Which Women Are More Likely To Be Raped And The Myth That Rape Is About Violence
It isn't the women on campus who are most likely to be raped. Callie Marie Rennison, co-director of University of Colorado's Criminology and Criminal Justice Research Initiative, writes in The New York Times that there is a relationship between financial and social disadvantage and sexual victimization:
Young women who don't go to college are more likely to be raped. Lynn A. Addington at American University and I recently published a study based on the Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1995 to 2011. We found that the estimated rate of sexual assault and rape of female college students, ages 18 to 24, was 6.1 per 1,000 students. This is nothing to be proud of, but it is significantly lower than the rate experienced by women that age who don't attend college -- eight per 1,000. In other words, these women are victims of sexual violence at a rate around 30 percent greater than their more educated counterparts.The focus on sexual violence against some of our most privileged young people has distracted us from the victimization of those enjoying less social and economic advantage.
...Women in the lowest income bracket, with annual household incomes of less than $7,500, are sexually victimized at 3.7 times the rate of women with household incomes of $35,000 to $49,999, and at about six times the rate of women in the highest income bracket (households earning $75,000 or more annually). Homeownership is another example of how economic advantage serves to protect women from sexual violence. Woman living in rented properties are sexually victimized at 3.2 times the rate of women living in homes that they or a family member own.
...Women at the margins are the ones who bear the brunt of the harshest realities, including sexual violence, and they do so with the least resources. Am I saying that we should ignore sexual violence against the wealthy and educated? Of course not. Nor is it wrong to pay special attention to college-age women: The one risk factor that remains consistent whether women are advantaged or disadvantaged is age, and women ages 16 to 20 are sexually victimized at the highest rates.
But we cannot let attention to a particular group, or the suggestion of an epidemic where one does not exist, distract us from the pressing needs of others.
Rape, as Thornhill and Palmer note, is not a crime of violence but a crime of sex -- which is why it is mostly done to young, fertile women.
As I wrote in one of my previous blog posts:
The Evolutionary Basis For Rape
Using scientific methodology and reason, Thornhill and Palmer show (in well-documented detail) that there's an evolutionary basis for rape; that rape is a sexual act -- most likely an evolutionary adaptation that originated as a way for men to spread their genes.Thus, although rape can be violent, this doesn't mean a man's motivation to rape is violence. Thornhill and Palmer note that "rapists rarely engage in gratuitous violence, defined as expending energy beyond what is required to subdue or control the victim and inflicting injuries that reduce the victim's chance of surviving to become pregnant or that heighten the risk of eventual injury to the rapist from enraged relatives of the victim (all ultimate costs of rape)."
Thornhill and Palmer explain that there's a difference between "instrumental force, (the force actually needed to complete the rape, and possibly to influence the victim not to resist, not to call for help, and/or not to report the rape) and excessive force (which might be a motivating end in itself). Only excessive force is a possible indication of violent motivation. Use of forceful tactics to reach a desired experience does not imply that the tactics are goals in themselves (unless...one is willing to argue that a man's giving money to a prostitute in exchange for sex is evidence that the man's behavior is motivated by a desire to give away money). Here again the crucial distinction between goals and tactics is blurred when rape is referred to as an act of violence."
Thornhill and Palmer understand what they're up against -- years of ingrained feminist propaganda that "the patriarchy," violent TV shows, and nasty old American culture are to blame. "Debates about what causes rape have been evaluated not on the basis of logic and evidence," they observe, "But on the basis of how the different positions might influence people to behave." What the propaganda purveyers don't understand is key: It's the actual truth about why some men rape that will have the greatest influence on whether or not they do, and on whether or not women can avoid being raped (and feeling stigmatized if they are).
Ahem… See adjacent commentary.
I toil and toil for you people. I give-give-give....
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at December 22, 2014 9:12 AM
Mighty brave scientists to publish this work. We can't even gin up commentary on it.
