Rape prevention

[The Emerald Dawn]

...My wife doesn't charge, neither does our girlfriend.

It's quite free, honest.

May I ask if you have any emotional attachment to either of your significant others? Do you spend time with them? Are there any expectations placed upon you?

Still doesn't cost money.

Human attachment being tied to emotional "costs" is pointless, unless we're discussing DSM-V listed mental disorders.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Because anyone who is trying to split hairs by saying "This man shoved a baseball bat up this other man's anal cavity" = not rape, "This man shoved a baseball bat up this woman's vaginal cavity" = rape, is an idiot.

Calling it anything but rape is pointless pedantry, it serves no purpose but to remove the culpability for violating someone by using invasive sexual means. "Well, it wasn't RAPE. It was just 'Sexual Assault'." Oh that makes it all better then. I'm sure glad we hashed that out.

But they didn't claim that makes it all better. It's a straw-man to interpret it that way. And as far as I'm aware, sexual assault is still a felony anyway.

Why have two definitions, if the intent is anything other than to say "if it isn't penis-in-vagina, it isn't rape"?

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

Smith & Wessen model 5000. That'll stop a rape.

So will educating people to not rape other people.

Which is a more desirable long-term solution to the issue?

[Ovisterra]

Your post was going so well until this sentence.

1. You're heavily implying that rape is the fault of all men. As a man, I'm deeply insulted.
2. You're also outright stating that women cannot rape men. This is untrue. I know most rapes are committed by men, but to say that all are is objectively untrue and a horrible insult to the victims.

While I sense misandry in the post you're replying to as well, isn't forced sex with women counted as sexual assault instead of rape? Defining "rape" is a very ambiguous subject, and what to count as it varies independently from whether or not someone agrees that victimization of someone took place.

The definition of rape I've heard is "a sexual encounter in which any party involved either did not consent, had a withdrawal of consent ignored, was coerced into it, or was unable to give or withdraw consent", which makes sense to me. Why should we downgrade the crime just because a woman did it?

[Evraim]

Still doesn't cost money.

I never said it had to cost money. I said it wasn't free.

Human attachment being tied to emotional "costs" is pointless, unless we're discussing DSM-V listed mental disorders.

Why is that?

[Ovisterra]

Still doesn't cost money.

I never said it had to cost money. I said it wasn't free.

....

What?

[Evraim]

I never said it had to cost money. I said it wasn't free.

....

What?

Think about it, darling.

So will educating people to not rape other people.

Which is a more desirable long-term solution to the issue?

Yours. However, we ought to observe basic safety precautions as well. For example, group dating could help reduce the occurrence of date rape. Besides that, it's a rather enjoyable experience.

[Tekania]

I think rape is preventable, just it's not really the job of the victims to do that.

How to stop rape.

That image implies that women are weak, hapless victims, and as a feminist, I find it offensive.

Funny, I thought it implied that people shouldn't engage in rape or activities which would likely result in them raping other people.

[Neo Art]

It is possible to suggest ways to reduce rape without victim blaming. On an obvious level, advising people not to leave their drink unattended in a night club. They aren't doing anything blameworthy by leaving their drink unattended, but it increases the risk they're exposed to.

Pictures about "Advice to reduce rape: don't rape" are nice for internet debates and hopefully have a positive effect, but using them to shut down potential ways to make people safer from rape is skewing priorities way off.

If I have a daughter then I probably would encourage her to take a martial arts class (and certainly not leave her drink unattended). Parents who don't aren't worse parents, and it's not her fault if she is raped but to an extent it would reduce the risk, which is something.

The thing is, there's two schools of thought on this, and a line that can be crossed. One is the simple "good advice" to prevent crimes against you, generally. Don't carry your social security card in your wallet. Make sure you lock your doors at night. Leave some lights on if you're going to be gone a while. Have a friend pick up your mail so it's not piling up. Don't feen Mogli after midnight.

These are sort of the "good advice" ideas. A "here's a way to reduce your chances" sorta vibe. And I think a lot of people, perhaps innocently, but rather ignorantly, try to move this to the area of rape. Gee, don't dress too provocatively, don't wander alone after dark, don't flirt too much if you're not willing to go all the way.

