I don't know, Amy. It's impossible to speculate on how many go unreported because they go unreported. I don't have an abnormally large circle of friends, and I personally know six women who were raped in college and never reported it. They knew they'd be trashed for it, esp since one of the guys was the son of a big-shot alum. One of the girls transferred to another school so she wouldn't have to run into her rapist on campus.

After twelve years of education, we need indoctrination to tell kids not to commit felonies. Is this a great country, or what?

First, we trash religion. Then, we put a secular religion in its place. Replace god with gaia and you don't need to change much. Hmm, maybe those old mouth breathers got some things right. Gaia isn't affected much by rape, so it got left out of the modern commandments. Oops.

This is going to be ineffective, and create a good bit of resentment. Well, they can say they did something. Sorry guys.

"They knew they'd be trashed for it" - please, people who actually get raped get trashed while those who file false claims of rape get book deals, oprah appearances, some crappy scholarship fund and other goodies?...come on...this claim completely lacks any credibility whatsoever.

And you know 6 who actually got raped and never reported that too with a normal circle of friends. How many people know of friends who actually got raped at all leave alone 6 who got raped?

They knew they'd be trashed for it

Really? Did you go to school in Pakistan or something?

The basic problem with this guy's presentations is that they're based on lies and psychological manipulations. He's some twat with a phd in personnel administration whose taken it upon himself to indict all men everywhere based on his hysterical PC notions of there being a deliberate rape culture on campuses - the same places that hire him. If schools really believe that attendance at their institution qualifies young men as rapists, maybe they should be shut down.

They knew they'd be trashed for it

Then they are moral cowards. Or it was all made up to explain away the walk of shame after the fact.

Mind you, perhaps this hysteria about it being so common, and then you have people like Ms. Mangum down in North Carolina, caused the cry of "rape" to turn into "wolf". Perhaps it's this feminist victim machine that has created so many fake and phony rapes -- the she-didn't-like-him-afterwards rape, the they-were-both-drunk rape, the relationship-ended-badly rape -- that gives all sensible people fatigue. You can only get so emotionally invested so often -- and when there's the parade of "victims" that weren't, and you see they have no consequences for false allegations, you stop believing any charge. Once everything became rape, and the cry of rape became an easy way to destroy a random man, and then we saw how it was used as such when there clearly was no rape, all charges get viewed with suspicion.

Huh. I simply cannot understand why men are, relative to females, starting to avoid college.

Yes, I went to school in Pakistan and my girlfriends fabricated stories about rape. They had nothing better to do, so they woke up one morning and said, what the hell?

Amy, when you get a chance to chime in (I know I'm on East Coast time and you're on West), I wonder what you make of similar arguments being tossed at people who say they've been assaulted by the TSA? After all, according to the rape apologists here, most of them must be lying. Or they're only a teeny-tiny proportion of the population. Or both. Right?

Again, I'm wondering what "mandatory" means. Are they going to lock these people up in jail for not attending these male-bashing seminars? Is the government saying that you can't graduate from college without this course? If so, who gives the government the right to tell private universities who they can and can't give a diploma too? I mean who gives the government the right to tell any private university that they must offer a certain course? Who is going to pay for this? (taxpayers, like myself, who didn't see college as a good investment of time or money?)

And then, what if you identify yourself as a homosexual, not interested in the female persuasion? What about the married students that don't live on campus, are you going to say they can't graduate because they don't take a course obviously geared to people still dating?

First, let's do away with this stupid term "rape culture". There's no such thing. there has never been a time in America where rape was an acceptable act, and there's never been an attempt to normalize it. So if someone uses the term "rape culture" in a conversation, laugh in their face and walk away. They deserve no better.

Lisa - you are an anomaly. In order for the 1 int 4 statistic to be true, then rape must be under-reported by two or three orders of magnitude. the CMU figures bear this out - 25% compared to 0.15%. There's no amount of under-reporting that covers that unless 99% of all rapes go unreported.

Cat - Mandatory means "attend this seminar or don't set foot on campus any more". They simply kick you out. And they don't care if you're gay or married - simply having a penis makes you a potential rapist. Want a fun time? Tell one of these male-bashers that she needs to attend a seminar on the evils of prostitution. After all, she's got the equipment, right?

Brian, good point about "rape culture," and it's not a term I've ever used (unless talking about most fraternities, whole 'nother subject).

Re mandatory, I guess that means you have to take the course/workshop/whatever or you don't graduate, kind of like required academic courses. I don't know.

Whether I'm an anomaly or not I have no idea. The girlfriends of mine who were raped weren't raped at the college I attended. I'm talking about women who are friends of mine now or who were friends then, all of whom attended different schools. I went to a tiny liberal arts college, 400 students total, and in my four years there (plus one year not in school but working in town), I only heard of one possible rape. That doesn't mean it never happened; it just means that's all I ever heard about. Word travels fast in a tiny school, but I obviously wasn't privy to every conversation that went on.

Again, I repeat that it's impossible to get an accurate count of unreported rapes because they are unreported. All we can do is extrapolate, the way we do with TSA abuse. I don't know if the 1-in-4 figure is accurate or not; neither does anybody else.

For the record, I'm a supporter of FIRE, which I think is a great organization.

After all, according to the rape apologists here, most of them must be lying.

I don't think that they're lying. I think that you're lying. There's an obvious lie in your comment, that anyone here is apologizing for rape. Your whole construction is indicative of a fabrication. The big shot alum, fear of social retribution for speaking truth to power, and the attempt to shame people who question your account. That's what happens, on the Lifetime channel. The narrative is too pat, and your claim of knowing that many rape victims, who were all raped in college, none of whom reported the rape, is extremely unlikely from a statistical perspective. How many rape victims do you know who did report being raped?

When has anyone here ever heard of a woman being trashed for being raped? Even in cases where there is good reason to doubt her account, people tend to be very delicate with women who make rape claims.

"When has anyone here ever heard of a woman being trashed for being raped? Even in cases where there is good reason to doubt her account, people tend to be very delicate with women who make rape claims."

You have got to be kidding.

"Should we really count a quick boob grab I got from some sixth-grader the same as the experience of some other 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly forced to have sex with her uncle? We should if we’re looking to criminalize being male -- and never mind if that poisons relations between women and men, dilutes funding and attention to real victims, and leads to prejudicial policies like British Airways’ that no unaccompanied minor can sit next to a man."

Amy, good point. I, too (and maybe most girls?), have had experiences like the one you describe and I would never claim it was in the same category as someone who's been molested by her uncle.

As for the BA reg, I didn't know about that and will only add that if you ask cops, ex-cops, and security experts such as Gavin de Becker what to advise mothers to tell their children if they become separated in, say, a store or mall or something, the advice is to the child is very simple: "Go up to the first woman you see and tell her you're lost." This doesn't hurt men or our image of men; it simply protects children.

You have got to be kidding.

how about an example?

My question to you LisaS, is how were the people you knew defining it? What were the circumstances? This is the point that we make. If you go home tipsy from a bar with some guy you've been playing tonsil hockey... what is it when you wake up in the morning in his bed?

Do we need some kind of signed document indicating that you've given permission? Oh, and do you get to change your mind after that?

Interestingly I woke one morning to a friend playing beast with two backs with me "because I was so nice" It was a one timer, and a great memory, but it is shocking to me to think how many ways that could have gone wrong...

Meanwhile I didn't consent to that. Does that make it rape? Or is it only if I think it is or not?

This is a problem, the definition is a changing target. The main one will remain, when you are forced by a stranger. But after that we seem to get into a nebulous definition, where bad people are never reported and the innocent have to prove themselves so.

Here's a good one: Who here has had an experience where a woman wasn't getting her way and said she would scream rape? It's always threatened in jest as a feint to get her way. Remember back to public screwel -- how many times did you say, "Don't cut in line," and she says, "What are you going to do? I'll scream rape!" How about a simple game of keep away? "Give me that or I'll scream rape!" Take the natural cruelty of children, give a girl the thought that she has a trump-card in screaming rape, and watch hilarity ensue.

Women get the men they want. Women have taught men not to open doors for them, not to value them for long-term material but rather just a quick hook up, not to value them as a wife and mother to children but as a great maker of powerpoint presentations, and women made the rape charge a joke. Here's the world you created. The legal system just is stuck in a pedestalization mode, but it will crumble to reality eventually.

@SwissArmyD: Lacking any other evidence, the operative definition is it was rape if, after the fact, she was embarrassed to tell her friends that she hooked up with the guy.

Can't say I've ever heard a woman threaten to scream rape if she didn't get her way, in line or anywhere else. Never heard of it happening to any men I know. You must hang out with some psycho women. Perhaps you should expand your social circle.

