# "Rape culture" and "date rape" debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203 "2015-08-28T19:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/181 "2015-09-02T11:33:32Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > What, really? We can explore the inner workings of atoms and send a goddamn space robot to goddamn Pluto, but accurate, informed data on human behavior is just impossible to gather? > > With respect, bullshit. Getting data on politicized topics in which people have both political and personal reasons to lie is difficult, yes, but it’s not impossible. And while defining a culture rigorously is difficult, we can always use simple proxies like geography as a first-order approximation. Ok, but nobody needs to do that to be able to say “making rape jokes at Freshman Orientation is obnoxious.” ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/182 "2015-09-02T11:41:59Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Ok, but nobody needs to do that to be able to say “making rape jokes at Freshman Orientation is obnoxious.” I’ll join you on that limb. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/183 "2015-09-02T12:33:40Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Ok, but nobody needs to do that to be able to say “making rape jokes at Freshman Orientation is obnoxious.” Yeah, no argument here. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/184 "2015-09-02T13:28:16Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > What, really? We can explore the inner workings of atoms and send a goddamn space robot to goddamn Pluto, but accurate, informed data on human behavior is just impossible to gather? No. The data is easy to gather, it’s hard to _quantify_. > [@](#): > > With respect, bullshit. Not bullshit. Subjective topics are amenable to study, but not hard numbers. Applying the methodology of science is a mistake. > [@](#): > > Getting data on politicized topics in which people have both political and personal reasons to lie is difficult, yes, but it’s not impossible. It’s not just about lying, it’s about people having differing perceptions and different truths. > [@](#): > > And while defining a culture rigorously is difficult, we can always use simple proxies like geography as a first-order approximation. That’s a bad first order approximation to use in a globalized world, IMO. Speaking as a scientist, it’s a _terrible_ idea to think science is the appropriate tool to use to discuss _everything_. People aren’t robots, not even in aggregate. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/185 "2015-09-02T15:20:31Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Ok, but nobody needs to do that to be able to say “making rape jokes at Freshman Orientation is obnoxious.” Yeah, that one should not require a fine tuned academic consensus. (And it overlaps with Crude Jackassery Culture or Troll Culture, which are not as dire but still obnoxious phenomena we see from the schoolyards to the Talk Shows to the presidential campaign trail) Part of the back and forth seems to include the question of not only can we reach a consensus definition of rape culture (or even, should that be subject to consensus), but also if/when that happens, then what – are there actions and policies that self evidently follow, no question about it or else you’re a rape apologist, or would that in turn just start another debate? ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/186 "2015-09-02T16:27:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No. The data is easy to gather, it’s hard to _quantify_. > Not bullshit. Subjective topics are amenable to study, but not hard numbers. Applying the methodology of science is a mistake. > > It’s not just about lying, it’s about people having differing perceptions and different truths. So you qualify! You list and enumerate your confounders! When you realize that your survey responders have different definitions of rape, and that some will respond to the word ‘rape’ but not a definition which clearly is rape, you list out those effects as you identify them! > [@](#): > > That’s a bad first order approximation to use in a globalized world, IMO. _shrug_ If you want to talk about the culture of a college campus, it makes sense to look at the college campus. You lose a view of alumni, and people who haven’t been inculcated or who are consciously resisting assimilation , but it’s a good first-order approximation. At least, it’s a hell of a better one than pretending that you can make no cultural assumptions about populations based on where they’ve lived for the past 5 years. > [@](#): > > Speaking as a scientist, it’s a _terrible_ idea to think science is the appropriate tool to use to discuss _everything_. People aren’t robots, not even in aggregate. Well, my subjective, personal truth is that you’re wrong, and that the fact that sociology and anthropology are actual science fields with research and papers everything prove you wrong. Happily, that’s also the objective, independently-verifiable truth. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/187 "2015-09-02T22:35:13Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > What about curling, is that not sports culture? What about drug culture? The “gay lifestyle”? Does something have to be mass broadcast for a middle class audience to qualify as a culture? I think you and a number of other people are confusing the word “culture” with “entertainment” or “society”. It is an objection of scope. To say America is equally a “rape culture” as it is a “sports culture” is demonstrably false. Insulting to our intelligence, in fact. The proper sociological term would be “rape subculture:” a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture. The culture-at-large in America is vehemently against rape. