Quiz: How did Reddit’s atheist community respond to a woman’s account of rape?
Here’s a little one-question quiz to see how much you know about Reddit’s Atheism subreddit.
QUESTION ONE: A woman describes being raped by a “friend” while both were intoxicated (though she doesn’t call it rape). Do the r/atheism regulars:
a) Respond with sympathy and support
b) Attack her and furiously downvote her posts, with the assistance of one of the moderators of r/mensrights, then return to posting and upvoting rape jokes
BONUS QUESTION: True or False: Someone on r/menrights links to her comment as “an example of how and why many people believe that rape is everywhere… because their definition of rape includes every sexual misadventure.” The most heavily upvoted comment in the r/mensrights thread declares that the woman who was raped “sounds like a delusional sheltered teen.”
Yes, the correct answers here are the ones you assumed were correct.
Here’s the woman’s post describing what happened to her.
She gives more details on what happened in other, also-highly-downvoted comments.
One highly upvoted rape joke from elsewhere in the thread:
Hilarious!
Amazingly, despite all the jokes and the victim blaming/attacking going on, the thread also contains some highly upvoted comments lamenting the tendency of people to blame the victim in rape cases. Apparently, when a rape victim is drunk, it’s not rape, even when she repeatedly says “no” and gives in because she’s scared, so it’s fine to attack away, and even to accuse the victim of being a rapist too.
This enables Reddit Atheists not only to blame the victim of rape without feeling guilty, or admitting that this is what they’re doing, while simultaneously feeling self-righteous in their condemnation of religious people doing the exact same thing.
And because their rape jokes are also couched as jokes about religious people’s views on rape, they can feel self-righteous while making them too.
Sometimes the actions of Reddit Atheists cause me to begin to doubt just a teensy weensey bit that “atheists are a community that’s pre-selected for clear thinking and empiricism,” as one commenter in r/mensrights put it not that long ago.
EDITED TO ADD: Thanks again to ShitRedditSays for highlighting this awful thread.
EDITED TO ADD 2: More SRS discussion, courtesy of Holly.
Posted on January 25, 2012, in douchebaggery, evil women, false accusations, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, oppressed men, rape, rapey, reddit, that's not funny!. Bookmark the permalink. 265 Comments.
No one said that the info presented for one year wasn’t part of a trend. What was said was that info for that one year alone doesn’t tell us much. Which isn’t a claim that that particular year was atypical, it’s just pointing out that absent any other information we have no idea whether that year’s numbers were atypical or part of a broader trend.
I’m trying to be polite about this, but really - you are consistently misreading fairly simple statements, and after a while that becomes irritating.
Learn to read - I never said that YOU said any such thing, oh where’s that copy post button:
by saying it’s not part of a trend (as many here have) it’s a claim that it is anomalous
As many here have. Got that? If its not about you it’s not about you. Seriously.
“Different fucking things, you motherfucking incompetent.”
No fucking shit. Notably the main point of what I’ve been talking about. Once more, learn to read.
You really are a parody of reading - you claim I said that you made a positive claim, when in fact in two god damn places I mentioned it was in the thread, not you. Jesus.
“Your ‘null hypothesis’ presupposes a trend”
No. It proposes that it is representative of the current state of affairs - it says nothing on future trends, or on past data e.g THAT IT DOES NOT SUPPORT A TREND. Jesus, learn to read.
There is then a second argument - that compares the two (single) data points the long term and the short term, but I’ll let you misread them for a bit before I reply.
“Tamen, you cited the 12 months, but why you only cited that number in a study that had lifetime estimates with much different numbers as you sole evidence for gender parity in rape was extremely telling”
Implicit - the more recent data is anamolous. Not that we have no reason to believe ther is a trend
” That such rapes are actually equal in number to rapes of women… insufficient data. Even if true for one year, it’s only one year.”
Implicit - the is anamolous so can’t be extrapolated from
Comparison by pecunium with a anomolus year with a gang war - explicit.
Comparisons with climate change by pecumium - explicit.
“I am supposed to ignore that it’s anomalous.”
Need an explanation?
Positive claims.
