I hope one day you find the strength to dress however you like without considering other’s reactions. I dress however I like. Sometimes that is more feminine and sometimes it isn’t. But, I seem to get more negative male attention when I wear my motorcycling clothes than when in a miniskirt and heels. I don’t understand that anymore than I understand why men think that catcalling is attractive or wanted. I don’t object to the occassional brief whistle every now and again, but some of what I’ve heard is truly obscene.

I’d heard the same thing about fighting back–that it often prevents the attack. So without reading that study that the courts got all fired up about, I’m guessing the results might be skewed b/c someone who keeps attacking although the woman is fighting back is particularly violent/depraved–the study probably didn’t include non-completed assaults.

I’d never thought about the physical evidence part of it. Your friend has a good point.

I think that it is wonderful that you talk back to the catcallers. I’ve gotten to the point where I do too, but I still feel somewhat guilty and avoid dressing in a feminine manner. (And I’m not slamming my parents, I honestly don’t know where I got the attitude from.) I hope I will be able to raise my children to be confident enough to respond to the situation you do from day one.

And if VD or anyone else tells me that “date rape isn’t real rape” I may well slug ‘em. Especially if it is on a date. B/c then it won’t be “real battery.” Not that I would date VD if he were on the market.

Thank you for your response to my question. Part of the reason I have such a difficult time with these issues is that I wasn’t socialized to have “rape fear” or to believe that I am personally responsible for a man’s reaction to me. I still carry those feelings with me today, and when a man catcalls, I call him on it.

I do believe that more needs to be done to illuminate the preavalance of aquaintence rape, and that the definition of rape needs to be clarified so that everyone in the criminal justice system is aware of what actually comprises rape.

On a side note, I was told by a very dear friend of mine that teaches self-defense classes that unless the attacker was armed then fighting back is a good thing. Her thoughts were that the more you fought the more evidence that was left on both you and the attacker. Her thinking was more physical evidence=better chances for prosecution later. I think that is interesting in and of itself.

I was sexually assaulted when I was much younger, and my instincts told me that if I fought he would most likely get frightened off. My instincts proved correct, and though I reported there wasn’t a trial. My attacker to a plea bargin to a lesser offense.

Mendy–My take on this whole thing is that the some investigators don’t really understand rape, which is why they expect a stereotyped reaction, and also they worry more themselves about men being falsely accused, because fear of rape isn’t real to them. While I was in the military, they showed us a training tape known as the “Seattle Tape” used to train police officers about how to deal with rape survivors. The police officer walks his (small) audience through this scenario where they, a police officer, are forced at gunpoint to blow a male suspect who gets the drop on them. It is very graphic, and somewhat hard to hear. He makes the offender so disgusting that trust me, no one would want to blow this guy even consensually. Then he talks about the aftermath. The second-guessing about what else he could’ve done to control the situtation. Why did he go back into that alley without backup? Then, to make it worse, other police officers start coming up to you, telling you that they’ve heard you’re gay and you’d previously shown up at this alley for trysts with this man, and you’re just making it up because you’re embarrassed that you’re gay and blowing this other guy. By the end, both the audience on the videotape, and the mostly male audience I was a part of, was in the grip of horrified silence. They GOT IT.

I don’t think it is just men who have a problem getting it, though. People are surprised to learn that most rapists are intimates or close friends, or at least close acquaintances (roughly 2/3.) The courts started really changing their tune of the sufficiency of evidence for rape and resistence requirements fell out of favor, after a study was done that showed that women who resisted were much more likely to be badly hurt (I have reasons to doubt that study, but it is old and I haven’t gotten the chance to review its methodology. The best advice I’ve gotten, about preventing attacks and getting through them, is to trust your instincts.)

And, as I mentioned above, victim-blaming allows us to keep up the illusion of control. If it is the victim’s fault (not that she was “asking for it” but that she could’ve avoided an “obvious danger”) that means I am capable of protecting myself.

Another aspect of sexism at play here is the assumption that we women are responsible for men’s reactions to us. If he gets turned on, it is my fault for dressing the way I do. And boy, have I bought in to that. I hate the looks, comments and responses so much that I tend to bury myself in large T-shirts, loose-fitting jeans and just overall ugly. I enjoy dressing in a feminine manner until I get an overreaction. I don’t mind being looked at, even sexually, but there are lines. So, if I’m responsible for a man’s response to how I dress, that implies that I am “responsible” for how he might misconstrue my friendship, my behavior on a date, or my dancing as a come on. Even if I say it isn’t, its as though his reading of the situation controls. I’m not saying we have no obligation to communicate, but when wires are crossed, I think it is assumed to be the woman’s fault.