I'm waiting for the day when a bunch of college-aged men start suing the people who push these seminars and talk of "rape culture" and this 1-in-4 nonsense for maintaining a hostile work/educational environment. It would be really entertaining to watch them try to defend this bigotry in a court of law.

My question to you LisaS, is how were the people you knew defining it? What were the circumstances? This is the point that we make. If you go home tipsy from a bar with some guy you've been playing tonsil hockey... what is it when you wake up in the morning in his bed?
. . . This is a problem, the definition is a changing target. The main one will remain, when you are forced by a stranger.

Well, first of all, the canard about its having to be done by a stranger is so absurd I can't believe it's still being spoken. That would eliminate kids being raped by family members since clearly they're not strangers.

The girlfriends I'm talking about didn't start out necking with their attackers, though even if they had, that's no excuse for rape. The men I know have no problem understanding the word "no" and/or checking their impulses; to claim otherwise is the real disservice to men.

One of my friends was gang-raped by guys on the university football team; she also found foreign objects in her vagina the next day (she sometimes reads this blog, so I will leave it to her to say more if she so chooses).

Another drank too much at a party and fell asleep on a couch. She woke up to a guy raping her. She is tiny -- 5-foot-10-1/2. She couldn't push him off her no matter how hard she tried. She subsequently found out she was pregnant and got an abortion.

Another was getting a ride home with a friend of a friend. One minute they were riding in his car, the next he had pulled over onto a side road and jumped her.

In general, I agree that alcohol can cloud things. Two people getting drunk, having consensual sex, then having regrets the next morning isn't rape, and none of my girlfriends would claim it is.

But getting drunk and falling asleep or passing out (how many reading this blog have done something similar?) isn't an invitation to rape. And getting drunk and making out, then saying, "no, I want to stop now" isn't an invitation to rape. Again, none of the men I know have a problem understanding this.

This is cold and cruel, but perhaps your friends need to use better judgement, Lisa. Getting drunk around frat boys is a well-known way to get hurt, even for men.

Doesn't excuse what happened to your friends, but if you give douchebags an opportunity, they'll take it. The key is to avoid douchebags.

But that 1 in 4 statistic has to be bullshit on stilts. If not, then it would make rape more prevalent than almost every other category of crime there is. And I think someone would notice that.

So 6 out of all of your friends at college. Well how many frmale friends did you have in your 4 years there? I doubt it is less than 25.

I went to an engineering school with a really out of wack m/f ratio and I was shy and still was friends with a hundred women or so at some time during my time there.
So how many female friends weren't raped? 1,000? more? 6 out of 1000? When you look at it like this it becomes crytal clear how ridiculously over estimated the 1 in 4 is.

You don't need religion to not rape and murder; - Amy

Indeed, truth is looking at history religion acctually HELPS people justify rape and murder

the advice is to the child is very simple: "Go up to the first woman you see and tell her you're lost." This doesn't hurt men or our image of men; it simply protects children. - Lisa Simeone

Right, nevermind the fact that most kidnappings are perpetuated by women & most child molestation is done by familly members or familly freinds - beware the thing with a penis you dont know the name of.

At Carnegie Mellon University, there are roughly 3,900 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 975 sexual assaults each year.

That depends on the context of the 1-in-4 figure. If it's saying that a quarter of all women are raped every year, then the above is correct. If the claim is that one in four women will be raped sometime in their lives, the expected number in any particular year would go down by a factor of, I don't know, 50? 80? Enough, anyway, that you don't have to assume a ridiculous rate of unreported rapes to get the figures to match up.

http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/

"Freshmen women were instructed to show up for a separate event."

To learn about the dangers of poor risk assessment, one might hope.

Well, at least the replies to Lisa should answer the question "Why would anybody hesitate to report rape?"

It's a murky area and since we lack good evidence, we have to make do with very anecdotal sorts.

Which tend to be very slanted based on experience and outlook.

We just had this big "rape week" with demonstrations and placards and artsy things. Problem is, their signs and placards had figures on them that didn't add up/weren't consistant. (Liberal Arts students are behind it, needless to say, they don't take a lot of math.) But boy, that sure looks impressive! Sexual assault every 2.7 seconds!

(Is that figure changed now that the IMF guy got refused bail?)

Rape and it's aftermath are personal travesties. A good friend of mine in college was raped by an ex-boyfriend, became pregnant. Never reported it. I don't fully understand the thinking there (some parts romantic, some angry, some practical, and some social (ie, their circle of friends.))

On the other hand, a friend was accused of rape, arrested, spent a week in jail, expelled from school, spent months with a cloud over his head - before an investigator was preparing for trial and noticed that her statements weren't consistent, confronted her, she recanted. They'd had a hookup, and he never called her, and her boyfriend found out.

(She, by the way, was charged with filing a false police report, pled out, no jail time, a small fine, and was not expelled from school or had her name published in the paper.)

Friend of mine is a cop in middlin' town rural Texas. Went to 12 "rapes" (her phrasing) before finding one where there was a real rape. She entered the force full of faith in women in the world and it's pretty well smashed now. (Those and other reasons, classic ones where cops are involved.)

All the cops I know are _very_ suspicious of most rape calls until evidence shows up - because they've all been on quite literally 5-10x the calls where "rape" was used as a weapon/tactic - and that shadows over to the cases that aren't clear cut and devolve to he said consensual, she said rape.

And if your experience tends towards more of the false accusation side, it's easy to forget that _all_ the rape charges aren't false.

Or if you tend towards the other side, vice versa.

"This is cold and cruel, but perhaps your friends need to use better judgement, Lisa. Getting drunk around frat boys is a well-known way to get hurt, even for men."

Brian, none of these happened at frat parties. But yes, I agree that getting drunk around frat boys is a bad idea, though thousands of students obviously continue to do it. Unfortunately, we're not all always as smart as we should be. There were no frats at my college (thank god), and I never felt unsafe at any party at that school.

But when I look back on my late teens & early 20s in general, I see now what I didn't see then: that I got myself into a few situations that could easily have turned ugly. I was lucky they didn't; the guys didn't take advantage of me (again, because they were menschen, not assholes). But I was so naive. Painfully naive.

I actually think that men tend to take rape more seriously than most women do - yes, I know that seems crazy to many people. This is a big reason that we get sick of constantly being told that we're latent rapists. It's as though there were programs at these schools where women were instructed that they were all filthy whores and were forced to participate in classes to keep them from whoring. Then when the women rightfully complained, the male versions of Lisa would pop up and say well there are filthy whores out there, and we don't know how many, so suck it up you filthy whore.

Lisa,

The biggest flaw with what your friends told you, is that they could very well be lying about the situation, to save face for doing something that they are embarrassed about. And if they didn't report it to the police, that credibility goes down quite a bit.

Of course, since Isomber posted the link to my site above, I may be a bit more jaded when someone says they were raped. I don't automatically disbelieve the person, but I don't automatically believe them either.

That's what the police are for. To investigate and determine if the facts support the accusation.

Thanks Isomber, for posting the link.

I don't doubt that many rapes go unreported, perhaps most. You have to consider that many countries are not as sensitive to rape victims as the US. Even some European countries have a forgiving attitude towards rape, where rape for them is only violent assaults. At the same time, brainwashing young people into believing that they live in a 'rape culture' is unethical. This is actually a human rights violation under international law. Like another poster stated, if these schools believe that their campus is the home of a rape culture, why the hell don't they do something about it!! A single talk is surely not enough, call in the National Guard or something. The school should not even be operating if they can't provide basic security for their students.

Brings to mind a Deaf Culture class I took. I prefer to call it a "hearing person bash-fest."

Here I am, a student of American Sign Language, like most of my classmates, struggling to learn ASL, since I feel that deaf people are the only ones in the country who have a legitimate reason not to learn English...yet, I'm being told how oppressive and horrible I am.

Would you like to know the most devastating insult that the Deaf give to one another? "You think like a hearing person."

Deaf people are known for being very nasty. It's thought that this is due to the frustration that they face trying to communicate, but whatever it is they're notorious for being assholes.

Amy, I, too, grew up in a house where moderate consumption of alcohol was normal. Wine with dinner every night (a practice I still honor!).

The situations I got myself into didn't involve alcohol; au contraire, I was shocked when I got to college and found that kids routinely got drunk. This bizarre but common behavior is obviously dangerous on many levels.

The situations I got into were simply, for example, believing a midshipman friend who invited me to a party after another party and I stupidly went. I found I was the only girl there. Among half a dozen middies. I was damn lucky. Or another time when I went out with a much older guy, while I was still pining for my college boyfriend who'd thrown me off, and, well, the older guy was definitely in a position to take advantage of me but didn't. There was even a time in my early 30s -- way past the point of being naive -- when the guy started to get ugly, I thought for a second, "oh god, here I am in his home, if he rapes me, not only would nobody believe me, but he's the son of a very powerful man." If it had happened, there's no way I would've pressed charges. As it turns out, I fought him off and was able to leave.

