Rape/Sexual Assault Culture

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by minerva, Jun 4, 2013.

Tags:
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I know we already have a thread discussing rape and sexual assault as it relates to the college campus environment, along with another thread discussing politicians' (mainly GOP) idiotic pronouncements on the subject, but given the discussion taking place on Capitol Hill about this issue in the military today, I thought it would be useful to have a broader thread that addresses rape and sexual assault in our society (and perhaps other societies as well - like India, where an American woman was gang raped in the latest such incident in that country).
    I know the military brass seems to be saying most of the right things on this issue today on Capital Hill and it certainly seems to be a real problem, but I wonder if the military is all that different (in terms of the number of such incidents) from other institutions (particularly colleges) where there is a predominance of young men and women interacting on a regular basis. having read parts of the Steubenville thread, it certainly doesn't seem so.
    of course there is a difference in the sense that one is a Government agency (with all that implies), while the others are private or state institutions, but aside from that, it would seem like this is a pretty common theme throughout society.
    and then of course there is India. hearing/reading about some of these cases just makes me scratch my head and ask wtf is wrong with that country? wtf is wrong with those men? wtf is wrong with that culture? singling out India may not be fair, and I'm not sure why those cases seem to receive so much attention, but either way, the "wtf" factor is definitely there and it's very high.
     
  2. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not that I'm not taking this seriously, but...Are you high, again?
     
    taosjohn repped this.
  3. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
    It does read like a run on sentence with punctuation.
     
    msilverstein47 repped this.
  4. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  5. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    just because I live in Denver... besides, we still have 52 minutes to go.
     
  6. msilverstein47

    msilverstein47 Member+

    Jan 11, 1999
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  7. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
  8. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Red herring because...


    As was stated in the article, Mississippi needs to start focusing on sex education and greater expansion of women's health.
     
  9. fatbastard

    fatbastard Member+

    Aug 1, 2003
    Lincoln (ish), Va
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    you know that'll never happen.
    What's needed is less regulations, more guns, and the decriminalization of shooting boys dead because they look at your daughter with lust in their eyes ;)
    And abolish schools, they just put dirty thoughts into kids' heads mixing boys and girls together like that - let the boys work on the farm or at the gas refinery instead, and just teach the girls how to find a good husband.
    Like the good ol' days ;)
     
    msilverstein47 repped this.
  10. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
    We should just make Mississippi a Saudi protectorate. With the exception of the farming part the 2 make a good match. :)
     
    msilverstein47 repped this.
  11. FormerGermanGuy

    Mar 1, 2001
    Indianapolis
    Club:
    Fulham FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You mean 'skirt down, panties up' isn't sex edumacation?
     
  12. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    maybe it isn't just India...
    I think I've come around to @Demosthenes way of thinking about this issues that it has to start with educating men about rape and what rape is. while the woman's behavior or mode of dress can be a contributing factor to rape, by far the biggest issue is male behavior and knowledge (or lack thereof). the 1 in 4 figure is based on asking the question about rape in a round-about way, rather than asking people outright if they've ever raped a woman.

     
  13. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    We need more words than rape. The term now is used to mean -

    1) Assaulting a women who is offering strenuous physical resistance.
    2) Pressuring a reluctant woman who does not offer physical resistance.
    3) Sex with a woman who is unconscious, or otherwise not in a normal frame of mind.
    4) Consensual sex at an age not permitted by the local law.

    Those are 4 different things. Make no mistake; I am not arguing that any of them are good. The first is bad, the second is bad, the third is bad, and while I disagree with most U.S. ages of consent (sex with a 17 year old in California is a crime? really?), I certainly agree that if the laws are reasonably written the fourth is bad. Nobody of any age should have sex with a 10 year old.

    It's fine if we use the word "rape" to mean "any sex act that we think is bad and should be illegal." We can use it as a general term. But we need more specific words, too. Right now, things are so garbled, with a teacher having consensual sex with her student being called a "rapist" just as the 4 guys in India who killed the woman.
     
