cards. I have never once had to ask for it. I am asked a lot. I have the power to say yes or no. Never had an issue but then again I don’t drink alone on the rare occasions I drink it’s always with trusted friends and usually at home.
Education is key to handling this.
Drinking can be fun but really ladies here are some safety tips.
Never drink alone
Always have sober friends (enough to drive everyone home) watching out for you
Take turns being the sober one and take the responsibility seriously
Never accept a drink from a stranger. No matter how cute he or she is, how nice they seem.
Get your drinks directly at the bartender and never leave them unattended.
If you see something obviously wrong get involved at very least call 911.
If you get separated have a meeting spot and times prearranged
Protect yourself and your friends because this case shows NO ONE else will.
Those things would have prevented the gangrape in Florida on spring break. This girl was dumb as shit which is true to say and she still didn’t deserve to be raped.
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The key to this is teaching that consent matters. Most rapes and sexual assaults are not drunken encounters with strangers; they are usually perpetrated by individuals known to the victim.
Teaching girls and women that it is up to them to prevent being assaulted misses the point. It undermines the frequency of the attacks. It’s victim blaming. If someone steals my wallet, it isn’t my fault for taking my purse out in public. It is the thief’s fault for taking my property.
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Oh I never once said it was her fault. I said it was completely avoidable and her actions were reckless and stupid. But I also clearly said it wasn’t her fault. It is never your fault when a crime is committed against you. But you can take precautions most of the time that can help prevent crime.
Drunk driving, leave before the bars close, drink at home, have a sober driver. And you are less likely to be involved in an accident with a drunken driver.
For sexual assault and rape there are precautions I named. They lower your risk. Like conceal carry lowers my rick of being a victim because now I maybe smaller and weaker but I have the means to fight back IF needed. I also have the brains to know when fighting back is my last option.
See there is personal responsibility in reducing risks especially when in higher risk situations. (Like in the case I named Spring Break).
Education and an ounce of prevention is empowering where simply demanding everyone else change is not. 🙂
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Well stated Madalyn.
What part of no do they not understand?
No does not mean “okay, if she or he is drunk.”
No does not mean “okay, if you bought dinner.”
No does not mean “okay, if you’re famous or think you are.”
No does not mean “okay, if she or he is dressed in sexy clothes or dances provocatively.”
No does not mean “okay, if we’re on a date.”
If you don’t want a pipe rammed up your orifices without your consent, don’t rape.
No does not mean “okay.”
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So if a boy is ambivalent about sleeping with a girl, but she really wants it, and he decides to go along with it anyway, he is a victim of sexual assault?
No, he is a victim of his own decision.
A regrettable, alcohol-fueled decision perhaps, but he is not a rape victim.
By all means teach boys to be gentlemen and girls to be ladies, but lets not declare a rape epidemic and run around with our hair on fire.
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No, I wouldn’t call him a victim of sexual assault. I’d call him a victim of our culture – a culture where boys are always supposed to want sex, a culture where he would be shamed for saying no, a culture where enthusiastic consent from all parties is not the standard.
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You are infantalising him.
The very definition of being a grown up is taking responsibility for oneself. This talk of cultural victimhood sounds like an attempt to evade responsibility.
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To me, you are downplaying how society and culture shapes our thoughts and actions.
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“Growing up” has always meant taking responsibility for oneself inspite of what others want, or in spite of cultural issues.
I’m off for the weekend. Nice meeting you.
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It’s true what they say about dead fish and visitors —
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I suspect, in your case, that becomes less of an option with each passing year.
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“So if a boy is ambivalent about sleeping with a girl, but she really wants it, and he decides to go along with it anyway, he is a victim of sexual assault?”
What? Not even in the reverse. What kind of stupid question is that. He goes along with it, she goes along with it – that’s consent. Most of these cases, if you’d bother to read about them, are along the lines of drunk girl wakes up to find guy having sex on her.
And again, with the belittling attitude – “let’s not declare a rape epidemic”. If the very lowest figure is 1 in 40 women, it’s an epidemic. It’s a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If between 1 in 5 and 1 in 40 college men were being raped by other men (waking up to find other men having sex on them etc) I bet you’d have no problem with the government pushing for action. You’re disgusting. But I would expect no less from a white, male, Christian squirrel killer.
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It was a rhetorical question, sheesh.
Rape is always evil. One rape is too many, just like one murder, but crimes happen and are to be dealt with by the police.
A drunken hookup is foolish, but it is not a crime and out not to be treated as such. A girl who gets drunk and goes home with a drunk boy is not a victim of anything other than her own stupidity.
In order to create hysteria the drunken hookups are being defined as “sexual assaults”, which is where your 1 in 5 number comes from. You have fallen for the hysteria, for a lie, which means you can’t define the problem and therefore can’t propose realistic solutions.
Since the real problem behind your 1 in 40 statistic seems to be binge drinking, here is a realistic solution: lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 in college towns. People are less likely to get hammered drinking in bars than in dorms.
But since preening moralists can’t throw their cathartic hissy-fits over that solution, it will never happen.
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Well at least I approve of your proposed attempt to address part of the problem. Lowering the drinking age may indeed have a positive effect. I never understood why it’s at 21 in the USA, really weird and unrealistic.
A girl who gets drunk and goes home with a drunk boy still has every right not to have sexual contact with him. You seem to think that all these ‘silly’ girls were up for it and cried rape as an afterthought. Once more, read the stories – passed out or said no. A handful of false accusations doesn’t mean the overwhelming majority of true sexual assaults are ‘hysteria’.
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Look, if 1 in 5 college girls were victims of nefarious crimes the proper course of action would be to call out the National Guard, shut down the schools and arrest university deans and presidents for having enabled such and environment.
But no one will do that because the number is bogus.
The logic behind the higher drinking age is to cut down on car accidents, and it does in fact help, but bars in the US nowadays are usually good about picking out flagrant drunks and calling them a cab, since they don’t want a bad reputation with the police.
I’ve heard horror stories: there was a girl who was gang raped in Ohio three years ago, and another gang raped in Miami last year. They were both drunk and passed out at parties full of other drunk kids.
My advice: 1) don’t go to those kinds of parties 2) if something horrible does happen, report and document it so the police can 3) arrest and incarcerate the criminals.
The problem (to the extent it exists) is clearly binge drinking, which is clearly fixable. Secret cadres of college rape squads (yes, the hysterics have actually reported such) are unfixable because they don’t exist.
It isn’t the odd false accusation of rape, though there do seem to be more of those lately; it is reclassifying normal, regrettable fornication as “sexual assault” because the parties were drunk. You are pretending something is an act of violence when it is not in order to create a problem where there isn’t one.
If girls are so threatened on college campus, why on earth do they go? Wouldn’t their virtue be safer in some war-torn African or Middle Eastern country?
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“I hate, hate, hate when stories of false accusations come out. ”
When someone is falsely accused of stealing it doesn’t taint every accusation of stealing that follows. What’s the difference? I’m sure it’s something to do with men.
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It is always the patriarchy.
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“DP Monahan clearly lives in another reality where rape is not such a big deal.” – You could have stopped at the end of the bolded portion, and still not been incorrect.
Thank goodness raped women can’t get pregnant! Whew!
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They can’t? Tell that to my son. /mutter
I am guessing you were joking? That guy is a fucking moron.
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“raped women can’t get pregnant!” was a link, Michelle – go back up and click on it —
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I did the guy in the article is a fucking moron
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Absolutely.
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Wow! Nice red herring. If I had written a completely different post that link would go right to the heart of it. Sucks for you I wrote something else. But I appreciate the effort, it is cute, really.
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And if I had been addressing you, I would have expected a response, but I was not. You’re a self-absorbed, supercilious fool Monahan, and why anyone continues to discuss ANY issue with you, constantly amazes me. Now THAT was addressing you, in case you need a standard of comparison.
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Your comment mentioned me by name on a blog post linking to one of mine, and you expected to be exempt from criticism when your remark was so blatantly sophistical?
But then passive aggression was always your M.O.
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Count yourself fortunate – you wouldn’t like my active aggression.
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Agression? Like calling me names on the Internet? Sounds boring.
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Help me out here – who called someone a bastard five or six times in a single comment?
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It isn’t boring when I do it.
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“You’re a self-absorbed, supercilious fool Monahan” – I rest my case.
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Self absorbed? At least I don’t quote myself.
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I did that only in the event that you were incapable of following a train of thought.
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Pingback: Is Rape Hysteria Real? | Amusing Nonsense
Did someone say, “Dickhead”?
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Interesting discussion.
What is interesting is all the resistance to the idea that rape is prevalent in society.
Historically rape has predominantly figured into the social dynamic of western civilization. A woman’s worth was/is determined by her sexual status (chaste, or not) and all the rules surrounding woman’s sexuality have been set up by menfolk.
How could a strong prevalence of rape not be part of this system? Look only as far as Susan Brownmiller to see how this started.
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Interesting discussion? I would have expected you to unrelentlessly tear into Monahan with all your searing might! Is it okay to be disappointed?
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@VW
Sometimes you have the fire, sometimes you don’t. 🙂
Explaining how and why rape is still an important thing to dude #2348239048 gets tiresome after awhile. Wading through the mandatory ‘not all men’, ‘I’m not like that’ and the like also takes energy and dedication.
Today is bookshelf organizing/gardening day so why waste it on a semi-trollolicious presence?
Some dude trying to tell women about rape statistics and how rape works in society – how rare is that?
Psssh. 🙂
Sorry VW, although you have started the fires a burning. 🙂
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Dammit! He deserved your fire. But I get it.
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Reblogged this on Genesis of Tomorrow.
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What kind of blog is that? Lots of reblogs of posts that tell you it’s the end of the world? So hard to tell.
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LOL. The famous DP Monahan strikes again. Not content with getting a boner over young girls hunting wild animals with bows & fantasizing about his ideal mistress at the same time he now wants to enlighten us over something called ‘rape hysteria’.
He is still a Dickhead and I am happy to see Arch was able to step in before me.
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I’m going to embroider that on a sampler and hang it on the wall over my computer! OK, so it may have been taken a little out of context, but who’s gonna know –?
