Today the FBI updated it's circa 1920 definition of rape. Until today, rape was still defined as "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will." It was changed to one that makes no reference to gender and that will include male, mentally impaired and non-consensual victims. Even though this change is already reflected in the laws of many states, there will undoubtedly be in increase in the number of rapes recorded in the nation.
As it is, according to December's CDC study and the Department of Justice, 20 percent of all women, 1 in 5 report experiencing rape or an attempted rape. That number is 1 in 71 for men. The Department of Justice estimates that 60 percent of rapes go unreported. Rape is in our air.
On any given day you can, if you chose, participate in an entertaining pop culture rape happening. Last week started with Salon's Glenn Greenwalk making jokes about President Obama raping nuns and in December, #ItAintRapeIf, a fun Twitter hash tag was trending. You can find popular TV shows and movies and lists of music with rapey lyrics to hyper-real, 3-D video games like RapeLay (which went viral last year), in which players help the hero rape a mother and her two daughters. Facebook still has its controversial rape pages. Rape talk, as in "that was just like being raped," long indulged in by right-wing shock jocks is now regular slang. Not quite convinced? How about the "Who Would You Rape?" University of Vermont fraternity survey? And, of course, someone will fill a book with the shame of Penn State.
These examples are rape culture manifest: sexual violence -- overwhelmingly against girls and women -- tolerated, excused, ignored and normalized through attitudes, norms, practices and media. Childhood victims of abuse, boys included, are victims of rape culture, too.
As significant as the FBI decision is, it will not dismantle this culture. Instead, with an increase in the number of rapes and a broadening of the possible victims and perpetrators, there will probably be a net increase in rape myth conversations and media coverage. We ignore, debate, glamorize and debunk real rape instead of challenging the culture that makes it endemic. Consider the impact of NOT doing the following:
- Exaggerating the incidence of false rape claims. A 2002 survey of male and female college students, surveyed revealed that they believed a woman lies in 50 percent of reported rape cases. The FBI estimates that 1-2 percent of claims are actually fake. A 2009 Slate article, examining competing quantifying claims about false accusations, concluded that the best maximum estimate for false claims, based on a survey of multiple large-scale investigations around the world, was between 8 percent and 10 percent. Yet, it's a common refrain and mainstream media delights in sensationalizing false accusation stories. We eat them up with seeming relief. There are far more women being raped (and even more not reporting being raped) than there are lying about it.
- Portraying rape, in speech and media and news, primarily as forcible and heterosexual. Changing the FBI definition won't change this anytime soon. Boys in particular pay the price for this myth. December's CDC study revealed that boys are twice as likely to be raped as children - 28 percent of male rape victims reported being raped between the ages of 6-10, after which the incidence of assaults drops off, versus 12 percent of girls, for whom the incidence peaks in their teens through twenties (but virtually never ends.) According to Advocates for Youth: "Male victimization is particularly hard to estimate due to beliefs that only girls can be abused; that sex between older women and boys is desirable; that male victimization of boys indicates lack of masculinity and/or acquiescence by the child." Sexism, misogyny, gender stereotypes and, yes, rape culture are to blame for that.
- Talking about women raping men as though there is an equivalence. and not a larger culture of violence against women that rape is a part of. Saying that sexual and domestic violence is used to control girls and women disproportionately does not mean that boys' and men's experiences of assault and rape are in any way less relevant or horrific. In statistical terms, however, right now, while data on female sexual assault is hard to gather and verify, it's exactly like pointing out that some men get breast cancer every time the subject of women's breast cancer fatalities comes up. Raising the spectre of women raping and implying equivalence is an absurd misrepresentation. According to December's CDC report, in the US, between 1 percent and 2 percent of men have been raped or experienced an attempted rape, compared to 20 percent of women.
 That 1-2 percenet is a total -- not just those where there may be female perpetrators.
- Teaching girls, and not boys, rape prevention tips. Rape prevention is important and every girl and woman, whether she realizes it or not, has her own battery of techniques to avoid assault. However, imagine, as Canyourelate.org recently did to dramatically illustrate just this point, if rape prevention tips were instead, among others: "Don't put drugs in women's drinks" or "When you see a woman asleep, don't rape her." But, what if boys were taught to intervene? To not make jokes and call each other homophobic names? No amount of lists, advice and checklists will stop rape until boys and men learn to empathize, step in to inhibit aggressive friends and help their female friends and relatives when there is ambiguity or potential harm.