Certainly if something had happened, people would've said, "How could you be so stupid?? What did you expect?!" Well, I guess I expected that I could believe when a guy told me xyz that he meant xyz and not abc. So should the take-away be, "Don't believe a man when he invites you to his home because he's only looking for one thing?" I've tried not to live my life that way. I've tried to be sensible yet still trusting. Turns out I was too trusting in those cases, esp the last one, and I was just lucky.

The 1 in 4 is BS. My senior year in college we had 2000 graduates, half women. So someone please tell me that 250 of these women were raped?

I never knew one girl who was raped, dated one girl who was raped, or even knew any guy ever accused of rape in 7 years at my campus. I believe there were one or two times when there was an actual rape and it was shocking for a 10,000 student campus--such an anomaly. However, now that there is a "Women's Support Center" on campus, I read that "rape" has gone up like 300%. Bullshit!

Also, I was in a fraternity and I can tell you that on any given night there were at least 5-10 different women speding the night after parties. Whose choice is that? And if you can't make that choice you should not be in a frat house at 2:00 in the morning.

Victim-blaming? Just an excuse by feminists to not have to be accountable for your own actions. Feminists would have you say they can do whatever they want...well, yeah, you can, but don't go whining about waking up with a strange man after you were drunk off your ass and told your girlfriends to go home without you. How stupid is that?

We need to redefine the word rape and take out morning-after-regret and drunken sex. We need to send our sons to large southern campuses that do not have a "rape culture" or womens crisis centers or "gender studies" classes. If you send your son to some feminist run campus you are asking for trouble.

"This is cold and cruel, but perhaps your friends need to use better judgement, Lisa. Getting drunk around frat boys is a well-known way to get hurt, even for men."

As Lisa already pointed out, there was no mention of frat boys, so maybe you're unfairly insinuating things about her friend's judgment. Also, no matter what kind of party she was at, in this case, it would be the guy attacking her who's displaying poor judgment -- not the girl who managed to fall asleep while being female.

Lisa I think that you should investigate your assumptions about men. You seem to start from the expectation that they're just waiting to rape you. Why would you expect Naval officers to rape you, or an older man by the virtue of him being older? And why the hell didn't you call the police when someone assaulted you? I can see why you think that there are rape victims everywhere, because that's what you want to see.

"She fears you". [Snicker] At least they have a sense of humor. Or maybe not.

"Well, first of all, the canard about its having to be done by a stranger is so absurd I can't believe it's still being spoken." LisaS.

You have an interesting way of reading... I didn't say it has to be done by a stranger, rather that ONE PART of the definition surely is the stranger. I don't see how that's a canard. As we have seen up and down the thread, the definition is still a moving target.

You still haven't answered me about if you consider my 'good morning surprise' to be rape or not. Or would it only be if I was a woman?

Interestingly about those statistics... If the 1 in 4 is over a lifetime, there might be other interesting stats to know... Like how many men are flasely accused over their lifetime? I too know a couple of guys from my college days who endured some pretty nasty treatment because of a regretful girl. One of them recanted, the other never went to the police, just everyone else on campus. She was safe, and everyone else thought he'd done it until she accused another guy a year later of doing the same thing. The other guy had witnesses to back him up. Guess we'll never know the truth of those cases.

Lisa, in looking back on your life in that way, does it inform your decisions? Sure those were bullets dodged, I suppose, but we all have those. Does it say anything about another gender?

I mean all those drunk girls throwing their panties at me, were roads I never took. Which of them were bad roads and which would have been good ones? I always felt it would have been taking advantage since I was sober and they weren't. But one in particualr I regret because I found out later she had a crush on me, and felt rejected. One of the bad ones was certainly a floosy who had a couple social diseases.

I'm not sure regretting something you did or didn't do at one time helps that much other than to give you a bit of experience, at possibility. No situation will ever be identical to that, nor will the people involved, not even you. Would it be intelligent for me to decide that all women are ditzes who never take responsibility for their own actions, just because I've known a few? Why would I make every woman bear that cross?
Experience is a great teacher, but sometimes you can learn those lessons too well.

Also, no matter what kind of party she was at, in this case, it would be the guy attacking her who's displaying poor judgment -- not the girl who managed to fall asleep while being female.

Since the 1 in 4 stat has been floating through the public consciousness for the better part of 20 years, wouldn't a woman who believed it go out of her way to be in a vulnerable position around men, especially men she didn't know?

Which is why I'm calling bullshit.

The legal definition of rape is sexual intercourse effected by use of force or violence.

The feminist definition of rape is "An ugly guy talked to me" or "I got drunk and had sex with an unpopular boy" or "My boyfriend found out and I didn't want him to dump me for being a cheating slut".

But since the feminist types encourage girls to report everything as rape, and the police and prosecutors are law-bound to take it seriously, we end up with more Duke rape hoaxes than actual rapes.

The bull-dyke feminists created this situation by politicizing sex. It cannot but end badly for everyone involved.

Them: "She fears you!"

Zit-faced freshman: "Really? Somebody fears me? Cool!".

Posted by: Patrick at May 18, 2011 1:20 PM

RIT? I've a friend who went to school there. He said he left hating the deaf. It's that old fashioned golden rule morality thing. Or sunspots. Or maybe he just got fed up with being treated like crap by assholes. I sense a parallel here, but I could be wrong.

I am going to be polite, for once, and note that charitable giving is highly correlated with those Southern Bible thumpers. So, the poorest among us dig the deepest to help others. Mouth breathing hypocrites, no doubt, but they walk the talk.

I'll just note that I never said religion was necessary or sufficient for good behavior.

Cause or correlation is irrelevant, good is good. We want good, right? I wouldn't care if it was fear of a rabid tooth fairy that motivated it. So why should anybody care if it's just a childish superstition that gets people to behave well?

Ah well, as a sixty-ish somewhat over-the-hill guy, I'll take my victories where I can. She fears you. Cool. I'll be dead before my granddaughter gets indoctrinated with this PC nonsense. My kids are already graduated. Timing is everything.

"She is tiny -- 5-foot-10-1/2" - 5 feet ten and a half inches is tiny, that too for a woman? Man, in your part of America, everyone must be in the NBA. I am sure even most of the guys in America aren't that big.

@NicoleK - You have never heard of women who will scream rape to have their way? You can find one at this link : http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmensnewsdaily.com%2F2008%2F07%2F01%2Fask-dr-helen-can-a-man-be-raped-by-a-woman%2F&ei=D93UTaqeEobUgQe6hpX-Cw&usg=AFQjCNHP-5n7PYE6CSFZ890BvXy-S_7q2g

BTW, you also seem to have never heard of women who just leech off their husbands...you seem to be a real statistical anamoly especially since you claim that even the SAHM's that you know were doing some work(if they were not taking care of kids)....wonder what that work was which the SAHM's were doing which SAHD's could not or did not do

"I personally know six women..."

Call me insensitive, but I have serious doubts every time I hear something like that. I mean, if its so traumatic and all, why do so many people apparently go talking about it to...apparently, everybody they know.
--------------

And Simeone, those TSA things...hell a good number get caught on video. Ahhh the burden of proof, how it must weigh people down.

I'd lay pretty good odds that one of your friends is telling the truth, and the other 5 did make it up.

That...or Lisa you have a significant social circle of women who have ASTONISHINGLY HORRIBLE JUDGEMENT. Seriously, how hard is it to avoid being raped? Don't get drunk around a bunch of strangers. Don't go into the bad part of town at unsafe hours for ridiculous reasons. Don't take drinks you didn't have eyes on. Don't get into cars with complete strangers. There are men out there who troll for victims, don't do the things that expose you to them, and odds are that they'll never be a significant risk factor.

Women who ignore and/or abrogate their responsibility for self protection, make easy victims. Frankly, I wouldn't be shocked that such women would flock together. Birds of a feather and all that.

Oops -- the girl in Texas was 4-foot-10-1/2. Sorry.

As for the rest of the rape stuff -- "just be careful," "use good judgment," "it's your fault," and all that, I give up.

And no, the vast majority of TSA abuse is not caught on videotape. We have to take people's word for it, but according to the logic displayed in this thread, most of them are lying.

"Call me insensitive"

Robert, you're insensitive.

Also probably clueless, oblivious, and conceited.

How's that? :)

"I mean, if its so traumatic and all, why do so many people apparently go talking about it to...apparently, everybody they know."

