Didn’t read past the OP, so as to give unspoiled commentary.
As far as I know, rape has little to do with sex. It’s mostly about a perverse power/control/abuse thing. I don’t think most men are into that. Scratch that…no real men are into that, but some assholes that happen to be male are.
I voted on the high end, 75-99%. (I’m thinking around 80%.) I think I lose a little more faith in humanity every time I contemplate what is considered normal, acceptable behavior in “the dating game”. Like many, however, I’m not so devoid of faith in my fellow human beings that I view the forcable scenario as the one that’s most likely to qualify as “ideal circumstances”. Use of drugs, deception, and all manner of other things seem infinitely more likely to me. Add in the ones who are too ignorant of one anothers’ feelings or lacking in ability to interpret them, and we’ve got another large group.
I do believe it is a minority who would actually want to force themselves on another person, and I don’t see “fear of getting caught” as the main issue. The main issue is people who suffer from a kind of distorted thinking wherein either they view sex as something owed to them, or wherein they believe they are wanted even in the face of violent resistence.
There’s also a disturbing degree to which people can justify poor behavior to themselves. Consider the person who decides that it’s okay to slip someone a roofy and have his way with her, since what she doesn’t know can’t traumatize her. This is someone who genuinely cares about the other person’s mental health, but has such distorted thinking that they are dangerous anyway.
Jesus, is this the natural end-point of the “if a woman walked up to you in a bar…” threads?
I’d expect a bigger percentage than that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a minority of rapists are responsible for most rapes. Like murder; most murderers kill one person. Then you have the minority of murderers, who kill person after person. Some people give in to their uncivilized urges once; a few have no problems with indulging themselves regardless of the cost to others.
Yes. Assholes/things that commit rape are just SO self centered. They misuse their penis.
Most of the rapes do seem to be the " got drunk/stoned and have impaired judgement sort of thing.
Not to mention the guys who may misread social cues and think " Oh she wants what I want"
Not to mention the assholes who take advantage of girls with develeopmental delays. I know a couple who were raped by “boyfriends”
However, even with that stranger rape tends to be overall kind of rare. Ido agree with whoever said that most rape is probaly perpetrated by scum who are so narcisstic/sociopathic the only thing that matters is THEIR pleasure!
I’ve heard of surveys (and this was ages ago, so I no longer remember where I heard it) done of college students where the survey asked “Would you rape a woman?” and naturally, very few said yes. Then a bit later another of the questions asked (for example) “Would you finger a woman who’d passed out from drinking?” and the number of yeses was significantly higher. The questions continued on presenting similar scenarios which met the legal definition of rape/sexual assault, but without using those words to describe it; and the number of “yes” answers were pretty significant.
The point being, is that the reason a lot of men rape, is that they convince themselves that it’s not rape to do [whatever]. It’s not even a matter of thinking they can get away with it – they don’t even believe that it’s wrong. And I think the number of these guys is pretty significant, although I hope most of 'em eventually get wiser as they get older.
I’d actually guess that the “floor” is higher than that, since the survey questions used the word “force” which is still a very loaded word.
I put 1-10%, thinking about 5-10% is the rough level of scumbags I seem to encounter. Could be more or less. Personally, I can’t even fathom the attraction, and find the idea of role play of this or even spanking as something that just does absolutely nothing for me, to the point of being disturbing.
I think less than 1%. None of the conditions really seem like they would increase the actual numbers.
Also, the set-up makes it sound like the rapist is fully aware he is committing a crime (else why would he care about legal consequences) and overpowers his victim.
Even some actual rapists (the kind who convince themselves the woman is willing, or who commit the crime under the influence of drugs and don’t overpower anyone), while evil, might not want to do it.
And then there are the social consequences. Are there really people who don’t care about the social consequences of being a rapist, but can’t think of a way to get by the legal aspect?
Same reasoning, same result here.
And I’d add that if on top of that you add browbeating, strongarming, tricking, blackmailing, peer pressuring, mind games etc… in order to get the woman to give a consent she doesn’t really mean, deliberately throwing away everything but that half-hearted “…ok”, you can add ~30 more percents.
