Tag: Rape culture

Disgusting: Teacher rapes 14-Year-Old and gets 30 days in prison.

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You read that right, not 30 years. 30 days!

30 days!

There are no words…

Reasons for this result? The Internet was mean to the poor rapist. “The girl looked older chronologically.” The latter suicide of the victim complicated things for the prosecution…Yep.

This is like being in an MRA wet dream. Just go look at the comments on my post on why accusations of rape are not as bad as, you know, actual rape, and you’ll find it infested with all types of scumfucks pretty much wishing that all rape cases ended up like the above one.

On why rape jokes aren't funny

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If this doesn’t convince you that rape jokes aren’t funny, I don’t know what will.

I quoted in the past about rape jokes and how they reinforce rapists, but now I’ve found an excellent post which goes in length into this, speaking from a personal experience as a rape victim, no less, and how it affects them.

laughing at/telling rape jokes is a pretty clear indicator of how little you can personally identify with the very real consequences of a very real act, just like laughing at/telling lynching jokes is a pretty clear indicator that you’re so so so white, and have never known and will never know somebody who was lynched (though you might know somebody who did the lynching).

Wholeheartedly suggested.

Also this.

So, here is my challenge for those who want to tell rape jokes:

Ask every woman in your life if she has been sexually assaulted. Ask her to tell you her story. This means your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your grandma.

Once you have heard all their stories, go watch a movie with a rape scene in it. One you didn’t mind before. One you thought people were overly offended by.

Now tell me a joke.

Quote of the day: Rape culture in Reddit

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inb4 MRA claim it’s the fault of all those false rape accusations.

Quoth Breakfast_Champions:

If anyone ever doubted rape culture exists, this whole incident is the proof. Talking about an experience of being raped leads to being critisized in the harshest terms and accused of being a faker. Posting proof of the rape leads to walls of text with upvotes about how the real issue in all this is false rape accusations. And then there are massively upvoted posts after the fact about how she basically deserved that response for even bringing it up.

That is rape culture. Where rape jokes are considered funny, actually being raped is your own private shame, and any attempt to talk about rape with either lead to harsh criticism, or a shift of the discussion towards false rape accusations. Reddit shows a window into a fundamentally rape-friendly society.

I won’t go into the details of this story as Manboobz and Jezebel have already analyzed it and provided the appropriate link. I’ll just say that this is par for the course for the larger Reddit community. It’s only funny because how much redditors think they’re some enlightened class, somehow above sexism.

 

Once again comparing false rape accusations to actual rape.

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Redditors insist that being accused of rape is just as bas or worse as being raped

I had a discussion on this issue again on reddit. I thought I’d repost my comments here. Unfortunately the person I was talking to deleted their comments, but I’ve quoted a part of it. Basically that person claimed that they had both been raped and been falsely accused of rape and both scarred them deeply. They were using their personal experiences to argue that false rape accusations can be just as bad as being raped. So I wrote…

Were you convicted? Same thing can happen for being convicted of murder, or any other serious crime.

Not to mention that this is not necessarily what happens to all who are accused of rape. Much of the time, the rape victim is not believed at all, their tale trivialized, or they are victim-blamed.

Yes, it sucks to be considered guilty for something you didn’t do. If there’s enough evidence to convict you, it can totally ruin a life and nobody deserves that. But accusing someone of rape is nothing compared to being raped.

Simply being falsely accused does not always lead to anything bad happening. Being raped always leaves permanent scars.

The basic point is that the results of fale accusation and rapes always vary. Some victims might take it better than others. But rape, on average, has far far worse results and occurs with far higher frequency.

Finally, within the current system there is a kind of zero sum effect between false rape accusations and actual rapes. We’re still at a point in time where many kind of rapes are not considered “rape-rape” (as some clueless media personas have called it) and there’s still a huge amount of rapes that don’t see justice because the victim was afraid to come out for fear of being accused and victim blamed. By making the culture more focused on false-rape accusations (i.e. more skeptic towards accusations of rape), is just going to make victim blaming even worse and thus more women are unlikely to even come out.

