What is Rape Culture?

[Shinzai]

I never once said that. I've reported the actual data on the matter, not just the reported rapes but the unreported ones too (I am baffled that I've needed to say this so many times). Have you ever once sited data (besides that 0.2% figure that you admit you made up) about all rape cases?

...The figure is not made up. It is based on my first post in reply to you:

You'd have to actually read the sites and realise they're abusing the statistics as hard as they can. To quote their own citation:

"The rate of sexual assault and rape has fallen 74% since 1993, from a rate of 4.3 assaults per 1000 people in 1993, to 1.1 per 1000 in 2014."

That's 0.11% of women. The 1 in 6 quote is from a report based on 8000 men and 8000 women, in 1995-1998. It does not even tally with real world figures remotely.

"According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, there were overall 173,610 victims of rape or sexual assault, or 0.1% of the US population 12 or older in 2013."

That's rape and sexual assaults combined. Sexual assault is an extremely broad definition, including any form of unwanted over clothes touching.

[Underverse]

Murder and torture are just someone doing something to you that you don't want them to do.

No, they're not. Murder and torture actively reduce your fitness. They are objectively destructive - in addition to (usually) being things that you don't want others to do to you. And not just destructive, but in the case of murder, incredibly destructive.

[THE Bigzoman]

Putting aside you Nazi analogy, the examples I've cited show that we don't take rape or child molestation seriously enough. Murder has no statute of limitations. Depending on the state (I'll admit I don't know European laws well), the statute of limitations for rape is often 10 years or less. I'm not sure where you're getting "1-2% max" from, you didn't cite a source. Here are some actual numbers: 1 in 6 women, 1 in 33 men experience either attempted rape or completed rape. Double sourced:

https://rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

http://www.911rape.org/facts-quotes/statistics

Ironically, you are the one willing to believe that it is a conspiracy theory against men because it fits your world view. If we were to use a Nazi analogy, as you want to, your view would be the equivalent of Holocaust denial. This wouldn't make you equivalent to the Nazi officers who carried out the Holocaust, but analogous to a German citizen who chose to remain ignorant.

The assumption being, that we don't treat it seriously enough because of our attitudes towards rape compared to murder?

A life with diminished happiness is almost always better than no life at all.

[Huulo]

Again, who says it's an either or? To quote my previous post:



But don't pretend that it's an act that ruins lives. Because if we keep telling ourselves that, that's what it'll become. And it has. Yet objectively speaking, it isn't murder. It isn't torture. It's someone doing something to you that you don't want them to do - and that's something that happens to everyone.

This is the part that I take serious issue with, because I believe you are making rape to be less than it is. Have you thought about the victims that get STDs from their rapists? The ones who become sterile from infections or get HIV? The ones who get pregnant, and then have to decide if they can raise their rapist's baby? Even if none of these things happen, it is still as serious as torture or more so.

[Underverse]

This is the part that I take serious issue with, because I believe you are making rape to be less than it is. Have you thought about the victims that get STDs from their rapists? The ones who become sterile from infections or get HIV? The ones who get pregnant, and then have to decide if they can raise their rapist's baby? Even if none of these things happen, it is still as serious as torture or more so.

These are significant problems. But these aren't the problems that we're addressing when we condemn rape. We're not condemning it because of a chance of unwanted pregnancy or STD transmission - plenty of other acts involve these consequences, but you don't see the massive social turnout that you see for cases of rape. We condemn the act of rape. Not the consequences.

Furthermore, these consequences are not intrinsic to rape. STD transmission - most importantly HIV (the other ones don't matter a whole lot) - is rare among heterosexual interactions as it is. I hope you're not trying to paint all rape with the same brush.

- - - Updated - - -

Fitness is zero unless you're reproducing anyway.

Wrong again, fitness is valuable as long as you're interacting with other humans and increasing their fitness.

If you're on an island by yourself, you would be right. But that circumstance isn't really relevant.

[May90]

The nature of any kind of double standard is the principal separation of two entities. Sexism, for example, will exist as long as male and female sexes are seen as principally different; it can only disappear completely when sex stops being a defining characteristic of a person in the eyes of society. When male/female will mean about as much as blue/green hair means. And we have a veeeeeeeeeery long way to go still, probably many centuries.

