Fact is, most rapes aren’t reported at all. Where’s your sympathy for those victims? Their rapists go free to rape again. Then there’s the guys who rape retarded girls and who get the full sympathy of their community. Then there’s all the sports figures who rape and get away with it. Then there’s all the rape victims who aren’t even old enough to speak. There are victims whose rapist used a condom or didn’t ejaculate. There are victims who showered. I’m sure you think those are false complaints, too. Let’s not even discuss the enlightened attitude of LE. In any event, you don’t waste any sympathy on any of them. Oh noes! Woe betide the guy accused of rape. He serves as a patron saint to anti-feminist guys everywhere who can dismiss every rape case there is and perpetuate stereotypes of victims. We never hear from the victim in his case, just that he’s a swell guy and he ‘couldn’t have done it’ because he sure hasn’t tried to rape Bill or Ted or Joe, right?

Fact is, the classic false rape accusation doesn’t involve a ID at all and the person making it usually does so because of mental illness. In your eagerness to whine about about how the Secret Matriarchy Hurts Men TOO you’ve left facts behind. Bravo.

A 1997 “Columbia Journalism Review” analysis of rape statistics noted that the 2% statistic is often falsely attributed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and has no clear and credible study to support it. The FBI’s statistic for “unfounded” rape accusations is 9%, but this definition only includes cases where the accuser recants or the evidence contradicts her story. Instances where the case is dismissed for lack of evidence are not included in the “unfounded” category. Brownmiller’s credibility can be assessed by her assertion in “Against Our Will” that rape is “nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”

Rape is a horrible crime. But false accusations of rape are every bit as horrible. They are a form of psychological rape that can emotionally, socially, and economically destroy a man even if there is no conviction. The stigma attaches to the falsely accused for life. Few believe them and few care. Prosecutors systematically refuse to prosecute the perpetrators. And victims’ advocates refuse to see falsely accused men as victims, and instead work to minimize and conceal the problem.

Wait, what? I don’t know what the hell’s going on in that other thread, and I don’t know what happened with Kobe (in part because I ignore TV news). But if he used violence to force her into sexual acts, that seems pretty clear cut. If her ‘walking into the situation’ affects the punishment, do we also forbid her to have an abortion? Sure, random-rape-victim didn’t know random-rapist would force her to have unprotected sex, but she walked into the room with him.

Hell, even if I agree to something a whole lot rougher, but he steps outside of the boundaries of what we’ve agreed, it’s flat-out rape.

I’m sick of all this justification of men’s brutal behaviour.

So if I agree to have sex with a guy and he turns into a ravaging animal, it’s MY fault for agreeing to the sex in the first place?

You are operating on the principle that if a woman agrees to any sexual contact, she agrees to ALL sexual contact, in any way the man in question chooses to do it.

That is flat-out morally wrong. If I agree to a nice, warm little fuck and what I get is beaten and bruised, it is rape. No if, buts, or ors. It is.

“Which ones are indeed true rape, a man forcing himself onto a woman violently, and which ones are something else?”

There is no “something else” and the idea that there is one definition of “true” rape is a misogynist myth. Rape takes many forms, including the form of psychological coercion, which may not involved physical violence at all. As Q Grrl & Hearrt pointed out on another thread, sometimes all a man has to do is overtly or implicitly threaten dire consequences to the woman if she does refuse sex. The list is there if you care to go look at it, but common tactics include threatening to beat her, to abuse the children, to harm the pets, to humiliate her publicly, to cause her to lose her job, and on and on and on if she refuses sex.

Those are rape, whether you see it that way or not. Because it doesn’t matter what YOU think and feel, it matters what the WOMAN thinks and feels.

“But I will admit I hold an intolerance for women who quite simply want to bash man, and call themselves feminists. ”

And I don’t have a hell of a lot of tolerance for those men who, when confronted by facts, begin to whinge about how the Mean Old Feminists are “bashing” them. For many, many men, all a woman has to do is tell the truth about her life for her to become a ball-breaking bitch.

As for the “equality” thing, why on earth do you suppose many feminists haven’t thought about it themselves long before you? There are some feminists who do go on about “equality”, but there are also a hell of a lot of us who DON’T look to men’s lives as some sort of Gold Standard by which human lives should be judged. Men not only treat women and children like shit, they also treat any man they see as “weaker” like shit too. That’s not a system I care to endorse, which is why I’m calling for a new way of living altogether.