I was a bit surprised you didn’t show up, especially when I played the “Dickhead” song —
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You were coping quite nicely without me, so why gatecrash?
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You simply add a certain flavor to the mix – your absence is like a stew without garlic. Then too, you often use words that I’m too refined to employ – which in hindsight is why, I suppose, that I’m the good one.
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I think you’ll find it was me. You didn’t turn up and someone had to say it – his language and attitude was appalling.
Pop over to his post why don’t you, he’s in a pickle about that silly flag. And I know you have an opinion on that.
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I took a brief glimpse. I think his posts are not really worth my patronage any more.
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Humph. Everyone’s got really boring since my last few blog breaks. Ah for the good old days … 😉
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Aw, shame. There aren’t that many places left where I haven’t either been banned outright or severely curtailed. And when I post anything even mildly controversial, very few Fundies visit any more. I can’t think why?
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You’ve got that new Christian friend who can’t write ‘you’. Don’t U? He seems nice.
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Ah … Bruce. Yes, he’s such a sweetie.
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“Don’t U?”
LOL
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Yes, it was VW who first used the phrase – I knew in an instant that she was channeling you.
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“I think his posts are not really worth my patronage any more.” – It might be summer ennui, it was almost like he was phoning it in. I’ve definitely seen him in better form.
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@dpmonahan
Oh, there you go talking like the police and the criminal justice system take rape seriously. The huge backlog in the testing of Rape Kits calls your inference into question.
Furthermore, rape is one of the least reported violent crimes in North America. From that article:
“As Jackson (1973:14) points out, women are socialized to believe that it is the responsibility of the female to control all male-female situations.” Women who are raped by someone they know and trust in a social situation into which they enter voluntarily are prey to the effects of this socialization, and no one more so than women raped while on a date; as Weis and Borges (1973), Brownmiller (1975), The Classic Rape 465 Griffin (1971), and Kanin (1957) point out, women are expected to be both sexually attractive and ladylike at the same time.
The ambiguity of these female role expectations adds to the confusion of women who are concerned about their own possible role in precipitating rape. Lacking the evidence they need to see themselves as true rape victims, these women report less often.”
So maybe take a few steps back before simplistically saying the police will handle it because it is a way more complicated deal that what you postulate.
Rape happens when one party doesn’t consent to being touched or having sex. That consent may be withdrawn at anytime for any reason.
Women who are drunk do not deserve to be raped.
Women who wear revealing clothing do not deserve to be raped.
Women who are ‘asking for it’ do not deserve to be raped.
It would seem to me that you’d happily blame the victim for her rapist’s actions. If that is true, that would make you a pretty terrible person.
The only hysteria present in this thread seems to be coming from dudes who are getting freaked out that they might have to consider women to be full human beings who have rights and ownership of their body. The hysteria I sense is the unvarnished rage of once uncontested male privilege and access to female bodies being challenged in open society.
Oh, because the male-centric justice system has been so fracking amazing for women, it has been not 50 years since in North America that it has been illegal to rape your wife. You have no clue how deep or how fucking important this ‘hysteria’ is for women. The statistics and stories you casually dismiss are women being traumatized for life, or living in fear or some unholy combination of both. No sir, you don’t get to classify the prevalence of rape as hysterical or dismiss its effects on women.
That’s all it is to you isn’t it? Just a ‘hissy-fit’? Your misogyny is showing and now you kindly need to go find some lego and commence jumping.
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All of your rhetoric is designed to conflate an act of fornication with a criminal act of violence. I can only imagine it is because there are not enough rapes for you to throw hissy-fits over so you must invent more of them.
For example, you define rape to include “touching” because there are just not enough rapists to satisfy your paranoia. Sorry, groping might be the act of a creep or a clumsy attempt at a come-on, but it isn’t rape. Just smack the guy and it is over.
You must be surrounded by insecure, fragile and infantile women who never know what they want and who either shriek with horror at the thought of suffering a clumsy come-on, or needy women who jump from one abusive jerk boyfriend to another. Rather than explain their behavior as abnormal you blame society.
Normal women are not like that. I suggest you get to know a few.
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“Sorry, groping might be the act of a creep or a clumsy attempt at a come-on, but it isn’t rape. Just smack the guy and it is over.”
Better yet how about you don’t touch me and I won’t touch you. If those rules change by choice of both parties involved fine but on the outside teach your kids this is your body and no one but NO ONE can touch it unless you allow it. That’s what my parents taught me and it’s worked fine for 31 years.
Here is one thing I found over those years. The gropers are 99.99999 out of 100 times the assholes I don’t want to associate with anyway. You want to come up and start conversation fine but remember personal space and unless I invite the touch it’s my body and you can’t touch.
So why not teach your sons not to touch period ever without consent?
Wait that puts too much responsibility on the man and what you’d be suggesting if you had a problem with that is men are too stupid to understand that or lack any and all self control. Either way that’s a guy I’d pass on!
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Teach your children all you want, instill all the chivalry you can into young lads: there will always be creeps and assholes out there.
The presence of creeps and assholes in life is not a cause for losing your shit.
A guy playing grab-ass might be a jerk, that does not make him a rapist. He does not need his awareness raised, he needs for you to punch him on the nose and move on with your life.
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I invite you to try that shit on me. I’m telling you in advance this is my body touch at your own risk.
The fact is IF IT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU… See the point? Probably not. Point blank would you just sit in someones car you don’t know? Walk in their home uninvited? Shit on their lawn? No, no, no? Well guess what my body not yours. Learn it. The courts and law understand personal property and my body is solely my property.
There is no EXCUSE that is valid for touching someone else without consent (except maybe CPR/first aid/medical necessity) ever.
http://fox17online.com/2015/04/08/man-facing-criminal-sexual-conduct-charge-accused-of-grabbing-mail-carriers-buttocks/
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/irvine-662838-police-woman.html
See I could post 1000s of articles but the point is you are flatly wrong. Groping, grabbing, unwanted sexual touch is illegal. My state being sober, intoxicated or high doesn’t change the ownership of my body. So teach your kids that before meeting bubba in jail and getting ass fucked (you won’t like it by the way and I bet you’d call it rape) you should keep your fingers and hands to yourselves.
Some guy wants to be a dick and make cat calls I can ignore that all day long. But the moment he crosses the line and touches me all bets are off. Either way you don’t know and understand the law nor have concept of a persons value. I know you must be more rational than you are letting on so I’ll assume you’re just a troll. Enjoy prison..
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I never advocated groping, I pointed out how to respond to it, with a punch instead of letting it go on, because there will always be creeps in the world.
Not only would I not attempt to grope you, I would not even be tempted, because I’m not attracted to emotionally unstable women with poor reading comprehension who jump to wild conclusions.
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Back off dp. The attention has obviously gone to your head and you’re being an even bigger dickhead than usual.
I know you like arguing for fun, but if you really can’t understand what you’re being told here, you have some serious holes in your head.
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Yes, I like arguing for fun; no, I don’t understand what you people are talking about: you offer a caricature of womanhood that is utterly foreign to me.
If you don’t want me around I’m off.
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Yes, I like arguing for fun; no, I don’t understand what you people are talking about: you offer a caricature of womanhood that is utterly foreign to me.
If you don’t want me around I’m off: your blog.
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As the song says “Let the little boy dance” ok a changed a few words. He simply doesn’t get what he has already said. By making excuses for groping he is basically nodding saying yup it will happen. He seems to believe personal responsibility is a thing so few men are capable of possessing. Glad I must know most of them then. My male friends that I know and hang out with are decent and self respecting people who take personal responsibility for that and whom they touch.
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I make him wear his nuts in his mouth and call the cops. Nice wrap sheet for the twit and maybe he’ll think twice before doing it again.
Haha nice try at calling me stupid. You were obviously defending such stupidity as groping weather you’re meaning to or not it’s what you said. So there are no wild conclusions to be had but thank god I’m safe from you anyway.
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Well good for you for being willing to fight for yourself.
If I said “groping is good” please quote it, or admit your conclusions were wild.
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Defending it as you are doing is no better than stating it is good. So stop defending such dumb behavior and victim blaming the way you seem to be presenting yourself.
Quite simply there is never a reason to touch someone else unless it is consensual or defending oneself. No other reason is justifiable even with “creeps” as a defense.
The entire point of the article is touching is NOT ok if it’s unwanted. That includes rape, unwanted sexual touching, and attempted rape. You seem to miss that and then say but there are creeps you’re gonna get touched. Rather than being a gentleman and simply saying yup you’re right touching is not ok. Nope instead you defend it as some clumsy come on or a creeper. It is NEVER a come on.
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1) But there are creeps out there. You have to know how to handle them. All the preaching about chivalry you want will not change that.
2) Pointing out that groping not the equivalent of rape is not defending it.
And yes, it is a tasteless form of a come-on. It was Bill Clinton’s favorite way to meet women. Pointing that it is not defending it.
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Invasion of someone else’s body is not now nor never has been a “come on”. Are there creeps out there? Yup and I’ve dealt with some. Even as a stripper they don’t have a right to touch me. Even if I walk down the street naked, they don;t have a right to touch me. Even if I masturbate on the bar in front of a man, he doesn’t have the right to touch me.
What gives him the right? My consent and nothing more.
Defending the action is the same as agreeing with it. But she was dressed slutty and that’s why she got raped. Sorry she got raped because an animal couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants or because he didn’t understand a simple two letter word. NO.
Unwanted touching is still a crime for which you can be arrested. teach your kids that and we’d have no real issues because everyone would understand you lock animals in cages. We’re humans and above animal behavior, or at least most of us are.
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Well, then we had better arrest Bill Clinton, and his wife for covering up for him.
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We should for the women he assaulted and that further prove male privledge.
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@dpmonahan
When consent is not present, it is an act of violence. There isn’t a rhetorical flourish to be found.
Your imagining, like many of your statements betray a learned and socialized ignorance of what it is like to be female and grow up female in society.
1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape). [rainn.org] [Original Source:CDC NVAWS Survey]
There is nothing invented about said numbers.
