This is different from games like Grand Theft Auto (in which players can rape sex workers)

You can't rape sex workers in the game, only kill them (to get your money back).

Noted, tRJ. Thanks.

You can't rape sex workers in the game, only kill them (to get your money back).

An important distinction, obviously.

[/sarcasm]

I play Second Life so I thought I might clarify a few points for anyone who has never played before.

You see those little red and blue dots, or balls under the signs? Those are items that you can purchase for the 220 "Lindens" (game dollars)Once you own the little balls, you can take them with you and place them somewhere in the game. At that point you can click them and choose to engage in the activity that they represent. Not only the "rapist" but the "victim" as well would HAVE to voluntarily click on the balls and choose to engage, and would be able to STOP the activity just as easily. It is total free choice.

I have never seen this particular area or these items before in the game, but that is how the animation "balls" work.

I also wanted to point out that the signs do say "roleplay rape"

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is nothing at all disturning about this. I guess my concern is that its a slippery slope to judge people's fantasies or roleplays that they CHOOSE to engage in.

As for Grand Theft Auto, that disturbs me WAY more than this. You can rob the prostitute, then kill her. And its not a willing "victim" who is getting off on it on the other end...It's a nameless, faceless, non entity who you rape and kill for the fun of it, and the money. Now THAT'S scary.

tRJ, looks like this is iffy.

You can BUY a rape? WTF?

Has anyone who's played this game know how graphic it [the rape] is? I cannot for the life of me think of anyone who'd actually want to put in such a thing but then I realize what kind of world we live in. *sigh*

UltraMagnus, I haven't seen it in game but I can log in and see if I can find it and take screen caps if anyone is interested. My guess is it's just a typical sex animation (there are tons of those) that has been titled rape as a sort of twisted marketing ploy.... But I could be wrong.

Ugh. That RapeLay thing was sooooooo disgusting! Why do men hate us?

at least the comments (and even the article) about the rapelay thing were all people disgusted by it.

cept for the one guy who insisted that it was women who were more into rape fantasys than men...until like 3 people called him out on it (and pretty well i must add)

I am both a major fan of the Feministing mission and the CEO of the largest company that creates content within Second Life. I would like to clarify a couple points, because I think that there will be a tremendous need for active participation on issues surrounding Second Life by the Feministing community in the months and years ahead.

In understanding this situation with Second Life content, it is very important to understand that Second Life is not a game. It is a technology platform on which anyone can create content. In that way, it is more similar to the Web than to Grand Theft Auto. Linden Lab, the company that created the Second Life, is not even the owner of the intellectual property created in Second Life. Therefore in some ways they are no more responsible for any objectionable but non-criminal content than an ISP is on the Internet for the content on someone's Web site that they host or that travels through their pipes.

Second Life, or something like it, will grow into a global platform like the Web that is a new communication medium. As such, you will see the full range of human behaviors exhibited within it. The most troubling aspect is the increased anonynimity of the medium and a lower culpability for one's actions. While it is true that the content cited above is not fully "rape" in that it can only be entered into voluntarily by both participants, it is clearly still promoting the idea of rape, which is a major concern. Concerns about stalking on MySpace were, in my opinion, overblown, but within open ended virtual worlds those may become a far greater problem.

I will not go on at greater length here, but the beginning of completely virtual parts of our global society will bring with it tremendous benefit for cultural and economic change via grass roots mechanisms around the world, but also very serious ethical concerns, like that of the marketing of rape via the content cited above.

The use of virtual worlds is showing the exponential growth curve of the early Web, and I think we will see this as the next major global communications medium growing to prominence over the next 3-5 years. It therefore is critical that we all work to understand this medium as it evolves and how it is quite distinct from the Web, video games, television, and other media. There will be both considerable opportunity and challenges relating to feminist issues in particular as this plays out, and we will all be better off being ahead of the curve and attempting to influence its early development while we can still more easily weild a more powerful lever that comes with the exponential growth rate.

Ultra Magnus,

as i understand it the entire point of Second life is that it provides a digital sandbox for its players. There is a huge amount of freedom in that the players themselves can create nearly anything in the game world. The game gives players access to some pretty serious programming tools in order to allow them to create just about anything. I've seen blackholes created in game, vehicles etc. You can do just about anything.

So it's not necessarily the developers that implemented the "rape" button, but gamers.

Also, as Ayla pointed out, this is entirely consensual rape fantasy roleplaying. It's more likely that the players put the rape contracts out on themselves . IF they don't want the rape to occur, they don't consent to it. Also, its very likely that the rape animation is just the usual sex animation. This is probably best described as "suprise" sex, rather than rape.

Goddamnit, of course the most knowledgeable person possible on the issue would post while I was writing my vaguely informative post below.

I think a major issue here are the ramifications into reality, i.e. where we live. Rape victims, as discussed yesterday, already have a fair amount of problems with the justice system and being "blamed" for the rape. The most disturbing thing to me is that this "consensual" rape isn't rape. Call it what it is a fantasy, rough sex. That's not rape, and there is a difference. Rape is NOT consensual, and I think that many times this distinction isn't made.

elektrodot- I really didn't see anyone "calling" him on it all that well. I'm really not sure what to think about that game. Surely there are far worse crimes committed by players in the video game world. I'm an avid gamer, how many people have I slaughtered digitally I wonder?
Certainly the pretense of the game is disturbing. You rape and rerape and rerape girls until they become willing sex slaves. Disgusting. My knee jerk reaction is to detest it. However there are plenty of perfectly normal men and women with rape fantasies. (I call it a rape fantasy because the fantasy is all about acting out something that emulates rape through consensual role play)This allows people to live out that fantasy in an argueably harmless way. I've often argued against people that believe that violent video games influence people to become violent. The science simply isn't there to show that it does have any lasting effect on people. How then can I say that a rape video game is wrong?

I'm not sure if that came out exactly as i intended, i guess I need to think about what I'm trying to say a little bit more.

jrav, I agree completely. This just seems to reinforce the lie that rape victims are "asking for it". This is horribly irresponsible!

It's like rape porn, I think - people find it titilliating because they think it's just sex only with more dare and passion, whereas it's really just a serious violent crime that take a sexual form.

Something that I've wondered about, specifically in response to criticism of GTA, is whether games like these don't serve as a harmless outlet for bad behavior. In that game, as well as others through the years, I've ruthlessly slaughtered thousands. If I have a really aggravating day, I still like to play a little Counter Strike just so I can murder terrorists. It's a good way to vent.

Maybe this would serve a similar purpose? I don't know. I don't have rape fantasies myself, so I find it hard to imagine the desire to participate in a digital simulation. But maybe this would satisfy, for the right person, the violent fantasy, and prevent the real thing.

In the end, I do wonder, like coasttocoast, about the effects. I could say that I don't have the drive to murder because I do it in virtual form. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that, without a digital outlet, I would be a murderer in the real world.

Just some free-flowing reflections.

I definitely think your right Alon, and I am going to try to tease it out further.
When a woman has a rape fantasy, she is mentally giving up control, yet she is still controlling the action that is happening in the fantasy. With real rape, the woman has no control over the situation, which is terrifying.
In BDSM situations with a good dominant or Master or whatever, the dominant is constantly checking and rechecking for cues that the sub is having a good time, thereby the sub is giving up control, yet still controlling the situation. Of course not all dominants are careful.
However, my question is why is it a rape button? It seems to mean a little more than if it were a "sex" button or even a "rough sex" button.

tabitha- the difference between what seems to be happening here and just virtual sex is
1) suprise, i'm assuming that once it's advertised that a character wants to be "raped", the "contract" can be fulfilled at any time, thus more realisticly simulating a rape.

2) this suprise

"Whereas I would agree that it is a popular fantasy for some females to be dominated by a lover, such activities are done within a safe, secure environment between two consenting adults. Yes, the illusion is sometimes sought over, but where we seem to be going wrong is by incorrectly labelling it as anything but that: an illusion.

Rapelay does not present a theatric encounter between two people that can be aborted if things get a little over the top; it presents you with the chance to physically attack unwilling women and force yourself upon them."

coasttocoast:
thats not calling him out? uhhh ok

Are tRJ and CoasttoCoast the same troll...oops, I mean "person"? Because while your comments sound more highbrow than the average troll, your intent is betrayed by your consistently "I'm curious please enlighten me, as I'm new to feminist blogs / just trying to understand", wide-eyed pretense of "oh gosh, I agree that is awful, but here's a logical rationale for it, and I guess it's not really a gendered issue, after all". Rape is gendered violence (although I'm sure you'll cite some exceptions to "disprove" this). Is it therefore so surprising that commentors here would therefore focus on rape portrayed in virtual reality / gaming, rather than, say, murder? Also, as others have already amply pointed out, comparing any kind of "consensual" rape fantasy or role-play to actual rape is apples and oranges. Rape is non-consensual, and any portrayal of it (even through mere use of the term) that blurs this reality DOES do harm. Maybe it doesn't create rapists, as you seem to argue in your parallel logic about not killing anyone in real life, but it does confuse the issue of what rape IS and it does perpetuate VERY longstanding, and damaging theories that women have secret, unconscious desires to be overpowered, abused, and objectified, which contribute to difficulties prosecuting rape and sexual assault. Maybe some of your gaming time should be allocated to READING, which might afford more insight.

coasttocoast said

"tabitha- the difference between what seems to be happening here and just virtual sex is
1) suprise, i'm assuming that once it's advertised that a character wants to be "raped", the "contract" can be fulfilled at any time, thus more realisticly simulating a rape."

for what it's worth, Ive been playing Second Life for a while, and unless there is something BIG that I don't know about yet, the scenario you describe isn't possible in the game.

I went and explored a bit and found other animation balls for roleplay force scenarios (although I wasn't able to find the exact location in that picture), and, as I suspected, they function exactly like other animation balls for things such as fishing, dancing, skating, etc.

Both players have to be in the same place, at the same time, and click the corrosponding anim. ball. You cannot surprse someone who asked for a "rape" by "fullfilling a contract" at some surprise time. There is no way for it to happen unless both parties are aware, present, and active at the time that the roleplay takes place

I recently signed up for Second Life -- I think it's totally fascinating. It's kind of like The Sims meets World of Warcraft, and you can make real money to boot.

I have to confess some cynical curiosity here... I haven't been able to find an actual link to where this picture came from. Just blog to blog to blog, not sure where it started. This sort of thing, though, even if it were just created by an individual player (which I think almost certainly would have to be the case; I can't imagine Second Life/Linden doing this itself), I think might violate SL's Community Standards. I imagine the CEO who posted here knows better than I?

The Community Standards are a huge part of what attracted me to Second Life over other similar simulators and online games. I highly recommend you guys check them out... if only our real-life communities were only half so sensible.

I agree that SL would be a great place for Feministing to be involved. One of my former law professors recently delivered a talk "inside" the SL matrix. For Feministing and feminists to build a presence in SL could only be a net positive.

My mistake Ayla, i'd only done some light reading on how second life worked, and assumed you could carry "animation balls" with you.

Charity- I'm really just trying to think critically about the issue. I spend far more time reading than is healthy, although my bookshelf is admitedly lacking in feminist theory.

Of course rape fantasy and actual rape are as different as night and day, but "rape fantasy" is the term used to describe the act by the majority of people so I guess that's the term that I'll use. If there's another term that's more appropriate for the act of roleplaying rape, I'll use that just as happily.
Of course the commenters will talk about rape rather than murder. I'm exploring why I had a knee jerk reaction of thinking that this game is disgusting when I've committed countless other atrocities in games without the same feelings of guilt.
Why can't we apply the same "any portrayl of a harmfull act is harmfull" line of thinking to other harmfull acts?

Coasttocaost, you *can* carry the anim. balls with you, but in order to use them, you have to put them down, the other player has to be there, and they have to click the ball. You can't click it for them or force the animations on them in any way that I am aware of.

I'm not sure how much any of this has to do with the real topic here, but I just want to be clear in the information I've given as I know it from playing the game.

Are tRJ and CoasttoCoast the same troll...oops, I mean "person"?

No.

...your intent is betrayed by your consistently "I'm curious please enlighten me, as I'm new to feminist blogs / just trying to understand", wide-eyed pretense of "oh gosh, I agree that is awful, but here's a logical rationale for it, and I guess it's not really a gendered issue, after all".

Any time I participate in a discussion here, I am genuinely trying to offer perspectives. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I do not. But I thought the point of the comments was to have discussions about the posts. Sometimes that means people are going to disagree with you. If what you want is an echo-chamber, I won't comment.

And the "I'm curious" attitude is genuine. My wife is aggressively and actively anti-feminist, so I really do enjoy learning about the perspective of avowed young feminists.

Maybe some of your gaming time should be allocated to READING, which might afford more insight.

I do find it discouraging that this kind of personal attack is so common here. While I often disagree with your agenda, I try to be respectful of your opinions. To suggest that I don't get it because I don't educate myself is insulting and unfair.

"Why can't we apply the same "any portrayl of a harmfull act is harmfull" line of thinking to other harmfull acts?"

well first off, you dont hear too many people saying "oh he was asking to be mugged/murdered, what with carrying a wallet and walking around at night and all"
sexism is so ingrained in people minds that rape IS a different context than other forms of violence, and this being a feminist website, is what we talk about.

Ayla- ah, the scenario I had in my head is possible then, I think you just misunderstood me. Somone posts that they want to engage in surprise rough sex.

They then go about doing their thing, some time later, out of the blue, someone(or some-ones, buy the look of the posters) approaches with a rough sex animation ball, and the animation is agreed upon by both players, then is acted out.

This is very similar to real life abduction/"rape" fantasies where both parties discuss and agree to the actions before hand, but the "victem" is still somewhat unaware of exactly when the fantasy will begin, which is part of the fantasy.

TRJ -

Your wife is "agressively" anti-feminist? so she

a) doesn't vote
b) doesn't work outside of the home and
c)never uses or used contraception.

if any of these things do not apply to your wife, then I would wonder about her self-imposed label.

elektrodot-well first off, you dont hear too many people saying "oh he was asking to be mugged/murdered, what with carrying a wallet and walking around at night and all"

Actually, this is all too common. I wouldn't walk through a known rough neighbourhood at night with a pair of unmistakeable ipod white headphones on, that is a "mug me" sign. This isn't news. Many people advocate replacing those headphones immediately because they are unmistakeable, and people are mugged for having them on. I wouldn't walk into certain areas of town wearing the wrong gang colours. People have been beaten/killed for that. I wouldn't mouth off to a huge angry looking person in a seedy bar.

