Please copy and save the following to your hard drive; insert into any old internet thread which looks like it could use a fucking clue:

FALSE RAPE REPORTS ARE AS LOW AS ANY OTHER CRIME: SOURCE: FBI & JUSTICE DEPT.

In 1998, unfounded rape reports accounted for 8 percent of total reported rapes; however, this number is questionably [too high because] Some police officers incorrectly think that a rape report is unfounded or false if any or all of the following conditions apply:

“¢ the victim has a prior relationship with the offender
(including having previously been intimate with him)
“¢ the victim used alcohol or drugs at the time of the assault
“¢ there is no visible evidence of injury
“¢ the victim delays disclosure to the police and/or others and does not undergo a rape medical exam
“¢ the victim fails to immediately label her assault as rape and/or blames herself.§

Fewer than 5 percent of college women who are victims of rape or attempted rape report it to police.14 However, about two-thirds of the victims tell someone, often a friend (but usually not a family member or college official). In one study, over 40 percent of those raped who did not report the incident said they did not do so because they feared reprisal by the assailant or others.15 In addition, some rape victims may fear the emotional trauma of the legal process itself. Low reporting, however, ensures that few victims receive adequate help, most offenders are neither confronted nor prosecuted, and colleges are left in the dark about the extent of theproblem.16
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/txt/pop/e07063411.txt

MEN WHO HOLD “RAPE SUPPORTIVE ATTITUDES” ARE MOST LIKELY TO RAPE

Descriptive studies show that compared to their less aggressive peers, sexually aggressive men typically view relationships with women as hostile and adversarial, have a more promiscuous and impersonal orientation toward sex (Malamuth, Linz, Heavy, & Acker, 1995), and show greater arousal to depictions of forced intercourse (Bernat, 1997; Lohr, Adams, & Davis, 1997). Social information processing and judgments of sexual interactions are further influenced by aggressive men’s rape supportive cognitions (e.g., Bernat, Wilson, & Calhoun, 1997).

At the individual level, men are more likely to sexually assualt if they have hostile and negative sexual attitudes towards women and identify with traditional images of masculinity and male privilege (Heise, 1998; O’Neil &Harway, 1977). At the level of the immediate context in which violence takes place – typically families or other intimate or acquaintance relationships – male dominance is a strong predictor of the likelihood of sexual violence against women. At the interpersonal level, another predictor especially among young men is attachment to male peers wo encourage and legitimate woman abuse (Heise, 1998). And at the macro-social level, rates of violence against women are higher in contexts in which manhood is defined in terms of dominance, toughness, entitlement to power or male honour, there are rigid gender roles, and violence is condoned as a means to settle interpersonal disputes (Heise,1989).

CULTURES WHICH ACCEPTS MISOGYNY AS NORMAL PROMOTES RAPE

McFall (1990, p.318) has stated in his information processing model of rape:”This evidence paints the following portrait of sexually aggressive men. They enter heterosexual relationships holding distorted cognitive schemata that predispose them to sexual misunderstandings and misguided actions. It is as though these men were ‘primed’ by their schemata to read positive sexual connotations into women’s neutral or negative messages; to believe that women secretly wish to be victims of sexual coercion; to misinterpret women’s refusals ofsexual advances merely as coquettish acceptances; to dismiss women’s physical resistance as a primeval sexual ritual; to misperceive women’s cries of pain as squeals of pleasure; and to redefine any attempted rebuffs as proof that womenare ‘teases’ who deserve whatever they get.”

Descriptive studies show that compared to their less aggressive peers, sexually aggressive men typically view relationships with women as hostile and adversarial, have a more promiscuous and impersonal orientation toward sex (Malamuth, Linz, Heavy, & Acker, 1995), and show greater arousal to depictions of forced intercourse (Bernat, 1997; Lohr, Adams, & Davis, 1997). Social information processing and judgments of sexual interactions are further influenced by aggressive men’s rape supportive cognitions (e.g., Bernat, Wilson, & Calhoun, 1997).

[...]that [...]…

* “It’s not the empty street that causes rape.” Goddamn, today is awesome for linkage….

Lauredhel had a post on Hoyden About Town on how the very language we use to describe violence against women erases male responsibility. Including the phrase “violence against women”, which implies but doesnÂ’t actually state “male violence against …

Are you saying that it’s possible to identify men more likely to rape, due to a constellation of actions which betray a habit of thinking of women as subhuman? Because, in a self-centered way, I’d like to hear more about that.

Some time ago, I had a disturbing realization: I realized that a significant proportion of my female friends had told me that they’d been assaulted or abused in the past, and doing a bit of math, I considered that none of my male friends had ever told me about that time they beat up a girl, or that time they raped a girl. If I hadn’t had friends who had trusted me enough to tell me, the whole thing would have remained utterly invisible to me, and rape would have been something that happened to Other People Who Deserved It. It’s a disturbing thought, that people I know and respect might be capable of that, and that there’s no good way of knowing. (Not, of course, as disturbing as the thought that I might be the next victim, but as I said, this is a self-centered thought.)

There’s a constant chorus whenever rape is brought up that all men aren’t like that, but passivity on the part of men who don’t rape enables those who do. Any way of identifying and sanctioning men who are “like that” is of great interest to me.