Daran–I think you have a number of very perceptive things to say on the subject, and your experience with survivors (although more extensive than my own) certainly mirrors it. My question to you is, if the first person to hear has to uncritically believe, what about the police? What if they are the first (or nearly the first) to hear the story from the person claiming to be a survivor? I would take what you say a step further–I think that the police should always treat the survivor as though they believe him or her. Maybe there needs to be a higher-up decision maker who decides if a case goes forward, but you don’t have to call someone a liar just because a prosecution doesn’t come out of the case. Oh, and regarding the earlier study you posted, I did read it, but unless it says how many of these women accused a specific man, I would treat them as false reports (an attention-getting, poor me gambit), which are quite different from false accusations.

I was also concerned with the study author’s/police officer’s unwillingness to believe certain women who had slept with “friends” of theirs. I think they would have a strong incentive to pretend it was as false report due to pressure from other friends. I’ve had friends who’ve been raped by their “friends.” A lot of them do not report, one woman even though she was drug raped.

I am actually interested in discussing the above case as it relates to women, because the discussion should prove fruitful in examining my own beliefs and views.

At least we can still ponder the issues that greatly affect us as women in our own heads, even if we can’t discuss them for five minutes before the “what about the men” mantra begins.

That said, in reality, why does there have to be a typical way for a rape victim to behave? Who really made those rules? Because who ever did, apparently defined what the crime of rape was as well. There’s a hundred different ways women can react afterwards.

Daran,

The Bureau of Justice Statistics keeps statistics on both females and males who report that they are victims of rape.

My last post was the second of two lengthy consecutive posts. The first was stuck in the moderation queue when you wrote your reply, presumably because it has a large number of links. (It’s been passed now.) The post you could see was therefore missing necessary context.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports do not include male rapes. The National Crime Victimisation Surveys do and the National Violence Against Women Survey did indeed record both male and female rape, but neither of them survey prisons. the methodology of the NVAWS in particular was designed to effectively measure violence against women and is likely to underestimate the incidence of violence against men.

The BJS will conduct the first national survey of sexual violence in prison next year.

I’m sure we could have a fascinating conversation about how male rape victims are oppressed by sexism, because they are. But that isn’t the conversation we’re having today.

I don’t see that we are restricted to having one conversation.

What Sheelzebub said about conversations about women’s rights being derailed. On this thread, we are trying about one female who was disbelieved because, according to the source we have, she didn’t “act traumatized”and what that all means.

Think about how women are supposed to act traumatized. How we are supposed to cry, break down, become irrational, need support, not want sex, fill in your stereotype of a female rape survivor here. And some women do react that way. But women who don’t cry aren’t believed.

So aren’t some women who do.

Because it is unfeminine not to cry. Women who don’t report immediately aren’t believed, although most women delay reporting. After being raped, some women start having a large number of casual sexual affairs with men. Instead of adopting the Victorian “touch me not” prudery that is expected, they are instead what our culture would call promiscuous. And so they are disbelieved.

I know all this. I have spoken to scores, possibly hundreds of survivors over the years, most of them female. I’d say that I’ve heard it all, except that I know that the next person will likely prove me wrong.

We think that women are physically weak, but we ask women who tell us they are survivors why they didn’t fight back. Some of the reason for that question is self-protection”“we want to think she could have stopped it by fighting back, because then we, or our sister/daughter/mother/girlfriend/friend could stop it by fighting back. We want to think it is her fault, because if it isn’t her fault, then it could happen to us, too, which is a terrible thing to think. We want to think it is because she took some risk that we don’t take. She wore something “slutty.” She went somewhere “dangerous.” And I say “we” because I’ve done some of these things myself, and I know I’m not the only person who has. But I’m trying to change, and I think it is important that everyone else try to, so that we can look at rape cases on the merits, instead of on our biases.

I’ve done it too - I’m painfully aware of that. :-( But hopefully not recently.