I'm probably going to be accused of "blaming the victem" for this post, but i'm not. I'm countering your point that no one ever says anyone was asking to be mugged or beaten. They do.

...and all that is still diffrent from rape.

man go read a book on it or something. geez

elek

are you daft? I never compared it to rape. You did.

With real rape, the woman has no control over the situation, which is terrifying.

It's even bigger than that. A sub knows his master loves him and cares about him, and won't ever mutilate him or do anything risky to him. With rape, that never exists.

It's one thing to get into a brawl with a friend. It's another for that friend to keep beating you no matter how much it hurts.

I wouldn't walk through a known rough neighbourhood at night with a pair of unmistakeable ipod white headphones on, that is a "mug me" sign.

Coast, I made this exact same argument a few weeks ago in another post about rape. The responses amounted to "for that analogy to make sense, we could never leave the house, because every man is a potential rapist." So, you know, that's where that's headed.

Your wife is "agressively" anti-feminist? so she a) doesn't vote b) doesn't work outside of the home and c)never uses or used contraception. if any of these things do not apply to your wife, then I would wonder about her self-imposed label.

Ok, you got me. She is anti-modern-feminism (or whatever you call what it is you do).

Do you want me to explain why the "every man is a potential rapist" argument is bunk now, or should I wait until someone brings it up seriously?

trj -um I guess I call it equality for all, but we won't go there.

Please do explain Alon, it is Friday afternoon and I need a break with something new to chew on.

Between 20 and 30 percent of rapes in the US are committed by strangers, which already cuts your lifetime chance of getting raped by a stranger to barely 1%. Once you account for the fact that stranger rapes tend to occur in the same circumstances as assault and robbery - i.e. typically in high-crime neighborhoods - your lifetime chance drops even more, unless you live in a place like the South Bronx.

Rape and murder are both typically committed by acquaintances: family members, friends, coworkers. You can count on not being raped or murdered if you just go out for a walk, especially if you stay out of bad neighborhoods.

Coast, the fact that you take precautions to protect yourself has NOTHING to do with the stigma attached to having those precautions fail (or not having taken them).

Let me show you what muggings would look like, if they were even REMOTELY comparable to rape.

Let's say for some unavoidable reason you're walking through one of these "rough" neighborhoods and you get mugged. The mugger pistol-whipped and beat you pretty badly so you head straight to the hospital. When you get to the hospital, you explain that you've been mugged and ask for stitches.

The ER and the doctor comes in and examines you. He refuses to give you any medical treatment until you submit to a rectal exam because in a recent spate of muggings in the area, the mugger has used an airborne toxin on victims that causes rectal bleeding, but they need to test for it within 24 hours in order to determine if it's the same toxin, and the only way to do this is by a rectal exam. You panic a little and call a friend for emotional support. Your friend, who is strongly conservative and is constantly chiding you for taking unnecessary risks (though in your mind you're just an everyday average person, you're not overly cautious or overly risky, sometimes you take risks, sometimes you opt for extra safety), is unsympathetic. "I TOLD you you shouldn't have been walking in bad neighborhoods. Really, you were just asking for this to happen."

Later, you call your credit card company to cancel your cards, only to find out the mugger has already maxed them out. Your credit card company, also unsympathetic, determines you were insufficiently vigilant and holds you responsible for the charges. Your wife leaves you because she "just can't look at you" now that you've racked up all this debt to your name. You end up filing for bankruptcy, and as you trudge into your lawyer's office, you're bombarded with anti-bankruptcy picketers who scream horrible names at you for being so greedy and adding to America's overly high debt load.

You seek sympathy from your friends, but only find it with a few of them. Several of them think the mugging was your fault, or that you should have been more careful. A few even suggest that you made up the mugging after lending money to someone who couldn't pay you back. They go so far as to take HIS side. They don't hang out with you anymore because they think you're a liar, and don't want you accusing any of them of mugging you. They figure best to play it safe and not associate with you anymore.

Eventually the police track down your mugger and you're asked to testify at trial. You don't relish the thought, given the horrific nightmares you have every night about the incident. Still, you want the bastard to pay for what he's done to you, so you put on your bravest face possible and walk into the courtroom, ready to relay the grisly, horrific details of how he mugged and brutally beat you. You get into the courtroom and the defense attorney is even meaner than the mugger. You look over at the mugger. He seems unperturbed. He's just sitting there, wearing a fancy suit and there's even a hint of a smile on his face. You feel the sudden urge to vomit when you think about how he's ruined your life, he's turned your family and friends against you, he's forced you into bankruptcy, and he sits there looking as though all is right and fine with the world. The defense attorney twists your words, accuses you of even more horrible things than your former friends did, and eventually you can't help it. You break down and begin sobbing. You're escorted from the courtroom. Later on, the prosecutor thanks you for testifying but tells you that, unfortunately, the jury did not find your testimony convincing enough, and the mugger has gone free.

Your life has been shattered, and the bastard who did it got off scot-free. And you get to live with the shame of being called liar and a cheat. You have to live with a cloud of bankruptcy over your head for the next decade, maybe longer. Your life will never be the same, and the only one anyone will ever blame for this is you.

When your average, run-of-the-mill mugging begins to resemble this, then I'll grant that it might be comparable to rape.

Coasttocoast, yes, I did misunderstand, that scenario is possible. I'm not sure if the surprise element comes in to play a lot in Second Life or not. The anim. balls that I saw were owned by people who own land, and leave the anim. balls there for others to use if they wish. As such, they aren't able to be carried away by someone who doesn't own them. For people who buy their own anim. balls, perhaps the element of surprise is a factor.

oh, TLF, your awesome.

But of course, there are women who do live in the south bronx or any other ghetto because they are poor, and so they risk their lives by going to a job that pays a shitty wage, etc. My sister is a social worker that helps women find affordable housing and she was appalled by the stories she was told. That said, I am not sure how many women think there is a potential rapist in every man, as many women can testify to a father or brother or boyfriend or a husband that would never, ever entertain that thought. But none of this really has to do with the thread at hand, I just don't want to work anymore today.

Fortunately, an American woman is almost 1/13 as likely to be raped as she is to be assaulted...

I can't find any conviction rates postdating 1995, so I can't tell if rapists really are less likely to be convicted than robbers and assaulters.

It's standard practice in BDSM to use safewords, too--e.g. the two partners pick a word in advance, like "asparagus" or something, and then if it becomes too much for the sub, s/he can say it and it's all off. This is done, I guess, because "no" is established in advance as part of the roleplaying ("Please, Nurse Fonkenschtein, not the nipples!"), or is likely to be an instinctive reaction to getting whipped with a spiked leather paddle or whatever.

Don't ask me how I, a simple Mississippi virgin, know this stuff. Let's just say that I've had a very diverse group of friends over the years. Personally, I don't "get" BDSM roleplaying, but then there are a lot of things I don't "get."

As far as the answer to the potential rapist goes: I find the whole concept weird. I mean, what if I posted a message saying that I see all these people carrying thick wallets and big purses around, just whipping out money everywhere they go, and how can I keep myself from mugging them? (Because obviously if they're carrying that much money, they WANT to be mugged, right?)

It's kind of like that international men's group that celebrated a "don't rape women" day, as if anyone who belonged to the group would be saying "Tuesday, Wednesday... Well, I guess I can skip Thursday--it's for a good cause..." I mean, Tom Head will never rape a woman. Ever. Period. I don't have to ask "how not to"; it isn't something a guy does by accident. There is this weird idea in the larger culture that men can't control their sexual behavior, but that's an old lie; men can and do. And when they control their sexual behavior and choose to rape women or molest children, there is much more to it than "giving in to their passions," as if it's a dessert buffet and they shouldn't eat those extra crepes. Rapists are violent criminals. Period. "How can I prevent myself from raping a woman?" makes about as much sense as "How can I prevent myself from strangling and dismembering prostitutes in my van?" I mean, you just DON'T, and if you're really obsessed with rape or murder (or obsessed with the idea of sticking your hand in a garbage disposal or putting a small pet in the microwave or...), then it's time to see a shrink.

Cheers,

TH

And TLF, I think this is probably clear from the context, but I do want to make it explicit here that I'm not saying rape and mugging are in any way comparable in terms of their effects. I know they're not. I just used mugging as an example of a crime that people don't usually say "Oh, he was just giving in to his passions, and the victim was asking for it" about, to point out how much of a friggin' fluffy embroidered pillow we give rapists that we don't seem to give other violent offenders. You know my philosophy well enough by now to know this, I'm sure, but I just wanted to clarify...

Cheers,

TH

Gosh, Thanks TH, I was beginning to wonder. Comments posted by some of the males here make me wonder why men go on feminist websites just to argue in order to diminish women's outrage over rape. Why oh Why? Pretty soon they'll be coming up with some "statistics" to "prove" that rape isn't that frequent and women that have been raped really do have something a little different (meaning wrong) about them. Just about every female I know has been raped. Stranger rape does NOT just happen in bad neighborhoods. Women are kidnapped from parking lots, perps purposely go to good neighborhoods to assault, etc. Rape IS devastating. It IS an epidemic.
Second Life-- "Rape" fantasies are not innocuous. In and of themselves, they have consequences, so promoting them is costly to women's lives. I'm not criticizing anyone, just pointing out that "rape" fantasies exist because rape exists and it is internalized oppression. Anyway, thanks again, TH.

While statistics are helpful and necessary, there are always the cases, as any drinker or former drinker can attest to (Hello Milwaukee!) the existance of the dude that zeros in on the drunkest (or passed out) woman at a bar or a party and rapes or attempts to rape her. Of course, not all men do this (I have many male friends that have watched on as I got wasted and made sure I got home okay, and many men do not find the scent of vomit a turn on). And that woman, the next day, could be so ashamed or embarrassed or not remember the details that she doesn't go to the police. And please, any trolls that will go on about "personal responsibility" can can it, because the act of a man zeroing on on the most vunerable female at a bar or party is preditorial

TH, of course :) Context absolutely clear. And to clarify MY comment, I'm not saying it can never be useful to compare the two; I was addressing the discussion, a bit earlier that began along the lines of, "if we're going to say, don't simulate something harmful, we should include ALL harms, like mugging and murder." I was just reminding/explaining how rape is in fact EXTREMELY different from crimes like mugging, for purposes of worrying about the harm it causes.

tRJ - The insinuation that it's "insulting" to suggest someone "educate" themselves by doing some reading is pretty strange. You're admittedly curious...so why is it wrong to tell you to do some reading? You act like the posters here are the originators of feminist theory or women's studies, and are responsible for countering every one of your whims. There is a vast literature out there, and I don't think it's disrespectful at all to suggest you check it out.

And ditto brightapplsword. It's interesting that some folks have as much free time and entitlement and/or rage, and so little insight, as to come to sites like this to bait and argue with people who quite legitimately take issue with certain cultural practices. They may believe they are doing us all a service by presenting "the other side" and fostering "healthy debate," when in fact they are saying nothing new...just parroting the dominant discourse, of which we are well aware. God forbid we have any refuge from that. Cheers!

I might be repeating other comments here cuz I got tired of reading half way through. If that’s the case I apologize. But, I have a question for people like CaostoCoast and tRJ,

If someone created a game in which the players can score by virtually lynching blacks. Would any of you defend it by saying that it doesn’t actually cause little white racist boys to go out and start lynching blacks and it’s only a harmless outlet for bad behavior. Because I think you wouldn’t say such a thing. How about virtually hanging homosexuals? How about virtual gas chambers? Then how is virtual rape different? Unless you think that rape is sex rather than a crime of hate.

brightappl, thanks for this. It really, really creeps me out when men minimize what rape is, or (and it's usually "pro-feminist" men who do this) present it as something that men have to "stop themselves" from doing through reeducation or whatever. Rapists are predators, not victims. Rape victims are victims, not predators. The answer is not "somewhere in between"; it's cut and dried. If you rape a woman, it is a decision you made to violently assert your sexual dominance over somebody at the expense of her physical and emotional well-being. That isn't a complicated scenario. All rapists are at least conditional sociopaths. It is not a "mistake." It is a violent act that some men choose to commit.

And tabitha, agreed re: targeting women who are obviously intoxicated past the point of anything resembling consent. I don't understand how any man can do this and not be called a rapist, but it seems to have almost gone mainstream now, and that creeps me the hell out.

TLF, definitely understood, and in the context where you made that distinction, I think it was useful. I just wanted to make it clear that I was making a separate comparison rather than expressing some kind of funky-ass passive aggressive disagreement with what you'd just said. ;o)

Cheers,

TH

Charity: It's insulting because you said "maybe some of your gaming time should be allocated to READING", the obvious suggestion being that I don't spend enough time educating myself. The fact of the matter is that I am familiar with classic feminist theory. So when I post here, it is because I want the opinions of the commenters. These concepts are dynamic are vary among individuals and it is the individual differences I find elucidating.

Sojourner: I didn't defend the rape simulation. What I asked was whether these provide a positive outlet for people with rape fantasies. I would ask the same of your hypothetical lynch sims. I don't personally have a need for them and may even find them disturbing. I just think there's more to the issue that "This is disgusting." Once we've all agreed on that base level issue, it's pointless to say "I think it's gross, too." The productive discussion comes from exploring other angles.

The Law Fairy- That was a beautifully worded well thought out post. I almost with that I had compared rape to mugging so that it woudln't have been horribly out of place.

For the second time: I didn't compare rape to mugging, someone else did, and I called them on it.

Pretty soon they'll be coming up with some "statistics" to "prove" that rape isn't that frequent and women that have been raped really do have something a little different (meaning wrong) about them.

Also known as the "Stop confusing me with facts" defense.

In the US, there are about 110,000 rapes every year, down from 200,000 six years ago. The reason so many women report having been raped is carryover from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, when rape rates were a lot higher than they are now.

As for the "Women get raped in parking lots" arguments, see above about being confused with facts. I got mugged on West 121st Street, right near Amsterdam. That doesn't change the fact that Harlem has higher robbery rates than Morningside Heights.

How about virtually hanging homosexuals? How about virtual gas chambers? Then how is virtual rape different? Unless you think that rape is sex rather than a crime of hate.

Red Alert has missions where you're supposed to virtually repress villagers and kill civilians.

I'm going to be charitable here, so let me pose this as a question: what sort of evidence leads you to the conclusion that rape is a hate crime rather than an ordinary violent crime?

