Here’s a little one-question quiz to see how much you know about Reddit’s Atheism subreddit.
QUESTION ONE: A woman describes being raped by a “friend” while both were intoxicated (though she doesn’t call it rape). Do the r/atheism regulars:
a) Respond with sympathy and support
b) Attack her and furiously downvote her posts, with the assistance of one of the moderators of r/mensrights, then return to posting and upvoting rape jokes
BONUS QUESTION: True or False: Someone on r/menrights links to her comment as “an example of how and why many people believe that rape is everywhere… because their definition of rape includes every sexual misadventure.” The most heavily upvoted comment in the r/mensrights thread declares that the woman who was raped “sounds like a delusional sheltered teen.”
Yes, the correct answers here are the ones you assumed were correct.
Here’s the woman’s post describing what happened to her.
She gives more details on what happened in other, also-highly-downvoted comments.
One highly upvoted rape joke from elsewhere in the thread:
Hilarious!
Amazingly, despite all the jokes and the victim blaming/attacking going on, the thread also contains some highly upvoted comments lamenting the tendency of people to blame the victim in rape cases. Apparently, when a rape victim is drunk, it’s not rape, even when she repeatedly says “no” and gives in because she’s scared, so it’s fine to attack away, and even to accuse the victim of being a rapist too.
This enables Reddit Atheists not only to blame the victim of rape without feeling guilty, or admitting that this is what they’re doing, while simultaneously feeling self-righteous in their condemnation of religious people doing the exact same thing.
And because their rape jokes are also couched as jokes about religious people’s views on rape, they can feel self-righteous while making them too.
Sometimes the actions of Reddit Atheists cause me to begin to doubt just a teensy weensey bit that “atheists are a community that’s pre-selected for clear thinking and empiricism,” as one commenter in r/mensrights put it not that long ago.
EDITED TO ADD: Thanks again to ShitRedditSays for highlighting this awful thread.
EDITED TO ADD 2: More SRS discussion, courtesy of Holly.
Darksidecat:
I specifically talked about the “last 12 months” prevalency figures of the NISVS 2010 report. It is bordering on dishonest to “disprove” my quotations from the report (tables on page 18 an 19) by referring to the “Lifetime” prevalency numbers. The lifetime prevalency numbers do show a greater difference in numbers between male and female victims. However, when one is talking about the situation now, about the risk of getting raped/made to penetrate someone else now then the “last 12 months” prevalency number is more interesting and more valid than lifetime prevalency numbers.
If you had argued why you don’t want to consider the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers you at least would’ve engaged in a manner which would come across as more honest to me. If you had mustered up any justification about why the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers should be disregarded other than “because” I could even have learned something. But instead you simply disregarded my qualification that I talked about the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers and accused me
I chose to compare the “rape” and “being made to penetrate someone else” (quotes to signify that I am talking about the definitions for these used by NISVS 2010 on p.17) because the definitionion of these two are very similar – only differing in the
That aside:
For someone claiming to be able to read the report it must be embarrasing that you made a mistake in the very first sentence in your comment:
The number 17.5 only occur two places in the Report. One is the rape prevalency number for Missouri an the other is the stalker victimization prevalency number for Idaho. The number for lifetime prevalency numbers for female victims of rape is 18.3% (p18). Incapable as I am of reading a report I at least did not pull any numbers out of my ass and presented them as findings of the report.
And then you go on to make assumptions about things that are stated in the report:
(about rape)
Even the text you quoted from the report states:
That means that 6.7% of raped men were raped by a woman. No need for an assumption if you’d done what you accused me of not being capable of: reading the report.
You then go on to make speculations about how many of the “being made to penetrate” victims have a male perpetrator:
(about forced to penetrate):
No need to speculate here either. It is listed as well. The quote you yourself kindly provided from the report gives the answer here as well:
Which leaves 20.8% of the perpetrators being male.
If one add rape and “Other sexual violence” for the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers in the tables on page 18 and 19 one gets:
Women: 1.1% + 5.6% -> 6.7%
Men : * + 5.3% -> 5.3%
* too high relative standard error or too small cell size.
This paints a completely different picture than the lifetime prevalency numbers you “quoted”.
As I said earlier; not quite gender parity in victimization for the last 12 months (2010), but a lot closer than most people would believe.
Combined with the findings that with the exception of rape (as defined in the report) and “non-contact unwanted sexual experiences” male victims reported a majority of female perpetrators:
(p.24)
It is not a gender parity in perpetrators, but it is a lot closer than most people believe. I personally believe that awareness of this may reduce the number of male victims.
The “last 12 months” prevalency number for male victims of “being made to penetrate someone else” is stated in the report to be 1.1% which again is estimated at 1.267.000 men (p.19).
79.2% of these reported only female perpetrators (p.24). I dare say that this is a much higher rate of female perpetrators than most people expected and the response is telling. The 12 months prevalency numbers from the NISVS 2010 Report are simply being ignored, as exemplified by you who did not engage with me on the “last 12 months” findings I dare say I correctly reported from the NISVS 2010.