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/188 "2015-09-02T22:54:34Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > That’s why I don’t like the definition in post 13, because it correlates the culture with a metric and demands the hat. I think this is a fairly preposterous objection, given the context. There’s a community of people trying to deal with a real problem – sexual assault – about which every discussion is super politicized and highly charged. Within that community, a phrase has been created, “rape culture,” that serves as shorthand for a very subjective and very broad set of beliefs about things related the problem. It’s jargon, slang. Neither the question of the existence of the problem at large, nor of the existence of many of the individual phenomena that make up a lot of what’s being called “rape culture,” are especially controversial, relatively. They objectively exist. What is controversial is their significance as boiled down to a soundbite. Now comes people like the OP and **Tithonus** and **Stringbean** to say that the phrase “rape culture” _has no meaning._ They don’t actually want to talk about the ultimate question, the controversial one, about who gives a shit whether there’s a real problem and who doesn’t. They’ve got nothing on that. They haven’t even participated in that part of the thread. They just deny that the phrase has a real world referent and scarper. But all they’ve actually asked is “what do you mean, subjectively, when you say this phrase?” Which is a really easy question to answer, so they’ve gotten it. So now those of us who know what the phrase refers to have been put in a position where we have to create a fucking _scientifically_ rigorous one sentence definition of this jargon phrase we use to talk about a billion different things, just in order for it to have a meaning at all? No we are friggin’ not “demanding the hat.” People get sexually assaulted a shitload. That’s the problem. If you think that’s a problem, the challenges related to the phrase “rape culture” are gone, so far as I can tell, because call it whatever you want. I literally care zero about whether you think “rape culture” is an apt descriptor, or whether you agree with my definition of what I mean when I say something about a real problem that both of us agree exists. If you think the thing I’m talking about exists, and you have a word you have in your mind for that thing, that’s fucking WONDERFUL, and call it that. I’m not trying to create the ultimate sabermetric rape stat when I answer a question about what could anyone possibly mean when they say rape culture. I’m not trying to convince you that exactly 712 things make up rape culture, and exactly 39% of sexual assaults happen because we’re one and a half rape cultures above the mean. I’m trying to talk about things that I 100% know happen in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/189 "2015-09-02T23:25:19Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I can’t for the life of me figure out what drives the rape apologists. They like rape. They think it won’t happen to them and if it does, as guys, they’ll enjoy it. Part of it is these people are insensitive, I’m sure misogyny has a lot to do with it but I don’t even think it rises to that cognitive level. To me its more like a caveman grunt of not caring what happens to women Imagine someone is not only immune to bullets, but gains strength from being shot. They would not want anything done about gun violence because they benefit from it. They may not go out and cause gun violence themselves, but they’ll minimize it where they can because it doesn’t really hurt them to do so and they can do it with little effort. ---
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/190 "2015-09-03T00:05:17Z")
How many women did it take for the public to believe that Bill Cosby is a rapist? Well over 40 came forward, but it wasn’t until Bill’s leaked confession that came out this summer that he gave women pills so he could have sex with them that they were to be believed. Prior to this knowledge, Bill continued to do his stand up shows, even with protestors , he told his loyal fans to ignore them. And they did. The culture of Rape tolerated the horror and allowed him to go unchallenged. The culture of Rape decided that the news media not call it rape, just having sex. Oh the 40 were stupid, waiting forever to tell their story (even though the first accusations came 10 years ago) and gold diggers, wanting a career in Hollywood, whores, sluts, and worse. So I ask those who think there’s no Rape Culture to explain why the culture decided that this was a normal progression and only a leaked confession would be believed over 40 women. I’ll wait. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/191 "2015-09-03T01:50:47Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > It is an objection of scope. To say America is equally a “rape culture” as it is a “sports culture” is demonstrably false. Insulting to our intelligence, in fact. Can we dispense with that strawman please? We’re not saying “America is a rape culture.” That doesn’t even make semantic sense - America is a country, not a culture. Even talking about an all-encompassing “American culture” is dicey at best given that it is a heterogenous mix of cultures. > [@](#): > > The proper sociological term would be “rape subculture:” a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture. Fine. I don’t care if you call it the church bingo club. The point is there exists a real culture of rape in this country, and it is far more ubiquitous than many are willing to admit. > [@](#): > > The culture-at-large in America is vehemently against rape. If the culture-at-large were vehemently against it, the culture-at-small wouldn’t feel so emboldened about it. Everyone would be outraged at the foot-dragging on prosecuting rapes, on frat-boys flying threatening banners from frat houses, on blaming the victim for how she dressed, on dragging a woman’s sexual past onto the witness stand to beat a rape charge, on splitting hairs against whether a rape counts if it wasn’t forced. Really, if you were vehemently against rape, you’d be railing about these injustices instead of navel-gazing about whether it should properly called a subculture or whether it’s really the “culture-at-large” or not. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/192 "2015-09-03T02:32:57Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > I think this is a fairly preposterous objection, given the context. Objecting to bad science is never preposterous. And “…leading to an environment where more sexual assaults occur than would occur in the absence of such a culture” doesn’t pass muster. But you literally care zero, so it’s all good; we can ignore that definition. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/193 "2015-09-03T02:38:06Z")
