Exactly, rape is rape. But that’s not what the FBI statistics count. They only count forcible rape. So people under 18 whose rapes are charged as child molestation don’t count. People who are intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol (whether by their rapist or themselves) to a point that they cannot consent don’t count. People who have their lack of consent ignored by someone they know, classed as acquaintance rape (also known as “date rape”) don’t count.
All of the victims of those sorts of sexual violence are raped. But according the antiquated FBI definition, which hasn’t been updated in 90 years, while our understanding of the rights of all people to bodily autonomy and freedom from violence, they don’t count.
And neither do men. Because the FBI definition of rape states that it is specifically limited to forced vaginal penetration of women.
Lack of evidence is rarely a problem. It often comes down to a skewed sense of whether or not the complaining witness has “credibility” based on a standard that still says that what a woman wears, where she goes and how she acts has a mitigating effect on whether the violence she endures at someone else’s hand matters.
According to the FBI even under their skewed definition, in the last year they calculated it out, fewer than 8% of all rapes reported in the US are “unfounded” which means unsupportable or withdrawn, but not necessarily false – the false number is usually capped around 2%. (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_97/96CRIME/96crime2.pdf) One of the primary reasons for reports being classified as unfounded is that the victim is under the influence of drugs or alcohol when making the report. But studies have shown that alcohol is involved in more than half of all rape incidents, and in 4 out of 5 cases of acquaintance rape. (Cites 1 & 2) Figures from the UK are in alignment. (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf)
And there is a cycle in play. We are told that there are scores of vindictive women making false allegations, and thus, the bar for making a believable allegation is set higher and higher. Thus more allegations viewed as unfounded or “false” over time, and the belief that those allegations were false is reified, and the problem feeds itself, to the extent that there was a Senate subcommittee hearing into multiple large police departments efforts to disregard or downplay rape allegations via the “unfounded” label or charges being reduced to lesser crimes) and a growing number of women who are persistent in their rape claims are being arrested themselves, for making false charges. In another noted example, the police department of New Orleans was recently called out for a de facto policy of just not interviewing named sexual assault suspects and for designing “investigations” in a fashion meant to dismiss allegations as false rather than gathering enough evidence to prove them true in court. That would also include cases like that of Sara Reedy who was raped in the course of a robbery at the minimart where she worked outside of Pittsburgh. Police disbelieved Reedy in part because she froze when the rapist had his gun to her head, rather than trying to reach for an alarm button and decided she made up the story to cover for stealing the money herself. She spent several days in jail.
Given this cycle and the poor rate of arrest and conviction, a rape allegation is a really lousy method of hurting someone. There’s just no traction to the suggestion that any significant number of people would go through the process of a forensic rape exam, the intrusive nature of the questioning given a rape victim and the approbation that attaches, especially when the victim is disbelieved, when so little happens in most cases. (See: this breakdown.) The practices of the criminal justice system, in the face of rape allegations, empower rapists by discouraging victims of sexual violence from reporting the crimes against them.
Examples? Gladly. I could do this all night.
[ul]
[li]Tight jeans = no rape is a bad old idea that keeps coming back. 1999 in Italy and 2008 in Korea and 2010 in Australia[/li][li]Judge: Lesbians should face “corrective” rape to cure them (Correction: it was Tennessee, not North Carolina.) (Related: Corrective rape unchecked epidemic in South Africa.[/li][li]Toronto crime prevention officer: “Don’t dress like a slut”. (This has spawned a grassroots global protest movement entitled “Slutwalk”.)[/li][li]Winnepeg judge: You wore a tube top, high heels and makeup and flirted? You weren’t raped. Doesn’t matter if you said no. Even if you have scars.[/li][li]Idaho GOP legislator: Pregnancies resulting from rape are a sign of the hand of God at work an echo of the once & future GOP Senate candidate from Nevada who said that it’s God’s plan (plus that Justin Beiber kid, who’s more influential than either).[/li][li]The U.S. military’s “secret” shame: a shocking number of male-on-male sexual assaults (remember, they’re not officially rape because that can only happen to women).[/li][li]Not as secret or as shameful as 41% of female army troops reporting sexual assault, 29% reporting rape at the hands of male soldiers. That number is 18.9% in the Air Force. A woman on active duty in the U.S. military is more likely to be raped than hurt or killed in the line of duty, by orders of magnitude. This perpetuates largely because punishment rarely occurs.[/li][li]Less than a month ago, Irish police “joked” about raping several female protestors while they were in custody. They were recorded while doing so, but the situation is still “under investigation.”[/li][/ul]
Is that enough examples? Because I’ve got more than a dozen more. And that’s what people mean when they talk about the frequently Dope-dismissed concept of “rape culture.” And I can understand why the idea is so distressing. Those of us who talk and write about this topic are frequently rebuffed with the “argument” that we’re just being hysterical and that rape jokes (and misuse of the word) and very problematic depictions of women, women’s sexuality and rape in popular culture and the actual statistics and stories of how rape is handled in the criminal justice, medical and legislative arenas don’t matter.
We’re told that anti-rape advocacy is a waste of time and fearmongering, because all good people already agree that rape is a terrible thing, and propagate the myth that “good” people, the ones who dress right (not like “sluts” and not in skirts, and not in tight pants but not in loose pants, and not in exercise gear, and not in pajamas) and act right (don’t flirt, but don’t have no interest in men at all, be nice but not too nice, have fun but always always be on your guard) and don’t hang out with the wrong people (like their father, brothers, husbands, their boyfriends, their co-workers, their classmates, their fellow soldiers, their bosses, cab drivers, police officers, priests or doctors and dentists) and go to the wrong places (like jogging paths, parties, bars, swimming pools, gyms, parking garages, elevators, their own workplaces, medical appointments, schools, homes and dorm rooms or anywhere at night) don’t get raped.
But even under the most restricted statistics, more women will be raped than will ever get breast cancer or have heart attacks, the prevention of both of which are talked about every day in every medium and have voluble public campaigns dedicated to prevention and treatment efforts. Yet it’s hysterical and over the top and unnecessary to talk about prevention and appropriate response (treatment) of sexual violence.
You yourself used some of those very words. You said that rape in enthusiastically punished. A six percent conviction rate is not enthusiastic punishment. Police departments refusing to interview suspects is not enthusiastic. While the rate of other violent crimes has receded, the rate of sexual violence has not, and that’s only within the western paradigm of reporting such crimes to police who aggregate numbers, but this problem is clearly greater than that. You didn’t ask for examples of the use of rape as a weapon of war and political manipulation, but it has the exact same oppressive results outside of its organized use. But it’s impolite to talk about that, clearly, and heaven forbid one should be so hysterical about it.