The women I know who were abused were hardly vocal about it. You could pick up some hints on their behavior, but usually it was when there was a reason to explain behavior to someone they _trusted_. It's entirely possible that in your circle of known associates, that women have been molested, but think you'd be less than sympathetic/don't care what you think, and so don't tell you.

As you can see above, I'm a "rape stat skeptic", but that doesn't mean it's nonexistent, and in many ways, you answer your own question.

"Why don't any of the women *I* know tell me these things?"

"Lisa you have a significant social circle of women"

Often you'll find people who have shared traumas tend to flock together. Well, I find that to be true.

"who have ASTONISHINGLY HORRIBLE JUDGEMENT. Seriously, how hard is it to avoid being raped?"

Robert, let's stick you in a random men's prison, tell the prisoners you're a child molester, and see how hard it is for you to not be raped and molested?

It can be impossible, even for people, not even just women, who did NONE of those things you've sneered at.

...

Robert, I think you need to stop with the "explanation" and maybe consider why you don't know (of) _anybody_ who has been raped. Most people do, statistically (ignoring the 1 in 4, going by FBI annual crime stats.)

And perhaps you should consider *why* they wouldn't trust *you* with that knowledge. It might be enlightening.

I can't speak for Lisa's friends or their stories - but neither will I prejudge them. Additionally, she's already explained some of them - which didn't fit your "Drunk, asking for it, slut" paradigm.

"(Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT) If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."

HOLY CRAP! That's really in the Bible? I'm going to go and look it up right now.

Sorry -- this is a bit off topic and it's a long read with a lot of things cut and pasted from the results of what I found by doing a Google search on "Deuteronomy 22:28". I was just way too floored by that Bible passage to not look into it.

I don't know what NLT means - I guess it's a Bible version like King James or something. Anyway, check out this crazy shit:

Here's the King James Version of the same quote, it's pretty well the same as the NLT version that Amy posted only softened up a bit. I don't know which version came first:

-------------------------
"28-If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

29-Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."
------------------------

One thing I find hilarious about this is that God apparently doesn't have the foresight to account for inflation or even that there are other currencies in circulation other than the shekel.

Another thing funny about the King James Version passage is, what if they are not found? I guess it just goes unreported.

Here is where my little Internet search became really bizarre. Right near the top of my Google results was this message board conversation:

*************
"This passage cannot be more clear, and it is one many women seem to ignore, and they shall burn in Hell for it!

A rape victim MUST marry her rapist, and the rape victim's father must be compensated for depreciation of his property.

Seems a fair trade, given that the woman would be soiled goods. What kind of real man would want to marry a rape victim anyways? It is disgusting."
*************

And the response:

*************
"Amen, Brother!

I have to admit that, before I got saved, I did not like this passage one bit. To the unsaved mind, rape seems to be a horrible crime, and it seems excessively cruel to force a rape victim to marry her rapist.

I thank the Good Lord every day that I am saved now. Now that I am saved, I can understand God's word.

Because of what the Bible teaches us through the Old and New Testaments about the role of women, I understand that the woman's feelings are simply unimportant in this matter. It is the father who now has damaged goods on his hands, a humbled daughter who cannot fetch a proper dowry.

Even to this day, even right now at this very minute, I can still hear Satan whispering to me inside my head, trying to trick me into rejecting the Word of God -- but what did she do to deserve this? she has experienced one of the worst things imaginable, and now she has to submit to this a**hole for the rest of her life? how is this justice? he should have his n*ts hacked off with a dull blade instead -- but I am not fooled. I can always recognize the voice of Satan, because he always tries to get me to ignore scripture and follow my own sinful mind.

If I sing hymns is[sic] a loud voice for long enough, the Devil usually gives up for a while.

Pastor Billy-Reuben"
****************

I guess you have to be "saved" to understand that rape is not really a horrible crime.

I love that Pastor Billy-Reuben is trying so hard to shake off that little Satanic voice of reason in his head. He's not fooled. Priceless!

I'm not trying to bash Christians. I know that these quotes are obviously from a fringe blog. A lot of the people in my life whom I love dearly are Christians. Though I have to admire the intellectual honesty displayed by these fringe types. Hey, if you think that book is God's word, then it's God's word -- all of it. I can respect that.

There's way more funny shit as the crazy blog conversation moves forward. Here is the link if you're interested:

http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=4419

Again, sorry if I hijacked the thread here. I just thought this community might get a kick out of this.

Since the 1 in 4 stat has been floating through the public consciousness for the better part of 20 years, wouldn't a woman who believed it go out of her way to be in a vulnerable position around men, especially men she didn't know?

Brian, you are assuming that

1) This particular woman believed the 1 in 4 stat.

and

2) That she knowingly placed herself in a vulnerable position.

Oh, and 3) that she put herself in said vulnerable position with men she didn't know.

Please don't assume I'm defending the "1 in 4" statistic. I don't have the research in front of me to feel comfortable about doing so. I am simply pointing out that you are placing some pretty unrealistic expectations on women. Instead of saying "women should never go to parties, be female, and be tired" perhaps we should be saying "this man shouldn't attack women who are unconscious."

The feminist definition of rape is "An ugly guy talked to me" or "I got drunk and had sex with an unpopular boy" or "My boyfriend found out and I didn't want him to dump me for being a cheating slut".

Oh, don't worry. This is not MY definition, nor is it the definition of any women I know. And I know a lot of women.

@whistledick wow. I really really hope that stuff you found is satire. But I know it probably isn't. oy.

Sofar,

It's not satire. That's what makes it so damned shocking and darkly funny. Those people are walking among us. Hell, I work with someone similar. He's a nice guy though and I'm quite sure that his mother loves him. There's just no point in arguing with him. If you start to make sense, you become the "voice of Satan". They're that focused on denying what they know to be logical.

In a weird way, I can respect that sort of intellectual honesty more than people that say they're a Christian, yet are happy to dismiss passages like this.

"Robert, let's stick you in a random men's prison, tell the prisoners you're a child molester, and see how hard it is for you to not be raped and molested?"

Yeah, because that is *precisely* what women face every day. /eyeroll

Watch, everyone, for the inevitable internet debating tic, where rather than step back and say, "Okay, maybe I went overboard..." the person doubles down, and keeps harping on an absurd position.

Discussing rape with certain people is discussing faith or politics. You have to simply accept that there will be no attempt at drawing lines in the same way there is about less loaded topics; people want to retain the option of holding utterly unsupportable, inconsistent beliefs, while angrily denouncing you for not agreeing with those beliefs.

"Yeah, because that is *precisely* what women face every day. /eyeroll"

Nope. It's a rhetorical trick to point out something absurd in his comment.

"Watch, everyone, for the inevitable internet debating tic, where rather than step back and say, "Okay, maybe I went overboard..." the person doubles down, and keeps harping on an absurd position."

Nope. Sometimes things are out of your control, and blaming the women automatically, and saying that all rape is the fault of the women is sickening.

Speaking of "internet debating tactics", you're now firmly aligned with Roberts "The women were all asking for it."

Sure you want to stay there?

I sure wouldn't. But then, I suppose I'm not the expert on debating that you are.

Some thoughts on this: How many people have heard of the Scottsboro Boys? That happened in the area where I live. A lot of people have heard of it. But how many people know why it happened? A false rape accusation. Most accounts of the Scottsboro Boys incident omit this bit because of its political incorrectness. A few years ago, a local magazine (not online, unfortunately) ran a thorough and well-sourced article on it, and I learned some things.

The two women who made the false accusation were named Ruby and Victoria. They worked in a cotton mill in Huntsville. Ruby, however, was also a prostitute. She had talked Victoria, a sort-of friend of hers, into jumping the train to Chattanooga with her. Ruby's purpose for getting on the train was to ride up to a hobo camp in Bridgeport (a small town on the Tennessee state line) so that she could turn some tricks. The two women jumped the train, and in Bridgeport, Ruby did some business while Victoria waited. Then they jumped another train headed back to Huntsville.

In Scottsboro, the train stopped so the police could go through it and toss off the train jumpers. Ruby and Victoria got caught. To avoid having to face charges of vagrancy, they decided to accuse some black men who were also on the train with gang-raping them. The Scottsboro police took them at their word and arrested nine black men, the youngest one being only 12. The black guys were damn near lynched before the governor of Alabama called out the National Guard to protect the jail where they were. They all went through years of trails and appeals; they were all eventually exonerated, but their reputations were ruined. The two women never did face that vagrancy charge, or any other charges.

"I wonder what you make of similar arguments being tossed at people who say they've been assaulted by the TSA? After all, according to the rape apologists here, most of them must be lying."

Bad analogy. Those gropes happen in public, in front of many witnesses. There have been men convicted of rape who never met the woman that they supposedly raped.