So what range of behavior do the posters on this thread think is normal for a typical rape survivor? Do you think it is even a good ideal to talk in terms of “typical” or “normal”?

I don’t think “normal” is appropriate, because of the implied value judgement.

I usually say that rape victims typically feel devastated by the experience, which I base upon what I’ve read about rape, and what survivors have told me. That’s not a statement about behaviour, though. I’m also aware that there’s a selection effect in operation. Survivors who are not devastated are perhaps unlikely to talk about it to me or present to rape crisis centres etc. Nevertheless, I have spoken to a very small number who have indicated that it had only a minor effect upon them, and I consider that to be just as valid a response, albeit not typical.

Do you think our culture does a good job of supporting rape survivors?

No, I think it does a lousy job. I think rape crisis centres, etc., do a fairly good job for women. (Not perfect, though.) The service for men varies from as-good-as-for-women to non-existent. I consider the very notion of gender-apartheid in this important service to be abominable.

Where there is a lack of support, what does this have to do with sexism? With assumptions about “appropriate behavior” and the initiation of consensual sex?

Lots, I would say.

With whatever else you all think is relevant to the conversation?

Linda Flores said in her footnote to comment 37: “…that the severity of rape’s effects, as well as how long they last and how difficult recovery is, varies a lot from woman to woman”. From man to man too, but one pattern that I’ve noticed is that the best predictor of how quickly (or not) a survivor of either sex will recover is how they are treated the first time they disclose, whether it be the day after the assault, or a year later. If the response is supportive - if they are believed - then they have the best chance of a relatively quick recovery. If the response is hostile, then chances are they may still be suffering decades later.

That’s a “typically”, though. No survivor should be made to feel that they “should have got over it”, no matter how long its been. Nor is recovery ever permanently out of reach. I know a woman who had an epiphany over the course of three days some twenty years after her rape.

So “believe the survivor”, then. Uncritically. Not because every rape claim is true, (I have no idea, nor any way of telling, how many rape claims are false), but because you risk harming someone if you don’t.

But there’s a problem with that. In the context of a police investigation/criminal prosecution, you also risk harming someone if you do. Ideally the criminal process should first and formost eliminate the actually innocent suspect/defendant as quickly as possible, convicting the actually guilty is a secondary consideration. The failure to convict the actually guilty is far less serious that then false conviction of the actually innocent. The welfare of the defendant during the process should be the next priority, and the welfare of the complainant should come forth. Why that order? Because the complainant, unlike the defendant should be able to withdraw from the process without penalty (which, of course, is precisely what didn’t happen in the case under discussion).

If there are ways the criminal justice system could be changed to be more supportive of rape survivors without negatively impacting the other three priorities, then I’d be in favour of them. What is not appropriate, is the ‘typical’ feminist focus exclusively upon ‘believing the (female) survivor’ and increasing rape convictions without any apparent regard for the welfare or rights of (male) suspects/defendants or consern about convicting the innocent. For example, Sheelzebub just presumes that the men in this case are guilty (comment 165), and that’s not an uncommon reaction. Another example is the promulgation by feminists and rape activists of the myth that “women don’t lie about rape”, and it’s associated 2% false rape accusation rate canard, which is now so widespread that even the police cite it. See Greer (PDF) for a scholarly analysis of the source and propagation of this myth and its consequences.) It is particularly ironic that it appears on so many webpages devoted to debunking rape myths.

So yes, “believe the survivor” in a therapeutic context (which includes informal disclosures). In the context of a police report, I can see no way of squaring the circle. I can see no way of fairly investigating rape allegations and preserving the rights of the accused without engaging in a thoroughly critical, and perhaps hostile, investigation of the complainant’s claims.

I do agree, however, that the complainant’s post-alledged-rape behaviour is of little, if any, probative value, and should be excluded from consideration. This is true whether or not she appears to be traumatised.

Let’s please talk about this, because I want to hear what everyone has to say. Because I can bet you’ve all got answers that would never occur to me, or that might help me figure something out.

I have always been willing to talk to the topic. What I am not willing to do is accept restrictions about what I and other dissenting voices can or cannot raise when talking about the topic. I also object to the attacks upon us when we do.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics keeps statistics on both females and males who report that they are victims of rape.

