This site and other sites relate disassociation with multiple personalities, that is where I get that from.
That’s not really what this thread is about either, unless you assume some posters here are rapists. It’s about how we can get men to change their behavior.
Although it is possible that if we change our collective attitudes toward sex relations, people who are on the margin will change their behavior. Some people who are not criminals nonetheless hold attitudes that make it easier for criminals to justify their behavior.
One of the reasons that I have been avoiding gender specific language, is because both women and men behave in ways that perpetuate the problem. Also, rape is a very under reported crime. One poster in the pit just mentioned a rape that was typical stranger rape except the victim was a man. I don’t see a need to assume that all victims are women or even all rapists are male.
It very well could be that the same factors that lead men to rape would lead women to rape. I don’t know.
So, in your opinion, men just rape, and women just have to either cope with that, or turn themselves into armored vehicles in order to prevent it? There is no way that the incidence of rape cannot be reduced (no, not eliminated, reduced) through education? Men are inherently violent and irrational creatures?
I refuse to accept that argument, but it’s where you’re going. Either that, or you’re just protecting the status quo, which gives men license to have sex without consent under certain circumstances. It is that status quo that needs to be undermined. Telling women to defend themselves against people who are being told that they have the right to attack them is ridiculous. And acting as though “learn to defend yourself” is the first, best answer is ignorance the problem.
You’ve made it clear: you expect the victims to do the work, because you don’t think that it’s possible to reduce the incidence of attacks and won’t entertain the possibility that you’re wrong. That works well for you, now, doesn’t it?
For all intents and purposes, yes. And it isn’t just women - it is also men (well, specifically, young men).
If there is going to be an education ploy to reduce rape, it would be one to ease the victims to speak out about the crimes so more are caught.
I simply don’t think that rape is something that we need more education about. It isn’t a little-known thing, it isn’t a controversial thing - it is wrong, and no amount of telling people it is wrong is going to make it wrong for those who do it.
And women are viscious money-grubbing harpies? No.
OK
It does? Since when?
Who, pray tell, is telling men to attack women and/or young boys?
Once again, I open the floor to your suggestions.
looks at the clock
How long is this going to take?
Until you even bother to present one method of rape prevention mechanism, it is all we’ve got. So once again, please, shower us with your wisdom.
Or are you just being bitter and hateful towards men?
Demorian, do you think that societal influences (attitudes, education, etc) have zero effect on incidices of violent crime?
While I’m not saying that any rapist (or murderer, or theif) is less than 100% responsible for their actions, I am saying that some societies are more likely to produce people prone to make violcent choices, and that it would be beneficial to us to identify the influences that produce such people.
For instance, in Anne Salter’s book Predator, she mentions how relieved most rapists are when they get put on Depo-Provera (aka “chemical castration”). She quotes one that said he felt free from his compulsive demons for the first time in his life. Rapists often feel disgust and self-hatred (which they then project onto women for “making” them rape) after the act.
These people are symptoms of a diseased society, and what the OP is proposing goes beyond a “just say no” campaign.
So far it seems, those trying to educate to prevent rape have the “No means No” campaingn and very little else. Inevitably someone well say, “But some women don’t really mean no.”
I’d like to start second half of that campaign. It is called “Run from psycho women who say No and mean Yes.” Really, to all the good men out there, if someone says No and means Yes, run far, far away, barring situations that safewords are used to subsitite for No at least. Even so, I think that safeword situations should not be the initial sexual encounter.
I don’t think that saying women should be able to protect themselves is blaming the victim.
Originally I was going to say no. Actually, it probably could be reduced somewhat. But ultimately I think most rapists know that it’s wrong and don’t care, as opposed to not realizing that it’s wrong. I’m not sure what kind of education that’s not already out there would clear things up.
No, rapists are inherently violent and irrational creatures.
I don’t believe that that’s necessarily true. There seem to be quite a few rapists who just never learned that there are NO exceptions to the rule that you have to get consent to have sex.
11% of college students believe that, if a drunk woman at a party consents to sex with one man, it’s ok for anyone else there to have sex with her, too, whether or not she consents. Those 11% are all potential rapists (well, the male ones, at least), and it’s not because they’re “inherently violent and irrational”, it’s because they hold mistaken beliefs about what is morally permissible. Where did they get those beliefs? Who taught them this? That is what we need to deal with.
Based on what study?
