Preventing Rapists

Great Debates
61

I did this all the time. Some girls just don’t have female friends. Someone like you would’ve seen me walking off by myself with a group of 8 or 10 guys and thought ‘stupid stupid stupid’, but odds are those 8 or 10 guys were my friends. Course I also went to parties by myself, would leave my drink on the bar at the Beehive while I went to the bathroom and know that Corri would let me know if anybody stuck anything in it.

One time did I trust the wrong person, and it took a year and a half for him to show his ugly side. All in all, not a bad record.

There is a difference between reasonable precaution and overzealous fear. If you think that not taking the bus at night was a reasonable precaution for you, that’s fine. But many others of us (myself included) used to walk three or four blocks over to East Liberty from Shadyside and ride the 71C Wilkinsburg to work at 11:30 at night without thinking of the danger. That doesn’t mean we were wrong, either.

And then some of us would get dressed up all slutty like and go to a party with the blatant intention of finding a guy to hook up with for the evening that we know will never call again and won’t bother us. :slight_smile:

Unless your intention is to get laid, right?

Because it generalizes men as dicks with legs that only want to get laid and makes someone believe that any man will rape a woman if he’s drunk and horny? It’s a pretty misandrist statement. And it ignores the fact that there are plenty of women who are out at the party to just have a good time with whoever they might hook up with that night.

And what should they do about it? It’s not possible to make society perfectly safe, so there’s no way we can stop people from choosing to live their lives in a way they are comfortable with.

They’re not, at least in my experience, any more eager for sex than drunken young women. The difference is, when a drunken young guy wakes up and regrets sleeping with whoever he slept with, he gets razzed by his buddies a lot. When the drunken young woman wakes up the next day and regrets it, she has feminists telling her she was raped.

By the way, who actually thinks when they go to someone’s bedroom late at night while both of them are drunk that they’re going to play Monopoly? The invite to the bedroom is an invite for sex, not board games and cartoons.

62

I find this notion that women should not go to parties where men will be drinking intriguing. You see, a few weeks ago I went to just such a party where quite a bit of wine and beer were consumed by both men and women, yet I didn’t see anything sexual and didn’t feel remotely unsafe. It was my church choir’s Christmas party. Now, we Episcopalians are noted for having no problem with drinking. In fact, there’s a running joke that goes “When 2 or 3 of you are gathered in His name, there’s a fifth!”:wink: On the other hand, I’ve been an Episcopalian all my life, including my misspent youth, and I’ve never been aware of any problem with rape or felt unsafe although I admit such a problem might be swept under the rug.

I associate with two other groups which have largish get-togethers at hotels or campsites, often over a weekend, at which alcohol is also freely available, Mensa and the SCA. Again, while I’ve gotten a bit tipsy, flirted outrageously, danced until my legs gave out, and generally had a good time, I haven’t felt unsafe at events held by either group although I have had to deal with unwanted male attention (one gentleman should have known that, just because I was willing to hug him does not mean I was willing to have his hand more than halfway up my thigh).

Here’s what I think the key difference between these groups and the situations some posters in this thread have been describing: the environment these groups promote. In all three groups, having sex with someone who doesn’t want to, or even more physical contact with someone than they’re willing to get won’t make a man more studly, macho, or anything else worth noting; it’ll just make him a bigger jerk. There’s a fellow I know in Mensa who has a lousy reputation and who is watched around women for hugging them too long. He’s very dense, but it has been made clear to him that he is being watched around women and unacceptable behaviour from him will not be tolerated. New women to the group are also warned about him. There’s a story I’ve heard in the SCA about a couple who decided to indulge in a bit of role-playing. The problem is, other people heard her protests which led to her repeatedly being asked “Milady, is this man bothering you?” by people who were quite likely to have been armed and chivalrous.

Now, people in Mensa and the SCA are not noted for being socially ept or able to read cues, and I include myself in that category. (Episcopalians do do better.) On the other hand, while things aren’t spelled out unless it becomes absolutely necessary, there is a clear, unspoken code of conduct. Sex quite definitely happens at Mensa RGs (Regional Gatherings); sex quite definitely happens at SCA events. Nude hot-tubbing can occur after or as a consequence of both. Nevertheless, I could walk stark naked through either and not worry about being assaulted, although I would be told to put clothes on because I was offending the staff of the facility hosting the event.