There is no perfect solution within the sociopolitical system we live in (which is why, and others, are rather radical about the change we need to have). But until then, I find it absurd to compare something that happens to something like 0.5% (or was it 0.05%? fairly small anyway as it only affects around 2%-8% of rape accusations) of males and has on average very little consequences, to something that happens to 15%-25% (statistic vary, but it’s a fucking lot) of females, causes horrible psychological damage, and is so permeating that it affects the lives of all females, without it ever happening to them, simply due to the fear that it might.

They replied to that comment with parts I quoted when I responded.

sad but true that an accusation is basically the same as a conviction in the eyes of everyone around you when it comes to rape

That’s just not true. I guess it depends on who you hang out with but this attitude is definitelly not generic.

I’d say that the SOCIAL consequences of a false accusation are at least as bad if not worse as those of being raped, and the potential exists for someone’s life to be destroyed just as fully if not moreso (thanks to the lack of support/resources) as someone who was raped.

Again, that’s just not true and I haven’t seen any study showing that this is anywhere near common.

OTOH, there’s never a loss for cases of rape accusations (true of false) where the accused didn’t have any problems from it.

Yes, the potential is there, but having a potential for a false rape (or murder, or theft) accusation to turn out horrid is not a guarantee. But every rape turns out on a scale of horrid.

For fuck's sake, No! Being falsely accused of rape is not not NOT as bad as being actually raped!

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And no, false rape accusations are not an epidemic either.

[Trigger warning for rape on all links]

What the fuck is wrong with these people? I keep seeing the same argument again and again and again and again , the idea that being accused of rape is not simply as bad as being raped but often worse. I honestly can’t believe how people can be so fucking dense so as to think this is true.

Note that I am not saying that being falsely accused of rape is not bad and can utterly damage your life, but it just does not even compare to the experience of being raped. Yes, both are subjective damages but the overwhelming anecdotes we have of rape survivors show psychological damage of such extent that it can never be repaired or avoided. Being falsely accused of rape on the other hand is only as bad as being falsely accused of many other very socially unacceptable crimes such as drug dealing and murder. The effect reach only as to the extent of people who know about your crimes and consider them bad enough.

A person falsely accused of rape (and convicted of course) may, at the worst case scenario lose friend and family and have their career ruined, but given time they can find new friends who will believe them and repair their social circle, even while hindered by the state. Many times they even clear their names eventually (otherwise we wouldn’t have such a nice influx of False Rape Accusation news stories for the Men’s Right crowd to cheer around). But apparently for some, even the short term damage of a false rape accusation that a male was eventually cleared from, compares to being actually raped.

Here’s the difference though, a rape victim most likely will never escape the damage of the event. Once the deed has been done, the scar will stay forever, no matter if the perpetrator is punished. You cannot undo the rape. You cannot restore the lost trust. You cannot wipe the memory triggers. Any story from rape victims that I’ve heard is magnitudes worse than most false rape accusation stories. And while a the occasional rape victim might take it better than others and survive with less emotional scars, on average the damage is far more severe.

It truly shames me as a male that I have to even point this out to others of my gender.

Many use the excuse that because the aftereffects are subjective, no comparison can be done. Well I disagree vehemently. Due to empathy we can easily grasp the relevant magnitude of each event, much like we can easily see the difference in suffering between having your face slapped, having your tooth pulled out and having acid thrown in your face. These are not all equally bad just because the suffering they cause is subjective. But somehow this comparison fails when it comes to rape doesn’t it?

Much of it I believe comes from lack of empathy. For males, especially those active in the “Men’s Rights” movement which repeats stories of false rape accusations and child custody gone wrong stories, find it far easier to empathize with the male who has been falsely accused. As a male, this is an actual fear they face, even if they wildly blow it out of proportion. In fact I’d go as far as to say that the fear of being falsely accused in the closest thing some males will come to understanding what kind of fear our rape culture creates for females. It’s easy to intuitively empathize with the kind of emotional pain that losing your friends and family can have.  It is not as easy to empathize with rape because most men do not fear it at all. There is no common experience, no horror stories told among friends and family, no victim blaming seen on mainstream media, to even give them an idea that comes even close to how damaging rape can be and on top of that, they have a wealth of rape jokes told by other males which will further trivialize any such empathy they may develop. Naturally then they feel that False Rape Accusations are far worse than actual rape. They just empathize more strongly with the former.