I do not consider rape statistics to be overblown, nor do I believe that feminsts manipulate rape statistics to gain some sort of power over men. But, I do feel those rape statistics should be broken down a bit more to suit certain situations. I also feel that rape laws should be modified to fit different situations as well. For an example of my point, I will use the recent case of Kobe Bryant, in which a woman who was apparently awed by a man’s celebrity agreed to go to a private place with him, and agreed to sleep with him, or at least fool around. But, he got rought about it, and ended up hurting her physically and mentally, for life. Did he commit a crime, most certainly. But, I’m not sure if you can call it rape when she more or less walked into the situation of her own accord. I feel rape statistics should be broken down into cases such as this. Which ones are indeed true rape, a man forcing himself onto a woman violently, and which ones are something else?

I have no fear of hatred for feminists. But I will admit I hold an intolerance for women who quite simply want to bash man, and call themselves feminists. They are no more feminists than Al Sharpton is a black activist.

My own views on feminism tend to be a bit controversial. I am personally all for equality between the sexes, and would happily work for advancing the feminist cause myself. However, I feel there is a side of it that tends to not be looked at, by the women themselves in particular. Greater equality of the sexes would indeed carry benefits, but it would also carry disadvantages. The number of female politicians and CEO’s would increase, yes, but so would the number of women in jail and on death row. Divorce, abortion, and spousal abuse laws would all be changed radically. Women would lose many advantages that historically they have held tightly to, just as men would. Quiet simply, its a two edged sword.

i think you mean “play “telephone” not “place telephone”

feel free to delete this upon correction…

Why does feminism get slammed so much for it (sometimes fairly, sometimes not), then? Because feminism is going directly to issues that are very emotionally contentious. Not too many people get worked up if an anti-nuclear activist spews some inaccurate drivel about background levels; lots of people get worked up if a feminist misstates the number of people just like them who commit horrible crimes.

Just my .02.

Unless you re-attended a few years ago, in which case never mind.

Conversely, our social history is long and rich in believing that women are incapable of objective thought, rationalization, or complex (or simple) logic. Instead of men listening to the underlying messages about rape, they would rather bicker about statistics, as if reporting statistics in error will make or break the fact that men rape women. Socially, men are not raised to take women’s words at face value and use the demand for accurate statistics (everytime/all the time!) to intimidate women. Women’s experiences are treated as anecdotal and therefore subject to gross error; men’s experiences are treated as the gold standard/status quo and neither need nor require statistics for proof, veracity, or substance.

Double standard.

Another reason this statistic may become distorted is the experience of women themselves, in conversation with other women, discovering the huge proportion of women-I-know who have experienced such assaults.

So, 1-4 doesn’t cut it. Neither does 1-8. Because neither statistic, no matter how accurate can capture my above experience. So why do men want statistical accuracy? — that’s a more important question for me. Are they saying that *if only* we get the statistics right, *then* they’ll believe us and do something???

I don’t know why *men* want statistical accuracy. *Thinking humans* want statistical accuracy because statistical accuracy is one component in determining whether an argument is true or not. People want statistical accuracy because anecdotal reports - such as, “I was at this meeting and everyone had been raped, and so that must be all of reality” - have great narrative power and make it very easy to reach false conclusions.

“I don’t know how Ronald Reagan could have become President. Nobody I know voted for him.” - Pauline Kael, 1988

Q Grrl wrote: Because neither statistic, no matter how accurate can capture my above experience.

Statistics like Dr. Koss’ aren’t intended to capture anyone’s individual experience; they’re intended to capture a broad aggregate of experiences, I guess.

So why do men want statistical accuracy? — that’s a more important question for me. Are they saying that *if only* we get the statistics right, *then* they’ll believe us and do something???

In this case, the conversation was set off by a woman (Dr. Koss) seeking statistically accurate figures about rape prevalence, and a woman (Wendy McElroy) criticizing Koss’ work for not being statistically accurate. So I don’t think that your statement that it’s only men who are interested in statistical measures is true.

However, you could argue that Koss is just responding to what the people who control funding - who are, of course, largely male - want. So in that sense, yes, the point of the statistics is to get powerful men to acknowlege the problem. From an interview with Dr. Koss: “I feel that the numbers are sufficient currently to inform anyone that we have a problem with male violence. However, as we can see with the problems reauthorizing VAWA, not everyone is convinced it is a high priority issue. In battles over resources, evidence of broad scope of the problem is still the best weapon.”

Robert wrote: You were in college “a few years ago”? Dude. Lessee, 2004 minus 1988…hmm…face it, we’re OLD!

I know, I know…

Unless you re-attended a few years ago, in which case never mind.

Yup. I graduated from Portland State U three years ago.