Do we as a society have a paternalistic attitude towards rape?

[Ludovic]

@Marley23

Is that bias against men? Depending on the situation that could be just good sense and decency.

All things that are not sensible and decent are not always rape.

[Freudian_Slit]

I don’t think it’s paternalistic to leave drunken people–male or female–alone. If the person isn’t seeking sex, is unable to walk on their own, is vomiting, etc., then you might want to wait till they’re sober. Otherwise it does make you look like a creep at best and a rapist at worst if you’re going after someone who’s barely conscious.

[alphaboi867]

@Marley23

Is that bias against men? Depending on the situation that could be just good sense and decency.

I phrased that badly. The bias involved the scenarios where the man was the drunk one. She couldn’t grasp the concept that if it the genders were flipped and it was a drunk guy and a sober (or less drunk) girl that the girl would be guilty of rape under her logic. And her insistence that an erection was proof that the man wasn’t so drunk as to unable to give consent. She was quite clear on that.

[furt]

@you_with_the_face

My inartful phrasing only makes the point that I can communicate inartfully sometimes. But it doesn’t take a genius to get what I’m saying.

I got what you were saying, and I wasn’t trying to be snarky; I was just using it as a springboard.

My point is that claims of rape are subjected to more scrutiny (at least on this message board) than other claims, all other things being equal. Do you dispute this observation? Or do you agree with me, but feel such skepticism is warranted?

I’d say more than some other claims, maybe more than most. Warranted or not would be a case-by-case basis. I would definitely say that such scrutiny is inevitable and predictable in any online forum with a skeptical ethos.

This opinion is a poor counterpoint to what I wrote.

Do you disagree with it? If someone told you they planned to seek consolation and affirmation, would you recommend a general-interest messageboard?

[you_with_the_face]

@furt

I would definitely say that such scrutiny is inevitable and predictable in any online forum with a skeptical ethos.

Why should this ethos be applied to rape more than anything else?

Do you disagree with it? If someone told you they planned to seek consolation and affirmation, would you recommend a general-interest messageboard?

Depends on the subject. Prior experience with how rape plays on this board tells me no, this is not a good place to go vent or seek support for a rape, either one’s own or someone else’s. But If someone wanted to share their grief about a missing cat, a bad medical diagnosis, or a loved one killed by a drunk driver, this place would be okay for that.

[Marley23]

@Ludovic

All things that are not sensible and decent are not always rape.

No question about that, but I don’t think the idea was inherently biased against men.

@alphaboi867

I phrased that badly. The bias involved the scenarios where the man was the drunk one. She couldn’t grasp the concept that if it the genders were flipped and it was a drunk guy and a sober (or less drunk) girl that the girl would be guilty of rape under her logic. And her insistence that an erection was proof that the man wasn’t so drunk as to unable to give consent. She was quite clear on that.

Well then, that’s ridiculous.

[Mighty_Mouse]

@alphaboi867

One day my Marriage & Family class had a rape counselor from a local social service agency speak to class (we’d been doing a unit on rape/sexual abuse). She was very biased against men. For example even of the woman was saying yes (or propositioning the man) the man should still say no if she was too drunk to really understand what she was saying. The class conversation turned to what happened if it was the man who was too drunk to given informed consent (“if he was that intoxicated he would be unable to maintain an erection” :dubious:), but it was somehow possible for a man to get drunk enough to “force himself” on a woman even if he wouldn’t do that if he was sober. That would still be considered rape because “he was drinking of his own free will”. She seemed offended that someone would even bring the subject of a woman raping a man up. She very matter of factly told us that her agency had never seen of case of that happening, had no guidlines or literature for that scenario, and only male victims they’d seen were raped by other men.

The proffesor (who had a private practice in additon to teaching at the college) was more balanced, but he admitted that there is almost no research on female-on-male sexual abuse. He’d never dealt with a male client raped by a woman, but did have cases of adult women abusing male children. The odd thing about that class was that the women seemed much quicker to assign blame to the victim while us men were very reluctant to do so. Apparently this attitude isn’t uncommon.