Doesn’t make it correct though.

The even more frustrating things is that the fear of false rape accusations is being used to perpetuate the rape culture. The idea is promoted that a false rape accusation is bad enough even if it falls through in a court of law, due to the psychological “lynching” by friends and family. The implicit idea then is that people should treat rape accusers with distrust because otherwise you unjustly harm the accused who might be innocent after all. This of course reinforces the culture of victim blaming where the search for justice for rape victims is itself so emotionally taxing and with such a high chance of failure, that most of them do not even bother to even try.

Then the Blackstone formulation will be conveniently trotted out to show that it’s better for 15 rapists to go free than for 1 innocent  to be convicted which is so frustrating because it looks at the issue in isolation. A more accurate formulation would be to ask: Is it better for 1 in 200 males to be falsely convicted of rape ((About 8% of rape accusations are dismissed. This does not mean that 1 in 15 males is falsely accused, but from all the males that are accused, 8% are cleared. Iirc, the number in the full male population comes down to around 0.5%)) or for 1 in 6 females to be raped? Of course this is also flawed since those two statistics don’t have to be in competition ((It’s a sad fact of the flawed justice system we use that they are but challenging the adversarial justice system itself is even more unthinkable for most)). Unfortunately those who bring up the false rape accusations and paint them as an epidemic of some sort, will simply push for more stricter investigations completely ignoring what effects this has on women trying to report rape and find justice.

Fact of the matter is that compared to the frequency of actual rape, the number of false rape accusations is a drop in a bucket. To put weight into tackling those few false rape accusations without first tackling the actual epidemic of rape is a travesty, which becomes even worse when one considers that the way some males want to tackle the false rape accusations would actually reinforce the rape culture.

That does not mean I am opposed to reducing the false rape accusations while we’re at it but for crying out loud, get your priorities straight first and only then, look for ways to address it that don’t make the raped women even more marginalized. Unfortunately I think that the current court system and laws are inherently flawed and it’s a sad fact that the heavy handed statist response to the rape epidemic can’t address it without causing some harm elsewhere. One would hope this would make people rethink their premises, but unfortunately this doesn’t happen.

Finally, let me suggest an idea to make males who dismiss the idea of the rape culture while simulataneously railing against false rape accusations. It might give them an idea of how it feels to be a woman in a rape culture. Ask them, if 0.5% of males being falsely accused is a horribly large amount, how they would feel if the percentage was 18%. Would this scare them of having relationships? Ask them how they would feel if they could be easily falsely convicted without any court proceedings. Would this terrify them? Ask them how they would feel if they could be instantly falsely convicted of rape without court proceedings by their wife, their friends, or their aunts, while walking their dog, while sleeping over at a friend’s party, while drinking at a bar. Would this isolate them in horror? Ask them how they would feel if they could be easily falsely convicted of rape by many females who acted in coordination and backed up each other’s story. Ask them how they would feel if the state, their family, their friends all told them that the only way to avoid being falsely convicted of rape without a trial was to constantly use a voice recorder or a camera to record everything that happens around them. Would they think this is a sensible solution? Ask them to imagine that all of these were true at the same time and imagine how it would feel to live their whole life in such an environment.

And then remind them that this is how all women feel currently, only with worse psychological damage to boot.

PS: Bonus link (big big big rape trigger warning). Show them this gut-wrenching story and then remind them that this counts as part of the false rape accusations statistic.

This is what rape culture and male privilege looks like

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Should rape victims deserve to be accused of lying? Should males be praised for not dumping their girlfriends after they were raped? You tell me.

A woman made an IAmA/AMA ((For those not in the know yet, IAmA/AMA stands for “I Am A [insert trait, description, experience here], Ask Me Anything)) about her experience with being raped, keeping the child and her current boyfriend staying with her and marrying her eventually. The story of how it happened was quite interesting to read since for a change it does not come from a “Western Nation” but rather from a “Developing Country” which has still quite backward social norms. And one of those that immediately jumped out at me was the crass rape culture that exists.

