<p>“Falsely accused “rapists” are as much victims as rape victims themselves. Falsely imprisoning somebody for a crime as serious as rape is never, in any way, acceptable, nor is a legal system that allows for it. I don’t doubt that there are times when the system is unfair to victims, but when somebody is being falsely accused of rape, they face SERIOUS odds against them. DA offices often have a “get a conviction if it’s possible” mentality. Rather than attempting to find the truth, they look at all of the evidence that’s presented and see if it is possible to get a conviction out of it. This is not something limited to rape, but false rape accusations expose this deep flaw in the judicial system in this country”</p>
<p>I do not disagree in the least, however I don’t think any viable solution will involve making real rape victims even more afraid of coming forward.</p>
<p>I honestly think our social/cultural attitude towards sex is the reason why rape is of so much concern. Such high value is placed on sex that it creates potential for an incredible amount of psychological harm, whether the sex was consensual or not. The same high value also means people are less likely to have sex, consequently building sexual frustration in people who could possibly turn to the non-consensual alternative (Yes, I’m implying that the rapists (and their victims), who would otherwise be normal people, are products of our culture).</p>
<p>I realize that there is plenty of sympathy to be had for victims, as their emotional scars are very real. I just think it doesn’t have to be that way. If I was raped in the future, I would like to admit it freely and not feel ashamed or like I was burdening everyone around me with a morbid story. I want it to be on par with getting robbed; yeah, I want justice, but I want to tell the story and be p¡ssed about it, not deeply saddened.</p>
<p>I’m probably going to be flamed for saying all of that. Keep in mind, I’m not blaming rape victims for feeling the way they do at all. The value of sex is very real in our culture, and like I said, so are their emotional scars (as mine would probably be, in our current culture).</p>
<p>It’s very easy to say that before you’ve been raped. I always figured it wouldn’t bother me that much. I’d be mad, but it wouldn’t be worse than anything else. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong could not have been any more wrong. You fail to realize that rape is by and large not about sex nearly as much as it is control. I think the hard part for me is not so much OH GOD IT’S SEX I’VE BEEN VIOLATED as that the experience has since tainted every single other part of my life, because my sense of control and power is gone. It is a miracle I am with the man I am with, because I don’t know how anybody else could handle me. I wouldn’t let him touch me for almost a year, even innocently, and to this day out of nowhere I’ll get extremely upset with him for doing something that was totally okay the day before. The sense of having control over my own body and what happens to it is gone, and is taking a very long time to come back. Just like people say rapists rape for control rather than out of sexual desire, that is a major part of what makes it so difficult to cope with as the victim as well, because your control is ripped away from you in one of the most fundamental ways it shouldn’t be. I do not have sex anymore and don’t know if I’ll have kids now. It’s just not something I ever want anymore, I’ve lost the ability to feel good about it. I just feel like I am giving up my control over my body all over again if I try. That is a very strong mental and emotional hurdle that has very little to do with the sex itself.</p>
<p>I hate to rain on the rape apologist parade, but a study found that 2-8% of rape allegations are false, and the national average is 2% for other felonies. </p>
<p>Well they’re whores if they drink alcohol and sleep with guys so what’s the difference? Either way, women should never, ever engage in unwholesome activities!</p>
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<p>Is it illegal for women to drink? Does grinding on some guy qualify as consent? I’ve done plenty of sexual activities with my boyfriend, and before we have any sort of intercourse he always asks me if I want to have intercourse. And, oh my god, his response is always “you don’t have to” or “it’s okay if you don’t want to”. He’s such a saint. Is it so hard for guys to ask? Do you want to have intercourse? Are you comfortable? Are you enjoying this? I’d say both guys and girls need to learn to communicate to avoid misunderstandings, but women are never responsible for a crime that is done to them. Men are responsible for not raping women (or other men), it is not the responsibility of other people not to be raped.</p>
<p>A kiss isn’t a contract, neither is grinding, flirting, dating, etc. Is a guy obligated to marry a girl because he was grinding on her? Why not? After all, if you don’t want to be married to her no grinding! Are these guys obligated to performing any sexual activity the girl wants, like having him on the receptive end of anal sex? Why not? If he didn’t want that, he shouldn’t have been grinding on her! I don’t understand why women are called “****teases” for turning men on and not having sex with them, but no one criticizes men for turning on women and not doing it is whatever they want. </p>