And people have used the "good avice" arguments as a shield against obvious misoginy. A sort of "what, is it wrong to tell people to lock their doors if they don't want to get robbed? THAT'S JUST GOOD ADVICE" defense which is used to try and shield them from criticism when it's pointed out that their "advice" boils down to basically "if you don't want to be raped, try not being such a filthy whore all the time", and that their willingness to "provide advice" is just a smokescreen to backdoor moralize about, well, those filthy whores

So there's automatically a defensive position one is going to encounter whenever one tries to give "advice" about "preventing" rape, and couch it in terms of "what, I'm not victim blaming, I'm not putting the onus on you, I'm just saying, you know...good advice, like making sure your doors are locked at night". And anyone who really wants to give actual good advice about how to avoid being the victim of rape, is going to recognize they have to deal with that, there's an automatic, and well deserved, presumption against "just good advice here", ESPECIALLY when the question gets asked "gee, where's your advice on how to avoid robbery, or identity theft, or murder?" and anyone who seems to suddenly have a very vested interested in "telling women how to not get raped" is automatically having their motives suspect, and for pretty well established reasons.

Secondly, along those lines, far more often than not the advice is just BAD. As demonstrably pointed out, being armed would not actually do a thing against the vast majority of rapes, which are committed at home, by a loved one or family member, coercing, blackmailing, or manipulating sexual contact without consent. And a handgun would, AT BEST, prevent against violent rapes, by individuals who the victim would be willing to use lethal force against. And that is, in reality, a VERY small number of ACTUAL rapes, at least in the United States.

So when you come out the gate, very eager to provide advice to "prevent rapes" (and only rapes, it seems), and don't actually seem to know anything about rapes as they ACTUALLY happen in this country, yeah, one wonders, and I think, for good reason, what your motivation is.

But beyond that, ignoring that, even if your motivation is 100% pure, it's still shitty advice, deserving criticism. Why? Because first, you shoot your mouth off before learning. You decide that combating rape is, despite your claims, not even worth the effort to learn about how rape is actually committed, and then try to craft advice. You're so little concerned with it, that you can't even be bothered to learn if your advice HELPS at all.

Secondly, it's obscenely insulting to actual rape victims. Here's the thing. People know that handguns exist. This isn't a shock. People who don't own handguns don't, for a reason. They're legally not allowed, it's too expensive, or they just plain old don't like guns. But the existence of handguns is nothing new. It's nothing surprising. It's nothing shocking. We know guns exist. We choose not to own one. And coming down with this "you know what you should do if you don't want to be raped? Own a gun!" reeks of "hey little lady, did you know, there's this magical device that you just point at bad people to make them go away!" It's patronizing, patriarical, and more than a little insulting.

As for the victim blaming aspect, NtaP said it better than I. If you presume that the way to stop rape is the application of force, then it stands to reason that any rape that DID occur, could have been stopped with MORE FORCE, which means that anyone who got raped got raped because she didn't fight back hard enough.

Which is exactly victim blaming.

[Aahmerica]

....who would rape a gun shot victim?

[The Emerald Dawn]

That image implies that women are weak, hapless victims, and as a feminist, I find it offensive.

Funny, I thought it implied that people shouldn't engage in rape or activities which would likely result in them raping other people.

Other than the obvious tilt towards saying that only men rape, sure, I agree that it is pretty good as a satirical screed against people who lack impulse control or are cold-blooded manipulators.

[Fluffy Coyotes]

But they didn't claim that makes it all better. It's a straw-man to interpret it that way. And as far as I'm aware, sexual assault is still a felony anyway.

Why have two definitions, if the intent is anything other than to say "if it isn't penis-in-vagina, it isn't rape"?

That is exactly the point, but your claim was that this makes it better, which doesn't follow from that.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Why have two definitions, if the intent is anything other than to say "if it isn't penis-in-vagina, it isn't rape"?

That is exactly the point, but your claim was that this makes it better, which doesn't follow from that.

You may need to get your sarcasmometer checked.

[Ovisterra]

....

