Teaching About Rape

[krebscout]

Katya said "Does deciding to rape someone correlate with raping them? Yes, there's a pretty strong correlation, assuming a minimal level of means and opportunity. Does deciding not to rape someone correlate with not raping them? Yes, even more strongly. It's pretty safe to say that a man (or any person) who decides never to rape someone never will."

I'm sorry, but I find the logic here ridiculous. Most rapes are not premeditated. That is, the rapist didn't wake up that morning and decide to rape someone, go out and look for a victim, and perpetrate the horrific crime. It is a crime of opportunity.

You're correct, but she's not wrong. She didn't say they were pre-meditated, but at some point a choice is made. Usually that choice is made right before it happens.

[C is for]

If I'd been splitting this topic (thanks for that, by the way. Touch screens are impossible) the title of the thread would've been "Rape culture can die in a fire" so it's just as well I didn't.

[Marduk]

But we cannot go to the other extreme and say that no matter what stupid things someone does, they can expect nothing bad will ever happen to them.

Is anyone here saying that?

I don't know about anyone here. I just know that the general discussion on a cultural level can tend that way, which is why I said what I did.

My point in disagreeing with your statement in "deciding to rape" is that a man, just like a woman, puts themselves into risky situations, and those problems happen. Have I never raped anyone because I actively made that decision? No, not really. I don't go to a party looking for a sexual encounter. But many men and women do. Add alcohol into the mix, a little bit of flirting, maybe they decide to make out, the woman decides that's far enough, but doesn't really say anything, or is wishy-washy about what she does say, "I don't know if we should do this," the man determines this just means she isn't aroused enough and so works harder on his efforts, eventually they sleep together. The next morning after they have sobered up a little, the woman goes to the police. Is this rape? Legally, yes. And this guy gets put into the same category as the guy who assaults a random woman on her way home from work. So the language of talking about rape saying "well, as soon as men decide to stop raping people, then the problem will be solved!" isn't really helpful.

That is, as long as the sexual culture expects men to be sexual instigators, and as long as we expect to be able to have casual sex with people we've just met, and as long as we use things like alcohol to "loosen up" then we'll have that sort of situation.

[Portia]

Marduk, I feel the need to point out that Katie Roiphe said everything you said and did it backwards and in heels in 1994.

[wired]

But we cannot go to the other extreme and say that no matter what stupid things someone does, they can expect nothing bad will ever happen to them.

Is anyone here saying that?

I don't know about anyone here. I just know that the general discussion on a cultural level can tend that way, which is why I said what I did.

My point in disagreeing with your statement in "deciding to rape" is that a man, just like a woman, puts themselves into risky situations, and those problems happen. Have I never raped anyone because I actively made that decision? No, not really. I don't go to a party looking for a sexual encounter. But many men and women do. Add alcohol into the mix, a little bit of flirting, maybe they decide to make out, the woman decides that's far enough, but doesn't really say anything, or is wishy-washy about what she does say, "I don't know if we should do this," the man determines this just means she isn't aroused enough and so works harder on his efforts, eventually they sleep together. The next morning after they have sobered up a little, the woman goes to the police. Is this rape? Legally, yes. And this guy gets put into the same category as the guy who assaults a random woman on her way home from work. So the language of talking about rape saying "well, as soon as men decide to stop raping people, then the problem will be solved!" isn't really helpful.

That is, as long as the sexual culture expects men to be sexual instigators, and as long as we expect to be able to have casual sex with people we've just met, and as long as we use things like alcohol to "loosen up" then we'll have that sort of situation.

First, interesting and tangentially relevant article: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html.

Second, depending on the state you're in, what you have described may or may not be rape. Some states require an affirmative no or other reasonable indicia of lack of consent. So it varies.

Third, and relatedly, I think you might be talking past each other because you might be going from different definitions of rape. I can't be sure that's what's happening, but it's possible. I think everyone agrees that any girl who is abducted, physically pinned down, and then penetrated has been raped. But when the edges start to blur at the gradient - what you've described - that's when people dropping things out of their definitions. Victim blaming in the first instance is never appropriate. Victim blaming in the second instance isn't really victim blaming; it's a debate about what should or should not be considered rape.

