Feminism: Allegations of Sexual Violations

[Tywin Manderly]

Please conitnue. :)

Every god damn fucking week, the feminism thread is derailed and dragged back to the mud by people equipped with no more than 5th grade level reasoning skills and a dick, offering craptastic argument that insult both women, men, and the human intellect. So, this thread is the place to get away from that metaphorical shit.

In this thread, the validity of feminism is not a subject for discussion - accept it, or don't post here.

The topics suitable for this thread include, but are not limited to:

- as cross-cultural feminism

- comparisons and developments in a various branches of feminism

- social, cultural, and political phenomena that exemplify/illustrate feminism positively or negatively

- the role of feminism in different arena of human endeavors (job, religions, sports, dating, entertainment, etc.)

Criticism for the existence and justification of feminism can still take place elsewhere on the board - go knock yourselves out over there.

This thread is not meant for the debate on the validity of feminism. It is intended for the exploration of feminist ideas and implications in politics, personal lives, and entertainment. It will be heavily moderated and contents deemed inappropriate for the scope of this thread will be deleted.

Edit: Feminism Thread Rules by TerraPrime added at the request of Summah.

[Tywin Manderly]

Wouldn't the assault itself be traumatic enough to induce PTSD? Or is this second traumatic event unconnected to the report of sexual assault?

Indeed.

[Summah]

Crom Dubh, yes obviously the rape as described would be more than enough for PTSD, however since the veracity of the RS story is being questioned, and some details have definitely been found to be incorrect, and some people will take this to mean it's 100% a lie and false report and she wasn't sexually assaulted, so I thought it was important to mention that friends of hers (who knew her back then) believe that a traumatic event (likely sexual assault) happened to her fall of her freshman year and this has been verified by reporters from other media outlets (like the Washington Post). So the idea that PTSD messed with her memory is possible. It's also possible that it happened basically like she said, but at a different frat.

[Altherion]

Here's the Washington Post article with a fairly detailed account of the flaws in the Rolling Stone story. While it certainly leaves the possibility of something bad happening to the alleged victim at stated time quite plausible, it also mostly rules out the possibility of offenses being perpetrated by any of the groups or individuals who were accused. I wonder if the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity can sue Rolling Stone for libel. I also wonder if anyone will believe her if she accuses another suspect or group -- with most physical evidence long gone, it's mostly her word against whoever is accused and, as the managing editor of the Rolling Stone put it, "our trust in her was misplaced".

More generally, it is interesting that the fraction of rape accusations that are false is said to be low, but so many such accusations which reach national levels of attention turn out to be false (in this case, it's possible that some manner of assault took place, but the original accusations are almost certainly false). Some of it is almost certainly due to the fact that the media likes sensational stories and such stories are generally less likely to be true regardless of the subject. However, some of it could also be because the investigative resources devoted to such cases are an order of magnitude more than a typical accused individual can afford.

[Summah]

From the WP just linked:

“Andy” said Jackie said she had been at a fraternity party and had been forced to perform oral sex on a group of men, but he does not remember her identifying a specific house. ...

Jackie’s former roommate, Rachel Soltis, said she noticed emotional and physical changes to her friend during the fall semester of 2012, when they shared a suite.

“She was withdrawn, depressed and couldn’t wake up in the mornings,” said Soltis, who said that she was convinced that Jackie was sexually assaulted.

So even this article supports the idea that something happened. It may not have been as in the article or at that particular frat, but I don't think it's fair to fully characterize it as a false report. I also think Altherion that you should go to the previous feminism thread and read the link Aoife posted about a "false report" (I believe it's on the last page), I don't know why you think there are so many false reports, I can't think of very many famous rape cases that were false reports.

[Altherion]

So even this article supports the idea that something happened. It may not have been as in the article or at that particular frat, but I don't think it's fair to fully characterize it as a false report. I also think Altherion that you should go to the previous feminism thread and read the link Aoife posted about a "false report" (I believe it's on the last page), I don't know why you think there are so many false reports, I can't think of very many famous rape cases that were false reports.