I’m sure we could have a fascinating conversation about how male rape victims are oppressed by sexism, because they are. But that isn’t the conversation we’re having today. What Sheelzebub said about conversations about women’s rights being derailed. On this thread, we are trying about one female who was disbelieved because, according to the source we have, she didn’t “act traumatized”and what that all means.

Think about how women are supposed to act traumatized. How we are supposed to cry, break down, become irrational, need support, not want sex, fill in your stereotype of a female rape survivor here. And some women do react that way. But women who don’t cry aren’t believed. Because it is unfeminine not to cry. Women who don’t report immediately aren’t believed, although most women delay reporting. After being raped, some women start having a large number of casual sexual affairs with men. Instead of adopting the Victorian “touch me not” prudery that is expected, they are instead what our culture would call promiscuous. And so they are disbelieved.

We think that women are physically weak, but we ask women who tell us they are survivors why they didn’t fight back. Some of the reason for that question is self-protection–we want to think she could have stopped it by fighting back, because then we, or our sister/daughter/mother/girlfriend/friend could stop it by fighting back. We want to think it is her fault, because if it isn’t her fault, then it could happen to us, too, which is a terrible thing to think. We want to think it is because she took some risk that we don’t take. She wore something “slutty.” She went somewhere “dangerous.” And I say “we” because I’ve done some of these things myself, and I know I’m not the only person who has. But I’m trying to change, and I think it is important that everyone else try to, so that we can look at rape cases on the merits, instead of on our biases.

So what range of behavior do the posters on this thread think is normal for a typical rape survivor? Do you think it is even a good ideal to talk in terms of “typical” or “normal”? Do you think our culture does a good job of supporting rape survivors? Where there is a lack of support, what does this have to do with sexism? With assumptions about “appropriate behavior” and the initiation of consensual sex? With whatever else you all think is relevant to the conversation?

Let’s please talk about this, because I want to hear what everyone has to say. Because I can bet you’ve all got answers that would never occur to me, or that might help me figure something out.

And frankly, I’m not going to leave aside Jaketk’s particular example, as he’s the reason why I posted my comment in the first place. It wasn’t as if he posted about his experience as a way to share it and support women who’ve been through it. Context is key”“he used his experience to bash and belittle women, and to derail the thread. Who’s been dominating this thread, exactly? Who’s getting the attention and energy? That’s been Jaketk.

And why is that? Go look at the first sentence of the quoted paragraph again. He’s getting the attention and energy because you and other feminists insist upon giving it to him.

Also, women are only the “overwhelming majority of rape survivors” if you don’t count men who are raped while in prison. Women are, as far as I can tell, the majority of rape survivors, but the number of male rape survivors is also distressingly high.

Frankly, one rape survivor of any gender is a distressingly high number. But to answer your prison rape assertion”“women in prison are raped, too.

Hey, that’s ‘disrupting debate’. At least it is when we do it.

It’s not as if sexual violence stops for us once we’re incarcerated, so I’m not convinced that male prison rape = not an overwhelming majority of female rape survivors.

I’m not either, but that’s only because nobody has been counting male victims. The national Violence Against Woman survey estimates that about 300,000 women are raped annually. Donaldson’s figure for men, which is really little better than a guess, is 242,000.

If we accept those two figures, then the number of female victims is greater, but not overwhelmingly so. But the figure for men could easily be an order of magnitude or more too high. Or it could be an underestimate. Nobody knows.

And that’s not to say that sexual violence against men isn’t important,

Not to Amnesty it isn’t. You won’t find a page like that about sexual violence against men on their website. And there’s a reason for that. Feminists have been very successful in pushing their women-only agenda into the mainstream.

but I’m getting bone tired of threads about issues that intimately affect women”“hell, threads about specific cases of violence against women”“getting derailed with tactics like the one Jaketk’s used.

In this case, the tactic was Ampersand’s. He introduced the subject of prison rape to rebut the claim that women are the “overwhelming majority of rape victims”. However the inevitable result of this is that we’re are now discussing prison rape. If Jaketk or I had done that, we would be facing charges of ‘derailing discussion’.

What’s the alternative here? Only allow statements to be rebutted if you can do so without mentioning men’s interests? Forbid topic-drift in such directions?

For both men and women in prison, the sad fact is that almost no one in the US gives a fuck what happens to them, which makes rape and abuse pretty much inevitable.

This is not true.