This is almost exactly the conversation we had with the “facilitator” of a new student orientation I attended at a large public university. I was a 30 yo new grad student, but had to sit through a whole bunch of stuff obviously designed for 18 year old freshmen. The freshmen were either too intimidated, too apathetic, or too whipped to contest this, but a few of the grad students were vocally skeptical.

This was quite a long time ago, but at the time “take back the night” marches were all the vogue on campus. Dunno if they still are. But the atmosphere was quite stifling. Apparently “deadbeat dad” was politically correct, but “policeman” was unacceptably exclusionary.

[furt]

@you_with_the_face

Why should this ethos be applied to rape more than anything else?

I don’t think it is applied more than anything else. Certainly not more than something like a UFO encounter. Probably not more than a poster claiming to be some famous person or doing/witnessing some amazing though unverifiable thing. If in the context of a discussion about Star Wars, a poster said that he had met with George Lucas and been told (surprising fact X), do you think anyone would buy it?

If that seems far-fetched, consider God. I don’t know what portion of the population claims to have a personal relationship with the almighty, but it’s helluva lot; certainly way more than claim to have been raped. And yet, anyone making such a claim online is going to be challenged on it pretty quickly unless they’re posting a religous site. That’s certainly true on the SDMB.

But that’s not evidence of rampant anti-theism. I would argue that people will be quite openly skeptical of religious people online precisely because they can’t do it in real life. There is a general social taboo against openly questioning another person’s religion in real life. The guy in the cube next to you can talk about his goofball religion all day long, but if you point out the absurdity of worshipping The Cabbage God, odds are you’re the one HR will send to sensitivity training. Hence, when people are online and anonymous, they’re a lot more prone to be openly skeptical than they might otherwise be.

In the same way, people who hear claims of rape that sound questionable IRL are most likely going to say nothing; there is a firm taboo against that sort of skepticism coming from anyone except a cop (and sometimes even from them). It’s therefore natural that when such skeptics hear a similar claim online, they’re going to be quick to jump at the chance to express that.

To repeat:

If you’re

1. online
2. making a major claim
3. about something that people often lie about
4. but that they are normally socially prohibited from questioning

… yeah, some are gonna be skeptical.

Depends on the subject. Prior experience with how rape plays on this board tells me no, this is not a good place to go vent or seek support for a rape, either one’s own or someone else’s. But If someone wanted to share their grief about a missing cat, a bad medical diagnosis, or a loved one killed by a drunk driver, this place would be okay for that.

YMMV, but I’d advise them against doing that. The drunk driver is probably pretty unambigious, but the cat person is going to be asked how the cat got out, and the medical diagnosis is going to leads to all sorts of questions.

I understand that many people want to think of boards like the SDMB as “a community” … but most communities have contrarians in them, to say nothing of assholes and creepy strangers passing through. You put your business out here, you’re putting a poster on the town green. Don’t be shocked when some joker comes along and draws a moustache and horns on your picture.

[bengangmo]

@you_with_the_face

My question is: why is it seemingly the first inclination of so many to assign responsibility to the victim?

Although my username seems to pop up in a lot of rape threads, I don’t consider myself a staunch anti-rape crusader. I simply believe in treating it like any other crime. A lot of people don’t want to do that, and I do feel compelled to argue with them.

If I were to start a thread about a friend who called me last night in tears, claiming that her house had been robbed, these would NOT be the first questions I’d think to ask her:

1. Did you leave the door unlocked? What about the dead bolt? Are you sure you locked it? Were you drinking when you left the house? Yeah? Then how do you know you locked the door?

2. Did you leave any valuables sitting out in the open?

3. Were your curtains open?

4. Why did you decide to move to that neighborhood again?
   If it was a friend who was calling to ask advice about a friend who claimed to have been robbed by someone they knew, again there are some questions it would never occur of me to ask or say. Like:

5. Are you sure they were robbed? Maybe they’re just trying to rip out the insurance company. It happens, you know.

6. How credible is that friend of yours? Maybe they are mistaken about how much was really taken and are just overreacting because the house was a mess.

7. Consider that maybe your friend is just lying for attention or money.

8. For all of us know, the person acccused is perfectly innocent. Why the presumption of guilt, man??

It’s not as though any of these questions are wrong to ask, per se. It’s just they seem to be disapprotionately asked with regards to rape. Stories about stealing or murder rarely conjure up the skepticism that a rape claim does.

