One in Four Men Surveyed in Asian Study Say They Raped

[Wesley]

 

Full article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/one-in-four-men-surveyed-in-asian-study-say-they-raped.html

 

Almost one in four men surveyed in Asia said they committed rape at least once, in a study that may encourage renewed steps to prevent sexual violence.

Researchers interview more than 10,000 men at nine sites in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka in the first multi-country survey on the prevalence of rape, said Rachel Jewkes of South Africa’s Medical Research Council, one of the authors of the article published today in The Lancet Global Health journal.

One in 10 men said they had raped a woman who wasn’t their partner, the researchers found. When partners were included, the figure rose to 24 percent. Just under half of the perpetrators said they had raped more than one woman. The rates of violation differed between the sites: 11 percent of men questioned in Bangladesh said they had committed rape, compared to 60 percent in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

“We really need to understand more,” Jewkes said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Bangladesh is not a particularly violent country, but the prevalence of non-partner rape is far higher than one would presume.”

That last quote is silly. "This country is not violent, they just rape a lot."

 

The prevalence of rape and child sexual abuse is way too common in the world.

 

 

The researchers found that men who had themselves been abused as children were more likely to commit rape. Men with a history of physical violence against a partner, or who had paid for sex or had had a large number of sexual partners were more likely to rape someone they didn’t know.

 

[Kevin Beal]

I wonder what the rates are when women are asked the same questions, or what percentage of these men weren't themselves sexually abused in their lives.

 

Why they are focusing solely on men like it's a male problem and not part of an even larger issue; just seems a little fishy.

 

Either way it's completely awful, it's just that similar "studies" have been done before in the US to try and draw the same kind of results showing that an ungodly number of rapists are all around us, but when they asked women the same questions we saw less men labeled as rapists and also gender symmetry in perpetration. (I'm having trouble finding the link right now, but it's in a GirlWritesWhat video where she talks about this). Not so much with stranger rape, but as the article mentions it's a minority of rapes.

[prohexa]

I haven't actually read the study myself, but it was discussed in a controversial article that claims the study is mostly "radical feminist propaganda". They point to some interesting quotes from the study: 

The word rape was not used in the questionnaire; instead, it was operationalised through responses to questions about specific acts.

 

The article then goes on to say that the study neither defines its use of the word "rape", nor does it state the actual questions used in the interviews but uses rather vague formulations like "forced sex". Instead it refers to another study, also without definitions, that in turn refers to a third study that states the exact question as: 

How many times have you had sex with a woman in the vagina or anus or put your fingers in her vagina after you told lies, threatened to end the relationship or pleaded with her until she agreed?

 

Is that really the definition of rape? Wouldn't that be unjust towards the women (and men) that get assaulted, beaten and violently forced to sex?

 

Anyway, I'm too lazy to go through the studies in detail and the article I referred to is not from a particularly trustworthy source, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Wesley]

"How many times have you had sex with a woman in the vagina or anus or put your fingers in her vagina after you told lies, threatened to end the relationship or pleaded with her until she agreed?"

 

Is that really the definition of rape? Wouldn't that be unjust towards the women (and men) that get assaulted, beaten and violently forced to sex?

I would say it is imprecise and certainly presents some gray areas on what qualifies for rape. It is not at all unjust toward rape where violent assault takes place.

 

Some metaphors:

 

If I was hit once as a child, then I was assaulted. This means nothing about a child that is beaten to the edge of their life repeatedly.

 

If I take one puff of a cigarette, then I smoked. It means nothing about someone who smokes a pack a day for several years.

 

 

Maybe the definition could use a little work and may include some gray areas, but we may need to add in rape against men or rape against children which as Kevin said may be unreported in the study as it only dealt with male rapists and seemingly female victims. (For instance, in the US more men are raped than women)

 

However, that is not the point of the article. The point is that rape is all too common for anyone's comfort and should be exposed as to the vast number of rapists and victims of rape that exist in society. Until people understand how prevalent the problem is then they cannot start working to fix the problem and instead chalk it up to "how men are" and normalize it or an Oedipal complex or "women are crazy" to normalize it.

 

The first step to solving a problem is for people to de-normalize it and show people that it is a problem that needs to be worked on.

[prohexa]

I would say it is imprecise and certainly presents some gray areas on what qualifies for rape. It is not at all unjust toward rape where violent assault takes place.

 

Let's say a man claiming to be a wealthy doctor chats up a woman in a bar. They leave the bar together and end up having voluntary sex, both happy with their catch. In the morning the woman discovers that the man is in fact neither wealthy nor a doctor, but rather a poor taxi driver. Is that rape? Should the man be treated equally to a violent assault raper? Should the woman receive the same sympathy, help and support as one that was brutally raped under gun threat?

 

What about a similar situation in reverse? Let's say the woman lies about being single without children but turns out to be a married mother of four? Would that mean she raped the man, and should she suffer the same consequences?

 

However, that is not the point of the article. The point is that rape is all too common for anyone's comfort and should be exposed as to the vast number of rapists and victims of rape that exist in society. Until people understand how prevalent the problem is then they cannot start working to fix the problem and instead chalk it up to "how men are" and normalize it or an Oedipal complex or "women are crazy" to normalize it.

 

My point is exactly that using too vague and broad definitions for rape does normalize it. For example, I live in Sweden. Do you know which country in the world has the second highest amount of reported rapes, just after Lesotho in South Africa? That's right, Sweden!

 

Do you remember the rape charges against Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks? The "rape" he committed was simply that the girl he was having voluntary sex with thought he was using a condom, when he in fact was not. Yes, that was in Sweden too.

 

The radical feminist movement in Sweden has successfully inflated the term "rape" to become more or less all-encompassing, including everything from forced violent sexual assault to not having an excplicit (preferably written!) contract of commitment before participating in voluntary sex. The implication of this has been that rape victims - "real" or not - are now being scoffed at by many swedish men. Their first reaction to news articles about raped women is often "she probably just got drunk, dragged some not-so-attractive guy home, regretted the whole thing in the morning and is therefore pressing rape charges afterwards."

 

 

[Wesley]

I am not sure where I would draw the line. I would consider lying in that way to at least be fraud and still wrong. I am not sure if it could be rape or not.

 

With the condom you could directly ask or check yourself, so I can't see how that could be rape. Just check. However this is a gut feeling and there may be a weird situation where someone could trick you.

 

I think there is a certain amount of intoxication where it would enter a gray area of potentially being rape. Just because of the potential for someone to claim rape it generally wouldn't be preferable to have sex with someone in a one night stand situation when they are intoxicated. Way too much risk.

 

In all of these I do not know where I would draw the line exactly. They are not "the same" and this is a false argument. If I kill 1 person, then I have done murder and this is wrong even is it was calm and in their sleep by injection. A mass axe murderer does way worse things and it still falls under the category of murder, however I would say that he would generally be worse.

 

There are questionable areas as to where you should draw the line. However rape is wrong no matter how "slight" the rape. The gray part is whether these situations qualify as rape or not and I do not have good answers as to where the line should be in the same way that I do not have a good way to determine when a child becomes an adult. I could see arguments either way.

 

Where would you place the line and why?

[PatrickC]

Rape has to remain either as a most egregious assault involving force or we change the definition to lesser degrees and therefore apply the appropriate restorative (justice) values accordingly. The trouble with expanding the definition, is that it is nearly always considered and judged by its original definition. These days rape can indeed be something a person considers true after the fact.