burma army uses rape as a weapon of war

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. More sensitive police would prevent rapes in the long term.

More training for the police on how to handle rape victims = less trauma admitting you've been raped + more effort in investigating claims of rape.

less trauma admitting you've been raped = more rape victims come forwards

more effort in investigating claims of rape = rape victims who come forwards being more likely to get their attackers convicted.

more rape victims coming forward + rape victims who come forwards being more likely to get their attackers convicted = more rapists being convicted

more rapists being convicted = fewer men daring to commit rape.

The deterrent effect of prison has a lot more to do with how likely you are to be sentenced than it does to do with how harsh the sentence will be, I believe. At present, very few rapists get convicted, and so there's very little deterrent. There are a large number of contributory factors to that - noteably, the fact that in a significant fraction of rapes there's no evidence other than the victim's testimony, and it's hard to see how those can ever get convictions - but two of the larger ones that *can* be fixed are victims not coming forwards, and victims not being taken seriously when they do come forwards. And both of those can be partially addressed by more training for the police.

> Also, rape culture has a Wikipedia entry--not the toughest term to read up on.

From that page: "Although the concept of rape culture is used in feminist academia,[8] there is disagreement over what defines a rape culture and to what degree a given society meets the criteria to be considered a rape culture.[3]"

I'm not disputing that it's a widely used term, I'm claiming that it's not a well-defined one, and that - like all terms that aren't well-defined - that means that it's not a useful one.

> If you're saying that teaching boys in school to not rape ("sex education&quot would reduce rape frequency, you're conceding the existence of rape culture.

I'm not - and throughout this thread have not been, if you look back - denying that some of the things that some people refer to as "rape culture" exist; I'm denying that using that term to refer to those things, rather than talking about them directly, is useful.

"Sex education in schools would (inter alia) lead to fewer rapes, and therefor is a good idea" is a clear and meaningful statement.
"The US has a rape culture, and therefor needs more sex education in schools" is not.

I think that what matters is the number of rapes committed per year, and how the victims are treated, not whether or not it's decided that that adds up to a "rape culture" or not (I suspect you agree with me about this?). And I don't think that answering the second question will help answer the first at all (you clearly disagree with me about this, but I think you are mistaken).