What?

Think about it, darling.

Nothing's coming to mind. Care to enlighten me?

[Fluffy Coyotes]

That is exactly the point, but your claim was that this makes it better, which doesn't follow from that.

You may need to get your sarcasmometer checked.

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

[Stephania Incognita]

I do wish that people wouldn't jump so quickly to "you are blaming the victim!", knee-jerk reactions do little to further a discussion. I am not sure how discussing prior action to possibly prevent a rape immediately means the person suggesting it believes that it's all the victim's fault.

I don't go out on the streets at night alone if I can help it and I also keep my drink secure in a nightclub, not because I feel like I "deserve what I get" if I don't and not because "society tells me to", but because it's common sense not to put myself in a more vulnerable position than is necessary. From my perspective it's the same common sense that tells me to lock my doors at night so that burglars can't easily break in, or to make sure my smoke alarm works in case I have a fire. We live in a world where unfortunate things can happen.

Now, if people were saying "that ***** should have taken a 9mm in her purse, deserved what she got" I would be mad, that's not what I see happening.

[Fluffy Coyotes]

Smith & Wessen model 5000. That'll stop a rape.

So will educating people to not rape other people.

Which is a more desirable long-term solution to the issue?

We already drive the message home in health classes and sex ed classes, and yet there are still people who still want to commit rape. There will always be rapists, so we will always need ways to protect potential victims. More guns aren't necessarily the answer, but more education can only do so much.

[Neo Art]

You may need to get your sarcasmometer checked.

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

again, people are quite capable of reading between the lines. You should stop acting like this is some "new topic" without defined perameters, and dirty tricks. Arguments carry baggage. Positions have presumptions. If you're trying to argue "but it's not rape if it's not with a penis" has been a starting line by many a rape apologist.

You might find your position merely to be one of legal consistency, but I'm a lawyer, and I'm not that fucking nitpicky. You don't get to walk down the same road of rape apologists and then throw your hands up in the air and declare "what, I'm just being technical!"

There's only two reasons to make that argument. Apologism, or nitpickiness beyond the point of anal retentiveness. And it's extremely hard to believe, staggeringly, monumentally hard to believe, that someone who really tries to argue "but you can't rape without a boner!" is trying to be "technically correct".

Frankly, I just don't believe it.

[Evraim]

Nothing's coming to mind. Care to enlighten me?

Somebody mentioned free sex in government-run brothels as a method of reducing the occurrence of rapes. I stated that this idea wouldn't eliminate the problem and that sex isn't free. Another poster attempted to argue that his (or her) relationships granted him (or her) access to free sex. I pointed out that certain expectations exist within most relationships, and that, as a result, the sex wasn't really free. My point is that there are generally conditions of some sort. That's not to say that the price may not be "cheap" in one person's eyes, but simply that it exists.

[The Emerald Dawn]

You may need to get your sarcasmometer checked.

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

Now I'm tracking.

Because there is already a term for it. "Rape". We don't need to create "Rape Lite" or "Rape Plus" or "Rape Zero" or...actually, thinking about it that last one may be a good thing to have. All the flavor, none of the rape? Anyway....

Rape is loaded the way it is because it is one of the few remaining truly horrible things in this world. Almost any sane, rational, person hears that and instantly mentally shrinks back. "Sexual Assault" is so dry and clinical, it allows people to detach from the situation and they stop caring as much about it.

Having murder and manslaughter is necessary because you can't spell it without laughter there is a difference between the two. There is no difference between rape and sexual assault.

[Ostroeuropa]

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

Now I'm tracking.

Because there is already a term for it. "Rape". We don't need to create "Rape Lite" or "Rape Plus" or "Rape Zero" or...actually, thinking about it that last one may be a good thing to have. All the flavor, none of the rape? Anyway....

Rape is loaded the way it is because it is one of the few remaining truly horrible things in this world. Almost any sane, rational, person hears that and instantly mentally shrinks back. "Sexual Assault" is so dry and clinical, it allows people to detach from the situation and they stop caring as much about it.

Having murder and manslaughter is necessary because you can't spell it without laughter there is a difference between the two. There is no difference between rape and sexual assault.