Please do point out to me if any number’s I’ve quoted is not written in the report. Then I can either correct myself or I can explain why I wrote it that way (for instance I made the assumption that 79.2% female only perpetrators means that the remaining 20.8% of perpetraters are male only. They could be both, but since the report doesn’t break it further down I made that assumption to be on the “safe” side).
Some sentences were chopped of, sorry for that. Here are the full sentences:
“But instead you simply disregarded my qualification that I talked about the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers and accused me of not being capable of reading a report.”
“I chose to compare the “rape” and “being made to penetrate someone else” (quotes to signify that I am talking about the definitions for these used by NISVS 2010 on p.17) because the definitionion of these two are very similar – only differing in the verbs used: “being penetrated” and “being made to penetrate”. I consider both to be rape and both are considered rape legally where I live. I’ll disclose that I am a victim of the latter category.“
Also this:
The number of women on women perpetrators does not affect the portion of perpetrators of assaults against men who are also men contrary to what your use of the word “making” implies in the sentence above.
Yes, Tamen, you cited the 12 months, but why you only cited that number in a study that had lifetime estimates with much different numbers as you sole evidence for gender parity in rape was extremely telling. This study does not prove what you implied it did, not in the slightest.
Quick, what’s 12.3+5.2 (the numbers for percents that have experienced completed or attempted rape). Addition, yay! The methodology of the study leaves room for overlap, if you look at the numbers on the subsections, you will quickly note that they add up to more than the percent total. Presumably, this is because the same victim could have more than one type of victimization, so there is some degree of overlap.
Really, you haven’t demonstrated your claim at all. You sole piece of evidence is a study which has massively differenct conclusions than your claim.
Darksidecat:
Ok, I missed that you added those two categories rather than using the weighted sum the Report reported. Mea culpa on that one.
I claimed nothing else other than that the NISVS 2010 found a much closer gender parity in victimization in the last 12 months than most people believe. And that a much larger number of men reported a female perpetrator than most people believe.
Do you contest that result? If so, care to tell me why you contest that?
Please point me to the any other conclusions I have stated. Exactly what do you think my claim is? This is not a rhetorical question, because it seems clear to me that you make some assumptions about what I am writing. Bring those assumptions to the table and then I can clarify whether that was what I meant or not. If you think I implied something you disagree with then ask whether I meant to imply that or this and I’d
gladly clariify and then one can take the argument from there. But please don’t just assume
because as you’ve surely heard; “assume makes an ASS out of U and ME”.
I have also stated why I looked at the “last 12 month” prevalence number over the “lifetime” prevalency number, but you blatantly ignored that reason and assumed some “extremely telling” motivation on my part. You know, you could just have asked why I quoted the 12 months prevalency figures and read my answer – no need for making assumptions.
I’ll restate my reason here: When it comes to the risk of being raped now the “last 12 months” figures gives a more accurate picture than the lifetime figures. When it comes to how to prevent future rapes the last 12 months figures are more relevant because the represent the current risk more than the lifetime figures does. I could also cite research showing that studies based on recollection show worse quality (as in underreporting) results the further back in time the incidents occured – which when one think about it is a simple function of how memory works.
If you find it extremely telling that I cited the 12 months figures and not the lifetime figures from this report, should I find it extremely telling that just about no MSM and no feminist blogs/articles cites the last 12 months figures but only cites the lifetime prevalency numbers? Should I find it extremely telling that nowhere in your reply to my first comment did you mention the 12 month prevalency numbers at all? I prefer to point out the “last 12 months” prevalency figures and say that people should reconsider what they think they know about this subject in light of those results as well.
I’ll extend you the courtesy you don’t want to extend to me and ask you why you think the lifetime prevalency numbers are more important and why anyone mentioned the last 12 months prevalency numbers deserve a “dressing down”?
This makes no sense whatsoever. People live their entire lives, not just twelve months of it. In addition, it’s not overly helpful for a woman who is 20 to know that women of 40 are less likely to be raped this year than her (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/apvsvc.pdf) , watering down the numbers, when she is raped or sexually assaulted. Using the Bureau of Justice’s numbers women have a 13.8% rate of rape and sexual assault victimization in the 18-21 range, but a 2.6% rate in the 40-49 range It’s a cold comfort to the 19 year old who is raped this year that her mother was likely raped around the same age, rather than in the past year.
And that’s not even going into things like the issue of multiple incidents (after all, the report you cited does have the glaring issue in determining risk of counting each person’s experience of a certain thing only once, grouping single incident victims with those who were victimized multiple times).
I don’t even know what the fuck you mean by that. Are you suggesting that people routinely forget being raped? And do you think that once the rape is over, the effects are over? That these women who were very likely raped in their late teens and early twenties never, ever live with the effects as older women? (The same concept applies to victims of other genders as well, esp. considering that most studies of rape and age on male victims suggest they are even more skewed younger than female ones).