My opinion on this wouldn’t be so harsh if it only applied to ambiguous claims that are stated as such by the storyteller. But nowadays on this board, it seems as though outright skepticism is the default view for any claim about rape. This does get aggravating to see.

I hear what you’re sayinig, but I don’t think its a perfectly analogus situation.

What if it was more a case of a friend calling you up, very angry that money was stolen from her wallet last night after she got home from a bar? Wallet was still in her bag, and she had no evidence of this other than she remembers she had $50 in the wallet earlier in the night. Wouldn’t you be asking her

1. Is anything else gone?
2. Are you sure you didn’t spend it?
3. Just how much did you have to drink last night - might you have lost / spent it and don’t remember?

Thats the thing about that separates rape from many other crimes - in a property crime there is substantive proof that a crime has taken place (i.e the property is gone), for rape, (as in the case mentioned) by two days later there is not even going to be proof that sex was had, let alone that the sex was non-consensual.

Also, for the case you mentioned, lets imagine further that you friend had a deadbolt and grills on all the windows, that she says were locked, but there was no evidence of a breakin, wouldn’t you be aksing her some questions - at least out of curiosity if nothing else about how the burglar got into the house?

[you_with_the_face]

@furt

I don’t think it is applied more than anything else. Certainly not more than something like a UFO encounter. Probably not more than a poster claiming to be some famous person or doing/witnessing some amazing though unverifiable thing. If in the context of a discussion about Star Wars, a poster said that he had met with George Lucas and been told (surprising fact X), do you think anyone would buy it?

Okay, now you’re just sounding deliberately obtuse. When I asked about “anything” I was not talking about fantastical claims about UFOs and shit. (But its telling that you chose these examples to show that you aren’t extra skeptical about rape. You’re less likely to believe a UFO story than a claim that someone has been raped? How open-minded of you!) My question came out of the context of other crimes.

[AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet]

Rape is almost never a strange man with a knife threatening to kill you if you don’t do what he says. It’s subtle, and psychological, and more about exploiting weaknesses than brute force. Also, a whole lot of “rape” ends up being just plain bad judgment without any coercion at all

Yes indeed. Rape is out there, and it’s real. However in the majority of cases it seems to be about people who are self centered and feel " entitled" to sex, rather then brute force stereotypical sociopathy.
Many rapists are manipulators (ala child molesters and other psychologically fucked up people) and they try to take advantage of women who have been brainwashed by the patriarcy not to fight back.

[furt]

@you_with_the_face

Okay, now you’re just sounding deliberately obtuse. When I asked about “anything” I was not talking about fantastical claims about UFOs and shit. (But its telling that you chose these examples to show that you aren’t extra skeptical about rape. You’re less likely to believe a UFO story than a claim that someone has been raped? How open-minded of you!) My question came out of the context of other crimes.

You suggested that skepticism was “applied to rape more than anything else.” (emphasis added) I gave a deliberately absurd comparison to show that your “anything” was untrue, using italics in my first sentance to show that it was exactly that word I was addressing. I then followed by saying “If that seems far-fetched,” and then giving a far more apt comparison, as well as a reiteration of my argument, which you declined to address.

[Zoe]

alphaboi867: The odd thing about that class was that the women seemed much quicker to assign blame to the victim while us men were very reluctant to do so. Apparently this attitude isn’t uncommon.

Then why are you calling it “the odd thing about that class”?

furt: Academic research has shown that a significant fraction – perhaps as many as 40% – of the people who call police and report a rape are in fact making it up.

Cite?

Anyone who seeks, as their primary source of solace, a bunch of pseudonyms on the internet is an idiot.

I’ve been married to one of those pseudonyms for almost 24 years now. We predate the internet a little bit by using local BBS chat rooms. He’s still my primary source of solace. Yes, I’m an idiot, but at least I don’t think that people disappear when I turn off my computer.

[marshmallow]

Victim blaming is probably as old as human civilization, practically ingrained. It’s why we have rape shield laws – people find it so appealing. Ever read the comments section under rape news stories? You’ll need to take a shower afterward. She deserved the rape that didn’t happen because she’s a lying slut who has sex with all sorts of men and she liked it anyway just look at how she dresses. This was a cliche 50 years ago, wasn’t it?