...There is a difference... I'll leave it to a lawyer to explain though, i'd probably fuck it up.

[Evraim]

Rape is loaded the way it is because it is one of the few remaining truly horrible things in this world. Almost any sane, rational, person hears that and instantly mentally shrinks back. "Sexual Assault" is so dry and clinical, it allows people to detach from the situation and they stop caring as much about it.

There are different legal definitions. I honestly think that rapes and certain types of sexual assaults ought to be treated with equal severity. At the moment, however, they are considered different things, at least in the United States.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Rape is loaded the way it is because it is one of the few remaining truly horrible things in this world. Almost any sane, rational, person hears that and instantly mentally shrinks back. "Sexual Assault" is so dry and clinical, it allows people to detach from the situation and they stop caring as much about it.

There are different legal definitions. I honestly think that rapes and certain types of sexual assaults ought to be treated with equal severity. At the moment, however, they are considered different things, at least in the United States.

And my point is that's wrong. Wrong in the sense of "HOLY SHIT THAT BIRD HAS FIVE HEADS AND IS EXHALING MARSHMALLOWS" wrong.

Legality, technicality, whatever you want, it is nothing more than apologizing for rape and belittling victims.

[Evraim]

And my point is that's wrong. Wrong in the sense of "HOLY SHIT THAT BIRD HAS FIVE HEADS AND IS EXHALING MARSHMALLOWS" wrong.

Legality, technicality, whatever you want, it is nothing more than apologizing for rape and belittling victims.

I think you're being somewhat theatrical. However, I do concur.

[Fluffy Coyotes]

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

again, people are quite capable of reading between the lines. You should stop acting like this is some "new topic" without defined perameters, and dirty tricks. Arguments carry baggage. Positions have presumptions. If you're trying to argue "but it's not rape if it's not with a penis" has been a starting line by many a rape apologist.

You might find your position merely to be one of legal consistency, but I'm a lawyer, and I'm not that fucking nitpicky. You don't get to walk down the same road of rape apologists and then throw your hands up in the air and declare "what, I'm just being technical!"

There's only two reasons to make that argument. Apologism, or nitpickiness beyond the point of anal retentiveness. And it's extremely hard to believe, staggeringly, monumentally hard to believe, that someone who really tries to argue "but you can't rape without a boner!" is trying to be "technically correct".

Frankly, I just don't believe it.

If you're a lawyer;

1. Seems odd to choose such a small audience as NationStates instead of a wider medium like YouTube for these discussions.

2. Surely you appreciate the value of respecting the "benefit of a doubt" when uncertain. Yes, it's possible these people are trying to diminish sexual assaults committed with something other than a penis. So long as we aren't sure, though, we should only address what is actually being said, not what we speculate is being implied.

Let me rephrase that. Your claim was that defining it as something other than rape was equivalent to claiming it wasn't as bad as rape, which doesn't follow from the existence of a distinction?

Now I'm tracking.

Because there is already a term for it. "Rape". We don't need to create "Rape Lite" or "Rape Plus" or "Rape Zero" or...actually, thinking about it that last one may be a good thing to have. All the flavor, none of the rape? Anyway....

Rape is loaded the way it is because it is one of the few remaining truly horrible things in this world. Almost any sane, rational, person hears that and instantly mentally shrinks back. "Sexual Assault" is so dry and clinical, it allows people to detach from the situation and they stop caring as much about it.

Having murder and manslaughter is necessary because you can't spell it without laughter there is a difference between the two. There is no difference between rape and sexual assault.

The term we already have was previously defined to be penetration with a penis of someone who isn't willing. This has been tweaked a few times, and frankly that was a bit of a grey area as it was, but it doesn't mean we ought to change it further any more than gay having previously meant happy is an excuse for pretending you can change its meaning to whatever negative trait you're using it to refer to. Moving definitions paves the way for moving the goalposts. I'd rather err on the side of treating words as the solid ground a discussion is built on than treating it as something to shift beneath the other side's feet.

Odd that you should mention murder, given the distinctions we make between first-degree and second-degree.