"blaming the victim"

In My Humble Opinion
201

I don’t know about binge drinking in particular, but it looks like there is evidence that at least among college students a lot of sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking. The CDC fact sheet on drinking and women’s health cites this article, “Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault: A Common Problem among College Students”, which is available free on PubMed. It’s a review of research on alcohol and sexual assault among college students. I’ve only skimmed it, but here’s a passage about the prevalence of alcohol-related sexual assault (edited some for length). Oh, when it says “sexual assaults reported by college men” that’s referring to sexual assaults committed by these men, not sexual assaults where a man was the victim.

The article goes on to examine several possible explanations for the correlation between alcohol consumption and sexual assault, including the direct effects of alcohol on victims and perpetrators as well as social perceptions about alcohol consumption. With regard to perpetrators of sexual assault, it talks about alcohol impairing men’s ability to correctly read social signals, lowering their inhibitions, and increasing aggressive behavior. There is also a section about men’s beliefs about the effects of alcohol and the role this may play in sexual assault:

202

Because a shabbily dressed male (a) may not be worth robbing (b) doesn’t have anything else worth depriving them off.

The fact is, like it or not, being a woman, unless you are elderly or incredibly fat/ugly, is like having steaks on. Sure, most males have been “socialized” to not eat you, just like you can train lions to not eat you even though they want the steaks sooo bad, but (1) sometimes society misses or deliberately leaves a male out and (2) even well trained lions sometimes bite.

203

There’s plenty of evidence if you care to look for it, so I don’t know what you are talking about.

Your skepticism smacks of bias. Taking your opinion to its logical conclusion leads to absurdity. Take a frat house full of drunken 20 year olds. Do you think rape is just as likely to occur in this environment as it is in house of sober men?

204

Lamia and you with the face can both read my post 188 and 195.

Yes men who have sex without consent with women who are drunk are men who are with the woman in an environment with alcohol. Abbey writes “causality cannot be firmly established” and that is an understatement.

Quite a “victim-blaming” statement in that article too:

Note also that Abbey puts the speculated “excuse-giving function” of drinking as dependent upon perceived peer group norms and a belief that drinking will give them an excuse. The article is appropriately full of "may"s because the author recognizes that speculation is in progress. Speculation may be true and again it makes sense to me that a man might be more likely to

Really you what “evidence” do imagine is at that link? Some decent evidence about the role of female alcohol impairment as a risk factor but not any about alcohol causing men to rape. Do you think that the link also provides evidence that viewing porn causes rape because it states: “Pornography consumption was common among the men in the sample and may further add to the risk of sexual aggression.”

If being critical of sloppy thinking and leaping to uncritical acceptance of because it fits with something you think is true “smacks of bias” then I will accept the charge every time.

Yes, Abbey’s speculation makes sense, that “if an intoxicated man is sexually attracted to his female companion, it is easy for him to interpret any friendly cue as a sign of her desire to have sex with him and to ignore or discount any cue that suggests she is not …”

I also agree completely with several of Abbey’s conclusions:

Does anyone disagree with Abbey? Is Abbey part of the victim-blaming culture?

205

I can read them, but I can’t tell what point you’re trying to make by telling me to do so.

In post 199, the one I was replying to, you made a pretty bold claim about there being “no evidence either way for whether or not decreasing binge drinking or even drinking completely by males would have any impact on sexual assault frequency.” You didn’t say that you with the face had failed to provide such evidence, or that the evidence was limited or inconclusive, you said that it flat out doesn’t exist. Well, it does exist. I don’t feel that skimming a single article about it qualifies me to draw firm conclusions about what this evidence means, but I do feel confident in saying that the relationship between men’s alcohol consumption and sexual assault has indeed been the subject of research. It’s not some big mystery that no one knows anything about.

206

I did not say there were no studies or attempts to get the evidence. Abbey’s data is a step, proving that indeed those who rape women who are drunk are themselves in drinking environments and have also consumed some level. Yes that is “no duh” - the targets are in high alcohol consumption environments and like bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is, those who prey on drunk women go to high alcohol consumption environments - but even what appears obvious is best proven. And Abbey expresses a theory about alcohol consumption and sexual assault that makes some sense. Neither however is any evidence that decreasing binge drinking by males would decrease sexual assault frequency. Not at all.

