Anonymous wrote:To point out that this figure is absolutely meaningless and based on crap methodology does not make one a "rape denier." As another poster pointed out, if we really believed one in five women were "raped" in college, it would be abusive to send our daughters to college. The number is from a web based survey of two campuses. It had no control group (non-college students - see below for more on that). The survey included behaviors that are certainly boorish, but which did not make the respondents even think they had been assaulted.

"Oh, but that's the problem! These women ARE victims, and they don't even know it!!" I'm obviously not speaking about actual forcible rape or anything close to it, but rather about some of the lesser offenses included in these stats: How great that the respondents didn't feel like victims. Hooray for moving on! I feel like that is a feminist view. Women are strong enough to withstand unwanted kissing without feeling the need for group therapy or to march on campus with placards. To get overwrought over some of what is contemplated as "assault" in this survey is pearl clutching/fainting couch territory.

A "conversation" about campus rape that begins with this stat should not go far if said "conversation" is about policymaking - be it campus, state or federal. As a progressive who is realistic and understands resources are not infinite, and further, that resources expended on one thing will necessarily NOT be available for another, I'm troubled by what I see in raw crime stats. 18 - 24 year old girls are, indeed, more vulnerable to sexual assault, which is pretty intuitive. But young women NOT in college appear to be in greater danger. If that is to be believed, activists are demanding resources and attention be paid to campus when young women not fortunate enough to go to college are actually in greater danger.

Talk about not checking our privilege!

+1000
As a feminist and mother of both sons and daughters, I strongly believe that this constant coddling of women, and the ever-present insinuation that women are all "victims," is incredibly insulting. I imagine most women have had unwanted or obnoxious advances of one kind or another foisted on them in their lifetimes. No one enjoys that. But to cry "Victim!" at every instance just sets women back years. And, as PP noted, we aren't talking about rape in these instances. However, I hope to teach my daughter that if she is ever sexually assaulted and/or raped, she MUST get help immediately, both from medical and judicial. While there is still evidence and credible eyewitnesses. Being brave enough to come forward is part of not being a victim.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/12/03/one-in-five-girls-will-be-raped-in-college-eight-steps-parents-can-take-to-change-that/?hpid=z4

Read and weep!

I question your reading comprehension skills. I don't see 1 in 5 will be raped in college ANYWHERE in that article. The source for that stat is a CDC flyer that says *in their lives* not college. And the definition of "sexual assault" for the 1 in 5 figure in the first place linked to college included a lot of offenses that stopped short of "rape."

BTW, Brigid is a regular here. This is a very poorly written article. I hope she reads this thread.

Anonymous wrote:Here's a letter from Rainn, US largest anti-sexual assault organization thoughtfully addressing sexual assault on campuses:

By the time they reach college, most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another. Thanks to repeated messages from parents, religious leaders, teachers, coaches, the media and, yes, the culture at large, the overwhelming majority of these young adults have learned right from wrong, and enter college knowing that rape falls squarely in the latter category. Research supports the view that to focus solely on certain social groups or “types” of students in the effort to end campus sexual violence is a mistake. Dr. David Lisak estimates that three percent of college men are responsible for more than 90% of rapes.

Other studies suggest that between 3-7% of college men have committed an act of sexual violence or would consider doing so. It is this relatively small percentage of the population, which has proven itself immune to years of prevention messages, that we must address in other
ways. (Unfortunately, we are not aware of reliable research on female college perpetrators.)

Again, this research supports the fact that more than 90 % of college - age males do not , and are unlikely to ever, rape. In fact, we have found that t hey’re ready and eager to be engaged on these issues. It’s the other guys (and, sometimes, women) who are the problem

https://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf

Thank you for posting this. Finally, some common sense.

To point out that this figure is absolutely meaningless and based on crap methodology does not make one a "rape denier." As another poster pointed out, if we really believed one in five women were "raped" in college, it would be abusive to send our daughters to college. The number is from a web based survey of two campuses. It had no control group (non-college students - see below for more on that). The survey included behaviors that are certainly boorish, but which did not make the respondents even think they had been assaulted.