Other reasons to victim blame:

• she’s ever had premarital sex
• being out after 8pm
• hanging out with men
• drinking in the company of men
• getting in a car with a man
• going home with a man (either hers or his)
• kissing a man or otherwise making him “excited”

If not those, something will be found. Something has to be found.

Now, I can understand why men would victim blame. That makes sense. Heck, it’s great troll material. What I can’t get is that women do it too. And not just in the editorial section either, but I mean in blogs and comment sections. IIRC studies show that women do this almost as much as men. I really have to wonder how this works in their minds. Do they deny their own agency or just that of other women? Is it the “just world” viewpoint? I wonder how their office meetings go.

When I was in high school (which wasn’t that long ago) guys would joke in the locker room that an effective way to get laid would be to drive a girl to a remote area, turn off the engine, and tell them, “OK, fuck or fight?” I’m sure teenage boys are still regaling each other with that uproariously funny suggestion.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

When Ben Roethlisberger was accused of rape a few months ago, Kate Harding of Salon wrote an online piece in which she said:

Regardless of whether she’s lying, this whole story is still a nauseatingly perfect illustration of all the ways in which real victims are silenced, intimidated, smeared, disbelieved and bullied, while men accused of rape are given the benefit of the doubt at every turn.

I see a lot of this attitude in this thread, and in other threads discussing this issue. “It doesn’t matter if this particular woman’s story is a lie or not!”

It actually matters a great deal, because the more examples of false rape claims that people have experience with, the more the bar is raised for those who actually have been raped.

In the circumstance being discussed in this thread, a young woman states that she said no and fought him off, but also says that she does not remember what else happened. For me, it is hard to give complete credence to your report if the details you remember are loaded with secondary gain and are embedded within aspects you claim to not remember at all.

In general, it is the case that women sometimes want to have sex. Sometimes some women feel that they should not for a number of reasons. On some occasions, women experience a conflict between the desire to have sex and the feelings associated with violating their belief that they should not. I’ve had women tell me a number of tissue thin excuses that they used for engaging in sex that they felt was wrong, including things such as the guy was going to be moving from the neighborhood, and one married woman told me that if it wasn’t sex when Bill Clinton did it, it was okay for her to give a guy a blowjob. Alcohol has physical properties that alter ones reason and judgment, but it also has a social property of providing some level of excuse for one’s behavior. Some women will use this for the cover they are seeking to sate some desires at the expense of violating other beliefs they hold.

These efforts to deal with an internal conflict between one’s desires and one’s beliefs are completely natural and common. It’s only problematic in that when the desire is low or when confronted with other conflicts, some women find it more bearable to suggest that they did not want to have sex or that it occurred against their will. It does not help to pretend that this is rarely the case, or that women somehow differ from men and never engage in behavior that they know is wrong and later try to find an out for having done so.

It’s also difficult to compare claims of rape to claims of mugging , since people rarely have a desire to be mugged that is in conflict with other beliefs.

[furt]

@Zoe

Cite?

http://www.theforensicexaminer.com/archive/spring09/15/

I’ve been married to one of those pseudonyms for almost 24 years now.

You still don’t know his real name, and you’ve never met in real life? Musta been a weird ceremony…

[Larry_Borgia]

never mind

[smiling_bandit]

I’m sorry, some people don’t seem to have looked at this. In the case given, no rape took place. He wanted to have sex, she didn’t, and when he made a play she freaked out and ran. I don’t much approve, but them’s the breaks. The guy may have been a jackass, but that’s it. If she then called it rape, it’s both wrong and immoral of her. He didn’t force her into anything.

[Freudian_Slit]

I thought about making this point into another thread but figured it could go in here.

A lot of people, mostly female, seem to think that it’s the guy’s job to make sure he has consent even if the woman has already said yes. That is, if she says yes but seems tense or less than enthused, he may have committed rape. This attitude really really disturbs me.