What are your thoughts about Abbey’s conclusions?

207

And so is this data, and this data, and thisdata…should I continue?

If you can accept that alcohol increases the likelihood of male-perpetrated violence in general, then it strains credibility to think sexual assault would be immune from this relationship.

Abbey’s conclusions seem logically sound to me. Is there something about them you think is controversial?

208

Okay, the first one again documents the correlation: men who sexually assault drunk women hang out in alcohol heavy environments and drink. We have adequately established that correlation already.

The second is better but of note they describe the association they find to be so small as to possibly be due to spurious effects.

The third really is not any evidence at all in my mind.

So sure you are free to go on. If you want.

Let’s even go with your bit on alcohol and the likelihood of male-perpetrated violence in general, which I accept. Do you believe that that proves that encouraging males to not binge drink would have a substantial impact on murder rates?

Again, I believe binge drinking should be strongly discouraging by all, for many reasons. I just am not convinced that males who sexual assault do it because of beer glasses (“alcohol myopia” in the literature).

As far as Abbey’s recommendations … they are very pertinent to the thread.

She has advice for dealing with males as part of the equation but it is not saying that gender equality demands the same policy interventions for males as for females. That seems like something that might be controversial to some here.

For both she advises a focus on education that alcohol does not provide an excuse for behaviors or protection form the consequences of it. Males need to know that sex with a lack of clear consent is a crime sober or drunk, that communication about sex must be clear. That is not likely too controversial.

But she specifically recommends programs that get women to take the precautions they need to take (specifically not getting drunk), that they do not often because they have “a sense of personal invulnerability” and that that “[p]revention programs that strip away some of this sense of personal invulnerability are necessary so that women will take more precautions.” She does not make a recommendation to advise men to drink less.

Yeah, I thought that recommendation might be controversial here. You don’t think that a poster who said that here would have been attacked? A poster saying that programs need to spend a fair amount of energy convincing young women that they are not so much smarter and able than other women and yes they, not just the other woman less smart than they are, are doing something personally risky when they chose to get drunk at a party would not be jumped on? That that would not be labelled as “victim blaming”?

Unless I misread some here have staked out the position that young women should be able to behave as if they are invulnerable from the sexual assault victimization risks associated with drinking, so any advice to not drink to excess, as it really does place them at risk, is unfair and biased. Stating that women need to protect themselves by not getting drunk and that the sense of personal invulnerability that prevents them from avoiding that risk needs to be stripped away, that they need to hear it in a way that leads to changed behaviors?

Yes, I thought some here would have a problem with that.

If yes offensive if said by a poster but not when said by Abbey then it may provide some fodder to discuss why that recommendation is okay in the context of an article but verboten in the context of a message board discussion.

209

I think the idea is that we should say unilaterally to boys/men and girls/women, “Hey, don’t binge drink. It’s not good for your health and can have bad consequences.” The fact that women have one extra risk added on doesn’t mean a whole lot in who to discourage when we should just simply be discouraging it, period. We can tell the women about this extra risk in the long slew of bad stuff that can happen when you drink to excess, but it shouldn’t be the only reason we bring up not binge drinking. We should simply be discouraging it, end of story. So the whole “but women are at risk more!” doesn’t have bearing on something that should be completely discouraged.

Unless we really do think that since women have one extra risk factor we need to pay extra special attention to conveying the same message to them. That would just mean it’s “more ok” for men to drink to excess when really, no, it’s not good for anybody to drink to excess. It’s a personal health risk first and foremost. Just tell them all, “don’t do it”.

210

Why are you using “prove” here? Come on, I know you know better than that. We’re talking about evidence.

If we’re talking about murders occurring on college compasses, then yes, I would expect efforts that are successful in curbing male drinking would cause a reduction in murder rates.

Alcohol is tied to domestic violence on college campuses. Domestic violence and murder are also tied to one another.

