What do you do about rape?

[dx713]

Yes, but not the same kind of effort/opportunity.
It's easier for a shy and needy and drunk "kid" to rape another drunk "kid" than for them to suddenly find the ressource to become an adult about seeking a date while their already inexistent-and-made-to-look-even-worse-by-neediness social skills are hampered by alcohol.<snip>

Is it easier than going to prostitute, though?

When in a middle of a college party, and drunk enough? Oh yes.
Unless you're drunk enough to have no reservation about dealing with a street-walker (who is probably an exploited addict and much less attractive than most of the persons at the party you just left were, and trades in a seedier part of town you might not usually cross, etc) you have to arrange something beforehand through an escort service that uses euphemism like "massages" (sollicitation being illegal in France and most European countries).
It was even worse before the Internet.
It requires planning, preparation, and an adult and healthy outlook about sex and the readiness to discuss your state of frustration with a stranger that you might not consider a professional because their trade lies in a grey legal area. Not exactly the state of mind of a shy and needy and drunk "kid".
Plus, you probably just blew all the cash you had left for drinks or entrance fees at the aforementioned party.

Now, in a ideal world with a healthy outlook on sex and relationships, not burdened by remnants of abrahamic religions culture, and with legal and transparent prostitution, that should work. (IMHO)
But in such a world, a lot of the shy kids would actually be able to discuss sexuality and find dates by themselves, leaving resort to rape only for the sadists, or prostitution only for the genuinely interested in the expretise of the prostitute or those with serious mental problems. And I don't think that's the world we're living in.

 

[Jokodo]

Yes, but not the same kind of effort/opportunity.
It's easier for a shy and needy and drunk "kid" to rape another drunk "kid" than for them to suddenly find the ressource to become an adult about seeking a date while their already inexistent-and-made-to-look-even-worse-by-neediness social skills are hampered by alcohol.<snip>

Is it easier than going to prostitute, though?

When in a middle of a college party, and drunk enough? Oh yes.

Even when drunk in the middle of a party, you know that rape is a serious criminal offense while going to prostitute is not illegal in most jurisdictions and a misdemeanor where it is. Under no circumstances will rape come out as the easier or cheaper option from even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Even when drunk in the middle of a party, you know that rape is a serious criminal offense while going to prostitute is not illegal in most jurisdictions and a misdemeanor where it is. Under no circumstances will rape come out as the easier or cheaper option from even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis.

It's strange that rape is still a problem then. After all, I think we can all agree that if there's one thing that drunken criminals excel at, it's the ability to perform a rational cost-benefit analysis of their actions before doing them.

 

[Hickdive]

I put my cape on, jump in my rocket car and cruise round dispensing justice to all rapists and potential rapists.

 

[steve_bnk]

Thereis no longer any deterrence to rape.

It used to be in acommunity abuse such as rape would be handled within if a male gottoo far out of line. Adult males would respond up to and includingtaking the man aside and beating the hell of him.
Todaythat would be largely unacceptable, people would be sued and or arrested.

While people rant about police brutality and abuse of power, the reality is police have largely been proscribed from acting proactively.

Backin the 50s I was alone in a locker room at the Y. An older kid maybe 18 or 19 started giving me some trouble. One of the staff heard it, they dragged him to the gym, held him down in a chair, and washed hismouth our t with soap.

The social-sexual revolution of the 60s-70s removed a lot of the old social boundaries on behavior both male and female. TV is awash in violence, language, and overt sexuality unthinkable in the 60s.

look at the James Bond mythos, especially the early films. Women are bent to the lead characte's will resulting in sexual submission. In his BarbaraWalters interview Connery said men have the right to physicallystrike a woman if she gets 'out of line'.
Point being you can not separate behaviors from what is drilled into the culture by the media in all forms.

I asked this on another tread. If you oppose rape, do you also oppose porn that depicts rape even given it is done with consenting adults? An individual may get aroused by it but never actually rape, but it goes to the point of the power of social norms.

Is there something inherently ambiguous about a culture that feeds ongraphic sex and violence, but then gets upset by the few who actually succumb to it?

I stopped watching porn when I realized what a lot of it represented. Humiliation and degradation of women.

It is a societal symptom. We have a problem with sexual violence and coercion among kids.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I'm wondering if the "rape is about power" advocates feel uncomfortable saying rape is about sex because they feel that if they gave the latter any credence it would just ratchet up the slut-shaming and the "well, she shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt" talk from the other side.

But the point is the latter could be 100% true and it should not make one iota of difference to the wrongness of rape.

