What do you do about rape?

[Toni]

Here's a question (after you read the link). Men - what do you do to protect women from being raped?

(yes, of course, men are raped, too. Start your own thread for that, this is about a subset of rape)

This sounds like a partly made-up story to me: the "I was stunned" part.
The content of the women's and women's responses. sadly, is totally unsurprising.

BTW, I avoid rape by not being alone in a secluded place with a man I don't know well and with whom I don't want to have sex. This is true and not a joke; having been molested once as a boy, and being gay as an adult, I have had to think about male sexuality in relation to my self.

The 'stunned' part seems disengenuos to me.


Ironically, or perhaps predictably, no one ever tried to rape me in a dating context. My parents were very careful and strict about who I could and could not date and about meeting the guy, etc. I didn't need such caution: I was much more careful than they were.

The first attempted rape was years before I was allowed to date and the attack came from a member of my extended family that I had never had any reason to distrust up to that moment.

The next person attacked me when I was at a friend's apartment. We were having a quiet night with both of our boyfriends working. We didn't expect her boyfriend to come he early or bring his rat bastard friend with him. I should have been perfectly safe.

 

[RavenSky]

Either what a woman wears does or does not make a potential rapist more likely to rape her. Pointing at other, likely stronger factors (availability) and pointing to "what the implication is to conduct a research where rape victims would be... ", doesn't answer that question. Do you or don't you have evidence to show that men are equally inclined to rape a woman dressed attractively as not attractively? Do you or do you not have evidence to show that how she looks has no bearing on the potential rapists likelihood to do the deed?

If you do, this may play directly into the power over sexual desire argument. If you do not, then I'll stick with my intuitive guess until shown otherwise.

Reversing the burden of evidence. You are the one making a positive claim and "intuitive guesses" and "common sense" don't replace evidence.

On a pragmatic level, the burden of evidence actually appears to lie with whomever is the most emotionally invested in actually convincing others to accept their POV (and that probably only really applies when the ones they're trying to convince are sufficiently rational that they can't be swayed without evidence, a very shaky assumption when the topic is politics). In this case, that's clearly RavenSky et al. Jolly Penguin really can afford to just sit back and venture forth intuitive guesses that he doesn't care to actually prove. He has nothing to lose.

there is a word for people who post crap they don't "care to actually prove" just to get a rise out of other people

 

[Jokodo]

Either what a woman wears does or does not make a potential rapist more likely to rape her. Pointing at other, likely stronger factors (availability) and pointing to "what the implication is to conduct a research where rape victims would be... ", doesn't answer that question. Do you or don't you have evidence to show that men are equally inclined to rape a woman dressed attractively as not attractively? Do you or do you not have evidence to show that how she looks has no bearing on the potential rapists likelihood to do the deed?

If you do, this may play directly into the power over sexual desire argument. If you do not, then I'll stick with my intuitive guess until shown otherwise.

Reversing the burden of evidence. You are the one making a positive claim and "intuitive guesses" and "common sense" don't replace evidence.

On a pragmatic level, the burden of evidence actually appears to lie with whomever is the most emotionally invested in actually convincing others to accept their POV (and that probably only really applies when the ones they're trying to convince are sufficiently rational that they can't be swayed without evidence, a very shaky assumption when the topic is politics). In this case, that's clearly RavenSky et al. Jolly Penguin really can afford to just sit back and venture forth intuitive guesses that he doesn't care to actually prove. He has nothing to lose.

So, as long as you prefix every declaration with "I don't really care one way or the other, but intuitively ..." it's fine to argue for young earth creationism, phlogiston, or geocentrism.

Got you.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Nothing wrong with intuiting geocentricism. If you are then presented with actual evidence against it, like we have, then it makes no sense to hold onto it.

Nobody here has yet shown such evidence against the idea that a woman dressing enticing will be more likely to entice men to rape. Showing availability as a more potent factor doesnt do that.