Is it really that hard for you to imagine women as people who, by default, deserve bodily autonomy just like men have? Because right now, women don’t get that default level of respect and it is a problem for them and society.
Groping, unwanted sexual advances, and calling are endemic in society. They are a social malaise that women have to deal with from the very beginning of puberty onwards. Take for instance the stopthecatcall tumblr. This is what woman have to put up with and it doesn’t stop, not ever.
You also make the notion of smacking creepy dudes sound like a quick and easy answer. Given your surface evaluation of other issues surrounding women, I’m not surprised. Firstly, you never know how far said creep is willing to go and one is always planning and fearing about the possibility of being assaulted, raped or killed. Antagonizing someone who may have it in their druthers to perform violence on your person makes “just smacking the guy” not a particularly viable option.
Fascinating. How quickly you jump to making the problem about me rather than the toxic patriarchal society we inhabit. It’s almost like the status-quo benefits you or something.
Women and men suffer under patriarchy. Take a peek at the project unbreakable tumblr and maybe start to understand that how you view and experience society is not ubiquitous – and that others have a much less rosy time and that’s why they are trying to change it.
Oh those uppity women getting all in a fuss about being treated as fully human. Obviously it is their problem…
Normal women are taught from birth to smile and happily go along with the shit men say. Fortunately that is changing (albeit much too slowly.
Exposing and critiquing the implicit cultural norms that rule woman’s lives,by definition, is going to be uncomfortable for all those involved. Your spirited defense of the status-quo is informed by your ignorance (willing or not) of how society is organized and how it treats the different classes of people inside it.
So if we’re doing the suggestion thing, I suggest you pull your head out of your ass, maybe just a few centimeters, and listen to what woman have to say.
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You should understand, Arborist, that oftimes Monahan spews crap like that, that he knows is over the top, just to get a reaction. Don’t let him make you play his game.
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Her educational comments are also seen by lurkers, which is one of the reasons you play CS’s game. Arb knows exactly what she’s doing.
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Cool. I don’t know her, but I’ve sadly come to know Monahan, so I just thought I’d offer a little friendly advice.
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🙂 I’m sure it’s appreciated.
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Arch, I replied to you from the small comment box and didn’t see Arb’s reply to you until just now.
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I realized that immediately Victoria, no need to explain – but thanks. Let’s ease off the niceness, people will think we’re Canadian!
(I can get away with that as long as Carmen’s in Australia!)
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LOL — I can’t win for losing, and Carmen is monitoring you, so behave.
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“Carmen is monitoring you, so behave.”
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I ran across this today, and thought it should be dedicated to you —
Maybe you could suggest it to your Legislature and have it declared the state song!
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Yeah, I saw the video earlier today. I did a post, scheduled for tomorrow AM, which includes a link to the video and a rant from moi.
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You? Rant? SAY it isn’t so —
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Behave. Remember, Carmen is lurking.
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Yes, I sent her the pic I posted to you earlier – she cracked up.
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@arch
You mean the game in which he puts forth ideas that make people question his humanity?
He needs no help from me on that count.
Thanks though Arch, it is appreciated. 🙂
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That guy doesn’t read the law nor does he visit websites like the department of justice does he?
Rape – Forced sexual intercourse including both psychological coercion as well as physical force. Forced sexual intercourse means penetration by the offender(s). Includes attempted rapes, male as well as female victims, and both heterosexual and homosexual rape. Attempted rape includes verbal threats of rape.
Sexual assault – A wide range of victimizations, separate from rape or attempted rape. These crimes include attacks or attempted attacks generally involving unwanted sexual contact between victim and offender. Sexual assaults may or may not involve force and include such things as grabbing or fondling. It also includes verbal threats.
Straight from the law and DOJ website. In case he missed the last few lines… “Sexual assaults may or may not involve force and include such things as grabbing or fondling. It also includes verbal threats.”
Go get ’em Arb 🙂
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The only proof that I have, Arbourist, that he’s Human, is the knowledge that he likes to shoot anything that isn’t.
(Sorry I omitted the “u” in your name – it must have dropped out crossing the pond – at least that’s what my English, Aussie and Canadian friends assure me.)
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Why would my Canadian friends say that –?
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You mean to tell me that our society is dominated by weak willed compliant women who will pretend to want to have sex with a guy because they are programmed to do whatever men say?
Why didn’t you tell me about this when I was 15? Why was I cursed to have grown up surrounded with confident, friendly, wiry tomboys who would have merrily scratched out my eyes had I ever been less than a gentleman? I must be the unluckiest man in America to be always associated with smart and practical women who don’t take crap or titter at bad jokes. How cursed am I that the only two fragile and fainting women of my acquaintance are obese and I wouldn’t grope them if you paid me!
All this time I thought I lived in reality when I must be living in some kind of alternate dimension where women have mental and emotional capacities on par with a man’s: neither stupid, fragile, nor easily manipulated. Just unlucky, I guess.
A few little tidbits for those of you in a world where women are miserable failures at being rational creatures: yes, it is often as simple as a punch in the nose because jerks and creeps are cowards and truly violent rapists are very, very rare. NYC construction workers like to catcall, they in fact mean no harm, coming from a lower socio-economic class than the women they whistle at they know they don’t have a chance with the women they catcall. Some local ladies even enjoy it. The vast majority of sexual advances are easily turned down with the phrase “Thanks, but no thanks.”
I’ll look at your stats later.
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“Why was I cursed to have grown up surrounded with confident, friendly, wiry tomboys who would have merrily scratched out my eyes had I ever been less than a gentleman?…
How cursed am I that the only two fragile and fainting women of my acquaintance are obese and I wouldn’t grope them if you paid me!”
Perhaps we reach the core of your inability to understand, empathise or even acknowledge there is a problem. You want to grope women. You think groping would be fun and you would do if you could get away with it. What a base creature you are. Not only that, in your mind women can easily divided into groups you want to grope and women you consider beneath you – unpleasant objects not even worth your groping effort. Em, yuck.
“truly violent rapists are very, very rare”
Ah indeed – the ‘real’ rapist who jumps out of the bushes with a knife. But your friendly, gentle rapist from the dorm room who overpowers you while you’re sleeping, or decides you want sex because you kissed him and the NO is irrelevant, is nothing to be concerned about. Because a real woman – a confident, friendly, wiry tomboy – could scratch their eyes out if they were really bothered – right?
You’re really repulsive. Stick around to continue showing just how vile and ignorant you are if you wish. Christians like you are a deconversion party.
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You are humorless today and have a hard time picking up on sarcasm. You really think for a minute I would not rather live among the “wiry tomboys” than among the mentally disabled you imagine are normal women, or am wistful that I haven’t got a weak-willed woman to abuse? Come on.
Of course rape is evil and repulsive no matter the circumstances. The whole western world understands that. You don’t make it more evil or repulsive or even uncommon by conflating it with things that are not rape and then declaring a national hysteria.
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@dpmonahan
There is this field in the social sciences it is called sociology. I suggest you look into it sometime, as it would greatly assist in decreasing the inanity that spews forth on such regular basis.
Wow, you are full of yourself. Clearly, your experiences are not only typical of every man in North American society, but also every woman in society. I’m honoured to be in the presence of such prescient pronouncements… Or laughing my guts out at the multiple arguments from incredulity that you’re trying to pass of as ‘reasons’.
A yes, because women possess a magical meter that tells them exactly how violent a creep is and how to gauge their reactions accordingly. Your subscription to magical thinking is noted.
Back here in the lived realities of women, being polite and obsequious to boorish male advances is a survival strategy. It keeps us from getting dead. Of course, understanding this would entail the ability to see another persons point of view – a trait you have demonstrated (repeatedly) that you are unwilling or unable to do.
Ah yes, because you would, in fact, know that they mean no harm – also, you would also know(?) that no damage is caused to women who are at the other end of their so called compliments.
Some men actually don’t make talking out of their ass a priority as well, as long as we are casually hypothesizing.
Catcalling and street harassment are dominance displays. They are based on the notion that some how dudes are entitled to make public their opinion of woman that happen to cross their paths. Couple this with not knowing exactly which dudes are the violent rapey dudes; the psychological effects of this trauma are severe, and add greatly to the burden of ‘existing as female’ in this society.
Stuff you don’t have to think about, but let me assure you, women do.
I highly doubt that. Discordant information, however logically presented, usually doesn’t change prevailing attitudes. From what you’ve demonstrated here, this will indeed be the case.
Thus, that brings me back to my previous conclusion: Earnestly, do find some lego and begin jumping ASAP.
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Studies show that when dealing with violent attackers, even armed ones, the best reaction is always to fight, never comply. Compliance is much more likely to end in death. Always, always fight.
Treat a boorish male advance as just that: nothing dangerous, just annoying, and please get over yourself.
The reason why you treat them as anything else is because you have conditioned yourself to see ordinary human interaction as if it were a power struggle. The NYC construction worker can’t possibly merely be boorish, he is committing an act of dominance, really, violence if you think abut it, in order to keep women in their place: yeah, that’s it! And the woman who smiles back, she can’t possibly really get a little lift at feeling found attractive, she is conditioned by the patriarchy and reacting out of fear!
Really, I get it: it is a fun little parlor game to reinterpret all human reality as the workings of the power struggle (Nietzsche), or economics (Marx), or repression of the sex drive (Freud), or the secret machinations of the Jews (my crazy neighbor), the only problem being you end up seeing things that aren’t there, and fret about the Patriarchy the way some people fret about the Masons.
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Arb, thought you might find this interesting, if you haven’t already read the research from a neurological standpoint.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/23/why-many-rape-victims-dont-fight-or-yell/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na
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OK, I tracked down the CDC questions they asked the 9000 women over the phone (with a 30% response rate). I found the link on a site that seems friendly to your position: http://amptoons.com/blog/2014/02/20/how-to-misreport-a-rape-prevalence-study-national-review-style/
Here are two questions from the Sexual Violence section which conflate rape with things that are neither violent, nor illegal, nor even uncommon:
“Sometimes sex happens when a person is unable to consent to it or stop it from happening because they were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out from alcohol, drugs, or medications. This can include times when they voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs or they were given drugs or alcohol without their knowledge or consent. Please remember that even if someone uses alcohol or drugs, what happens to them is not their fault.