Nope, sorry, you can’t just assume that you know what people mean because you think it’s implicit. Also, if some presents data that seems like it might be anomalous, it actually is then their responsibility to show that it isn’t, which is why one year isn’t enough of a data set.
Again, I’d really like to know why you’re so determined to prove that this particular piece of data is part of a broader trend. If you have any information that would support that theory, I’m not sure why you aren’t sharing it.
I’m not trying to prove its part of a broader trend? I have no idea if it’s part of a broader trend? Why do you think I’m doing that?
I’m not sure why Tamer isn’t sharing it either. Surely there must be data for 2009, 2008, etc? If this is a trend, it should be possible to show that by looking at the years immediately preceding 2010.
So you’re just trolling, or arguing for the sake of arguing?
Since that seems like it may be the case, I’m done discussing this with you.
I suppose I should clarify:
1:It has been said in this thread (please fucking read it) that the long term data point would be better than the short term in predicting next years rates
2:Evidence was presented to explain why this may not be the case
3: I make no claim that this means its part of a trend, or that it is the best method of predicting next years claim (well, only in the context of this extremely limited data set)
got it?
Joanofart, before letting you attempt to confuse matters further by arguing over who claims what, let me remind you of some basic statistics 101, since you seem to be forgetting it. A single data point is not valid for any claims other then it acting as a potential descriptor of that year. To extrapolate any further from it is a faulty action. This is but one of the mistakes of Tamen.
Like I said, done. I don’t care for snide people who argue for the sake of arguing, or who’re unwilling to come clean about why they’re arguing.
RIght, and in the same thread it was argued that the other single data point *was good for this* - and even though both are shitty, they other data point is worse.
I apologise for being snide CassandraSays, I’m sorry if I upset you.
I’m arguing because there was (contrary to some claims here) a number of positive claims:
1: That the year was anomolous
2: That the longer term data point is better for trend prediction that the shorter term
I see no reason to believe these positive claims, and repeatedly asked for evidence to believe them - none was provided.
Who made these positive claims? Can you quote them saying these things?
There are examples of the first already posted, I’ll go grab some of the second (three are implicit, 3 are explicit in the ones I grabbed, they’re just above here on this page
You’re talking about your comment here?
http://manboobz.com/2012/01/25/quiz-how-did-reddits-atheist-community-responded-to-a-womans-account-of-rape/comment-page-4/#comment-119710
Yeah, I don’t think that actually shows what you think it shows. Using examples of other types of data to explain to you how the one data point is not enough information to show a trend is not saying implicitly or explicitly that this particular data point is anomolous.
Also, if you wouldn’t mind linking to the comments your quoting so we can see the context I’d appreciate it.
*you’re haha oops
I’m new to the formatting, hope this is ok!
http://manboobz.com/2012/01/25/quiz-how-did-reddits-atheist-community-responded-to-a-womans-account-of-rape/comment-page-3/#comment-118143
“Yes, Tamen, you cited the 12 months, but why you only cited that number in a study that had lifetime estimates with much different numbers…”
Explictly stating that the 12 month data is less useful in knowing current conditions
http://manboobz.com/2012/01/25/quiz-how-did-reddits-atheist-community-responded-to-a-womans-account-of-rape/comment-page-3/#comment-118838
“Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question. From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime.”
Explicitly stating that the last year data is less likely to be representitive of current conditions than the lifetime data
http://manboobz.com/2012/01/25/quiz-how-did-reddits-atheist-community-responded-to-a-womans-account-of-rape/comment-page-3/#comment-119375
“Even if true for one year, it’s only one year. How about the lifetime chances for women to be raped vs. men to be raped?”
Explicitly stating that current situation is better calculated by the lifetime data point
A word on the statistics, and hopefully not a teal deer like some of the comments on the last page.
1. Lifetime and 12 Month Prevalence obviously measure different things, but the general shape of one set of data should not be hugely out of kilter with the other (if so, this would either be an anomalous year, or an indication of a trend). If you look at the weighted percentage columns of Table 2.1 re: U.S. women, the Lifetime prevalence of sexual violence against U.S. women is approximately one order of magnitude (~ ten times) than the 12 Month prevalence data. (Of the sixteen reported figures, pairwise six are more than ten times greater; two are less than ten times greater.)