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<p>I’ll blame it all on the guys when they’re the ones touching women in ways they don’t want or feel comfortable with. When women touch guys in a way they don’t want or feel uncomfortable with, I’ll blame them. Women aren’t at fault for enjoying revealing clothes, drinking, or having a social life.</p>
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<p>I engaged in sexual activity with my boyfriend soon after I met him, and he asked me if I wanted sex. I said no and he said okay and we played video games. It’s not playing with fire, it’s pursuing a social life. Women have the right to pursue a social life without worrying that the guy is going to attack them. Intoxicated women cannot consent to sex.</p>
<p>This thread is disgusting! Women are not responsible for rape unless they’re the ones raping. When rape victims are blamed instead of rapists, what does that say about men? Men are wild animals who can’t control themselves? They see a drunk girl in a short skirt grinding on them and they can’t muster enough control over themselves to not force themselves into her and violate her? Men are helpless when they see an attractive lady flirting? Guys actually want to characterize themselves as helpless victims so that women are responsible for being raped?</p>
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<p>I wonder why victims of rape don’t report the crime?</p>
<p>Ultimately, we can argue this for days on end, but it is an extremely fuzzy issue. “Rape” can mean very different things to different people – perhaps that is why numbers like “1 in 5” or “1 in 3” are thrown around. But I think making claims that being drunk or acting provocatively is “playing with fire” is extremely unfair. Just because a woman is trying to look and act in a way she thinks is attractive does not mean that she wants to have sex (or any sexual activity) with anyone and everyone. </p>
<p>That being said, I take several issues with what ZFanatic wrote:
“I would have to qualify that statement. So many girls I know go out and get drunk and have sex, using the alcohol as their scapegoat, since they’d be whores if they just went out and slept with guys.” – I don’t think it is fair to say that women are whores for wanting to sleep with guys. It’s not fair to say that women need alcohol to do so, either. That is a personal decision and, while you may decide that it isn’t the right choice for you, it may be the right choice for other people. </p>
<p>“If you say yes, then you said yes.” --Acting suggestively does not mean yes. It may suggest yes, it may make you HOPE that the woman is saying yes, but only “yes” means “yes.” This is why there needs to be more communication in sexual relationships. Playing along does not always mean yes – it may mean that a woman is too inebriated or scared to say no. And I don’t think that’s her fault. It’s not the guys fault for not knowing, but it’s also not the girl’s fault for not saying something. I really wish that colleges would encourage more healthy dialogue that went beyond “she’s such a whore for getting with him.” </p>
<p>“Is it wrong to take advantage of a drunk girl? Without a doubt yes. And although guys are usually the instigators, people need to stop blaming it all on guys until girls learn to keep their legs closed.” --This makes no sense. If guys are the instigators, then they are the instigators. Again, doesn’t matter that the girl looks hella fine and you really hope that she’s giving you the OK. If you cross a line, it’s all you buddy. </p>
<p>That’s not to say that it’s always the woman as a victim. The situation can easily be reversed – a woman instigator and a male victim. But I firmly believe that the victim is a victim and it really isn’t fair to pull the whole “they were asking for it!” card. But again, it’s hard to argue these things without concrete situations since so much of it is not concrete.</p>
<p>EDIT: Kaxane, looks like we’re totally on the same page. I hadn’t realized that you’d posted almost the exact thing above me. Whoops!</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I guess I should’ve phrased it better, but I feel like women invite a lot of the behaviors men exhibit upon themselves. Does that make it ok? Certainly not. When I say men’s behavior, I’m talking about hitting on girls and making a move. Making a move is not a crime, especially since it’s engrained in society that women can’t even ask a guy out on a date, let alone initiate a hookup. I’m simply saying that girls that do that stuff are inviting guys to make a move. If they go along with it, most guys will keep pushing to see just how far they can get. In a strange way it’s up to the girl to draw the line. Yes in a perfect world the guy would respect her and not push the boundaries, but they do. If a girl is going to play along for a while, she should when and how to draw the line. </p>
<p>You simply cannot expect a guy to read a girls mind, nor the other way around. A girl cannot be expected to know whether he’s a good guy or whether he’s trying to just get in her pants, and a guy cannot be expected to know just how far a girl is willing to go. You only get things accomplished (not just sex, but in life) by pushing the boundaries a little at a time. That’s how guys go for girls. Girls should know how to say no. If you can’t say no, then you should not put yourself in that situation. </p>