Again, it is certainly plausible that something happened, but it is almost certainly false that it involved the explicitly named group (Phi Kappa Psi) or the implicitly implicated individuals. The fact that another crime may have occurred does not prevent the original accusations from being false.

My comment regarding the overabundance of false allegations referred only to those which are covered on the national level -- the kind that are simultaneously covered in Time Magazine, the Washington Post, on CNN, etc. and discussed on this board. There are not actually many of them (this one and the Duke Lacrosse case), but if you take the 8% number quoted as an upper limit in the Rolling Stone article, that would mean that there should be around 23 national stories in which the allegations either turned out to be true or at least were not demonstrated to be false. I can think of exactly one: the Steubenville case. Maybe I'm missing one or two, but I doubt there were 10, let alone 20.

EDIT: Actually, I can think of another case: the Cosby one. I guess if you count each allegation against him separately, you can make the statistics work out. :P

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I don't think there's a conclusion to be drawn from this case other than that Rolling Stone is a tabloid with the trappings of a more intellectual publication.

[Summah]

A bunch in India including the gang rape on the bus, Ariel Castro, Mike Tyson, Elizabeth Smart, Amber of Amber alert (she was a child though and she was raped), Central Park jogger, OC gang rape, Polansky, a Warren Jeffs, more than one Kennedy. Do I need to go on? And that's not even including all the famous cases of serial killers who rape their victims.

[Shryke]

There's also no talk to believe stories that make big headlines constitute a representative sample.

And, of course, no reason to act like Altherion's statements have anything to do with this situation or what he's now talking about since he's one of those who've been harping on this disproven point for ages now.

[deleted01]

Thought this belonged here.

Protests against the porn censorships recently put into place in the UK will begin on Friday. What did we ban, you ask? Among other things, female ejaculation. What absolute asshat decided that "the children"* need to be protected from women enjoying sex?Oh yes, because women don't enjoy sex, how silly of me.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/porn-censorship-to-be-protested-with-mass-facesitting-at-parliament-9914354.html

I'm not an "anti-porn feminist". My general stance is that I believe all sex workers should be consenting adults, with rights to fair pay and treatment, as in any job, and should be able to do their job without social repurcussions. And that sexuality should be embraced. Porn has its place, I think, even if I'm not a big viewer of it personally. As the protests say, if it's legal to do, it should be legal to watch. Censorship has rarely gotten us anywhere in the past. Try education.

*Of course actual children should be protected from viewing any indecent images, but the above of course refers to stuffy, middle-class prats who can't quite fathom the idea of sexual intercourse being enjoyable for all parties concerned.

[karaddin]

It strikes me that in addition to attacking depictions of women enjoying sex, it's also disproportionately targeting the kind of porn which is often more targeted to women and being made more ethically.

I read a piece earlier in the week theorising it will be combined with the internet filter to eventually block all non compliant porn as well, with the potential to move on to sex offender charges for those who get around it (the former sounds more likely and a necessary precursor to the latter). Puritanism is wonderful, women don't enjoy sex!

[TheTygerAndTheLamb]

My partner showed me this and was confused when I didn't find it funny

http://i.imgur.com/GGh3gEL.png?1

Really didn't know how to respond to that to tell the truth

[karaddin]

Ha..ha..but don't you get it... The wife is a cow so they will worship her..ha..ha

Fuck off. I can see contexts where you might be sharing it to take humour in the nasty response, which is still not cool but can happen in a more acceptable way, but to share it and not understand that it's offensive? That's major red flag to me for a partner.

[TrackerNeil]

So even this article supports the idea that something happened. It may not have been as in the article or at that particular frat, but I don't think it's fair to fully characterize it as a false report. I also think Altherion that you should go to the previous feminism thread and read the link Aoife posted about a "false report" (I believe it's on the last page), I don't know why you think there are so many false reports, I can't think of very many famous rape cases that were false reports.

It seems to me that the best way to view this is that there just wasn't enough there, by journalistic standards, to support good reporting. That's not to say anyone is lying or falsely reporting, but what one believes may often be quite different from what one reports. Similarly, although in a court of law a defendant's innocence is presumed, that doesn't mean the same holds true in our own minds.

