This site has tips that include some of the suggestions so far; it tells men that:
These tips are also good advice to women who are sexual aggressors, but I can understand it speaking directly to men. Men are more likely to see this advice as for them than they would be if it were more generalized.
For educating people who may commit a rape, say at party, and not even be sure if what they did was rape, those are great. However, I am refering to people with sociopathic tendencies. That, and any sort of educaiton or therapy means nothing to them, as quoted in my last post.
That all seems like pretty good advice to me. I would note that the “avoiding using alcohol or drugs” bit may be a little unrealistic: after all, plenty of healthy relationships are kicked off by a little bit of inhibition-loosening booze. Perhaps it’d be better to say, “If you plan to drink or otherwise get fucked up, be very certain ahead of time that you have clear limits in place for the evening, and that you will err on the side of caution.” Or something like that.
Daniel
Also, cultural differences taken into account, you can roughly even out the statistics of rape around the world. In some cultures, sex is more free (communal sharing of partners) so rape would dwindle, for example what we call ‘date rape’. The united states is actualy one of the few countries left where no sex before marriage is still highly preached. Whether sociopaths are in roughly equal population around the globe, this can be disputed. I have no statistics to comfirm this, but just because one is a sociopath, it does not mean he will commit a specific act.
And then, you must take into account how accurate the statistics are. Do you think many rapes go unreported? I certainly do.
Do you think that some women have sex and then regret it or report a rape knowing that it can destroy a career? I am sure that has happened.
I am sure, however, that if you take any culture, and study cultural differences, youc an account for the different statistics. In certain places, women who are raped are killed, ostracized from the community, etc. Some cultures (as do we) see reporting a rape as shaming the family. Do you think many countries even have proper authorities who will pursue the charges? Some do.
Since the vast majority of rapes are by “people who may commit a rape, say at a party”, and not by “people with sociopathic tendencies”, the relevance of your post to this debate is tangential, at best.
Let’s get off the psychopath tangent and talk more about the problem with those who take inappropriate liberties with their sexual partners in social situations. That’s where most rapes occur and that’s where the most change is possible. There will always be people with mental defects who do things they ought not to, but that excuse isn’t available to the guy who wants to have sex with his girlfriend, but, being unsure if she’ll agree or not, slips a roofie into his date’s drink, or just overpowers her when they go back to her place in the evening.
And you are saying that the people in the example you gave do not have sociopathic tendencies? Explain how this is so. My posts were quite relevant, as I cannot fathom soemone who would exclude sociopahic tendencies from this argument. How can you say that the person did this without knowing what he was doing? In most cases, that would not be so, even in ones involving alcohal. Sociopaths of varying degrees aren’t uncommon (one estimate by a psychiatrist says roughly 300,000 in canada). People who are becoming CEO’s or attaining other high positions in business are now (or will soon be) tested for sociopathic tendencies.
‘Date rape’ is defined at about the jr. high level and then again in high school (at least it was for me), so you would be hard pressed to find people who do not have at least a vague idea of it. The problem is that even if you pinpoint the person who has tendencies toward acts such as these, what can you do? Tell me harshly that you are on to them and they could face jail time; the ruining of a possible career?
There is nothing else you can do exept define rape and help people take measures to protect themselves. Any measures that would definitely stop rape are beyond our laws and time. Mentioning of sociopaths is not “tangential” as it is an argument that not much can be done.
Oh, and why the very condescending seeming remark (the quotes)? Is my written word painful to read?
Aw, c’mon, you’re gonna have to provide a cite for both these claims. They’re bizarre and surprising.
Daniel
sure, no problem.
for the sociopath number:
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
http://www.hare.org/ official site, his statement should be there somewhere.
for the ceo’s tested:
http://www.dennistcheung.com/blog/archives/2004/09/psychopath_ceos.html
there are more official sites for that one. i beleive i read the original on slahdot.org
Both of these appear to be unsubstantiated blog posts; the “hare” stuff looks to be a fringe scientist not generally accepted by anyone. Got anything from a refereed journal, or do you just expect us to accept some random crap that a loony stuffed out on the internet?
And for the record, Slashdot is not a reliable source of information on any topic.
I appreciate the cites; I gotta say that while they’re good as cites, the underlying claims are pretty weak.
For the first one, I’m not seeing any evidence of how this Dr. Hare reached his conclusions (or indeed why I should believe him): the whole website comes across as something of a cult of personality. That’s not to say he’s incorrect, just that his assertion is insufficient. I’m not about to read every one of the articles on that site to see if one of them mentions his methodology, but I’ll do a bit of Googling to see what I can find.
For the second, that website just suggests, in the most unscientific of terms, that some CEOs might be psychopaths. There’s no indication at all in the site that “People who are becoming CEO’s or attaining other high positions in business are now (or will soon be) tested for sociopathic tendencies,” at all, much less that (as your quote suggests) this will be happening on any broad scale.
