<p>And, yet, 07, the percentage of men who rape is very small, suggesting that most men really do know the difference between a consensual sexual encounter and rape. And, my personal feeling is that most healthy men prefer a consensual sexual encounter, even if it is casual.</p>
<p>Rapists are criminals</p>
<p>poetgrl: “rapists are criminals” and “criminals are rapists” I have been told by prosecutors that one of the reason that convictions are hard to get in aquaintence rape where there is no evidence of serious physical force is that the jury believes criminals are rapists more than rapists are criminals.</p>
<p>Wow --he looks just like my father, son, husband and/or brother (or me) kicks in and the thought changes to “she must have done something.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m a Williams parent. I feel the current administration is taking this seriously. I would absolutely encourage reporting there, after calling 911. As with anywhere, it’s in the survivor’s best interest to seek their own private psychological counseling.</p>
<p><a href=“Activists at Colleges Network to Fight Sexual Assault - The New York Times”>Activists at Colleges Network to Fight Sexual Assault - The New York Times;
<p>I don’t know if this article has been posted. My computer is being difficult about scrolling through the different pages of this discussion. I read the story this morning and thought it was an interesting perspective viewed through Title IX. I have great admiration for these young women taking on this battle.</p>
<p>After our experience with campus security at Ds school, we all agree people who are crime victims should a forgo their services in favor of 911 and the REAL cops. The campus security is part of the system and are more concerned about closing ranks and protecting themselves and U than victims. Wish it weren’t so but that’s how we feel.</p>
<p>In addition to paying attention to our “gut” we have to share with people we feel might be putting themselves at substantial risk. In college, my room mate met a guy at a dance. He seemed considerably older and ALWAYS wore a black cape. She learned that he lived in his van and was convinced the “feds” were after him. Many of us got a very creepy vibe from him and this info. She decided she was also creeped out by him but didn’t know what to do. We told her we’d all warn and hide her if we saw him coming. He did come around for a while but eventually moved on. We will never know if he was harmless and I’m sure we might have handled the situation better but it was the best we could think of as he hadn’t done anything wrong but just made everyone very uneasy.</p>
<p>It’s because we teach women how to “not get raped” rather than teaching men how to not rape. (I use women and men for ease though obviously women can rape and men can be raped.)</p>
<p>It’s the way our culture thinks so it’s not surprising at all that the default is consent until we say no. Won’t change until we start teaching our kids differently. >>>>>>></p>
<p>Some parents do. We did. We were very blunt with our boys about it.</p>
<p>Yes each us must teach those in our sphere but we also need to live in our world while working to improve it. I much prefer avoiding situation I feel will make particularly vulnerable over figuring out how to get out of dangerous situations. </p>
<p>I have not read anyone anywhere in this thread that is arguing–people have to be taught not to rape. Part of that teaching is most effective when there is great likelihood of being apprehended and severely punished for raping. People are mostly rational and weigh risks and benefits. The more often they get away without penalty for bad behavior including rape, the greater likelihood they will continue to reoffend whenever the opportunity arises. </p>
<p>The culture of hushing all of this up and not holding rapists to account cows victims and reinforces rapists. Us don’t want bad publicity or lawsuits so prefer to handle things “internally” and force the victim to honor a pact of silence.</p>
<p>Yes, va. I was speaking culturally not individually.</p>
<p>Stats. Unreported rapists. About 6.5% of sample of male college students qualified as having been involved in rape or attempted rape. 63.3% were repeaters averaging 5.8 acts each.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap.org/files/uploads/webinars/SV%20on%20Campus/Repeat%20Rape.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap.org/files/uploads/webinars/SV%20on%20Campus/Repeat%20Rape.pdf</a></p>
<p>I’m not sure that there is a massive breakdown in socialization concerning “don’t rape” as it plays outs. Looks like aquaintance rapists (and clearly repeat rapists) are most likely to have personality/mental issues. I’m not sure how effective risk of being caught is to deter these people.</p>
<p>The current casual hookup culture plays out well for the serial rapist’s agenda.</p>