The problem isn’t that you mentioned it, but that you specifically chose it and presented it as your sole evidence to try and mislead people regarding your claim. You’ve claimed this study supports a position not consistent with its overall results, and have done so by attempting to outright dismiss the larger results of the study. That isn’t mentioning, it’s flagrant cheery-picking.
Darksidecat:
Lifetime & 12 months prevalency numbers
Lifetime prevalency numbers says something about how likely it is that a given person is a rape survivor and how survivors are distributed. This can be a useful number to decide how to apply support and help for rape victims.
When it comes to rape prevention programs I believe the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers are more relevant because we want to combat current attitudes and beliefs. The most current numbers are obviously the most relevant numbers here. “Last 3 months” prevalency numbers would’ve been even more relevant than “last 12 months” figures. The NISVS 2010 Report included “Last 12 months” prevalency numbers so those are the best figures to say something about the risk for any given person to be raped today (on an aggregated level).
It seems that the report show that there seem to have been a sharp increase in risk for men to be raped (12 months prevalency numbers are just 4x lifetime prevalency numbers for men vs a ratio of 16x for women).
“Forgetting” rape
I know firsthand that the effect of a rape is not over after the rape is over, so no, I don’t believe that. I also know that I was confused about what happened to me for a period of time, mainly because I had been taught that I should feel lucky when I got laid, taught that my erection meant that I wanted it, taught that only men rape, taught that I should be careful about getting consent from my partners, but never told that any women should be careful about getting consent from me, taught that women don’t really want sex.
I am not alone in this. It is not uncommon that people don’t call what happened to them rape even though it technically/legally was rape. A much cited study by Mary Koss found that many women said no when asked whether they had been raped while answering yes to specific questions which were about situation clearly describing rape without using the word rape. I believe those women who said they weren’t raped even though they were do live with the effects. I know I lived with the effect of my rape even at the time when I was unable to recognize it for what it was.
People don’t rutinely forget being raped, but depending on what one mean by forget there actually are quite a bit of research that show that a significant portion of people don’t disclose for instance childhood sexual abuse when asked about it later as adults.
For instance this study (Widom and Morris 1997) found substantial underreporting among people with documented cases of childhood sexual abuse who did not report that when they were surveyed in young adulthood: https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=166614
That study is behind a paywall, but a search revealed this page quoting from this study and also linking to a lot of other studies on the matter of amnesia/forgetting of childhood sexual abuse: http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/#wid97
The quotations from the (Widom and Morris 1997) show that men were more likely than women to underreport actual cases of childhood sex abuse.
In fact I’d argue that living with the effects of something you can’t recall is very possible and that it is not a good situation as it can make it more difficult to address and mitigate the effects since the cause is unknown to you.
In 2008 the National Crime Victimization Survey underwent a redesign. The feasability of using “12 months” vs “6 months” reference period were one of the changes discussed. I’ll quote from a report on that redesign:
http://www.fcsm.gov/09papers/Rand_X-B.doc (p.25)
This is not a controversial statement and it is something that survey designers very much have in mind when they design surveys relying on self-reporting. In the NCVS case they wanted to reduce costs by running the survey once a year and asking the respondents to recall incidents for the last 12 months rather than running the survey twice a year and asking the respondents to recall incidents for the last 6 months.
Multiple incidents
Yes, the NISVS study does not count multiple victimizations well at all and you stated earlier an argument that women more often than men report more than one perpetrator. However, that is not the whole picture – a piece is missing. The same perpetrator can victimize the same victim multiple times. Considering that a lot of both men and women in the report reported that the perpetrator was an intimate partner this can be a significant part of multiple victimization and we really can’t say anything about gender distribution here since the report don’t talk about it. I hope future surveys shed more light on the issue of multiple victimizations.
Claim
So I am at fault for presenting the last 12 months prevalency figures from the NISVS 2010 Report as sole evidence for the last 12 months prevalency figures from the NISVS 2010 Report? That this somehow means I dismiss the larger result of the survey? What exactly do you mean by larger? Do you mean something simple as Lifetime is a larger time period than the last 12 months? Or something else? If the last 12 months prevalency numbers dismisses (invalidates?) the survey, then why is it included in the report itself? I did claim by making that comparison between men and women that rape and being made to penetrate someone else are comparable. I did so because I am of the opinion that being made to penetrate someone else as defined by the CDC is rape. Legislators where I live agree.
So what I am curious about now is what YOU think of the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers? What do you think they mean? Do you consider them irrelevant and worthless, if so why? Do you think that they are inaccurate, if so why? Would you agree that if both lifetime and last 12 months prevalency numbers are accurate then the low ratio between them can indicate a trend of a high increase of male victimIzation (considering the average age of male respondents being somewhere between 40 and 50 year old)?
Tamen: I claimed nothing else other than that the NISVS 2010 found a much closer gender parity in victimization in the last 12 months than most people believe.
You claimed it was damned near 50/50. That’s not quite the same as,”closer than most people believe”.