I know, I know, we’ve already had that great debate - grey line, how can you know if she really means yes, she shouldn’t say yes if she doesn’t mean it, blah blah blah. It’s still extremely uncool and you know it.
ETA : clarification : I’m not talking directly at **Zeriel ** here - it’s general yous and wes throughout.
You’re talking about date rape, right?
I think its hugely dependent on the circumstances. In the fifties and sixties, the percentage might well have been above 10 percent, because the men could put their consciences at rest with some rationale like:“her mouth said no, but her eyes and body said yes”, to “a man has needs and she was a tease” and “well, she didn’t tell anybody later, so it’s our little secret”.
Nowadays, I suspect the percentage of men able to delude themselves like that is (far) under 1 percent.
On the other hand, given a war situation, and command as well as army comrades turning a blind eye or even encouraging, soldiers to rape and loot, and most men being drunk, the percentage might be about 20-30 percent.
Woman psychologist here.
I suspect those voting that way were reading the question as I did initially before corrected, mainly as what additional percentage of men would rape if given the opportunity. Obviously, some percentage of men rape right now: see my previous post about the "floor’ and the “ceiling” numbers.
Say, if 6% (number taken from that college survey, just as an example) of men are already prone to rape women - stranger-on-stranger, date rape, whatever. Obviously these folks would rape if given the opportunity - they have already proved that. What percentage of the rest not raping women because they are deterred by the law and/or lack the opportunity (but would if they could)? To my mind, that’s the interesting question.
Rape is a unique sort of crime because there in no consensus as to how desireable the object of the crime is. Everyone likes money, so theft is instantly understandable. Everyone has at one point or another been very angry at someone and so violence is also understandable. Most types of common crime are undestandable (if not condoneable). Rape is an oddity because there is an actual contrioversy over whether men would, or would not, relish sex if it were coerced. Obviously some do, and those that do relish it a lot - enough to risk severe social sanctions in order to get it. The argument is really whether those that aren’t doing it secretly relish it also, or not.
In short, is rape a crime more like theft - something understandable if deplorable - or is it more like pedophilia or cannibalism - something that the average person isn’t really tempted to do? To my mind, that’s the question; and I lean towards the latter.
I still believe it’s less than 1%. There are ~30 million males in England, take away those under 16 (I have no idea, lets say a third) and that still leaves 200,000 potential rapists. I don’t want to believe there are more than that…
Jeez…my condolences to that guy.
Yeah, under 1%. Think of it this way: you’re in a room with 101 people, and only one of them is likely to be a rapist. That seems fair.
I have to ask, those of you who answered 50% and upwards, do you really, really think that given a crowd of 4 men, that two of them are potential rapists? Holy cow fuck! What sort of demographic environment do you all live in?
Why have you arbitrarily taken away those under 16? This rapist was only eleven, and sadly the story isn’t that uncommon. Several of my (former, they’ve obviously been thrown out of school now) students, all well under sixteen, are currently awaiting sentencing for a gang rape, and one for a separate incident of one-on-one rape. In the first instance, they thought they would get away with it because the girl was known to be sexually active, so they decided to all have her at once. In the second, the electricity had gone off and a boy dragged a girl into a toilet, thinking that because the lights were out and the CCTV system was linked up to the power supply, he wouldn’t get caught.
The second one in particular fits pretty well into the OP’s scenario - he really thought he could get away with it, so he did it. I am unconvinced that 99% or more of men wouldn’t feel the same way, especially with the number of women I know who have been raped or sexually assaulted.
The hell with that-I want the name of his doctor!
No. I wasn’t thinking of those threads at all.
You *seriously *believe that 99%+ of men would rape if given that chance? :rolleyes: That is so fucking insane. Anyone who believes that has some serious issues.
While I do think we shouldn’t exclude boys under 16–a lot of rapists are very young–I think that saying that 99 percent of men would rape if they could get away with it is a BIT bleak. Yes, many women are raped and assaulted, but I think that some men commit many acts of rape. I think if I genuinely believed that the overwhelming majority of men would rape if they could, I’d go out and hang myself. What a world!