CTC,
man, you really need to figure out what "calling someone out" means. i didnt respond to when you posted that in regards to my comment, because it really just didnt make sense and/or apply to what i was trying to say

there's an interesting story in this month's Marie Claire about a woman who was raped and then saught some answers by doing "qualitative research" with rapists serving time in prison. at one point in the story, she reports that her primary study subject basically thought that after the rape, women just go back to living their lives. he described a time when he and a few friends grabbed a woman off the street and took her to an abandoned house to rape her. at one point, she stopped begging and crying. according to the rapist, he thought that she understood that they weren't going to hurt her. the man couldn't understand why she was so scared and being raped would be such a huge deal for her.

rather than dissect the video game itself, the larger concern for me is about implications of this game and how this compared to other forms of hate crimes. if the CEO of second life is still reading this post, please answer this question: would Second Life allow a user to create a "snuff fantasy module" or a "lynching fantasy module" comparable to this one about rape?

Let's all be clear that "rape fantasies" often don't actually involve rape. I'm not up-to-date on the research, but Nancy Friday's qualitative survey research shows that women who say they have "rape" fantasies actuall crave loss of control.

there's an interesting story in this month's Marie Claire about a woman who was raped and then went looking for some answers by doing "qualitative research" with rapists serving time in prison. at one point in the story, she reports that her primary study subject basically thought that after the rape, women just go back to living their lives. he described a time when he and a few friends grabbed a woman off the street and took her to an abandoned house to rape her. at one point, she stopped begging and crying, and according to the rapist, he thought that she understood that they weren't going to hurt her. the man couldn't understand why she was so scared and why being raped would be such a huge deal for her.

rather than dissect the video game itself, the larger concern for me is about implications of this game and how this compared to other forms of hate crimes. if the CEO of Second Life is still following this thread, please answer this question: would Second Life allow a user to create a "snuff fantasy module" or a "lynching fantasy module" comparable to this one about rape?

Let's all be clear that "rape fantasies" often don't actually involve rape. I'm not up-to-date on the research, but Nancy Friday's qualitative survey research indicates that what women actually want when they say they have "rape fantasies" is loss of control, not rape.

Coast, you have compared rape to other forms of violence. I was showing you how they are not comparable by using mugging as an example. Murder doesn't fit because you aren't around to deal with the fallout of your murder. Whether murder is "worse" or just "different" is up for question (I would argue "different," since, as with mugging, you don't generally have people standing around afterwards talking about how "he really shouldn't have dressed that way if he didn't want to be murdered.").

Here are some quotes from you:

"I've often argued against people that believe that violent video games influence people to become violent. The science simply isn't there to show that it does have any lasting effect on people. How then can I say that a rape video game is wrong?"

"Of course the commenters will talk about rape rather than murder. I'm exploring why I had a knee jerk reaction of thinking that this game is disgusting when I've committed countless other atrocities in games without the same feelings of guilt.

"Why can't we apply the same "any portrayl of a harmfull act is harmfull" line of thinking to other harmfull acts?"

"Actually, this is all too common. I wouldn't walk through a known rough neighbourhood at night with a pair of unmistakeable ipod white headphones on, that is a "mug me" sign. This isn't news. Many people advocate replacing those headphones immediately because they are unmistakeable, and people are mugged for having them on. I wouldn't walk into certain areas of town wearing the wrong gang colours. People have been beaten/killed for that. I wouldn't mouth off to a huge angry looking person in a seedy bar.

"I'm probably going to be accused of "blaming the victem" for this post, but i'm not. I'm countering your point that no one ever says anyone was asking to be mugged or beaten. They do."

My response was absolutely directly relevant to the issues you brought up.

I tried to read all the comments but I kinda skimmed through them but I want to applaud TLF for her well compared analysis between rape and mugging.

Regardless of who mentioned it it's great material for the next time (and there will be a next time) someone brings it up.

And tJR, if someone is to the point where they need a virtual outlet for rape and or any other kind of harmful desire/fanstasy then I'd deeply fear that person because god knows what they'd do if they didn't have it and/or if they lost their outlet.

I will go ahead and admit I think Coast has a point about playing violent shooter games and why most of us are cool with that, but once rape comes into it we're uncomfortable. I know I wouldn't fear guys who play violent shooter video games however, if I saw a guy playing out a rape fantasy on a game I'd be a bit skeptical about him(even in something like the Grand Theft Auto video games).

I know we say that women who have rape fantasies don't really want to be raped, but what about the men? Have we discussed that?

sorry for the 2x post!

To be clear, CTC, if I have missed something in the mix and you were posing these statements/question rhetorically, playing Devil's Advocate, then of course, I'm not trying to suggest that you believe them. I am simply saying, you brought these issues up, whether or not you agree with the conclusions you suggested, and I was demonstrating why those conclusions were wrong.

When you suggested, for instance, that people do in fact get blamed for being mugged, you then claimed this wasn't to compare rape to mugging. This begs the question, then: what was it meant to mean? When you said elektrodot was the one who "compared" rape to mugging, did you mean "contrast"? Because your argument was an argument against contrasting them. I was showing you why in fact they are very different, and thus contrasting them is quite appropriate.

In other words, even if you weren't directly "comparing" them (I dispute this; your earlier posts suggest you're trying to say rape is like other forms of violence, as shown above), you were arguing against one example of how they are different. In other words, you were saying they are not so very different as someone else claimed. Another way of saying this is to say that you were arguing they were "comparable." So you're really splitting a thin little hair when you say you weren't "comparing" them.

tRJ, just to be clear, I and others here do value discussion, but I am also aware that sometimes people are disingenuous, argumentative, and maliciously provocative under the pretense of eliciting "productive discussion." Especially when a call for "other angles" negates the fact that feminist and critical perspectives ARE the "other angle" that was long missing from the dialogue (and is still questioned and devalued by many, who rework and rephrase the dominant position and present it as the NEW "other angle", when in fact it is the status quo). I realize your background is a legal one and therefore perhaps everything is debatable...but I think at times this actually becomes counterproductive and more divisive than enlightening or growth-promoting. That doesn't mean we should cease all discussion, but at least be honest about our motives and the consequences.

Alon, yes facts are definitely important. But sometimes we don't have all the facts...we don't know how many rapes go unreported, or get labeled "sexual assault" (which is often tallied separately), and it's great that the overall rate seems to be decreasing, but we can still talk about rape...it hasn't gone away. Regardless of the precise locations of the majority of rapes, there are plenty of exceptions to the "rule," and it doesn't stop women from being afraid and vigilant in many types of situations and locations. The sequelae of trauma are notoriously impervious to logical "probabilities". As for why rape is not just another "ordinary" violent crime...well, let's suppose an individual is feeling violent, or whatever state of mind precedes violent behavior (even if it occurs in just a split second). Let's say they are about to unleash their violent impulse to feel relief, or get revenge, or whatever their motivation is. Why might that individual choose rape, rather than, say, smashing up a car, or hitting someone, or some other form of battery that does not involve what rape does? Hurting someone can take many, many forms...so I assume, logically, that the choice to rape reflects a "unique" kind of thinking, intent, and motivation - to degrade, disempower, and terrify a particular type of person (disproportionately, women) in a particular way. The other possibility, as another poster mentioned, is that the perpetrator doesn't have that motivation, and simply thinks, it's no big deal for a woman to get raped, so what the hell, there's a woman and I'll rape her. In either scenario, I'm sad to say, the cultural identity / status of the victim does have something to do with the crime (which connects it with our traditional understanding of "hate crime.") This is by no means an exhaustive argument or definitive explanation...just some thoughts.

It's pretty bizarre, but it's no worse than things I've seen in other video games (kidnapping, genocide, murder, and torture).

"I will go ahead and admit I think Coast has a point about playing violent shooter games and why most of us are cool with that, but once rape comes into it we're uncomfortable."

Isn't that hypocritical?

Murder? No problem.

Rape? Now that's a problem.

Why is it that we don't say that shooter games will create future murderers, but this game will create future rapists?

TLF and Tom, love love love.

To those talking about people "asking" for ANYTHING by walking through a "rough" neighborhood, I'd like to ask a question. Most of my adult life my income level required me to LIVE in a "rough" neighborhood. Do you mean to say, "Well, you were so foolish to walk to YOUR home when you got off the bus from work."
The "rough" neighborhood argument on ANY act of violence is seriously classist.

Because, RM, murder is not, generally speaking, a hate crime used by a dominant group to keep members of a radically disempowered subordinated group in line. I object to it in the same way I would object to virtual lynchings. Shoot-'em-ups don't bother me, because those are fantasies about violence, pure and simple, not historically loaded kinds of violence against specific groups of people.

I don't think Halo 2, for instance, perpetuates the same horrific power dynamics, unless one is deeply concerned about the historical subjugation of bloodthirsty mutants with roasted turkeys for heads, which does not seem to me be a particularly concern based in reality.

“Red Alert has missions where you're supposed to virtually repress villagers and kill civilians.�
Unless those villagers and civilians are of a specific racial or religious minority, I don’t see how this has anything to do what I said. Maybe they are?

“I'm going to be charitable here, so let me pose this as a question: what sort of evidence leads you to the conclusion that rape is a hate crime rather than an ordinary violent crime?�

Alon, take your charity elsewhere please. I don’t think I need to produce evidence; rather, I will present my reasoning for calling it that. I am not claiming rape is legally defined as a hate crime; I know it isn’t. But rape is obviously different than robbery, drug-trafficking, human trafficking etc. In all those the goal is financial gain. That’s not the case with rape. Women are targeted because they are women, just like people belonging to an ethnic minority are targeted because the belong to that ethnic minority ( I do realize there are differences) . Rape threats are often used to silence women; many feminist bloggers can testify to that. Rape itself is used to terrorize and to silence. No, I am not saying that all rape is like that. I understand that there are different motivations for rape. I suppose that sometimes it can be about wanting pussy and not knowing how to get it without coercion, but even then, you have to be able to dehumanize the women to be able to think about them as this “object� being their body that you want to have. So unless you think of women’s sexuality as this “thing� that can be robbed, stolen , forcefully captured, and you think of all rape as sex that couldn’t otherwise be had, then rape is not an ordinary crime. Anyways, I was using the term “crime of hate� (rather than “hate crime�) loosely and not in any legal sense, but rather in the context of how it is perceived by women, how it is emotionally devastating, and how it is perceived by me as a woman. As long as there are men out there (and there are way too many) who threaten a woman with rape because they think she doesn’t know her place as a woman, I am going to call it a crime of hate.

"unless one is deeply concerned about the historical subjugation of bloodthirsty mutants with roasted turkeys for heads"

EG, take it back. Halo is TOTALLY as bad. I have close family members who are bloodthirsty mutants, though their heads are admittedly more ham-looking than turkey-looking.

Hehehe

"Shoot-'em-ups don't bother me, because those are fantasies about violence, pure and simple, not historically loaded kinds of violence against specific groups of people."

Not sure if I understand.

Fantasies about rape (and acting it out in a video game) is worse than fantasizing about violence (and acting it out in a video game) because the victims are women in one case and men in the other?

"Fantasies about rape (and acting it out in a video game) is worse than fantasizing about violence (and acting it out in a video game) because the victims are women in one case and men in the other?"
Um, no, victims of shooting don't have to be men.

NO, RM, it's because rape is importantly different because of the social context that underlies it.

Even when someone commits suicide, the police still investigate the death AS A MATTER OF COURSE and strongly consider whether or not the death was a murder.

When someone says her ex-boyfriend raped her, people call her a liar and a slut.

In what world can you actually pretend, with a straight face, that rape and murder are AT ALL comparable?

I have had this blog on my RSS ticker and read every posting for the past few months. This is my first time posting here. I want to respond to the comments posted here by tRJ, partially because I really don't quite buy his "curiosity" game. His wife is an anti-feminist, so he wants to approach young feminists with curiosity and understanding? There are books for you. No one is ill-advised or out of line in telling you to read them. There is a wealth of published information readily available for you to read throughout bookstores and libraries and across the internet. I think you are just a very silly antagonist with a medicated smile.

This is what I particularly would like to address, because I am surprised that no one has commented on what I feel is really part that is most insulting to women.

"Actually, [blaming victims of muggings or murders] is all too common. I wouldn't walk through a known rough neighbourhood at night with a pair of unmistakeable ipod white headphones on, that is a 'mug me' sign. This isn't news. Many people advocate replacing those headphones immediately because they are unmistakeable, and people are mugged for having them on. I wouldn't walk into certain areas of town wearing the wrong gang colours. People have been beaten/killed for that. I wouldn't mouth off to a huge angry looking person in a seedy bar."

People will say about victims of muggings or murders that they were foolish, naive, unsafe. They will say, "they asked for what they got" because they did not take necessary precautions. But they do not mean it literally. This is not the case for the rape victim. A victim who has been mugged will not ever have to prove that he or she did not enjoy being mugged. If a victim of murder could speak, he or she would not have to prove that she or he did not enjoy being killed.

This is not the case with the victim of sexual assault. She was "asking for it" not just by failing to be careful, but by actually wanting it, because the assumption is still pervasive in our society and many other societies that women exist for sexual use, and in being raped are fulfilling their use.

oh wait that's coast to coast.

oh well, reply is directed at both of them in any case.

rilee, that's a brilliant point. Thanks for bringing it up.

Fantasy != reality. I think people generally understand it here since there has been plenty of talk about BDSM. This seems to just be a tool for cyberBDSM.

Also, many people here seem to ignore that rape isn't a women's issue. Men get raped too. And much more frequently than is thought.

This is the best website ever. I learn so much every day.

TLF, Charity, sojourner, EG and Tom Head, you all rock. That was a real mind workout. Thanks!

"When someone says her ex-boyfriend raped her, people call her a liar and a slut."

Sure.

Is that why raping in a video game is worse than murdering in a video game? Because in real life police don't treat rape victims properly?

How is the one connected with the other?

Yes, thank you for beating back the idiots.

I would like to add another perspective to the debate on gaming and simulations. I play games (probably more than I should), and most of them are (medieval style) violent. It's a phenomenal stress reliever. On the other hand, I know lots of people who have progressed from Mario-style jump-on-the-bad-guys-heads violence to Halo and GTA. I wonder if it might be the same for rape fantasies. For "normal people" with rape fantasies, these simulations are probably harmless, even a good way of "relieving sexual tension." On the other hand, there are probably those who would progress to progressively violent simulations (killing the victim afterwards, for instance), and possibly to real-life rape.

And if anyone says I think rape is just like any other violence, prepare for a rant like you ain't never seen before.

Let's start with why rape may be considered a hate crime.

The obvious place to begin would be to define "hate crime." I'll turn to my dictionary for that: "any of various crimes (as assault or defacement of property) when motivated by hostility to the victim as a member of a group (as one based on color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation)"

That seems to pretty much clear that up, I think. Murder, while it can be a hate crime, doesn't have to be, and, in point of fact, usually isn't.
Rape, on the other hand, is usually about targeting women as part of a power and control issue. In other words, women are raped because they are women. That makes most rape a hate crime.

