Dear Abby today

[texas*princess]

LOL valkyrie

[jharb]

Originally posted by valkyrie

BEST.P4T.EVER!

(and reminds me of a certain moderator)

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by James


The numbers don't bare that out. As many as one quarter to one half of rape claims are false . . and thats being on the conservative side.

Please.

You have one study guessing that that's the case -- a study that never defines the definition of "rape" but seems, from what is written, to have a narrower view of it than is written in the law. (This study also seemed to be promoting an agenda to me, but maybe I'm just reading too much into it. However, when you quote Katie Roiphe multiple times, it's obviously not trying to be an objective work.) There are many others that have concluded a much smaller number -- as Nikki said above, 2-8% are the most-quoted figures -- ranging up to a small study that showed 41% as false. How do we know which is most valid?

Basically what it comes down to is that the statistics are almost always used to serve an agenda. Sexual assault counselors will almost always quote the 2 percent figure. Anti-feminist groups and "men's rights" groups will give you the 41 percent. In some cases, these studies were engineered to pander to a specific end of the spectrum -- in some studies, rape is defined as any coerced sex; in others, it is only obviously forced sex when the woman is saying "NO" the entire time. Some studies take alcohol or drugs into account, others don't.

AND THEN (sigh, this is going to get long) there is the fact that, with rape, you have a crime that is not easily compared to most other crimes because the victim is made to feel much more guilty than she otherwise would -- which I'm sure can throw off statistics like changing stories and issues with the polygraph test. (I can't say that with scientific accuracy, so point me to a study that proves/disproves this theory if you know of one -- but it feels like common sense to me.) Are you more likely to change details of your story if you know you're going to get blamed by some people for not wearing the right clothes/drinking alcohol/being alone with the guy? Of course you are. This is a much different experience than reporting a robbery, for example. In those cases nobody is going to blame you for wearing a short skirt/drinking three beers/etc.

Furthermore, ignoring the vast amount of unreported rapes means the numbers are a lot harder to judge. Or how about the rapes that ARE reported but without an accusation against any one particular person? Many studies would say that these vastly outnumber the cases where women hurl an accusation at somebody. So even if your figure is correct and 25% of rapes where a woman accuses someone are false accusations, this still probably leaves the number of total rapes that are lied about a much smaller number. If the #1 reason for lying about rape is revenge/spite, then we have to assume that rape allegations where no one person is accused, and those that are unreported, are more likely to be true than the figure where an accusation is made.

Lastly, this is what the court system is for. If a woman can't prove that a man raped her, he's not going to get convicted (unless something is very wrong with the system, which is entirely plausible but an entirely new debate). So if he didn't rape her, he shouldn't have much to worry about, right?

Here is an article that I think takes the middle ground and sums things up pretty nicely:

http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=25893


As I've said many times on this board, you can make statistics say anything you want -- and the statistics in regards to rape, in particular, have always been highly susceptible to skewing and appropriation for propaganda on both ends -- so I tend to take them with a grain of salt. While I don't know for certain the exact percentage of women who lie about rape, I do know for certain that at least five of my female friends have been to hell and back because of what they suffered through (none of them reported it, by the way). The isht they went through is more real to me than any statistic.

I think that many, many men fail to grasp the ubiquitousness of rape simply because they aren't ever told by their female friends who have been raped. I know at least five of my friends (and probably more who haven't told me about it) have been raped -- but none of them have ever felt comfortable mentioning this to their guy friends. So the guys go on believing that few if any of their female friends have ever been raped, and think that the statistics about how so many girls get raped must be overblown and that lots of girls probably lie about it. Most women growing up today know enough of their friends who have been raped that they know better.

At any rate, the misogyny in this thread -- some if it perpetuated by women -- is making me pretty ill.

And carnation, regardless of whether or not the incident in the letter actually happened as reported -- it does happen in fraternity houses (and, of course, non-Greek houses and dorms) across the country. I think those of you who think this was written by somebody with an anti-Greek agenda are both paranoid and delusional. The fact of the matter is that fraternity men are not always angels, some of them are rapists, and that, in fact, some reports have shown that they are more likely to be rapists than the general male college population. Is it fair to paint all fraternity men as rapists? No. But is it fair to paint all fraternity men as Boy Scouts? Again, no.

