How are Democrats “exploiting the issue”? To do what?
To open investigations? To look tough on rape? What?
Attempted rape sounds like sexual assault. Perhaps they should have said “about 1 in 5 women have been raped or victims of sexual assault”.
What does “coming on to her physically” mean? If it means grabbing a women and trying to force her onto a bed or sofa (which sounds like one of the mildest forms of attempted rape), that sounds pretty clearly like sexual assault.
So while I think the survey should characterize attempted rape as “sexual assault” rather than “rape”, I don’t think this is a particularly egregious sin, since the two terms are often used interchangeably in common parlance.
it would also lessen the amount of people cutting in the lunch line.
Missed the edit window. This attempt at conflating the two is made more obvious by their use of the term “completed rape” in the report. Rape is, by definition, “completed”. It does not need to be qualified thusly. There is “rape” and there is “attempted rape”.
And I’m not even sure their descriptor “unwanted attempted penetration” is the same as “attempted rape”, because that would require the intent to rape to be present. A guy may make a strong come-on, but that is not necessarily “attempted rape”.
I can see that 1 in 5 women may have been subject to unwanted sexual advances, but turning that into “sexual assaults”, “attempted rape”, or even worse, “rape” is nonsense.
Moreover, the point is, they are completely clear and upfront about how they use their terminology. This is a really important thing to emphasize. Though using terms consistently between studies is important, it can’t be guaranteed nearly as well as using terms consistently within a study and clearly defining them. As long as a study does that, we should be happy. If others use the study’s unusual use of terms to misreport what the study says, that’s on them.
I don’t know. When I was in college there was a lot of fooling around and it’s easy for the guy to get a little ahead of the girl. I’m not talking about grabbing some random girl and coming on to her-- but you might be dancing or just making out or whatever.
I would never use those terms interchangeably. Sexual assault is not attempted rape and attempted rape is not rape. If the survey is trying to elucidate, they should use the terms correctly. It looks to me like there is deliberate obfuscation, especially since they use the term “completed rape” which is a nonsense term.
Don’t you just hate those blurred lines?
Is it that time of the two year cycle when Republicans get Tourette’s and start spewing about rape?
I’m not talking about “blurred lines”. I’m talking about inaccurate terminology.’
Sorry if someone’s sacred cow is getting skewered.
All US jurisdictions define someone with a blood alcohol level of .08 who operates a car is guilty of drunk driving. I think most people would think it quite reasonable if you’re guilty of drunk driving that you’re “intoxicated”.
Now, personally I would think it ridiculous to say a 120 pound woman who’s had three Gin and Tonics or three shots in an hour is intoxicated, but were she pulled over and given a breathalyzer test, the law would deem her “intoxicated”.
I have to say reading this thread and some of the linked articles about how it’s “obvious” when someone is intoxicated I’m reminded of the recent “buzzed driving is drunken driving” campaign where it shows a number of absurdly drunk people doing really stupid things to embarrass themselves and ends with the announcer declaring "it’s easy to tell when someone has had way too much to drink, it’s much harder to tell when someone has had ONE too many to drink.
We are looking at the same document. And the actual question asked in the survey (p 116) does not ask if contact was unwanted.
Grabbing a girl and trying to force her down seems pretty clearly “attempted rape” – I’m not sure how a “strong come-on” could fit into attempted rape unless it includes some attempted force (in which it is pretty clearly “attempted rape” and “sexual assault”).
You have to describe this stuff you’re talking about, because it seems just like assault and attempted rape to me.
It doesn’t use the word, but “unwanted” is implied (as I read it).
There’s a lot of sexual play in college. Lots. Guys dancing with girls in very sexual ways, making out with girls, or just hanging around and touching. The guy might interpret that as an invitation to go farther, and he starts making a move. The girl shuts him down. Now, as long as he doesn’t continue to force himself on her, he may feel that he’s done nothing wrong, and she may feel that she was on the wrong end of “unwanted sexual contact”. That’s not even attempted rape, but the survey would classify it as rape.
The survey is pretty good at otherwise using words like “made you XYZ” or “unwanted”. It does not in this case. We have no way of knowing if respondents answered the actual question that was asked (which would inflate rape cases) or if they answered a question that was not asked because they decided a different meaning was implied.
That is not to say that there isn’t a problem. It’s just hard to pin a number on it. And when you have a survey that asks faulty questions and that uses definitions that skew from general use, it becomes too easy to poo-poo the results. It also makes it harder justify policy decisions.
The authors have broken down the results. Most of the objections today are to including “Attempted forced penetration” and “Completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration.” “Completed forced penetration” of women comes in at 12.3%. Ok that’s not 1 in 5, but it’s still a lot. The 1-year estimate is 620,000 victims, about 3x the DoJ estimate. I don’t know how the methodology differs.
I don’t know if whether it’s 1 in 5, 1 in 10, or 1 in 30 matters much with respect what can or should be done on a national policy level.
It should come as now surprise that when you throw a bunch of 20-year-olds together, living largely unsupervised for the first times in their lives, you’re going to get a lot of sex and a lot of unwanted sexual advances. I would be shocked if college campuses did NOT have a higher rate of sexual assaults than the general population.
But trying to make things look worse than it actually is does not help the situation.
The study I’ve been writing about is a general-population survey. One concern of the authors is that it might under-sample college students wrt the general population.
To establish themselves as the anti-rape party. As opposed to the other one.
I’m not sure when taking a principled stand on an issue became exploitation, But then consider the source.
SS
Just to be certain, are you saying it’s ridiculous because if she’s had that much to drink she’s clearly something more than “merely” intoxicated? Or did you mean something else?
My ideas about what this could mean are so various it’s best just to say I don’t know what you mean by this.