When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever had…?
SV7 vaginal sex with you? By vaginal sex, we mean that {if female: a man or boy put his penis in your vagina} {if male: a woman or girl made you put your penis in her vagina}.
When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever…?
SV8 {if male} made you perform anal sex, meaning they made you put your penis into their anus.
SV9 made you receive anal sex, meaning they put their penis into your anus?
When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever…?
SV10 made you perform oral sex, meaning that they put their penis in your mouth or made you penetrate their vagina or anus with your mouth?
SV11 made you receive oral sex, meaning that they put their mouth on your {if male, fill: penis; if female, fill: vagina} or anus?”
Drunk sex is not rape. One is able to give consent while drunk, ask anyone ever convicted of drunk driving. This line of questioning clearly conflates the rape of an unconscious woman with regrettable drunk sex.
The following equates various levels of manipulation with sexual violence:
“Sometimes unwanted sexual contact happens after a person is pressured in a nonphysical way.
How many people have you had vaginal, oral, or anal sex with after they pressured you by …
SV19 Doing things like telling you lies, making promises about the future they knew were untrue, threatening to end your relationship, or threatening to spread rumors about you?
SV20 Wearing you down by repeatedly asking for sex, or showing they were unhappy?
SV21 Using their influence or authority over you, for example, your boss or your teacher?”
Manipulation is wrong, but the above line of questioning conflates threats with pillow talk. In many of the above cases the individual is always free to say no without any fear of retribution.
If this is how the CDC got to it’s one in six statistic then I’m afraid they are full of crap.
Personally, I find drunk women unappealing and wouldn’t dream of manipulating someone for sex; I consider it immoral.
However, something being immoral does not mean it should be illegal, much less fodder for a moral hysteria.
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Unfortunately you are in the minority of men. Most men who see a woman passed out drunk beyond the ability to consent would gladly get their jollies because she won’t even remember it. It’s proven many of those men get caught only because they take pictures or video. Some get caught because they left DNA evidence.
So you’re view is the minority view among your peers. Hence the “hysteria”.
If a woman is unable to say yes then you don’t have consent and it IS rape. If she is able but doesn’t say “yes” then it IS rape.
Some exclusions apply. My wife and I already told each other it’s “always” yes for each other. Why? Because we both agreed to that. But there is also a level of trust that we won’t take advantage of things the other won’t do…ect.
Either way if she does not or can not say yes then it IS indeed rape. Simple enough really.
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“Most men” I’d like to know how you figured that out. Sounds like an irrational prejudice to me.
But the idea that sex is some kind of a legal contract and both parties need full mental capacities unimpaired by alcohol or drugs is kind of silly.
And the attempt to treat sexual encounters like formal contracts is, frankly, creepy and maybe even totalitarian. It is bringing legalism into private matters that are none of the law’s concern.
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1) I never said merely impaired. I said impaired beyond the ability to consent. If you fuck a girl and she never moved because she was so drunk then frankly yes you raped her. You never gave her the option to say yes.
2) Bringing legalism into private matters? Consent is a private matter and no consent simply means a law was violated and you’ve committed rape.
These are facts and not contracts. My body requires my consent 100% of the time from me. Anything short of permission from me is a violation of my person.
Violation is indeed the laws concern. You opinion on the matter is irrelevant as the courts have already deemed you wrong on the matter.
Now two kids drunk and they mutually fool around is not rape because she was capable of giving consent and if she did then it’s not rape. Simple as that.
So I’ll repeat if she “can not” or “does not” give consent then it IS rape. That is simply the law.
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If two drunk kids are mutually fooling around but since they both do not say “Yes, I agree to ‘X’ sex act”, according to your standards it is rape: no consent was formally given. According to the survey I cited above, the mere fact they are drunk constitutes it as rape.
By “yes means yes” you are trying to hold sex to a contractual level. If you sign a contract while drunk or under false pretense it is generally considered null and void. Sex is legally considered more like getting behind the wheel of a car: if you are drunk or mistaken about whose car it is, you are still responsible for whatever happens.
This drive to legalize the various aspects of sex is weird. I would think it is just an expression of feelings of guilt about fornication, except the law no longer distinguishes between fornication and married sex, so this sort of contractual foolishness can conceivably apply to married couples too.
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As for “most men” well look no further than the gangrape on the beach in florida. A girl unable to speak who slept through the entire thing and 100s of people just stood and watched and dozens more recorded the events. Not one called 911 or tried to stop it. Sorry dude it’s a sad sick world and that’s just one of many examples that can be sited.
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Miami beach assholes are “most men”?
You are operating under a prejudice.
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Nope, under a defined group of today’s young men. Remember those young men were from all over the country. The represent many walks of life and many cultural groups. There were black, Hispanic and white, there were rich and poor, there were varying ages from 18 to middle 20s.
This group of “assholes” were not “Miami beach assholes”. The were the young men of tomorrow from every part of this country. Yes “most men”.
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I am very rarely surprised by things I read on the internet. The way you condemn half of humanity as rapists is mind-blowing.
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I also never condemned anyone nor called them rapists. I simply pointed out what appears to be factual as a statement. It’s obvious I’ve stuck a nerve.
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Most men are rapists = bigotry.
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I didn’t say they were else they’d be in jail. Most would do it if they thought they could get away with it.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/11/3610327/college-men-forcible-sex-study/
The number is higher, these are just the ones who admitted it and the gangrape in florida is just a prime example.
So sorry sir it’s not “me” it’s men saying it for themselves.
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OK, I finally finished the government statistics you offered and see nothing to argue with: so far as I an tell, according to a government poll, 1 in 6 women interviewed were forcibly raped, or victims of attempted rape.
I would very much would have liked for them to include statistics according to levels of education and income. The data was obviously gathered, but the breakdown not published.
Which is why I still think the 1-5 college girls are assaulted is a bad stat. College should be much safer than Appalachia, no?
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Well, I do not know how your society works, but in Finland according to a recent study by the Finnish police forces, rapists are almost equally likely to come from any social class, or economic situation. I doubt this is different in the US. The only difference was that they were more likely to be young, or middle aged, than very very old like pensioners. The rich people are more likely, of course to, have higher education and less traumatic lives, or simply more possibilities to buy sex, wich could lessen their attempts at rape, but on the other hand their cultural heritage, given that most rich people are rich because their own parents were, is more likely to include elements that support competitiveness and as such agressivity, wich seem to balance out any higher education or childhood happiness, that might have made some of them less likely to rape.
I think it is really sad, that you Dpmonahan have chosen to use “hysteria” in this issue. It seems almost like an attempt to troll, because, as you know, “hysteria” has been used as an attack against the reliability of women before. Altough, in the end, it did not work then either…
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Finland is an extremely homogeneous society compared to the U.S., economically and ethnically.
The U.S. has a permanent fatherless underclass raised on government funds, and that is where criminality is usually found, whether in white rural areas or black urban.
According to Arbourists statistics ethnicity has a role in reports of rape: Asian women are most rarely raped, Native American women most frequently.
There is no such thing as rape hysteria? I suggest you look up Emmit Till on Wikipedia for a good historical example.
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The reason why Finland is extremely homogenous society is exactly because we as a society use our taxmoney to support our poor and among them the single parents, who happen to be in need of support. If your attempts as a nation on this have failed you, as you describe, you are doing it wrong. It is not to be charitable, but to help these people to be accepted as fully functioning members of the society and to stand on their own feet socially and economically. It is not easy, but it is possible and it is a choise made by a democratic society.
However, it has not always been thus in Finland either. We had a civil war here too and it was not that long ago. My grandad fought in it. The Finns were deeply divided by social class and ideology in that war, wich resulted in the losing side being put to concentration camps and finally our nation allying with the Nazi Germany. Remember those guys? You may guess wether if there were racistic attitudes involved. We have several totally different ethnicities here, and even official languages. Finnish, Swedish and Saami, being foremost, but we also have age old Gipsy and Jewish communities, ancient but growing Russian and Islamic minorities of diverse ethnic backround. In reality, even the Finnish speaking Finns come from several distinct tribal heritages, dialects and even religions, that have ancient quarrels and misunderstandings between them. Racism has often been open between these. Even still it sometimes appears, though not as openly, as none of it is really tolerated. No society is immune to it, though. It seems racism may yet once again raise it’s ugly head here, I fear and the banner bearers of it are once again Christian conservatives. No surprice there…
I suppose the homogenity of economics and people in general not being so desperately divided from birth to destitute powerty, or magnificent riches does help a lot. It kind of goes hand in hand for us treating each other with the same respect, despite of different origin and heritage and gender. That sort of equality is only possible by social support to all poor from the society and the rich forced to comply. An equal access to healthcare, quality education and so forth. It is a question of what sort of society we choose to live in rich or poor. A moral qustion, if ever there was one.
There is no doubt that the FInnish society has grown to be extremely “homogenous” is in great part due to early on it was decided by the Finns that our women should have the right to vote. Very much at the same time when it was established that men with more land property should not have more votes, than others, though there were Christian conservatives who opposed the voting rights of women and demanded for the land property to give more than one vote to it’s owner.
But Finland is no utopia. Rape occurs, and there still are some old Christian conservatives in our society, who do think it is not such a serious matter if a woman becomes a subject of little “surprice sex”. They are also annoyed about anybody making too much of a fuss about it and especially if the rapist was some prominent white male, they seem to think he should be let away with it. Do you have similar Christian conservatives in your society?
Not long ago the Finnish Christian Democratic Party (a fundamentalist political minority group) founding member Toini Kankaanniemi, who jumped to the most conservative party in the country the True Finns was exposed to have sexually harassed several women on many different occasions. I bet he with his political career on the rise, would not have engaged in such stupidity, unless he thought he could get away with it. That is, that the women were too embarressed about the entire subject to even make his actions public. But they did. There is a difference between sexual harrasment and an actual rape, but why should any society tolerate either?