Maybe Ravensky has better evidence, and maybe Ravensky has already posted it in another thread on another forum, but for some reason doesnt want to post it here.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Earlier, I purposefully placed the emphasis on the word "TRAUMA". Somehow,I thought it would be enough of a hint that folks who venture into the slippery slope argumentation based on " what she wears" are still dismissing the reality that every rape victim will experience post traumatic thoughts and emotions which can be revived by any notion or suggestion that she is partially responsible. The victim will process such argumentation as meaning " if I had not been wearing... maybe I would not have been raped". " If I had not done this or that...said this or that...etc..." With that re surges the victim's sense of having done something wrong.

I really have to question why the obsession with the "what she wears" bit. Does it even come remotely close to answering the Op question :

Men - what do you do to protect women from being raped?

The answer is no, it does not. Time after time in just about every thread covering a topic related to rape (the FRDB archived PD threads attest of that), someone is bound to launch the " what she wears" bit. Essentially, that obsessive rhetoric distracts from this:

Can we as empathetic human beings even prevent the exploitation and abuse of our fellow human beings? Can we in fact protect them to the extent that the rate of sexual crimes would drastically decrease? I contend we cannot...however I offer what we are left with that we can do. It is called "damage control". It means assisting and providing support to victims of sexual crimes. The damage has been done but we can still make a difference. We can help those dear and precious fellow human beings to get back on their feet. To undertake recovery steps to the point of healing. Never feeling like a victim any longer, but being a survivor.

I did it and with help. The help I received was not from folks who invest themselves into the "what she wears" bit. It came from survivors and mediators of support groups who then mentored me into being a mediator.

 

[Unbeatable]

On a pragmatic level, the burden of evidence actually appears to lie with whomever is the most emotionally invested in actually convincing others to accept their POV (and that probably only really applies when the ones they're trying to convince are sufficiently rational that they can't be swayed without evidence, a very shaky assumption when the topic is politics). In this case, that's clearly RavenSky et al. Jolly Penguin really can afford to just sit back and venture forth intuitive guesses that he doesn't care to actually prove. He has nothing to lose.

there is a word for people who post crap they don't "care to actually prove" just to get a rise out of other people

1) The exact nature of his motives in posting have yet to be established. I suspect that the motives underlying a majority of PD posts are questionable at best.
2) AFAIK, unless something has changed, you're still not allowed to use the aforementioned word, which is a bit of a disadvantage.
3) Jolly Penguin has nothing to lose from you trying to claim that said word applies to him in this context.
4) rape culture doesn't care if the word applies to him or not; the meme complex feeds on the content of speech, not just intent.

So, as long as you prefix every declaration with "I don't really care one way or the other, but intuitively ..." it's fine to argue for young earth creationism, phlogiston, or geocentrism.

And presumably, you're being disingenuous and in reality object to this. But what is your actual objection? Why isn't it fine? According to what criteria is it not "fine", and what realistic(i.e. acknowledging the reality that this is not a subforum whose culture reliably enforces the rules of rational debate) incentive is there to prioritize said criteria?

 

[bigfield]

Nothing wrong with intuiting geocentricism. If you are then presented with actual evidence against it, like we have, then it makes no sense to hold onto it.

Nobody here has yet shown such evidence against the idea that a woman dressing enticing will be more likely to entice men to rape. Showing availability as a more potent factor doesnt do that.

Maybe Ravensky has better evidence, and maybe Ravensky has already posted it in another thread on another forum, but for some reason doesnt want to post it here.

The problem is that it's a pain in the ass to go and find it again on the old forum.

The evidence that I recall was a study of convicted rapists, who were asked how they chose their targets. Among other things, the rapists revealed that they considered sexy clothing to be a sign of confidence, and combined with confident-looking walk and body language, made a woman a relatively difficult target, because confident people are more likely to resist and draw attention.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Earlier, I purposefully placed the emphasis on the word "TRAUMA". Somehow,I thought it would be enough of a hint that folks who venture into the slippery slope argumentation based on " what she wears" are still dismissing the reality that every rape victim will experience post traumatic thoughts and emotions which can be revived by any notion or suggestion that she is partially responsible. The victim will process such argumentation as meaning " if I had not been wearing... maybe I would not have been raped". " If I had not done this or that...said this or that...etc..." With that re surges the victim's sense of having done something wrong.

