Comments on: A further thought on all these rape statistics

By: AhClem

AhClem — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:00:39 +0000

Last night, contemplating after a friend related to me that her friend had been raped the night before that, it dawned on me that rape statistics rarely focus on the number, or percentage, of men who commit rape. Instead, we are given the number or percentage of victims of rape. How can we solve the problem if we only focus on the symptom?

By: curiousgirl

curiousgirl — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 16:24:42 +0000

one thing to point out. College students are SIGNIFICANTLY YOUNGER than the average poplution. All other things being equal, this would create underreporting of lifetime rapes committed by the average man, i think significantly.

By: Kerim Friedman

Kerim Friedman — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I generally agree with this post. But I do think it is important to ask about how College students might differ from the rest of the population. For instance, there are specific sub-cultures related to varsity sports and fraternities which seem to encourage a culture of sexual violence. I think we could learn a lot by looking at what portion of college rapes occur within these subcultures. That would tell us if this is simply a pervasive pattern of male behavior in our society, or if it is something that only thrives within specific cultural settings. It would not tell us what cultural settings it might thrive in outside of College campuses, but it would be a start. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I don’t personally believe that rape is “natural.” I believe that these subcultures of violence have a tremendous facilitating influence upon the percentage of rapes. I call this view optimistic because it means that the problem can be managed by policies which seek to change the behavior of such subcultures, or else eliminate them altogether.

By: arbitraryaardvark

arbitraryaardvark — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

good pair of posts. tiny quibble - It is not something committed by a freakishly small minority of men (unlike, say, serial killing)
unless you are using serial killing in some technical sense, i don’t think it’s so freakishly small, -if- we include those whose killing is state sanctioned (soldiers etc.) The Milgram experiments showed that people will try to hurt other people, when told to by an authority figure, who would never do so on their own.
another quibble - there’s nothing too reliable about the 4.5% figure. college students have taken enough tests to know a question with “ever” signals a yes. “Have you ever been to mars?” 4.5% will answer yes. But there are other factors that suggest the 4.5 is too low, or about right.
The exact definitions of what it is to rape or be raped will affect the percentages. A narrower definition gives a smaller number, a broader def gives a higher number. For axample, i would say that i have been sexually assaulted, but not raped. But stuff has happened to me that would meet some people definitions of rape. And i’ve done some stuff that might look like rape without the right follow up questions - I held him down while i boinked him, after he’d suggested we do it that way. Easy example to talk about openly because there was clearly negotiated consent. In my experience, the numbers look like 1 in 3 women, 1 in 5 men, get raped at some point (north america, no stats on global). I don’t have any estimate of how many men rape, partly because i’m not sure how i would define the term. I can’t say that 4.5% is wrong.

By: Morphienne

Morphienne — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Um, so 4/5% of people said they had been to Mars? I must have missed that IMAX… damn.

Amp, please catch me if I misinterpret the parameters of Koss’ study, but I thought that the only things the study counted as raped were penetrative intercourse WITH AN UNWILLING PARTNER attained by physical force or violence or the threat of physical force or violence. Did I not read it correctly? Because that would seem to “count” as rape to me, and I feel that that’s a VERY narrow definition of rape, which means, by aardvark’s reasoning, that it underrepresents the number of rapes and/or sexual assaults committed.

By: Random

Random — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Examining rape in the context of college life is equivalent to examing rape in prisons or the military. All are examples of institutions, and may have only passing similarities to life on “the outside.”

As a former college student at both resident and commuter colleges, I suspect that the culture of a residential college in particular promotes a variety of borderline behavioural traits. Kids (young adults?) are on their own in an environment that encourages experimentation and minimizes potential repercussions. Mix with a smidgen of rebelliousness (or more than just a smidgen…) and you have a heady cocktail that can send the wrong message to a person trying to discern the rules and mores that bind a society.

I therefore suspect that the incidence of rape at colleges is not indicative of this aberrant behaviour in the populations at large. Now if you were to examine this sort of behaviour in the context of a military organization… Yep, like the youngsters currently serving in Iraq; there you might find a different percentage of aberrant (abhorrent) behaviour.

Cheers,

By: Echidne

Echidne — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Amp, do you know of any studies done elsewhere in the world? It would be interesting to compare U.S. data to that from other countries. All I recall is seeing statistics that indicate that reported rape figures are higher here than in most European countries, but that may be older data. I think awareness in Europe still lags somewhat behind the U.S., though mostly in the Southern and Eastern European countries.

By: Ampersand

Ampersand — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Random: Keep in mind that Koss (if it’s Koss your talking about) did a study of lifetime incidence of rape among college students, not a study of rape at college. That is, although the people surveyed were college students, they were asked about all incidents of rape (and other things) up to that point in their lives, not just things that had happened to them since they began attending college.

Also, the CDC rape study I’ve linked to a couple of times this week has a representative sample of the entire USA, not just college students.

Echidne:

I do have some info on that, but I’m too burned out right now to look it up and type it in. I’ll try to remember to do something on it later, but feel free to remind me if I forget.

By: Sheelzebub

Sheelzebub — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Just a note about stats, I’d be a little skeptical of “officially reported via law-enforcement” stats.

When I lived in Japan, I was told that the rape rate was low. What was low was the actual reportage of rape; women who come forward are put through the grinder. They tend to keep quiet about it because they are blamed.

By: Spicy

Spicy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

‘Amp, do you know of any studies done elsewhere in the world? It would be interesting to compare U.S. data to that from other countries. ‘

Here’s a link to one in the UK showing an incidence of 4.9% for rape and 9.7% for sexual victimisation for women since the age of 16:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r159.pdf