"tell their children if they become separated in, say, a store or mall or something, the advice is to the child is very simple: "Go up to the first woman you see and tell her you're lost." This doesn't hurt men or our image of men..."

Lisa, do you not see the contradiction in your words here?

WhistleDick, that passage you quoted obviously is intended as sarcasm. If nothing else, the name "Pastor Billy-Reuben" gives it away. Bilirubin (pronounced "billy-reuben") is a yellowish-brown substance found in bile.

Unix-Jedi Says:

"Speaking of "internet debating tactics", you're now firmly aligned with Roberts "The women were all asking for it."

Sure you want to stay there?

I sure wouldn't. But then, I suppose I'm not the expert on debating that you are."

The internet debate tactic you just used was lying.

No where can I find the quote "the women were all asking for it." except in your own writing.

When using quotation marks and attributing it to a person the implication is that the person actually used those words.

No such phrase came from anyone but you, this is a classic straw man argument.

The moment you have to resort to lies and deception to earn points in a debate is the moment you lose all credibility.

Spartee: ""Watch, everyone, for the inevitable internet debating tic, where rather than step back and say, 'Okay, maybe I went overboard...' the person doubles down, and keeps harping on an absurd position."

Unix: "Speaking of 'internet debating tactics', you're now firmly aligned with Roberts "The women were all asking for it."

I think my work here is done. /bow

Rex,

"WhistleDick, that passage you quoted obviously is intended as sarcasm. If nothing else, the name "Pastor Billy-Reuben" gives it away. Bilirubin (pronounced "billy-reuben") is a yellowish-brown substance found in bile."

Thanks! That's funny as hell. I was totally duped by that. I don't know that bilirubin is what I'd call an "obvious" give-away. I've certainly never heard that word before. A quick check on dictionary.com proves that you're absolutely right. Heck, even if I had heard that word before, I don't know that I'd make the connection.

I'm very relieved that "Pastor Billy-Reuben" is just a clever troll, but that link is still kind of frightening. There are plenty of real nuts to be found there. I hope I'm wrong about that too. I'd love to think that there aren't people out there that think this way.

Instead of saying "women should never go to parties, be female, and be tired" perhaps we should be saying "this man shouldn't attack women who are unconscious."

I never suggest any such thing. You are arguing like Saint Amanda of Pandagon.

The argument that 'maybe we should just tell men "don't rape"' is useless. Good men know they shouldn't. Bad men don't give a fuck.

Which puts the onus on women to be aware of their surroundings and be responsible for their own safety.

When a well-dressed man gets robbed at gunpoint in a bad neighborhood, nobody flinches at saying he shouldn't have been there.

Then why should a young woman who attends a party and gets assaulted not be subject to the same scrutiny?

Bad things happen. Bad people exist, and they have no regard for your rights or the law.

If you're going to be around people you don't know, and you aren't going to have people you trust with you, you're a fool not to be on your guard.

to amplify Brian a bit...

Importantly to the numbers, the "Bad Man" can take advantage of numerous women before he gets caught [if ever] thus changing the numbers quite a bit...

THUS when you assume that any given number of rapes were perp'd by that many men, it indicts a large proportion of men, regardles of who they are. That is an illusion because the SAME MAN can be doing multiple women.

JUST BECAUSE 1-in-4 lifetime [number true or not] have this problem, DOES NOT MEAN 1-in-4 men DID that. That is the sly purpose of throwing that number out...
To indicate that any man is a possible suspect.

Even if that all is true, WHO CAN PROTECT A WOMAN?
Only she can. Laws protect her after the fact. Police also protect after the fact. The only person she can control is herself, and it is her good decisions that she lives by. This is no more or less true for men.

Demonizing all men doesn't accomplish anything but making everyone lose their ability to forcast RISK.
Humans aren't that good at figuring risk anyway, but by making half the human race potential enemies women will actually cull the pool of good men.

Because they will start seeing every WOMAN as a potential risk. If she can wake up in the morning and change her mind about if she consented, smart men will not risk it.
There is already the terrible complaint that men just won't grow up and engage, and get married, and this is yet another reason why.

Risk has a lot to do with knowing your OWN boundary and security.

Brian, I wasn't directly quoting you. It's called reductio ad absurdum.

When a well-dressed man gets robbed at gunpoint in a bad neighborhood, nobody flinches at saying he shouldn't have been there.

Then why should a young woman who attends a party and gets assaulted not be subject to the same scrutiny?

Apples to oranges. Or should I say ... women's bodies to money. Having your wallet or watch stolen is not the same as being brutally and intimately assaulted. However, I am not surprised that you'd be comparing women's body parts to money.

Furthermore, walking in a bad neighborhood is not the same as attending a party. Although maybe I just don't know what kind of parties you're accustomed to attending. :)

@sofar - As a man who has been held at knifepoint for 50 cents, I can tell you it's a pretty damned intimate violation.

Women who do not take the initiative to defend themselves and who actively put themselves in hazardous situations get the same amount of sympathy from me as men that do the same thing: none.

Certainly the bulk of the time there is no reasonable expectation of a bad thing occurring.

But trying to extend that to the assumption that fully half of society is comprised of potential violators, and then telling women to remain unarmed?

Doesn't that sound a little, I dunno, off to you? Like someone might have an agenda other than the protection of women?

As a man who has been held at knifepoint for 50 cents, I can tell you it's a pretty damned intimate violation.

That's terrible. But unless the knife entered you and caused permanent injury, I'd still say it's not a fair comparison. Given the choice between rape and being held up, I'd choose being held up, as awful and scarring as it is.

But trying to extend that to the assumption that fully half of society is comprised of potential violators, and then telling women to remain unarmed?

Doesn't that sound a little, I dunno, off to you? Like someone might have an agenda other than the protection of women?

It does, and that's where I agree with you! I sure don't think of all men as potential violators. And I sure as hell don't think women shouldn't defend themselves -- everyone should. Perhaps I'm not getting my point across well at all. Everyone, man or woman, should take whatever precautions they can to avoid any kind of injury, and that is where we agree. But sometimes, there's only so much you can do and continue to hold a job, attend social events and generally participate in society.

Amy's recommended the Gift of Fear on here many times -- great book. And it reflects my philosophy completely on the issue of personal safety and responsibility.

Sofar Says:

"But sometimes, there's only so much you can do and continue to hold a job, attend social events and generally participate in society."

This is very true.

However, this also implies that when it is obvious to an outside observer that someone has not done their due diligence in maintaining their safety to the extent that a reasonable person might be expected to, that it is important to teach that someone how to better protect themselves.

What I find objectionable in conversations like this is when someone gives good faith advice to someone in order to help them and it is insinuated that they are "blaming the victim".

I mean, if someone crossed the street and got hit by a car and injured, would it really be so crazy to advise them not to cross against the light if that was an action they took which preceded the incident?

That doesn’t mean they deserved to get hit by a car or that it was their fault, but kind hearted people want to try and keep others out of danger and those same people offer advice to be helpful, not to blame anyone.

It seems rather arrogant and childish to me when people act like there is nothing they can ever do better or differently to enhance their safety, as if no one else on earth has superior safety habits to them and they have nothing to gain from anyone else’s advice.

The more open we are to that sort of advice the safer we are all likely to be.

Um, Reality, you really shouldn't imply that when a rape (as in "she said no") takes place, sometimes the rapist is no more responsible than a poor, innocent driver who hits a jaywalker who appears out of nowhere.

On to what Brian said:

"When a well-dressed man gets robbed at gunpoint in a bad neighborhood, nobody flinches at saying he shouldn't have been there.

"Then why should a young woman who attends a party and gets assaulted not be subject to the same scrutiny?"

Maybe because crimes of profit are often done by people who are in danger of starving - or at least homelessness?

Let's put this another way.

I believe that most young women would really prefer to be warned than not warned as to when and where rapists tend to strike, whether they're strangers or not, just as most black people would want to know the names and locations of dangerously racist white neighborhoods. (Yes, I'm well aware of black-on-black crime - but if you're black and poor, you may not be able to move out of where you live.)

However, if we just focus only on rapes by strangers for one minute:

Why is it that when a black man gets beaten half to death for being in a Klan neighborhood, most white people everywhere would understand, without being told, that it is Not Civilized to say, even privately, that he shouldn't have been there, but when we're talking about a woman attacked by a stranger, she's somehow fair game for criticism, much of the time?

