I really don’t want this to devolve into an argument, so I’ll respond to this and then bow out.
Not really. There are many trivial ways around one-vote-per-IP restrictions.
That depends on the polling methods.
Yes, but if the poll is to be meaningful in any way, it is the obligation of the pollster to minimize the flaws. Some flaws are minor (e.g. “The scope of the poll is not wide enough for it to have any validity”) and some are major (e.g. “The data collected is too unverifiable to be of use”).
Can we just agree that getting completely accurate rape statistics is hard, if not impossible, but that there are far, far better ways than an anonymous poll on a message board?
(And on preview, seeing alice_in_wonderland’s post – I’d like to make a comment. I think the insinuation that because I question the method of the polling means that I ignore the fact that my peers, including those I love, have been attacked, or that I think they’re all lying… no, I really don’t have a way to describe how I think about that. I hope I’m misinterpretating what you’re saying.)
Hey Alice,
I am sorry to hear that you have been the victim of a crime. I would never seek to minimize what happened to you. I believe that the 25% number is likely a reasonable one, and I agree that even one attack is too many. I wish our criminal justice system did more to keep rapists in jail, and to prosecute those who have been accused and investigate the allegations of victims.
The problem with this thread is that it seeks to create evidence to support a hypothesis in a completely inaccurate way. Some people will read the results of the “poll” and will take away from it information that it does not support. Further, there are many people who read and lurk on these boards without ever registering, and there is no way to know, or any reason to believe, that the results in the poll are from actual SDMB posters. The entire thing is a crock, and should be accorded no weight at all. There is simply no conclusion that can be drawn from it with any validity. It can only serve to confuse.
If there is any karma in this world, Rhum runner will be sodomized against his will before he dies.
I was date raped at 14, thank you very much. How’s that for an introduction to sex? And the guy who did it knew he did wrong. I did not have the strength to turn him in. I nearly committed suicide twice as a result.
IMHO, this poll should be given no more statistical weight than one appear in IMHO should.
However, there were a number of posters in the original thread that said stuff like “I’m 48 - I don’t know anyone who’s been raped - the statistics must be wrong.”
I’m meerly pointing out that Mr. 48 DOES indirectly know a number of people that have been assulted. That is the value I see in the poll.
If 43 MALE dopers responded to an IMHO thread saying that they had been falsely accused of rape, and had suffered emotionally/financially/personally/whateverly from the experience it would give me pause. I would start a thesis dissertation using the numbers, but I would be interested, none the less.
lno I’m not insinuating anything. I am questioning why Rhum was using so much vitrol in his questioning of the poll. Opal didn’t say it was scientific (in fact, I think she specifically said it wasn’t) - she meerly offered it up as an interesting factoid. So yes, you are grossly misinterpreting what I’m saying.
Ah I see. So my reward for a demand for the smallest bit of intellectual honesty is to be the victim of rape? Well here’s a hearty FUCK YOU that you can use to fill the void between your ears you nasty little bitch. You will note that at no point in this, or any other, thread have I ever said anything that even comes remotely close to suggesting that sex crimes are not a problem in this country, or that more should not be done to combat them.
And stats about rape are notoriously inaccurate anyway. Rape victims often don’t report the crime - making crime stats inaccurate. If you survey, you will get some women who report “I changed my mind the next day” as rape and others who won’t admit what is clearly a rape even to an anonymous pollster.
The survey IS useless from a stats point of view. But it is far from useless. When I see comments in the thread that spawned this from guys who say “No woman I know has ever been raped,” I can’t believe this is wholly useless.
I was once in a room with a bunch of women who I’d known socially for years. No men around and the topic turned to rape. Before that night, I thought I was the only one of my friends who’d been through it. I discovered I was wrong - and unfortunately very wrong. There is solidarity in knowing you aren’t alone. And I, for one, take a certain amount of comfort in the knowledge that I am not alone - even if the stat methodology does suck.
Right now it is running 10 violent rapes. Let us subtract one wrongheaded vote= 9. 700+ views. Half of them male. So, maybe 350 views by females. Thus- 1 woman in 35 has decided to vote “violent rape”. How many are multiple views by the same person?
Some who may have been raped didn’t vote at all. I’d suspect that more who weren’t raped voted “yes” to support the poll- maybe their sister was raped, and they are “voting for her”. I don’t know.
The poll is then worthless- as a scientific poll. However, we have one woman who has said she voted “yes”- and i will assume that she voted yes because she was (although her post doesn’t make that statement). Tigolesbitties is right, howver- even one is too many.
The only definate number is not from polling (where we have women who may claim they were- but weren’t, and those who won’t admit they were, but were), but from actual convictions of rapists. We must assume that if someone is convicted of “x” rapes that AT LEAST that many occured. This number would also get rid of those “mental” rapes, or some of the"date rapes" where some will say no crime was commited*. I don’t have access to this number, but I am sure it could be googled in 10 minutes. Then compare this to the number of American women. This will give you a MINIMUM number of % of women raped. The actual number is certainly larger. The number, whatever it is, is too high.