The 5th day, I finally called the police. I live in an asian country. You have to understand that the culture is different here and that when a woman accuses a man, the police always assume that the woman was lying. Except in my case, I wasn’t. They came, I told them what happened and the police was less than helpful.

This whole part of the story is in fact quite interesting in a horrifying sort of way in giving us a glimpse into the post-rape mindframe of a rape victim. How she was feeling so guilty and unsure that it took her 5 days just to report it and by then, much of the evidence is gone and the rapist has enough time to secure an alibi. And then, the police will immediately assume you’re lying. This isn’t just “too much” for the victim of a type of assault that completely destroys you emotionally, It is overwhelming. Is it any wonder why so many rapes go unreported? If it takes a week, or even a month to get emotionally stable enough to even speak about the event, who wants the first reaction to it to be an accusation of lying and victim blaming?

As a privileged person (male and have not been raped), I can’t even begin to feel what it must be like but even the thought of having to deal with such a traumatizing event and then have the whole world distrust me because of it, downright horrifies me.

This is what a rape culture looks like and the immediate distrust of rape survivors coupled with victim blaming is why rape is still so widespread. And this particular point, the fostering of distrust of the experiences of victims of rape is why I especially despise those who align themselves with the “Men’s Rights” movement which continuously agitates on the platform that false rape accusations are frequent and that being  falsely accused is just as bad as being the victim of rape (Yes, this was an actual position someone stood by).

The Men’s Rights crowd will of course claim that they only want the “guilty until proven innocent” doctrine be used, but in practice this boils down to treating anything the victim claims as lies until conclusive evidence is presented in court. When someone points out that treating rape survivors as liars at worst or dishonest at best is not exactly the best way to foster an attitude where rape victims can come forward, they strawman your argument as you are pushing for a “guilty until proven innocent” doctrine. A ridiculous strawman setup just to shut down any discussion by enraging their opponent and then derailing due to that.

That’s the first point, the second point I wanted to talk about can be seen by looking at the comments of the reddit post. Go look at them and tell me if you can see it. I’ll wait.

Done? Good. Did you see anything troubling?

Well, let me put it out clearly: Of the 15 best comments in the post ((“best comments” being the default sorting algorithm that reddit uses)), 10 are praising the male. Of the best 3 comments, all 3 are about praising the husband. To put this into context:

In a post about the personal story of a rape victim who ended up getting pregnant because of it and her husband decided to stay with her, 2/3rds of the responses are all about praising the male.

Does it seem just a bit odd to you that in a story about the rape of a woman who opens her heart and allows for some Q&A, a male who is not even there would be getting praises in large amounts, just for being a decent human being?

This is what male privilege looks like. The fact that so little is required of you due to your gender, that even basic human decency is grounds enough for gushing adulation. It’s the sheer mentality of “I could act like a dick if I wanted to, but if I don’t, then goddamnit you’d better recognise it and give me the appropriate praise“. And this permeates everything. Woman doing the housework all week? No big deal. Man cleaning the toilet over the weekend without being asked to explicitly? OMGWTFBBQ Best. Husband. Ev4r!

In this case it just really really irked me the wrong way. Here we have a woman who had one of the most traumatic experiences a human can go through and ended up in a life changing situation (being pregnant). She nevertheless had the courage to report it, even though she knew she would be treated with distrust by those who were tasked with “protecting her”. She went through hell and came out alive and the boyfriend deserves all the praise for not dumping her on top of it?! I’m sorry, I just can’t wrap my head around this mentality. The sheer fucking absurdity of it…

It could be in part due to how much the woman herself is promoting her husband as deserving the lion’s share of the praise for sticking with her during these bad time, but for fuck’s sake people, this is the time to point out that most of the credit belongs to her. For being courageous enough to report it. For managing to overcome crippling psychological damage enough. For not taking her own life! She is the strong , wonderful person in the story here and she doesn’t seem to know it, given on how she attributes her whole recovery on her husband. You shouldn’t be reinforcing this. You should be pointing out that she is putting herself down far too much.

Argh!

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