- Blaming and slut-shaming victims. "She asked for it." "She was drunk." "Did you see what she was wearing?" The most extreme illustration is last year's repeated gang raping of an 11-year old girl in Texas. The New York Times highly criticized reporting about the rape(s) quoted members of the community as saying of the girl, "She dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s." For some reason this was a consideration when between 5-18 boys and men, some of whom circulated phone videos, repeatedly kidnapped and raped her. Obviously girls and women have a responsibility to be careful and safe, but boys and men have to know that the way a woman dresses or her use of alchohol does not entitle them to rape her. Girls will dress in ways that invite the "wrong attention." They will be sexually aggressive. They will drink. Just like boys. We have to be clear about saying that consent (and the ability to give consent) are necessary before sex. This is why the SlutWalk movement is so important.
- Not loudly and clearly condemning unrepentant abusers and rapists. In fact, we continue to protect, reward and glorify perpetrators of violence against women financially when they are celebrities, athletes, entertainers and public figures. This adulation of popular and entertaining abusers supports environments of structural violence. How many people spend money and time seeing Mel Gibson, listening to Chris Brown, watching Roman Polanski films, protesting Joe Paterno's firing. When it happens do you say to your kids "Where was that girl's mother?" or "She put herself in that situation," instead of saying "I will not pay to download his music because he's an unrepentant abuser," or "I'm sure that movie is good, but he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl and then fled the country." Teaching moments are just as effective when you don't say anything.
- Saying "I don't rape and I don't know any rapists." I don't think men should feel gender guilt for the predatory behavior of repeat rapists. But, I also think that moving conversations about rape to defensive, personal and anecdotal levels is destructive, misleading and counterproductive. As Hugo Schwyzer, professor of History and Gender at Pasadena College recently pointed out (to some controversy) in a recent article, men should be angry, not at feminists and people who point out rape facts, but at a rape culture's portraying them as animals, unable to control their violent, aggressive sexuality.
And, even though I don't think men are guilty by gender, I do think that what is usually cast as a "women's issue" is a "men's problem." Given the statistics about rape, and barring any transformative planetary event, only Men Can Stop Rape. That is actually is the name of a movement whose potential influence can't be overestimated. Their approach, which largely focuses on college age men, is ingrained with empathy and employs critical thinking and awareness to motivate boys and men to use their strength for good. Their mission is to mobilize men to create cultures free from violence, especially men's violence against women. They teach boys and men how to positively change their understanding of masculinity, sex and relationships to end gender-based violence. I only wish they could start their programs, in age appropriate ways, in pre-school. Cross-gender empathy, a significant component of men understanding how the threat and reality of rape affects women's lives, is not a characteristic we encourage in little boys.
Many rapists operate unchallenged. And they do because we make them comfortable doing it by misrepresenting, ignoring, debating and trivializing rape. There are those of us who believe that there can be a world where rape is not a daily fact of life. I'm one of them.
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Background of the forum - It is a computer, technical forum. About 90% male. Age averages around 28. English forum. Well off families.
The forum is South African. SA has a rape every 20 seconds and is estimated that around 60% of all rapes are not reported.
To put it plainly rape will always be around just as murder or theft will always be around. All we can do is our best to prevent it. To say that today's society is not doing its' best is dishonest. Trying to socialize boys/men not to commit rape is too encompassing because the majority don't rape nor do we condone rape. I'm not guilty. I don't joke about rape. People in my circle have never joked about rape. If I was present during a attempted rape if it is in my power I would stop the rape. And guess what I didn't need to be socialized from my youth to not rape.
The new definition marks a landmark time for rape victims and their advocates. We should all feel thankful for those of you who participated in Ms. Magazine's rape is rape campaign and to the Women's Law Project for pushing this issue for the past decade -- before it was getting this important press!
#2 The consequences of rape in our country? A bit of jail time? Pretty much reflects general sexist attitude that it's not so awful (because it would never happen to ME.) Didn't Singapore make capital punishment the consequence of convicted rape, after which the incidence of it went down to almost NOTHING? Sure looks as if they seriously wanted to stop it, compared to which.....doesn't really look like we do. There needs to be a review of what is minimum punishment for beyond-a-doubt-guilty-of rape.
Having said that, I agree that there should be way harsher punishments for rape.
And then, as I've seen multiple times in MRA threads this week, "Most of the rapists are women, and most of the victims are male."
Next conspiracy theories emerge: evil feminists have so much power that they have corrupted the entire country with "institutional bias" to cover up that women are the more violent sex, and keep men abused, silent and unseen. They implicate the entire medical establishment, justice system, and political system, all of which are supposedly conned by feminists.
OR...
They are just trolls stem-winding women because they enjoy it!