But what we should not have is rape being made into a political issue, where some- in order to prove their postion- make the definition of “rape” to be so broad as to be worthless. Then men will- with some good reason- be able to deride & attack the numbers. I have seen some which state something like 75% of women were “raped”- but their polling included circumstances like a derogatory sexist remark. No amount of words, no matter how brutal & sexist- should ever be including in “rape”- well, unless you want dudes to use your study as proof the problem is overblown.
Note that I am not saying that “date rape” cannot be rape. But here the definition gets fuzzy, and the crime harder to prove.
Opalcat- I understand your moral outrage, but can’t get behind any “poll” which is so unscientific.
You damage the credibility of any argument you make with your vituperative projectile vomiting.
The only thing I’m convinced of right now is that you are a verbally abusive asshole who has a mysterious and suspiciously strong anger response to the idea that many women are rape victims. Your posing as an intellectual who is only defending logic is as transparent as it is laughable.
I voted “no,” but I was once approached by a pervert when I was 12, and was fortunate enough to able to get away with no more than a bad scare and a lingering distaste for Dr. Hook songs. I have had occasion to regret having had sex the next day, or even during the act, but that was not rape, as I consented or allowed myself to be talked into it.
Rhum Runner, I think we’re capable of shooting Opal down if she tries to use this poll as support for a theory. There are enough people on this board who are familiar enough with statistics to know that nothing’s going to be projectable or anything like that.
But some of us, myself included, were curious as to what the results might have looked like. That is, until you sabotaged the thing.
We get this. And it still doesn’t justify your intentional sabotage.
If I can butt in for a sec, I think part of the problem here is in the OP which seems to give a mixed message. OpalCat says the poll isn’t scientific, but she starts off by saying it’s done “[f]or those assholes out there who don’t believe the high rape statistics” which seems to imply it is, in some way, meant to be interpreted in some sort of statistical manner.
Having a poll where Dopers can say they’ve been sexually assaulted can be good in that it opens eyes that people you know (albeit online) have been sexually assaulted or raped and it might be cathartic for some victims. People who are defending it generally look at it this way it seems.
However, it really has absolutely no statistical validity, which is what Rhum Runner and lno have focused on. You might say they shouldn’t because it’s not meant to be scientific, but the OP seemed to imply it could be used to educate people who don’t believe rape statistics. Several people have also encouraged “no” votes. That in itself seems to indicate there is the desire to have some sort of quasi-statistical bent to the poll.
There are mixed messages in the OP. Those who support the poll have a point and those who think it’s useless also have a point simply because it’s unclear what the poll is supposed to do.
I hope that makes sense. It just seemed like people were talking past one another and there seems to be a lot of passion aroused based on what seems to me to be just different ways of looking at the poll.
Dangerosa - for those who posted in that thread “no woman I know personally has been raped, therefore those numbers must be skewed”, do you believe that they will actually change their stance given the piece of information “several annoymous posters who probably found out about this poll from the SDMB thread, voted saying that they’d been the victim of forcible rape”??
I don’ t think that they were denying that it ever happened (watching the news a day or two should convince them of that), just the relative prevalence.
I agree that it can be a very powerful thing for a woman to understand that she was not alone in having been raped, and I absolutely hate the trivialization of the word (when it is used to include things like some one being robbed, verbally assaulted, well, anything other than actual rape)
but I can’t see that this poll would go anywhere those convincing stalwart believers that it does happen more frequently than is in their comfort zone.
there’s too many potential outs for that (see, there’s that one person who admitted that they posted falsely, and others can obviously post ‘for’ some one they know, and post more than once and call rape what really isn’t etc etc etc.)
at best, they might be able to agree with something like “Ok, so of the women at the SDMB, rape happens more frequently than I thought, but that doesn’t mean anything else”.
I agree w/lno, alice that rape stats are notoriously difficult to produce, given the wide variances, and the multiple layers of problem reporting (Both reporting false rapes and failing to report actual rapes)
THespos Seeing as how I immediately posted that I had in fact added myself to the poll I would hardly call what I did an attempt at sabotage, or even dishonest. It only served to underscore the fact that it has no meaning. I am curious though, why would you be interested in these results when you seem to recognize that they don’t mean anything? You might as well ask me to make up a number for you.
tmwster, all I can gather from your post is that you can’t read. Please point me to any statement I have made that in any way indicates that I “have a strong anger response to the idea that many women are rape victims.” What is patently obvious here is your stunning lack of comprehension.
Well, that only matters if the post in which you said you voted truthfully was truthful. I won’t believe it until I see a better method for collecting truth in posts.
Therefore, the whole damn message board is USELESS.
Ever been over in GD bup? People there don’t tend to take “because I said so” as sufficient support for much of anything. Cites to outside reputable sources are more or less de rigueur.