In this context, I do not see the reason to classify various manifestations of sexism. I don't know what "Rape culture" is, but there are definitely many areas of discrimination, both against males and females - and tending to them without addressing the core of those issues, which is male and female being principally different in the eyes of society, would probably do more harm than good, since it necessarily leads to a lot of silly biased laws, aimed at solving a particular problem and not addressing the cause of that problem.

If we are to truly defeat sexism, then we should assure that, no matter the situation (unless childbirth, etc., in which sexes actually function differently), we do not have to necessarily refer to the person's gender to interpret it. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't mention a persons gender, but this mention shouldn't hold any significance in the eyes of society. When I say, "I have a brunette friend", this sounds sloppy, doesn't it? When the phrase "I have a female/male friend" starts sounding sloppy and the gender reference will be seen as irrelevant - now that will be the indication that sexism is no longer much of a thing. As you understand, we are very far away from it right now...

---

Anyway, my point is: "Rape Culture", "objectification", etc. - these are not the problems, these are the manifestations of a bigger, more global problem. Either we should talk about that problem, or there really is no point scratching the top of the iceberg and hoping that somehow gender equality will eventually come. Genders are much more equal nowadays than they were dozens years ago, and the reason is our society in general becoming more informed and less bigoted; with that, equality laws come naturally. Attempt to force those laws manually, replacing equality in opportunity with equality in the outcome, will only slow down the progress, and perhaps even turn it backwards.

[Underverse]

There's little reason to assume any random individual is increasing the fitness of the society.

There's plenty of reason. Do they have a job? Do they have family? Are they producing or consuming? These things have value. Some people don't fit any of these criteria/destroy what value they have via other acts, but they're an extreme minority.

But let's strike closer to the point. Are you really arguing that murder and rape, or, say, any other crime, are really (objectively) equally destructive? Are there any crimes worse or better than others?

[Vynny]

see, I had my doubts about rape culture and its existence. but... a culture where people are not taught how to give or accept consent, and think that any non-consensual act that is not outright violent - is not really rape, like they don't even realize that its non consensual? yeah... we kinda do have rape culture going on here.

its not as much a matter of condoning rape or not - ask vast majority of people and they will say - of course rape is terrible!!! but ask them what they consider rape, their definition of rape? and THAT is when it starts getting scary. we have parents who instead of teaching boys that maybe if that girl doesn't like her hair pulled - that they should stop, but instead we just laugh it off with "boys will be boys" "he just does it becasue he likes you" THAT is where it starts, folks

P.S. Brock Turner kinda IS a proof or rape culture. we are not talking legislatively, we talking about people's perceptions and believes. that there are people defending him, excusing his actions because he was drunk, his father calling it "20 minutes of action" THAT is rape culture

First off, affirmative consent is bullshit. Seriously, have you ever even had sex before? If so then you'd probably notice that one party just acting like a quadriplegic is kinda weird (unless they actually are one), but the point is that before sex can even start you gotta remove clothes and even if you can do it with clothes on (which isn't always an option) then the fact of the matter is that if one of them wants to stop then they can say no or even use some form of physical resistance to communicate that. It's seems degrading to women to have feminists saying that we need affirmative consent in order to protect them because it makes it seem like women are so weak willed that they aren't willing to communicate their own desires, limits, and intentions in the heat of the moment. It's fucking absurd to think that I need to get my partner to say yes before having sex with them after they've for example, already undressed themselves, fondled my down stairs a bit, put a condom on me, etc. But no, we need verbal affirmative consent in order for it to not count as rape because otherwise there would be no way to know if both parties are willing participants, nope, not a single fucking clue as to whether or not they want to have sex with the other person . . . utter idiocy. Again I have to ask, have you even ever had sex before? Because it doesn't seem like it from where I am.