Let's say you're hungry and you forgot your wallet and won't be able to eat all day. You walk past someone eating a delicious looking hamburger. It doesn't matter if you're hungry. It doesn't matter how shamelessly someone has been wolfing down that delicious burger, in front of God and everybody. You've got no right to snatch it out of their hand and scoff it down.

I honestly think 'rape is about power' is a meme that makes it easy for people to dismiss rape activists as radicals preaching condescendingly to the hoi polloi from their tenured professorships ivory towers. It doesn't help that it just seems to be plain wrong, or at least totally unevidenced.

Anti-rape activists need to tackle the slut-shamers at their own game.

"Yes, she was wearing an outfit that would make a streetwalker blush. Yes, she was drinking hard and flirting shamelessly. And if you did not get consent to have sex with her, you raped her, and you are 100% culpable.

I think its also important to acknowledge the point that yes, dressing like a street walker IS going excite a potential rapist and make it more likely you get raped. Just because rape isn't excusable and the one doing the rape is 100% cuplable no matter what the victim is wearing, doesn't make it wise to walk alone in a bikini through the a dark alley in a bad neighbourhood. Saying that sometimes gets confused for "slut shaming".

 

[Jokodo]

I'm wondering if the "rape is about power" advocates feel uncomfortable saying rape is about sex because they feel that if they gave the latter any credence it would just ratchet up the slut-shaming and the "well, she shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt" talk from the other side.

But the point is the latter could be 100% true and it should not make one iota of difference to the wrongness of rape.

Let's say you're hungry and you forgot your wallet and won't be able to eat all day. You walk past someone eating a delicious looking hamburger. It doesn't matter if you're hungry. It doesn't matter how shamelessly someone has been wolfing down that delicious burger, in front of God and everybody. You've got no right to snatch it out of their hand and scoff it down.

I honestly think 'rape is about power' is a meme that makes it easy for people to dismiss rape activists as radicals preaching condescendingly to the hoi polloi from their tenured professorships ivory towers. It doesn't help that it just seems to be plain wrong, or at least totally unevidenced.

Anti-rape activists need to tackle the slut-shamers at their own game.

"Yes, she was wearing an outfit that would make a streetwalker blush. Yes, she was drinking hard and flirting shamelessly. And if you did not get consent to have sex with her, you raped her, and you are 100% culpable.

I think its also important to acknowledge the point that yes, dressing like a street walker IS going excite a potential rapist and make it more likely you get raped. <snip>

Any actual evidence, or just "common sense"?

 

[Bronzeage]

Yes, but not the same kind of effort/opportunity.
It's easier for a shy and needy and drunk "kid" to rape another drunk "kid" than for them to suddenly find the ressource to become an adult about seeking a date while their already inexistent-and-made-to-look-even-worse-by-neediness social skills are hampered by alcohol.<snip>

Is it easier than going to prostitute, though?

When in a middle of a college party, and drunk enough? Oh yes.

Even when drunk in the middle of a party, you know that rape is a serious criminal offense while going to prostitute is not illegal in most jurisdictions and a misdemeanor where it is. Under no circumstances will rape come out as the easier or cheaper option from even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis.

This does not reflect reality. If it did there would be no such thing as DUI.

The problem is not so much that alcohol impairs judgment, but that the behavior is not considered a crime and certainly not a "serious criminal offense." We need to remember, these are the same conditions under which some people draw mustaches on passed out drunks and take photos of them while someone rubs their scrotum on his forehead. This is what they do to their friends.

 

[Archimedes]

Even when drunk in the middle of a party, you know that rape is a serious criminal offense while going to prostitute is not illegal in most jurisdictions and a misdemeanor where it is. Under no circumstances will rape come out as the easier or cheaper option from even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis.

But some drunk randy teenager at a college party finding a drunk girl passed out on a bed isn't thinking about the potential criminal consequences of being caught and convicted of rape. He's drunk after all and therefore not thinking rationally.

And I don't see the relevance anyway. What you said is true whether he's raping the girl because he's drunk and randy and lacks the moral backbone to know that having sex with a passed out girl is the wrong thing to do both morally and legally or whether he's raping the girl because for the other reasons discussed to do with exerting power over someone.

Whether he rapes the girl for sexual reasons or other reasons, what you said is true "Under no circumstances will rape come out as the easier or cheaper option from even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis." so why would someone rape a passed out girl as a party for other reasons given what you said?

 

[bigfield]

I think its also important to acknowledge the point that yes, dressing like a street walker IS going excite a potential rapist and make it more likely you get raped.