In the same vein, while it certainly isn't fair for a woman to be able to cry rape if she said yes while drunk (after all, if HE was also drunk and regretted cheating on his girlfriend, that makes him a victim too) WHY do so many people still fail to grasp that "date rape" very often is NOT about female regret (drunk or sober), it's about angry boys and men who can't grasp that even if he spends money on her or had sex with her before, she still has the legal right to say no? (This includes David Thomas, the British writer - and former editor of "Punch" magazine - of the 1993 book "Not Guilty: The Case in Defense of Men." Granted, he's pretty good in the rest of the book, but he refused to admit such young men even exist when it comes to date rape. I'd guess he thinks that well over 90% of the time, it's about regret.)

So, Lenona, I assume you are going to back that last paragraph up with studies and numbers, yes?

Otherwise, I don't see how your point is any more valid than the one you are trying to correct.

And? "Um, Reality, you really shouldn't imply that when a rape (as in "she said no") takes place, sometimes the rapist is no more responsible than a poor, innocent driver who hits a jaywalker who appears out of nowhere." Lenona

Interestingly you totally missed the point, ALTOGETHER...Pretty much proving Reality's point.

This doesn't have to be a symmetrical argument, nor zero-sum. Rape is wrong, and Reality in no way implied it was right. What was implied is that you have a stake in your own security. And when sombody points that out to you, it's stupid to say "you're blaming the victim". Don't you know what an analogy is? The purpose of using one here is to get the emotional knee jerk reactions out of the equation, so it can be seen clearly.

See the girl walking into the bar with with a pleated skirt that has obviously been cut off to shorten it. Notice how you can certainly see some cheek there, coupled with the crop top that reveals more than it hides?

Telling her to keeps her wits about her, is no different than telling someone to not run out into the street. There are bad people out there, and there are cars on that street that may not be able to see you.

If that girl gets completely hammered, and decides to go home with some guy even though her judgement is for sh*t now... What kind of decision making is that? NOTHING BAD SHOULD HAPPEN, and pedestrians always have the right of way.

That doesn't change the RISK of intersecting with a person or object that has no interest in what is right. She could wear work clothes and only have a drink or two, and still go home with the wrong guy, just like a car can plow onto the sidewalk. But in both cases you are in a MUCH better postion to judge, and potentially step out of the way.

Individuals make decisions, regardless if it's a man or woman, and no LAW will change that. So it's important to make your own BEST decisions, and not be over optimistic about the decisions that others will make.

What I have told women I know for years is to STOP getting drunk at parties. Because you are giving away your ability to make a good decision.

IF there are 100 nice guys at that party, there may also be 1 skeevy guy just looking for a drunk girl to take home. does that make the other 100 guys bad? NO. That makes ONE guy bad, and he should be avoided. Except that there may well be girls that are not making good decisions. What are you supposed to do about them, lock 'em in a room?
If you are an adult, take frelling responsibility.

What my friends always did was to make the designated driver [usually me who didn't drink] also the designated wingman, male and female. Believe me, if you are a skeevy guy, throw a punch when you are drunk and I'm sober? Your arm is going to come back broken as it goes by. I saved quite a few beer-goggle seeing from going home with stupid choices, but it was really wearying. And it insulated my friends from taking responsibility for their actions, but at least I never lost anyone.
What often shocked me was not the women my guys chose, essentially they were rutting, stupid. But the female friends? Would choose guys that were giving off really bad vibes, but they didn't seem to see it at all.

Again, this is just ONE facet of a whole.

Lenona your definition of date rape isn't actually what the term is meant to represent. You're describing 'rape rape'. Date rape was originally coined to describe 'rapes' where there was foreplay but no consent to intercourse. But this didn't necessarily require an explicit statement against consent. Which is why the concept is controversial. Understandably the definition has been expanded in popular usage, and people assume that it's meant to describe rapes that occur on dates. But again, that's just rape.

Date rape was originally coined to describe 'rapes' where there was foreplay but no consent to intercourse.
_________________

How do you know that?

MY impression was that it was originally coined because so many boys (and girls) couldn't quite grasp that even if he's not a stranger AND the rape happens on a date, it's still legally rape, just as it would be if the rapist was a classmate the girl knew well but was never friendly with. (Yes, of course the definition of date rape would eventually expand to rapes that started with petting, but that doesn't prove that the definition started that way.)

My guess is that the dense girls who couldn't grasp the idea just didn't want to believe they had to be constantly on their guard, even with popular boys they wanted to date. What they didn't realize is that it's often the most popular boys -such as athletes - who have the strongest sense of entitlement and who won't accept "no" for an answer, because they're not used to hearing it and it makes them angry.
__________________

But this didn't necessarily require an explicit statement against consent. Which is why the concept is controversial. Understandably the definition has been expanded in popular usage, and people assume that it's meant to describe rapes that occur on dates. But again, that's just rape.

Posted by: tino at May 21, 2011 6:05 AM

To SwissArmyD:

You're talking about prevention.

*I* was talking about the callous, outrageous way so many women get treated AFTER the crime takes place, as if once a woman has been warned, she's somehow fair game for such treatment - by either the rapist or the officials. (Heard about the Peace Corps lately? Somehow, I doubt that most of those adult overseas victims were on the mental level of scantily-dressed teens living at home or acting that way - and yet they got no sympathy.)

I understand that "the message sent is not always the message received" when it comes to both dates and strangers. I have nothing against prevention, so long as the lecturer simply presents the statistics as to when and where rapes happen - and methods for cutting down chances of becoming a victim without drastically hurting one's freedom - or bank account, for that matter. And, of course, so long as the lecturer makes it clear that we also have to talk to BOYS about rape prevention.

As Katha Pollitt once said: "We need to stop thinking of male violence as some kind of freak of nature, like a tornado. Because the thing about tornadoes is, you can’t do anything about them. The onus is all on potential victims to accommodate themselves or stay out of the way."

(And, she might have added, we don't think of violent racists as a freak of nature.)

I suppose it depends on if the woman took the warning to heart or not, that's why I call this different facets, it isn't all one group. I agree that treatment after the fact is sometimes a problem, so is false accusations. to many of one makes you jaded about too many of the other... It's not right but human nature.

Also, I'm talking about college age an above... I've certainly seen thirtysomethings act this way in numerous places both large cities and small towns. Most of those Peace Corps girls are entirely withing theat Demo, and the University of Colorado is the largest alumni participation in the Peace Corps.
But, that's a different group, and there is no excuse for the way they were treated... I believe it to be political CYA more than anything... I'm trying to find a link to a vid one of the local CO. stations did, where it was actually women back here telling them to keep quiet. In the story, there were also mentions of PC volunteers who had died or been killed, and the PC just called and mentioned it in passing. Seems like not that great a group to work for.

As far as telling the boys about prevention? I was in college in the 80's at 4 different places, two large universities and 2 small... And we got HAMMERED with the explanations and training about date rape, mostly not as a large class, but as smaller groups, by our RA's. It was a university mandated thing, just not on the broad level of the "she fears you" course.

Like I said earlier, it's not the hundred guys you have to worry over, but the one. HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT COURSES, or warning. There is nothing you can do to make him care except prosecute. Back then I was on the volunteer groups that walked girls back and forth to dorms at night at CU... but that only protects against the stranger in the bushes kind.

It doesn't protect from getting plastered at a party and passing out. What do you say to a woman who does that a lot? "I'm sorry you are stupid"? I know of ones who continue to do it into their late 20's.

When they have ignored every warning rule they have ever been told for YEARS, and something bad happens, exactly what ARE you supposed to say?

I'm not saying this to be flip or dismissive But I don't know the answer.
But there must clearly be a better answer than "it not your fault" when there SURELY was responsibility there.

Put a different way. If you are jogging the back alleys of Denver with your ipod turned up and completely zoned out... What should we say if you get mugged? "Oh that was unforeseen"? You put yourself in a situation and did everything possible to give the thief the edge. The thief broke the law, and did a bad thing. They are entirely responsible for their bad action. OTOH you are entirely responsible for your lack of care.

Is the best course of action to say nothing? To allow the person that this happened to to feel like they had no responsibility for what happened? Isn't that a falsehood? Even if rape is assuredly worse than being mugged, what do you tell the victim? That their behavior had nothing to do with anything? Maybe it didn't. Maybe they couldn't have foreseen it, but that isn't true in every case. OBVIOUSLY this is not a discussion to be had when they are still in distress, but later on, you need to talk of defending themselves, and how to avoid situations, because that is something that they themselves, alone, control. being in control of a situation gives you power.

"And, of course, so long as the lecturer makes it clear that we also have to talk to BOYS about rape prevention." Lenona.

I am curious, as to what you are saying to them? Other than the obvious "No means walk away".

Lenona Says:

“Um, Reality, you really shouldn't imply that when a rape (as in "she said no") takes place, sometimes the rapist is no more responsible than a poor, innocent driver who hits a jaywalker who appears out of nowhere.”