I thank you Dpmonahan for guiding me to the intriguing story of Emmet Till. What is the relevance of the Emmet Till story to my comment of your poor choise of words, or infact anything discussed here? That was not a case of rape, but of racism. Racism motivated the violence, not some obscure “rape hysteria”. Do you often have such difficulties in connecting the dots between the motives of people and the action they take? Why do I even bother to ask? 😉 Or are you simply trying to make an evasion from the actual topic?
If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”?
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Ethnically homogeneous societies have an easier time setting up a welfare state.
I was first made aware of the 1 in 5 rape statistic by christian conservatives some time ago, as they were protesting what they saw as a side effect of promiscuity on college campus. The number seemed inflated then.
Over the last few years the number has been promoted by the government and by more radical feminists (non-radical feminists seem to mostly reject the number).
Most of our politicians who are accused of sexual assault are male feminists like Clinton or Kennedy.
Rape hysteria was commonly used by white supremacists as an excuse to murder black men. If someone tried to stop a lynch mob arguing that the accused had a right to a trial, he would be silenced with “are you saying our women would lie about rape?” There was no good answer. The whole point of shouting “rape’ is to get people to turn off their critical apparatus and work on emotion.
I suspect the whole point of rape hysteria is power: criminalize private behavior and skip due process putting the burden of proof on the accused.
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“Ethnically homogenous societies”? Did you not read my comment? Finland is more like a culturally related mix of various ethnicities, than ethnically homogenous. Yes, there was this big nation building construction going on here during the thirties, in wich our – as it happens – Christian conservatives made up a fantasy of the Finns being an ethnically uniform nation, at the same time the nation was incorporating a bundle of different ethnicities and even various languages. This fantasy has become costly to us over the years and it is still a threat to the unity of the nation and any reason based politics, because it is being used by all sorts of populists who appeal to the emotions and fears of the most ignorant part to the population and raise racistic attitudes by it. The actual homogenity of the nation is due to the work of our socialists, who despite having lost the civil war won the parliamentary elections again and again as they set up the wellfare society. Because there are really only different variations of two options, a homogenous wellfare society, or a socially divided capitalistic society, in the modern world.
Back to the topic, if you please: I came here to object to your use of the word “hysteria”. Was it an intentional choise of words by you to attack the notion of rape being a serious problem in the society using a word derived from “hystera” (greek for womb) and used to diminish women as less rational beings? If it was not, then I suggest you use some other more meaningfull term, so you and your point (what ever that is) could be heard, also by people who do not think sexual harrasment is no biggie and rape is just some form of surprice sex. If it was intentional, then I guess it was a very succesfull trolling…
Are you seriously saying, that your notion of “rape hysteria” was pointed just against racists who have used the word rape as an excuse for racistically motivated violence?
Rape arouses emotions of anger. Are those emotions justified?
Would you be “hysteric” if you had passed out in a party and a big bulking gay dude put his finger in your ass? Was it a rape, or was it just some surprice sex? Would you enjoy it or would you feel violated? Where do you draw the line? What if you were awake and that dude just overpowered you and your efforts to fight were wasted?
How would you like it and act, if a bunch of greasy construction workers started making loud sexual insinuations towards you every time you crossed a street to get to your work? Would you enjoy it? Would you feel appriciated? Honestly? It certainly would be no rape and nobody is even claiming it would be one, but it would be sexual harrasment, would it not?
You wrote: “criminalize private behavior”??? If a murder happens in the privacy of a family home, it is as much a crime as if it happened in a public place, is it not? If a rape happens in privacy, it still is a crime, is it not? You have heard that it has been compared to be the fate worse than death?
You wrote: “skip due process”??? But this is all about what the due process should be and wether if the one used up until now has been fair and functional. Wether it has managed to discourage sexual harrasment and rape or not. The mere fact that some of the figures represented in this case are obscure and nobody seems to know the exact statistics is enough to make any sane person suspect the system is not working. Correct?
If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”?
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If you think Finland is diverse then Brazil, India or (of course) the U.S. would blow your mind.
I think you are getting hysteric, does that give you a womb?
Now, I originally listed contemporary rape hysteria in a list of nine moral hysterias that I remember in my lifetime. V chose that one to get worked up over.
Look at yourself: you are basically screaming “rape” and saying we should let our critical apparatus take a vacation while we overhaul the criminal justice system so we can jail people based on mere accusations.
A man needs to slap you and tell you to settle down.
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How many official languages are there in the US? That is languages, that all the official services must be served in? Finland would blow your mind, if you are under the false impression it is ethnically homogenous. The ones, you mention are a lot bigger nations, yet they do not necessarily divide into much more significant groups of ethnicities than Finland. Look at my prior to previous comment, if this gets you confused. I am not going to explain it to you again.
People need to be economically safe and nations need to become economically homogenous, or they will be ethnically, socially, religiously, culturally, politically and economically divided. We have plenty of examples of such countries around the globe. The minorities need to be a part of the society, not something segragated for the society to function as a healthy body. Different ethnicities are fully capable of coming together to form a socially homogenous wellfare society, but it is a choise and priviledged ethnic, religious, political, economic and/or social groups rarely like the notion, because they fear it would lead to stripping them of their priviledges, they percieve achieved by them (or their ancestors, as is true in most cases).
Are you saying you did not know “hysteria” was a word specifically used to demean women, or that you did not care? Do you care now?
You say: “…you are basically screaming “rape” and saying we should let our critical apparatus take a vacation while we overhaul the criminal justice system so we can jail people based on mere accusations.” I have not said anything of the kind. Where did you even get that?
You are awoiding my questions. Did you notice? If it was too hard for you to set yourself at the position of the raped victim, let me put it this way: What sort of sexual advancements would be on the limit of not being OK towards you? Touching your genitalia while you sleep, perhaps? Yelling obscenities at you on the street? Becoming forced to be touched in your genitalia by a previously trusted person rather than an unknown one?
You wrote: “A man needs to slap you and tell you to settle down. ” Hahaha! What a stupid pun. You do realize, that were I a woman, that sort of language would be very questionable, and most likely would result in your message (what ever it is) not getting through. Now, to think of it, it failed with me just as well, even though I am a man. But it was a joke, right? Is “a man” slapping the hysteric something you do subscribe to? What a cartoonish view of reality. How old are you?
If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”?
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Great reply. As a former rape victim and now rape survivor. NO unwanted touching of my person is allowed. Do not touch my genitals, my face, my shoulder, don’t touch me at all. But I maybe one who takes it too far? I don’t think so. I won’t touch others without express consent or social contract like “my wife” which we’ve agreed we can always touch one another. “My family, son and some very close friends” but those people know me and I them. But from a stranger there is no excuse for touching another stranger.
DP doesn’t understand my body is 100% my property and no one has the right to trespass ever. He is stuck in the old boys network and too full of himself to understand a woman is a person with rights to feel safe, un-violated and be respected enough to get permission to touch in any way. He doesn’t understand personal space or personal property when it comes to women.
I already told him the law is clear you must receive explicit permission to proceed before you can have sex and that permission can be withdrawn at ANY time before or during. That’s it, that’s the law. He just doesn’t like it because to him women are not people, they are possessions.
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The 1 in 5 and 1 in 6 studies conflate drunken hook-ups and various forms of ungentlemanly behavior with rape in order to create a false impression that U.S. campuses are dangerous places or that American women should be in constant fear.
The purpose of creating a false impression: manipulating people into thinking there is a crisis.
Asking how I would like to be anally probed or what the etymological source of my vocabulary or calling me a misogynist are all rhetorical attempt to use emotions to distract from the main issue: the Numbers Are Fake.
If the numbers are fake, there is no crisis, no cause for legal reform, no cause for hysterics and moral panics.
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@ Michelle Styles, thank you for your support. I am very sorry for what has been done to you. I have been a target and a victim of violence, though not rape, so I think I can relate on some minor level. Then again, regardless wether we have exactly the same experiences, or no negative experiences of any kind, we should be able to set ourselves to the position of the other in any given situation, in order to understand what and why something is wrong. And I think most of us have the ability. It is just that some people are culturally handicapped to set themselves in the position of the target of an action, or inaction. Because they have from childhood been told bogus, that right and wrong are formed by some arbitrary rules set by an authority, rather than that these are issues we are able to evaluate and percieve through our empathetic ability and skills. I think a great many of us do grow up to be adults and not depend on an outside authority to determine the situational ethics, of any given situation, but alas not all are able to get over it.The irony of it is, that so many of the great religious teachers on whose authority these arbitary sets of rules are founded on, have said it themselves, for people to set themselves to the position of the other – to use their natural ability to empathy – is the first step to actual morality. “Do not do unto others as you would want them not to do to you.” as the great LaoTze put it…
@Dpmonahan. Let’s make something clear: People make a lot of hasty and poor assesments of any number of situations when they are in a highly emotional state, but rationality does not rule out emotions. For example, when a nation makes the political choise to spend money on an army, they are motivated by fear. Sometimes the fear is reasonable sometimes not. Yet, it always is an emotion.
My questions are valid and in concert with the topic and discussion here. I am sorry if they disturbed you. Their point was to try to set you in the position of the victim in sexual harrasment and in rape – just for you to have a full grasp of the situation and help you ease up with your own sort of hysteria. Yes, they were supposed to provoke an emotional response, because you bet the victim has an emotional view on the issue. But it seems setting yourself in the position of the victim is beyond your comfort zone. Can you set yourself in the position of the victim? I think you can, if you choose to.
The “etymology” of your chosen approach plays a very big part why we are having this discussion. Did you not know “hysteria” was used to demean women, or did you simply not care? Do you care now, that you know, or do you refuse to hear me out?
If the numbers are as you claim indeed fake, then that does not by any means mean that there is no reason to be alarmed. Infact, quite the opposite. If the numbers are fake, we are in no position to assume they are any better in reality. We need the true figures, before we can decide this is not an emergency.
If the numbers are even remotely indicative of what really happens, they are very alarming. Alarming enough for us to have an actual study to verify what the reality is. Even if it is not so serious as these numbers would indicate, the mere fact that we lack the numbers should be alarming indeed. Correct?