And you admit to limiting the actual data, because the lifetime numbers don’t support you. So you glossed that, and then implied that (even if the 50/50 numbers for 12 the past 12 mos were exactly as you described, which DSC has called into question), were true over a longer period of time.
It’s possible (though I don’t really believe it), that the ratio has slipped to being about 50/50, but that will take several years to determine, and isn’t what you were saying.
When it comes to the risk of being raped now the “last 12 months” figures gives a more accurate picture than the lifetime figures. When it comes to how to prevent future rapes the last 12 months figures are more relevant because the represent the current risk more than the lifetime figures does.
Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question. From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime. All I can do is say, “In this year, this happened”. But that’s, to all intents and purposes, a single datum point. It’s not a valid basis for the extrapolation you are making.
By that reasoning, the last month would be more relevant than the last three months, the last week more relevant than the last month, and the last 24 hours more relevant than the last week…until if you aren’t being raped at the very second they call you, it doesn’t count.
Also, they’re not more relevant, because rates of victimization (as I demonstrated above) vary widely in different stages of life.
And, yeah, you are now claiming that abuse victims forget it. In addition, it isn’t clear how asking the lifetime question would result in more under reporting than the twelve month question.
Everyone on this forum has lived more than 12 months (as do large numbers of people), and most rape victims are over 12 months old, just in case you couldn’t figure that out on your own.
It doesn’t prove this at all. The answer is “I don’t know, why the fuck are you jumping to huge assumptions not warranted by the data?”
You are the one claiming that this study has proven gender parity in rape, and it has not done so in any way, shape or form. You’re just pulling this out of your ass and hoping no one factchecks you.
If you want to prove an increasing trend of male victimization then what you need to do is take last year’s figures, and compare them to the year before that, and then the one before that, and so on. Pretending that the lifetime figures are less significant or unimportant just because they don’t seem to support your point is disengenous.
Pecunium:
I claimed nothing of the sort. I quoted a specific finding of the NISVS 2010 Report. That almost as many men have been made to penetrate someone else as women have been the last 12 months (as measured during 2010) is not a claim I made up. It is a finding of the report. You can look it up in the tables for men and women on page 18 and 19 in the NISVS 2010 Report. Darksidecat provided a link in a previous comment.
I haven’t implied that the last 12 months numbers are valid for a longer period of time than the last 12 months. I haven’t stated that I believe the lifetime prevalency for men is 1.1%. I haven’t stated that there is a parity between lifetime numbers. Yet you like to insist that I did rather than discuss the last 12 months numbers for what they are: the last 12 months numbers – nothing more.
I have stated my opinion that they should be considered when talking about strategies for rape prevention work. In other words that rape prevention work should reflect that more recently more men than most would believe are sexually assaulted and raped (if one counts made to penetrate someone else as rape).
I note that you and DSC seem to disagree with this. I personally think that is a dismissive
attitude towards male victims and that it indicates a real reluctance to acknowledge them.
The rate of rape, who the perpetrator is and the method which is used are functions of among other things cultural attitudes and beliefs (kyriarchy if you like). Cultural attitudes and beliefs changes over time (although not as quickly as I’d like). For instance spousal rape is much more recognized as a crime and not as a “right” than it was for for instance 40 years ago. I believe the rise in awareness about spousal rape have resulted in a lower rate of spousal rape now than there were 40 years ago.
For all the hand-wringing about me not mentioning the lifetime numbers in my initial comment I wonder what I should make of the fact that just about no-one among the MSM and on feminists blogs and elsewhere mentioned the last 12 months numbers at all. Is it safe to assume that those glossed over the last 12 months numbers because the numbers don’t support their view (as I assume it to be)?
You also said:
This is basically accusing me of changing the numbers I’ve quoted from the NISVS 2010 Report. I can’t see I have done that at all so I have to ask:
Don’t the NISVS 2010 give 1.1% prevalency for the last 12 months for rape for women and 1.1% prevalency for the last 12 months for men being made to penetrate someone else? I found them in the tables on page 18 and 19. Can you point to somewhere in the NISVS 2010 Report where those numbers for the last 12 months are different? I do know that the lifetime numbers are different – that why I qualified with “last 12 months”. ‘
In contrast Darksidecat did not qualify the numbers s/he quoted in his first reply to me as lifetime numbers. S/he basically said, no 1.1% for both genders is wrong .- it is 11% for men and 44% for women. Reader’s could easily think that s/he was talking about “last 12 months” numbers since s/he was arguing against the numbers I qualified as “last 12 months” without qualifying hirs own numbers.
The mean age of male respondents were around 40-50 year old. Let’s assume 45 for this exercise.
A lifetime prevalence of 4.8% divided over 45 years give a prevalence of 0.1% per year.