So, why is it so unreasonable to suggest that the behaviours common to these three subgroups cannot be extended to society as a whole? Why is it unreasonable to suggest that men as well as women be responsible for the attitudes they hold and the actions I take? Why should I restrict my life because some men are unwilling (I refuse to accept “unable”) to take responsibility for their actions?

I have a weakness for dirty jokes and have attempted quadruple entendres. That’s part of my slightly bawdy nature. However, I also have a set of strong standards when it comes to whom I will and will not sleep with. Yes, in a certain set of circumstances, I may hug a man, sit naked in a hot tub with him, and top his double entendre with a triple one which hadn’t occurred to him. At the end of the evening, as the group breaks up, I will also say “Good night” to him because I don’t do one night stands. I’m aware that there are some people out there who’d say I deserved to be raped for such behaviour, even though I make it clear from the beginning what my limits are. For the record, I suspect I’m as much into sex and can be as visually stimulated as any man, but I know the proper parameters within which I can act on that sexuality and I will not go beyond them. Are men really such pitiful creatures that they are incapable of doing this? Not the ones I know, obviously, but, as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

Respectfully,
CJ

63

Here’s a start. Linda A. Farstein, once Assistant Manahattan DA and Director of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit, in her book Sexual Violence,Our War Against Rape, states that “The rarest circumstance in the field of sexual assault - but by far the most pernicious - is that of false reporting.”

How rare is false reporting in rape? The most widely cited numbers come from Susan Brownmiller’s work, Against Our Will, where she refers to the New York City experience of 2% of allegations being determined by the police to be false, "a figure that corresponded exactly to the rate of false reports for other violent crimes."

The vast majority of rapes go unreported, for varyign reasons. One is that the victim does not always know she has been raped. Robin Warshaw, in I Never Called it Rape reports that only 27% of the women surveyed whose assualts met the legal definition of rape actually thought they had been raped. Another reason is that despite the absence of evidence showing that there is a greater level of false reporting in rape than other crimes, people relying on ‘gut feeling’ disbelieve and accuse the victim.

64

This assumes there are two positions only, sex and not sex. That’s just not the case. A woman may go to a man’s room intending to engage in sexual activity, but not want to have sexual intercourse. She may go there intending to have sex, but then realize she does not want to for whatever reason. She may even just go there for coffee (has happened to me on more than one occasion). The fact that both people are drunk and in a bedroom, however willingly, does not indicate sex is on the mind of both people.

65

Hell, Siege, that would include most Dopefests!!!

66

So you’ve got two biased people, a prosecutor who’s career lives on convictions and dies on false accusations, and a feminist whose ‘1 in 4’ statistic includes many women who didn’t believe they were raped at all saying that false reporting isn’t a problem, yet there are more and more men being freed from prison on DNA evidence that establishes their absolute innocence, and this is supposed to be proof that false reporting isn’t a problem?

It seems like a very big problem to everyone but prosecutors who need convictions to boost their careers and feminists who peddle victimhood in order to sell books.

Maybe it’s because the ‘legal definition’ in some jurisdictions is so asinine as to include any woman who is legally intoxicated as having been raped whether she consented or not?

The same ‘gut feeling’ that’s used to destroy the reputation and life of any man who happens to be accused of rape the minute his name and photograph are splattered across the television and newspapers?

Which is entirely the problem. When a drunk guy invites you into his bedroom at 3 am, he’s asking you to have sex with him. When you invite a drunk guy into your bedroom at 3 am, he thinks you’re asking him to have sex. Hell, if I ask a guy to my room at 3 am, I’m asking him for sex. It wouldn’t occur to me that there are other reasons to be in a bedroom with someone at 3 am, and I’m not even male!

67

This shows you really don’t know much about prosecutors. Prosecutors want high conviction rates, that much is true. That’s why they HATE bringing rape charges (or at least that is what I have read and seen). Rape is hard to prove, and it is almost never a slam dunk case. It is in the interest of the prosecutor to root out all possible problems in the case before it goes before a jury (a jury made up of people subjected to the same rape myths as the population at large). Police departments and prosecutors are notorious for disbelief direct at those who accuse rape, which again is one of the main reasons cited for under reporting. As for Brownmiller, while she is a feminist, she is hardly an extremist feminist. More importantly, she is citing to results of work done on the New York City Police. This is not something she just made up.

