An unbelievably ( or believably, depending on your stance in this most upsetting thread ) high percentage of women in my life have been raped, or have been victims of a degree of sexual assault.
As have male friends of mine.
As has myself. My parents have no clue, and never will.
It is without doubt the most twisted nightmare to try to comprehend. I have no idea who of my friends and family have been and haven’t told me. The statistical laws dictate that there are quite a few. Most of my close friends are female, and many of them have experienced some level of sexual assault.
I would comment upon jarbaby’s last statement a bit. The worst part of an assault is realizing that someone you trust is assaulting you.
Blue John, you are surrounded by invisible victims, whose outlet is this Message Board. How can you have the blind arrogance not to see this??? Incredible.
No offense Cartooniverse, but I think it’s best to leave it to the victim’s discretion which is the worst part. For everyone it is different. That’s why I said “Sometimes the worst part”.
Not sure what my post will add to or detract from the argument, but here it is, nevertheless.
I know a woman who, as a young girl of 5 was fondled by her babysitter’s nephew. He threatened to tell on her for something minor that she’d done, and used this threat in order to force her to lie down while he rubbed himself against her until he orgasmed. She never told anyone about this because she was 5, and confused, and embarrassed and ashamed, and felt dirty.
I know a woman who was forced into the basement of her apartment building when she was 7, by knifepoint, and forced to watch a man masturbate.
I know a woman who was picked up on the street, at 7 years old, and taken to an abandoned hospital, and brutally beaten and raped. Her escape was explained as a ‘feat of adrenaline’ by the police, who later visited the scene. When she finally made it home, she was not allowed to wash herself, or remove her tattered clothing, so that she could be examined thoroughly. She had her first examination by a gynecologist that day.
I know a woman who was sexually and physically abused by her step-father until she was 17 years old, and finally came to realize what it meant to be a victim. She pressed charges, and he was sent to prison.
The one thing that all of these women have in common is that they are all me.
Mothchunks says:
Speaking as a woman who has been on both sides of that fence, I can tell you that I do not believe that this is a black and white issue. In both cases where I reported the crimes perpetrated against me, I felt just as filthy and ashamed as I was asked to relive the events for the sake of a police statement or for a jury, as I did while they were taking place. You have likely never looked a woman who you knew was a virgin and felt genuine envy. You have never looked at a group of men in a police station, all of whom know that you have been held down, beaten and forced to have sexual intercourse, and tried to understand why you felt disgusting and unclean and unfit to be anyone’s ‘precious little girl’.
Once you have, perhaps then I can accept your, and others, lack of sympathy for women who cannot bring themselves to report the their rape experience.
Depends. Total stranger? If I don’t know that person, and the setting is not a legal one, then it is highly unlikely that whether she was raped or not will have any relevance to me, so it’s really none of my business. If she comes out and tells me for some inexplicable reason, I’d have no reason to think she was lying because I don’t know enough about her character, nor would I have any reason to instantly trust her assertion. The point would of course be moot, because the truth of that assertion would not impact me, so I would simply restrain from forming an opinion.
Lover? I have a rather low opinion in general of liars, IMHO lying is one of the worst things you can do, especially when your lie has negative consequences for others or when others rely to their detriment on the truth of your assertion. I can’t imagine I would date anybody for too long that I thought was a liar, even a casual liar as there’s no way to trust even a casual liar to tell the truth on important matters, liars have a way of rationalizing what’s a “big” lie and what isn’t. So I would imagine anyone I was in a romantic relationship with, I would have some degree of trust in, and would probably believe that person.
Relative? Depends on which one. I have a couple relatives who are habitual liars, attention mongers, and otherwise have a splotchy record that would make me doubt their word. If the context of my being informed was in a situation that appeared to be a genuine one, I would probably believe them.
Whether you believe somebody or not has alot to do, IMO, with the affect that belief will have on you. If you believing or disbelieving has no effect on you either way, if the person is a total stranger to you, then I see no reason to form a judgment on the veracity of the claims at all. If it’s a friend or loved one, and the truth matters to you, it comes down to whether you’ve picked the type of friends who are honest and genuine and avoided the type of friends who will lie and manipulate people to serve their own agendas. If there’s alot riding on it, (for example, one friend accuses another friend of rape, you don’t want to reject the accuser if she’s honestly reaching out to you, but you don’t want to unfairly ostracize the other friend if it’s all a lie), then I think we have a right to be supportive but retain a nugget of skepticism until the whole thing comes out.
If the question is about our “gut reaction” to a person claiming rape, when we know nothing at all about that person’s character, I’d say that any judgment on truth or falsity of the claims ought be reserved until more is learned. I would neither immediately leap to believe the accuser, nor would I immediately discredit her accusations.