Secondly, your example of boys pulling on girls hair is utter horseshit. Boys are naturally more aggressive and thus in their early years everything boils down to some form of roughhousing or another. I mean seriously, get a group of young boys together and without giving them any directions on how to play, see how fast they start playing rough with each other. They do learn not to do that and very quickly I might add since this is something that they generally grow out of before the age of 10. Besides that, the hair pulling often happens with the boys first interest in a girl and all he knows how to do is interact with boys, so he just treats her like he would treat a boy which includes roughhousing, but this quickly comes to an end because as you noted, the girl often takes it as him being mean to her and since that tact isn't getting the desired result, he changes how he approaches her. I know, it's a sad fact of life that children aren't fully mature by the age of 4, but hey, they get there eventually.

Thirdly, two men happened upon Brock Turner assaulting that woman in an alleyway and made him stop, the jury found him guilty despite the fact that the victim testimony was shoddy due to her being unconscious and not remembering anything and the expensive defense attorney, multiple expert witnesses, and team of private investigators to discredit the prosecution's witnesses, and the public outrage against the judge and the father has become a thing of national attention. So out of all parties involved in this case there's only 1 person who doesn't have a familial bias or a money bias that actually defended him and that was the judge who is now being called upon to resign because of this case, but no, that totally proves we live in a rape culture. I mean goddamn, our entire culture is just condoning or excusing that guy's actions, it's terrible. Oh wait, just the opposite is true.

[Underverse]

I don't think destructiveness is directly relevant to determining how intolerable something should be considered, so I reject your entire metric in the first place.

What metric would you use?

I think destructiveness is perfectly fine. And interestingly, for once I seem to be in agreement with the law - we have cumulative sentences.

[Vynny]

Do you have any evidence to refute the statistic, or just a really strong feeling? Hypothetical question: what if you discovered rape was actually far more prevalent in our society than you ever believed, would that change your mind about rape culture?

if 1 in 5 women were raped then that would mean that we would have 35 million female rape victims in the USA. This would mean that we would have 4.5 New York City's full of just female rape victims. Not only that, it would be statistically unlikely for any person to not personally know at least one woman who had been raped. On top of that, the only countries in the world that have rape rates that high are known for what is called rape camps where women are captured and raped over and over again. The reality is that at a certain point, in order to commit such high amounts of crime, you have to round the victims up rather than just go out and commit crimes. It's the same concept of why the Nazi's used death camps. So to believe that the USA can achieve the same rate without the use of camps is absurd in and of itself. And if that's not enough, the researches who did the study that produced the statistic literally came out and asked feminist's to stop using it because the study was erroneous and poorly done. ( http://time.com/3633903/campus-rape-...cord-straight/ ). So is that enough evidence to convince you that it's bullshit?

[DarkTZeratul]

Look at it in the context of a Robbery. Sure, if someone is walking through a bad part of town we objectively recognize that that person is more likely to be robbed. But when he is robbed, we don't let the robber off the hook or hold him any less accountable for his conduct. We may recognize that the victim in that scenario exercised poor judgment, but we don't conclude that he deserved to be robbed or that the robber should be punished less because the victim made the crime eaiser to commit. That's, in my mind, what 'rape culture' actually is. It's the fact that we treat victims of the crime for rape differently than the victim for other crimes.

On top of that, the actual process of going through a rape investigation and trial is terrible. The way our judicial system is set up is that a victim of rape can, will be, be required to explain their bad decisions and have their choices examined to minute detail. So we end up learning a lot more about the poor decisions the victim made, and blame her for it.

There's a big difference between rape and robbery, though. With a robbery, there's evidence that a crime has occurred. With a rape, that's much less often the case. Situations like Brock Turner aside, most rape cases ultimately boil down to he-said-she-said. Even when there's evidence that sex occurred, proving that it was rape is extremely difficult. That's why the victim is often subjected to such grilling - to try and establish that it was, in fact, non-consensual. And that's also why so many rapists get off, or are perceived to get off (no pun intended) - because due process requires that the accused by considered innocent in the eyes of the law unless proven guilty, and there is rarely any direct evidence of guilt.

That's not because of rape culture, that's because from a legal standpoint it would be irresponsible to treat rape cases differently, to condemn the accused when there's no evidence beyond the word of the victim. It sucks for rape victims. It absolutely does. But there's no way to change that without overturning one of the fundamental pillars that our entire justice system is based on, and that's going to have incredibly far-reaching consequences - the most obvious of which is the fact that far more innocent people would be sentenced for crimes they did not commit.