[Rudey]

Since you all don't know what's going on and want to automatically jump to conclusions, I will do it too.

The guy was drunk. The girl was drunk. They had sex. He doesn't remember it either. At the very least it's not rape, but I think she raped him because he was unable to consent under the influence of alcohol.

OK done. This girl raped him. Nobody is coming out saying it like this but it needs to be said.

-Rudey

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by Erik P Conard
But since the pill many things have changed, granted, and I don't
intend to lecture. I cannot recall ever hearing about date rape in
days of yore.
Whatever happened to manners, decency, propriety?
Are there no longer any standards of behaviour?

[33girl]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
At any rate, the misogyny in this thread -- some if it perpetuated by women -- is making me pretty ill.

Admitting that some members of your gender can do terrible things does not equal misogyny. God knows the guys have to do it on a regular basis around here.

Originally posted by DeltaSigStan
Are you kidding? That type of age difference is actually common and accepted in many Hispanic circles. I knew an 8th grader in high school that was dating a 23 yr old.......he wasn't allowed to be her partner for her Quinceniera...

Um...not so much in my "circle." I actually dont know very many Hispanic people who DO find that ok, but maybe its a difference in nationalities or neighborhoods as far as this goes. I sure hope so anyways.
But thats a whole different thread anyways...




and I agree with pretty much everything sugarandspice said.

[carnation]

Originally posted by sugar and spice

And carnation, regardless of whether or not the incident in the letter actually happened as reported -- it does happen in fraternity houses (and, of course, non-Greek houses and dorms) across the country. I think those of you who think this was written by somebody with an anti-Greek agenda are both paranoid and delusional. The fact of the matter is that fraternity men are not always angels, some of them are rapists, and that, in fact, some reports have shown that they are more likely to be rapists than the general male college population. Is it fair to paint all fraternity men as rapists? No. But is it fair to paint all fraternity men as Boy Scouts? Again, no.

Excuse me? I am neither paranoid nor delusional. I have far more experience in the college arena than you have, having been a professor for 25 years and a college student through 3 degrees.

I would never paint all fraternity members as angels nor would I paint all independent men as angels. I would say they're about the same on the angelic ladder.

The reason I think that the letter is fake is that, as I mentioned, no rational mother is going to sit around and debate with herself as to whether it was rape. She'll take the daughter for medical help and/or go to the police but she won't sit around and compose a letter to Dear Abby and wait weeks for an answer.

Also, my years of working with languages and their patterns are running up a big red flag. No one who is currently the age to be a teen's mother is going to use the strangely "older" language that this letter writer is using. I call BS on this one.

And yes, such a situation could happen and has. However, this particular letter is poorly written and is full of credibility gaps. Look for it to turn up in some lame book that warns parents against letting their kids pledge...it'll come with a warning:"Dear Abby says the Greek life is dangerous!"

[valkyrie]

I think we can probably all agree (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the letter is not real and was written by someone wanting to make the greek system look bad -- or was just something pieced together by "Abby" herself. However, I think we can also probably all agree that rape happens in fraternity houses across the country. Of course it does not only happen in fraternity houses -- it happens everywhere, unfortunately.

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by carnation
Excuse me? I am neither paranoid nor delusional. I have far more experience in the college arena than you have, having been a professor for 25 years and a college student through 3 degrees.

I would never paint all fraternity members as angels nor would I paint all independent men as angels. I would say they're about the same on the angelic ladder.

The reason I think that the letter is fake is that, as I mentioned, no rational mother is going to sit around and debate with herself as to whether it was rape. She'll take the daughter for medical help and/or go to the police but she won't sit around and compose a letter to Dear Abby and wait weeks for an answer.

Also, my years of working with languages and their patterns are running up a big red flag. No one who is currently the age to be a teen's mother is going to use the strangely "older" language that this letter writer is using. I call BS on this one.

And yes, such a situation could happen and has. However, this particular letter is poorly written and is full of credibility gaps. Look for it to turn up in some lame book that warns parents against letting their kids pledge...it'll come with a warning:"Dear Abby says the Greek life is dangerous!"