[Portia]

Wrote my essay on this very topic, going to submit it to a contest. The crux of my argument is that the stats bear it out - rape is more common in Provo than the average American city. We have a problem, and in my essay I talk about some strategies to reduce its prevalence. If it gets published, I'll update.

[Emiliana]

So, I had never read this book until today. I am teaching it starting next week. I totally understand why it's such a good book for high schoolers, but ughhhh, I am not excited about it. This book has had me in a black pit of depression all evening.

[UffishThought]

It's rough. But at the same time, I think it's uplifting because it talks about recovery fairly realistically. (Except that usually you need professional help to get as far as she does.) But that she goes through all these stages--shutting down, withdrawing, and so on, and that's normal for that circumstance, and then she gradually heals--finally saying his name to herself, admitting what happened, getting interested in things again. And then, of course, a little wish fulfillment when she fights him again and wins and other people were around so they all know that he's a skeeze and she's awesome. But I think it ends in a hopeful place, and a good one.

Even though every time I read it I get weepy and angry and need ice cream and hugs and to talk it out with people.

What grade are you teaching? How are you going about doing it?

[Emiliana]

I'm reading Speak with my one class of 10th graders. (I also have four classes of juniors and one of seniors...yeah, foist it all off on the new girl...) Truthfully I have no idea how I'm going to approach it -- as it turns out I have another week to figure it out. We'll spend some time talking about voice at the beginning, then some of the thematic elements of cliqueishness, but I don't know how I'm going to handle all the rape stuff. And actually, my department chair is really trying to foist that class off onto someone else, so we'll see what happens.

I hadn't quite finished the book when I posted the other night, but now that I have I don't hate the book so much. The psychology of it is excellent, and the writing is clever. But I still hope that class gets taken away from me and I don't ever have to read it again.

[vorpal blade]

Maybe someone can help me with a couple of questions. I agree that victim blaming is bad for all the reasons and more that Katya mentions. I would hope that all victims of rape would come forth and see that justice is done to the rapists. I agree that the rapist should be fully responsible for his own actions, and his crime is not lessened if the woman is wearing provocative clothes, has been drinking, and has put herself in a dangerous position by unwise decisions. None of that matters. The rapist must bear the full weight of the law and guilt for his actions.

I’d like to ask a couple of questions that may illustrate why some people might think that the woman sometimes is at least partly responsible for the rape.

Let me take an example. A woman is out in a bad part of town at 2:00 AM in the morning. It is late and she is alone as she walks the streets. Consider two scenarios on how she got where she was. In the first scenario she just got out of a bar where the bartender told her it was dangerous to be alone and try to call a cab for her. Does any of that matter, even though she assured the bartender that she would be just fine, don’t worry about her? It doesn’t lessen the crime the rapist commits.

Now, in the second scenario let’s suppose that the woman has not just come from a bar. Suppose she had been in a car with her boyfriend who was mad at her for some reason. He decides to drop her off after a date in that bad part of town. She protests and tells him that it is dangerous in that part of town at that hour. He tells her that she will be just fine, don’t worry about it. She asks him to at least hang around until she can call a cab, but he insists she get out of his car and drives off. She frantically calls for help on her cell phone, but before help can arrive she is dragged off to a back alley and raped.

Now, if this had happened to a daughter of mine you can bet I’d hold that boyfriend more than just a little bit responsible for my daughter being raped. I’d be out for blood, and I would want the full weight of the law to prosecute him as an accessory to the crime. I’d also want the rapist to pay in full for his crime. Nothing the boyfriend did excused the rapist in the least for his crime.

So, my question is, was the boyfriend partly responsible for the rape? If so, how can he be partly responsible for the rape for making the same decisions the woman in the first scenario made for herself and was not responsible?

Perhaps that clarification might help in teaching about rape.