If a “relative, total stranger or friend, or lover” came up to me and said “I’m in pain” my first reaction would be to feel sympathy. My immediate second reaction would be to figure out what type of help (if any) I can provide. Unfortunately, “I’m in pain” doesn’t provide me with a great amount of information. I have no reason to dispute the person is in pain. However, I simply don’t have enough information to determine whether it is an unbearable pain or a mild ache. I don’t know whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual pain.
If I discover the person has a mild headache, I’ll suggest an asprin and move on to other things. If I discover that the person has a festering wound then I will do what I can to get that person to a medical professional. The image of that person will undoubtedly linger for quite some time and I may even explore what gave the person the wound so that others might be able to avoid the same fate.
Rape is not a universally accepted term. Merely saying “I was raped” gives only the barest of facts. Were you date raped? Statutorilly raped? Physically abused? Lied to? Coerced? Sexually assaulted? They aren’t the same. Although being violated by a coke bottle and beaten may have the same pshycological impact as being raped, it is not going to be charged as rape in many states. In regular conversation, however, people are not bound by the legal complexities of what, exactly is rape.
So, how about everyone take a step back and realize that this thread is devoted to exploring whether a certain statistic is accurate. The answer to the original question must be “it depends on what you call rape.” I am almost certain their exists some definition of rape whereby 1/4 of all woman will be raped.
Unfortunately, this thread has done absolutely nothing to explore what that definition may be. After reading and participating in this thread I have absolutely no new information. Do I need have a very broad definition of rape to hit the 1/4 mark, or will a narrow one do it? I don’t have a clue. Apparently, nobody who has posted has a clue either.
At nine, and again at fifteen, I was sexually assaulted. Neither time was rape. Both times left me feeling filthy, and wondering what I had done “wrong” - how I had encouraged the behaviour.
My best friend’s mother was raped. Twice. They never caught the guy, who they presume was a serial rapist in the area.
My best friend herself was sexually assaulted once and raped once.
So, of…let’s see…five women who I know well enough to have been given this information, three of them have experienced six incidents of sexual assault. All of them multiple times. Three of those six incidents were rape.
Because unless a man has himself been raped, violated in this way, there is absolutely, absolutely no way he can ever fathom how it destroys a person. You just cannot understand, and you never will unless it happens to you. No matter how much love and sympathy you feel for women, no matter how many close female friends and family you have, no matter how many times you’ve heard these stories, no matter what… you simply cannot grasp it.
Women are far more capable of comprehending the emotional and psychological impact of such an act. I believe men can somewhat understand the impact, but never fully.
This is just the opinion of someone who has been there:
It’s a crime of violence that anyone who has ever been attacked and injured can relate to. Every violent assault has the impact of making a person feel unsafe, of preying on their self-confidence, of imprinting their psyche and of creating self doubt. I had to recover from blaming myself for being there when I was attacked by a mugger and blaming myself for being there when I was raped. To me, they were both events that made me question my own safety, and neither one was ‘worse’ than the other. I’ve had someone break into my home, and fully understand that the feeling of being violated isn’t unique to rape.
Someone who has survived being attacked in the past (the word ‘victim’ bothers me, because I don’t think I am one) has more an understanding of being the target of a crime than someone who hasn’t. But I can’t honestly sit here and say that a man who has been attacked violently and seriously injured can’t empathize with me. One of the things that made it easier to heal after being raped was that I came to an understanding with myself that I didn’t have to believe that the ‘worst thing in the world’ happened to me. What got me out the door again was knowing that no other kind of violent attack would make me sit indoors all day and cry, so that crime of violence shouldn’t either.
I don’t want that to come across as though I hate men or am suspicious of men or their motives, or think that all sex is rape, blah blah blah. I love men, I absolutely adore Mr. Armadillo, and most of my friends are men. I just think that because of the fact that women are (in your words, Blue John) less physically capable than men, and because of the invasive, penetrating aspect of this act (for women, and for some men), you cannot imagine what it’s like to have someone invade and desecrate your body.
On the other hand, I also believe that there is no way that we as women can truly understand what it’s like for a man who has been raped–they go through an overlapping but different set of traumas, which can include demasculation, fear of ridicule, etc. It’s even harder for a male victim to get support than a female. I could never truly understand the effects of such an act for a man.
Ok guys - this is going to have to be quick, because I am working well, technically
As a college student, at a 1st tier University, all I hear every day is the “1 in 4 college women will be sexuall assaulted in thier college career.” This statistic botherd me the first time I heard it, at “Fish Camp.” When I researched it in relation to the University I found this: http://studentlife.tamu.edu/gies/PDFs/Sexual%20Assault.pdf which illustrates many “wonderful” statistics about Rape in the United States.