I don’t recall saying anything even remotely like this.

This is a straw man argument of your own construction.

The point I was attempting to get across that SwissArmyD clearly and easily understood that seems to have gone over your head can be summed up by the following phrase:

ALL RISK CAN BE MANAGED

This includes the risk of being run over, the risk of being infected by a disease, the risk of financial ruin, the risk of being mugged, the risk of getting shot… and yes, even the risk of being raped.

What I find objectionable is the implication that the risk of being raped is impossible to manage, that somehow any chosen set of actions is as good as any other and ones risk is somehow always constant. No other risk anywhere is like this, so why would the risk of rape be any different?

I’ll simply ask you a few questions to see if we are on the same page:

1 - Do you believe that the risk of being raped can be managed?
2 - If not, why not?
3 - If not, can you name any other risks that also cannot be managed?
4 - If it can be managed, what varieties of reasonable behaviors reduce risk?
5 - If it can be managed and we isolate a variety of risk factors, why is it objectionable to teach those things to others?

It appears to me that if someone admits that there are risk factors for rape that can be managed, and anytime someone brings up those risk factors to help someone reduce their risk someone else essentially tells them they shouldn’t be saying anything… that the person doing the silencing is actively attempting to increase the chances of someone else getting raped.

For any human being who objects to other human beings getting sexually assaulted it is an ethical requirement to help teach what those risk factors are and to help others see when they might be enhancing their risk. Only a monster who wants to see people enhance their risk of being raped would advocate saying nothing.

To Reality: It's not what the lecturers say, it's how they say it. See what I said above.

Besides, WHO says, in so many words, that the risk of being raped IS impossible to manage? Even the 1976 edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" said: "One important thing to remember: although they can help, the police, the courts, or men will not finally stop rape. Women will stop rape." (This was followed by all sorts of prevention techniques that are in the book to this day.)

To SwissArmyD:
____________________________

Like I said earlier, it's not the hundred guys you have to worry over, but the one. HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT COURSES, or warning. There is nothing you can do to make him care except prosecute.
_____________________________

No, but we can teach OTHER boys to stand up and do the right thing when they see girls being attacked at parties - even if it's just calling 911 - or, for that matter, we can teach boys not to let boys carry passed-out girls upstairs. (Why not just keep them where EVERYONE can keep an eye on them?) Obviously, if a girl walks upstairs with a boy and finds herself alone with him, all she can do is scream if things get ugly.

(Speaking of being alone, I was disgusted with some reactions to the Mike Tyson case; I don't remember the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if the victim DID want to have sex but changed her mind once she was in the room and didn't want to say that to the jury for fear she'd get even less sympathy than she did.)

And, just a reminder to everyone, I seem to remember someone's saying that if a man can stop having sex when he hears the phone ring and he knows it's an important call, he can certainly stop himself when she says no.
__________________________

It doesn't protect from getting plastered at a party and passing out. What do you say to a woman who does that a lot? "I'm sorry you are stupid"? I know of ones who continue to do it into their late 20's.
______________________________

See above. If good boys are getting so much "education," why aren't they watching out more for other people? Or aren't we teaching them to do that?
_______________________________

When they have ignored every warning rule they have ever been told for YEARS, and something bad happens, exactly what ARE you supposed to say?

I'm not saying this to be flip or dismissive But I don't know the answer.
But there must clearly be a better answer than "it not your fault" when there SURELY was responsibility there.
________________________________

Why say anything at all? If you don't believe in saying "it's not your fault," don't. However, in all likelihood, the victim is already telling herself "if only I hadn't done such-and-such." In that vein, anyone will tell you that it's always rude and cruel to say "I told you so" on ANY subject, not just rape. No matter how late you say it.

If you suspect the victim was never taught any statistics or prevention methods, go ahead and give her a guidebook to rape prevention. Discreetly.

And percentagewise, how many women DON'T change their behavior once something actually happens, anyway?
_________________________

I am curious, as to what you are saying to them? Other than the obvious "No means walk away".
__________________________

See above.

BTW, people are divided as to what to do as a victim if you're already in a situation where no one can hear you yell "fire!" (that's what you're supposed to do) or if the rapist is armed. However, the police say that when it comes to kidnapping, per se, NEVER make it easy for the kidnapper, EVEN WHEN HE HAS A GUN. Why? Because if he shoots you for running away or for curling up and refusing to move, he was going to shoot you anyway. (However, if you're not outdoors already, it might be a good idea to let him take you outdoors before refusing to move, for obvious reasons.)

And, just a reminder to everyone, I seem to remember someone's saying that if a man can stop having sex when he hears the phone ring and he knows it's an important call, he can certainly stop himself when she says no.

While I agree with this sentiment, I have to say if you are even aware of a phone ringing durrring sex you are doing it wrong

See above. If good boys are getting so much "education," why aren't they watching out more for other people? Or aren't we teaching them to do that?

Why would we do that when were constanly being told by women they dont need us and berate us for being patriorical opressors when we try to do the right thing?

Lenona Says:
 
“It's not what the lecturers say, it's how they say it.”
 
This is not an issue of saying please and thank you when asking someone to pass the salt.  It is not an issue of choosing the exact and proper phrasing that somehow everyone on the planet will approve of.  This is an issue of educating our population on the best practices to keep them safe and out of harms way.
 
As a result, if someone does not manage to say it in the “Lenona approved” fashion that really should not matter.  In addition, even if they do manage to say it in a manner that you personally approve of, someone else might object on exactly the same grounds you would if it happened to fail their unspecified criteria.
 
This is one of those situations where the information is so vital to share that we can’t afford to be that picky on the exact verbiage chosen.  If someone means well and is trying to help (which most people are) that should be enough and the words they choose should be given great latitude because of how critical the message is.
 
After all, what you are saying suggests that when offering advice on how to keep oneself safe from sexual assault it is better to say nothing at all than to say it incorrectly.
 
Sorry, but I completely disagree with this position.  For an issue as important as this, my opinion is that it is better to say something and not have it worded perfectly than to sit there in silence and let everyone else remain ignorant.  I mean, would you quibble with the wording someone uses to command a small child to get out of the way of a speeding train?  Would you prefer that the child get hit by that train but has their feelings intact at the moment of impact?  I hope you see what I am getting at here.  Sometimes the message is far more important than the wording, especially when it keeps someone out of a detrimental situation.

Furthermore, you have neglected to answer question #3 in my list.  While you admit that it is possible to manage the risk of being raped, you are critical of the way that information is presented (i.e. you suggest it needs to be presented in a very specific way or it should not be shared at all).  Wouldn’t it seem appropriate then to actually answer my third question and list the information in the manner that would be acceptable?

What you basically did in this conversation was say that there is information that is beneficial and that it needs to be presented correctly, yet you fail to demonstrate the right and the wrong way to present it.  You also fail to show where anyone here has failed to do it the right way and in what capacity their way was wrong.  Wouldn’t it seem important to do that if your main point is that “It's not what the lecturers say, it's how they say it.”?  Please model for us the proper way to “lecture” others on this topic.

My position is that you have basically established a vague and nebulous standard that I feel is kept vague and nebulous for a reason.  That reason appears to me to enable someone to silence anyone on this topic whenever they feel like it and constantly shift the goal posts (precisely because the goal posts remain utterly undefined).

Now for some of the other things you said:
 
“No, but we can teach OTHER boys to stand up and do the right thing when they see girls being attacked at parties - even if it's just calling 911 - or, for that matter, we can teach boys not to let boys carry passed-out girls upstairs.”

What evidence do you have that men/boys aren’t already doing this?

Your position now appears to be that the reason rape is an issue isn’t because women aren’t properly safeguarding themselves, but rather because decent men aren’t adequately performing some sort of protective duty to the women of the world.

First of all, this is a preposterous position.  Secondly, I have never witnessed a girl being attacked at a party or passing out and being carried “upstairs” by some unsavory fellow (I strongly suspect most people have not witnessed such an event to even do anything about it).  Have you witnessed such an event?  If you have witnessed such an event, what exactly did you do, and why would men doing it be more effective?
 
Would a phone call by a boy to 911 be any more effective than a phone call from you?  And why would a boy not “letting” other boys carry passed-out girls be any more or less effective than girls doing this (unless you are suggesting that random men have an ethical obligation to put themselves in physical danger for the benefit of women they do not know and must fight them free of nefarious types that women do not have the physical strength to properly subdue…  this is a dubious contention at best)?
 