Daniel
Slashdot? The community that links to articles by reliable news sources? Do you have something against me? You simply share your opinions (which you try to deter me from doing) yet only reply selectively when I challenge your statement. Please cite or give a good example of how slashdot is not reliable.
http://www.hare.org/home/index.html
qualifications. If not satisfied, go to his site and see if he is lecturing near you, buy his book, send him an email or letter. <sarcasm>i would profoundly distrust those lunatics at the university of british columbia.</sarcasm>
http://www.google.com/search?q=Is+your+boss+a+'snake+in+a+suit'+or+just+an+ordinary+psycho%3F&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
select your source on this one.
I think Rob Malda’s own statement that Slashdot is “crap” is enough to dismiss its credibility. He admits that Slashdot makes no effort to validate material posted on its site, and so everything posted there should be considered unreliable. Cite to a real source next time, ok?
(Both quotes are from private emails I exchanged with Mr. Malda regarding a grotesquely inaccurate article that caused me and the group I was working with at the time a great deal of extra work. He quite clearly disclaimed any responsibility to exercise integrity in journalism.)
Dr. Hare is a retired professor wandering the lecture circuit. He makes his money now by making outrageous statements and then selling books and making public speeches defending those statements. Basically, he’s a whore, selling off his apparent credibility to support his retirement lifestyle. It puts food on the table but does not help his actual credibility. Again, I ask, have any of his recent claims regarding the incidence of psychopathy been published in a refereed journal?
I still think you’re trying to divert the issue here, though. I do not believe that psychopaths are responsible for the majority of rapes; most rapes are by people who hold inappropriate beliefs about the circumstances in which consent is required to have sex (or false beliefs about what constitutes “consent”); holding such beliefs doesn’t make them psychopaths, it just makes them poorly taught. We need to correct the teaching. I think that by trying to label all rapists as psychopaths you are trying to avoid the social changes necessary to reduce the incidence of rape, thus insuring that women continue to bear the burden of unwanted sex while at the same time insuring that men can still get a fuck whenever they want it.
Yes, I should have read the whole cite. That doesn’t make my claim wrong though.
I already provided a cite stating that the FBI believes at least 8% of people lie about being raped. I see no reason why that number would be lower for people conducting a phone interview. It makes little sense that someone would be deceitful to a cop but not to a phone researcher.
I think I explained that in my previous post. I do not assume that the lying only goes one way. Just that the methods they used are going to result in incorrect numbers. I only discussed the one direction because that was the only one for which I provded a cite. Plus, I find the cites that claim “x percentage” of rapes go unreported very suspect and unrealiable. Please stop saying that I made a claim that I have not backed up. I was not wrong to suspect the veracity of the cites in question, nor were my arguments invalid. Get back to the question at hand.
one last post becasue i am tired of this debate:
“Slashdot is criticized for posting inaccurate, highly biased, and/or inflammatory story summaries that incite heated posting, as opposed to serious news or commentary (see Slashdot subculture).”
why do you insist on taking what qualifies as personal shots? have i done you some wrong by starting a debate? i give you evidence, you give me journalism. sure you have your opinion, but to render EVERYONE else’s useless? you are an interesting person.
i never stated that education is wrong. simply that there is no hope in teaching it to those who won’t take heed. what do you propose for those people? all you do is negate but where are your solutions? any proposition? anything new? the only solution i have heard form you is: educate. well, kind of a broad term. what have you come up with that isn’t being done? becasue i am very interested.
if the conclusion you put on that statement follows through, i am in favor of no laws because telling them won’t make a difference. some people will kill others and some won’t, right?
STOP putting YOUR OWN conclusions on my statements.
i challenge you to find me a case where there is convincing evidence that the rapist knew not that his actions were illegal. then again, forget it, you will just twist this post in some way, ignoring my challenge and taking again the throne of nullity. come on, i want to see some evidence for your claims.
this debate is pointless. take your throne of nullity.
They believe between 4 and 8% of people lie, I believe, not “at least” 8%. And ofo course it makes sense that someone would lie to a cop but not to a phone researcher: the lie to the cop can have a tangible benefit (i.e., getting someone arrested), whereas lying to the phone researcher will not.
The thing is, if the lying goes in both directions equally, then their numbers will be correct. If 30/1000 women were raped, and 5 of the women who hadn’t been raped falsely claim they had, and 5 of the women who had been raped falsely claim they hadn’t, then your end numbers will say that 30/1000 women were raped.
In order for the numbers to end up incorrect, there needs to be a disproportionate number of false claims in one direction. My instinct is that the disproportionate number, if any, will be in the direction of false denials of having been raped; your suggestion that the statistic overestimates the number of rapes, based on false reports, requires evidence. Which you’ve not provided.
Daniel
I don’t know about this. Drunk people are in a condition to know what they want; the problem is that they may want things while they’re drunk that they no longer want, or regret wanting, the next morning when they’re sober.
That’s certainly a problem, and I agree with what you said here…
… but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that drunk people shouldn’t be allowed to have sex, or can’t consent to sex.
If you make a bad decision while drunk–whether it’s getting a tattoo, starting a fight, or having sex with a stranger–the fact that you regret it later when you’re in a different mental state doesn’t change the fact that you wanted it at the time. Having sex with a willing partner is something that I have a hard time calling rape (although intentionally drugging someone to make them willing is nearly as despicable).