<p>The comment made by a prosecutor to 07DAD ("…the jury believes criminals are rapists more than rapists are criminals.") really resonates with my experience hearing people talk about various cases. It’s troubling.</p>
<p>How likely is it that the victims in the Ohio and NC cases would like to relocate, perhaps even under a new name, in order to get away from the hate directed toward them? What would it take to assist them and their families?</p>
<p>P.S.: I can’t reply to PMs since I post mainly in Parent Cafe and so don’t have the post count required, but wanted to say Thank You for the support.</p>
<p>Also what does it take in the way of counseling and perhaps personal coaching to help the victims less likely to be a victim again in the future.</p>
<p>They do have witness protection plans so could those resources also be used for these victims? They seem quite vulnerable otherwise.</p>
<p>Juries and the public still has in their mind that there has to be a physical struggle by the victim for it to be “genuine” rape. So hard for them to budge that mindset.</p>
<p>Himom:</p>
<p>In a prior post on this thread I gave a link to studies that show that over 54% of first rapes occur prior to the girl turning 18. Only 29% of first rapes occur during the college years. It is a reasonable assumption that 10% or more of college freshmen females have already had a first rape. There were other links that indicated that once raped, the female is more likely to be raped again.</p>
<p>The treatment is probably going to be greatly impacted by whether it is a first or susbequent rape. To add to the problem, a very significant percentage of first rapes before age 18 are by relatives and/or step.</p>
<p>BFs of a family member, peers, authorities like teachers and coaches ( like Sandusky and similar), can also be rapists and assaulters/rapists as can clergy. I think part of the issue is that some of the reasons victims are especially vulnerable (broken home, single parent, low income, living in high crime area, possibly violent friends and neighbors) remain true before and after the rape.</p>
<p>Studies are still showing 1 in 4 college students are victims of rape or at least attempted rape, so this remains a big issue in colleges.</p>
<p>I haven’t personally witnessed a " casual hookup" culture except in the media, that is substantially different than the previous four decades, except in numbers as the population increases. </p>
<p>I do admit since we rarely watch television, don’t have cable and don’t live in an area dominated by the lowest common denominator, I am only vaguely aware of what passes as entertainment in some quadrants of the country. I suppose I should be better informed but I try not to fill up my brain space with garbage that I struggle to forget.:p</p>
<p>Tempramentally, I was a feminist from birth.
I was very shy, but I was always observing & it struck me as very wrong that females were seen as adjuncts to males, competence and character werent listed in the criteria- sex organs were. The first time I remember trying to argue against it was when I was 6, except I was arguing with my teacher about my right to " be what I wanted when I grew up".
After that I learned to be even quieter. :(</p>
<p>When I had daughters, I tried to teach them that they were not in any way inferior, that their worth was not connected to whether they liked to wear sparkly fairy wings or cut their hair down to nubs, and that if they wanted to be a police/ firefighter/ ballerina when they grew up, they could. ( I think she liked the outfits)</p>
<p>Am I the only one who read this in the 1970’s?
[Against</a> Our Will](<a href=“http://www.susanbrownmiller.com/susanbrownmiller/html/against_our_will.html]Against”>http://www.susanbrownmiller.com/susanbrownmiller/html/against_our_will.html)
</p>
<p>I didn’t report my assaults because I feared that because I was not a virgin, and because I had a curvy body, ( even though my face looked very young) it would be assumed that I was complicit, especially since I knew my attackers and since I wasnt bloodied & bruised.
That was forty years ago.
It is unbelievable, that in 2013, that a young woman can be assaulted while UNCONSCIOUS and some people ( parents!) believe that her rape was a forseeable consequence that she should have prevented.</p>
<p>It is bad enough that teen men believe that they can treat another human being like a piece of dead meat ( which some of them apparently believed her to be), but that adults who are parents and are charge of raising humans to be just, also believe in the tenets of rape culture as they deny its existence.</p>
<p>How disappointing is this? i wanted to add a link to a series of articles in a well known magazine, but because the name of the magazine rhymes with " witch" and is the term for a female dog, the link is censored.