I donm't have the link, but RavenSky posted evidence on FRDB that debunked this fallacy.

If anything, the evidence suggested that clothing which communicates self-confidence, including sexy clothing, deters potential attackers looking for an easy target.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Do you think that it is "sex only" which motivates some partners to simulate a rape situation?

Who cares what motivates rape fantasy roleplayers? People who indulge in consensual rape fantasies probably don't have the same mindset as actual rapists. Unless you are arguing people who engage in rape fantasy roleplay are just rapists who lucked into finding a willing girl.

On the other hand, wouldn't the fact that rape fantasy involves two willing participants undermine it being about power?

Not at all. The rape role playing implies the situation of a submitted party versus a dominant one. The dominant one symbolizing power/control over the submitted one.

You seem to have totally missed my point that the ideologically based motivation which you attributed to people who do not abide to the "only for sex" claim is NOT supported. You indeed ventured in some type of armchair psy based speculations on their account. Attributing to them motives they do not have.

 

[Sabine Grant]

I think its also important to acknowledge the point that yes, dressing like a street walker IS going excite a potential rapist and make it more likely you get raped.

I donm't have the link, but RavenSky posted evidence on FRDB that debunked this fallacy.

If anything, the evidence suggested that clothing which communicates self-confidence, including sexy clothing, deters potential attackers looking for an easy target.

I too recall that thread on FRDB and the content of her link. Further, "easy target" is the key here. The target is designated based on her state of vulnerability not what she is wearing. Vulnerability such as being in an isolated location. Vulnerability such as being physically demeaned or impaired such as being passed out after a drinking binge. Vulnerability such as trusting she is safe with her date and will accept to go to an isolated location with him.Also vulnerability found among victims who knew their rapist being part of their work or family or social circle environment. Etc...etc...

It is a matter of finding a "target of opportunity", not a matter of what she wears. The opportunity presents itself each time based on her perceived or observed (by the perp) vulnerability.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Sometimes its hard to separate sex from dominance. Sex, even consensual sex, can make a man feel powerful. Dominating somebody can give a man a sexual charge, at a very base and instinctual level. I have felt this myself. I do not know if it also applies to women. I do know that some women do get a sexual charge from the simulation of being dominated (which is likely very different than if they were actually raped).

I have roleplayed rape at the demand of a girlfriend. I wasn't very comfortable with it initially, but she insisted, and she very much got off on it. After a few times doing it, I felt a bit of twisted extra gratification too, holding her down with a nerf pirate sword at her throat as she struggled and yelled at me to stop. It scared me feeling that and I didn't want to do it again. She very much wanted me to. We broke up over it, with her saying we were not sexually compatible.

Our safe word was "safe word".

That said, I don't think all rape is about power and dominance. It is probably often about wanting to get off and experience sex, especially in those cases of a passed out victim. If you wanted dominance, you'd want resistance. You'd want to be exerting your will over that of another. And I would expect that sex is only one way of doing that.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It is a matter of finding a "target of opportunity", not a matter of what she wears. The opportunity presents itself each time based on her perceived or observed (by the perp) vulnerability.

Interesting thought experiment. Send a small attractive woman in a bikini down a dark alley full of rapists, and then send a small plain looking woman with no make up and wearing a coat down the same alley, and see who gets raped first. Despite the study you think you recall reading, I'll put my money on the bikini clad girl. Note that vulnerability and what she's dressed like are not mutually exclusive factors.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is a matter of finding a "target of opportunity", not a matter of what she wears. The opportunity presents itself each time based on her perceived or observed (by the perp) vulnerability.

Interesting thought experiment.

Not as interesting as you think seeing it has no real life value to it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I can't even imagine having sex with an unwilling partner, I just wouldn't do it. Gawd when I think back now with hindsight at all the opportunities I had that I knocked back because of my shyness, I could literately sit down and cry.

Very similar feelings on my part. The most attractive thing about sex to me is when my partner really wants it too and as a result I've tended not to be the initiator. The thought of having sex with an unwilling partner is repulsive to me.

 

[J842P]

I think its also important to acknowledge the point that yes, dressing like a street walker IS going excite a potential rapist and make it more likely you get raped.

I donm't have the link, but RavenSky posted evidence on FRDB that debunked this fallacy.

If anything, the evidence suggested that clothing which communicates self-confidence, including sexy clothing, deters potential attackers looking for an easy target.

