A New Study on campus rape and the one in five number

Parents Forum
301

I know you love to talk about Title IX, @momrath, but I’m at a loss to figure out what the answers to an anonymous survey have to do with Title IX. The women who say, on the survey, that they were raped when they were incapacitated might be expressing regret for sex that was, in fact, consensual, but that has nothing to do with Title IX. They could have reported these alleged rapes, but in the vast majority of cases, they didn’t.

Moreover, there’s another flaw in this reasoning. One might argue that women who had sex while drunk, and then regretted it, might be expressing that regret on an anonymous survey-- although this is an odd way to express regret. But what about the women who say that someone attempted, unsuccessfully, to rape them while they were incapacitated? Since the sex didn’t happen, they have nothing to be guilty about, nothing to regret. There’s no such thing as a failed attempt to rape someone consensually. So then we’d have to say that the reports of attempted incapacitated rape were true, even though the reports of actual incapacitated rape were fabrications. So, then, why were the men who attempted to rape women while they were incapacitated so bad at it? The women were incapacitated, so why did none or few of the attempts succeed by this hypothesis?

The same reasoning applies to the reports of failed attempts at forced rape. They are not explained by regret.

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A summary of the numbers from all the surveys and studies I’ve taken note of in this thread is below, ranked from highest to lowest rate for similar events. Note the wide range of different numbers and different survey conditions. Some common sources of variation including number sample group (for example 1st year vs 4th year, or college A vs college B), types of incidents included in reported total (for example without consent via “continual arguments and pressure” rather than force or incapacitation), and wording of questions (vague wording like “sexual assault” leads to underrporting).

Princeton – Mixed years; Force or incipacitation is NOT required (“without consent”); Survey results NOT released by university, so results are not official

Sexual touching or kissing without consent – 28.5%
Vaginal without consent – 15.9%
Oral without consent – 12.3%
Anal without consent – 3.3%
Attempted vaginal – 6.2%
Attempted oral – 14.3%
Attempted anal – 2.2%
Any of the above – 31.7%

Erie County Households – First year, Multiple colleges
Incapacitated “Rape” First Year – 12.1%

**“Syracuse”/b – Force or incapacitation IS required, Rate for first academic year is listed
Completed forced – 5.2%
Completed incapacitated – 7.1%
Attempted forced – 6.0%
Attempted incapacitated – 10.1%
Any of the above – 15.3%

**National Institute of Justice/b – Mixed years, Force or incapacitation IS required, Multiple colleges
Forced Oral or Penetration – 4.1%
Incapacitated Oral or Penetration – 11.1%
Either Forced or Incapacitated – 13.7%
Attempted Forced or Incapacitated – 12.6%
Any of the above – 19%

SUNY Geneseo – Mixed years, Data available for both forced and unforced
Touching/kissing without consent – 25.0%
Oral or penetration without consent via “continual arguments and pressure” – 11.0%
Physically forced or incapacitated oral or penetration – 10.0%
Attempted with forced or incapacitated - 8.4%
Any of the above – 29.6%

Oregon – Mixed years, Force or incapacitation is NOT required (“without consent”)
Vaginal or anal penetration – ~15% seniors, ~6% sophomores
Oral or penetration – ~18% seniors, ~7% sophomores
Touching/Kissing, Oral, or Penetration – ~33% seniors, ~29% sophomores
Attempted Touching/Kissing, Oral, or Penetration – ~37% seniors, ~32% sophomores

MIT – Mixed years, “Force, physical threat, or incapacitation” IS required
Sexual touching or kissing – 15%
Oral – 3%
Sexual Penetration – 6%
Attempted Oral – 6%
Attempted Sexual Penetration – 7%
Any of the above – 17%

Harvard Senior Survey – 4 years, If phrase “sexually assaulted” was on survey, underreporting is expected
12% say they were “sexually assaulted”
Less than 2% reported being “sexually assaulted” outside of the survey

NCSV – Mixed years, Multiple colleges, Expected underreporting for a variety of reasons including in person or phone interview with privacy issues, vague wording missing certain events from other surveys, and different sample group from on campus surveys.

Completed Rape – 0.6%
Attempted Rape – 0.2%

303

@skyoverme, Occidental John Doe’s incapacity was never evaluated. He did not accuse Jane Doe of sexual misconduct. He could have, presumably, but he didn’t. The tribunal was not obligated to examine charges that were never brought to them. They had to examine the charge at hand: whether John Doe had sex with Jane Doe while she was incapacitated.

The issue was whether she was incapacitated-- they concluded she was-- and whether he knew or should have known she was incapacitated-- they concluded a sober person would have realized that a vomiting, staggering, words-slurring person was incapacitated.

From time to time males bring charges against females. But John Doe didn’t do that.

304

This survey has nothing to do with blame or public shame or repercussions. It was a private anonymous health survey with questions about rape embedded amongst other health related topics. It has nothing to do with Title IX or post coital “ICK” factors or revenge. This survey is trying to capture the percentages of women in this sample who were impacted by these types of experiences both before college and during their freshman year. They are not naming names or hauling any boys in front of tribunals. It isn’t an attempt to capture the reality of the entire nation in the responses of 450 people. It isn’t a grand feminist conspiracy to stack the numbers by reporting a French kiss as unwanted oral penetration.

I am kind of dumbfounded that people seem to be trying to make it both more and less than it is.

305

@data10, There is also the Cal Poly survey.