You do not know how much of rape and sexual harrasment happens, yet you would choose not to be alarmed? You would choose to deny the given figures and with them the entire issue? You do not think, that not knowing how much of this is going on, in itself is a crisis? Well, rationally it is.
You do know, that rape and sexual harrasment has been played down by the Christian conservative men in western society for generations? As if it was not such a biggie. Rape within a marriage became illegal in Finland as late as in the 1950s and guess who opposed to this? Wonder why? How late was it in your country? On the other hand, the Christian conservative men have unashamedly used rape and sexual harrasment also as an excuse for racist violence as you yourself so graciously pointed out. What a curious coincidence. And conservative men, wether Christian, or otherwise morally handicapped, still do downplay the seriousness of this heinous crime. Why?
There is no reason for “rape hysteria” and as such there is no “hysteria”. But people are concenred because of these alarming numbers and by their own personal experiences. You made up the hysteria, nobody was subscribing to any hysteria, were they? That is why it is actually you who is being hysteric about people being concerned about this very serious issue, of wich – according to you – we do not even have proper information about, though we surely should. Should we not?
If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”?
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I think the problem he has with the numbers is they are more accurate. Rapes go unreported and under reported most of the time. Why is that? I can answer it and have before actually. Rape (even though it is NOT your fault) leaves the victim feeling guilt and ashamed. Society is largely responsible for these feelings. I’ve talked about even if you do report the rape you feel violated a second time at the hospital.
So perhaps these number are 100% right given the anonymity of the poll more women might have been willing to admit to being a victim. That is one explanation.
What bothers me with DP is he doesn’t think a lack of consent constitutes rape. That to me demonstrates the underlying problem in society and the stigma felt by the victim. It places a woman’s value below that of his own. I bet if he got dead drunk and some guy anally raped him on the table he would consider that rape and use the excuse “But I didn’t want that” or “I never said he could do that”.
It’s serious when the shoe is on the other foot. He can’t seem to place himself in that position and many men can’t it seems. It’s frightening when 1 in 3 college aged males said they would rape if they could get away with it. More frightening is 5 in 7 college aged males in that same study said screwing an unconscious girl (even a stranger) is not rape in their opinion.
I bet if you as those same 5 guys if someone had anal sex with them while they were passed out drunk it would be rape then. DP can;t even do that it seems.
@DP
If you were passed out drunk and some dude came along and had anal sex with your unconscious self is that rape?
If they spiked your drink and while you were comatose had anal sex with you would that be rape?
If while under anesthesia and had anal sex with you would that be rape?
If the answer to any of these is yes then I bet the reason it’s yes is because you didn’t consent. Which would then prove my point thank you and good day.
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I’m having a bit of a Tim Minchin binge day, and this seemed, somewhat on topic:
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Can that boy play the piano, or what? You KNOW he’s had lessons.
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Any Redheads out there – and you and your hairdresser know who you are – may enjoy Minchin’s “Prejudice” – it is SO cleverly written!
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Well, I am just a dumb blonde, but I might be right in saying, that to every Tim Minchin song I have ever heard applies the old wisdom of Oscar Wilde: “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
On an other note, you are not trying to change the subject, are you? 😉
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I would have to take your word about being blonde, rautakyy, but I’ve read too many of your comments to ever be convinced that you were dumb. Wilde was spot on about so many things, wasn’t he?
There was a subject?
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Let’s just say I thought it might be time for a little comic relief.
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As a fellow ginger, I can say he’s one talented ginger! Love him to bits, he’s got everything – intelligent, hilarious and brilliant musician. Forgot about these songs, saw them live at his shows a couple of times about 10 years ago.
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What I thought was so clever, was that one thinks he’s referring to the “N” word, until he makes it clear that exactly the same letters comprise the word, “ginger.” And can that boy play the piano!
I binged a total Minchin day yesterday – got absolutely nothing else done.
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I know your story, Michelle, and completely understand why you feel as you do, BUT – I dated a girl once, who was a “toucher” – by that, I mean that in the course of a conversation, she would reach out and touch you, often to emphasize a point. Not just me, understand, just because we were dating, but total strangers. And as I watched this, I became envious – my family were not inclined to touch much – don’t know why, don’t really care, that’s just how it was – and the fact that she could perform this kind, gentle act so freely and spontaneously, amazed me. I never became the “toucher” that she was, but with effort, I did learn to touch. Not all touching is ill-intended, and if one has to ask permission to pat you on the back, you’ll likely not get many pats on the back.
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I don’t get pats on the backs from strangers and that is 100% fine with me. Friends I have come to know get more rights because I give them those rights to touch. Sorry I’d have batted your friends hand off because it is who I am. It probably would have sparked a conversation to which I’d explain personal space and my body is no ones property but mine. Or she’d have walked away upset which is also a fine outcome because it means I don’t need to worry about being touched again. It’s never yet started a fight though I imagine that is a possible outcome.
I have a limited circle of friends and I like it that way, but my real friends are the ones who will be there when I need them and I am there when they need me. I’ve known touchers before, even innocent ones. They all understand real quick I consider touch not invited to be an invasion of my person and I will respond to that invasion.
Though now that I speak better I am more inclined to swat the hand and tell them I do not welcome people touching me please stop. Seems to work better than a swat and a glare. But before my ears that was the best I had.
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“But from a stranger there is no excuse for touching another stranger.”
I agree with Michelle. It’s a cultural thing, a sign of the times or whatever, but in this day and age it’s just not on. Some people with carefree energy seeping through their bones can just about get away with it, but my experience tells me it’s mainly only creepy men who touch strangers.
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And those creepy men are generally touching strange women. 🙂
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Certainly the case from my experience.
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Pingback: Rape Hysteria as a Moral Panic | Truth and Tolerance
DP, your post is useful to see your whole argument through without your snide comments, and with the added bonus of a comical dose of your 1950s moralising.
I’ve been interested to read that your angle has been a standard line for over 20 years in the face of study after study with variable questions and variable respondents leading to the similar figures.
Here’s an example of your thinking in 1993:
I think an interesting point for you to consider is this:
“Gilbert points out that in a 1985 survey undertaken by Ms. magazine and financed by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73 percent of the women categorized as rape victims did not initially define their experience as rape; it was Mary Koss, the psychologist conducting the study, who did.”
It’s all about definition and where we consider we should draw that line at unacceptable to behaviour. You think that if someone is drunk and doesn’t consent to sex that’s had on them, then it’s not rape – most of the rest of the sentient world does. You think that if someone is pressurised into having sex when they don’t want to, it’s not sexual violence – most of the rest of sentient world does.
But apart from these differences you are missing a key point. As the article above states – 73% of the rape victims hadn’t previously classified their experience as rape. That means that 27% were already clear and sure that by any definition in 1993 (before this alleged ‘hysteria’) they had been raped. That means that even conservatives like you must admit that 7% of women, that’s 1 in 14 women, had been raped.
I think if you look in detail at the responses you’re criticising from the more recent studies, you’ll find similar levels. You are throwing out all responses because you personally (and your conservative cronies) disagree with one or two questions.
Think about it. Stop. And think about it. Would it be morally acceptable that 1 in 14 women will experience being raped? Could you possibly describe it as ‘rape hysteria’ for people to be pushing for something to be done about this? Look in the mirror and realise what a disgusting, moralising creep you are to be arguing about this.
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A drunk person who refuses sex, and then is raped, is a rape victim, this is obvious even to me. A drunk person who consents to sex is not a rape victim. One problem with the studies above is that they do not distinguish drunken sex from rape. The second problem is equating unenthusiastic consent with no consent.
The faulty CDC questions I posted are about half of the questions asked in the sexual violence section, not a small percentage.
The stats are false.
I think I see the problem here: I call out a false statistic for what it is, but because the lie is being employed for a good cause (against rape), I am somehow on the other side, “pro-rape”, if you will?
But that is the very kind of polarization the fake stats are meant to create. Someone shouts “1 in 5 girls are being raped so we need to overhaul the criminal justice system, and put the burden of proof on the accused” and anyone who dares question the stat is accused of not taking rape seriously. As if changing the entire common law tradition is no big deal. Crying “rape” in this case is a thought-stopper. It is designed to avoid criticism.
No rape is morally acceptable, but the point of pretending it is a crisis is to force political reforms that people would not otherwise want. Why don’t they want them? Probably because they don’t want Bill Clinton in jail for being a groper, or to see the rights of the accused eroded and burden of proof turned on its head. Rather than advocating a changed system, how about educating people to use the system we already have: rape victims should proceed immediately to a hospital and then to the police. Anyone who says different isn’t helping.
As for my 50’s moralizing: yes, my avocation of legalized drugs and ambivalence about abortion laws is SO 50’s. As for my idea that individuals who want to be happy should practice the virtues of chastity, sobriety and prudence, that is more Book of Proverbs than anything else.
Which makes me think back to the merry tomboys of my youth: virtue is another word for self-possession, which is the key to freedom. It means possessing yourself no matter what your immediate impulses are, possessing yourself no matter the pressures other people are putting on you, and being willing to fight for yourself. But that is only learned in a good home or by bitter experience, politics can’t give it to you.
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” A drunk person who consents to sex is not a rape victim.”
Who claims it does?? The question says have you ever been drunk and unable to consent to sex. Look at the quote on your own post. Silly man.
Question 1: Do you accept that at least 1 in 14 women were definitely raped according to the 1993 study in the article I linked to? I’m not even pushing you to accept other people’s definition of rape or sexual violence here – just the basic one that conservatives like you can even agree on. 1 in 14 women.
Question 2: Assuming that you’re not going to dispute the 1 in 14 figure, why do you not think that this in itself would be a crisis that requires a change in the criminal justice system?
Question 3: Answer Michelle. If at least 1 in 14 of your male counterparts were subjected to rape do you not think all you men would be taking this a lot more seriously?
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I think Miss Gregory above made the claim that drunk sex is not consensual. Many respondents to the WaPo poll seemed to think drunk sex was not consensual, one young woman describing it as mutual rape. The question above can be read either way, the preamble tells the person being polled that “things that happen to you when you are drunk are not your fault.” with no mention of being unconscious.