The effect of asking the question may be worth considering, but it is completely irrelevant to answering the question.

This reminds me of other ugly questions like "is there a racial or sex factor to intelligence?" or "are holocaust numbers exaggerated?"

People have strong emotional reactions to these questions and strong desire to answer them in a particular direction despite the truth. Should dangerous questions like these simply not be allowed to be asked?

I recall attending a lecture in my undergrad where the prof pointed to "the bell curve" to show rancid racism modern universities. The bell curve was a book by a guy claiming to show research that Asians are inherently smarter than white people, and white people smarter than black.

He presented this as a case of mad racism without even attempting to debunk it. That bothered me. I wanted to believe the bell curve was bunk and I wanted a proper debunking of it. I was surprised how hard it was to find one without bias ruining the study or argument. There were people doing so, adressing the issue dispassionately and rationally, but they were suprisingly rare.

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing wrong with intuiting geocentricism. If you are then presented with actual evidence against it, like we have, then it makes no sense to hold onto it.

Nobody here has yet shown such evidence against the idea that a woman dressing enticing will be more likely to entice men to rape. Showing availability as a more potent factor doesnt do that.

Maybe Ravensky has better evidence, and maybe Ravensky has already posted it in another thread on another forum, but for some reason doesnt want to post it here.

The problem is that it's a pain in the ass to go and find it again on the old forum.

The evidence that I recall was a study of convicted rapists, who were asked how they chose their targets. Among other things, the rapists revealed that they considered sexy clothing to be a sign of confidence, and combined with confident-looking walk and body language, made a woman a relatively difficult target, because confident people are more likely to resist and draw attention.

It would be interesting to see these interviews, what the questions were and how they were asked, and how many rapists were interviewed.

 

[Sabine Grant]

The effect of asking the question may be worth considering, but it is completely irrelevant to answering the question.

It is highly relevant to the reality that empathetic people would know better than engaging on a public forum in communications known to be distress triggers for rape victims. Got it?

This reminds me of other ugly questions like "is there a racial or sex factor to intelligence?" or "are holocaust numbers exaggerated?"

People have strong emotional reactions to these questions and strong desire to answer them in a particular direction despite the truth. Should dangerous questions like these simply not be allowed to be asked?

I recall attending a lecture in my undergrad where the prof pointed to "the bell curve" to show rancid racism modern universities. The bell curve was a book by a guy claiming to show research that Asians are inherently smarter than white people, and white people smarter than black.

He presented this as a case of mad racism without even attempting to debunk it. That bothered me. I wanted to believe the bell curve was bunk and I wanted a proper debunking of it. I was surprised how hard it was to find one without bias ruining the study or argument. There were people doing so, adressing the issue dispassionately and rationally, but they were suprisingly rare.

- - - Updated - - -

Read my above comment and reflect before you rationalize even further.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I don't find your call for censorship compelling.

 

[Unbeatable]

It is highly relevant to the reality that empathetic people would know better than engaging on a public forum in communications known to be distress triggers for rape victims. Got it?

Impressive tactic. But this is PD, not Support Fireside. Most people are empathetic to some extent or another, but none exercise empathy to the same extent 100% of the time, and not every situation calls for empathy to override all other priorities. Empathy in the case of a thread like this might merely warrant something like a "trigger warning" disclaimer, rather than tabooing certain lines of discussion which seem practically inevitable in a rape discussion.

 

[Mumbles]

Touchy?

If by touchy, you mean incredibly frustrated and disgusted to read a bunch of people simply write off a serious issue--one that affects men as well as women--not to mention children--with simply: I don't rape people, well, I guess I am touchy. Complacency in the face of grave wrong doing and harm does tend to make me feel a bit 'touchy.'

Hm.

This isn't really a matter of *preventing* rape, though, as unfortunate as that is. It's a question of what we do to safeguard ourselves against the threat- and it's correct to say that, in this case, most men end do little more than, say, not go to jail, while many women think about this matter pretty much whenever they go out.

