[Potential Trigger warning]
… that a study has just discovered that rapists don’t usually have rapist tattoed on their forehead.
THE typical rapist is a charmer, not a misfit, new research shows.
He is talkative, engaging and employed in a good job. He is not a loner, nor mentally ill. He can be found at work, at a party, at the pub, or even in the home. In the main he is not lurking in shadows waiting to pounce on unsuspecting women. He is known to the victim and has worked assiduously at getting her to trust him.
It was only a small study of 33 women, but still the results back up what a lot of survivors say.
One of the victims, Amanda, said: ”He’s Mr Nice Guy. Everyone thought he was, like, sweet and kind … he’s the sort of person who appears as charming and thoughtful.”
He seemed nice. It was someone I knew. I never expected this to happen. I was at home. It won’t stop the Stranger Danger in a Dark Alley Late at Night rape meme, but it is one small step. May there be many more. [ETA] I don’t mean to suggest that Stranger rape does not occur, just that hopefully society will start to understand that it’s not the only way rape occurs and that people lurking in dark alleys are not the only ones that we fear.
Related Posts:
- It’s not “sex”, it’s rape: teen girls and “unwanted sex” by Lauredhel
- Foregrounding the object redux: rape research from the UK by Lauredhel
- Mythcommunication and Defending the Indefensible by tigtog
- Dear Internets: How to make Rape Jokes that won’t make Women hate You by tigtog
- Victim-blaming by the Queensland government by Lauredhel
* Quicklink to recent open threads
mindyhoyden: 
bluemilk: 
vivsmythe: 
CastIronBalcony: 
puzzlement: 
ChallyWrites: 
ilauredhel: 
Yep. Part of that is also getting everybody in their shared social circles to trust him, which of course makes it harder for the rape victim to voice accusations against the guy everybody likes so much.
You know something related that pisses me off? (Not at Mindy, at rape apologists!) The people who now deny the experiences of people who had the Stranger Danger in a Dark Alley Late at Night assault or are worried about it and have people sanctimoniously tell them that research says that their experience never happened.
My apologies Mary, I didn’t mean to suggest that, I will amend the post. Thanks for bringing that up.
Mindy, I don’t know that there’s anything you could do or say that will stop those people defining any rape they don’t want to hear about (that is, the ones that actually happen) out of existence! And I don’t expect you to!
But I guess it’s better to be aware that there is “all rapes are family/acquaintance rapes” denialists as well as “all rapes are stranger rapes” ones.
It’s frustrating that people will listen to scientists over the women that were actual victims of these crimes. *sigh*