How to Lie with Rape Statistics: America's Hidden Rape Crisis

[BainsBane]

65. Because the same people who insist rape is down statistically

and therefore not a problem, refer to anti-rape prevention campaigns as "haranguing men" or misandrist. They make an appearance in virtually every thread about rape to make sure rape victims know they are not supported, that their experiences are invalidated, and that their audacity to speak in public is an affront to "men." They long ago poisoned the well by making clear they see the lives of rape victims as inconsequential in comparison to the far more important matter of rapists' feelings. They don't use the term rapist. They talk about "men's "feelings and men's rights, but I won't use the term men because I don't share the implicit assumption that men are by nature rapists. The majority of men have no reason to object to such PSAs because they know they are not rapists. Some of these people repeatedly defend accused rapists over rape victims, accused pedophiles like Woody Allen over their victims, and pretend assaults that are legally rape (such as sex with underage teens and the severely drunk) are somehow artificial constructs up for debate rather than crimes. When someone carries on an active campaign to insist rape isn't really a problem, despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary, it's clear that whatever agenda they have results in the denial of the basic humanity and civil rights of rape victims.

Your assertion that "NO ONE is arguing that efforts to stop and further reduce rape should stop" is clearly false. The fact is the country and the world is full of rapists who would like nothing more than to stop rape prevention campaigns, and some turn them into pseudo-political causes. MRA websites are full of such men, and their ideas have currency beyond those extremist hate groups.

If you bothered to read the responses in the thread, you would see all kinds of information showing that police systematically downgrade rape to lesser charges, whereas the point that rape is an underreported crime is hardly a newsflash. Yet for some reason a few people have a vested interested in making sure rape stats are low-balled and rape victims are silenced, leading some of those members to insult rape survivors by calling them liars or insisting that simply disclosing the fact they have been raped amounts to "lashing out" in hatred or that simply acknowledging one has been raped amounts to "disrupting" DU. Scarcely a day goes by on this site where someone doesn't insist rape shouldn't be discussed except in the women's groups or doesn't count as politics and therefore shouldn't appear on the site at all.

People have made clear where they stand on the issue. Everyone can read their posts. Pretending to take one position while systematically advancing another is clearly shown to be false through a simple search. In fact, since the same people tend to participate in many of the same threads about rape, no search is necessary. I had hoped that when certain people figured out that men too are raped, they would give up their crusade to undermine the experiences of rape victims, yet they manifest a disconnect along gender lines when it comes to rape victims, arguing that an unfair double-standard exists for male victims while insisting that rape really isn't an epidemic when it comes to women.

I should clarify that when I said I found their reactions interesting, I meant it terms of a cultural phenomenon of denial and rape culture. As individuals, their ideas are entirely predictable and of no consequence.

As for the so-called scarcity of evidence, the paper is free to download, as is evident in the DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER icon in blue at the top of the page.