Agreeing to numbers has nothing to do with politics.
For the sake of argument, lets say it is 1 in 14. 1 in 100 would be a terrible thing. But rapes have been declining for 36 straight years. Whatever we’ve been doing it has been working. If you want to come up with more effective crime fighting techniques, I will support you.
Here is what we shall not do: expand the definition of rape to include things that are not rape in order to inflate crime statistics, make being an asshole the same as being a felon, or put the burden of proof on the accused. I don’t want to live in a police state.
If 1 in 14 men were being raped I’d ask the same questions: where are they, what is their income, what is the age. Is the crime rate rising or dropping? I’d suspect it would be a localized, definable issue, and once correctly defined it can be dealt with.
Would there be outrage? I don’t know. Nobody gets upset when a male prisoner gets raped, and that is extremely common. Few people get upset when a female teacher has sex with a minor male student, except the boy’s mother. Men are more likely to be murdered, killed in work accidents, etc, but men like danger. So no, there would not likely be outrage.
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@ rautakyy
Me: The numbers are fake.
Rautakyy: Well, how would you like to be raped?
Me: That is irrelevant and sophistical.
R: Did you know a Greek might find the word “hysteria” misogynistic?
Me: I don’t care, and neither would the Greek.
R: But we don’t know the real numbers, shouldn’t we be alarmed?
Me: All violent crime in the US has been in decline for 36 straight years, including rape.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-usa-crime-fbi-idUSKCN0IU1UM20141110
How about we just keep doing what we have been doing.
R: Why do Evil Christian Men oppose getting hysterical about rape statistics?
Me: Because they are fake.
R: Did you know Evil Christian Men opposed the idea of marital rape?
Me: Yes, probably because ideally Christian spouses should never deny each other sex; and practically because they did not want the police in their bedrooms. But I disagree to the extent that men who are violent to their wives should be punished.
R: Did you know Evil Christian Men were racists?
Me: The U.S. Civil rights movement to desegregate the South was led by Christian clergy, black and white, Protestant and Catholic. Some Rabbis were involved too.
Any other questions?
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Are you married?
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God I feel sorry for her if he is.
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No, enjoying the dating scene, meeting cheery tomboys and minding my manners.
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@Dpmonahan, WTF??? Is that all you got from our discussion? That was a wasted effort on both our parts, then. But since, it seems you can grasp things only in this childishly simplistic form, let me put this as simply as I can: That was not at all how our discussion went, and anyone who can actually understand what they read may read it all from abowe. Though as they should be able to guess by this answer of yours, it never achieved anything.
For simple people like you here is the abstract narrative just to show what a silly game you are engaging in:
DP: College kids are less likely to rape than poor people.
Me: Not according to Finnish studies.
DP: Finland is ethnically homogenous, but in less ethnically homogenous countries poor people are more likely rapists.
Me: Finland is not ethnically homogenous, but it is economically less divided than many other countries. However, well to do Christian conservatives are often caught at molesting and harrassing women, because they think they can get away with it. Is it not the same in the US?
DP: Clinton and Kennedy harrassed women. You are screaming rape. Hysteric! Hysteric! Sexual harrasment and molesting is no biggie, because it never happens to me.
Me: Your attitude and use of words is not going to help you to make yourself understood, as you have presented yourself, as you could not set yourself in the position of the victim. There is no hysteria, other than you yourself being hysteric. Try to set yourself in the position of the victim. Could you?
DP: There is a rape hysteria too, since hysteric Christian conservative men used it as an excuse for their racistic violence.
ME: You do realize they were hysteric Christian conservative men and that it was an excuse?
DP: You are signing to the rape hysteria and the numbers are false. It is outrageous, that you should ask me to set myself in the position of the victim and that you should call out hysteria, or rapists in Christian conservative men.
ME: No, I have not signed any such. Nobody has. If the numbers are false, then is that not alarming you? Or is that why you seem hysteric?
And once again: If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”
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What I don’t get is this. 1 in 14 women have been violently assaulted. These are the official reported numbers. Those same official numbers say more than half of all rapes go unreported. So the real number is 2.(something) of 14 meaning 1 in 7 or 1 in 6. Now include drug induced rapes or rape of women unable to consent due to alcohol and your number will likely jump to 1 in 6 or 1 in 5.
So how are the numbers inflated? Hysteria my ass!
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I never said rape is not a big deal. It is a crime and should be treated as such.
Inventing fake numbers by conflating rape and a bunch of things which are not rape in order to get people whipped up into a moral panic does not make rape any more or less of a big deal.
This is why it is an hysteria, look at what is happening. If I say the numbers are fake, a bunch of people come running at me calling me “pro-rape”; that is what the word “rape” is meant to do: polarize and make people ask stupid non sequitur questions like “how would you like to be raped”.
There are all forms of crime hysteria, murder hysteria breaks out all the the time, here are some examples:
1) Mass murders are dropping in the US along with all other forms of crime, but every time there is a mass murder, people claim the world is going to hell, and demand impossible legal reforms. Yet the world is not going to hell, because mass murder is becoming more rare.
2) White on black crime is extremely rare, yet when it does happen we all get told how racist America is and how we all need to change our hearts, which is bullshit, because white on black crime is statistically negligible in the US.
3) The chances of being killed by a jihadi in America are minuscule, but when some poor crazy teenager converts to Islam and beheads somebody for Allah the media explodes shouting we have a problem with Muslim extremism in America. We don’t, we have a problem keeping track of creepy, isolated, over-medicated boys.
And here you are asking non-sequiturs like “Well how would you like to have your head cut off by a Muslim? Don’t you know that conservative Christian French Revolutionaries also cut off heads?” and then you wonder why I blow you off.
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@Dpmonahan, claiming people are hysteric about a very serious issue does not make people hysteric. But you seem hysteric to downplay the seriousness of the issue. Why do you engage the issue on this level, if your only aim is to point out some false numbers?
Rape is a serious crime, wich has been hidden from the public eye, in order to make it and all sorts of sexual harrasment possible. I am not accusing you of any grand conspiracy to enable such behaviour, but by claiming the people who are concerned about it are “hysterics”, you, perhaps not even realizing, have added to enabling it. Perhaps you were just being stupid and it was unintentional. I hope that was the case. But by now you should be able to see how you have added your number to the support of long chain of misbehaviour. Can you, or am I wasting time?
It is perfectly OK to call out erroneus statistics when you see any, though judging from our previous discussions, you have no idea how statistics function. But, it is not OK to call people who are concerned by the alarming numbers presented in this serious issue “hysteric”. Especially since we are dealing with a delicate subject and such claims have been used to totally demean women out of the discussion. Women being a major group of people who become rape victims, it is especially stupid, if you want people to hear you out. Did you simply not care, or did you do it on purpose, or was it also unintentional?
Most importantly, if the numbers are truly false, as you would suggest, that does not mean we can return to the dream of the Sleeping Beauty, as if nothing was wrong. We still need to find out what is the actual situation. And it is alarming if the only numbers we have on the subject are false. If they are even indicative, they are alarming just as well. The fact that we know this is an issue we do not know well, despite the seriousness of the issue is very, very alarming indeed. It is you who is hysteric, if you would rather downplay the issue, than confront it.
It is good to hear you are doing something right and that serious crimes are on the decline, even though that is not at all what one would expect, if one believed your fellow Christians, who seem to yellp apocalypse is coming on every awailable incident. But the discussion of what the conduct should be in sexual issues should not be downplayed or hissed down, because that alone causes harm. Especially in the age group of college students, because they are not born with inherent knowledge how they should behave and are keen to take poor role models, while they are still riddled with curiosity and raging hormones. That is why, proper sexual education is so important and why the discussion about the limits is so important.
Turn out the alarm bell and – because of the taboo nature of sexual issues – people seem to loose their interrest as long as it has not happened to them or their loved ones. The downplaying of the issue has been for ages the number one tool in the handbag of the people who would not want things to change ( you know who I mean) from molesters to pedophiles and climate change skeptics.
Numbers 1), 2) and 3) are merely attempts to divert the discussion to other topics. Was it intentional? You do this all the time. They are not comparable to the subject at hand. If you do not see the distinction, it perhaps explains why you are so baffeled and hysteric by Violetwisp choosing this from your “hysteria” topics.
The questions I asked you were there for your own benefit. So, that you could form in your own mind the limit of sexual advances and harrasment you would abide to. I am sorry that you are unable to see the relevance and that they just got you uncomfortable and agitated. The idea of reaching moral solutions behind this, is not to insult you, but to use the veil of ignorance, when you do not know who you would be in a given society, you are more likely to understand fair rules for the society. That however requires you to set yourself (for a brief imaginary moment only) into the position of the victim of sexual advances, molestation, sexual assaults and even rape.
The idea you present elswhere in this line of discussion, that the woman should revert to violence in her defence against unwanted touching reveals your ignorance on the matter. Yes, if you are being assaulted and there is no support from other people, fight is often the best survival method. But what if people in general or present at the situation think groping is not a biggie and if the person harrasing you is bigger than you yourself. I have seen what really happens when a girl slaps at the groper. The groper hits back. That is, because he is, as you would put it, a “creep” and because he expects he can get away with groping and when he hits, it is only in response to the slapping. Hence, it is serious discussion how the society should see groping and other forms of “creepy” sexual advances. The conduct of people can not be based on mutual threat of violence, but on people understanding where the limits are and if they brake them firm legal action. Rape happens more when it is not condemned by the society. Same applies to groping and other sorts of sexual harrasment and assaults, there is no need for any society to accept any of it. Is there? We could send a clear message, that this is condemnable – Such will never stop it totally, but it does make it less. Correct?
If as many murders and violent assaults were left unreported, unsolved and unpunished, as rapes and sexual assaults in any of the western societies, would saying it was wrong, make the claim a “murder hysteria”?
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When someone cries out: “There is a massive but undefinable crime wave ‘X’; give me ‘Y’ to solve the problem or you are insensitive and pro-crime!” the proper response is to tell them to fuck off.