2. There may be apparent trends, for example the 12 month prevalence of alcohol/drug facilitated penetration is a higher proportion of all rape than the lifetime prevalence, but to establish the trend would require longitudinal data – i.e. a history of 12 month prevalence figures compiled. The longitudinal data would permit an anomalous year to be distinguished from a trend.
3. When we look at the equivalent of Table 2.1 for U.S. men, which is Table 2.2 of the report, there are a number of evident problems.
4. 12 Month Prevalence of rape of U.S. men is not statistically significant for nearly half of the categories, preventing a comparison of some of the same variables as for U.S. women. This makes having a much larger sample size of men highly desirable.
5. All of the remaining 12 Month Prevalence statistics for U.S. men – the ones which are statistically significant – are less than one order of magnitude smaller than the Lifetime prevalence statistics. The real question is what is going on here to make the men’s stats look so different from those of women?
6. An example comparison of two troubling sets of data, chosen especially since the weighted percentages of the 12 Month Prevalence are identical:
12 Month Prevalence of Rape of U.S. Women: 1.1%
Lifetime Prevalence of Rape of U.S. Women: 18.3%
12 Month Prevalence of U.S. Men being Made to Penetrate: 1.1%
Lifetime Prevalence of U.S. Men being Made to Penetrate: 4.8%
Why are the Lifetime prevalence figures so different when the 12 Month figures are the same?
“Why are the Lifetime prevalence figures so different when the 12 Month figures are the same?”
Which is what I was attempting to answer on the previous page - I posted some studies that have some interesting data on effects of age and other factors on reporting victimisation amongst others.
Errata to paragraph 1:
… (if so, this would either be an anomalous year, or an indication of a trend, or some other problem with the data)
… is approximately one order of magnitude (~ ten times) greater than the 12 Month prevalence data
But JoanofArt those quotes explicitly say none of that. Or implicitly for that matter. If this is the best you’ve got I’m sorry to say I have to agree with the other commenters here, you’re either trolling or arguing (ineptly) just for the sake of arguing.
*Blink* That’s exactly what they say. I, unlike you, am not going to accuse you of trolling or being inept, but how can you think:
““Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question. From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime.”
This explicitly says that the lifetime rate is better - its in the darn words! Maybe I’m seeing something different? I honestly can’t see how that can be interpreted otherwise, seriously
Yeah, I guess you are seeing something different. Because it doesn’t say anything about a lifetime rate being better. Not sure what to say to you here. Read it again maybe?
Joan, thanks. I would be inclined to think more research is sorely needed, and a sufficiently large sample size to be able to obtain statistically significant data. As an example, you’d have noticed on page 25 of the 2010 NISVS report there’s a breakdown by age of the first completed rape for women; 12.3% of women who have been raped were 10 years or younger when first raped. As for men, I’ll quote the report directly:
RIght, breaking it down:
1 From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime
This says the one year data can’t be used to look at lifetime data (note that the one year data is from all age ranges in the survey)
2: Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question.
This is saying that ‘lifetime is the real question’ and that the lifetime rates are what we should be using
In combination they say that the 12 month data isn’t any good for looking at the rate of rape, and that the lifetime data is.
I mean I may have lost the ability to read I guess - I do have some developmental issues with reading, but I don’t think I’m that bad -.-
Definitely. It will be interesting to see what the next big study of this sort brings up, and if there is some kind of trend or not.
No, in combination they do not say that. They don’t even say what you interpreted them as saying separately. Do you have someone else around that you could maybe show this to and get a second opinion since you seem not to trust the opinions of people here?
I do have someone with me, but before I tell you the results can you tell me, fully, what you think this means, both explicitly and implicitly?
JoanofArt, referring to your 8:53 pm,
Re: 1, “From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime” versus “This says the one year data can’t be used to look at lifetime data (note that the one year data is from all age ranges in the survey)”
Which is to say, the more relevant statistic is more relevant for the desired quantity than the less relevant statistic – even if the less relevant one covers all age ranges.
Re: 2, “Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question.” and “This is saying that ‘lifetime is the real question’ and that the lifetime rates are what we should be using” versus “In combination they say that the 12 month data isn’t any good for looking at the rate of rape, and that the lifetime data is.”