[Imogen]

I don't think the boyfriend is to blame. It's human nature to want to blame him because he's an easy target for anger, but the girl could have just as easily gotten home with no problem.

I've walked down plenty of dangerous streets in the middle of the night all alone and been fine. I've ridden the NYC subway alone at 3am from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and never even been mugged, let alone raped. My sexual assault happened in a "nice" neighborhood.

Besides, most women aren't attacked by strangers. It's usually someone the girl knows, and that's part of what makes people victim blame. People can't process that someone they KNOW could be a rapist.

[Violet]

Besides, most women aren't attacked by strangers. It's usually someone the girl knows, and that's part of what makes people victim blame. People can't process that someone they KNOW could be a rapist.

And I think that's an important thing to remember/teach in these teaching conversations. Most rapes aren't girls pulled off the Provo River Trail at gunpoint when she's running alone (although I know those happen—I know someone who it happened to).

It's people you know and probably trust. It's the reason people victim blame, but also why victim blaming is so harmful. If you're re-victimizing the survivors, it's unlikely that they'll come forward in the future. Why would they expose themselves to that blame?

[vorpal blade]

Good points Imogene and Violet; most rapes are not committed by strangers. According to the statistics I’ve seen almost 2/3 of all rapes are committed by someone the victim knows at least a little. And you are right; we certainly do not want to re-victimize the survivors. We want them to come forward and accuse the perpetrators. They ought not to feel shame, guilt, or reluctance to come forward. Nothing they did gives the rapist any right to commit rape. Nothing they did can excuse him in the least, or mitigate his crime.

I’m also concerned about preventing rape. Can we learn something from the experiences of women who were raped which might help other women in the future? Surely nothing a woman can do will give her a 100% guarantee of not being raped, but if there are correlations between certain actions and being raped we ought to teach women these things. We must make sure we are not blaming the victim while at the same time listening to what the victims say in order to help mitigate the risks for others.

Some women will blame themselves for something when in reality what they did was not correlated to rape. On the other hand, a woman might say “I should have known that by willingly and eagerly taking off my clothes and jumping into bed with him it might possibly lead to being raped.” Perhaps we should not be hasty in dismissing her understanding of a correlation between her actions and what happened. I am not saying that she doesn’t have the right to say no at any point, I am not excusing the rapist in any degree, and I am not saying she hasn’t already suffered, but perhaps there are lessons to be learned by other women to mitigate the risk of being raped. It isn’t a matter of trying to place blame or excuse anyone of criminal behavior; it is in the interest of decreasing the number of rape victims. I want to warn women, not blame them.

While it might help ease the self-blame of a rape victim to be told that walking alone at night on dangerous streets is done all the time without anyone being raped, there is a reason such streets are called “dangerous.” We don’t do women a service suggesting to them that it is just as likely that they will be raped in broad daylight on a crowded street surrounded by friends as it is in a dark, isolated, and high crime area. Sure, most rapes don’t occur in dark alleys, but you put yourself at risk doing dangerous things. There is a correlation between time and place and rape occurrence. I’d caution my daughters against jogging alone on the Provo River Trial. Not that a rape happens often there, but failing to take reasonable precautions for your own safety is correlated to negative outcomes. You ought to acknowledge the correlation to yourself, but don’t let that stop you from reporting the crime. The rapist is always 100% responsible for his actions.

There are undoubtedly correlations between actions taken by women and some acquaintance rape. It would seem profitable to teach women these correlations.

[Marduk]

I think it also important in these circumstances to note that not all rapes are created equal, and some rapes leave deeper physical and emotional scars than others. It seems to me (although every experience is individual, and some may have the exact opposite experience) that the more horrific and devastating sexual assaults/crimes happen in those dark and isolated places. It seems likely that those sorts of rapes are far more likely to be violent and destructive than other situations.