[Vynny]

Ugg. I hate these threads. Why am I even doing this?

Rape Culture - to the extent that it means a societal bias against the victims of rape, is a very real thing. But because literally every fucking thing is politicized to it's most ridiculous extreme, anytime someone express skepticism about the facts revolving a rape they get labelled as being 'part of the rape culture' - which is reductionist and stupid.

This is why the bias against rape victims exists:

1. Most everyone has sex.
2. Most people have been in situations where they been disinhibited or impaired and had consensual sex.
3. The most common defenses to a rape case are a) it wasn't me or b) the victim consented.

Think about that for a moment.

This means that the story you will probably hear from someone accused of rape is likely to be this: we were having a good time, we were flirting, and were both drink/doing drug, and we had sex. In other words the accused has just described a situation that a lot of people have been in. In that context, a lot of people can see themselves in a similar situation: wrongfully accused by someone who is either lying or can't remember giving consent. It's the fact that people can see themselves in the position of a wrongfully accused person coupled with the fact sociopathic lairs have falsely accused people that creates a toxic environment for the victims. Because many of us, at least on some level, recognize the implicit risk of being falsely accused ourselves that we frequently subject the victim to a series of assumptions and suspicions that we wouldn't a victim of another crime.

Look at it in the context of a Robbery. Sure, if someone is walking through a bad part of town we objectively recognize that that person is more likely to be robbed. But when he is robbed, we don't let the robber off the hook or hold him any less accountable for his conduct. We may recognize that the victim in that scenario exercised poor judgment, but we don't conclude that he deserved to be robbed or that the robber should be punished less because the victim made the crime eaiser to commit. That's, in my mind, what 'rape culture' actually is. It's the fact that we treat victims of the crime for rape differently than the victim for other crimes.

On top of that, the actual process of going through a rape investigation and trial is terrible. The way our judicial system is set up is that a victim of rape can, will be, be required to explain their bad decisions and have their choices examined to minute detail. So we end up learning a lot more about the poor decisions the victim made, and blame her for it.

A functional decent person obviously doesn't believe anyone deserves to be raped because its a vile thing to do to another human being. But the fact is, while we might never commit a rape, we may do a lot of things that real rapists also do: drink, have disinhibited sex, have casual sex, and get so drunk we can't remember what happened the night before. And real rapists know that, and so do their attorneys. So that's the story they present. And we give them the benefit of the doubt, sometimes, because we can recognize ourselves in the fiction they're trying to sell us and it terrifies us.

I disagree with you on a key point, the scenario that you've described is one where the accused claims to have been under the impression that the sex was consensual. In the case of a robbery, there's no impression that the robber was taking the item with the permission of the victim. A better comparison would be if for some reason you had left some stuff out on the curb and someone, thinking that it was trash, came by and took it and you called the police saying that they stole it. This way, in both cases, the accused is under the impression that everything's on the up and up and the victim failed to communicate with the accused party which led to a misunderstanding. Now, with this more fair analogy we can see why people are so skeptical of victims in scenarios like this, simply put, there is a significantly reasonable doubt that the victims failure to communicate is the reason that the crime occurred, and that had the victim properly communicated then the crime would not have occurred. In this scenario, most people wouldn't want to be sent to prison due to a misunderstanding that sprang forth from someone else's failure to communicate thus they typically don't see what happened as a crime.

P.S.
Please note that I said that there is a reasonable doubt that the victim didn't communicate which led to a misunderstanding which led to the crime and am in no way saying that this is actually true in any or all cases. The point is that in a lot of cases of rape, it devolves into arguments of he said she said where it's very hard to establish who is telling the truth and thus the standard of evidence necessary to prove that consent was not given is not met. Whether or not the accused's side of the story is true is irrelevant to the presence of reasonable doubt.