The 12 month data is both more relevant to recent trends and more easily perturbed by anomalies, so its utility for looking at the prevalence of rape is delimited, compared to the lifetime stats – and as pointed out, there seem to be glaring issues presented by the 12 month data pertinent to U.S. men – almost half the stats fail to reach statistical significance for a start.
Right, your reading seems to be similar enough to mine that I don’t feel to bad
I’ll wait till Snowy tells me xis version.
Really? Because her reading actually looks nothing like yours to me. But lets quote this context.
Tamen says: When it comes to the risk of being raped now the “last 12 months” figures gives a more accurate picture than the lifetime figures. When it comes to how to prevent future rapes the last 12 months figures are more relevant because the represent the current risk more than the lifetime figures does.
Pecunium responds: Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question. From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime. All I can do is say, “In this year, this happened”. But that’s, to all intents and purposes, a single datum point. It’s not a valid basis for the extrapolation you are making.
JoanofArt’s interpretation of what Pecunium meant: In combination they say that the 12 month data isn’t any good for looking at the rate of rape, and that the lifetime data is.
And now to answer your question of what do I think he meant explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly I think he meant that a single data point is not enough to estimate a lifetime figure. Implicitly I think he may have meant “gtfo troll” but I don’t know for sure, you’d have to ask him.
Oh, and I’m a man in case you were wondering.
Oh. That’s unlikely in context. Both the data to which xe was referring were single points, and xe was supporting one of them for that use.
“and you admit to limiting the actual data, because the lifetime numbers don’t support you.”
only critical of not using the lifetime numbers - only critical of using the 12 month numbers.
In the above statement:
“last 12 months” figures gives a more accurate picture than the lifetime figures.”
Direct comparsion of both data points.
Reply:
“Because one year isn’t a lifetime. And a lifetime is the real question. From one year I can’t even pretend to extrapolate the likelihood of being raped in my lifetime.”
It states that the short term one can not be used - not that the lifetime can not be used,
Now I’m really not sure if you’re trolling. :p
Oh, and the person I asked thinks my interpretation is extremely reasonable. *shrug*
Who are you talking about here? It would be helpful if you gave some indication of who you’re quoting and responding to.
And? So? I would agree that the short term one alone is not enough. Do you disagree? I’m not sure what your point is.
Haha, you know, you’re right! As one of the moderators of the mbz forum my favorite passtime is trolling the blog! Oh wait…
Is her name Ashley by any chance?
Troll troll, trollity trollity troll, the lurkers support me in email!
you are a troll too snowy? ahh!!! first david is revealed as a troll now you! I cannot go on living knowing this!!!
(pays off snowy)
>_>
Ashley? No…Is that meant to be a reference to someone I should know?
At this stage I beginning to think that you are deliberately (whether you think of it as trolling or not) trying to miss the point.
1 A and B are being compared as being used for C
2 It is stated that B can not be used for C
3 It is never stated or implied that A can not be used for C
4 A is praised a good thing
(And one can certainly calculate a lifetime rate from a yearly rate - similar calculations are done all the time in research on FGC - they look at yearly rates (or even lower!) and calculate estimates over much longer than a year - so I guess I’m not sure what your point is there?)
And again, even if you don’t consider it trolling replies like:
“Explicitly I think he meant that a single data point is not enough to estimate a lifetime figure. Implicitly I think he may have meant “gtfo troll” but I don’t know for sure, you’d have to ask him”
When explicitly it’s not what he said and implicitly you’re just being rude - comes across as trolling to me.
(How do I know he’s not saying that - one of the single data points *is* a lifetime figure - to deny that a lifetime figure can’t estimate a lifetime figure would be unusual.)
Well, I’m pretty sure I’m not the one missing the point. But how about we agree to disagree and retire to beneath our respective bridges. Troll truce!
(accepts payoff from jumbo)
Sure. I may stick around if Xanthe has some more to say or some studies to read. And really - those studies I posted on the last page are really interesting and relevant - I do recommend, if you have access and the time, reading them.