"Oh, but that's the problem! These women ARE victims, and they don't even know it!!" I'm obviously not speaking about actual forcible rape or anything close to it, but rather about some of the lesser offenses included in these stats: How great that the respondents didn't feel like victims. Hooray for moving on! I feel like that is a feminist view. Women are strong enough to withstand unwanted kissing without feeling the need for group therapy or to march on campus with placards. To get overwrought over some of what is contemplated as "assault" in this survey is pearl clutching/fainting couch territory.

A "conversation" about campus rape that begins with this stat should not go far if said "conversation" is about policymaking - be it campus, state or federal. As a progressive who is realistic and understands resources are not infinite, and further, that resources expended on one thing will necessarily NOT be available for another, I'm troubled by what I see in raw crime stats. 18 - 24 year old girls are, indeed, more vulnerable to sexual assault, which is pretty intuitive. But young women NOT in college appear to be in greater danger. If that is to be believed, activists are demanding resources and attention be paid to campus when young women not fortunate enough to go to college are actually in greater danger.

Talk about not checking our privilege!

Terminology is a problem.

"Rape" implies an act of brutal violence to most lay people. Feminists would do well to promote different terms to use to describe situations where consent was unclear, but no force, date rape drugs nor serious drunkenness was involved.

A lot of men would never dream of committing a rape, in the tradition sense, but they may have innocently slept with a woman who was a bit too drunk to really consent. Men like this need to be dealt with in a different manner than an old-school violent rapist, or a man who drugs a woman, or rapes someone in her sleep.

The abuse of statistics and extremely high-handed tactics of activists has now backfired in the mainstream media, effectively turning allies into enemies and making it difficult for victims to be taken seriously.

Here's a letter from Rainn, US largest anti-sexual assault organization thoughtfully addressing sexual assault on campuses:

By the time they reach college, most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another. Thanks to repeated messages from parents, religious leaders, teachers, coaches, the media and, yes, the culture at large, the overwhelming majority of these young adults have learned right from wrong, and enter college knowing that rape falls squarely in the latter category. Research supports the view that to focus solely on certain social groups or “types” of students in the effort to end campus sexual violence is a mistake. Dr. David Lisak estimates that three percent of college men are responsible for more than 90% of rapes.

Other studies suggest that between 3-7% of college men have committed an act of sexual violence or would consider doing so. It is this relatively small percentage of the population, which has proven itself immune to years of prevention messages, that we must address in other
ways. (Unfortunately, we are not aware of reliable research on female college perpetrators.)

Again, this research supports the fact that more than 90 % of college - age males do not , and are unlikely to ever, rape. In fact, we have found that t hey’re ready and eager to be engaged on these issues. It’s the other guys (and, sometimes, women) who are the problem

https://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf

Anonymous



Parents of boys - what are we doing wrong????!!!!!!

How come we haven't expected and taught our sons to keep their penis in their pants?

Why are you victim blaming? It's more about the females, look at the UVA case. We should be asking what are society is teaching girls?

When we keep focusing on non-existent problems such as campus rape, we forget problems that really do exist. Basic safety guidelines to ensure safety of both our sons and daughters when they face the real world....such as the death of Hannah GRaham.

http://time.com/3444749/camille-paglia-the-modern-campus-cannot-comprehend-evil/

The one in four number was also a truly flawed study. Here's a good blurb explaining it:

The Sexual Victimization of College Women, a 2000 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, is the basis for another widely cited statistic, even grimmer than the finding of CSA: that one in four college women will be raped. (An activist organization, One in Four, takes its name from the finding.) The study itself, however, found a completed rape rate among its respondents of 1.7 percent. How does a study that finds less than 2 percent of college women in a given year are raped become a 25 percent likelihood?

But the authors go on to make several assumptions that ratchet up the risk. The study was carried out during the spring and asked women to describe any assaults experienced during that academic year. The researchers decided to double the numbers they received from their subjects, in order to extrapolate their findings over an entire calendar year, even as they acknowledged that this was “problematic,” as students rarely attend school for 12 months. That calculation brought the incidence figure to nearly 5 percent. Although college is designed to be a four-year experience, the authors note that it takes students “an average” of five years, so they then multiplied their newly-arrived-at 5 percent of student victims by five years, and thus they conclude: “The percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter.”