The NISVS 2010 reported that the rate for the most recent year is 1.1%. Assuming that both numbers are valid (assuming that CDC did their job) then this show that the historical trend of male victimization must fluctuate – since 0.1% =/= 1.1%. I can’t see any possible way to plot this over the last 40+ years without ending up with a significant spike for the last year. I can be convinced if anyone can come up it an example of a graph showing 4.8% lifetime prevalency over the last 40+ years with a value if 1.1% in the 2010 year which doesn’t have a significant spike in 2010.
23% of all male victimization (of being made to penetrate someone else) measured over lifetime happened in the last year measured.
If you have 40 cups in a row and 48 balls and you have to place 11 in the last cup and then distribute the rest (37) in the other 39 cups. Then regardless of how you distribute the rest the fact that a disproportional amount of balls are in the last cup. At best one could have 3 other cups with as many balls as the last one. Or one could have 1 or 2 cups with more balls as the last one. Avoiding a spike in the last cup is not possible. It will at least be the 3rd highest spike.
Given that spike in 2010 I haven’t heard any well argued reasons for why one would expect that spike to go down in 2011, 2012 and so on. At least not until the spike is acknowledged and actions are taken to reduce this.
Darksidecat: I haven’t made the claim that this study has proven gender parity in rape. There are many ways to measure rape. I said that the study found numerical parity between women reported being raped in the last 12 month and men being made to penetrate someone else in the last 12 months. What conclusions you drew from that is not my problem. Your extrapolation of my statement is on you. I note that you still haven’t stated what you make of the last 12 months prevalency numbers.
If I want to guess what chances are for something happens the next second then what happened the last second would be a model to use. What happened the last 40 years divided by how many seconds there are in 40 years would be another model to use. The latter could be a “good” model is the incident rate didn’t fluctuate to much the last 40 years. The former model is also vulnerable to fluctuations, but if the graph is reasonably smooth (that is a not too high delta between every second) then it’s not as vulnerable as the latter. As an extreme example to show this let’s say that one want to guess how many people will get Poliomyetilis next year in the US. Given that the rate of Poliomyetilis had a sharp drop in the 1950s and in fact was considered eradicated in the Americas in 1994 then it becomes obvious that using the Poliomyetilis rate for last year to estimate the rate next year rather than using the lifetime prevalency numbers (as quite a few people who had Poliomyetilis before it got eradicated are still alive) is more likely to give a more correct result. If NISVS 2010 had provided more data – for instance a full timeserie of prevalency per year then that as CassandraSays could be basis for an even better model. Alas, we don’t have those numbers yet.
You stated that older women have a lower risk of being raped than younger women and that means that more older women will be in the lifetime prevalency number who are not in the last 12 months prevalency numbers. But if those now have a lower risk of being raped, doesn’t that support my stance that the last 12 months prevalency numbers more accurately represents the rate of risk for being raped next year?
When I point you to peer reviewed papers and studies showing that people don’t always report sexual abuse when surveyed/asked then it is dishonest by you to frame that as my claim only. I at least provided some support for an explanation for why self-report studies on sexual violence and abuse may result in underreporting. What do you think of the Mary Koss study which found that many women said no to the question: have you been raped while answering yes to the question have you been physically forced to have intercourse with someone when you didn’t want to do that? What do you make of the study which found that when people with a confirmed record of childhood sexual abuse (records of the case where the perpetrator were sentenced) did not relate any childhood sexual abuse when asked in a survey in young adulthood? Is your stance that that didn’t and can’t happen because noone “forgets they’ve been raped”.
As I said earlier, forget can have many meanings and whether these are cases of real amnesia, repressed memories, neglecting to tell because of shame, fear, framing and so on is a matter for further research by those interested in that. But the effect is the same regardless – a risk of underreporting.
I also pointed to a report from the designers of the NCVS survey where they stated:
This is not my statement, this is a statement from the persons designing the NCVS survey you yourself cited in an earlier comment.
Are your stance, Darksidecat, really that rape never is/can’t be underreported in self-report studies? Do anyone else than me disagree with that stance?
I believe that how men and women in general are taught to consider rape certainly affects how they frame and how they report their own history.
You and others have argued against me using the last 12 months prevalency numbers to estimate the prevalency for next year.
So I’d like to ask you all. Given the results in the NISVS 2010 Report what would you guess the rate of men being made to penetrate someone else would be for the year 2012? Much higher, higher, the same, lower, much lower than the 1.1% the NISVS 2010 Report gave for the last 12 months in 2010? Or will they be more in line with the average of the lifetime prevalency rate (4.8% / ~45 = ca. 0.1%)?
CassandraSays: I have not said that the lifetime numbers are useless, worthless and not important. They are the best number we got on how many rape survivors there are and should be used as a guide to where to put in effort to support rape victims. However, if there is a low ratio between lifetime figures and last 12 months figures then I think the last 12 month number is a better indicator for the next 12 months number than the lifetime number divided by years (mean or median age respondents).