Canvasback at December 22, 2014 9:16 AM
So how is women's sexual violence inflicted on men and boys (at about the same rate that women are victimized) explained?
Oh, that's right. It's not explained. It's simply ignored and denied.
Jay R at December 22, 2014 12:38 PM
The real kicker isn't in the disparity between lower on-campus and higher off-campus rates. Its what the report establishes as the baseline for off-campus rates: 8 is 1,000 is less than 1 in 100. Hardly 1 in 4 or 5, is it? In other words, while rape is Very Bad (TM)and needs to be vigorously prosecuted -- its not even remotely as common as feminists would have people believe.
David at December 22, 2014 1:12 PM
The real kicker isn't in the disparity between lower on-campus and higher off-campus rates. Its what the report establishes as the baseline for off-campus rates: 8 is 1,000 is less than 1 in 100. Hardly 1 in 4 or 5, is it? In other words, while rape is Very Bad (TM)and needs to be vigorously prosecuted -- its not even remotely as common as feminists would have people believe.
David at December 22, 2014 1:15 PM
Also, who said this?
Sometimes I quiver with shame at my own instant anger. Moments later I realize this is a tough, tough room... And everything OK again.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at December 22, 2014 1:30 PM
"Only excessive force is a possible indication of violent motivation. Use of forceful tactics to reach a desired experience does not imply that the tactics are goals in themselves..."
_______________________________
And what's wrong with the saying "the medium is the message"?
Maybe (just maybe) there should be a distinction between the desire to inflict violence and the desire for power and control?
I'm not saying rape isn't about sex. After all, if it were ONLY about power, there are plenty of non-sexual, legal ways that sadistic people can make others feel powerless. (Many of us, for example, have childhood memories of Snape-like teachers - as did Rowling herself.)
However, it's been pretty well proven that many (most?) rapists have consensual sex available to them via other people, especially those who are adults - and many of the rapists are powerful people in society as well. Even so, to narcissists, who are often egged on in their narcissism by their fans, there's never such a thing as enough power, whether over one individual or many individuals. This is why many teen star athletes and adult celebrities are notorious for getting angry whenever they hear the word "no," whether it's in a sexual context or not.
So it seems that rape DOES have plenty to do with the "need" for power, per se, when what the perpetrators really likely need is to be taught a little humility (not that I know how that can be taught to adults, per se). Especially when it comes to TEEN offenders, who tend to be the ones with anger management issues and entitlement issues, even when they're not athletes. Just because your teen kids are old enough to KNOW what the penalties are for minors who commit felonies doesn't mean they're old enough to be unsupervised at parties - or on weekends. They have to know that you're watching them - and that you WON'T act as their lawyers when they break the law. I.e., they have to be at least somewhat afraid of their parents to grow up properly.
lenona at December 23, 2014 1:02 PM
Leona, while many teenage boys can be self absorbed, self entitled pricks who get angry at the word no in my experience many teenage girls can be self absorbed, self entitled prick teases.
I remember being at a party where a couple was making out pretty heavily in public, the guy groped the girl, someone said get a room, and embarrassed she told him to stop, so he did. Now maybe she was going to tell him to stop anyway, but she didnt until they were hooted at.
Within 15 seconds someone tripped over a table, and while everyone turned to torment the latest social faux pas she hopped on her boyfriends lap and spent the next few minutes grinding her ass into his lap while sucking on his neck, right up until he palmed her ass and she slapped him and called him an asshole and said 'I said no'.
Now I like this memory for two reasons one being that even as an underage woman who had been drinking she still had the capacity to say no, and forcefully so.
The second reason I like it is because it is an abject lesson, or should be, for women like you who like to assume all boys are rapists.
He stopped the first time she said no.