In a footnote, the authors acknowledge that asserting that one-quarter of college students “might” be raped is not based on actual evidence:
projections are suggestive.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/college_rape_campus_sexual_assault_is_a_serious_problem_but_the_efforts.html

That one in five number has been truly debunked by the latest DOJ statistics. I note these new numbers are not being discussed at all, it would debunk those hysterical claims of rape on campus.

According to that report, women off campus have a much larger probability of being raped than girls in college. That makes sense, why would there be a larger propensity for usually higher income, socio economic class men who go to college to rape? It does not make sense.

According to the DOJ statistics, 6 out of a 1000 college students reported a rape. I have seen some feminist groups focusing on the fact that apparently 80% of rapes go unreported.

Extrapolating then, assuming it is 30 out of a 1000, that is a 3% chance of being raped, not 20%, and 0.15 girls out of 5 girls being raped.

It makes sense, I was in college not so far back and the safest men I dealt with were the college boys. It was when I went off campus that things got sketchy. I'm tired of these privileged women on campus who have never known what true evil is sounding off and off about campus men and ignoring real evil out there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there was a #DateOffCampus tag going around for a while -- the idea being that boys should avoid dating girls from their own school due to the the new "affirmative consent" rules that are putting them at risk for being expelled for "sexual misconduct," if they do not have "enthusiastic verbal or written consent," or whatever the current historically low standard of "rape" is these days.

Dating seems very complicated. I think I am going to suggest my kids just date people from church rather than from college.

Young adults are going to date who they want to date. That's part of being an adult. But it might be good to talk to your kids about conversations that they might want to have with a person before they get involved with them.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf

Study from the DOJ - finds that rather than one in five female college students becoming victims of sexual assault, the actual rate is 6.1 per 1,000 students, or 0.61 percent

Anonymous wrote:I know there was a #DateOffCampus tag going around for a while -- the idea being that boys should avoid dating girls from their own school due to the the new "affirmative consent" rules that are putting them at risk for being expelled for "sexual misconduct," if they do not have "enthusiastic verbal or written consent," or whatever the current historically low standard of "rape" is these days.

Dating seems very complicated. I think I am going to suggest my kids just date people from church rather than from college.

I know there was a #DateOffCampus tag going around for a while -- the idea being that boys should avoid dating girls from their own school due to the the new "affirmative consent" rules that are putting them at risk for being expelled for "sexual misconduct," if they do not have "enthusiastic verbal or written consent," or whatever the current historically low standard of "rape" is these days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
If you truly believe that one in five woman will be raped in college, then why on Earth do you sent them to college to be raped? You don't want them to be raped, do you?

Of course, you will send them anyway, because you know, deep down, that this is a bit of a bullshit stat and that actual rape -- as in being forcibly raped, or raped while unconscious, or passed out drunk, is less common.


"Actual" rape? Charming. What's it like living in the 1950s?


It's 2014, where a man can have sex with a woman, who does not object in anyway, and be branded a "rapist" because he "failed to obtain her enthusiastic consent."


And even if he does obtain her enthusiastic consent, he can STILL be branded a rapist if the woman chooses to brand him that way.


You're mixing up a few big issues here.

- You're conflating legitimate accusations of rape with the fact that some people just suck, which is a whole different issue. Men and women both have been lying about sex, money, theft and thievery for millennia. False accusations of rape are awful too. But your approach has the effect of tarring legitimate accusations of rape with a broad brush of doubt.

- The real problems lie with the difficulty of ascertaining consent, for example when one or both parties are drunk. Nobody has easy answers here (cameras in every dorm room? no way.) But the solution is NOT to imply that most accusations are false.



And the other side of that coin is not to assume that all accusations are true. Sorry, but you can't automatically assume a man has raped a woman in all instances. Yes, many times it's true. Certainly there are legitimate accusations of rape. But often it's simply a case of regret or even malicious intent on the woman's part. There are too many shades of grey in instances like these, that it's irresponsible to believe one party over the other in all cases. Both sides need to be heard - always.

Well that is the women's right. She can change her story at anytime. If she think she wants sex, has it and has revert later...well that's rape.

You're joking right? This is, in a nutshell, why I fear more for my son than my daughter. But hopefully you were being facetious...?