I also found this: http://survey.tamug.tamu.edu/stulife/Appendix12.htm
the University’s definition, and “procedures” to deal with sexual assaults. No, I have to say that yes, I know a University is not a ‘real world’ application, per se, but - this is a fine example of exaggerated statistics to portray a desired opinion, so that the reader will adhere to this opinon. I am deeply concerned that many impressionable young people are being presented with this information at Universities across the country, and that there is no recourse for the individuals or student associations that are presenting this obviously skewed information. Surveys and statistics are designed to achieve the “desired results.” The surveyor/researcher does what he/she feels is necesary to get what they want to publish. It is almost virtually impossible to create a survey without the questions being biased and directing the survey-e (?) to the “correct” answer. On that note, I will leave you all with this:
At a highly prestigious university in the late 1950’s, a shocking fact emerged - 50% of the female students there were sleeping with their professors! *The reality behind this, was that there were only 2 female students in the first place - it had just reecnetly begun to admit female students - and the one that was sleeping with her professor, happened to be married to him. *
the reason i didn’t feel able to talk to a man, is that
i wasn’t particularly rational at the time, and was seeing all men as scary. i’m still not very comfortable with groups of men i don’t know.
IT ISN’T RATIONAL, I KNOW THAT, BUT IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE.
i was deeply ashamed. i felt like damaged goods and like i was broken. i didn’t want to admit that to a man, ANY man.
i felt disgusting, and i didn’t want to see disgust on his face.
to my thinking, women tend not to think of other women in those terms.
i’m not saying men aren’t able to empathise as well as women, i’m saying, that i FELT, AT THE TIME, that a man would not be able to empathise.
And I’m not trying to say that some man would understand you as well as you yourself would.
My only point of contention is that it is untrue to say that no man can understand any rape survivor’s pain fully.
‘But you’re a man, you’d never understand’ is too general. I think it’s unfair to just assume that someone with a penis wouldn’t be able to fully ‘get it’. Not asking someone to say that every man could, that’d be just as inaccurate as saying that no man can.
For what it’s worth, the first person I told was a very close friend of mine. A guy. He understood. Everybody’s different.
Cartooniverse, this thread doesn’t matter to society at large, it has no impact on the facts.
irishgirl, most of the time the UK Home Office is overtly feminist.
MixieArmadillo, sexist, ignorant, supremacist tripe serves no purpose but to offend. There is no reason at all a man who hasn’t been raped is less able to understand the mental state of a rape victim than a woman who hasn’t been raped. Your use of the word desecrated shows your old-fashioned attitudes. Emotionally charged hysteria isn’t surprising given these views. Thinking of women as holy shouldn’t be in this day and age.
Women are no more empathetic than men, especially towards women, no more able to put themselves in someone else’s place. The philosopher Otto Weininger convincingly argued that this is a solely male preserve.
Well, Blue John, given the nauseatingly mysogenistic views you’ve expressed in this and other threads, I don’t find it surprising at all that you think a majority of women are liars and deceitful about “calling rape,” or use such acts as fuel against men, and I truly hope that no woman in this situation ever feels need of your support.
Of the number of women, including myself who have gone through this trauma–and yes, they all were forceful, violent, penetrative rape in the most unadulterated sense of the word–only one has participated in legal proceedings, and only because another woman found the courage to bring him to trial (and, I might add, this one guy raped at least twenty five women… and there’s a significant chance he might not be convicted, because it’s mostly his word against them.). Isn’t it grand that you think none of these crimes actually occurred? I wish I would have known that “there was no reason to believe it was actually occurring” when my particular rapist was beating me senseless and shoving his penis into my vagina.
What evidence do can be offered to prove the existence of a huge body of invisible victims? Many have shown up in this thread, and those are only the ones who are capable of speaking about it in a public forum, and who happen to surf the Straight Dope.
As for calling my post “sexist, ignorant, supremacist tripe,” I could say the same about nearly every post I’ve read by you in this thread and in the draft thread. Clearly you believe there are quite a few mental and physical differences between the sexes. There’s nothing discriminatory about what I said–I think most would agree that women for the most part have a different emotional connectivity to sex than men, and the act in and of itself typically has a much deeper emotional impact on women. I don’t think all women would automatically empathize, or that men necessarily don’t I just think that it’s more likely that a woman would understand the trauma, and that men understand it in a different way.
You said “Your use of the word desecrated shows your old-fashioned attitudes. Emotionally charged hysteria isn’t surprising given these views.” Well, since you know me so well, why don’t you tell me exactly what my “old fashioned attitudes” are? And hysteria? That really just amuses me. Way to go with the hyperbole, kid.
And finally, I have never expressed a view of women as “holy”–that’s your projection. You seem to have some sort of grudge against women and a pretty damn superior attitude towards them, so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that you project those views onto others. I guess maybe it’s okay to say that
but it’s not okay to express the opinion that women have different levels of empathy towards sex crimes than men. Roger. Got that. I guess I’ll go get barefoot and pregnant and back into the kitchen now and make my man some pie.
:mad: 
:smack: :eek: