Rapists Who Don’t Think They’re Rapists

**wolf_22** · 01-20-2010 07:28 PM

pretty scary.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/b...heyre-rapists/

You know the guy who “accidentally” rapes women? The acquaintance who “misreads” the situation and “goes too far”? The longtime friend who genuinely thought you had consented, and is shocked when you tell him that, no, it was rape? Well, we’re not going to take that guy’s bullshit anymore. Thomas MacAulay Millar over at the Yes Means Yes! blog has crunched the numbers on “undetected” acquaintance rapists to figure out who this “accidental rapist” actually is.

Thomas looks at a study of 1882 college students who were asked four questions to determine if they had ever raped (or attempted to rape) anyone:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?

2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?

3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

Questions like these are bound to lead to underreporting—what guy is going to admit to forcing a girl to give him head? As it turns out, a lot of guys will admit to this, 120 to be exact: That’s six percent of the survey’s respondents who copped to either rape or attempted rape. Importantly, Thomas notes, the survey does not actually ask these guys if they’ve ever exactly “raped” anyone:

If a survey asks men, for example, if they ever “had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances,” some of them will say yes, as long as the questions don’t use the “R” word.

And they didn’t just admit to raping—they admitted to raping repeatedly (as long as it’s not really “rape,” of course!) According to the study, a small percentage of men are responsible for committing a large portion of sexual assaults—that’s a whole lot of “accidents,” “misreadings,” and “gray areas”:

Of the 120 rapists in the sample, 44 reported only one assault. The remaining 76 were repeat offenders. These 76 men, 63% of the rapists, committed 439 rapes or attempted rapes, an average of 5.8 each (median of 3, so there were some super-repeat offenders in this group). Just 4% of the men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes.

What does this mean about our “accidental” rapists?

a) The vast majority of acquaintance rapes are committed by the same people;

b) These people don’t see themselves as “rapists”;

c) They are, however, able recognize that they regularly threat, force, and intoxicate women in order to have sex with them.

Oops! There’s no “accident” here—these guys just deny, evade punishment, and repeat.

So, what do we do to stop these guys? Well, here’s a start: Let’s call them rapists. It’s not just rapists who fail to recognize these behaviors—threatening, forcing, incapacitating—as “real” rape. We all have to stop making excuses for calling a rapist a rapist—and doubting, minimizing, or lashing out against the people who do use that word. Women need to know that they can call their experiences “rape” and report them as crimes. They need to know that they can call their rapists “rapists,” even if the rapist is also someone’s “friend,” “acquaintance,” “co-worker,” “fraternity brother,” or “respected member of our community.” As Thomas says:

The men in your lives will tell you what they do. As long as the R word doesn’t get attached, rapists do self-report. The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity is not joking. He’s telling you how he sees it. The guy who says, “bros before hos”, is asking you to make a pact.

The Pact. The social structure that allows the predators to hide in plain sight, to sit at the bar at the same table with everyone, take a target home, rape her, and stay in the same social circle because she can’t or won’t tell anyone, or because nobody does anything if she does. The pact to make excuses, to look for mitigation, to patch things over—to believe that what happens to our friends—what our friends do to our friends—is not (using Whoopi Goldberg’s pathetic apologetics) “rape-rape.”

. . . The rapists can’t be your friends, and if you are loyal to them even when faced with the evidence of what they do, you are complicit.

That last point is an important one. People who excuse rapists usually see that equation from the other end: “He’s my friend, so he can’t be a rapist.” We need to reverse that equation—”He’s a rapist, so he can’t be my friend.” Perhaps them we could begin addressing why the dictionary definition of rape is overlooked—threatening, forcing, and incapacitating for sex—in our to avoid applying the word—”rapist”—to anyone we know.

comments?

**Demonman** · 01-20-2010 08:53 PM

Cry some more hoebag. Suddenly it's rape because you wakeup and realize in your drunken whore sex you fucked a fatty. Too bad. You should be glad anyone wants to be anywhere near that crusty thing you call a vagina.

Rape is a complete and total fabrication. It never happens. There's no such thing as bad sex. There's bad people, but not bad sex.. I don't see how pounding someone in the ass when they don't want to have it can be seen as so horrible, but meanwhile these same people kill babies and leave their husbands on the drop of a dime.

Unbelievable. More women should be raped just to make them have a shitstorm.

**The_Grinch** · 01-22-2010 09:36 AM

wolf, it's definitely a significant issue. I would hope that no man here would attempt to claim anything to the contrary. It is also definitely RAPE, without a doubt.

The issue is really how to STOP IT. The biggest part of it needs to be education, on BOTH SIDES.

Education for the Men that it's not acceptable. Things like this have been deemed semi-acceptable in society as tradition and "harmless" over the years. They shouldn't be acceptable and are definitely not harmless. We need to get that back into the heads of young men. That's a tough row to hoe considering the way that sex is seen in our society today. It's still a row we need hoe anyway.