[May90]

That's not because of rape culture, that's because from a legal standpoint it would be irresponsible to treat rape cases differently, to condemn the accused when there's no evidence beyond the word of the victim. It sucks for rape victims. It absolutely does. But there's no way to change that without overturning one of the fundamental pillars that our entire justice system is based on, and that's going to have incredibly far-reaching consequences - the most obvious of which is the fact that far more innocent people would be sentenced for crimes they did not commit.

Is it really that hard to tell rape from consensual sex in most cases though? When rape takes place, there are always signs of struggle, such as scratches, bruises, etc. I would think a medical examination soon after the rape accusation has been made would be enough most of the time for the court to see the whole picture.

But yes, there are certainly cases in which the only evidence we have is the words of the victim; in such cases, indeed, a rapist might get away. How common those cases though are is everybody's guess.

[Rad1um]

Rape culture is bullshit made up by ultra(retarded)feminists.

best description yet

[Vynny]

What you've highlighted is actually proving my point for me. Our society generally doesn't take these instances of sexual assault seriously and often doesn't even think they should be reported, which causes us to think the problem is much less serious than it actually is.

Oh, please don't tell me that you're actually arguing that we live in a rape culture while belittling the crime of rape. Oh the irony is delicious. So, just let me get this straight, proof of rape culture is someone distinguishing between the lightest forms of sexual assault and the horrendous crime of rape. I mean, you do know that there is a real difference between rape and unwanted kissing and that rape is magnitudes worse than unwanted kissing, right? And you do understand that you're not arguing for a sexual assault culture existing the USA, but a rape culture thus including sexual assault statistics into your argument is the very definition of watering down the statistics in order to prove your point. I mean, you want to swap your stance to a sexual assault culture then do it, but please don't belittle the crime of rape by putting it in the same league as sexual assault because it's just fucking sick and disgusting that you'd water down the severity of what is one of the worst crimes that is committed to the same level as an unwanted kiss just for the sake of your fucking narrative. But please, if you think I'm wrong then go to a rape counseling center and tell the victims there that people who got groped on the subway or unconsensually kissed at a bar were violated just as much as they were.

[Tempguy]

Is it really that hard to tell rape from consensual sex in most cases though? When rape takes place, there are always signs of struggle, such as scratches, bruises, etc. I would think a medical examination soon after the rape accusation has been made would be enough most of the time for the court to see the whole picture.

But yes, there are certainly cases in which the only evidence we have is the words of the victim; in such cases, indeed, a rapist might get away. How common those cases though are is everybody's guess.

It is that hard. Not everyone who is raped struggles.


The way I feel about rape claims is that if a person drinks the feminist kool aide and chooses to not report it. But decides to post it online to the public. And then turn around and say they were afraid of public backlash which is why they did not go to ththe cops..

She's an attention seeking liar.

I asked some women about it on Reddit and the response I got was so stupid. This chick claimed she was raped and confronted her rapist "she claims" she states she will not press charges unless he rapes another. I asked why she would wait until another person gets hurt


They said I was an asshole for thinking like that, and it makes sense she would post online since accusing someone of rape gets you so much social backlash it isn't worth the trouble.

I was like "holy fuck are you serious right now?"

Rape culture is a fucking myth in the west. And in countries where it exists, feminist defend that culture and call you a racist for taking issue.

[Vynny]

Forget all the evidence in this thread, have you seriously never noticed the tendency of rape victims to be disbelieved?

Hey guys, Huulo raped me. I swear it's true. Won't you believe me and lock Huulo up for years and put him/her on the sex offender watch list? I mean, I know it's fishy that I don't even know their sex, real name, or geographical location, and that due to all of these holes in my story you're skeptical, but I swear it totally happened and I just can't live in a world where he/she is walking around free as a bird after what they did to me.

Now, excusing the hyperbole, I wonder why we might be skeptical and choose to only believe those that can supply a court with a coherent and consistent story that is backed up by evidence before we lock someone up for years and put them on a sex offender watch list.

- - - Updated - - -

Is it really that hard to tell rape from consensual sex in most cases though? When rape takes place, there are always signs of struggle, such as scratches, bruises, etc. I would think a medical examination soon after the rape accusation has been made would be enough most of the time for the court to see the whole picture.

But yes, there are certainly cases in which the only evidence we have is the words of the victim; in such cases, indeed, a rapist might get away. How common those cases though are is everybody's guess.