Men have real experiences of violence at the hands of women, and this should be validated. However, I lose all empathy when that requires me to check my sanity at the door and except their fake stats and absurd generalizations. Because that is enabling something very dangerous to women.
That sounds about right.
Considering how no one seems to care about male victims and exaggerrate female victims
Let's be clear: when a man and woman run into each other late at night in a dark parking garage, the woman has a lot more reason to be afraid. I am sick of all the MRA's who literally deny that reality, stating the man should be more afraid because...because...the woman, who is, say 5'4" and 112 pounds will overpower him, throw him to the ground, drug him, hogtie him, force-feed him Viagra, stimulate his penis until erect, force herself onto him until he is torn and bloody, and leave him with a few broken ribs and black eyes.
For the man who has experienced ANY version of "envelopment rape," which appears to be the crux of the latest MRA outcry of victimhood, I have all the empathy in the world. But please do not say this happens to men AS MUCH as rape happens to women, all around the world. It is patently ridiculous.
If you DO feel men are rampantly raped, step away from your keyboard, march, protest, and raise money for your own safe shelters...just as women did. Stop asking "where can we go to be safe from women." Build it YOURSELVES.
Feminists look at everything men has historically done for women, and frame it as "oppression" while they enjoy the fruits of male labor. Feminists use lies, and junk science to create the illusion of female victimhood to exploit the innate male chivalry to provide and protect women and children. Chivalry is the reason that we have vastly unbalanced laws, chivalry is why men kill other men on just the accusation that he harmed a woman it is this chivalry that empowers feminism.
MRAs see the manipulation of feminists and seek to reverse/correct our society by opposing feminism and debunking their lies, and refusing to waste his life carrying women on his back.
Agreed! As a man in college, it was frustrating being a target of anger in many of my Women's Studies classes. In order for rape culture to subside, Feminism needs to include men.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. I've spent years in American Studies classes taught by self-avowed "radical feminists." Too often this would become code words for "I'm a professor who hates men, so deal with it."
If one is male--it is extrememly hard to listen to this kind of hate towards one's own sex--even for "open-minded men." In the mean time, I was fascinated by the Feminist Studies despite the abuse that my almost exclusively female professors imposed on me.
I can see that many reading this might not believe me. The banal retort, "Well, it's about time that men suffer like women did." But like the male rape of men--being victimizied by "women of anger" is not something that many men will admit. I even wrote a book about it entitled "Cloning White Men," by R.C. Lulay. There is a lot of hypocracy in Feminism--and I wish there wasn't. There is great value in the Area/Radical-to-Social Feminist/Women's Studies, but what seems to be a condoned anger/hate/rage for men--all men--halts years of potential progress.
In order for there to be a rape culture, society would have to support rape and normalize it.
Rape only affects les than 1% of the population, and we lock up rapists for YEARS
Men have been KILLED on the accusation alone that he raped a woman
It did. We are slowly moving away from that. For example, in case you are unaware, it was once a legal impossibility for a man to rape his wife. For more info, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#20th_and_21st_century_criminalization
Rapists are not very likely to be caught or sentenced. A woman has less than a 2% chance of seeign her rapist brought to court and sentenced for his crimes. For the few rapists sentenced, the average sentence is 3 years after which the convicted rapist is released and often goes back to preying on women, this time often killing his rape victims so as not to leave a witness. Most of the time, men get away with rape scot-free.
IslamicPacificist is spreadign falsehoods and misinformation in his emotionality and hatred for women.
Why can't I say that if it's true? Of course I am angry at men who rape, but I am not responsible for their behavior.
they aren't a rapist
It is sexist to keep bring up the whole "what about men being victimized" when the latest Justice Department numbers are that 1 in 5 females is victimized by rape, while only 1 in 71 males faces a sexual assault.
Yes, men assault men, but they assault women in far greater numbers and can women never be allowed to address their issues without the constant male interjection to make sure to pay attention to the males. That's all we have been doign for the last 6,000 years and look where it has taken us.
In the last 12 months 1.1% of women were victims of rape or attempted rape, and 1.1% of men were forced to penetrate (79.2% of those men report a FEMALE abuser). What this shows is up to 40% of rapists (including forced to penetrate definition) were female, with near equal levels of rape.
I understand the annoyance over men derailing the conversation, but please understand the annoyance many have in these articles which dishonestly use stats in a harmful manner. Many of those men simply want male rape to be treated respectfully, which means either say the statistics properly and identify the bias or do not mention the men. The article doesn't need to make the same mistake you just made in using heavily biased definitions of rape which exclude a large proportion of male victims.
And if you didn't realize, it shows rape of males by both males and females, at levels which reach parity with female rape in the last 12 month cycle.