Of course it seems like a very big problem when people ignore the evidence that exists that it is not true. If it is a big problem, show me the evidence. And again, how does taking on a weak case to trial boost conviction rates - that’s just plain silly.

You really think that covers the 73% of women in the survey who reported assaults that met the legal definition of rape, yet did not think they had been raped? Do you think, for example, a person should be held to a contract they enter into when inebriated to a point where they cannot understand it, even if the other person got them into that condition for the very purpose of getting them to enter into the contract? Would it change your opinion if they had repeatedly refused to sign the contract while sober?

Some what of a non sequitur when I was refering to the under-reporting of rape because of the lack of belief given to victims. Personally, I am somewhat amenable to privacy laws to protect the identity of those accused of many crimes.

And you have totally ignored what I am saying. Even if I accept your premise that the only reason to go to someone’s room drunk at 3 AM is to have sex (which I don’t, because my personal experience shows it to be patently false), you are deliberately ignoring the point about different levels of sexual activity. Someone may go to the room intending to engage in mutual masturbation. Are they then not raped if the person refuses to accept that as ‘enough?’ What if the person wants sex, starts, and decides they don’t want to do it any more? believe me, I am getting kind of sick of the attitude that men don’t have an off switch, that we are so undeveloped that once a woman gets us going, it is her fault and we cannot be responsible for our actions.

A woman who has made dumb decisions and who gets raped is no less raped than a woman who has done everything ‘right,’ whatever that may be. I’d strongly advise any future daughter I may have that going to Mike Tyson’s room at 3 am is not a good idea. But I will also advise my son that just because a girl comes to his room at 3 am does not give him the right to ignore what she says at a later point.

68

That’s why there are all these convictions getting overturned with DNA evidence now? Because prosecutors don’t want rape cases?

She used the ‘convict someone, anyone’ mentality and a survey in which she determined whether or not someone was raped on her own criteria, including drunken consensual sex, and then claimed that 1 in 4 college women are raped. Also, you may not consider her an extremist, but I do.

I guess men being freed after DNA evidence proves they didn’t rape their accuser doesn’t count as ‘evidence’ to you? What, they must’ve been guilty anyway?

Yeah, actually, I do. Considering what I know about Browmiller’s study, I think her statistics are total bullshit.

We hold men to that standard. They’re supposed to be able to judge how drunk a woman is even if they never see her take a drink and automatically be able to tell that she’s ‘too drunk’ to consent even if they are quite intoxicated themselves. What’s good for the goose, and all.

Maybe there’s a lack of belief because of people like Katelyn Faber who make up stories and hurl accusations over guilt and/or a desire for money?

What I’m getting sick of is the ‘I didn’t know (s)he wanted sex when inviting me into his/her bedroom at three in the morning.’ A whole lot of bullshit could be cut if everybody, male and female, would agree on what that bedroom invitation entails and then just not go if that’s not what they want.

Not always is a dumb decision rape. Are you going to tell your daughter that if she goes to that guy’s room at three am and has sex with him and then regrets it in the light of day that she was raped? Because too many people believe regret = rape.

69

Ummmmm, Catsix, if there is DNA evidence, then you are dealing with an incredibly tiny subset of the class of falsely accused rapes. For your scenario to work, the woman concerned must have had sex (consensual or otherwise) with person A, and then accuse person B of raping them. If this is such a pandemic, provide me with some evidence.

I assumed you were talking about what is the standard idea of falsely accused rape, where a man and a woman have consensual sex, and she later claims it was rape. Not sure how DNA evidence is going to help in this matter.

Try reading some MacKinnon or Dworkin if you want to see some extremist feminist work.

I’ll ask again, how does DNA exonerate someone in the prototypical ‘false accusation’ case? And where is the evidence of this?

I am finding this somewhat amusing to the extent that I am always accused of being so massively pro-defendant (including a stint working for the public defender).

Shame that the 27% number does not come from a Brownmiller study then.

You seem to really focus on this one element without giving any indication of how prevalent it is. Telling when someone is too drunk to consent is reasonable easy in the majority of circumstances. If she is puking down your back as you hug her, probably too drunk to consent. If you make a mistake and she did want to have sex, then odds are she will want to have sex with you when she is capable of making that choice. If she doesn’t, then you have to doubt the likelihood that she really wanted to. Erring on the side of caution might mean you get laid slightly less often. But it also might mean you don’t subject someone to an horrific experience, get brought up on rape charges, and potentially dmage two lives for one drunken night.