Do you all think that one should just ignore the last 12 months numbers for male victimization – that those numbers are of no use? Or don’t you believe them? Why? I am trying to understand why the vitrol lobbied against me here when I stated the last 12 months numbers without mentioning the lifetime numbers (much like Feministing, TGMP, Main Street Media, NSWATM, the Executive Summary of the report itself, Hugo Schwyzer, DSC (in his first reply to me) and so on only stated the lifetime numbers without mentioning the last 12 months numbers). Feministing for instance in their post on the NISVS 2010 mentioned only lifetime numbers for men, but both lifetime numbers and last 12 months numbers for women. Was I wrong to compare rape and “being made to penetrate” because you take Hugo Schwyzer stance that “being made to penetrate someone else” is not rape?
Do you all think that one should just ignore the last 12 months numbers for male victimization – that those numbers are of no use? Or don’t you believe them? Why? I am trying to understand why the vitrol lobbied against me here when I stated the last 12 months numbers without mentioning the lifetime numbers (much like Feministing, TGMP, Main Street Media, NSWATM, the Executive Summary of the report itself, Hugo Schwyzer, DSC (in his first reply to me) and so on only stated the lifetime numbers without mentioning the last 12 months numbers). Feministing for instance in their post on the NISVS 2010 mentioned only lifetime numbers for men, but both lifetime numbers and last 12 months numbers for women. Was I wrong to compare rape and “being made to penetrate” because you take Hugo Schwyzer stance that “being made to penetrate someone else” is not rape?
Because, as DSC pointed out, you were cherry picking data, and using it to imply a fundamental equality in victimisation.
Do I believe the numbers? It doesn’t matter, when what’s being discussed is your use of the figures. If you want to say this is a persistent truth, then you need data more than one year.
If you are making a point about only one year, then you need to phrase it differently.
Pecunium:
So what else than
should I have written to show that this was only a data point for one year. Should I add:
“And I really really (yes really!) mean ‘the last 12 months’ “.
I note that the meaning of the last 12 months prevalence numbers for male victims doesn’t matter to you outside the context of proving me wrong. If the meaning is of no importance to you then why is it so imperative for you to prove me wrong? You said I was wrong and explained why I thought I am not wrong and I asked what you think is right. Not even bothering to state your stance on them makes it seem like you’re in the discussion solely for the point scoring for your debate team.
I want to raise awareness about male rape/sexual violence victims to reduce the risk for others to experience what I did. Highlighting a particular finding pertaining male victims which was unanticipated for many is one way. A way which may actually cause some men to think “It is not right to do that to me” and some women to think “Perhaps I’d better check in first before I wake my hubby up with a blow-job, “Perhaps I shouldn’t nag him into having sex with me when he says he’d rather sleep” and so on. Discussing with others what that number entails tend to follow any comment citing the last 12 months prevalency numbers for men and women. Discussing with people who’s only mission is to prove me wrong and who says the subject matter at hand doesn’t matter enough for them to offer an opinion is not constructive for me in that regard.
tamen: You shouldn’t have tried to then say that it was, “the truth about rape that feminists don’t want to admit.”
What is your point. That a study shows that men are coerced into sex? No one here disputes it.
That such coercion is rape? No one here disputes it.
That such rape is traumatic? No one here disputes it.
That such rapes are actually equal in number to rapes of women… insufficient data. Even if true for one year, it’s only one year. How about the lifetime chances for women to be raped vs. men to be raped?
I think that’s a more important stat, and one that study doesn’t address, and which you dismissed; even from the data in that study.
What was your point in that limitation?
Because we didn’t say the subject matter is unimportant, we dispute that your conclusions are supported by the evidence/that you used it correctly.
Pecunium: Can you point to me the comment where I said:
Because I am pretty sure I never said that and you putting that in quotation marks and attributing that to me means that you can back up that I said exactly that, right?
I did say that the last 12 months numbers were closer in parity than many women like to consider.
For most women the idea of them being a perpetrator of rape is pretty foreign (given that most people believe that the vast majority if perpetrators of sexual violence against men is other men) and I suspect that women are similar enough to men that some when reading that over a million men were “being made to penetrate someone else” by women (79.2% of 1.267.000) find it uncomfortable and may even react with defensiveness, just like some men do when there is talk about the prevalency of female rape victims.
You implies that I’ve asserted:
That is unqualified statement. I qualified my statement. If we look at 2010 isolated – then, yes, according to CDC such rapes in 2010 indeed are almost equal in number to rapes of women in 2010.
If one look at lifetime figures then according to CDC such rapes are slightly over 25% of the rapes of women during their lifetimes (18.3 / 4.8 = 3.8). None of this is disputed by me.
You said “even if it’s truefor one year”. Does that qualifier signify that you doubt the 12 months prevalency figures in the NISVS 2010 Report? If so, can you explain why you doubt them – are there some weaknesses in the methodology NISVS 2010 used which could explain an overreporting for men in the last 12 months (and not for women and lifetime numbers)? If you don’t question those number specifically then why that qualifier?
