it’s really very simple. women are raped by men– usually men they know. this is a pretty scathing indictment of heterosexual relationship in this country if it affects one in four (my gut is more like one in three) women. other than in defending themselves, supporting each other and making this issue known– this isn’t a women’s issue– it’s a men’s issue because men are doing the raping. as such it’s not going to change until the issue of rape and sexual violence against women matters to men.

none of this is acceptable to society, to women– and none of it should be acceptable to men. the algebra is really simple. my mother and grandmother are women. my sisters (if i had them) are women. my female friends are women. my female coworkers are women. my ex-girlfriends and lovers were all women. my wife is a woman. my daughters (if i have them) will be women. with a statistic like 1 in 4, with all of these women in my life, this affects the hell out of me.

how can this not matter to men?

heinous.seamus@yahoo.com

http://www.outersect.net/KossOrosPaper

It’s not a difficult read – takes 10-15 minutes.

It’s a valid & worthwhile study, but it does not point to an epidemic of
sexual violence on college & university campuses, as so many have claimed it does.

This misunderstanding is probably encouraged by the (intentionally?) misleading title of the study:
“Hidden Rape: A Survey of the Incidence of Sexual Aggression and Victimization on a University Campus”.

The study shows that about 1 in 4 women have experienced rape or attempted
rape by the time they get to college .
It does not show that 1 in 4 women experience rape or attempted rape while they are in college.

Most of these women experience only attempted rape.

Those women who experience only attempted rape do not identify themselves as rape victims (which only makes sense), but the vast majority of the women who are actually raped do.

So the constant narrative of “why do women go here when they know they might be raped?” isn’t innocent, even if you mean it that way. It adopts a greater framework that has always been used to keep women docile and domiciled. It’s men who are more likely to experience violence at places like frat parties, but no one suggests that they simply stay home or don’t socialize in a particular way, because everyone assumes that men are entitled to live in the public space as they see fit. Women don’t have that kind of entitlement. That’s why feminists get pissed off when people suggest that women shouldn’t go certain places or do certain things because they might get themselves raped; it’s both inaccurate and part of a larger misogynist message.

The topic isn’t simply violence. It’s rape. There’s not a massive outcry or a movement about a “campus violence culture” which is largely predicated on males being too inebriated to consent to being victimized. You’re attacking a supposed red herring with a red herring. McDonald’s op-ed is a review of the claims that the “campus rape culture” is so extensive based on nominal studies that define acts as rape even when the supposed victim doesn’t.

No woman deserves to be raped, but defining rape down doesn’t serve women or men. Additionally, pointing out that we are all responsible for our behaviour isn’t blaming the victim. If you enter into a place where other people are going to have diminished mental capacity AND you voluntarily diminish your own ability to make reasonable decisions, you’ve increased the odds you aren’t going to like what happens- if you happen to remember it.

Am I the only one who thinks that bunny is actually a teenage boy? I could be wrong, but I dunno.

A teenage boy who probably doesn’t get any dates cause he’s such a Nice Guy and all the hot girls at his school hang out with the “stupid frat boys” instead of him!

Ginger! You might be on to something!

Thank you.

Is that most of my male friends are nice guys. What if one of them was one the the guys the has raped someone… and doesn’t even consider it rape?

Sometimes my thoughts keep me up at night.

Stereotypical rape: What did she expect?/She must have wanted it.
Non-stereotypical rape: He would never do that/She must be lying.

Of course most rapes contain elements of both, so you can combine the two in different quantities and you have a recipe for dismissing anything any rape victim ever says. Yuk.

Also, did this comment by Bunny ring any alarm bells for anyone else?
its not worth getting raped to hang out with a buncha assholes. why not hang out w/ NICE guys

If you combine that with the absolute incomprehension that women might enjoy fun, and the belief that “assholes” are easy to spot on sight and the division between them and NIce Guys is clear cut… i dunno if it was really a Nice Guy(TM) in drag, maybe just someone who has spent a lot of time listening to one talk. Either way I had never considered the intersection between Nice Guyism and victim blaming before– slow of me, I know.