Stop Prisoner Rape has been giving a fuck since 1980. Currently it gives a fuck about both male and female victims; I believe, (but do not know for certain) that it has always done so. Stephen Donaldson, its late president was the first person to even attempt to quantify the problem in his highly speculative “Preliminary Statistical Look”.

Amnesty International gives a fuck about female victims both in the US and elsewhere in the world. Other than a gender-neutral concern about the role of prison rape in the spread of HIV, (bizarrely categorised under “Children’s Rights”) Amnesty does not appear to give a fuck about male victims.

Human Rights Watch gave a fuck about female victims in 1996 and again in 1998. However it wasn’t until 2001 that they gave a gender-neutral fuck. (The report - about prisoner on prisoner rape - is only about male victimisation because their gender-neutral notices received no responses from or about female victims.)

It wasn’t until 2003 that Congress got round to giving a fuck, when they passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PDF) which is gender-neutral. [irony]but as it’s obviously going to benefit men more than women, this is clearly an illustration of the high priority the patriarchy puts on looking after its own.[/irony] The first Government statistical survey (on reported sexual assaults behind bars) was published last year, Two national victimisation surveys are scheduled for next year (PDF), and it probably won’t be for another year or two that the data will be available.

Then we’ll finally have a reasonable idea of just how much prison rape there is in the US to give a fuck about.

I am not a rape apologist.

Nor am I, and I find the characterisation objectionable and offensive.

I am not a rape apologist. And as far as the original post: I think it is horrendous and I was one of the first that posted that the judge in question should be removed from the bench.

I have read every comment made on this thread, and it has been very enlightening indeed.

We can’t even talk about one single fucking rape case of a woman without a bunch of rape apologists whining about men and trying to obscure what’s actually going on.

Regarding prisons, even if women and men were equally likely to get raped in prison, the fact that there are far more men than women in prison would mean that many more men would get raped. Plus, from the research I’ve seen, I think that men in prison are more likely to be raped.

Regardless of all that, however, it’s clearly true that rape of female prisoners is a significant problem. For both men and women in prison, the sad fact is that almost no one in the US gives a fuck what happens to them, which makes rape and abuse pretty much inevitable.

I reread my post to see where I said that men who were raped should never talk about their experiences. I haven’t seen that. I did write that the feelings and experiences of a man have apparently trumped the feelings and experiences of women, and discussion of rape survivors (the majority of whom are female) and misogyny. I stand by that.

And frankly, I’m not going to leave aside Jaketk’s particular example, as he’s the reason why I posted my comment in the first place. It wasn’t as if he posted about his experience as a way to share it and support women who’ve been through it. Context is key–he used his experience to bash and belittle women, and to derail the thread. Who’s been dominating this thread, exactly? Who’s getting the attention and energy? That’s been Jaketk. Not women, not the female rape survivors who’ve posted here or read the thread.

(Also, women are only the “overwhelming majority of rape survivors” if you don’t count men who are raped while in prison. Women are, as far as I can tell, the majority of rape survivors, but the number of male rape survivors is also distressingly high).

Frankly, one rape survivor of any gender is a distressingly high number. But to answer your prison rape assertion–women in prison are raped, too. It’s not as if sexual violence stops for us once we’re incarcerated, so I’m not convinced that male prison rape = not an overwhelming majority of female rape survivors.

And that’s not to say that sexual violence against men isn’t important, but I’m getting bone tired of threads about issues that intimately affect women–hell, threads about specific cases of violence against women–getting derailed with tactics like the one Jaketk’s used.

If Jaketk had merely posted about his experiences, you’d have heard nary a peep from me. But that’s not the way it went, or the way it goes in general in these discussions. I have yet to see a thread about rape, or DV, or abuse, or any women’s issue not get derailed into a thread about a man’s feelings, a man’s outrage that we aren’t doing enough for him, or a man’s decision and judgement that we are being insensitive because damn it, we’re talking about women and how dare we. So you’ll hear some tone from us some of the time because we are fucking tired of the equivalent of “Oh! Look! A pony!” or “Oh! Look! You’re being mean, stop talking about you and talk about me! Me! Me! And how awful you women are!” as a way to deflect and derail a thread about women.

And what Radfem and Qgrrl said. Deja vu and all that. It does get tiring. I suppose I should have been more specific in my post, but I figured that anyone reading the thread would have gotten the context of what I was saying.