As for why we view rape differently than we do other forms of violence in games?
There's not necessarily any one reason, and it's not completely true to say that we do, anyway. Games that advocate certain types of violence do receive censure. Neo-Nazi groups and other hate groups have published video games, and whenever they do, there's usually a shitstorm of protests and complaints about it. Why? Because people are generally uncomfortable with media that glorifies, encourages, or rewards certain types of violence- rape, raciallly motivated murder or torture, lynching, etc.

Another thing to consider is that this is a feminist website. Not every issue need be given equal weight. I'm not particularly concerned with people breaking into cars, so, really, I don't give a damn if there is a game out there that glorifies breaking into someone's car. If that's an issue that you're concerned about, that's fine. Go. Work on it. I don't care. I do care about the rape-culture that we're living in, where large numbers of college students still think that sometimes women are "asking for it."

Generally speaking, our society frowns on depictions of rape in the general mainstream. People are uncomfortable (or at least claim to be uncomfortable) with graphic depictions of rape in movies. We're much less so about violence. Hell, we're much less concerned about violence than even sex. That's why you'll find so many games that let you kill, fight, etc, but very few that allow you to have sex.

Asking why they're different doesn't really seem to add much, though- fully examining why they're different would take a lot more research, and a lot more time than I think most people are willing to put into a bulletin response.

TLF-When you suggested, for instance, that people do in fact get blamed for being mugged, you then claimed this wasn't to compare rape to mugging. This begs the question, then: what was it meant to mean? When you said elektrodot was the one who "compared" rape to mugging, did you mean "contrast"? Because your argument was an argument against contrasting them. I was showing you why in fact they are very different, and thus contrasting them is quite appropriate.

My suggesting that people get blamed for being mugged was in direct response to elek's claim that no one is ever blamed when they are mugged. Of course they are. Right or wrong, if someone is mugged while wearing expensive fur or lots of portable electronics while in a subway by themselves, or walking down a back alley, and they are mugged, of course people say it was foolish of them.

That's all I said. I'm sorry for so sarcasticaly responding to your post, but I was frustrated at the amount of knee jerk reaction to a claim that I hadn't made.

The only other thing I had said that might have been construed as comparing rape to mugging/killing is when I questioned my own feelings of disgust at a rape simulator game when other games have countless other atrocities in them. I wondered aloud what it was about a rape simulator specificaly that made me feel disgusted, and if I could condem it without being a hypocrite.

I don’t think I need to produce evidence

Thanks.

Rape has no financial gain, you say. But neither do murder and assault. People commit these crimes usually in the heat of the moment - for example, the plurality circumstance of murder is argument, and a big chunk of date rapes occur because someone just wants release and power now. A substantial minority of rapes and murders are premeditated, though not so many of assaults, I don't think.

As long as there are men out there (and there are way too many) who threaten a woman with rape because they think she doesn’t know her place as a woman, I am going to call it a crime of hate.

Perception isn't reality. If your perception and reality don't match, it's not reality that's faulty. Just because Susan Brownmiller asserted without evidence that rape is a way for all men to control all women doesn't make it so. If a man rapes you, you can't know immediately that it's a hate crime, not without having some more relevant information (for example, if that person started stalking you because you were a feminist, then you'd have a more solid case).

If male-on-female rape is always a hate crime, then so is every gentile-on-Jew, straight-on-gay, white-on-black, or Anglo-on-Hispanic murder or assault.

Alon, I noticed you didn't respond to any of the many other posts theorizing as to what rape has in common with other hate crimes. I don't think anyone here is saying, one hate crime is worse than any other, and I'm sure no one's intention is to minimize or detract from the way other cultural groups have been victimized and discriminated against. I think it behooves us all if historically marginalized and targeted groups have more, and not less, empathy for one another.

I also really wish we could put the "maybe it provides a safe release" argument to rest. Would anyone be advocating that having virtual sex with children in a computer program, or looking at virtual child porn, would prevent people from becoming pedophiles who need to prey on real children, or give existing pedophiles a "safe release"? I'm almost afraid to ask that question, on this board, sadly.

I used to work in the field of sex offender evaluation and treatment. The empirically validated treatment of choice for sex offenders (the goal of which is the prevention of recidivism, i.e, future sexual offending) is one comprising different modules aimed at modifying distorted thoughts and perceptions about sexual offending and about victims, and aimed at increasing empathy for victims (and potential victims) and weakening associations between deviant stimuli (children, women in pain, etc) and sexual arousal. It stands to reason that these principles would therefore apply to preventing first-time offenses too. Games like this fly in the face of those methods and principles by contributing to distorted ideas of what rape is and what women's fantasies really are. If someone, as has been argued, is playing a game like this as a release for their preexisting impulses to rape, at the VERY LEAST, the game does nothing to break the association between rape-related stimuli and sexual gratification; rather, it maintains, and possibly even strengthens that association. At WORST, well....

Would anyone be advocating that having virtual sex with children in a computer program, or looking at virtual child porn, would prevent people from becoming pedophiles who need to prey on real children, or give existing pedophiles a "safe release"?

No one's done a study that suggests that's the case, as far as I know. Of course, no one's done a non-shoddy study that reveals a correlation in either direction between porn and rape, which is why I don't say porn provides a safe release.

Games like this fly in the face of those methods and principles by contributing to distorted ideas of what rape is and what women's fantasies really are.

Is there anything that suggests these games are any different from run-of-the-mill pornography?

Moreover, "these games" don't really exist. From earlier comments in this thread, Second Life doesn't allow anyone to purchase a rape, only a simulated rape.

Alon, I noticed you didn't respond to any of the many other posts theorizing as to what rape has in common with other hate crimes.

I only quoted from Sojourner's comment, but also replied to roymacIII's without quoting.

Alon, yes facts are definitely important. But sometimes we don't have all the facts...we don't know how many rapes go unreported, or get labeled "sexual assault" (which is often tallied separately), and it's great that the overall rate seems to be decreasing, but we can still talk about rape...it hasn't gone away.

The rates I'm talking about come from a survey that asks Americans whether they've been sexually assaulted or raped.

Of course, it hasn't gone away. In the US, there are about 110,000 more rapes and 90,000 more sexual assaults than there should be every year. But my point about profiling is that rape isn't something that all men use to keep all women in line, but rather something that mostly affects a specific subset of women.

The media likes overhyping crime because it sells better than writing about corporations that dump toxic waste in majority-minority neighborhoods. The headline "White middle-class woman raped in her home" can sell even if a newspaper uses it once a week; more common occurrences, like "Low-income woman raped by her supervisor" or "College student raped by a drunk frat boy," to say nothing of "Woman paid half as much as equally qualified male colleague," sell worse.

Alon writes:
But my point about profiling is that rape isn't something that all men use to keep all women in line, but rather something that mostly affects a specific subset of women.

No, it affects all women. That's what makes it a hate crime.

Alon, hate crime laws are basically antiterrorism laws. They are based on the premise that certain crimes are crimes not only against the individual, but also against the identifiable community to which the individual belongs. Few would argue that rape is not misogynistic, that it does not have the effect of terrorism on all women (note the number of people in conservative circles who say that women should be terrorized and watch when they go out, what they wear when they do, whether they're alone, how much they drink, etc.), and for this reason I think that most rapes are probably hate crimes and should be prosecuted as such.

As far as the 110,000 figure goes, I doubt most women who have been raped but not filed charges (i.e., the majority of rape victims) would say so in a telephone survey, especially if given the option to decline answering the questions altogether. I do agree that the number of rapes has gone down, but I think the 110,000 figure is highly suspect, to say the least. A better estimate would be based on the number of callers to rape crisis lines, but even that number would run low.

Cheers,

TH

Tom, I'm fairly certain government surveys don't ever give you the option of declining to answer. The reason some British hipsters answer "Jedi" to religion questions in censuses is that they're prohibited from refusing to answer.

At any rate, the NCVS also asks people who were victimized by crime if they reported it to the police, and as a rule a small majority say they didn't (the reporting rate for sexual assault/rape in the US, which is lower than for robbery and assault, is just short of 40% and slowly rising).

As for "few would argue," that's the main weakness of the argument that rape is misogynistic. In fact, few argue that rape is misogynistic; and people like Barry Glasner would argue that any terror effect on non-victims is manufactured by media reporting.

Repeating a comment I wrote on my own blog that offers a more serious argument than my above "most people agree with me" remark:

Rape victims are usually not targeted for belonging to a specific group. Wikipedia's rapist profiles suggest that the motivations of most rapists lie not in oppressing women as a class, but in gratifying themselves with power and control. Only one profile out of four, accounting for 28% of rapists, even includes the characterization, "often feels a general animosity toward the gender of his target." "Often" is a major weasel word, so really the number of rapists who are motivated by misogyny can be almost any number in the 0-28% range. But even toward the upper end, three quarters of all rapes have nothing to do with misogyny.

Alon writes:
Tom, I'm fairly certain government surveys don't ever give you the option of declining to answer.

And this works how, exactly? "Why, Mrs. Miller, you say here you've never been raped, but we know for a fact that you showed up at the emergency room with vaginal tearing six months ago. Are you going to play straight with us, or should we discuss this at the station?"

The fact is that if you look at rape crisis line and emergency room statistics, you will find that the 110,000 figure is, at best, hopelessly naive. At the very least, there are a huge number of cases of rape denial--where women are raped and then convince themselves it wasn't really rape, just a misunderstanding. Most rape victims go through a phase like this. Some--we have no way of knowing how many--never leave that phase.

And people lie to, or ignore, government surveys all the time. This is especially likely in low-income communities where the police are (understandably) not necessarily held in high regard.

(the reporting rate for sexual assault/rape in the US, which is lower than for robbery and assault, is just short of 40% and slowly rising).

And now you're using a derivative percentage from the 110,000 statistic to prove the validity of the 110,000 statistic.

Wikipedia's rapist profiles suggest that the motivations of most rapists lie not in oppressing women as a class, but in gratifying themselves with power and control.

Most racism is also oriented primarily in self-gratification through power and control. Does that mean that race shouldn't be a criterion, either?

"Often" is a major weasel word,

No, "often" means I don't have a precise statistic or range that I'm prepared to defend but I'm asserting that it happens often.

Cheers,

TH

Thank you TH! As always.

Alon, all you've shown in your argument is that 0-28% of rapists (in that particular research) were CONSCIOUS OF, in touch with, and willing / able to verbalize, or display in their M.O., their animosity towards / hatred of women. I suppose that it's just a coincidence the other categories so disproportionately select female victims as well? I guess you'd argue it's mere opportunism. Trust me, I have sat in a room with sexual sadists (another "category" in Groth's research) - they have dehumanized women, specifically, and consequently, feel entitled to them, and get off on humiliating them. And as for the charming, poorly-termed "gentleman" rapist category, well, what he's describing are sociopaths, and sociopaths are cold and detached in their offending (but are unmistakably contemptuous of their victims, considering them expendable and existing only to meet their needs), and are also notoriously deceitful and withholding...so it's really not realistic to expect them to 1) express outright animosity or hate, or 2) be honest about their motivations in the first place. But we have a culture in which women are consistently depicted as objects for men's sexual gratification, or vessels for childbearing, or whatever else...it is so pervasive that it really doesn't make sense to expect every man who commits violence against a woman to have insight into, and verbalize, his animosity towards women - but make no mistake, the animosity and dehumanization is there. It's unfortunately part of the social fabric.

Your comment about rape being something that affects a "specific subset" of women...wow. I'm guessing by "subset" you meant rape victims, but the way you word it sounds like you have some kind of demographic or behavioral profile in mind. And TH already said it best...wrong, it affects all women.

My question to you is why you absolutely refuse to hear what women are telling you about how rape DOES affect us - yes, as a GROUP, and no, not just because the media plays up the threat for "hype" or profit, but because of our daily experience, our personal interactions and encounters in which we are subjected to language that is both threatening and sexualized, to unwanted touching and propositions, etc., etc., etc. What is so threatening to you about hearing this? I know from other posts of yours that you have not, on other issues, been this rigid. Why on THIS particular issue don't you think women have something valid and accurate to say about their own experience?

No, "often" means I don't have a precise statistic or range that I'm prepared to defend but I'm asserting that it happens often.

I wasn't thinking about your use of the word. I was referring to the use of the word in the preceding sentence, a quote from Wikipedia's description of anger-retaliatory rapists.

And now you're using a derivative percentage from the 110,000 statistic to prove the validity of the 110,000 statistic.

Well, there's no other way to prove the statistic's validity, except use derivatives and compare them to hopefully more solid statistics.

For example, I think prevalence estimates (18% of all American women are rape victims) will be more accurate than incidence estimates (1 American woman in 1,500 was raped in the last year). It's possible to go to past version of the NCVS and combine rape and age statistics to get a prevalence estimate. Then you can compare it to a prevalence survey, which is presumed to be more accurate.

Even if prevalence surveys aren't less prone to lying than incidence surveys, the fact that prevalence is far higher than incidence allows doing a pilot study where a randomly selected half of the respondents are hooked to fake polygraphs. It won't deal with denial or selective memory, but will show if lying is a significant problem.

Alternatively, a pilot study can call people who called rape crisis centers and pretend to be a normal crime survey, but women who call rape crisis centers are presumably less likely to lie than women who don't.

Most racism is also oriented primarily in self-gratification through power and control. Does that mean that race shouldn't be a criterion, either?

It's not the same type of power and control. The power-assertive rapist apparently just wants power, not specifically power over women. More importantly, he doesn't seek to keep women in their places, while people who commit racially motivated hate crimes usually do seek to keep the target group in its place.

An entirely different question is about people who commit crimes against a political minority group not because they're prejudiced against it, but because the government signals that it considers crimes against it to be alright.

I suppose that it's just a coincidence the other categories so disproportionately select female victims as well?

How many of the sexual sadists you met were willing to break taboos against homosexuality by raping men even when female victims were available?

Your comment about rape being something that affects a "specific subset" of women...wow. I'm guessing by "subset" you meant rape victims, but the way you word it sounds like you have some kind of demographic or behavioral profile in mind. And TH already said it best...wrong, it affects all women.

Yes, like it affects all people. The typical rape victim is a low-income woman between the ages of 16 and 25, but high-income people, men, and people outside the 16-25 age bracket are raped just as well, albeit at lower rates. Assuming that the NCVS is accurate, and that the age and income distributions of victims are independent of their gender, high-income women are at a lower risk than low-income men, and 60-year-old women are at a lower risk than 20-year-old men. That doesn't mean rich 60-year-old women are never raped, but like male victims of rape who aren't in prison, they're the exception rather than the rule.