:p</p>
<p>In all fairness to the courts/juries, we have justifiably high evidentiary standards in this country and rape is a crime that, unlike almost any other serious crime that I can think of, at times looks pretty close to something that is very much not a crime. If there is a violent struggle, there will be physical evidence to distinguish between rape and consensual sex. If a girl drinks to the point where she is incapable of consent and an acquaintance or her date rapes her, there isn’t going to be that kind of proof available. </p>
<p>I know that very few women lie about rape. But that isn’t enough for a conviction in a particular case. If there hadn’t been any texts and video evidence in the Steubenville case, and the case had come before a court, the victim would have said that she was drunk, (probably) drugged and passed out, and the guys would have said that they had consensual sex and she only claimed it was rape because of the disapproval of parents or friends. And as much as, if I were on that jury, I would be pretty damn sure the victim wasn’t lying, I really don’t think I’d be able to convict on that basis.</p>
<p>Himom: any rape is a cause for concern, but the 1 in 4 stat for during college is derived by using numbers that the government (who did the study) acknowledges cannot be squared with their other surveys.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.popcenter.org/problems/rape/PDFs/182369.pdf[/url]”>http://www.popcenter.org/problems/rape/PDFs/182369.pdf</a> </p>
<p>The 1 in 4 figure uses the massively higher numbers (1.7 vs. 0.16 completed rape; 1.1 v.0.18 attempted rape and 0.3 threat but no attempt to get 3.1% as the percentage for completed, attempted or threatened rapes) bumps it up to an “annual figure” of 5% because the stats were for questions about only the approximately 7 month academic year then multiplies it by 5 as the average number of years to graduate and gets “25% of college women are raped” while in college.</p>
<p>The carnage of rape starts at home in the years before college and adds more victims during the college years. I’m not sure anyone would send a daughter to college if it was truly a 1 in 4 probability she would be raped.</p>
<p>We hear so much about how to prevent rape, but much of that is targeted towards the hiding in the bushes stranger. But apparently statistics show that acquaintance rape is far more common. And the rapists are often guys who appear to be perfectly nice and respectable.</p>
<p>When I was in college, I had a couple of meaningful relationships with men. Both of them started out in similar fashion. We met and felt an attraction. He asked me out on a date. We went out to eat and had a good time. He asked me for a second date. Also had a good time. Kissed goodnight and made plans to see each other again. Within a few more dates, we wanted to spend time alone, so we went to his apartment and watched a movie. Each time we got physically more involved until we felt ready to become intimate. On some of these dates, we had wine or another drink at dinner or at his place. If ever I felt things were going too fast, I put the brakes on and the young man respected it. Only when I felt we had something potentially serious did we move on to a sexual relationship. It worked out great, and these were two of the most serious relationships of my life. This was how a courtship went.</p>
<p>Now, what if on one of these dates, the young man had NOT respected it when I felt things were going further than I wanted to? What if I had been raped? I would have said to myself, “he seemed so nice, so genuine, I can’t believe this.” But a victim blamer would have said “Oh, well, she was drinking alcohol with this guy. What did she expect?” or “She went to this guy’s place ALONE. She OBVIOUSLY knew what she was getting into.” Or perhaps, “well, it’s not like she was a virgin, so she really can’t claim she was innocent about the whole thing.” </p>
<p>I suppose looking back that I could have been fooled by one of these men. It has certainly happened to other women just like me, relatively intelligent but open to finding a nice guy to have a relationship with. And instead of my actions being taken as typical for a college romance, I could have been blamed, labeled stupid, or had my morals questioned. </p>
<p>It boggles the mind that even 30 years later, many people’s first instinct upon hearing about a rape is to say “well, what did she do to provoke it?”</p>
<p>So I guess to be never blamed for being raped, one must never be alone with a man? Never have any alcohol while in the company of a man? Never express physical affection for a man while at the same time not being ready to progress to actual sex? It’s actually kind of depressing.</p>