However, the women need some education as well. Education on being more careful about who they're dating, on the signs that the guy they're with might be likely to do this sort of thing. Education about REPORTING, and PROSECUTING the criminals who do it. Education along the lines of "fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me." I've known women who have had this sort of thing happen to them multiple times by the same guy. Women who actually think it's acceptable ("Well, I would have said 'yes' if I wasn't passed out").

It's definitely something that needs to be dealt with. I'm just not sure how we should go about doing it.

**Bollock_Head** · 01-22-2010 11:08 AM

I raped Obamerican's fat mother.

**wolf_22** · 01-22-2010 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by The_Grinch

wolf, it's definitely a significant issue. I would hope that no man here would attempt to claim anything to the contrary. It is also definitely RAPE, without a doubt.
absolutly. sometimes people forget that coercion is rape. that someone saying 'no' ten times and being so scared that their 11th reply is 'yes', doesn't make it consenual (there was also a story about gropping on public transportation. people are trying to understand why some get so nervous and embarassed they are more apt to ignore it than report it)

no means no is important...but also remembering that only yes means yes is important as well
The issue is really how to STOP IT. The biggest part of it needs to be education, on BOTH SIDES.

Education for the Men that it's not acceptable. Things like this have been deemed semi-acceptable in society as tradition and "harmless" over the years. They shouldn't be acceptable and are definitely not harmless. We need to get that back into the heads of young men. That's a tough row to hoe considering the way that sex is seen in our society today. It's still a row we need hoe anyway.

However, the women need some education as well. Education on being more careful about who they're dating, on the signs that the guy they're with might be likely to do this sort of thing.
we need to be careful to not blame the victim. to teach defense, but remember who is responsible for committing crimes - the criminal

sometimes its hrd to nkow who would do this. some of the guys did this many times. obviously people thought they were trustworthy enough to drink with them or go on a date or study alone or hang out with.

one guy on my campus had a penchant for hitting his girlfriends. he was nice, good looking, great smile, and fairly charming. there wasn't any formal reprots to my knowledge, but some of the girls would tell their friends to avoid him. thats great if you have a friends, but bad for the next girl who didn't have someone with that inside information to warn her
Education about REPORTING, and PROSECUTING the criminals who do it. true. and the stigma of reporting is a big issue. you shouldn't be embarassed over someone hurting you ; you wouldn't be embarassed if you were mugged.
college campuses have a huge issue with this, especially b/c they like to keep it in house. it hurts their reputation to have reported rapes - so they keep them unreported
its also hard to balance the 'innocent until proven guilty' rule with the victims and potential victims shouldn't live on campus with a rapist
Education along the lines of "fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me." I've known women who have had this sort of thing happen to them multiple times by the same guy. Women who actually think it's acceptable ("Well, I would have said 'yes' if I wasn't passed out").
sometimes its about people bring predatory. women are a little more skittish after rape, often times more apt to freeze up when scared - a good predator knows how to spot people like this.
It's definitely something that needs to be dealt with. I'm just not sure how we should go about doing it.

education does work.
I don't know how to spread it in an effective manner.

this is basic for most people - if someone is knocked out, they can't say yes - how do you deal with someone who can't seem to comprehend this. some even without education someone should get through common sense.

some things I noted with campuses are worth looking into. you can't solve a student problem with the admin supports its occurance

**Demonman** · 01-23-2010 08:57 PM

I know for a fact that most women think "a no is sometimes a yes in disguise". I know this cause I used to go on okcupid and that was a question of did no mean no and like 90 fucking percent of women say that.

What that tells me, is women don't know what the hell they want. Not even when it comes to relationships. So fuck'em. Someone else will decide for them if they're just going to stand around like retards "HUURHUUR!! ME DON'T KNOW!!!" I wouldn't deal with someone acting like an idiot for other things, why would I do it cause they got a pussy?

You know what I put? "A no is a yes that needs some convincing".

And I mean that to it's most extreme and brutal possibilities... I'd rather word it "Row Row, Fight The Power". But the principle is the same. There ain't nothing this penis can't penetrate. If I need a bigger drill, then take some enhancements and make it a bigger drill. But someone's getting fucked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxX3JkGHmDI
That's where I got Row Row, Fight The Power. It's a 15 episode mini-series. But it's basically a step by step guide on how to be a real fucking man. It changed my life. Well... that and Dick Masterson's website...

**Towelie** · 01-23-2010 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by Demonman

Cry some more hoebag. Suddenly it's rape because you wakeup and realize in your drunken whore sex you fucked a fatty. Too bad. You should be glad anyone wants to be anywhere near that crusty thing you call a vagina.

Rape is a complete and total fabrication. It never happens. There's no such thing as bad sex. There's bad people, but not bad sex.. I don't see how pounding someone in the ass when they don't want to have it can be seen as so horrible, but meanwhile these same people kill babies and leave their husbands on the drop of a dime.

Unbelievable. More women should be raped just to make them have a shitstorm.

Did your mom ever apologize for dropping you on your head as a youngster?

**Bricktop** · 01-24-2010 06:35 AM