"Yes, like it affects all people. The typical rape victim is a low-income woman between the ages of 16 and 25, but high-income people, men, and people outside the 16-25 age bracket are raped just as well, albeit at lower rates."

Ahhh, right, Alon. That's why young men are told they shouldn't wear tight shirts in the "wrong" part of town because they could be raped.

That's why teenage boys aren't allowed to sleep over at friends' houses because their friends' dads might take advantage of them (an actual rule in my parents' house for a while -- though only for me and my sister, not for my brother).

That's why they develop self-defense classes with a specific emphasis on helping men avoid being raped.

That's why my guy friends get email forwards every day with rape avoidance tips that say "EVERY MAN SHOULD READ THIS."

Well thank you for clearing up how rape affects us all equally, regardless of gender. I will be sure to tell my slutty friend (I mean, she was asking for it, right?) that her rape wasn't a hate crime, and in fact, rape victimizes men just as much as women.

And I can't believe that you actually just said that 60-year-old women are at less risk than 20-year-old men. Just. Wow.

Yeah, I bet those 20-year-old men, what with their young strong muscles and youthful energy, have a hard time getting away from the numerous would-be rapists who are waiting for them in every street corner and alley. I mean, 60-year-old women have canes, so they've got weapons! Those poor 20-year-old boys...

Coast, I'm really trying not to roll my eyes. Here is the bottom line: you posited a potential link, no matter how minor, between rape and mugging. I explained why the two simply could not be thought of as comparable, by showing how very ridiculous the thought was. Calm down, I'm not saying you're a bad person for making the argument, I'm just saying the argument was wrong. There's nothing "knee jerk" about arguing.

How about this, then? Do you think raping and mugging are comparable? If not, then I really don't see why we're still arguing.

hahaha i totally started the rape/mugging analogy...but i was talking about how the two WERENT comparable, which is why diffrent types of violence do have way diffrent contexts...and coasttocoast never actually agreed or said, yes, there not comparable. so while he didnt bring it up i think the
"Do you think raping and mugging are comparable? If not, then I really don't see why we're still arguing." question should clear it all up (hopefully, although i have long stopped reading this thread haha)

Law Fairy: I don't know how to respond to your post. I'm male, I've been raped, and I'm inclined to feel offended by your post. I hope I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.

That's why teenage boys aren't allowed to sleep over at friends' houses because their friends' dads might take advantage of them (an actual rule in my parents' house for a while -- though only for me and my sister, not for my brother).

I wasn't allowed to go to slumber parties either although I slept over at best friend's houses sometimes.

Arturo, I wasn't denying that men are raped. It happens, and it's horrific. I'm just disputing Alon's contention that, on a broad scale, it affects men as much as it affects women. It doesn't. I'm not trying to demean or marginalize the very real pain I can only imagine you must feel. No one should have to go through what you have been through, and I believe our laws ought to punish your rapist to the absolute fullest extent possible.

I am simply saying that the average woman feels the effects of rape more than the average man. This doesn't mean I, who have not been raped, feel these effects as much as you do. I'm saying I (and virtually every other woman alive) feel them much more acutely than the average male, who has not been raped, does.

Alon, It’s true murder doesn’t always entail financial gain.

“Just because Susan Brownmiller asserted without evidence that rape is a way for all men to control all women doesn't make it so. If a man rapes you, you can't know immediately that it's a hate crime, not without having some more relevant information (for example, if that person started stalking you because you were a feminist, then you'd have a more solid case).�

I don’t recall having quoted Brownmiller on this, nor did I ever say that all rape is hate crime; in fact I clearly said that it isn’t. You either didn’t read my comments or didn’t understand them. No, every assault by white/gentile on a black/Jew is not a hate crime, so does that mean that a game where players assume the identity of the white/gentile and score by killing blacks/Jews wouldn’t be problematic? Either way I am done talking about this.
Just one last thing: What I meant by perception is that every woman goes through life conscious of the possibility of getting rape. Every woman modifies and restricts her activities because of that possibility, in ways that no man ever has to be bothered with. It is this oppressive presence in the back of every woman’s mind, whether you want to go on a date or take a little walk in the woods or just be in the supposed safety of your own home. So thanks for explaining to me the difference b/w reality and perception cuz I couldn’t figure that out for myself.

Alon, the answer to your question is that the sexual sadists I met had not victimized males, and I can't answer for them as to how likely they would be to do so, were female victims not "available." How many sexual sadists have YOU met? Or tried to conduct an intervention with?

And something you ignore in your "probabilities" review is that every 60-year-old woman has at one time been a 16-25 year old woman, so chances are she has felt more acutely at risk at some time in her life, rather than escaping that sense of being at risk. Notwithstanding that she no doubt still feels at risk, at age 60. You didn't answer my question, but that doesn't surprise me. I think I have figured you out...you are "feminist-friendly" on the issue of equal pay / wage gaps because it's safe, it's been sufficiently "legitimized" in the popular media, it's been statistically investigated in a way that satisfies you, and you're a numbers guy. You can't quite get behind some other feminist stances because the lived experience of women, as told to you firsthand, doesn't compute as sufficient, credible "data" to you. You put your faith in statistics and research findings that support the view of the world you already had, and that it's convenient and easy for you to maintain. There's nothing convenient or easy for women (yes, and male rape victims) about the issue of rape...either in fearing it, altering our lives to minimize the risk of it, and "proving" its extent and its ramifications to individuals privileged enough not to know its presence in their lives. The antidote to your misguided ranking of the credibility of various sources of information is this: read some Paulo Freire. Immediately.

Your preference for a certain subset of research and statistics, to the exclusion of qualitative data describing lived experience, perfectly encapsulates a major point of epistemological tension that arose as women have tried to gain access to the "academy" so their realities are adequately and accurately investigated and portrayed. And seeing that tension in our debate has actually been very enlightening for me, so thank you. It also, sadly, means that you and I have reached an impasse on this issue. I wish you well in your mathematical pursuits.

does that mean that a game where players assume the identity of the white/gentile and score by killing blacks/Jews wouldn’t be problematic?

Well, there are some games released where you play a Palestinian terrorist whose job is to kill Israelis. Usually the only people who're outraged are oversensitive Zionists who still haven't gotten the memo that the Holocaust is over. Contrariwise, there are games where you play an Israeli whose job is to kill Palestinians, and again outrage is restricted to oversensitive pro-Palestinians.

The antidote to your misguided ranking of the credibility of various sources of information is this: read some Paulo Freire. Immediately.

Okay... mind you, the last time I said similar things about rape, I was referred to Brownmiller. So I read her and reached the conclusion her book has two parts - one that is very good but doesn't support her theory, and one that is certifiably insane.

And I can't believe that you actually just said that 60-year-old women are at less risk than 20-year-old men. Just. Wow.

Yeah, I bet those 20-year-old men, what with their young strong muscles and youthful energy, have a hard time getting away from the numerous would-be rapists who are waiting for them in every street corner and alley. I mean, 60-year-old women have canes, so they've got weapons! Those poor 20-year-old boys...

In the science blogosphere, this is called the argument from incredulity. Usually it's used for evolution - "I refuse to believe humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor; therefore, humans and apes didn't evolve from a common ancestor" - but it can be used in a wide variety of circumstances.

Most rapes aren't by strangers. Rapists aren't "waiting behind every corner and street alley." Hell, it's stereotypes like this that are partly responsible to people's not believing women: they think the average rapist is a 19-year-old black predator who attacks women at random, so when the actual suspect turns out to be an acquaintance of the victim who comes from an intact family, people refuse to believe he might be a rapist.

The same applies to "20-year-old men with their young strong muscles and youthful energy." On average, men are more muscular than women. But you have to choose whether you want to discuss averages, in which case various and sundry generalizations about the typical rape victim apply, or specific cases, in which case you have to acknowledge that many if not most young men don't have physiques even close to the masculine ideal.

Charity, you characterized Alon very well. I hope to read your comments in other threads.

Most rapes aren't by strangers. Rapists aren't "waiting behind every corner and street alley." Hell, it's stereotypes like this that are partly responsible to people's not believing women: they think the average rapist is a 19-year-old black predator who attacks women at random, so when the actual suspect turns out to be an acquaintance of the victim who comes from an intact family, people refuse to believe he might be a rapist.

What are we talking about here again? Women feel vulnerable to rape everywhere especially outside the home because rape was reported this way in the past. Recently we've been told most rape is mostly perpetrated by people women know. It's not a reason people don't believe women either. If anything, people don't believe women who were raped by someone they knew.

If anything, people don't believe women who were raped by someone they knew.

That's what I'm saying: the stereotype that rapes are committed by strangers causes people to disbelieve women who were raped by acquaintances.

I think I have figured you out...you are "feminist-friendly" on the issue of equal pay / wage gaps because it's safe, it's been sufficiently "legitimized" in the popular media, it's been statistically investigated in a way that satisfies you, and you're a numbers guy.

When you want to pejoratively characterize people, you could do better than "you focus on issues on which you can convince people who disagree with you, and on which there's evidence supporting your position."

When you characterize someone like that and mean it in a negative way, someone could interpret that as an implication that you hate reality-based arguments and would rather feminists only talked to the echo chamber, if you get my meaning...

Alon, okay, fair enough, most rapes are by people you know.

That still doesn't mean 20 year old men are at a big enough risk for your point about it affecting men equally to be valid. Now, if you're trying to make a point about how society in general pressures men to want sex and be up for it, all the time, then you've got a good point... but this isn't the same kind of pressure women feel to have sex with a guy so he won't hurt her/break up with her/hurt her reputation/etc. Guys' anxiety, I take it, is much more performance-based. To compare this to the fear of rape is cruel and insensitive.

So what exactly ARE you saying?

Yes, like it affects all people. The typical rape victim is a low-income woman between the ages of 16 and 25, but high-income people, men, and people outside the 16-25 age bracket are raped just as well, albeit at lower rates. Assuming that the NCVS is accurate, and that the age and income distributions of victims are independent of their gender, high-income women are at a lower risk than low-income men, and 60-year-old women are at a lower risk than 20-year-old men. That doesn't mean rich 60-year-old women are never raped, but like male victims of rape who aren't in prison, they're the exception rather than the rule.

So what about TEH MENZ, right? Less than 1 percent of rape is committed by
women so over 99 percent of rape is perpetrated by men. Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault (National Crime Victimization Survey, 1997). The rate of false reports of rape is approximately 2 - 3% which is no different than that for other crimes. This is different than the 8% of reports which are unfounded. This means that in 8% of the rape cases reported the investigators or prosecutors deemed that the case was not prosecutable for any number of reasons. Only 2 - 3% of the reports however were fabricated stories.

http://sa.rochester.edu/masa/stats.php

90% of rape victims are women, 1% of rapists are women and this is a feminist site so what about the menz comments don't belong here.

Donna, you're not arguing with me, but with an MRA strawman.

About your figure for male rape: tell that to the person who commented on my blog saying that I said 10% of rape victims were male while in reality it was only 7%, so I must be a pernicious sexist.

On the other hand, think of it this way: the 1997 survey you quote puts the male sexual assault rate at 30/100,000, compared with 140 for females. But the over-50 rate is 20/100,000, and the rate for married and widowed people is 30/100,000.

According to the 1997 NCVS, an American man in the 16-19 age group is at a higher risk than a woman over 35, and a single man is at a higher risk than a married or widowed woman. The age statistics are stable in the over-65 group, as are the marital status statistics for married people; the statistics for widow(er)s and people in the 50-64 bracket show a somewhat higher rate in other years' surveys.

I wasn't really talking to you but to a number of people on the site who say what about teh menz when 90% of rape victims are women and 1% of rapists are women. It's terrible some men get raped and no one is denying that here. But if it affects women 90% of the time and their rapists are men 99% of the time, it seems out of proportion to constantly bring up the 1% of rapists who are women and 10% of rape victims who are male.

Donna, I'm a little confused. As silly as the "independant of gender" comment was, it seems like you're throwing out statistics hoping to get support. Yes, it's fairly obvious that most rape victims are women, but what does that have to do with the false report rape.

And no, it's not out of proportion to have some comments be about male victims of rape. Raping a woman is no worse than raping a man, and 1/10 is still a significant percentage. And (as I counted) ~9/103 posts were about men being raped. Almost exactly proportional.

If you think the virtual rape stuff is bad in Second Life, you'll really want to check out "Kids Castle."

Yes, it's exactly what you think it is.

I didn't post the stats for support because women here already know what I'm trying to say. What women have a problem with is men who disproportionately cite the rape of men to minimize the rape of women.

Alon, I knew you would throw up the "reality-based" strawman argument. I am not disputing your statistics, I am pointing out that women's descriptions of their experience are equally reality-based, which you continue to trivialize. Again, I'm not sure why that is so threatening a concept.

To put it more eloquently, a quote from Alas, A Blog.

While the problem of male survivors of sexual abuse/assault being left out of the sexual-assault discourse is a real problem that merits attention, it too often gets mentioned as a way to attack efforts to fight sexual violence directed at girls and women or as an excuse to attack feminism or feminists. That exploits male victims and they deserve better.

Are you guys disagreeing about the same thing? Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding myself increasingly confused, and I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what point is being argued because it looks like you're all talking about slightly different things. I'm having trouble seeing exactly where the disagreement is coming from. I'm having a "slow day" though, so maybe I'm just completely misunderstanding something- 3 hours of sleep because my neighbors were having a loud party that apparently involved pounding on the doors and walls all night will do that. =/

Wow, Charity. I wish I had your debating chops.
I have agreed and disagreed with Alon before, usually over interpretation of data. But I could never quite express where/how it was breaking down. Thanks...

I am not disputing your statistics, I am pointing out that women's descriptions of their experience are equally reality-based, which you continue to trivialize.

Presumably, the descriptions of people who will swear to you that they were cured of cancer when a priest touched them are reality-based, too.

I do feel male rape is not recognized when discussing rape. 10% is not a trivial number and it's probably LOWER as males are much less likely to report rape than females (I didn't report it).

What I don't understand is where the disagreement is here?