I too recall that thread on FRDB and the content of her link. Further, "easy target" is the key here. The target is designated based on her state of vulnerability not what she is wearing. Vulnerability such as being in an isolated location. Vulnerability such as being physically demeaned or impaired such as being passed out after a drinking binge. Vulnerability such as trusting she is safe with her date and will accept to go to an isolated location with him.Also vulnerability found among victims who knew their rapist being part of their work or family or social circle environment. Etc...etc...

It is a matter of finding a "target of opportunity", not a matter of what she wears. The opportunity presents itself each time based on her perceived or observed (by the perp) vulnerability.

Yeah, I have to say, the whole "dressing sexy makes you vulnerable to getting raped" idea just needs to be taken out back and shot. It is completely bogus. In the only sexual assault (a date rape sort) that I was aware of having occurred while I was at college the victim was a "mousy" girl, for the lack of a better term.

- - - Updated - - -

It is a matter of finding a "target of opportunity", not a matter of what she wears. The opportunity presents itself each time based on her perceived or observed (by the perp) vulnerability.

Interesting thought experiment. Send a small attractive woman in a bikini down a dark alley full of rapists, and then send a small plain looking woman with no make up and wearing a coat down the same alley, and see who gets raped first. Despite the study you think you recall reading, I'll put my money on the bikini clad girl. Note that vulnerability and what she's dressed like are not mutually exclusive factors.

Exactly what proportion of rapes do you think occur from people walking down dark alleys full of rapists?

 

[J842P]

Thereis no longer any deterrence to rape.

It used to be in acommunity abuse such as rape would be handled within if a male gottoo far out of line. Adult males would respond up to and includingtaking the man aside and beating the hell of him.
Todaythat would be largely unacceptable, people would be sued and or arrested.

While people rant about police brutality and abuse of power, the reality is police have largely been proscribed from acting proactively.

Backin the 50s I was alone in a locker room at the Y. An older kid maybe 18 or 19 started giving me some trouble. One of the staff heard it, they dragged him to the gym, held him down in a chair, and washed hismouth our t with soap.

The social-sexual revolution of the 60s-70s removed a lot of the old social boundaries on behavior both male and female. TV is awash in violence, language, and overt sexuality unthinkable in the 60s.

look at the James Bond mythos, especially the early films. Women are bent to the lead characte's will resulting in sexual submission. In his BarbaraWalters interview Connery said men have the right to physicallystrike a woman if she gets 'out of line'.
Point being you can not separate behaviors from what is drilled into the culture by the media in all forms.

I asked this on another tread. If you oppose rape, do you also oppose porn that depicts rape even given it is done with consenting adults? An individual may get aroused by it but never actually rape, but it goes to the point of the power of social norms.

Is there something inherently ambiguous about a culture that feeds ongraphic sex and violence, but then gets upset by the few who actually succumb to it?

I stopped watching porn when I realized what a lot of it represented. Humiliation and degradation of women.

It is a societal symptom. We have a problem with sexual violence and coercion among kids.

Steve: what world do you live in? You think guys don't beat up other guys on account of girls anymore? Seriously? You think the prospects for women avoiding sexual assault were actually better in "the good ol' days" of the 1950s?

 

[J842P]

I doubt that all rapes are because of rage, desire for power and dominance. But I think some combination of those drives a lot more sexual assault than we care to admit. Sex is pretty easily available to most people who seek it out. Even guys who are not traditionally handsome. Or good with words or people.

Well, I don't think anyone has argued against the claim that many rapes are probably about expressing power/dominance. I don't find that hard to believe. What I have claimed to be skeptical about is the implication that only a negligible portion of rapes are about getting sex. You say that sex is pretty easily available to most people. Perhaps "most people" is technically true in the strict sense of "more than not." However, that still leaves many people who do not have "easy" access to sex. Most of the guys I know that aren't in a relationship don't have easy access to sex.

Yes, they do. If nothing else, they can go to a prostitute. I know it's technically illegal where you live (assuming Georgia, is that right?), but sure you are not going to argue that the opportunity cost of rape (is lower than the opportunity cost of going to a prostitute.

I live in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area (Virginia side). Close .

Anyway, I would respond that of course these kids could just go to a prostitute, especially today with the miracle of the internet. But most people don't go around living their life according to a rational, cost-benefit analysis. We aren't Vulcans. People are monkeys. Most people have never even heard the words "opportunity cost." Most people act on impulse without much thinking ahead. Especially young, drunk people. I don't understand why this is such a controversial thing to say.

All I've claimed is that I would think that many rapes, certainly a non-negligible amount, occur because there is some opportunity (passed out girl or even guy) and a sexually frustrated person who thinks they can get away with it.

 

[J842P]

EDIT: double post.