Sure. I just meant that there is a legitimate and specific use of the term ‘epidemic’ in the public-health context.

Thanks for pointing those out to me. I’ll have to see if I can actually get my hands on the survey questions, etc.

However, I still say violence is very pervasive in our culture. Its perpetration may be on the decline, but in media and everywhere else the graphic portrayal of violence has increased. (This is only my opinion, because I don’t have any hard data to back it up.)

This has given me much food for thought.

I would say crime in the US is an epidemic.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/house2.htm

I agree that the word “epidemic” has become a tool for media to generate ratings by amping up the response to the stories. Unfortunately, it also serves to generate public panic and to divert attention from illnesses and situations that are true epidemics. The media has given the word a connotation that weakens its actual meaning.

HIV is an epidemic, and I would say crime in the US is an epidemic.

Words have power, and those in the media either use that power to their own ends or forget it and cause needless hysteria among the general population.

Witness the near hysteria over the bird flu and SARS. Often, this is nearly as, or even more deadly than, the disease (I believe that more people have died of side effects from Tamiflu than from the bird flu).

It’s like using ‘negligence’ in a legal context. The term ‘epidemic’ has a very specific and technical meaning in the public-health context.

two, i think using any loaded term like “epidemic” or “rape culture” implies a systemtic problem that probably does not exist. the fact is rape is a rare crime. it happens with enough frequency to be a very real concern, but using terms like that makes people think it happens ALL the time, and that just is not the case.

third, i think we are probably seeing a greater instance of reporting such crimes to the police and a greater enforcement of the laws equally rather than just for one group. i doubt that women are doing it more than they were before. the higher frequency is probably just a result of more victims coming forth.

as for the treatment of the issue by the media, it has honestly been a while since i read any article that referred to the sexual assault of an underage female victim as an “affair.”

One thing that distinguished the first two was the surprise of it. Women aren’t expected to be as agressive sexually, and if they want sex they can usually get it from men their own age. Why would a 30-year old female teacher have sex with a 15-year old? This is quite unexpected, and hits the headlines. In the RCC, you have men in a unique sexual status that are also committed to a very high moral standard and a position of high trust, so the offenses noted also brought a lot of attention. Plus, you had the added fact that there was collusion at high levels in the RCC heirarchy to not only cover it up, but to enable the offenders to offend again.

Whereas, a 30-year old man engaging with sex with a 16 or 18-year old girl seems more commonplace, more “normal”. It’s still a gross violation of trust and authority. But people frankly expect it more. This would to me seem to have two effects:

1) The girls and their parents are watching for this behavior, so they tend to adopt risk-avoidance behavior.
2) The men know that people recognize the danger, so they are more worried about getting caught if they try it.
3) It’s not “news”; people expect such things to happen now and then.

1 and 2 tend to depress the incidence of such behavior, and 3 depresses the likelihood of it being reported nationally when it does.

Just a guess on my part. I suppose it’s really a hypothesis, since I would think that it’s testable, but I’m not going to do the research.

But what does the term “sexpidemic” signify?

(I’m sorry, I just got a kick out of the title of that piece).

(1) It’s not an “epidemic,” it’s a “sexpidemic.” (Obviously, WorldNetDaily takes this issue very seriously).

(2) I’ll have to do some research, but I am pretty sure that I saw a picture of another teacher accused of this who was not attractive. I think that she got a much harsher penalty. If I am correct in this, then perhaps the “double standard” is as much about beauty and attractiveness as about the genders of the people involved. (Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if this went the other way, too; that is, attractive men accused of sexual offenses getting off more often or with more lenient penalites).

(3) I think that the “man bites dog” aspect of these stories is why they get so much attention. If there is ever a case where a reasonably attractive woman is charged with regular rape (i.e., not rape on technical grounds such as statutory), I would expect it to generate a great deal of coverage just on the man-bites-dog factor that attractive female sex offenders are a fascinating subject.

(4) I don’t really like using the word “rape” in statutory rape cases unless I explicitly put the word “statutory” before it, and in fact, don’t really like using “rape” as a verb at all in such cases. I think it tends to muddle the way we think about the case (i.e. because it makes us think of force being used). (Of course, if the victim is prepubescent so that it becomes an issue of pedophilia, then I have no problem with using the term “rape” at all).

(5) To the extent that there is a double standard in how such cases are treated, I expect that the gender of the perpetrator is more important than the gender of the victim. I suspect that a man accused of having sex with an underage male student would be just as abhorrent to society (if not more so) as one having sex with an underage female student. Likewise, I don’t think that Deb Lafave would be facing harsher penalties were the victim a girl.

I see your point.

The only problem with this is it is such a wide open idea that it can be used to qualify almost anything that anyone wants, and anything to the contrary can be conveniently brushed away - on either side of any argument.

But I see where you are coming from.

This isn’t how it works.

Here’s another example: according to people who track media trends on violent crime, violent crime has been falling for several years. Media _reporting_ on violent crime has been rising precipitously during this same period. In fact, most people are under the impression that society is more dangerous than it’s ever been, particularly to children. However, _within_ that tendency to overreport, there’s a tendency to give greater specific attention to certain victims and certain perpetrators. In other words, victims like Natalee Holloway, Polly Klaas, and Elizabeth Smart will be the subject of much more media attention than victims like Latoya Byrd–and will probably cause people to associate “child abduction” with white faces. Latoya Byrd will be overemphasized as part of a group, but ignored as an individual.

Now, _if_ this kind of child molestation yet exists in the public consciousness as an aberrant crime committed by a few freakish individuals, then yes: individualized reporting is a form of underreporting. If, however, these women are seen as representing a trend, then they can be given disproportionate individual attention without under-emphasizing the trend itself.

Of course. But were the commenters here arguing that the fact of cherry-picking was good evidence that the media was definitely overreporting, or that they couldn’t be trusted to report honestly, or that reporting that’s sensationalist in one sense is likely to be sensationalist in another? I read the latter two, not the former.

Can they not also report watered down statistics and under-report on a trend while only cherry-picking the most sensational of cases out of the many? This is a rather wobbly argument.

If the media is only reporting about the most attractive women, then there are cases out there that we are not even aware of, therefore this is more widespread than we know about - OR - the media singles out the very few cases of this occurring and blows it out of proportion.

Hey, I’m not saying it is either way, I’m just saying that one can’t reasonably use both points to get to the same destination for they are contradictory. The sky can’t be so blue its yellow.

Sometimes there is a hangup over whether or not the defendant will have to report as a sex offender, and the DA either presses too hard or the defendant refuses to vehemently. Other times the family of the child is really pressing for jail time. And sometimes, it is a repeat offense. Those are the only ones that get real media time.

I doubt there is an “epidemic” under any meaning of the word. More likely, it just tracks the increase of women as a percentage of all criminals. If the rate of female perpetrators quadrupled over time (say, from 0.25% to 1% of all teacher statutory rapes) that hardly qualifies as an epidemic, but it may mean that “something is happening” that deserves investigation.