Wow...I take a week off and look what happens. I'm commenting late on this, and there's a lot of ground to cover, so I'll attempt more brevity than is my usual wont. Having read everyone's comments (and everyone had something interesting to say, including the blokes), here goes:
1) As a gamer with a psych minor I thought I'd take a stab at the "why is video-game rape worse that video-game murder?" question. Orgasm is a powerful form of positive reinforcement. If you have a number of orgasms in the presence of specific sensory stimuli, there's a good chance you'll become aroused when presented with those stimuli again. Thus some people who achieve orgasm while viewing violent images may come to find violent images (or worse, actual violence) desirable and even neccessary for sexual arousal and climax.
Shooting bad guys in a video game may be fun, but it's not orgasm fun--the violent games' psychological "reward" just doesn't have the same lasting effect on the psyche. That's my theory on why one is "worse" than the other, and may be more likely to result in actually altering a person's behavior after continued exposure.
2) Someone (too pressed for time to backscroll, sorry) mentioned a rapist expressing the belief that women aren't that profoundly affected by being raped...they just go back to their lives. I think this is a very important detail. These ideas don't come out of nowhere--they come from a culture that depicts, excuses, minimizes and romanticizes rape so that the act itself becomes normalized--everyone's doing it, it's no big deal... etc. Rather than teaching women 101 ways to "avoid" rape, we should be educating men (who statistically commit far more of them) about the devastating effects rape has on its victims, and debunking the myths our culture has taught them about what rape is, and that it's acceptable behavior.
3) Well actually I don't have time for #3, but maybe I'll get back to it...had to do with the popularity of the "rape fantasy." I left it for last because some of you at least have probably forged a similiar theory...but I'm out of time. Maybe tomorrow...

Debating chops, or glutton for punishment, I'm not sure which! It's probably in everyone's best interest if I stop now.

If you're not hearing, by this point, how what I'm saying differs from "believe everything you hear," Alon, there's not much point continuing. And as I said to another poster, there are volumes and volumes written about women's experience and the phenomenon of rape (beyond Brownmiller, who you seem to take issue with), it's not just coming from a few errant posters on this board. Nothing stopping you from checking out that literature but your own skepticism, I'm afraid.

And your last comparison would hold more water, except... you're someone who obviously hasn't ruled out the validity of self-report entirely, or else you wouldn't base so many of your arguments on self-report surveys. So, you believe self-report only up to and including "yes" or "no" responses, is that it? Because, according to your own logic, how do we know THOSE are accurate? If we continue to nitpick and dodge and weave, it just becomes a quagmire. In doing any assessment of the validity of self-report, you ask yourself, what would be this individual's motivation to lie? What are the primary and secondary gains? So, what would women's motivation be here to misrepresent their experience? We're certainly not gaining anything from it, and in fact we're facing argument and derision from folks like yourself. You're working very hard to refute the significance of rape to women as a group...beyond the "hate crime" issue, even...harder than anyone else. That's worth some serious self-reflection. Oops, I didn't even have any statistical data to back up that last statement. Oh wait, I could count up your comments, I guess...and then calculate your overall percentage of comments....zzzzz....snore.

There are also volumes and volumes written about faith healing. Every collection of nuts produces literature that professes to give all the relevant information. Any movement with more people than a small commune can produce a practically unlimited number of anecdotes illustrating anything - that porn causes rape, that universities discriminate against conservatives, that all white people are racists, or that faith healing works. Hell, Scientology brims with people who will swear to you that they know from personal experience that Hubbard's psycho-babble is true and could fill shelves with books about the positive psychological effects of their cult.

That's why it's so important to have data, as opposed to unrepresentative anecdotes.

Alon, you're obfuscating by taking this out to an unhelpful level of abstraction. For one thing, your implied derisive scoffing at religious experiences is rude and uncalled-for, aside from being a total red herring.

Here is the bottom line: what we're talking about is the actual, psychological effects of rape on women in the general population. You're trying to dispute that women FEEL the threat of rape by relying on the fact that men are raped too. I can't think of a more ridiculously distorted dichotomy. That men are raped (in much lower numbers than women) has nothing to do with the fact that rape often is a hate crime against women. It's as ridiculous as pretending that a burning cross in a white family's yard is as threatening as a burning cross in a black family's yard. It's as ridiculous as claiming that white people had reason in the past to fear lynching just as much as black people did. It's absurd, demeaning, and unhelpful.

What is your point, exactly? That women should stop fighting against rape? That women should "man up" and stop fearing it?

I mean, are you actually suggesting that women need to "prove" that they fear rape, in order for that fear to be legitimate? And if so, how the hell are we supposed to "prove" it in your world, since apparently attesting to it does not meet your persnickety standards of proof?

This is off topic, a little, but it's important to me to express sympathy and support to Arturo. Arturo, I am so sorry this happened to you and I understand your confusion. Everytime rape comes up on this blog, there is debate over whether rape is a "natural" animal behavior and over rape data; I have thoughts on this but have bowed out of these arguments for my own reasons. It's a great blog - don't let this drive you off. I am so sorry for what happened to you. My own rape 20 or so years ago was a violation of trust, but was not particularly violent (he stopped when I WOKE UP an expressed outrage). Sadly, I think violation of trust is the "best case" scenerio for what ANYONE takes away from rape. I wish you whatever healing you can find.

what we're talking about is the actual, psychological effects of rape on women in the general population.

No, that what you decided to talk about to subjectivize the conversation. The topic of most of this thread is whether rape is generally a hate crime; I've shown very conclusively that it isn't. I've also shown that the media overhypes the risk of rape, as it does the risk of every crime, and as such the average American woman's fear of rape is as rational as the average American man's fear of murder. This has nothing to do with how much psychological damage rape causes.

What is your point, exactly?

That the best way to combat rape is based on successful ways to combat murder and assault: more cops on the street, more money for anti-poverty programs, shifting law enforcement focus from drugs to violent crime.

There are additional strategies that have similar themes but are more rape-specific. For example, a big chunk of rapes happen when the perpetrator is drunk, and another big chunk happen when the victim is drunk, so doing something to reduce binge drinking - preferably something more effective than a puritan drinking age - will help. For another example, strategies aimed at increasing reporting rates, like making it easier to report anonymously, explaining to cops that there are few false reports and even fewer false reports that finger a specific person, and requiring the victim's consent before criminal prosecution, could reduce the rape rate; rape rates tend to fall with rising reporting rates.

Another thing that might help with reducing rape is chemical castration. While there might be some constitutional issues with involuntary castration, voluntary castration has been used with some success to treat pedophiles.

The problem with chemical castration is that it only helps reduce recidivism. In addition, since unlike pedophiles, rapists are mostly motivated by anger issues rather than sex, so castration will likely just turn a rapist into an aggravated assaulter. And that assumes recidivism is a problem among convicted rapists.

Although in this thread I've argued against the hate crime view of rape, I think the sex crime view is just as wrong.

Alon, you don't think the psychological effects of a crime on a subgroup of the population is relevant to determining whether or not something is a hate crime??? How do you define a hate crime??

I thought everyone defines hate crimes as crimes whose intended purpose is to intimidate a group.

On another note, does the lack of commentary on my anti-rape proposals indicate that you agree with them (I'm asking this seriously, not rhetorically)?

I think all the things you suggested would be good and useful, of course. They're unlikely to happen because it's much easier not to rock the boat and let cops keep their preconceived notions particularly with respect to false reporting statistics.

My understanding of hate crimes is that they are crimes committed against persons primarily BECAUSE of some characteristic such as gender, sexual orientation, or race. Thus the effect will often be to intimidate members of that group, whether or not that was the intent of the perpetrator.

Well, the main defense I've read of hate crime legislation analogizes hate crimes to premeditated murder. Just like having specifically intended to kill the target makes a homicide aggravated, so is having specifically intended to intimidate a group makes any crime aggravated.

The New Yrok statute is unclear on the definition. On the one hand, it says,

in these crimes, commonly and justly referred to as "hate crimes", victims are intentionally selected, in whole or in part, because of their race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexu- al orientation.

On the other, it says,

1. A person commits a hate crime when he or she commits a specified offense and either: (a) intentionally selects the person against whom the offense is committed or intended to be committed in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct, or (b) intentionally commits the act or acts constituting the offense in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct. 2. Proof of race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of the defend- ant, the victim or of both the defendant and the victim does not, by itself, constitute legally sufficient evidence satisfying the people's burden under paragraph (a) or (b) of subdivision one of this section.

By the way, there's no such jurisdiction as New Yrok (though "Yrok" could be a gross misspelling of "Iraq"...). I was talking about the New York statute.

I figured, Alon :)

From a quick reading of the statute it seems to me that it pretty clearly covers crimes where someone is specifically selected because of race/sex/etc., without regard to any specific intent to intimidate any others of that group. The language about "perception," I'm fairly certain, means simply that the perpetrator believes that the victim has protected characteristic X and for this reason commits the crime, but it does not matter whether or not this perception was correct.

Thus, if someone beats a man thinking he is homosexual, even if the man is not in fact homosexual and the belief was mistaken, the perpetrator has committed a hate crime in spite of the incorrect belief.

I'm not familiar with the relevant New York case law construing the statute -- obviously the case law would add depth to the analysis of the statute's meaning.

Alon said:
I've also shown that the media overhypes the risk of rape, as it does the risk of every crime, and as such the average American woman's fear of rape is as rational as the average American man's fear of murder. This has nothing to do with how much psychological damage rape causes.

I think this statement most clearly expresses that you're missing what so many of us have been trying to say, Alon. You're right about the media, and the way it inundates us all with rape imagery, etc.--what I think you're underestimating is the overall effect this has on women in general. You compare a woman's (irrational) fear of rape to a man's (irrational) fear of murder. Do you, as a man, have a moment every time you find yourself in a situation in which you are alone with a man you don't know well, where you wonder, however fleetingly, is he going to murder me? Somehow, I doubt it. But I think that the kind of "rape paranoia" cultivated in women about rape leads them to do just that with men. Is it rational? No, not really. Is it fair to all the decent men out there who would never rape a woman, or even have the thought enter their minds? Hell, no. But that is exactly how profound a psychogical effect the endless stream of media and lifetime diet of societal messages depicting women-as-victims have on women in general. Because we're taught (from a very early age) that ANY man is a potential rapist--EVERY man. They don't come with convenient labels. They can be the brother of your best friend, that nice guy across the street, the teenage brother of the kid you're babysitting--and so on. Men who would never rape a woman have the luxury of knowing that. Women don't, unless the men express that to them--and even then, if it's uttered in the wrong context, it might serve to alarm her further. And it doesn't preclude the possibility that they might be lying. Which puts us right back into the All men are potential rapists attitude, doesn't it?
Male posters reading this probably find it deeply offensive, the notion that every woman they didn't know well that they've been alone with for the first time wondered if you might be planning to rape them. Because you're not a rapist. And it is. It's damned offensive that every man has to be judged this way, and that every woman who allows herself to be alone with a man for the first time is essentially rolling the dice and hoping this is one of the "good ones." Because if it isn't (she's been told) it's her fault. Her poor judgement in trusting him led to her being raped. What did she expect? She allowed herself to be alone with a man she didn't know well, took a chance he wouldn't hurt her, and he did. This is the psychological effect female posters have been trying to articulate--it gets hairy because men (quite reasonably) get defensive and throw out the "You think all men are rapists!" accusation, and women have to backpedal and apologize for generalizing, etc. But the fact is, we do generalize. We have to. Because we know if it does happen, we won't be commended for having blinders on, for having faith that men are generally good and decent. We'll be condemned for it. We should have known better.
Yes, it's unfair and offensive. which is why it needs to STOP. But that won't happen until rape is a rare occurance, until we no longer live in a society that decries rape on its face, but enables it at every turn and never fails to remind us it could happen to us anytime, anywhere, by anyone.
I want to clarify that I'm not talking about actual rapes here. I'm trying to make the distinction between the devastating psycological effects of being raped and the overarching rape paranoia that society cultivates in women. Men can and have been raped, and the damaging effects are just as damaging as they are for women. But men, as a rule, aren't raised to wonder if I do X, if I go to Y, if I trust him, will I be raped? in countless everyday social situations. This may make the effect of actually being raped as a man all the more emotionally shattering, because he's not, shall we say, "prepared" for it. Maybe not. I don't know.
But that's not the point, here. I think what the female posters have been trying to express here is that everpresent what-if regarding rape that's always lurking in the back of our minds, and how difficult it is to go about our lives that way, knowing the fear is irrational and unfair to men, but too afraid to completely dismiss it, to think "it'll never happen to me" and be found culpable when it does...which it does with alarming frequency.
So, male posters, if you're offended by this, try to step beyond your knee-jerk defensive reaction and try to see things from our perspective--and then, being aware of it, try to think of ways to combat it. Because believe me, we women don't enjoy not being able to give you all the trust-without-reservation you deserve. It's not fair, nor is it fun.
I don't have any statistical studies to back this up, of course--so maybe I'm wrong. The other women here might need to chime in and say whether this is their experience or not. Maybe it's just me who's paranoid? Anyway, sorry for the HUGE post. I just wanted to try and articulate what I think most of the female posters thus far have been trying to express. Plus, I was kinda on a roll... ;)

Oh, almost forgot. Since Alon asked for opinions on his suggestion:
the best way to combat rape is based on successful ways to combat murder and assault: more cops on the street, more money for anti-poverty programs, shifting law enforcement focus from drugs to violent crime.

My initial response was, more cops on the street won't stop many rapes, because very few rapes occur on the street. But snark aside, what you suggest probably wouldn't hurt. However, I think a major shift in societal attitudes regardig rape is neccessary in order for us to make any significant progress in reducing the incidents of rape.

Verv, that was really well put.

I have DEFINITELY been in situations numerous times where I was alone with a guy I didn't know well and wondered, "is he going to rape me?" Hell, I wondered it at one point about the last guy I dated. I wonder it when an angry-looking man steps onto the elevator.

You're absolutely right about the social stigma. I fear that almost as much as I fear the act of being physically raped. If you're raped, you're marked with a kind of scarlet letter for life, EVEN THOUGH YOU DID NOTHING WRONG. Social attitudes about rape are how society maintains power over women.

So in effect, we ARE all victimized by it, in a unique way that men (as a whole) are not.

I wonder it when an angry-looking man steps onto the elevator.

They don't even have to look angry. I feel very unsafe in an elevator with one or two men. They can stop the elevator. It's terrible to feel this vulnerable.

And it is bad for all of society because I can tell the men make an effort to act like they're harmless.

