"It’s also worthwhile pointing out that it’s harmful for a woman to believe she was assaulted, even if she wasn’t.
Huh?
I’m confused.
And haven’t we all agreed that if we are talking about consent, that the belief of the victim is what is tantamount, not what the courts say? Everyone knows that many simple assaults happen with no charges filed, let alone prosecution, so does that mean an assault didn’t happen if there was no conviction?
I also see that a greater percentage of men are aware that UofM has a sexual assault policy and know where to find it. It’s a small amount difference but I think it does speak to awareness and perhaps a misconception that men aren’t “aware.”
Seems like yesterday, I was sitting at parent orientation. Where did the years go?
I remember sitting in the audience and a parent asked a panel about sexual assaults.
Panelists answered,“Yes. We have sexual assaults here”.
If the freshmen orientations work, I would hate to see what the numbers used to look like.
http://www.onsp.umich.edu/orientation/parentfamily-member/families-freshmen/orientation-schedule
“Huh? I’m confused.”
If a person believes that she was assaulted, even if she was not, that’s likely to cause her distress. That distress might be prevented if young people were better educated about what assault is and how to advocate for themselves in intimate situations.
^^ Not to mention that such education could possibly help in another way, in that it could prevent a person who might wrongfully believe they were sexually assaulted in a certain situation to never have that misconception, and thus avoid the accompanying distress. (There’d still be distress, presumably, but of a different sort, and the one Hanna mentioned wouldn’t be overlaid on top of everything else.)
@Hanna in post 1896 did you mean the accused should talk about it?
The rates of forcible rape in the Michigan survey are somewhat lower than we’ve seen in other surveys. Also, interestingly, the survey did not see any significant difference between the class years.
Fang – agree that the forcible rape data should be the most solid and also the easiest to compare between surveys.
UM says rape using force was 1.8% per year for female undergrads. Which is a high number. But compare to Syracuse which reported 9.6% for the freshman 12 months. Would love to see the same survey replicated for non-college students.
UM reports 1.1% for male undergrads. That’s not credible to me.
UM survey seems to be pretty well done. Overall it had a high 67% response rate.
I don’t think the questions about drugs/alcohol being phrased vaguely as “someone taking advantage of you” let you draw any solid conclusions from those responses.
Can someone explain the 8% number to me? That 8% number is rape (non-consensual penetration) but without the use of any force but only the use of “verbal pressuring.” I’d think that situation is manipulative bad behavior (perhaps regret sex) but not rape.
The survey pointedly does not label that as rape, but as nonconsensual penetration. Note the description: “including telling lies, threatening to end the relationship, threatening to spread rumors about you, showing displeasure, criticizing your sexuality or attractiveness, or getting angry but not using physical force.”
I’d say that covers a wide set of behaviors, some of which are rape and many of which are not. If someone threatens that if I don’t sleep with them they’ll end the relationship, well, that’s my choice whether I want this relationship to continue. And if they say I’m ugly or I must be a lesbian if I don’t sleep with them, well, they’re a boor and a jerk, but I can leave. But if they threaten that if I don’t sleep with them they will blacken my reputation, that’s blackmail and that makes it rape. And if someone gets angry and doesn’t use force, but I reasonably think they will use force if I don’t submit, that is also rape-- that could occur in a case of intimate partners where the guy is sometimes violent.
Think of the villain in a period drama. He sneaks into the room of the sweet virginal heroine, twirls his mustache, and threatens her that if she screams, he will tell everyone that she invited him into her room and her reputation (and her life) will be ruined. She submits to his odious embraces and he penetrates her. That’s rape. (Although I hope that before the rape occurs, the hero bursts from the closet where he was hidden, with a horsewhip.)
I apologize for not being interested in the twitter story. I am interested, though, in language, and I continue to think, after reading this thread and the different surveys, that a lack of clarity in terminology is a real problem in trying to get a grip on this issue. Thus, for example, if sexual assault includes unwanted groping–such as unwanted “grinding” on a person’s posterior at a party or dance–then my guess is that 1 in 5 would be much, much too low at many colleges. This type of trashy behavior is still a problem that needs to be addressed, but it is (in my opinion) a different problem from rapes, especially if a lot of the rapes are being perpetrated by serial predators.
@Hunt, the actual survey results from Michigan give a lot of detail:
https://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/04/Complete-survey-results.pdf
If you want to just look at forcible rape and rape where the victim was asleep or unconscious, Michigan separates out those numbers.
It seems to me that a reasonable analysis of the Michigan results indicates that many incidents are included that are unlikely to constitute rape from a legal standpoint. For example, the bulk of unwanted penetration incidents were a result of “verbal pressuring.” Another substantial chunk involved the reporter being “drunk or on drugs.” That’s not the same as incapacitated. It certainly doesn’t add up to 1 in 5 being raped. The percentage of people being sexually assaulted depends on the definition of sexual assault.
“The survey pointedly does not label that as rape, but as nonconsensual penetration.”
Fang – I agree with your surmises above. But many of the behaviors in your surmise would, under most people’s definition, be consensual and below the level of what most would think coercion.
“I’m going to break up with you if you don’t have sex with me” falls into the category of smart girls, stupid choices. So some portion of the large number of incidents reported in the nonconsensual penetration category are in fact regret sex.
A 1-2% incidence of rape per year seems to be what you get consistently from the surveys once you hack through all the noise. That’s a plenty big enough number to justify concern and action.
I think that we’d make more progress and have less backlash if we just focused on and talked about rape rather than the vaguer sexual assault concepts.
Wasn’t that what I said, @northwesty?
To clarify, if a guy threatens to break up with a woman if she doesn’t have sex with him, and she then has sex with him, that is not rape. That is her making a decision.
ETA: I would not call that sex “non-consensual,” either. She consented of her own free will.
The survey covers more than rape. 
The report is about sexual misconduct. Michigan explains what the survey is about. I think the explanation is on page 4.
The Introduction and Executive Summary in the survey reference “sexual misconduct” which presumably would be behavior that the University’s sexual misconduct policy covers. So I can see the inclusion of the groping or the posterior pinching. I haven’t looked at their policy but the inclusion of the pressuring for sex does seem out of place to me. Wondering if the inclusion is to simply heighten women’s awareness of it?
Michigan asks questions about certain behaviors.
Page 1 of the report.
http://hr.umich.edu/oie/TIXannualreport-11.24.2014-FINAL.pdf
The survey has forced percentages.Has incapacitation percentages. Probably not a huge overlap between these two choices.
Look more closely at the Michigan numbers:
Taking advantage of you while unconscious or asleep 1.1%
Threatening physical harm 0.3%
Using physical force 1.8%
Taking advantage of you while drunk or on drugs 6.7%
The first three are always rape under any definition. The fourth one is sometimes rape: for example, it includes having sex with someone who is semiconscious, and having sex with someone after giving them date rape drugs, both of which are clearly rape.
Those numbers are going to add up to more than 2%.
The rape numbers are very high.