But the truth is, for many of us guys, "I don't commit rape" is the only reasonable answer to the question. And that's not being nonchalant, it's because we've never been in a position to do any more than that. In the past 25 years, I've never had a guy brag about raping anyone (or a woman, for that matter) to me, tell a rape joke, or anything of that nature. I've had a grand total of 2 friends or relatives discuss an attempted rape - a guy broke into a cousin's apartment, and held a knife to her throat. Luckily for her, she fought him off. And one woman was attacked by her then-boyfriend - according to her, she couldn't fend him off.

I'd love to be able to simply say "Yes, I'd do what's right, and pull the guy off of her or him!" In truth, you never know until you're in that situation. But I assume that it's a good sign that I've never been invited to "run train" on a girl (and I mean *girl* here) or told about someone slipping drugs into some woman's drink...

 

[bigfield]

It is highly relevant to the reality that empathetic people would know better than engaging on a public forum in communications known to be distress triggers for rape victims. Got it?

Ultimately it is better to air such views so that they can be challenged.

- - - Updated - - -

It is highly relevant to the reality that empathetic people would know better than engaging on a public forum in communications known to be distress triggers for rape victims. Got it?

Ultimately it is better to air such views so that they can be challenged.

 

[angelo]

Here's a question (after you read the link). Men - what do you do to protect women from being raped?

(yes, of course, men are raped, too. Start your own thread for that, this is about a subset of rape)

This sounds like a partly made-up story to me: the "I was stunned" part.
The content of the women's and women's responses. sadly, is totally unsurprising.

BTW, I avoid rape by not being alone in a secluded place with a man I don't know well and with whom I don't want to have sex. This is true and not a joke; having been molested once as a boy, and being gay as an adult, I have had to think about male sexuality in relation to my self.

The 'stunned' part seems disengenuos to me.


Ironically, or perhaps predictably, no one ever tried to rape me in a dating context. My parents were very careful and strict about who I could and could not date and about meeting the guy, etc. I didn't need such caution: I was much more careful than they were.

The first attempted rape was years before I was allowed to date and the attack came from a member of my extended family that I had never had any reason to distrust up to that moment.

The next person attacked me when I was at a friend's apartment. We were having a quiet night with both of our boyfriends working. We didn't expect her boyfriend to come he early or bring his rat bastard friend with him. I should have been perfectly safe.

There are many cases of extended family rape, much more than there should be.

 

[ksen]

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.

Yeah, I didn't attribute anything to anybody. I said it probably shouldn't just be summarily dismissed.

 

[EricK]

Reading this and other similar threads a couple of things occur to me:

Firstly, there is a lot of anger towards people who are deemed to have an incorrect understanding of the psychology of rapists, and what causes them to rape (eg because they profess the belief that the clothing of the victim might have had something to do with it). This seems to be misplaced - after all, if someone does not understand the psychology of rapists, then this suggests that the person is not a potential rapist - which is surely a good sign. And if the majority of men hold incorrect views, then that is evidence that the majority of men are not potential rapists, which is even better news.

Secondly, if someone does suggest that eg clothing, or getting totally drunk or whatever, has something to do with it, then they will often be accused of "blaming the victim" (even if this is not the intention of the person making the claim), whereas claiming that rapists prey on those who appear vulnerable doesn't get this accusation levied at it, even though it seems to put just as much responsibility on the person who acted in a way to appear vulnerable, as the claim that a rapist preyed on someone who was drunk puts on the person who was drinking.

 

[doubtingt]

I was avoiding this thread because I didn't see a useful discussion in it, but in the mockery thread about "What do you do about murder", someone objected to that thread with the following:

Because it is significant that men and women have very different responses to that question, despite all the "men have it just as bad" protestations by the usual woman-haters.

I think this highlights the one interesting thing about the OP, which is that it shows the total lack of "doing" anything or ever even thinking about doing anything, or ever even thinking that there is any plausible future situation in which one will need to do anything about being raped, if one is male. As Underseer points out, the reason for this is that it is a very silly notion that actual rape is anything remotely close to the widespread and real problem for men that it is for women. Interestingly, Underseer claims that the "just as bad" claim is used by "women-haters". This is the part I would challenge. Inflating the numbers of male rape seems to be more a practice of politically active rape advocates attempting to increase the volume of the alarm bells by pretending its happening rampantly to everyone and to support the rather silly and unscientific notion that rape has nothing to do with sex, or those who want to deny any biological differences that make men more prone to an act like rape. I am sure there are some "women-haters" (especially those with a D in their screen name) who resort to a silly argument that rape is "just as bad" for men in order to devalue what a severe issue it is for women. But I would bet that arguments about male rape being under reported and far more common than believed come mostly from the sub-groups I referred to on the political left.
And I would argue that the facts of the OP are a problem for them and their rhetoric and claims. This includes a recent thread on changing the definition of "rape" to include sex where there is no evidence of any force or coercion, but just the inclusion of being "intoxicated". The OP of that thread pointed out that under this new definition, male rape rates skyrocket, and are more impacted by this new definition than female rates, thus the new definition results is less difference in rates by gender. I pointed out that this speaks to the objective invalidity of the new definition and that it means that it changes the concept of "rape" to include acts the few people (including the people categorized as "rape victims" by this definition) would or do categorize as actual rape.
This current OP supports this point. It highlights that a very tiny % of men ever think about what to do to avoid "rape" because it is extremely rare for a man (or any other men they know) to be forced into sex against their will (outside of prison and when their were kids) and that they quite reasonably see actual force or lack of consent as defining feature of "rape" and reject the notion that given consent is invalidated by not being in a state where one might make less than perfectly wise choices.

 

[Archimedes]

I was avoiding this thread because I didn't see a useful discussion in it, but in the mockery thread about "What do you do about murder", someone objected to that thread with the following:

Because it is significant that men and women have very different responses to that question, despite all the "men have it just as bad" protestations by the usual woman-haters.

I think this highlights the one interesting thing about the OP, which is that it shows the total lack of "doing" anything or ever even thinking about doing anything, or ever even thinking that there is any plausible future situation in which one will need to do anything about being raped, if one is male. As Underseer points out, the reason for this is that it is a very silly notion that actual rape is anything remotely close to the widespread and real problem for men that it is for women..

And who is putting forward the notion that actual rape is close to the widespread and real problem for men that it is for women? I don't see anyone in this thread making that claim, therefore bringing it up seems to be a strawman.

 

[doubtingt]

I was avoiding this thread because I didn't see a useful discussion in it, but in the mockery thread about "What do you do about murder", someone objected to that thread with the following:

Because it is significant that men and women have very different responses to that question, despite all the "men have it just as bad" protestations by the usual woman-haters.

I think this highlights the one interesting thing about the OP, which is that it shows the total lack of "doing" anything or ever even thinking about doing anything, or ever even thinking that there is any plausible future situation in which one will need to do anything about being raped, if one is male. As Underseer points out, the reason for this is that it is a very silly notion that actual rape is anything remotely close to the widespread and real problem for men that it is for women..

And who is putting forward the notion that actual rape is close to the widespread and real problem for men that it is for women? I don't see anyone in this thread making that claim, therefore bringing it up seems to be a strawman.

No, pretending that anything I said presumes that people in this thread have brought that up is your attempt at a strawman. The OP made the observation that men never think about what they would do to prevent being raped. Despite dishonest efforts by some here to draw other inferences about things with no logical relevance to the OP observations, the only thing that could be reasonably inferred from the male response in the OP scenario is that female on male rape is extremely rare.
Many people in other threads have tried to argue against this and/or have supported things such as the redefinition of rape which are contradicted by this, given the high male rape rates produced with the redefinition.
Most of the discussion in the thread is based upon nonsensical inference from the basic empirical observations in the OP story, so I am not trying to react to those posts in this thread. I am actually reacting to the implications of the OP and the conveyed story and point out its implications for issues that have been repeated raised on this board.

 

[Shadowy Man]

[Despite dishonest efforts by some here to draw other inferences about things with no logical relevance to the OP observations, the only thing that could be reasonably inferred from the male response in the OP scenario is that female on male rape is extremely rare.

Most people are very good at not worrying about mitigating risks when the probability of occurrence is (or they believe it is) very low, regardless of the consequences of the occurrence.