Wow, Vervain, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.
Further proof of it lies in the countless precautions women are required to take (and which regularly crop up here) to avoid being raped. You can't get out alone at night, you can't get drunk, you have to watch your glass all the time. If someone drives you home, even if he's an acquaintance, you have that pang of fear until you arrive safely home, etc. I don't think men know what it's like to live with that threat everytime they step out of the house...
It's much like the fear of unwanted pregnancy, actually. It's a gut-level fear and I think women are the only ones who really know what it feels like. It's not rational, it can't be expressed in statistics, but it's nonetheless valid.

that pang of fear until you arrive safely home

You're not safe at home either. When I live alone, I always check around to see if anyone's in the closet, etc.

I think Alon has a point, but it's sort of sideways to the point everyone else is making.

As a woman, I can say it is absolutely true that the effect of rape is to terrorize women. We do live in fear, we do alter our behavior, we do worry about things men don't have to. Some of us find this crippling, some of us cannot work in an occupation we might otherwise choose, because of the fear.

But most rapes are not hate crimes, because a hate crime must be *committed* with the *intent* to terrorize the target group. And I believe that posters up above who have actually interviewed rapists found that they don't understand the psychological effect rape has on women.

There are certainly rapes that *are* committed as hate crimes. I have seen men on blogs use the threat of rape as a deliberate attempt to intimidate female posters. Rape can be used as a deliberate tactic to terrorize women as a group, to keep women "in their place", or to express rage against women as a group, and it can also be used as a hate crime against an ethnicity to single out the women of that group and rape them.

But I do not believe that the majority of rapes are committed for that reason. A lot of acquaintance rapes are committed because the guy wants sex and thinks he's entitled to it -- because he bought her dinner, because he thinks women play hard to get, because he thinks of sex as a game where the woman is "base" and he's "scoring a goal" and so tactics like getting her drunk are all part of the game. These kind of rapes certainly come from failing to recognize that women are human and have rights to their own bodies. But they are not *committed* for the purpose of terrorizing the woman, or women in general. They are committed because the rapist considers the feelings of his victim irrelevant; all he cares about is sexual pleasure. In fact, he might even believe that she likes it, though obviously he doesn't really care enough to find out.

So when Alon says "rape is not a hate crime" and brings up statistics, I believe what he's saying is that we cannot globally classify rape as a hate crime because it's always man on woman any more than we could classify all robberies or murders of black people at the hands of white people as hate crimes (if the convenience store clerk is black, and the white robber shoots him, he's doing it to steal what's in the till, not because he wants to terrorize black people.) Yes, rape is almost always men against women, and yes, rape has the *effect* of terrorizing women, but to the rapist that is not always the *purpose* (given how often women are raped by men they know well, I might argue it's not usually the purpose). Therefore it is not, in and of itself, a hate crime. Like murder and assault, it is a tactic that can be used as part of a hate crime, but like murder and assault, that's not always why it's done.

This is why the whole concept of hate crime is somewhat problematic, because you actually have to judge what the purpose of the crime was and the intent of the criminal, not just the effect on the victim. I was robbed twice this year, and that has made me paranoid, anxious and insecure, but the goal of the robbers was to get my credit cards and cash, not to have an emotional effect on me. Therefore it was not a hate crime. Sometimes rape *is* committed because the rapist wants sex; sometimes it's committed because the rapist wants power over someone he can easily defeat and humiliate, and women are just easier targets than other men. It's not always done to express hatred of women.

Hear, hear, donna and TLF and others. Wanted to add...making choices about how we are listed in the phone book and on our outside mailboxes, or how / when / where we give out our address / phone number, to avoid conveying "a woman lives here alone." Putting off having a repairman come over until others will be around, or being hypervigilant during their visit (I usually call a friend to pretend to talk about something, in case i need help...) Avoiding walking past a parked car with a man sitting in it, even in broad daylight. Making concessions to avoid angering, or potentially angering, a man we are alone with. A pervasive sense of vulnerability that defies logical probabilities, but that's not an uncommon phenomenon by any means. Not "rational" in Alon's preferred sense of the term (I'll note that he vacillates between advocating rational versus empirical ways of knowing, at times conflating the two), but my actual experience nonetheless.

And Alara, I am a poster who has interviewed rapists, and it was my point that some of them (sorry I can't give you a percentage) do understand the effect it has on victims, and that is their intended effect. It was another poster who cited research that indicated some rapists don't understand the effects. However, that research (which has not been specified, I'll add) seemed to indicate that the expected LACK of effect on the victim was in direct relationship to their status as a woman. And if the research is accurate, this reveals a different, perhaps even more insidious form of "othering" of women as a cultural group. Because it would take some serious influencing (cultural or otherwise) to come to the conclusion that women wouldn't mind something so horrific and logically violating. So the cultural variable was still present...and i'll add that many crimes throughout history against certain cultural groups have also been characterized by a cold, unfeeling "othering" and dehumanization.

Wikipedia says hate crimes are violent crimes motivated by feelings of enmity against an identifiable social group. Alot of rapists have enmity towards women so alot of rapes are hate crimes.

Hate crimes are violent crimes, hate speech or vandalism, motivated by feelings of enmity against an identifiable social group.

The devaluation of women and misogyny are pervasive in society and most rapists harbor this hatred towards women so rape is a hate crime.

Just to clarify, my last comment wasn't tackling the "rape as a hate crime" issue at all. I was just trying to more clearly articulate the references female posters were making about the general psychological effect of rape (or rather the threat of rape) on women, because I thought the male posters, being male, might not neccessarily fully grasp just how deeply that fear is ingrained in women, or how much of an impact it has upon how we live our lives.

But as far as the rape-is-a-hate-crime argument goes, I think it really depends on how you define "hate crime." I've seen it defined here in two ways:
1) As an attack on an individual based solely on their membership in a specific group, or the attacker's *perception* of their victim as belonging to that group--in which case a man who commits rape because he thinks all women are sluts, or because as a man, I'm entitled to sex whenever and however I want it, could be fairly described as committing a hate crime.
2) As something specifically done to an individual member of a targeted group with the clear intent to terrorize all members of that group, to "make an example of 'em for the others"--in that case I'd say no, not all rapes are hate crimes, if only because I doubt many rapists ever go so far as to articulate precisely that sentiment/intention, even to themselves, even if subconsciously that's the basis of the underlying attitude that led them to do it.

So really it depends on whether or not you think something is only a hate crime if the perpetrator specifically intends it as an example or warning to the targeted group the victim belongs (or is seen to belong) to. Personally I think that's too narrow a definition. I think in the case of many gay-bashing incidents, the intent of the assailants is not so much to terrorize all gays as it is to just terrorize the individual for being gay. It's still a hate crime, in my book. The mass intimidation is just a (to the attacker, beneficial) side effect of the attack.

I randomly thought of a hate crime that occured in Ann Arbor, Michigan in which two frat boys peed on two Asian students from a balcony while yelling ethnic invectives. They didn't set out to terrorize Asians but it was racially motivated. It was a hate crime because it was motivated by feelings of enmity towards Asians.

The hate crime aspect also hinges on whether the rapist attacked the woman because of her being a woman, as opposed to it being about sex. I've seen it mentioned many times that rape is indeed about control and domination, not sex. I'd be interested to read any studies or surveys that produced that conclusion.

It has also been noted, many times, that a person is more likely to be raped by someone close to him or her. And when you consider a rape outside of the stereotypical context of the masked juvenile in an alley, it becomes more difficult to assume the rape is about domination. I'm thinking specifically about a drunken hookup gone awry, or something similar.

Just musing on semantics. I mean, whether it's a hate crime or not may not be particularly important. It's a violent crime however you cut it.

My initial response was, more cops on the street won't stop many rapes, because very few rapes occur on the street.

The main point is always to make the cops come more quickly when you call 911. Few murders occur on the streets, too, but apparently having more cops helps reduce homicide rates.

tRJ, I disagree. It seems to me that when the rape happens in the context of people who know each other, it becomes far more obviously about domination and far more obviously a hate crime. Because what you have is two people who know each other personally, and then one of them dehumanizes the other because of her gender despite the fact that he knows that she is a real person, because he knows said person. It boils down to him deciding that her personhood is trumped by her membership in the group "women" and that therefore he can do what he wants.

I can't imagine what you mean by "a drunken hookup gone awry." As Tom's pointed out before, it's not hard not to rape someone.

"The main point is always to make the cops come more quickly when you call 911. Few murders occur on the streets, too, but apparently having more cops helps reduce homicide rates."

Hmmmm... I don't think that's the point at all. If I'm hanging out with a guy I'm dating, and he starts going too far with me and I tell him to stop but he doesn't, I'm really not going to be able to call 911 until after it's over. Prevention that late in the game doesn't cut it with rape. Rape is not as clean-cut a crime as murder -- rape is MADE MORE POSSIBLE by the sheer intimidation and subjugation of women. The sense of entitlement that rapists have makes it extremely difficult for a woman to prevent it. Many women who have been raped express the fear of doing anything to stop it, lest the rapist hurt them even worse. Rape itself is a form of terrorism. You can't exactly call the cops when you're frozen with fear.

You're looking at rape as though it is a straightforward crime like assault. It isn't. If someone's beating me up, everyone around me will acknowedge that this is wrong, and someone may call the cops for me. If someone witnessed my rape, there's a fair chance they wouldn't think anything wrong was happening at all. Saying that "more cops" somehow answers the question, frankly, puts the impetus right back on the victim, which is precisely the problem.

Oh but of course, 10% of rapes are committed against men (any stats, by the way, on what percentage of that occurs in prison, and what percentage occurs because the rapist believes the victim to be gay?) so everything that's coming out of my mouth is therefore gibberish. Silly me, I forgot.

EG, murder happens between acquaintances, too. About 75% of all solved homicides in the US are committed by an acquaintance of the victim, and the plurality circumstance is argument.

Although it's easy not to rape, people with anger problems are more prone to violence when they're under the influence.

Hates crime is thought crime.

Why is a murder committed because the murderer hates the victim worse than a murder committed because the murderer wants the victim's money?

Should a rapist who rapes just to satisfy his sexual urges (ex: a drunken date rape) receive a shorter sentence than the guy who rapes because he hates women (ex: the back alley rapist)?

I can't imagine what you mean by "a drunken hookup gone awry."

Well, I was thinking of a scenario where what began as consensual sex moved into a gray area on account of someone passing out (drunk, or what have you) without actually consenting. Or something along those lines.

I was just ruminating on the sex vs. control issue. It seems like there are times when it would, in fact, be about the sex.

But, again, it's a semantic point.

any stats, by the way, on what percentage of that occurs in prison, and what percentage occurs because the rapist believes the victim to be gay?

I'm fairly sure it's zero. The NCVS doesn't poll inmates. There are separate studies for prison rape, which I haven't quoted because they give figures ranging from slightly higher than the total number of non-prison male rapes to higher than the total number of non-prison rapes. The NCVS is in the process of designing a survey for prison rape, but it hasn't published any results yet.

You're looking at rape as though it is a straightforward crime like assault.

Uh, yes. Given that assault rates display a very similar pattern to rape rates, I think it makes a lot of sense. Not all women will call the police, of course. None of my ideas will do anything spectacular to sexual assault rates, at least not each on its own. A minority of women will call the police during the act; a minority of men and women will reconsider binge drinking; a minority of women will call the police after the act.

Saying that "more cops" somehow answers the question, frankly, puts the impetus right back on the victim, which is precisely the problem.

What sort of policies do you think will work that don't put the impetus on the victim?

Alon, you yourself suggested some better ideas earlier -- the key is raising reporting rates. This isn't easy, since reporting rates are low due in large part to social stigma, and social stigma is damn hard to eradicate. But things like police training and allowing anonymous reporting might be steps in the right direction.

I think the women here have tried our damnedest to demonstrate to you why rape is different from assault. At this point it comes down to, either you are able to put yourself in our shoes and empathize, or you are not. If you aren't, then I simply don't know how to explain to you any better than has already been done that rape is importantly different from assault. Assault does not disproportionately terrorize an oppressed subgroup of the population. Being assaulted does not carry the stigma that being raped does. Being raped is worse, and it affects women disproportionately. I really and honestly don't know how to make it more clear to you.

Raging Moderate, have you not been reading all the comments in this thread? Granted, it's a long thread, but we've already covered this. Frankly, I'm surprised that you don't understand how a hate crime is worse. A hate crime is not a thought crime. A hypothetical thought crime is a crime of thought and nothing else. No such statutes exist on our books because of the First Amendment. A hate crime is an act that is ALREADY a crime, coupled with a specific form of intent that we as a society have determined causes more harm and thus should be more harshly penalized. This is hardly a novel concept. We use it to, for example, distinguish between first- and second-degree murder. Theoretically, it shouldn't make a difference whether a murder is premeditated or not, correct? The person is dead either way. Yet we criminalize the same action differently depending on the perpetrator's frame of mind. In the case of murder, it's because we want to deter people from plotting murder. We think this is more harmful to society in the aggregate. Similarly, we want to deter people from taking actions that disproportionately terrorize an oppressed group. Again, we think it is more harmful in the aggregate than is a collection of random criminal acts.

"Well, I was thinking of a scenario where what began as consensual sex moved into a gray area on account of someone passing out (drunk, or what have you) without actually consenting."

But how is that hazy? Don't have sex with someone who's unconscious--that's not consensual! Using somebody else's body sexually without their permission is rape.

Alon, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue with me about--I never said that murder didn't largely happen between acquaintances.

"Why is a murder committed because the murderer hates the victim worse than a murder committed because the murderer wants the victim's money?"

That's not what a hate crime means, RM. If I decide the hell with it, I'm going to finally off some guy at work because I just hate his guts, that's not a hate crime. It's a hate crime if I kill someone because they are a member of a hated group. Like TLF said.

TLF, lately, I seem to just be reading your posts and nodding in agreement!

Well, it at least sounded as if you were trying to use the fact that most rapes happen between acquaintances as evidence that rape is a hate crime.

TLF, trying to explain isn't enough. Creationists try very hard to explain to people why evolution couldn't have happened. Just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean you're right about it.

I was addressing tRJ's post, in which he suggested that said fact argued against rape being a hate crime. I think it's a pretty neutral fact, hate-crime-wise, myself.

"TLF, trying to explain isn't enough. Creationists try very hard to explain to people why evolution couldn't have happened. Just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean you're right about it."

Oh Jesus Alon. I will overlook your unfairly dismissive attitude toward religion for the time being and focus on the faulty analogy instead.

This isn't women trying to say "this is why men rape." THAT would be akin to your creationism analogy. This is women saying "this is how rape affects us." This is more akin to testimony about religious experiences, which you've also unfairly disparraged but for which you have presented no (and cannot present any) counter-evidence.