  14. Demosthenes

    Demosthenes Member+

    May 12, 2003
    Berkeley, CA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It isn't about "bad" - it's about consent. Rape has a very simple definition, really: sex with someone who hasn't given consent. Whether that person is physically resisting, or is too drunk to give consent, or is unconscious, or is too young to give consent, it's all sex without consent and so it's all rape. Adding more words to the lexicon to differentiate the various ways people can force other people into sex doesn't help anything. In fact, it serves to minimize the seriousness of certain forms of assault, and it obscures the clear connections among them.
     
    bigredfutbol, Belgian guy and taosjohn repped this.
  15. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    seems like there's a difference between giving consent and not resisting.
    if a person doesn't explicitly or implicitly give consent (assuming that they're capable of it - i.e. not drunk/passed out), but also doesn't resist (assuming that they are capable of it), is that still rape?
    also, does there have to be actual penetration for it to be rape?
    and what about cases in which people are under the influence of over-the-counter sleeping medication or some kind of anti-psychotic drug for bipolar people. or hell, what if someone has a cold and they took some NyQuil. and maybe had a beer or a glass of wine with it to help them sleep through the night? what if a person is just "tipsy" versus "wasted" versus unconscious. where do you draw the line? what if a person who is "wasted" gives you consent, but is probably not in the right frame of mind and his/her judgement is clearly impaired. does such consent count?
    I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not always so clear cut and black/white. a lot of sex occurs when one/both parties' judgement is impaired to some degree by either medicine, alcohol, drugs (legal and illegal), etc. surely not all such sex is rape.
     
  16. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Yes well, we are at opposite ends on this one. You think I'm minimizing the seriousness of whatever the "least" of these crimes would be, let's say an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old in the state of California. I think you minimize the seriousness of the Indian gang attack, or the experience of a prisoner who is beaten and sodomized by a fellow inmate, by giving it the same name as a 17 year old having sex with his 18 year old boyfriend.

    I said my bit. You will not be convinced, nor the reverse.
     
  17. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
    This is not a good example. Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure that in most states including California the sex described in your example would be legal.
     
  18. TightAngelicWingback

    Sep 16, 2013
    Astride a hawk contorting, and its wings too..
    Club:
    Beitar Jerusalem FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Samoa
    Worst sexual culture in the world, bar none, exists on the Sub Continent. Most backwards societies in the world live there IMHO.

    Shufta > Indian villagers/"Middle class"
     
  19. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    It's how you get crazy concepts like "rape" rape and "real" rape. o_O
     
  20. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    Your example reeks a bit of cherry-picking. The large majority of rape (statutory or otherwise) will not be as innocent as an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  21. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Sure, it's cherry picking. It's an illustrative example. Ronnie got himself elected on the welfare queen buying champagne with food stamps. (My illustration is more fair than Ronnie's.)

    My beef is solely with the statutory case of teenagers. For example: Youths in Iceland engage in sex earlier than elsewhere in the world. The large majority of them do so before their 18th birthday, which means that the large majority of Icelandic youths are raped, per California law.

    So is Iceland a rape/sexual assault culture? More than say Egypt?



    Yeah no, I don't think so.
     
  22. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Were the partners 18 or above?
     
  23. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    #23 JohnR, Sep 19, 2013
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2013
    California statutory rape laws make no such distinction.

    Anyway, I've sidetracked this long enough. The OP clearly meant nonconsensual sex, not the statutory case.

    In which the proper response is, who knows what truly are the rape cultures? The crime is so poorly reported in most places that the statistics are not to be believed (unless you think that Swedish women are raped 50x as often as Indian women). Until each country takes rape seriously, prosecutes the crime, encourages and supports rape victims to press charges, and the culture is fixed so that it does not blame rape victims, we won't really know. And that won't be happening in a long, long time, sadly.
     
  24. KCFutbol

    KCFutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 14, 2001
    Overland Park, KS
    Club:
    Kansas City Wizards
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Auriaprottu repped this.

Share This Page