Your position is essentially that random men should constantly be vigilant and watchful for dangers that might plague random women because those women shouldn’t have to bare the lions share of the responsible for their own safety.  Sorry, but that is the sexist equivalent of suggesting that women should always be ready to bring drinks and snacks to men they do not even know at those same parties.  The only responsibility a guy has at a party is the same responsibility a woman has at a party, to behave responsibly, to try and keep themselves safe and to try and enjoy themselves.  The men at a party are not some unpaid body guard service at the beck and call of all the women present.  This is a very sexist attitude.  Now if a guy happens to notice a problem, he is free to assess the danger and try to offer assistance in exactly the same way a woman at that party might.  He is no more or less obligated to help strangers than the women at that party. This of course begs the question that if your suggestion was so effective, why isn’t it working to the extent you would want it to?

Also, why are girls passing out at parties (why is anyone passing out at parties for that matter, that sort of behavior is stupid and irresponsible)?  Sexual assault will not be solved or addressed by “teaching” boys any of these things for precisely the same reason that “teaching” girls these things will not solve or address the problem.  You are functioning under the misguided belief that decent men have some magical influence over criminals that decent women do not have.  In case this is news to you, men don’t have any more power over the criminal element than women do.
 
“I seem to remember someone's saying that if a man can stop having sex when he hears the phone ring and he knows it's an important call, he can certainly stop himself when she says no.”
 
I can’t find anything in this thread where anyone says anything suggesting that sex is impossible to stop.  You are arguing about points no one here has made.
 
One of the most important things in a debate is to accurately address the other persons position, I don’t think you are achieving this goal.

“If good boys are getting so much "education," why aren't they watching out more for other people? Or aren't we teaching them to do that?”
 
Because being a decent human being does not mean you are a free police force whose job is to be constantly watching over everyone else.  Do you understand that decent men have lives and aspirations too and that they can’t spend every waking minute making sure that you are safe so you don’t have to do it yourself?
 
Maybe those “good boys” are spending their time ensuring their own safety and the safety of their friends so they don’t have enough time to watch over and protect everyone else while enjoying themselves at the party. Or do “good boys” not get to enjoy themselves at a party while girls there are apparently getting so trashed that they pass out? I think I get it, the “good boys” are supposed to just be there to enable the fun the girls are having, but don’t actually get to be at the party to enjoy time with their friends.

Also, if the job of decent men is to constantly protect women everywhere from danger, what job do women have to reciprocate?  I mean, this seems somewhat one sided here, doesn’t it?  Do women generally spend an inordinate amount of their free time looking out for the well being of men?

When was the last time you came to the rescue of a random guy you did not know while you were at a party?  I’d say that men actually go above and beyond in terms of helping random women than the other way around…  yet apparently it still isn’t enough.  This position seems rather entitled to me.

People have a vested interest in ensuring their own safety.  Women are not entitled to protection from every man that crosses their path.

“Why say anything at all?”
 
Right…  because if you can’t offer advice in the “Lenona approved” fashion it is better not to say anything.
 
Just out of curiosity, what makes your way the “right” way and SwissArmyD’s way the “wrong” way?
 
Do you have statistics on the effectiveness of these differing methods?  While it is unfortunate, sometimes people need to hear things they don’t want to hear in a manner that they don’t want to hear it.

I don't know, Amy. It's impossible to speculate on how many go unreported because they go unreported.
Well that didn't stop RAINN from concluding that 60% of rapes go unreported.

Reality:
What evidence do you have that men/boys aren’t already doing this?
Even beyond that what makes them responsible for that obligation?

Your position now appears to be that the reason rape is an issue isn’t because women aren’t properly safeguarding themselves, but rather because decent men aren’t adequately performing some sort of protective duty to the women of the world.
I think they call that chivalry. Last I heard feminists, MRAs, and men and women from all walks of life had a put a big price in its head to have it taken out.

Lenona:
And, just a reminder to everyone, I seem to remember someone's saying that if a man can stop having sex when he hears the phone ring and he knows it's an important call, he can certainly stop himself when she says no.
And to that I respond that if a woman can stop drinking for 9 months because she's carrying a child she can stop on any given night when her intoxication reaches judgement imparing levels.

I'm in a rush, but I'll say this: Since women are encouraged to look out for each other's welfare, and we teach that "friends don't let friends drive drunk," regardless of gender, what's so "chivalrous" about expecting men to do the same things?

Maybe, when it comes to drugging drinks, we could just put it in terms of protecting each other's wallets, since thieving could easily be another concern.

And another thing we could start teaching is that rape jokes should not be considered acceptable, even in private, just as we teach that racist jokes shouldn't be.

Lenona:
I'm in a rush, but I'll say this: Since women are encouraged to look out for each other's welfare, and we teach that "friends don't let friends drive drunk," regardless of gender, what's so "chivalrous" about expecting men to do the same things?
The difference is the thought that is (often) behind telling men they should look out for women isn't just a simple "because its the nice thing to do" but rather "you're a man therefore you are obligated to help a damsel in distress lest your manhood be questioned".

In that idea of women looking out for everyone is (often) backed by the notion of "women are supposed to be nurturing for everyone" which is sexist like the "men are supposed to protect women" notion.

This kinda relates back to what someone said above about how a message is delivered. Yes the motivation behind a message can taint the message. Saying that men should look out for everyone because its the nice/right thing to do is one thing. Its quite another to say that men should look out for women because we are men and women need the protection. Its quite another still to say that men should look out for women because as men we owe it to them as women.

Lenona Says:

“Since women are encouraged to look out for each other's welfare, and we teach that "friends don't let friends drive drunk," regardless of gender, what's so "chivalrous" about expecting men to do the same things?”

Because your declaration about what men should be doing isn’t even remotely the same as the statement “friends don’t let friends drive drunk”.

Are you honestly suggesting that men do not look out for the wefare of their friends? That when they see their friends in trouble they just sit back and ignore it?

This has not been my experience at all. On the contrary my experience has been that both male and female friends have always been there to help me if I needed help. Similarly I have always tried to look out for my friends be they male or female.

Your earlier statement was this:

“If good boys are getting so much "education," why aren't they watching out more for other people? Or aren't we teaching them to do that?”

This statement isn’t one about men looking out for their friends… it was about training them to look out for everyone around them. It is a statement that expects them to work security detail at whatever location they happen to be at.

This is an unrealistic expectation that is on par with suggesting that if women want to avoid being raped they should just stay home.

Suggesting that men are supposed to act like an unpaid security force that monitors whatever location they happen to be at is preposterous.

Your above statement is more akin to “people don’t let other people drive drunk” which is very different from the statement “friends don’t let friends drive drunk”.

You are acting like the current state of things is that if a guy saw a woman being raped right in front of him he would just stand there and do nothing or simply walk away. My contention is that this is not typical behavior for anyone.

As a result the only other interpretation I can give to your statement is that you are asserting that men aren’t doing enough to watch over and protect complete strangers who they know nothing about and who they are probably not even paying attention to at a party because the men are there to spend time with their friends.

The moment you say that the purpose of men at a party is to be the security force for the women while the women enjoy themselves is the moment men will see absolutely no reason to attend a party. Normal people don’t go to parties to work security for free.

If you would like a private security force while at a party you are free to hire one whose paid job would be to watch over you the whole time.

“Maybe, when it comes to drugging drinks, we could just put it in terms of protecting each other's wallets, since thieving could easily be another concern.”

I’ve never seen a drink being drugged or someone’s wallet being stolen. Have you seen these things happen?

I feel like your arguments are just one cliché after another with no real substantive evidence to back up what you are talking about. Most of the things you suggest everyone should be looking out for do not happen in plain sight. So how can anyone be expected to stop something from happening that they cannot see?

“And another thing we could start teaching is that rape jokes should not be considered acceptable, even in private, just as we teach that racist jokes shouldn't be.”

No one here made a rape joke. No one here said they were acceptable. Your arguments have nothing to do with this discussion.

Maybe what we should be teaching people is how to properly debate by addressing other peoples claims instead of just tossing in random statements that are only tangentially related to the topic.

Now the problem is rape jokes???... Really???

So getting rid of rape jokes will do more to keep people safe than teaching them how to be safe?

Reality:
You are acting like the current state of things is that if a guy saw a woman being raped right in front of him he would just stand there and do nothing or simply walk away. My contention is that this is not typical behavior for anyone.
That reminds me. Ever notice in those cases in which young girls were raped by multiple rapists while people stood by and did nothing the commentary is usually something to the effect of asking why did "the men" in the crowd do something?

The moment you say that the purpose of men at a party is to be the security force for the women while the women enjoy themselves is the moment men will see absolutely no reason to attend a party. Normal people don’t go to parties to work security for free.
Oh you mean chivalry? That code where men are expected to perform certain tasks because they are men and failure to do so means having one's manhood questioned? Yeah. Isn't it funny how gendered expectations are only called unfair when they happen to women.

I like your style here Reality.