[meta]
JoanofArt, I think some of the problem here is:
1. These stats from the 2010 NISVS report have been discussed on this website before, and some of those commenters in those previous discussions were proven to be incapable of maintaining a good-faith dialogue;
2. Tamen is choosing to highlight some of the problematic statistics in the NISVS report without indicating the exact rationale or objective in doing so, raising suspicions related to whether this actually is a good-faith argument;
3. Tamen seems to have stopped posting, and you have taken up where zie left off;
4. As you also seem to be new to this website, some recent history (e.g. “Ashley”) is being chucked at you to see if this reveals an inconsistency in your position which might be telling.
In short, I can see some minor, but not show-stopping, problems in the responses to Tamen; but of much greater note is the general thrust of why Tamen is concerned, and whether Tamen is in fact concern trolling.
[/meta]
Oh no! Our troll truce has been broken! I guess I’ll just have to respond then. *sigh*
I assume by A B and C you mean the lifetime numbers from the study, the year long time period numbers from the same study, and by C you mean an estimate of the possibility in a specific person’s lifetime of being raped?
1 - Where did Pecunium do this?
2 - True.
3 - True.
4 - Again, where did Pecunium do this?
The fact that the data can be used absent other data is not really the issue here. The fact that Tamen was cherrypicking the 12 month data white ignoring the lifetime data from the same study in order to try to prove some point about rape of men by women and women by men being some kind of 50/50 occurrence is what Pecunium and others took issue with.
JoanofArt, in reply to your 10:10 pm comment, I noted your references on the last page, and would be interested to follow them up, but really don’t have a huge amount of time to do so at the present. As I pointed out in my earlier (8:49 pm) comment, the lack of an age-related breakdown of male victimisation is a notable drawback of the NISVS study, but the one statistic we do have is somewhat telling, that 27.8% of male rape victims versus 12.3% of female rape victims were raped at the age of 10 or under, which may support an inference that in older age brackets the risk of victimisation is greater for women (since these are a breakdown for all victims in a gender). The peak age for first-time victimisation of women is 11 to 24 years of age (just over two of every three women).
Sorry JoanofArt, if I haven’t gone looking for that extra reading; since this thread has been controversial in and of itself I wanted to examine what has been said here rather than finding more wood to stoke the fire with.
I went back a couple of pages in the thread, and noticed it was good ol’ Anthony Zarat* who had brought up the 2010 NISVS report in the first place (* values of “good” and “old” may vary substantially). This report was based on completed interviews with 9,086 women and 7,421 men, and the data he was citing are numbers which have extrapolated from that sample of interviewees to the U.S. population, then rounded to the nearest thousand.
Now the prevalence figures which provide those extrapolated numbers are weighted percentages; in other words, they are not the actual direct percentages of women and men interviewed, but they have been adjusted to reflect the U.S. population demographics. So some interviewees’ weighting may have been considerably greater than 1 (because their demographic was under-represented in the survey compared to census figures); other interviewees may have been weighted as less than 1 (because their demographic was correspondingly over-represented).
But let’s say all of the weightings have also been normalised so that the survey still adds up to 9,086 “women” and 7421 “men”. Taking those 1.1% figures for 12 Month Prevalence (of rape of women in one instance, men made to penetrate being the other), it works out to 100 “women” and 82 “men”, weighted. Even if many of the relative weightings are less than 1, that’s still a relatively small number of cases to be extrapolated out to over one million men and one million women out of a total population of three hundred million. Conversely, we can be sure that those statistics exceeded the minimum of 20 cases (see the Executive Summary, page 1, right hand column), so those numbers are not the result of a mere handful of cases given overly high weighting.
This is why the lifetime stats are being viewed as the more reliable indicator, because when you consider weighting percentages like 18.3% of women and 4.8% of men, this corresponds to normalised weighting (as before) of about 1660 women and 360 men; if the 12 month prevalence data are based on a small enough group to have problems, then the same problems may also affect in the lifetime prevalence data, but the larger group is more likely to minimise the effect.