Nowhere in this thread did I say that I thought the letter was real -- in fact, if you would have read my responses you would have seen that I was one of the first to say that it probably wasn't for many of the reasons mentioned above.

However, the fact that the situation in question probably did not happen does not mean that it doesn't happen all the time, which is what I'm getting at, and that is obviously not something anyone can argue with.

As for the letter being anti-Greek -- there is no condemnation of fraternities or the guys in them anywhere in the letter. The only time the Greek system is even mentioned is that this event took place at a frat party. Sure, that's a little bit of a negative portrayal -- but guess what? It's not inaccurate.


Maybe if we're so concerned about our image as Greeks we should be working to lower the number of frat boys who rape and the number of sorority girls who get raped, rather than just trying to deny and cover up the fact that it happens more often than any of us would like to admit.

[Rudey]

I think we can all agree that females have raped males and hence sorority members have raped fraternity members.

-Rudey

[AGDee]

Whether the letter is true or not, the hypothetical situation posed does implicate the "friend" in several ways:

DEAR ABBY: My 16-year-old daughter went to a party at a frat house where she was given a great deal to drink.

**Providing a minor with alcohol**
**The age of consent in Virginia is 18 and in this situation, the girl was not of age of consent**

Feeling "woozy," she went outside. One of the "boys" she had been talking to went with her and suggested she go back to his room to lie down. She had known this fellow before that night and trusted him.

**"had known this fellow before that night" would indicate that he SHOULD know her age**

She was drunk, and he had sex with her. It was her first time. She claims she tried to make him stop, but he wouldn't, and she couldn't make him.

**Per the law, this was not consensual if it happened this way**

Shouldn't the young man be punished in some way? I feel something should be done. Would this constitute date rape?

from Confused in Virginia


And, for those who question whether it is rape if the situation is reversed, of course it is. If an adult woman has sex with a minor male, it is rape. If an adult woman had sex with a drunken minor male, it is rape. If a male says "no" and a female overpowers him and has sex with him anyway, yes, it's rape.

"Jailbait" is the word to use with someone under the age of consent and yes, you're foolish if you have sex with "jailbait" because if you think you're responsible enough to have sex, then you should be responsible enough to know the law.

Is there enough information in this letter to convict somebody? Of course not. Physical evidence of the rape would be necessary for it to result in a conviction. But, it's enough to start an investigation.

Dee

[Rudey]

You don't know who gave her the alcohol.

You don't know if he knew how old she was.

You don't know if he was drunk.

You don't know if he was under 18 himself and entered college at a younger age.

But what you are doing is saying male=bad, female=good, rape, rape and some more rape.

-Rudey

Originally posted by AGDee
Whether the letter is true or not, the hypothetical situation posed does implicate the "friend" in several ways:

DEAR ABBY: My 16-year-old daughter went to a party at a frat house where she was given a great deal to drink.

**Providing a minor with alcohol**
**The age of consent in Virginia is 18 and in this situation, the girl was not of age of consent**

Feeling "woozy," she went outside. One of the "boys" she had been talking to went with her and suggested she go back to his room to lie down. She had known this fellow before that night and trusted him.

**"had known this fellow before that night" would indicate that he SHOULD know her age**

She was drunk, and he had sex with her. It was her first time. She claims she tried to make him stop, but he wouldn't, and she couldn't make him.

**Per the law, this was not consensual if it happened this way**

Shouldn't the young man be punished in some way? I feel something should be done. Would this constitute date rape?

from Confused in Virginia


And, for those who question whether it is rape if the situation is reversed, of course it is. If an adult woman has sex with a minor male, it is rape. If an adult woman had sex with a drunken minor male, it is rape. If a male says "no" and a female overpowers him and has sex with him anyway, yes, it's rape.

"Jailbait" is the word to use with someone under the age of consent and yes, you're foolish if you have sex with "jailbait" because if you think you're responsible enough to have sex, then you should be responsible enough to know the law.

Is there enough information in this letter to convict somebody? Of course not. Physical evidence of the rape would be necessary for it to result in a conviction. But, it's enough to start an investigation.

Dee