What would you need to see to be convinced that more male sobriety could lead to fewer rapes (or murders)? Hopefully not a randomized clinical trial.

211

I wouldn’t even say they have an “extra” risk factor so much as different ones.

The thing is there are two different, albeit overlapping, conversations.

One is about binge drinking and how to effectively deal with it. Look at that past thread I had started that I had linked to. The defense of getting shit-faced as a normal part of growing up is deep. (And no one was arguing only for men.) I completely agree that binge drinking should be strongly discouraged, and policies (systems approaches) can be taken that are effective in doing so. In that conversation sexual assault comes up as one of many problems associated with binge drinking and avoiding becoming a sexual assault victim is one motivation for an individual woman to avoid binge drinking. And sure, to a male, that it might increase your risk of becoming a sexual predator even if you think you were not, could be another.

The other is a conversation about sexual assault and how to reduce it. The policy (systems) approach can do some good there … those are the programs like the CDC and Abbey promote (if done right, and again, would be nice to see some follow up on efficacy). From the perspective of that conversation it is reasonable to suggest limiting binge drinking in general and it is vital that young women appreciate that they can reduce their personal individual risk substantially by avoiding binge drinking even if it is prevalent in their environment. You want to also decrease sexual predation by promoting not binge drinking as a way for young men to decrease their individual risk of becoming a sexual predator? Fine, but I remain highly skeptical that the message will have big uptake by those who are most likely to be sexual predators or anywhere near the potential impact.

212

Okay. That’s actual evidence (link to more detail about the article) and I cede the point.

213

I see from your last post that you’ve abandoned your previous skeptism, but I still think this is worth commenting upon.

The assumption that sexual predators are some inpenetrable class of monsters, destined to act on their evil nature regardless of any attempted interventions, is a large reason why “common sense” rape prevention is so often slanted toward controlling women’s actions. Potential rape victims are seen as malleable and receptive to outside influence (no matter how patronizing), while we often assume “rapists will be rapists”. And isn’t it interesting how closely that mirrors “boys will be boys”? I don’t think this is a coincidence.

I think this is where a lot of us are coming from when we talk about victim blaming. After a certain point, the fear mongering and finger waving is hard to deal with, especially when it is issued from men who almost seem to revel in the notion that women are more vulnerable than men and thus, in need of their manly wisdom to guide them in life.

Years ago, I posted about how I was once groped on the metro. A male poster immediately demanded to know why I didn’t instantly yell my head off and start pummeling the guy, like I should have apparently done. (This wasn’t a “troll” poster either.) Now tell me, what in the hell was that about? Why would a person to go there, if not a reflexive need to assign blame and play the know it all? The groping wasn’t even particularly traumatizing for me, and yet to have someone say I responded the wrong way because I didn’t fight back made me question the wisdom of sharing that incident on this board. So if I were talking about rape? Forget about it. Never in a million years would I open myself up to that 3rd degree.

Why am I saying this? Because the mentality you’re saying doesn’t exist most certainly does. Its not just a well-meaning pamphlet advising women not to binge drink. It’s not just a casual reminder to avoid dark and secluded places while walking home at night. It’s an insidious pattern of attitudes and beliefs that assign responsibility to women when men act sexually inappropriate. Slanted messages towards women is conducive to that pattern.

214

I apologize if this comes across as condescending, but do you not understand that studies and data are evidence? I think you may be confusing evidence with proof.

215

No I am still skeptical of how much impact such would have. I just now accept that the is some actual evidence of a connection. My personal guess remains that the impact would be minimal, that those who are likely to be sexually predators more need vulnerable victims than beer glasses in order to act. Impenetrable? No. But I agree with Abbey that the prevention side on perps is more educational and sociocultural.

Not sure what mentality you are claiming that I say does not exist. I have made no claim of any mentality not existing.

And as far as your being asked about your groping goes … maybe the questioner honestly does not understand why a victim … of any crime in progress … would not yell something to the effect “Crime in progress!”