The next thing that happened on page 2 was a comment by pillowinhell to suggest gender parity in rapists – about 3% to 4% of men and the same for women – which was immediately criticised for being uncited. The NISVS survey casts considerable doubt owing to the bulk of sexual violence against women being perpetrated by men in every category; whereas violence against men differs substantially in that male on male rape dominates cases of rape; but reports of men being made to penetrate and being sexually coerced tend to only involve female perpetrators. Thus only high levels of re-offence by male perpetrators would reduce numbers to parity (and do female offenders never re-offend either?). That citation by pillowinhell still seems needed.
Onto page 3, and Tamen immediately used Zarat’s quotation of figures from the 2010 NISVS report to suggest the parity argument uncited by pillowinhell. However, Tamen also misreads page 24 of the report (emphasis added):
That is not what the NISVS report says. Under the heading “Sex of Perpetrator in Lifetime Reports of Sexual Violence” (again my emphasis; note, Lifetime), quote:
So Tamen is not only using figures based on a relatively small group in the survey (probably less than a hundred each of men and women), but is also confusing the 12 month prevalence statistics with the lifetime reports of rape and sexual violence.
DSC then addressed the twelve month data by showing that the lifetime data from the same report paint a very different picture – which they do, and quoted inter alia the exact same part of the report I just did above, which illustrates Tamen’s conflation of 12 Month Prevalence and Lifetime Reports.
Tamen responded with “I specifically talked about the “last 12 months” prevalency figures of the NISVS 2010 report. It is bordering on dishonest to “disprove” my quotations from the report (tables on page 18 an 19) by referring to the “Lifetime” prevalency numbers.” (And which has precisely nothing to do with pillowinhell’s claim.) However, if the claim is that the 12 months prevalency figures are truly representative, then anomalies against the lifetime prevalence do become relevant, especially as the statistics of small numbers come into play.
Errata: because the PDF of the NISVS refuses to copy and paste neatly from each column, I mangled the quote slightly. The last sentence should have read: “For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%).”
What happened thereafter was some back and forth about which statistics DSC and Tamen each failed to get right: DSC added some statistics from different categories which is a no-no, since these sometime overlap; and a little bit later, Tamen committed exactly the same infraction by adding the numbers in the “rape” and “other sexual violence” categories together – these categories are not necessarily disjunct.
In the exact same post where he makes that mistake, Tamen also did his best to poison the well with comments like, “Incapable as I am of reading a report I at least did not pull any numbers out of my ass and presented them as findings of the report” (except he did) and “For someone claiming to be able to read the report it must be embarrasing that you made a mistake in the very first sentence in your comment…” (let him who doesn’t make mistakes cast the first stone). All in all, the discussion flails around, and then Tamen suddenly claims out of nowhere, “As I said earlier; not quite gender parity in victimization for the last 12 months (2010), but a lot closer than most people would believe.”
Again, the 2010 numbers are extrapolated to the US population and correspond to sexual violence against about 6.6 million women and 6.0 million men, but no reason is cited why the lifetime prevalence differs: the 2010 numbers are of a similar size between genders, the lifetime prevalence is about double or more women to men on almost every statistic. The underlying weightings are indicative of a more significant portion of the sample: a bit over 500 women by weighting, and a touch under 400 men. Nonetheless: what explanation is there for the notable gender difference in lifetime and 12 month prevalence?
Darksidecat: You asked about the age distribution of the respondents. Or more precisely you asked how many of the respondents were 18-21 or younger. I can point out that the best answer to that question is in the NISVS 2010 report on page 102. 13.8% of the male respondents is aged 18-25. There one can also see that the age distribution of respondents matches the age demographics of the US pretty closely (according to CDC since they didn’t specify from where they got the US demographic data from). There were no respondent under the age of 18.
You keep saying that I’ve said that rape victims routinely forgets their rape. I’ve tried to state earlier that I didn’t say that, yet you still maintain I did. Can you provide a quote from me where I said rape victims routinely forgets their rape? I did say It happpens and to quote Jim Hopper, PhD: “Amnesia for childhood sexual abuse is a condition.The existence of this condition is beyond dispute.”. If you want to dispute it then you can perhaps show some studies or other evidence to support your stance as I am more likely to take the word of peer reviewed studies than a random person on the internet.