I haven’t disputed or dismissed the lifetime prevalency numbers, I haven’t tried to pass of the last 12 months numbers as lifetime numbers. I have stated in clear text that I think the lifetime prevalency are the best numbers for how many rape survivors there are in the population and that those numbers are for instance important to guide how and where to put in resources to support and help for rape survivors.
What I have said is that I think the “last 12 months” numbers are a better (albeit far far from perfect) predictor of the prevalency numbers for next year than lifetime figures (divided by # of years) are. I don’t know when the next NISVS survey will be released, but I believe that the prevalency numbers for men for the last 12 months section then will be close to the 2010 numbers unless we as a society do more to address the cultural attitudes that exists around rape and sexual violence against men. Future NISVS surveys will of course make available more datapoints which will increase the precision of any estimates about future victimization rates. That is one of the stated goals of that survey. I also chose to mention the last 12 month data as they are excluded from most of the discussion about the NISVS 2010 – I’d be very glad if you could point me to anywhere where the last 12 months prevalency figures for men are mentioned and discussed. The picture they (last 12 months) paint for the year 2010 is very different from the picture the lifetime figures implies (lifetime numbers divided by years). Only looking at the lifetime figures obscures the finding that in 2010 a lot (1.1%) of men were made to penetrate someone else and that 79.2% were made to do so by women. I find it hazardous towards future male victims to just not act upon the “last 12 months” figures because one assumes it’s just a blip, an anomaly. Only citing the lifetime prevalency numbers and (as CDC and many reporting on the survey did) defining the “made to penetrate someone else” as not rape will help maintain the low awareness of male victims in society at large as well as in rape prevention programs (which are mainly focused on male on female rape). The belief that the perpetrators of sexual violence against men are almost exclusively other men is false (it’s not even true in prisons) as the NISVS 2010 reports. The majority of sexual violence victims reported female perpetrator. That means that women need to be target of attitude campaigns about consent to a larger degree than now if one want to reduce the number of male victims. I even think that an increased focus on male victimization can have a positive impact one female victimization rates as I think that on an aggregated level people who are taught that they have the same right as others are more likely to extend that right to others as well.
It seems you disagree about whether the last 12 months figures can be used in any way as basis for an estimate for the next 12 months. We’ve both presented our arguments and I’ll just assume that any readers can make up their own minds based on our respective arguments.
I am glad you clarified that you don’t believe that the subject matter is unimportant. I think it is important. You did state that it doesn’t matter what you think of them when you discussed with me and you still haven’t offered your opinion on them.
In what context other than discussing with me does your beliefs about the 12 months prevalency numbers matter for you?
“Was I wrong to compare rape and “being made to penetrate” because you take Hugo Schwyzer stance that “being made to penetrate someone else” is not rape?”
Troll! Since it’s already been stated by many people here that they don’t believe that.
Tamen – do you have an actual point to make? If so please make it, because the walls of text and disengenous arguments are growing tiresome.
Tamen… I was summing up. If I am quoting directly, I use italics, Now, show me (since you are being so high and mighty, where I said, I agreed with the idea that, “being made to penetrate someone else is not rape.
Let me help you… this is what I said in the last post I made.
What is your point. That a study shows that men are coerced into sex? No one here disputes it.
That such coercion is rape? No one here disputes it.
That such rape is traumatic? No one here disputes it.
That such rapes are actually equal in number to rapes of women… insufficient data. Even if true for one year, it’s only one year. How about the lifetime chances for women to be raped vs. men to be raped?
That’s where I said that being coerced into sex (and sex is more than just PIV) is rape. Full stop.
But you, who have just said I hold a position diametrically opposed to the one I plainly stated, are taking offense at my paraphrasing your position.
So when you say my take saying that you are accusing feminists of being unwilling to “accept the truth about rape”, how much different is that, in fact, from, “I did say that the last 12 months numbers were closer in parity than many women like to consider. .
Esp. since we are accepting, in general, the 12 month figure. What we aren’t doing is saying your larger claim, that this is somehow more important than lifetime stats, is as important as you think it is.
These may seem to unimportant distinctions to you, but they are the crux of the debate,
Again, the past 12 months are just that. The past 12 months. If you are trying (as you seem to be) to assert a radical change it needs to have more than a single source.
If you are trying to say that “women” (which is sort of like saying, “men”… and really are you trying to argue that men are up in arms about coerced sex of men being rape?), don’t accept this fact, and need to wake up… well you are wrong. You are so wrong that when women (and other feminists; though doesn’t mean I think all women are feminists, just that your choice of venue is aimed at “feminists” more than, “women”) tell you they think coerced sex, no matter the gender of the person doing the coercion is rape you pretend they didn’t say it.
And that makes me question your agenda.
CassandraSays: Ok.
We disagree on to what extent one can make assumptions about the prevalency next year based on last year (you said one can’t I say one can to some extent).
Aside from that disagreement can we all agree on that the last 12 months figures from NISVS 2010 show near gender parity for rape victimization for the last 12 months? That year isolated?
When did Pecunium and I become the same person?