These are some snippets I had in another online forum:

Poster x:

I just read this a little late but I’d like to add to this by stating when it is actual rape being committed. If any of the following scenarios occur while a man is trying have intercourse or initiate intercourse or sex of any kind: If she says no, then it is rape. If she says “meh”, then it is rape. If she can’t utter one syllable independently, then it’s rape. If she says “I dunno” and looks around, then it’s rape.

Me:

If you’re in a situation where the woman says “I dunno” or “meh,” how is that rape? If you’re in a situation where sex is about to take place, doesn’t it make sense for both parties to make it clear they’re on the same page? If the guy’s intentions are for sex and the girl’s aren’t, then doesn’t she need to say, “No” so he knows she isn’t consenting? If you’re so passive/indecisive, maybe you’re not ready to go to a bar and interact with other adults

Poster Y:

My point is that some women, for better or worse, can be uncertain of what they want to do and so use passive language or action hoping that the other person will just give up and leave it alone. There are situations where two people can be at the “no return” moment and for various reasons she may want him to back off. My point is that disinterest, indecisiveness, inebriation, incoherence, or uncertainty are all clear signs that sex is not a go. A lack of yes is not equal to consent. And just because your mid coitus or about to get it on doesn’t mean you can’t stop what your doing and take a breather. No isn’t really just no, no can be communicated on different levels and behooves a man to figure that out. Though I think many men have got a clue there are still enough of them that need to understand this.

Me:

I believe that rape is a big deal. I’m just saying that a woman who says yes and has no reason to be scared hasn’t been raped. I mean, if a man trying to have sex with a woman he’ met and finds attractive is a threat to you, then maybe you shouldn’t be going home with guys you’ve just met. I’m not saying they have license to rape, but you have a responsibility to say, “No,” not to be wishy washy and think he’s an asshole for assuming you want to have sex.

Poster Y:

Why is the guy supposed to know? Because, from a legal standpoint, men most often are the ones committing rapes. The burden of obtaining consent falls on them, because they are most likely to abuse or disregard consent/lack of consent. Is it fair? No, but it also isn’t fair that the number of women getting raped is disproportionally higher than that of men. What makes a guy a rapist when he’s assuming she’s into it? Assuming that she’s into it, without taking the time to stop and think “Hm, she might’ve said yes, but she’s also wasted” or “Hm, she said yes but her entire body goes tense when I touch her” or “Hm, she didn’t say NO but she didn’t say yes. Maybe I should ask her again” or “Hm, she didn’t say yes. Maybe I should ask her”. And yes, men ARE assholes if they assume, without asking, that you want to have sex.

And on in that vein. I think that having sex with someone who’s saying no, who’s too drunk to know what’s going on, who’s too young/mentally disabled to consent, or who’s unconscious are all wrong. But am I the only one who finds it disturbing that it’s considered just as wrong to have sex with someone who’s scared but saying yes? It’s creepy to think of someone saying yes/meaning no, but if you’re that unable to express yourself, anyone who has sex with you could be a rapist by this tortured definition.

[JR_Brown]

@Freudian_Slit

I thought about making this point into another thread but figured it could go in here.

A lot of people, mostly female, seem to think that it’s the guy’s job to make sure he has consent even if the woman has already said yes. That is, if she says yes but seems tense or less than enthused, he may have committed rape. This attitude really really disturbs me.

These are some snippets I had in another online forum:

[snip]

And on in that vein. I think that having sex with someone who’s saying no, who’s too drunk to know what’s going on, who’s too young/mentally disabled to consent, or who’s unconscious are all wrong. But am I the only one who finds it disturbing that it’s considered just as wrong to have sex with someone who’s scared but saying yes? It’s creepy to think of someone saying yes/meaning no, but if you’re that unable to express yourself, anyone who has sex with you could be a rapist by this tortured definition.

They’re not talking about “someone who’s scared but saying yes” (although, if someone is obviously scared, that’s a “no”, whatever sound comes out of their mouth). They’re talking about an evasive or equivocal reply, which usually means that the woman doesn’t want to have sex with you but doesn’t want to outright reject you, because she doesn’t want to be rude or because she’s afraid of pissing you off or because she hasn’t decided if she might want to have sex with you at some point in the indefinite future. Only “yes” means “yes”. “Maybe” still means “no”, or “not right now”.