Must be a pretty wild crowd you hang with. I was a frat boy and fraternity health officer, and that whole concept is absurd to anyone I know in any fraternity on campus.
And no, it’s because they got drunk/stoned like f*. The woma/en, too, usually.
It’s pretty common around here. This is a bit OT, but an essay in my sociology text had interviews with rapists published side-by-side with interviews with frat boys. Some of the statements were indistinguishible, as far as the attitude toward women and such. Not that all fraternities are bad, but many do use sex (or the promise of sex) as an incentive to get boys to join.
My two close calls with rape have both been in fraternities. Thankfully, I was able to escape both of them, but I believe that there is an entitlement attitude that is spread in some of these places. For example, one of my (former) friends is in a fraternity. The reason he doesn’t like sorority girls? (direct quote)“They drink all my beers and give me nothing in return.” Me: They don’t offer to buy more? Him: “that’s not what I meant.”
Yea, and some of them urinate on each other and torture prospectives with farm animals.
The attitude expressed in the latter part of your post, I think, isn’t “rapist”… he’s engaging in social interaction with women who are unwilling to have sex, thus he shuns them. Chauvinistic? Yep. I’m not making excuses for that kind of behavior (it happens everywhere), and I’ll hold from saying that the woman is putting herself at risk by entering those situations, because you and Kelly would probably tear me a new one at the mere thought.
But to bring that around back onto topic, how effective do you think a university-wide education program, maybe a mandatory freshman class on rape and abuse, would be in stopping this kind of thing from happening? (please notice that this paragraph is the first time anyone in this thread has bothered suggesting an actual way to prevent rapes)
I’m not making the point that this never happens, I’m making the point that there isn’t really that much you can do to prevent it. A guy in his 20s is likely to go after any woman he thinks he has a chance with - and (here comes the “tear me a new one part”) women play the same game. Sorry, it’s true. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t PC, it isn’t enlightened, but it is what young people - and frequently older people in different settings - do.
So, really, going back to MY first post, which category of rape are you talking about stopping here? Assault-rape, date-rape, power-rape, what? They all are different problems and they don’t share solutions other than the practical ones I get flamed for daring to suggest.
Here’s my idea: fraternities should expel any member who exhibits attitudes such as the ones discussed, and bar such people from attending any of their functions. Any fraternity which refuses to adopt such practices should have its charter revoked.
Concrete enough for you? Why won’t this help?
The “11%” factlet mentioned above can be found on page 5 of this document; that article cites “Quackenbush, Robert L. Attitudes of College Men Toward Women and Rape (1991) Journal of
College Student Development, Vol. 32, 376-377” as the source for this piece of information.
This article also provides the following chilling fact: “59% of men who were shown a
date rape scenario indicated some likelihood of doing something similar to the
depicted rape.” This is not a problem with a few isolated individuals; the problem is systemic and must be addressed systemically.
They do do that. Constantly. For alcohol poisoning, or for hazing, or for any kind of rape, universities will often shut down the entire chapter. It happens every so often, usually related to alcohol poisoning or hazing. In fact, I don’t know of one university that even allows hazing, many restrict (well, try to restrict) alcohol usage in house events, and a rape of a student would be a big deal. They pretty much universally set down rules, largely enforced by a Greek Council. I know, I’ve been part of the system, the meetings are boring as hell. As I said, I’ve also been a health officer, which includes 2 semesters of public health classes with fraternities and sororities both attending. We get told what to do in cases of rape. (psychologically, while we’re calling the police in the background). They place clear restrictions on almost everything; most house health officers mainly serve as condom dispensers, so you get to know who is up to what. Plus, university police and newspapers watch the Greeks like hawks. Bad stuff still goes down, but something as major as gang raping a woman would probably bleep up on someone’s radar, and just a rumor of that can take a house down.
In that case, as I stated earlier, the most effective campaign you can do is assuring the victims that they can come forward in safety. Many women (and young men) feel humiliated and deprived in cases of rape, and don’t come forward - that is where you need to make your big social change.
But frankly, if other universities are like the ones I’ve attended, the co-ops are way sketchier than the Greeks. The Greeks have oversight. Co-ops have no oversight. I know of several that basically revolved around constant drug abuse and sex. Every day.