This is assuming Ms. Faber made it up, and in order to get money or out of guilt. I saw an incredibly screwed up prosecution. I’m interested to see the evidence at the civil trial.

Just answer me this… (again) What if one party wants something less than full penetrative sex? Is that not an option for people any more? Or should they not go back to someone’s room unless they are willing to engage in whatever sexual activity the other person desires? How about discussing what a bedroom invitation means in advance? Or asking if the other person is willing before doing things? Wouldn’t that cut a whole lot of bullshit out?

Not sure what the first sentence means. But yes, if I had a daughter, I would also tell her that a false accusation of rape is a serious crime. I would also teach her, I hope, that it takes more than saying something is a huge problem for it to be so.

70

I don’t think anyone would agree that it’s rape in that scenario. We’re more talking about a woman who does go to the man’s room, and then BEFORE they have sex, for whatever reason, she changes her mind (it’s later than she thought, she has second thoughts, he doesn’t have a condom, she just changes her mind), and he goes ahead and forces her to have sex, then it’s still rape. Even if they’re naked, and ABOUT to, if she says no, (Or he, if we’re talking about gay men, just so you don’t think we’re all a bunch of man-haters :rolleyes: ), it’s rape.

She may be the biggest psycho bitch in the world-but that doesn’t mean the guy isn’t a rapist.

71

And in those cases, isn’t the burden of proof supposed to be on the accuser? You act like it’s a huge problem that the accuser is not automatically believed, but to do so would suppose guilt, wouldn’t it? Something that isn’t supposed to happen?

Of course, those are cases like Katelyn Faber, who seems to have been motivated by money.

I have. I consider Brownmiller just as bad.

Except with rape, huh? You automatically want to believe that an accuser is a victim and anyone who insists on, oh, actual proof is just ‘making it hard’ for victims to come forward.

Of course you’ve neatly sidestepped the fact that an accusation of rape, founded or not, will in many cases ruin the accused’s life.

My apologies. It looks like Robin Warshaw is part of the same ‘culture of rape’ feminist crowd that I already have problems with. I don’t buy the feminist party line, no matter how man statistics they can manufacture with misleading surveys and twisted definitions.

Because it’s blatantly sexist to hold men to a higher standard of clarity and mind when they are drunk than we hold women to when they are drunk. It’s sexist and it’s wrong.

It seems pretty clear to me there’s no real evidence of a rape having occured and that Katelyn Faber had plenty of reason to make up a fairy tale, including the money she’s after with this ‘civil trial’.

I believe I’ve been very clear in the ‘don’t go into someone’s bedroom in the middle of the night unless you’ve got a mind to fuck them.’

It means that when women regret sleeping with someone, they’re told it’s rape, but when men regret it, they’re just razzed by their buddies a bit.

You don’t think a false rape accusation is a huge problem for those it happens to? Because quite frankly, I don’t give a shit if it’s only 10 men a year in the whole country. The fact that someone’s life can be destroyed, that their career can end, that they can be pilloried in the community over nothing but an accusation is a very big problem.

72

Wasn’t it California that decided she doesn’t even have to let the guy know she changed her mind?

And on the other case, if either party says no, then it’s rape. What about if he says no? What about if he’s really drunk and she pressures him into it? Why has this been all about the big bad frat boy taking advantage of the poor innocent sorority chick?

Also, I think ‘If you say no, it’s time to go.’ You don’t stay there after that.

73

“It means that when women regret sleeping with someone, they’re told it’s rape, but when men regret it, they’re just razzed by their buddies a bit.”

You keep saying this whenever the topic comes up, catsix. WHO has said this? Do you have any cites?

Do you honestly think that women get away unscathed when bringing an accusation of rape? There was a case not too long ago (ended in a hung jury), where the defense completely slaughtered the poor girl’s character, pointing out that because she shaved her pubes she was a horny little slut. She was passed out drunk, six boys sexually assaulted her, one with a fucking glass bottle-and SHE was the one who was brought to tears on the witness stand.

74

I really can’t continue this, catsix. You have produced nothing in the way of evidence to justify what you are saying. I’ve produced surveys to indicate you are wrong. You have claimed they are feminist hatemongering, and in essence said that any survey that shows the same results, you will dismiss as invalid, without knowing anything about the study itself. That’s just not reasonable, and it makes it impossible to continue a discussion. There are faults with the methods of surveys used in these situations, and they provide groudns for differing opinions. ‘This is not true because I say it is not true’ is not, however, a legitimate objection.