<p>Yes it sounds like I’m blaming everything on the girl, but I’m not. I just think many people forget that it takes two to tango and in most cases, the guy isn’t forcing her to have sex, he’s making the advances and she’s going along with it. Is the guy wrong for making advances? Not at all, until she says no, then it should stop. Is the girl wrong for accepting the advances? Not at all. Until she doesn’t want it to go any further, then it’s her job to put an end to it.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not saying promiscuous outfits and dirty dancing is saying let’s have sex, but in guy’s minds that is interpreted as “She’s here to have fun, maybe I can get some,” and that starts the whole ball rolling.</p>
<p>I agree with you, including the boundary pushing. It’s natural to try to feel how much you can get out of a situation in most everything. It’s hard when alcohol comes in because then it becomes even more difficult to read the situation. And men don’t have to be mind readers. But they need to understand when that boundary IS pushed that when they hear “no,” it doesn’t mean that they can try to push back again. I think that most things are probably fair game until that point. But when there’s a clear no (verbally or physically), it’s time for the boundary pushing to end. I think a lot of guys (and girls, too) don’t understand that. At least, in my experience they don’t. I give a no and get a “please please please please.” When you get no, that does not mean “TRY HARDER!” Because then something is going to go wrong.</p>
<p>The issue I take with your argument is that it requires that a significant number of girls are willing to dress provocatively, etc, but are too shy to say no and then cry rape, which I seriously doubt and you have not proven not provided any evidence. That, if it happened, would obviously not be rape. That is the only time I can think of when a girl would not say no but mean no, unless she is drunk or being coerced-- both of which are usually rape depending on state law.</p>
<p>There are girls who dress provocatively, which may or may not invite advances, and then are too drunk to say no. It is the potential rapist’s responsibility to know better than to have sex with a drunk person. Is the drunk person very smart for being drunk in that situation? No. But it is not their responsibility to protect themselves from rape more than it is the responsibility of the would-be rapist to not rape. There is a difference, legally, from not adhering to the laws of common sense and not adhering to the laws provided by the government. They to do not and cannot compare. One would not say that a mugger’s crime should be taken less seriously because the moron was out after dark to begin with. There is no reason to suspend that logic in cases of rape.</p>
<p>Clubs are sexual venues. People go there to pursue sexual desires. Grinding on someone is sexually inviting, period. Girls might just want to have fun and be a tease, but there is no mistaking that grinding is sexual. If you just want to have fun, dance solo or with a friend. Otherwise, you’re teasing, toying with emotions, playing with fire (IMO).</p>
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But someone can do any number of things to another to make them feel out of control of their bodies that don’t have any lasting psychological effects at all. Since this involves sex, it’s this whole other category, “rape,” which changes it significantly. If not for the value of sex, what is it about sex that makes it so different, so much more powerful?</p>
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It makes sense that you would easily have a conditioned aversion to sex after the incident. And I think, particularly for women, the role they typically play in sex is one of giving up control, just by the very nature of sex.</p>
<p>I also feel like your description of the offender is not the rapist I was describing from before. If the offender desires control, then I’d say that’s anti-social behavior, distinguishing him from the otherwise normal, sexually frustrated rapist.</p>
<p>I don’t really feel like going further… I would love to continue, but it feels wrong pretending to have any sort of expert authority about something I know so little about.</p>
<p>Because if you cannot protect your body, you have nothing. It is your most basic instinct to protect your body. Your mind? Your mind can take a few hits, GOD ONLY KNOWS mine sure has. You can even live without it. You have to be able to protect your body.</p>
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<p>The “normal” rapist is NOT sexually frustrated. They do it out of an impulse to control or humiliate. That is so resolutely understood I can’t even decide what source to show you. Honestly, google it and take your pick.</p>
<p>I just wish college students realized how much of a waste of time drinking and partying is in many ways. Im in college, Im not a Nazi about everything, I just feel like this is an age where you can enjoy a lot, but its a time where many people screw up stuff too, and hurt others badly.</p>
<p>@gotakun: So it’s your opinion that grinding on a guy means a girl is asking for it. So that means, you wouldn’t grind on a guy unless you wanted sex.