If someone was stealing your purse wouldn’t you do that? If I caught someone trying to steal my wallet out of my pocket I likely would. Asking you to explain why this crime in progress does not provoke the same response does NOT seem like blaming you for being victimized but a request to reduce the ignorance of those like me who honestly do not understand why the response was different as this crime was in progress than we at least think it would be to other crimes.

216

Sorry to seem condescending back but perhaps you do not understand that not every study and all data is actually evidence of what someone says it is evidence of.

217

I understand that perfectly well, but this has little to do with the claim you actually made. You said that no evidence on this subject existed at all.

(Emphasis added.)

Again, do you understand that studies and data are evidence? I mean, if you just misspoke then fine, it happens to all of us now and then. But if studies and data don’t count as evidence to you then you really should make this clear up front so others don’t waste their time citing things you’re just going to dismiss.

218

Timely review of a new book about rape culture.

Some quotes from the (glowingly positive) review:

Is this really true, these days? Is it true about Bill Cosby (now, not 40 years ago)?

(And note, yes, a non-trivial number of people have spoken up in Bill Cosby’s defense… but I have heard about those people because of outraged news stories saying “can you believe this jackass defended that rapist Bill Cosby?”. That is, while the defend-the-victim-if-he’s-rich-and-famous mentality clearly still exists there’s clearly also a large countervailing force, and it is prominent and common, not just some fringe feminist position.)

Or take the Duke Lacrosse case. In 1970 what would have happened if a poor black stripper accused a bunch of well off white college students of rape? I dunno, but almost certainly nothing very helpful. What happened when it happened in the 21st century? There was an orgy of media attention, Nancy Grace (who has a huge audience) practically ripped the accused limb from limb, and all sorts of people supported the accuser.

Again, some parts of the old dynamic are certainly still present but I think it’s facile to just present the 1970-era status quo as if it’s still fully present.

Rape is different from other crimes. At least, it can be, in the fairly frequent cases where everyone agrees that sex occurred, but the question is whether there was consent.

How often does a trial for murder or kidnapping or robbery come down to everyone agreeing on the physical evidence but the accused arguing that the killing was consensual?

(I suppose that a somewhat similar situation is cases of killing where the killer pleads self defense…)

And this is where I really take issue. I’m sure there are a few people who “stridently believe that women are inferior and rape isn’t real”. But in this day and age that’s a tiny minority, and strawmanning the “opposition” like that just poisons the well. I mean, I’m sure that I agree with about 98% of what’s in the book… but I also clearly question at least a few of the statements ascribed to it by the review, as seen in this very post. Does that make me a “rape apologist”? Does that make me the enemy of the anti-rape side?

219

Try going back to the Bill Cosby threads and reading them through.

There is a small but vocal contingent that were busily working their way right down the rape apologist ladder.

First, they said it was all lies for the sake of money. Then, as people who had no need of more money spoke up, they insisted it was about revenge or publicity. We heard a million and one excuses- roofies don’t exist, nombody can remember what happened in the past, people were just confused, etc.

As it became clear there was a pattern, they switched to “she was asking it.” What did a person expect, havign dinner with a big star like Cosby? Who would drink with someone they just met? Who would take an asperin for a headache? Surely someone who takes drugs is open to the idea of being raped, etc.

Then, as it became clear that no, they really were raped, they switched to the “yeah, but it’s not rape-rape so what is the big deal?” excuse. We heard that they probably intended to sleep with him anyway, so why get picky about the details? We heard that they waited to report it, so they surely weren’t badly traumitized. We ehard a lot about how these women were dredging up the past to ruin a nice guy’s illustrious career, and that it would be better if they just let it go.

I don’t think we ever got to the dregs of “it’s just nature in action”, because the evidence bcame so overwhelming that the apologists retreated into “Who cares about reality, I only care if he is convicted in a court of law.”

It’s easy to dismiss these guys as trolls, but most women who have experience with rape have seen parts of this nasty ladder in their own lives.

220

The Duke lacrosse case is not a good example either. It spawned two trainwreck threads, with the solid majority of posters automatically jumping to the defense of the frat boys before any evidence had come to light.

My head is hurting just thinking about those threads.