If the crisis is truly undefinable – if we do not know the real proportions, or are even vague about what actually constitutes the crime – then we have no idea if the proposed solution will work. What the above hysteric really wants is not to solve the mysterious unreported crime problem, they want the solution… not because the solution will solve anything, but for unrelated reason.
The examples I gave are all crime hysterias where people exaggerate crime rates to exploit people’s fears and demand fake solutions. I’d say they are perfect parallels to the discussion at hand, they all follow the same pattern.
I did not find your question about how I would like to be anally probed emotionally offensive, but intellectually insulting. It is an incredibly stupid non-sequitur. If I assert there is no problem of Islamic terrorism in the US, what sense would it make to ask me if I wanted to be killed in the name of Allah? It is just a dumb question.
In what western societies is rape not condemned? Where exactly is rape considered normal?
So if a woman is being groped and thinks she is in danger of being raped, she should, according to you, lay back and try to enjoy herself because a) who knows, something even worse might happen if she fights, and b) some day, social attitudes will change the hearts of (some) gropers and rapists. How repulsive, not to mention false. It is always better to fight an attacker.
I’m calling it quits here. Feel free to take the last word.
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You still haven’t answered the statistics. 1 in 14 women is known because they reported it to have been raped or sexually assaulted. We also know this is a fraction of the actual cases. Even if it’s only twice as high 1 in 7 is no laughing matter and worthy of all the attention given to the topic even if you see it as hysteria.
1 in 100 is too damn many and worthy of thee attention! because 1 in 100 women is more than 1 million victims here in America alone. How’s that for reality?
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He’s beyond help, he seems completely unable to take that in. He just wants to rant about female hysteria. And he hasn’t answered that question about whether he’s married.
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He is comical if nothing else. He didn’t dare come comment on my flag post. named it racial wall paper. 🙂
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Comical? Yes, that’s one adjective that could describe him. 😉
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I like seeing the best in people. 🙂
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I thought DP answered the question about being married. He said no. Did he not? Why is that relevant? I admit, I am curious…
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Me too!
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Based on a quick internet study of polls, it seems the numbers vary from 1 in 6 (which I’ve discussed) to 1 in 50.
Polls of course are limited. The variation seems due to how the questions were asked.
As for the assertion that the majority of rapes go unreported, my inclination is to suspect that the same issues are at play: what exactly is the definition of rape. If it is the vague (and bogus) definitions that led to the 1 in 6 stat, then obviously women don’t report it because they don’t think they have been raped.
The problem with “unreported” is that it removes the problem from the objective, definable realm to a subjective, undefinable one. It is designed to create fear.
I could understand a woman not wanting to get her boyfriend or a relative into trouble, I’ve known a few co-dependent women. But if a woman does not report a rape because she does not think it was a big enough deal (which some studies claim), then she was not raped.
So my suspicion is that the “unreported” statistics are false, but I don’t know enough to make a definitive judgement.
I never said rape isn’t serious, or that it is not an evil thing. What I’ve been arguing is that the 1 in 6 statistic is false: it is designed to create fear and whip people into a moral panic.
I’m ending here. I should point out that I think your determination to defend yourself from an attack is admirable and if I had daughters I’d want them to be tough like that: be smart, be willing to fight, concealed carry if you have to. It is a much better attitude than advice of the so called feminists around here to lay back and take abuse.
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Well, dpmonahan you certainly have managed to tell people to “fuck off”. If that was your goal, congratulations. That was pretty much my point about using the word “hysteria” in this particular issue. You are just telling people to fuck off, but even though you get their attention that way, it does not mean they hear what you have to say. Nor does it mean you have solved the problem…
Who said the “crisis” is undefinable? Oh, indeed, it was you, but is it truly? Even if some numbers in a specific study were not exact or even very representative, about a particular issue that is bothering the society, that does not mean the society is not bothered by the issue. Nor does it mean, suggestions to solutions to the problem could not be put forward.
Besides we are not talking about a temporary “crisis”, but a traditional problem inhereted to us through generations of ignorance mixing with self-centered attitudes. You are only justified in calling it a “crisis” by recognizing the proportions of the problem. Your point, that the exact proportions are an unknown factor, does not make it a non-problem. On the contrary it is a well known and not at all a minor problem in all societies. One of the biggest causes to the problem lies in confusion about the limits of social behaviour. Downplaying the seriousness of the issue is to muddy the field for what the limits are and a sad attempt to hinder the discussion to set actual and moral limits. (Sad in the sense, that it seems to have even burst new venues for the discussion.) There is no reason to just await the problem to go away on it’s own. That method of problem solving has proven rarely very effective in any given situation.
Your examples through 1), 2) and 3) were not really parrallel to the issue at hand. Not at least in the sense you would claim. They are separate issues all together. There is no secret political agendas behind any of these. The political agendas connected to all of these issues are in the public arena.
The need to see the world in patterns is a primitive urge. But recognizing actual patterns from only seemingly pattern-like phenomenons is the key to critical thinking. And even if in some cases a form of “hysteria” by scandalous publicity as created by market run media corporations did appear (even as far as to influence politics) the right solution to these phenomenons and problems is not to just call out “fuck you” and ask that everybody were silent about such phenomenons.
Your example 1) was about people not feeling safe and demanding justice, because they were ignorant about the actual cultural development and numbers. But the problem is not going away on it’s own. In a democratic society there needs to be discussion about the problems for us to set things right, when we vote. In any case such media attention creates a number of worth while discussion about what is the morals for punishing criminals and how, what causes the sort of lunacy as mass murders and how could any such be prevented while not giving up our liberties. Such discussion may be occasionally coloured by overzealous, or even “hysteric” attitudes, but it does not make the discussion uninportant, nor the problem nonexistant.
In 2) the problem is still often about racism, because race is an issue, and it often is motivated by racial hatred. Do not tell me you do not have racistically motivated hate crimes in the US. Such problems do not disappear just by saying that there are a lot less of them, than there used to be. It is only because the attention of people are drawn to these issues, and they are discussed in the public, that they are in decline.
3) Indeed in this issue the media creates a false image of the situation and I agree with your assesment of it, but it is not parallel to the problem at hand, exept that the motivation for the misbehaviour, comes from ultra conservative cultural heritage. Yet, what ever the reality of the problem, people want the problem as presented to them to be solved. People want terrorism to be stopped what ever the cause, be it religious extremism, school bullies, or simply bad medication of young men. It is the terrorism they are worried, not so much the religion motivating it. Look see, we have secular well behaving muslims. It is only the Christian conservatives who seem to make the false assumption, that all Muslims are extremists.
What the public in all these three examples want is the problem they percieve to exist to be solved, not some obscure “unrelated reasons” or hidden agendas to fall through. If you start to assume people have some obscure “unrelated reasons” to be the actual motive instead of the percieved and presented problem as percieved by the general public, then you have moved over to the conspiracy theorist territory. But that is a nother discussion, unless you really claim, rape does not happen and behind it being discussed in the public, there is some obscure “unrelated reason” that some secret organization is running…
You said: ” If I assert there is no problem of Islamic terrorism in the US…” But there is a problem of rape and sexual assaults in the US, hence your example does not provide us any sort of parallel. Judging from you making this comparrison and by your own advice as to how to deal a sexual assault situation, you have not fully grasped that there is a problem. That is, why it would do you good to set yourself to the position of the victim, for you to appriciate that there is a problem and for you to see where the limits should be. It is intellectually insulting only if you are not intelligent enough to see the relevance.
But it seems it is too hard for you to set yourself in the position of a target of sexual harrasment or rape. Is that why instead of accepting that it was rape, if a if you had passed out in a party and a big bulking gay dude put his finger in your ass, you call it “anal probing”? As if it was some sort of medical inspection you were getting, rather than you were sexually violated? Do not bother answering, you have said your piece, this was just a rethoric question to show what did you actually answer, since you have allready answered…
Yes, rape is condemned in every human society, exept that in different cultures we put different limits to what we call rape. Rape within a marriage was considered “normal” in all of Christendom for almost 2000 years. But it was still rape. By appriciating the feelings of the target of agressive or even just physical sexual advances, are we able to determine where the limits should be. What is the moral of the given issue.
The tradition has been, that it has not been the victims who get to determine where they would want the limits of sexual advances to be, or even what is considered rape. Also in western tradition we have a history of downplaying it as a problem, other than as from the view of the owner of the property eg. male relatives of the raped. Such is now past, but still we have these Christian conservative men who would see even what the victim would call a rape as just a sort of surprice sex, or as no biggie at all. Christian conservative women would even condemn the rape victim for what she wore, as if not wearing clothes to match their understanding of virtuous fashion, somehow excused the rape itself. But what is right or wrong is not culturally relativistic, the harm done is the same wether the offender felt more or less remorse for it, because of cultural heritage.
I did not say, that the groped woman should just give in on a possible rape. That is either deliberate twisting of my words, or an incredibly stupid interpretation of what I said. But you offered it as a solution to a social problem, wich it is not. The woman in this example could survive better by fighting (especially if she is a good fighter) or by runnig (if she is a good runner) or by talking (if she is a good speaker), but the point is, that she should not be in this situation in the first place and especially not, because the “creep” groping her thinks that groping is socially acceptable, or no biggie. You know, women get to such situations all the time in the western world, and have for all of our history, exactly because the “creep” thought it was OK on some level. But it is not, and never was.
Social attitudes about a great many immoral practices considered normal have changed and mostly for the better. But they do not change on their own. It takes hard work and more than anything education. Calling that work “hysteria” reveals not only ignorance, but also a self-centered attitude. But, as a conselation I can offer you this, we all have blind spots. People need to be educated on how to evaluate reality, in order for them to understand what really is right and what is wrong, by what harm, or benefit is done and that the rights of one individual end where the rigths of a nother begin. Social morals can not be based on mutual threat of violence, because in that game the weaker party is always the loser, as has been in a number of issues, including sexual harrasment and ultimately rape, for generations. Better morals can only be achieved by understanding the issues at hand and that is only possible if the possible offender learns to see the issue from the view of the possible victim and how that relates to themselves.
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