All:
There has been many questions about me not answering and I am sorry for the delay, but I have a life I need to prioritize at times. It is good to see that the discussion have continued without me. However, that means that I probably are going to miss some questions aimed at me. Feel free to ask again if you miss an answer from me. Better to ask me than to assume.
I will be off skiing for the weekend and will be offline the whole weekend, though, so I can’t promise I’ll reply to all.
As for complaints of wall of texts, yes, I am guilty of that. I feel I have to be very specific to avoid having my comment being twisted into meanings and motives I haven’t stated. For instance the accusation that I asked people here whether I shouldn’t compare rape and being made to penetrate someone else after they had stated that they thought it was the same when the fact was that the comment where they stated that was after the one where I put forward the question.
Xanthe:
You accuse me of poisoning the well with rethoric like “Incapable as I am of reading a report I at least did not pull any numbers out of my ass and presented them as findings of the report”. I’ll readily admit that this was a ill-conceived and inflammatory statement which I should have been cool-headed enough to refrain from writing, but I feel I must point out that this was in a response to a comment from Darksidecat which started with: “@Tamen, unlike you, I am capable of actually reading reports” as an explaination to why I was less than polite in my formulations in that reply. I think I’ve been much more civil in subsequent comments. Sometimes we miss things coming out of our own assholes and I shouldn’t have added the rape and “Other sexual violence” numbers in my reply to Darksidecat even though he did add categories.
You said that I suddenly claimed out of nowhere: As I said earlier; not quite gender parity in victimization for the last 12 months (2010), but a lot closer than most people would believe.”. This was in reference to my first comment and I probably should’ve qualified that I was talking about rape and “being made to penetrate someone else” - here is the relevant part of my first comment on this thread:
I could’ve explicitly stated that the numbers are estimates given in the NISVS report, but I provided the source where they are from and it’s stated there.
I still maintain that this is quite close to parity (at least compared to what the average person would think is the distribution of rape) for the last 12 months period as reported by CDC.
I did make the mistake that the gender distribution of the perpetrators reported by men who reported “being made to penetrate someone else” as reported on page 24 in NISVS 2010 is for lifetime. I was wrong about that. I still suspect that the distribution for the last 12 months would be very similar, but I’ll hear out any arguments from anybody who thinks otherwise.
As for the weighting, the table on page 102 seem to indicate that there wasn’t that much difference between the age distribution of the repsondents and the US demographis. Am I reading this table wrong?
I don’t know what the explanation for the gender difference in lifetime and 12 month prevalence is, but I’ve seen studies that suggest that men underreport to a larger degree than women: Holmes, G.R., Offen, L., & Waller, G. (1997). See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: Why do relatively few male victims of childhood sexual abuse receive help for abuse-related issues in adulthood? Clinical Psychology Review, 17, 69–88. As well as studies which indicates that men underreport childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to a larger degree than women: http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/ (Jim Hopper is linked to by 1.in6.org) where he reports that a study called:
Widom, C. S. & Morris, S. (1997). Accuracy of adult recollections of childhood victimization: Part 2. Childhood sexual abuse. Psychological Assessment, 8, 412-421.
found that 32% of women with known/documented history of CSA had a period or possible amnesia or delayed recall (they didn’t report the CSA whan asked as adults), 58% of men with documented history of CSA had a period or possible amnesia or delayed recall (they didn’t report the CSA whan asked as adults). Jim Hopper notes: “…some percentage did not report prior abuse for other reasons – including unwillingness to disclose the information to researchers, current interpretations of those experiences as not abusive, etc. – and it appears these influences are greater for males than females.”. If this result is valid then that supports a hypothesis that men underreport lifetime incidents and that they do so at a higher rate than women. I haven’t seen any research offering an alternative reason for the difference.
Pecunia:
I’ve statet my intention. Awareness that male victimization rates is higher than most people think they are and that the gender distribution of perpetrators of sexual violence against men is different than most people believe will in my opinion help reduce the incidents of male victimization. The last 12 months prevalency numbers were indeed much higher than most people thought they’d be. Over lifetime (as corrected by Xanthe) men who reported being made to penetrate someone else reported 79.2% female perpetrators. A rate which I believe is higher than most people would believe. I believe that “being made to penetrate someone else” is rape.