I have said in my posts I think accusing someone wrongly of rape is a serious crime. I also think it is a massive disservice to the women who are raped, because it provides ammunition for those such as Katie Roiphe, who, without a shred of survey evidence seek to attack the work of those who have studied rape (hmmmmm). You, however, portray something as a major problem without providing any evidence whatsoever that it is common. You talk about DNA evidence exonerating lots of men from false rape charges, and then, when the illogicality of it is shown, ignore the counterpoints. You claim I am not giving people the benefit of the doubt when it is you, in the face of all posted evidence, who assumes there is an epidemic of false rape charges.

Strange as well you have chose to ignore my statement that I would be somewhat amenable to privacy for those accused of rape. I guess it doesn’t fit in with your assumption that I am in favor of ruining the lives of countless innocent men.

75

It’s my interpretation of the ‘studies’ by Brownmiller and Koss, specificially, as well as the attitude I encountered from the University of Pittsburgh Campus Women’s Organization.

She claimed she was passed out drunk. Apparently the other people who were there had quite a believable story themselves.

I believe men get the far, far worse end of it.

76

That’s why the law allows prosecution of both men and women for rape.

Why do I talk about men raping women (apart from the fact that I do so in my research, and so it is a habit)? It is because the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by men against women. And then the next category is men against men, which have a totally different dynamic and so are not amenable to the same analysis. There are cases of women on man rape, and they shoudl be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But they are incredibly uncommon when compared with man on woman rape. But I guess all those figures come from man-hating femist controlled surveys too, so I don’t know if I could convince you of that.

77

I guess this should make me stop wondering why you’ve been dragging out numbers from noted feminists.

What’s next, the Koss farce?

Why is it that only feminists seem to say that these are second to the number of rapes of women?

It’d be kind of hard to tell given the misandrist attitude of much of today’s post-feminist society in which a man is always the wrong doer and not the wrong. Of course in some places it’s not rape if a sober woman has sex with a man who’s too drunk to consent, but it is if a sober (or drunk) man has sex with a woman who’s legally drunk. I got that speech enough times at U Pitt.

How about some equity there?

78

I don’t know of any jurisdictions that have laws like that, but if they do, they are wrong. I assume they are based on a penetrative defnition of rape. I don’t think that is necessarily the best model. I had thought that states had changed the laws that required penile penetration, but if some still have laws that require the penetration to be penile, or the target to be a vagina, then they shoudl be changed. This is not only to allow rape of men to be recognized, but also to close the loophole that would exist in many areas where a woman could be forecibly penetrated with a broken bottle, yet the attackers would avoid a rape charge. My bottom line is that if the other person is unable to consent, don’t initiate sexual contact. It applies to men and women alike.

Equitable enough for you?

You see, that point we can discuss properly - what the law should be. When you sit there and say that my numbers are wrong because they came from feminists without either providing data showing alternative results, or demonstrating what the errors in the survey techniques were, you close the door to any possible discussion.

79

Oh you want a specific problem with the methodology?

Instances were counted rape in the Koss study, which is often repeated by feminists and which apparently Brownmiller also uses, in which the female was ‘intoxicated’. No actual level of intoxication was given, however, in most jurisdictions at the time legal intoxication began at a BAC of 0.10% for those over 21 years of age.

I’m afraid I find serious fault with a study that asks merely about ‘intoxication’, given that the legal definition of the term starts at such a low BAC, and then categorizes subsequent sex as rape, which is what was done.

Further, I take issue with the attitude expressed by Koss and Brownmiller, as well as it appears Warshaw, that ‘all men are potential rapists’.

I don’t trust their statistics, and I never will. If you do, then we probably have nothing to discuss.

80

OK, we have finally got somewhere. I have not looked much at the Koss study, but will take a look when I can to see if this is the case and what the effect is.

But all men (and all women) are potential rapists. There is a valid reason for making that statement, if only to demonstrate that the paradigmatic view of rape (dirty, dishevelled man waiting in bushes in park at night to pounce on jogger) is not accurate. While rapes do occur like that, they are in the minority, and so people should be aware that the person they are dating is a potential rapist. As well as a potential thief, blackmailer, serial killer etc.

Give me some other statistics to trust, then. Until you do that, what do I have to base a decision on?