Cal Poly–All years, “While a member of the Cal Poly community, have you experienced unwanted sexual contact (including forcible rape, use of drugs to incapacitate, forcible sodomy, gang rape, sexual assault, sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling)?”: 8%.

This does not seem to include any incapacitated rape when the victim was voluntarily intoxicated.

http://campusclimate.calpoly.edu/studyresults/CampusClimateFullReport.pdf

It’s pretty obvious which survey is the outlier when you look at the numbers from all those surveys, and all of them have numbers to the left of the decimal point except the BJS survey.

306

It is also interesting that about 70% of the reported “unwanted sexual contact” in that Cal Poly survey happened in the first 2 quarters of school.

307

@saintfan, took 2 quarters for the women to determine which men are dangerous and not to date or associate.

308

In the Lisak interview in Krakauer’s Missoula, Lisak affirms that sexual predators deliberately target young naive freshman women, who haven’t yet learned how to recognize highly alcoholic drinks, who will be flattered by the attention of upperclassmen, who are innocent in the ways of sexual criminals and who are less likely to tell. If a predator tries to rape a senior with the tactics that worked on a first-quarter freshman, he’s more likely to get exposed.

I wonder, also, whether the most vulnerable women at Cal Poly get raped as first or second quarter freshmen, and then leave. That is, maybe the rape rate is even higher for freshmen, but sophomores, juniors and seniors don’t report it because the freshmen who were raped drop out of Cal Poly instead of becoming sophomores, juniors and seniors.

309

Data – one big apples to oranges factor. Some report incidence over the course of a college career. Or a snapshot of students then on campus. Or incidence over a particular time period (semester, academic year, calendar year). If you don’t account for that, it is all garbage.

310

@“Cardinal Fang” not sure where you are getting your numbers from for Cal Poly.

The report you linked to, specifically table B51, says the number is 4.7%, not 8%.

A bit more surprising is that only 45% of the perpetrators were students (page 107).

What is going on at CalPoly where 55% of the “unwanted sexual contact” is coming from non-students?

How can you can possibly conclude that? One of the quotes in there was “I was too drunk to get him off of me”. So they did include incapacitated rape.

The list they gave was not an exclusive list. Do you think they would just leave that out of the data set? "Well, you were incapacitated when raped, so technically that isn’t “unwanted sexual contact”.

311

You can’t compare the surveys exactly. But what you can tell, just by eyeballing, is that the BJS/NCVS is an outlier. Data10 has a little typo in the NVCS data; it’s actually 0.2 rapes per year, 0.15 attempted rapes per year. And when we adjust the other figures from the other surveys to be by year, in the most conservative way possible, we get numbers that are more than an order of magnitude higher.

@northwesty, you’ve spent a long time in this thread trying to convince me that the BJS/NVCS statistics are right, and the Princeton, Erie County, MIT, “Syracuse”, Oregon, Cal Poly and National Institute of Justice statistics are all wrong. It’s not working.

The NCVS rape rate for college women is 0.2% per year. The lowest of the other figures, MIT, has 6% of female respondents saying they were orally or anally raped while at MIT. The MIT figures are for all classes, so we’ll divide by two, since the students will have been at MIT for an average of two years. We get a rate of 3% per year-- and again, that’s the LOWEST of the other surveys.

How many other surveys will it take before you disbelieve the NVCS data, @northwesty?

312

It’s amazing how many of these problems could be solved if people didn’t drink underage…

313

@skyoverme, Table B51 for the Cal Poly survey includes men. It includes grad students, faculty and staff, too. Turn to page ix:

For all women answering the survey, the rate was 8%. Note, that includes grad students and faculty, whose sexual assault rates in other surveys are much lower than the rate for undergraduates. For all undergraduates, the rate was 6%-- but that includes men. Annoyingly, they don’t break out the rate for female undergraduates, but the large majority of sexual assaults have female victims. The sexual assault rate for this survey for women undergraduates is most likely more than 10%.

This is the question that the survey asks about unwanted sexual contact:

You can judge whether someone who believed she was raped when she had passed out would answer yes.

314

@cardinal fang

“Incapacitated rape” which is what you originally said does not exclusively mean “passed out”. Try not to change the definitions, since you used it properly previously, you seem to know what it refers to, changing it to make a try and make a point is disingenuous.

315

Do you honestly believe that someone in that circumstance would not say yes to the fact that they experienced unwanted sexual contact?

Seriously?

If they said no, then either it was not “unwanted”, nor “sexual” nor “contact”. Being raped while passed out would include all three. Why is this even a question for you???

I just don’t understand you.

316

I find it impossible to get worked up over the differences in the numbers. Even the most conservative estimates agree that assault is way too common on campus and involves, at a minimum, tens of thousands of victims every year. The numbers are high enough to say that this is a national problem that is likely occurring on every single residential campus. I can’t see why the strategies to solve the problem would be different depending on whether it’s 2% or 10% or higher, so I’d rather spend energy trying to figure out how to fix it.

317

amen

318

I wish I could “like” Hanna’s post another 100 times.

319

^^^ I agree. Whether the number is 1 in 5 or 1 in 500,000, it is still a problem that needs to be addressed in as many ways as possible. So why don’t we turn this discussion into how to avoid rape or help others so they don’t get raped? Something along those lines.

320

They likely would say yes. They might not, if they thought “forcible rape, use of drugs to incapacitate, forcible sodomy, gang rape, sexual assault, sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling” was meant to be an exhaustive list.