Based on that I believe that rape prevention programs should put more focus on male victims and female perpetrators than they do today. Rape prevention programs have mostly been very gendered. As exemplified by names as “Men can stop rape”. This has been justified by saying that “the overwhelmingly majority of rape victims are women”.
The last 12 months prevalency numbers from CDC at least to me indicate that even if that is somewhat true for lifetime prevalency we are at a situation where it wasn’t true in 2010 and I believe that both men and women are being done a disservice by the rape prevention programs being so gendered. I think that most women who end up making their partner penetrate them wouldn’t do so if they had been better educated about the fact that men can be victims and men are not always up for sex. I think the way rape prevention programs men attend are gendered can reduce the effect on the rate of male perpetrators. If men are told that women have the right to say no regardless while not (or only as a secondary sidenote) being told that they themselves as men have the right to say no (to women AND men) while the men notice that they in a quite large degree don’t get to exercise that right (as 1.1% of men reported in the last 12 months) then I think that may reduce the willingness men have to extend that right to others. Injustice against oneself (or one’s group) can be a factor in rationalization of injustice against others.
Rape prevention programs would benefit from having at least some realistic examples of female on male rape. If women and men are only told about male perpetrators (and only of the extreme cases of female perpetrators) then women are less equipped to recognize situations where they are in danger of becoming perpetrators. The same type of argument has been said about only focusing on stranger-rape (male on female) - this one-sidedness does nothing to prevent men from date-raping their dates, but can in fact increase the risk as they may think (“I’m not a stranger that jumped her from behind a bush so this isn’t rape”).
I fear that delaying such changes in lieu of more longitudal data will put future male victims at more risk than necessary. And since I don’t think rape prevention is a zero-sum game I don’t see any harm in less gendered rape prevention programs. When I say gendered I mean skewed towards one gender in case that is unclear.
If the last 12 months prevalency numbers really turn out to be a blip then I’ll be glad since that would mean fewer male rape victims the next years than I feared.
Tamen, you said
and
The prevalency numbers from the last 12 months excluded rape victims under the age of 18. That is not an accurate picture of the demographics of the US, especially since a disproportionate number of rape victims are children. The data from RAINN show that 44% of rape victims are age 18 or under.
source
The lifetime numbers include child victims because people are able to report what happened to them many years ago instead of just what happened in the last year. I think that’s important to note. Darksidecat already brought up this point, but I want to reiterate that.
Tamen: If you intend to keep talking to me, get my name right. Pecunium. There is only one of my.
As far as this last repetition goes, see the discussion above, which should answer all your questions.
Good day.
Only one of me. I think I need breakfast and coffee.
First off, Pecunium, I apologize for getting your name wrong.
Kendra: I could’ve specified that it seemed to match the demographics in the US for people over the age of 18. I thought that would be clear from the table I referred to in the NISVS 2010 Report which listed the age demographic of the respondents next to the age demographic of the US (and the qualification where I stated that I used seemed since I don’t know where NISVS/CDC got their demographic data from).
You are of course right that the last 12 months figure does not include the childhood sexual abuse (with the small exception of people who were 18 and reported abuse from when they were 17). I’ve seen (and I have linked to in earlier commens) research which indicate that both men and women underreport childhood sexual abuse when asked as adults. Given that I don’t see how one can manage to safely interview underaged people in well sampled survey (most are abused by close relatives) I unfortunately believe that it’ll be difficult to get a real understanding of exactly how many children are being sexually abused.
The irony is that TJ is a victim of abuse as well and was provoked into making his ill advised statements.
What?
Yes, Erik, because when I’m provoked, it’s just a natural reaction for me to snap and threaten someone with rape… except, no, I don’t do that, even though I too have been raped; and decent human beings don’t respond to provocation with rape threats either, as a general rule. So that justification for his bad behaviour is piss poor.
(Kyrie, Erik posted in the wrong thread.)
*doffs his best cockney accent*
That’s not irony!! That’s bullshit that is!!!
(the “provoked” and “ill advised”, not the abused)
I thought so, Xanthe, but it made no sense for so many different reasons, which is what I expressing. Also wanted to draw a bit of attention on it, I guess.