Yes, more rapists would be convicted if victims came forward immediately, but for whatever reason they just seem to assume that no one will listen to them and don't even try to report it or they report it on social media in order to crucify the accused in the court of public opinion. On top of that, studies show that most rape victims know their rapist, so it's exceedingly easy to identify the alleged rapist and put them under a metaphorical microscope in order to find evidence linking them to the crime, but sadly most rape victims wait a few days to a few years to report it and by that time nearly all DNA evidence is gone, and toxicological evidence is gone (in the case of date rape drugs), and most of the bruising and scratching is gone as well. Maybe feminists should create programs to encourage rape victims to come forward immediately so as to give them the best shot of getting justice rather than demonizing the police and making victims think that the cops just won't listen to them.

[May90]

snip

I'd say their reasoning is pretty valid. They are not acting properly in the eyes of the law, but their actions do make sense. Both people accused in rape (even if found innocent in the end) and people assumed to have been raped (again, even if in the end it turns out to not be true) face quite a significant social backlash. I find it pretty silly though to press charges after he rapes another and not immediately: either press charges right away, or do not at all, I'd say. Her position, indeed, is weird and malicious.

Maybe feminists should create programs to encourage rape victims to come forward immediately so as to give them the best shot of getting justice rather than demonizing the police and making victims think that the cops just won't listen to them.

I think a better solution would be some kind of guarantee of anonymity in such sensitive cases. When someone claims to have been raped and doesn't want publicity, perhaps both the accusing and the accused should not have their real names used in the official correspondence, so people wouldn't be afraid to come forward because of the fear of social backlash.

[Tempguy]

I thought it was common fucking sense to not release the identity of the victim or the accused until a verdict is given.

There is nothing good from releasing the names beforehand. And for anyone who thinks it will help possible victims avoid a potential rapist, lol. Anyone who rapes while under investigation for rape, or going through trial is stupid. I almost wish they would all be that dumb cause it would speed up their journey to prison.

Anyway. This whole idea of western rape culture does more harm to victims than anything.

- you ruin the lives of those accused. And thus draw sympathy and attention to false claims.
- the fact that feminists refuse to back down even after shit is proved to be a false and malicious claim makes people despise it all more.
- everything being considered rape dilutes the crime and trauma of it.
- actual rape victims bear the backlash of it all.

i feel for the victims. Really. However, I have been conditioned to take rape accusations with a grain of salt now.

- Did you two actually have sex? Or did he just brush against your arm by accident?
- Did you say stop or resist? Or did you just go with it and assume he was a psychic?
- You were drunk? Okay? Was he drunk too?
- You say he raped you once? Did you continue the relationship for months and have sexy many more times until he left you?
- Did he rape you, and you decided to wait like 5 years to speak up about it, and still refuse to press charges? What the hell do you want me to do if you don't even want him in jail?

Shit like that is the reason I remain a skeptic. My cousin was molested as a child and I was raped by two much older girls when young. So if you can make me stop and question your sincerity when claiming rape, you know you fucked up.

If I read an article about a woman reporting a rape to the cops the next day, or even week, after it happened, I still assume the claim has merit. But when the fuck was the last time anyone has heard of that? I'm sure it still happens, but all I se are stories of people saying th y were raped once upon a time but they totes don't wanna go through an investigation and trial.

But they are cool with a civil suit and doing the news and talk show circuit. Cause that makes sense.

[melodramocracy]

I think once you acknowledge that culture is a pretty broad definition, then yes. Certainly the leadership of enron had a culture that perpetuated fraud. Calling it fraud culture is just overly simplistic labeling. It seems like somatics to me.

It's semantics to a point, but 'culture' to me equates to widespread general approval or endorsement, which is something that rape, at least IMO, doesn't seem to have.

The leadership of Enron would arguably be a small enough quantity of people that you couldn't really use the phrase 'culture' for it.

If I was being my typical pessimistic self, actually, I'd say that the 'culture' label was being thrown around to actually infer that the general public was completely OK with the idea of rape, and that those against the act were a small, oppressed % of victims, which is of course absurd.