At which point
SHE
FUCKING
MASSAGED
HIS
FUCKING
PRICK
WITH
HER
FUCKING
ASS
FOR
MOTHERFUCKING
DAMN
NEAR
FIVE
FUCKING
MINUTES
So hell motherfucking yes he was "angry" when she got mad at him for touching her intimately again as she was the one to initiate such touching.
Men are, almost disturbingly so, simple. And coupled with males lesser ability to adequately express emotions, and social pressure NOT to express emotion, men become visibly frustrated with these conflicting signals.
The problem is for you, and all the harridans like you, is for all your talk about training men(as though we are fucking animals) to UNDERSTAND women better none of you spend a single fucking iota of energy to think/express that just maybe women also have a responsibility to try and understand the thought processes of men.
Cause to a man, a woman who said no means no.
A woman who said no and then comes back and spends five minutes grinding her ass into my dick making me hard as a rock while sucking on my ear means she might have changed her mind.
It DOES NOT that I am some sort of proto rapist for testing the waters; or a maladjusted, emotionally, unstable asshole because I'm sick of the double standards, shifting definitions, felonious assaults, and twisted mind games.
In conclusion - fuck you and you gender bias.
lujlp at December 23, 2014 5:56 PM
It DOES NOT [mean] that
I swear to god I proof read that three times before hitting submit
lujlp at December 23, 2014 6:01 PM
Leona, while many teenage boys can be self absorbed, self entitled pricks who get angry at the word no in my experience many teenage girls can be self absorbed, self entitled prick teases.
(following screeching hysteria snipped)
____________________________________
Kindly go back and read my last paragraph - and you'll notice that it was written to be gender neutral. (Also, I said "felonies" - which include crimes like stealing. Anybody can be guilty of that.) ALL kids need to be at least somewhat supervised so they don't break one law or another. As many a parent likes to say (if not openly) "it's not that I don't trust you; I just don't trust the circumstances." E.g., you don't turn your back on a certain five-year-old at the supermarket, because he/she might duck for a few seconds into the candy aisle and try to stuff candy into deep pockets.
And again, as many have pointed out, kids are simply NOT born kind and good, which is why it's just not enough to teach them what the rules are - they have to have the fear of punishment put into them until they're old enough to have developed more of a conscience - and empathy. Not to mention the fear of hearing a loving parent say "I am so disappointed in you" - which only works if the parent IS the loving type and not the type who yells every day for no reason.
I.e., I am not accusing boys only of being potential criminals - or jerks. All too often, kids behave badly simply because they're bored - and feeling entitled.
Also, as a Miss Manners fan, I have nothing against the argument that the teaching and learning of civilized manners and consideration to young people are just as important to society's well-being as the teaching and learning of basic legal laws.
What's very troubling is that people USED to think (back in the 1980s-90s, anyway) that just being alone with a man, without touching him, and saying "no" was an outrageous, unfair abuse of his feelings - and that no woman with any "sense" should expect even a man she'd known for years to control himself if, say, she was in his car without a witness. Or that no such woman had a moral right to press charges.
Finally, there's nothing wrong with anyone's saying "I refuse to give (sexual gratification) without getting any." This, of course, takes a certain level of self-discipline, since it often means getting up and leaving either a situation and/or a relationship, but everyone has to learn to do so to avoid a good deal of misery. (Another example of when one needs to leave is when a member of a couple always wants to receive oral sex but refuses to gives it. Very unfair.)
lenona at December 24, 2014 8:01 AM
Not to disagree entirely with Thornhill and Palmer, but mightn't we at least ask rapists why they did it? This is the core problem I have with Susan Brownmiller's seminal (haha) text, Against Our Will, which lifts not a finger to discover the motives behind rape. Instead, as Wendy McElroy observes, Brownmiller "arrives at this conclusion [that rape is a politically motivated crime] more as a result of ideological bias than empirical research." More:
Sex is a big driver but it's not the only one. Or at least, that's the way I would bet before embarking on a systemic survey of why men rape.
Rob McMillin at January 18, 2016 6:34 AM
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