[vorpal blade]

I don't think it is a good idea to speculate on which rapes leave deeper scars. That kind of thinking can lead certain victims to say to themselves, "I don't think I will report this rape. It wasn't like my date or my acquaintance held a knife to my throat. I ought not to feel so bad about it. Perhaps I am more responsible for this rape than in the case where a woman is violently taken in a dark and isolated place. If I report this rape people will blame me or think I should not be taken so seriously." That kind of thinking would be tragic and would probably leave even deeper emotional scars.

All rape is a profoundly personal abasement and degradation of women. There is nothing worse that can happen to her. It leaves her traumatized, destroys her sense of peace and security, violates her being to the very core of her existence. The harm is incalculable, not only to her personally but to the entire community. Nothing could be more unsettling to other women than to have reinforced their sense of fear and dependence on the good will of men for their survival and safety. The threat of rape hangs over women like a dark terrorist cloud, making them feel in subjection to men.

Think how devastating it would be for a woman to be raped by a man she knew and trusted. Would her peace of mind be destroyed any more if she had been violated by a stranger who could not be expected to have cared about her and she had not previously felt safe with? If this had been an intimate acquaintance she would have felt that no matter how passionate she had been with him she knew she could always count on him to respect the boundaries she set. How crippling that would be to have your sense of trust so betrayed.

No, I feel strongly that we should assume that every rape is so infinitely harmful that we ought not even to attempt to place them on a scale of greater severity and lesser severity.

[Whistler]

I appreciate the thought on helping women not yet raped, but maybe we should teach men how to not be rapists too?

[vorpal blade]

I think we should do both, Whistler. I think the Church does a good job teaching boys to respect women. At work I am required once or twice a year, like everyone else where I work, to have training in how not to be a rapist.

Recently I took the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) training. http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/s ... ault2.aspx After the training I went up to the instructors to ask a few questions. The topic was prevention, but nothing was said about helping women make choices to mitigate the risk of being assaulted. Everything said was about what people can do to notice women being harassed or in danger of sexual assault and taking action. That and avoiding being a rapist have been the only things taught over the years. Why was nothing ever said about what women could do to prevent being raped? The instructors acknowledged a need for such training, but were unable to address it because of the need to avoid the appearance of victim blaming. That's why I'm making my comments here.

Many advocacy groups are operating to inform the public on the horrible consequences of rape. Factual and unbiased information can be helpful for public awareness.

Do you have additional suggestions on how to teach men to not be rapists?

By the way, there are many theories as to why men rape, and perhaps there are many different reasons, but there doesn't seem to be much agreement.

[Whistler]

I found an excellent guide to the research that has been done on the topic of rape prevention and risk reduction: http://snow.vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWn ... ention.pdf

It's very long, but so far it looks like teaching women self-defense is a strategy that does reduce assault, but not by very much. The type of program you cited, vorpal, is mentioned, along with how difficult it is to assess if such programs have an impact on sexual aggression. I'm still reading it but so far it looks like a valuable research resource.

[Whistler]

there's a good sum-up on the last page, and the emphasis on single-gender programs on pg. 15-16 is interesting as well

[vorpal blade]

I finished reading the article. My overall impression is a little different from the summary. My impression is that there are a lot of ideas about teaching about rape prevention and risk reduction, but almost no evidence that any of this training does any good. Very little is said about what women can do to decrease the likelihood of being raped except that self-defense training might be helpful. I was disturbed by the implication that a positive outcome of self-defense training was to make women less likely to use common sense avoidance behavior such as not walking alone. I understand that women don't want to feel restricted in their behavior, but I don't think reliance on self-defense at the expense of other strategies is wise.

I think an underlying assumption in the article is that the problem men have is insufficient information, harmful attitudes or stereotypes of women,and erroneous beliefs. If this were the problem then education might be able to solve it. However, the article seems to show that mostly what the training does is change how one answers questions about rape but does not change behavior.

I believe that a family without two parents who love their children and set a proper example is mostly responsible for the development of rapists. The same cultural influences which lead to rape are also responsible for crime in general. If we were really serious about rape prevention we would do more to strengthen families and reduce negative influences such as pornography and media which glorifies rape and sexual conquests.