Well, I can’t argue with those numbers. And I agree, date rape is a large problem, that is why I marked it in a special category. The problem with date rape is that it is very often vague in nature. A woman gives some sign of wanting sex, and the man responds. She is unable or unwilling to continue, but - … ? Any number of things. To the male involved, it doesn’t even register as rape. I believe scummy defense lawyers call those “crimes of passion” or “temporary insanity” or the “she asked for it” defense. I agree, reprehensible.
But again, what is to be done about it? Frankly, the Sublime song “Date Rape” was probably more effective than the combined efforts of everyone else in the country. I feel that an advertising campaign like the “War on Drugs” or the “War on Cigarettes” would be a largely futile gesture - it hasn’t proven effective before.
Demorian
Survey after survey shows strong links between fraternities and incidence of rape. I can post them later if you wish. Hell, once it gets published I’ll cite to myself on this. What the campus surveys also show, is that for certain categories of rapists, education works, in particular education that is focused on breaking down the commonly held rape myths.
To turn around and claim that nothing can be done is ridiculous. If this intense level of violence was experienced by fraternity boys you can be sure that extreme measures would be taken immediately.
No, they don’t. They wait until someone gets caught (and for every rape that results in someone getting caught, at least three more happen unreported). They don’t try to shut down the attitudes that lead to a rape-rich environment. Note that my recommendation wasn’t to shut down any house where a rape occured, it was to shut down any house that didn’t punish its members for expressing the attitudes that lead to rape.
The existing system just punishes chapters without the influence to sweep problems under the rug when they do arise. It doesn’t address the actual problem; as far as they’re concerned the problem isn’t that rapes happen, but that rapes get reported. And they’re not in the least bit concerned about the sort of rapes we’re talking about here because, as far as a lot of them are concerned, those aren’t really rapes anyway. After all, she wanted it.
Demorian seems to be saying that rapists are either mentally distrubed phychos or else relatively innocent men faced with false accusations.
This isn’t true.
Rapists are for the most part pretty ordinary people. Most rapes happen in pretty unextradorinary circumstances. The kid down the hall visits your room and doesn’t stop when he realizes you don’t want to have sex with him. A couple drunk guys at a party find a drunk girl and don’t think to get her consent- it doesn’t dawn on them that what is harmless fun for them is nightmare for her until the morning. The girl on your Spanish trip to Spain says no when you go to her hotel room, but she’s been teasing you the whole time and she must surely want it. Someone your alone with makes you angry. Makes you horny. It doesn’t seem so wrong at the time.
I think this is what the thread is trying to stop. There are situations when rapists do not really realize they are committing rape. They don’t really understand what the big deal is with consent. Or they can’t read/don’t care to read their victims’ signals and assume that their victim is somehow okay with it. Or they know it’s wrong but they don’t think they’ll get caught and tell themselves it won’t really hurt anything. There are a million justifications. There are a million ways to get caught up in the moment.
And this is what we can stop.
I think one problem is that men and women are too exoticized to each other. I’ve noticed that even here, many men see women as these strange otherwordly beings that they don’t know how to interact with. They may have trouble getting girls because girls don’t want to be treated like an alien species. Or they may be popular with the girls because the girls feel like they get treated special. They get upset that these exotic things hold something they need so much- sex. You’d be surprised how many men have never had a good normal conversation with a woman. How many men still don’t understand their wives the way they understand their buddies. Many men never learn that women are pretty much the same as them. So they don’t learn to treat them just like the real-life normal human beings they are.
Take a look at a mens magazine and a woman’s magazine one day. They don’t treat the other gender like regular people. They overdramatisize and over complicate what should be pretty straightforward relationships.
This is where frats and sororities come in. Co-ops are sketchy, but they don’t have the same built-in gender dynamic. There is less us vs. them. Conforming to gender norms (being a manly man and a beautiful woman) is less important. Creating more situations where men and women realize they arn’t so different is important. Things like co-ed bathrooms and co-ed sex ed in school may help. Fostering more intergender conversation among kids may help. Breaking down some gender norms may help.
I think it would also help to teach young women more about their sexuality. They need to be familier with and understand their responses, so that when they end up alone with a guy they know what they want and what they don’t want and are comfortable enough with their sexuality to say so. Women cannot afford to be coy or embarrased or flooded with strange new feelings when they get in to sexual sitations. They need to know whats going on, know what they want, communicate that clearly and enforce their decisions. Right now young women know jack about masterbation, how sex actually works and feels, and how to talk to guys firmly. That needs to change.