Again – what is the point that you are trying to make? What is your goal here? Because from where I’m sitting your behavior in this thread seems most peculiar.
Tamen: What are you trying to get people to agree with? Because you seem very invested in getting some sort of agreement, and about a very specific thing.
Why?
Pecunium: I just want to say that I cross-posted. You now have stated that you (plural since you said we) acknowledge that the last 12 months numbers from NISVS 2010 show a near gender parity for rape victimization the last 12 months (2010). You go on to say that a (in your words radical) change in rape preventions needs to be based on more than a single datapoint. That is an argument which I at least can understand. Although I find it sad that more focus on male victims and women’s responsibility to ensure consent from their partners is considered radical.
Purely hypothetical, if subsequent NISVS Reports continue to find a 1.1% victimization rate among both men and women would you then support such change?
Do you think such a change would hurt female victims and/or increase rape risk for women? Do you think that such a change would not help male victims or decrease rape risk for men (whatever you think that risk is now)? Is rape prevention a zero-sum game? I don’t believe so.
DSC’s argument to me when I mentioned the findings for the last 12 months (and again, I did qualify that the numbers were for the last 12 months) was that I was incapable of reading a report. S/he also stated that rape couldn’t be underreported because no-one forgot their rape. Would you agree with that?
I must point out that the comment where I said:
preceded the comment where you stated that you consider them both to be rape so accusing me of asking that question after you have said so is wrong. I will stand corrected if you can point me to comments in our exchange preceeding my question by Darksidecat, CassandraSay and you where it is unambiguously stated that being made to penetrate someone else is rape.
That being said, I see that that sentence was poorly worded by me. It was meant as a question and the second part was not intended to be a presumption of your stance. I should’ve just written: “Was I wrong to compare rape and ‘being made to penetrate someone else?'”. I clumsily included Schwyzer to show why I felt the need to ask this question since there exist organizations (CDC), people and feminists who do think that “being made to penetrate someone else” is not rape. I was hoping for a simple “No” as an answer to that question.
If it is a problem that 1.1% of women were raped the last 12 months (I certainly think so) then it surely is a problem that 1.1% of men were made to penetrate someone else the last 12 months.1.1% of men in 2010 were “enough up in arms” about them being made to penetrate someone else that they reported it when asked in survey.
First, thank you for asking me to clarify what I am arguing rather than to directly attack what you think I am arguing. I don’t know why so many women failed to obtain consent from their partners in 2010. I do know that the woman who raped me didn’t bother to wake me up, much less ask me, before she started to have intercourse with me. She simply wanted sex and assumed that I wanted sex (despite us agreeing not to have sex before we went to sleep) since I had made out with her earlier that night and since I got an erection (whether I had an erection by myself in my sleep or I got an erection because she fondled me in some way I don’t know). Had she been more aware that assuming that men want always want sex is wrong and that the consequence could be that she actually could end up raping someone then she probably wouldn’t have raped me.
I find it very troublesome when Hugo Schwyzer tells that when he have women coming to him and asking whether they raped their partners when it occurs to them (after the fact) that they didn’t actually obtain consent before the sex act he goes on to tell them that although it was a bad thing to do it wasn’t rape. How much better wouldn’t it be if the thought that it could be raped could occur before they acted.
I troubled as a victim of a female rapist when people state that “Only men can stop rape” (Emily L. Hauser, Soraya Chemaly). I am troubled by the fact that both men and women considers what female victims wore is relevant to them being raped. I am troubled when Soraya Chemaly said there is a qualitative difference between male on female rape and female on male rape. I am troubled about the attitudes which surfaced when a woman was convicted of rape for giving a sleeping man a blow-job some years back. I am troubled when people compromise men’s ability to not consent by stating that men who won’t do certain sex acts are misogynists. I am troubled by the fact that CDC didn’t considers being made to penetrate someone else as rape. I am troubled that there still are shortcomings despite all the work put into changing it in the new FBI definition of rape.
When these attitudes even is present among people who purportedly should know better I assume that they are even more common among people at large.
Both men and women have misconceptions about male sexuality, however given that 79.2% of the men reporting being made to penetrate someone else reported a female perpetrator I don’t find it unreasonable to also direct awareness efforts towards women.
What change?
Here is (and has been) my position on rape prevention: Teach people that no-consent = rape.
Investigate claims of rape.
Prosecute claims which prove valid.
None of which makes any difference who is being raped.
That’s been my public position for more than twenty years. What do you want me to change?
Sorry, I realise there is an unclarity.
None of which makes any difference based on who is being raped, i.e. it’s a gender neutral policy.
Tamen wants to prove that male rape is more important and should be prioritized over female rape.
In spite of the fact that feminists already educate about female on male rape frequently. True fact, I learned about women raping men on feminist websites.
Bostonian: I don’t think that is quite it, but Tamen hasn’t said what he wants. He’s not even good at saying what we’ve said, as evidenced by his asking us to subscribe to something we’ve been saying from the get go.