I’m sorry, can you quantify what you mean by bad science, please? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/194 "2015-09-03T06:25:06Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > So you qualify! You list and enumerate your confounders! When you realize that your survey responders have different definitions of rape, and that some will respond to the word ‘rape’ but not a definition which clearly is rape, you list out those effects as you identify them! You’re going to end up with way more qualifiers than you have metrics, which is, IMO, crap science. > [@](#): > > _shrug_ If you want to talk about the culture of a college campus, it makes sense to look at the college campus. You lose a view of alumni, and people who haven’t been inculcated or who are consciously resisting assimilation , but it’s a good first-order approximation. It’s a crap first-order approximation, you’re assuming college is some sort of monoculture, when it isn’t. Greek life may be one, but that’s hardly a geographic constraint. > [@](#): > > At least, it’s a hell of a better one than pretending that you can make no cultural assumptions about populations based on where they’ve lived for the past 5 years. A nice man of straw you’ve built there… I said squat about not making assumptions. Assumptions do not numbers make. > [@](#): > > Well, my subjective, personal truth is that you’re wrong, and that the fact that sociology and anthropology are actual science fields with research and papers everything prove you wrong. There’s a reason they’re called “soft sciences”, you know. > [@](#): > > Happily, that’s also the objective, independently-verifiable truth. :dubious: What’s you objective, independently-verifiable definition of “culture”, then? One that breaks down to metrics only, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/195 "2015-09-04T02:54:12Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Really, if you were vehemently against rape, you’d be railing about these injustices instead of navel-gazing about whether it should properly called a subculture or whether it’s really the “culture-at-large” or not. Where there is forensic evidence in support, rape convictions are relatively easy. In most cases, rape is a he-said-she-said scenario. Character plays an integral role in any attempt to prosecute such circumstantial cases. Outside of simply accepting every woman who has claimed to have been raped, shouldn’t character concerns be integral to a court case? I can rail all day about how bad rape is. That’s about as useful as the erstwhile vacuous definitions of “rape culture” bandied about thus far in this thread. If you feel better about yourself that you hate rape more than I do, that’s your comfort of delusion. ---
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/196 "2015-09-06T02:04:01Z")
> [@](#): > > So I ask those who think there’s no Rape Culture to explain why the culture decided that this was a normal progression and only a leaked confession would be believed over 40 women. I’ll wait. It’s been 3 days and no one can tell me how Bill Cosby could be believed over 40 accusers---- no rape culture? Get over yourselves. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/197 "2015-09-06T02:22:06Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Where there is forensic evidence in support, rape convictions are relatively easy. > > In most cases, rape is a he-said-she-said scenario. Character plays an integral role in any attempt to prosecute such circumstantial cases. > > Outside of simply accepting every woman who has claimed to have been raped, shouldn’t character concerns be integral to a court case? > > I can rail all day about how bad rape is. That’s about as useful as the erstwhile vacuous definitions of “rape culture” bandied about thus far in this thread. If you feel better about yourself that you hate rape more than I do, that’s your comfort of delusion. When “character” involves the consensual sexual history of the accuser, and promiscuity of the accuser is used as a defense of the accused, that’s party of rape culture: that some women will supposedly consent to anything, and therefore could not have been raped. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/198 "2015-09-06T02:38:11Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > When “character” involves the consensual sexual history of the accuser, and promiscuity of the accuser is used as a defense of the accused, that’s party of rape culture: that some women will supposedly consent to anything, and therefore could not have been raped. If a man has been accused of rape 5 times prior, that should also be precluded as consideration by the jury…if I’m to follow your logic. Which is ludicrous, short-sighted, and unjust. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/199 "2015-09-06T02:45:37Z")
> [@Andiethewestie](#): > > It’s been 3 days and no one can tell me how Bill Cosby could be believed over 40 accusers---- no rape culture? Get over yourselves. Belief and criminal conviction are not the same thing. Bill Cosby has not been formally charged with rape, by any of his 40+ accusers. Your belief that he is a rapist is not based on the scrutiny of a public criminal trial. “Rape culture” is just a lazy way for you to say you are convinced Bill Cosby is a rapist and the fact that he isn’t in jail means we live in a society that condones rape. Which, of course, is ludicrous. You can’t be convicted of a crime you have yet to stand trial for… ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203/200 "2015-09-06T03:15:15Z")
> [@Andiethewestie](#): > > It’s been 3 days and no one can tell me how Bill Cosby could be believed over 40 accusers---- no rape culture? Get over yourselves. psssst…these people don’t believe Bill Cosby is guilty. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-culture-and-date-rape-debate/729203.md?page=11)