Again, you must make the decision whether you will step outside your own reality and accept the fact that other people face problems you don't automatically understand, or you can decide that because my reality doesn't match up with yours mine must be "wrong." Bear in mind here that your decision somewhat mirrors the decision society is faced with -- that is to say, you can sit in condemnation of women who say they were coerced into sex, refusing to acknowledge the validity of their point of view, or you can actually listen to what they say and consider the possibility that it might be true.

I mean, frankly, Alon, your own arguments here are evidence themselves that rape is a unique social problem.

No, my arguments here are evidence that some feminists view rape as a unique social problem. You keep trying to argue with me as if I was legitimizing rape, which suggests that what you call "my own argument" isn't really my own arguments, but the arguments you'd like me to make so that you can peg me as a standard issue concern troll and move on.

Also, I haven't been dismissive of religion in this post, only of faith healing and creationism.

Alon, I'm not trying to peg you as a troll, I'm trying to peg you as stubborn. Which you are. You have lots of women TELLING you that rape affects us in ways other crimes simply do not, and you keep throwing back at us "there's no evidence, there's no evidence." If that's not denying us our voice I don't know what is.

In a thread where the main incorrect viewpoint is advanced by women, of course I'll deny the women their right to their own facts more. So what? If there were more men in this thread saying something wrong about rape, I'd deny them their right to their own facts, too. Only they would call it "arguing with them."

*blink*

Alon, they are talking about their experiences. Not yours. Theirs.

They cannot, by definition, be incorrect about their own experiences.

I don't understand why you insist on arguing this point.

Cheers,

TH

Because they don't just talk about their own experiences. They say, in general, that rape is a hate crime, and bring up their own experiences as anecdotes illustrating that it is.

Wow Alon. So I guess black folks getting all worked up about burning crosses in their front yards are just getting their panties in a bunch about nothing, hmmm? I mean, it's no worse than when it happens to white people, right?

Right rape is a hate crime against women and we feel the threat of this hate crime every day. I was just down in the lobby of a hotel using a computer and felt threatened every time someone passed behind me in the hallway. I didn't know if they would be male or female. No matter. I felt vulnerable every time someone came through.

Hate crimes are more debilitating because they take power and agency away from their victims. If I were ever a victim of a hate crime because I were Asian, it would debilitate me greatly. It would make me feel even more marginalized, hated and disempowered than minorities already are. I'd feel as debilitated and disempowered if I were raped.

Here's a better way than I just put it, I think.

Alon, you are denying the validity of this particular type of evidence (women's experiences of being terrorized). On what basis do you exclude this but (presumably) not other evidence? What criteria do the data have to meet in order to qualify, by your standards, and why are your standards the correct ones?

So I guess black folks getting all worked up about burning crosses in their front yards are just getting their panties in a bunch about nothing, hmmm? I mean, it's no worse than when it happens to white people, right?

The frequency of cross burnings in US history correlates very strongly with KKK activity, rather than with the general property crime rate.

Also, I'm pretty sure white people who the KKK burned crosses on the front lawns of were pretty terrorized, too...

I felt vulnerable every time someone came through.

I'm not denying that you fear rape. What I am denying is that that fear is realistic. The starting point of risk perception research is that people's fear of risks is based on things other than the probability of the risk and the magnitude of its consequences. In that light, saying "I fear that, so it's bad" is almost like how libertarians throw out all social science research they don't like by saying "I'm not like that" or even "people are individuals."

They say, in general, that rape is a hate crime, and bring up their own experiences as anecdotes illustrating that it is.

We can imagine what it's like to be raped because we hear about it all the time from the media and from other women. Our lived experience as women in constant fear of rape and its consequences gives us a grounded reality men don't have.

Like someone said upthread, we would be blamed if we weren't constantly vigilant of rape. We fear not only rape but the consequences of rape (i.e. not being believed, i.e. being called a slut) which almost always occur afterwards.

You're a college freshman right? Is it finals week. Trolling blogs is a stress reliever.

I'm a first year grad student, and the only final I have left is on Thursday and requires just going over my notes a few dozen times on Wednesday.

We can imagine what it's like to be raped because we hear about it all the time from the media and from other women.

You keep mentioning the media, which overhypes crime in the US to a gigantic degree. For example, in the 1990s, reported crime went down 15% (actual crime went down even more; between '95 and '99, the NCVS registered a 27% drop in crime), while media reports of crime went up 600%. It's why Americans fear crime more than Brits, even though the crime rate in England and Wales is twice the crime rate in the US, and ditto for the violent crime rate.

"I'm not denying that you fear rape. What I am denying is that that fear is realistic. The starting point of risk perception research is that people's fear of risks is based on things other than the probability of the risk and the magnitude of its consequences. In that light, saying "I fear that, so it's bad" is almost like how libertarians throw out all social science research they don't like by saying "I'm not like that" or even "people are individuals.""

First, who are you to say whether it's realistic? I'm not asking that to be snotty, I'm serious. What makes something "realistic"? We're told that rape is vastly underreported and that at least half (more?) of women can expect to be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. What makes it unrealistic to fear something that 1) we're told is relatively common and 2) reflect badly on the VICTIMS? What is "unrealistic" about that?

Second, even if it is unrealistic, so what? As I've said before, rape is terrorism, and it is successful terrorism. Americans have irrational fear in the wake of 9/11. Does the fact that the fear of terrorism is disproportionate to the actual risk, mean that terrorism is not actually terrorism? That terrorism against Americans is not a hate crime?

Alon, what are you trying to accomplish? What would you like to see happen?

Cheers,

TH

We're told that rape is vastly underreported and that at least half (more?) of women can expect to be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes.

It's something that actually took me a lot of time to wrap my head around, as I kept arguing that, no, based on the latest NCVS data it had to be 5% (the prevalence studies I've seen give figures around 18% for rape). What I had missed was that as US rape rates were dropping, it made no sense to estimate prevalence just from today's figure.

Put another way: assuming sexual assault rates hold steady, a 12-year-old American girl has a 5% chance of being raped in her lifetime, and another 5% chance of being sexually assaulted short of rape. But in the past they were a lot higher; hence, more than 10% of American women are sexual assault victims.

Americans have irrational fear in the wake of 9/11. Does the fact that the fear of terrorism is disproportionate to the actual risk, mean that terrorism is not actually terrorism? That terrorism against Americans is not a hate crime?

In terms of definitions, there's a crucial difference, namely intention. Terrorism is generally defined as committing violence against civilians in order to terrorize them into supporting the terrorist's political cause - say, giving his country independence. Rape is only a hate crime if it's committed with the expressed purpose of keeping women in their place, then.

A completely different question is an operative one. My main point about rape isn't that the legal definitions of hate crimes don't include it, but that the best approach to combat it draws heavily from approaches that have worked for murder or assault or robbery, rather than from approaches that have worked for domestic violence or hate murders or terrorism.

Tom, I didn't respond to your comment, but the above comment contains a response, in a way. What sort of crime rape is determines what the best way to fight it is. For example, I'm reasonably certain castration won't do much, because of the evidence I've seen that sexual assault is more a violent crime than a sex crime, in stark contrast to pedophilia.

"In terms of definitions, there's a crucial difference, namely intention. Terrorism is generally defined as committing violence against civilians in order to terrorize them into supporting the terrorist's political cause - say, giving his country independence. Rape is only a hate crime if it's committed with the expressed purpose of keeping women in their place, then."

I think I see the problem, then. You are mis-defining hate crimes. What you stated is too narrow a definition of a hate crime. You yourself cited the New York statute, which encompasses a broader view of hate crimes.

A crime does not have to have the INTENT of terrorizing a group of people, in order to in fact cause such terrorism. I and other women here have made this ABUNDANTLY clear.

Alon,
Did you read my posts? I realize they're quite long and maybe rather daunting, but I did make a pretty concerted (and I thought, fairly effective) effort try to rebut a number of the assertions you keep reiterating.
#1: I'm not denying that you fear rape. What I am denying is that that fear is realistic."

I said that, too. I called it "rape paranoia" actually. I also pointed out that while we know the fear is irrational and unrealistic, we nevertheless have no choice but to continue to indulge it, because if we let our guard down and are raped, we will be told it is our fault it happened, because we didn't sufficiently guard against it.

#2: "You keep mentioning the media, which overhypes crime in the US to a gigantic degree."
The other half of my point about "rape paranoia." We're constantly told that we can be raped anytime, anywhere, by any man, and yet we're expected to nevertheless somehow avoid it by following an endless list of precautions that add up to, essentially, never leave the house (all doors and windows being locked, or course) and never be alone. We're also told that if we fail to be appropriately hypervigilant bunnyrabbits constantly scanning all quarters for lurking predators, it's our fault for failing to be vigilant enough. This is the effect of that overhyping media (which we aren't denying overhypes crime!) has on women, and it may well be (at least subconsciously) overhyped deliberately, in order to keep women contained and fearful. Can you think of an example of a comparable form of constant, paranoid hypervigilance being cultivated in men? I can't, but then I'm not a man. If you can't either, maybe you'll concede that in the minds of women, rape is unique among other violent crimes for this reason?

#3: "Rape is only a hate crime if it's committed with the expressed purpose of keeping women in their place, then."
Yup, I covered this too. Would you consider it a "hate crime" if someone attacked a black or gay man solely because he was black or gay, not with the specific intent to set an example to other blacks or gays that "you'll get more of the same" but just because they're racist or homophobic and are expressing their hatred through violent assault? Because I would. And if I'm not mistaken, most anti-hate-crime laws agree with me.

Finally, a question: Are statistics the only form of evidence you consider valid? If you eat eggs for breakfast but no one sees you do it, can I then insist that because statistically more people eat cereal for breakfast, therefore you couldn't possibly have eaten eggs, unless you can provide eggs-for-breakfast statistics to counter my cereal-for-breakfast ones? Doesn't your personal experience and knowledge of the fact that you ate eggs this morning count for anything?
Or, alternatively, if you have 10 people come into a room from outside and you ask what the weather's like out there, and 9 tell you it's raining and 1 says it isn't, do you take an umbrella when you go out? All the female posters here are essentially telling you it's raining out there, and you're continuing to shake your head and insist that you it isn't, just because the US rainfall statistics for this time of year are reasonably low. That's just silly.

I honestly don't think you could have failed to understand any of these arguments (mine or other commenters') because you're clearly an intelligent person. I can't imagine you're being deliberately obtuse, either, because I've read your posts for some time and I don't consider you a troll. I think you often have a differing viewpoint and enjoy debating, but I don't think you come here just to stir shit up in the trollish sense. So I have to conclude you just didn't have time to read all the comments in this very long thread. And I hope later when you have more time, you will.

Oh, and the "most rapes don't occur on the street" thing was intended as a joke. I didn't mean it literally (although some people ran with it as such.)

Wow! This discussion is still going on!
Ok, it seems to me that we have assumed all along that Alon’s statistics are reliable. We've trying to tell him “…but this is how we experience it� . Alon says that rape only affects a small subset of women. In the same page that Donna links to and Alon also refers to for the 30/100000 statistics, it is also mentioned that “A study among college women has shown that 1 out of every 5 college age women report being forced to have sexual intercourse. (1995 National College Health Risk Behavior Survey) 22% of all women say that they have been forced to do sexual things against their will, where only 3% of men admit to ever forcing themselves on a woman. (Laumann, 1994).�
How is 22% a small subset? And it also contradicts this claim “American woman is almost 1/13 as likely to be raped as she is to be assaulted.�

Also,
“According to the 1997 NCVS, an American man in the 16-19 age group is at a higher risk than a woman over 35, and a single man is at a higher risk than a married or widowed woman. The age statistics are stable in the over-65 group, as are the marital status statistics for married people; the statistics for widow(er)s and people in the 50-64 bracket show a somewhat higher rate in other years' surveys.�
Alon, can you please provide the link to this data? Is this what the survey reports or is this interpretation of the survey? Because this: “Assuming that the NCVS is accurate, and that the age and income distributions of victims are independent of their gender, high-income women are at a lower risk than low-income men, and 60-year-old women are at a lower risk than 20-year-old men.� sounds very fishy. Men must be really secretive about being raped because we just don’t ever hear about it, not in the media, not by word of mouth.

No, rape doesn’t affect only a small subset of women. Most of us know of friends or friends of friends or friends of friends of friends. Many of us might not have had a penis forcefully shoved up our orifices but we’ve been molested one way or another.

Am I doing a bad job at driving home the point, "Rape rates have been going down"? The 1995 NCVS (for other years, just change the numbers in the URL) puts the US's number of sexual assaults at 340,000. The 2005 NCVS puts it at 190,000.

Men must be really secretive about being raped because we just don’t ever hear about it, not in the media, not by word of mouth.

The media pretends male rape doesn't exist.

Also, the NCVS suggests that male rape is even more underreported than female rape. I can do a statistical analysis to see if it's significant if anyone cares; in '95, '96, '99, and '01-'05 male sexual assault had a lower reporting rate, while in '97, '98, and '00 it had a higher reporting rate.

Or, alternatively, if you have 10 people come into a room from outside and you ask what the weather's like out there, and 9 tell you it's raining and 1 says it isn't, do you take an umbrella when you go out? All the female posters here are essentially telling you it's raining out there, and you're continuing to shake your head and insist that you it isn't, just because the US rainfall statistics for this time of year are reasonably low. That's just silly.

I'm not saying it's not raining outside. I'm saying rainfall this year is unusually low, and people are replying, "But I was caught in a torrential rain three days ago!".

Personally, I'd rather take the words of almost a thousand women interviewed for the NCVS who comprise a representative sample of the US population, than those of about ten women who are a completely unrepresentative sample.

"Am I doing a bad job at driving home the point, "Rape rates have been going down"?"

Now I'm confused. I thought your point was that rape is not a hate crime. If rape rates are in fact going down, and not simply reporting rates, this is a good thing. I'm not sure how NCVS accounts for underreporting. And none of this is relevant to your claim that rape is not a hate crime. It can still be a hate crime, and its effects can still be terrorizing, even if the overall rates are going down.

I was responding to Sojourner's comment about the prevalence of rape. The NCVS accounts for underreporting by basing its data on interviewing about 75,000 people every year (I may have said 150,000 further upthread; the correct number is 75,000) and asking them.

That in itself says nothing about the hate crime angle; the pattern of the rise and fall in sexual assault rates does. But one of the points I've seen people who argue that rape is a hate crime cite in support of their theory is that it's almost a universal experience for women.

Still a little confused... you appear to say that the pattern of the rise and fall in sexual assault rates says something about whether or not rape is a hate crime. If this is in fact what you meant, please explain. How does the fact that rates of a certain crime are rising or falling point to whether or not it should qualify as a hate crime?