However, not every girl thinks the same way, and since I, for example, don’t think that dancing with a guy means that I want to have sex with him, I don’t think it’s fair to say that any sort of sexual behavior is inviting anything. Again, I can dance with a guy and then not make out with him. I owe him nothing. By dancing with him, all I said was that I wanted to dance. And if I kiss him, all I am saying is that I want to kiss. Not that I want anything beyond that. So if he decides to take his pants off and I say no, that’s my deal. Something can be sexual without meaning sex. So I think that’s a pretty weak argument, because it really only applies to how YOU feel.</p>
<p>Also, I am confused why you think that women play a role of giving up control in sex. Maybe in some situations, but that is absolutely not always the case. Maybe from what you’ve HEARD, lol.</p>
<p>If the internet were filled with people who decided to make comments like this, maybe there’d be less idiots who think they know what they’re talking about. I commend you for being mature and admitting that you may be wrong.</p>
<p>Twisted- I’m sorry to hear about your situation, and I implore you to seek psychological counsel if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>I’m actually in the middle of making an animation that deals with this for senior thesis (animation majorrr) only I’m dealing with silencing of the victims/victim blaming more. It’s such a terrible issue… my friend was a victim.</p>
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AMEN TO THAT. Jeez.</p>
<p>It’s such BS saying that grinding/whatever activity is sexually inviting so therefore the otherperson had no other CHOICE but to sexually harrass that person. You aren’t an animal, and in the end, whatever she may do, if she says NO, it’s no. This is exactly what my animation is sorta about (only I made it more extreme) because alot fo the rape victims get blamed for dressing provacatively/seducing/etc etc.</p>
<p>Seriously pal, grinding may look sexual, but there are almost never any sexual intentions to it. Have you ever been to a high school dance? You see girls grinding with tons of different guys. That doesn’t mean they want to have sex with all, or any of them.</p>
<p>I personally don’t like grinding, but that’s just me. I’m not much of a fan of dancing in general, but if I gotta dance I’d rather do something classic like the Samba, lol.</p>
<p>Some people on this thread make me lose all my faith in humanity. They make me want to reverse my decision as an international girl who wants to study in America- if this is how people talk about rape there, educated people who are on a website known for collecting america’s best and brightest college hopefuls, then I’m seriously going to ditch all the studying for the SATs and the college essay agonizing and reject any acceptances I get if this is college culture in america (I’m not saying that it is so, I’m just saying this is the impression I derieve from this thread). There’s a girl here who’s been through this, who has been raped, and people just tide over her story and offer their own opinions on something they’ve never had the horror of experiencing? Insinuating that the girl asks for it? That it’s okay to destroy someone’s life completely because she was wearing a short skirt? And I don’t buy that a false accusation is as bad as a rape itself. Considering the number of rape cases that go unpunished or unreported because of the FEAR of it being thought as a false accusation, I hardly think the worry of a rape accusation being ‘drunk chicks who regret it’ (obviously, if you regret something that badly you’ll shout through the rooftops you’re raped and get into a lot of unnecessary legal hassle rather than try and forget about it, sure) is the key issue here. Its precisely because of this way of thinking (Someone claims she was raped? Probably a drunk slut who threw herself on a guy) that leads to the horrific statistics in the OP’s post: less than 5% of girls who get raped actually report it.</p>
<p>For all the people who disagree-- if you’re women, then, honey, this is the reason why people like Tkiss or the girls in NSMom’s story are so damaged, because when their own sex can’t support them, how can anyone else? And if you’re men, think of your moms and sisters. If they were ever (god forbid) to be raped, would your first thought be ‘they were gridin’ low and dirty with some poor guy and they asked for it?'. Or would it even be, ‘Hmm, sis, tell me what exactly happened. Maybe you weren’t technically raped.’</p>
<p>My BFF’s not be able to even think of being with a guy for all of highschool, because a few people have felt her up without her consent when she was younger. It doesn’t matter what the technicalities are, or whether the line between rape and not rape is fuzzy. When sexual boundaries are violated, people get hurt, and take a long time to recover, spending years they should be happily socializing and dating being depressed and just coming to terms with something that happened years ago. It’s a lot of hurt. And talk about whether percentages are accurate or not or whether it was technically rape isn’t going to fix them.</p>
<p>I completely agree with you meghna- and let it be known that this forum being a gathering of “americas best and brightest college hopefuls” is nothing more than a facade induced by a litany of “chance me” threads and uber ■■■■■■ that camp out on controversial discussions. I don’t think that these users are necessarily unsympathetic of rape victims, they might just be trying to offer a different perspective on things for the sake of continuing a healthy discussion. Rape is both emotionally and physically devastating, but to simply drown ourselves in despair will neither help the rape victims overcome their tragic experiences nor help us better understand this harrowing reality faced by women around the world.</p>
<p>Meghna this website represents a microcosm of America. I tell you the majority of people in this country are sensible folk. Just because users here are intelligent doesn’t mean they’re smart. Ted Kaczynski, a domestic terrorist, studied at Harvard, Michigan and was a math professor at Berkeley.</p>
<p>Good post, meghnasridhar. My overall impression of men age 17-27 in general is that far too many think sexual assault and general mistreatment of women is funny. Most of them wouldn’t DO it, but they’d certainly tell a joke about it. And after my roommate found out about me we went to a mandatory seminar about sexual assault on college campuses and she laughed through the whole thing, so not even women are necessarily better. I guess it’s just a classic case of thinking bad things only happen to other people, so it’s okay to laugh about. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of normal, reasonable people. But I can’t wait til I don’t have to associate with college aged morons anymore. So mind numbingly naive.</p>
<p>I read an article yesterday that said that a lot of people demonize rape victims as a way of separating them from themselves. For example, a woman may say that if the victim didn’t wear such short skirts she wouldn’t have been raped, knowing that they themselves don’t wear short skirts so that makes them safe-- or perhaps that guy who got robbed shouldn’t have been wandering out in the dark like that, and you know better than that so to blame him protects you from fearing an assailant. If that is really the case for a substantial number of people it’s pretty ironic, since they are creating a false sense of control that damages rape victims who have lost theirs.</p>