Edited to add: I'm curious about the numbers that we all accept as truth. For example, we're told that one in one college women reported being the targets of sexual assault, but what exactly is the definition of "sexual assault"? Also, when we say between 2-8% of rape accusations are false, does that mean the accuser recanted? Or that police dismissed the accusation as false?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Edited to add: I'm curious about the numbers that we all accept as truth. For example, we're told that one in one college women reported being the targets of sexual assault, but what exactly is the definition of "sexual assault"? Also, when we say between 2-8% of rape accusations are false, does that mean the accuser recanted? Or that police dismissed the accusation as false?

I actually addressed the issue of the origins of the claim that a small percentage of rape claims are actually false not that long ago here. In relevant part:

Take, for example, your claim that "rape allegations are likely to be true" which, to be clear, as a provable claim, is absolute nonsense. What this is is the converse of the claim that only a tiny percentage of rape claims are "false." This is a statistic that is often touted by people who have no idea what the hell the studies they're supposedly relying on are talking about. Here is a very general overview of the various studies making this claim. What these studies are actually categorizing, are cases where, for the most part, rape claims are provably false to some standard. For some of the studies, that standard is where the authorities are so confident of the falsity of a claim that they bring charges against the person making the claim for perjury or filing false police reports. In some cases, the standard is nothing more than the judgment of the investigator that the claim is, to some degree or another, provably false.

In fact, the vast, vast majority of rape claims cannot and are not definitively proven one way or the other.

[Crom Dubh]

For someone with a vast ignorance of statistics (me), could someone also explain the claims regarding low reporting of rape as a crime. I have seen claims that only 20%, or some other low percentage, of rapes on college campuses are reported to authorities. Out of curiosity, how does one determine that statistic? If they are not reported, how does one account for their existence? I assume I'm missing something obvious here, or people misuse statistics on the internet. I'm open to both, or neither, being true to one degree or another :p

[Kat]

For someone with a vast ignorance of statistics (me), could someone also explain the claims regarding low reporting of rape as a crime. I have seen claims that only 20%, or some other low percentage, of rapes on college campuses are reported to authorities. Out of curiosity, how does one determine that statistic? If they are not reported, how does one account for their existence? I assume I'm missing something obvious here, or people misuse statistics on the internet. I'm open to both, or neither, being true to one degree or another :P

Based on anonymous campus surveys rather than official reports, where people are theoretically more likely to be truthful since there's no stigma attached.

[TrackerNeil]

Based on anonymous campus surveys rather than official reports, where people are theoretically more likely to be truthful since there's no stigma attached.

I don't know...people lie to pollsters all the time, even when the reporting is anonymous. Back in 2012, a group of researchers ran a test in which they asked respondents to express their approval or disapproval of the Mitt Romney economic plan, the Paul Ryan plan, or the Rain Wood plan. The problem was that Rain Wood (or some other false name) was fictitious, and yet respondents expressed an opinion nonetheless. Maybe they feared to sound stupid, or maybe they were mistaking Rain Wood for something else they'd heard somewhere. This makes me think that even on a completely anonymous survey respondents might under-report or over-report sexual assault.

Also, I'm curious as to the question asked. People may define sexual assault widely or narrowly, and unless the survey first defines just what is meant by the term, I'm not inclined to trust responses to the question, "Have you been the victim of a sexual assault?" I imagine there are studies that control for this type of thing, and if anyone knows of them, please do link.

[The Iceman of the North]

Not sure those are comparable, there's a difference between pretending to be more knowledgeable than you really are, if only not to look foolish to the interviewer, and make a claim about sexual assault.

[TrackerNeil]

Not sure those are comparable, there's a difference between pretending to be more knowledgeable than you really are, if only not to look foolish to the interviewer, and make a claim about sexual assault.

If people are unwilling to admit to ignorance, I am perfectly willing to believe they'd be even less likely to admit to being a victim of sexual assault. I'm not saying it's impossible to get good numbers in this regard, but I wonder how we're getting them.