Why is rape not being taking seriously?

Ana the Ist

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I believe all rapist should face punishment. Trouble is its a crime that usually happens without any witnesses. So its his word against hers. We had a local case where the guy was released after being in prison for a few years when the woman said she was just made at him and he didn't rape her.

She should've had to serve the time he did.
 
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LOVEthroughINTELLECT

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The simple fact of the matter is that it is impossible for us to truly know what percent of rape accusations are false. If you are presented with a he said she said scenario, how on earth do you tell if it was a rape or a false accusation? Any study that makes makes a claim to it takes on the role of judge and jury to decide if said claim was real or not.

Even if we go by conviction rates, a portion of those found guilty of rape would have been falsely accused, and a decent number of those acquitted would have been really guilty.

Going by survey you run into the issue, again, of people lying. Those who have falsely claimed rape in courts would have no issue lying for a survey, and those who have raped and plead not guilty would have no issue lying for a survey either.

In fact you run into a second problem, just like rape victims don't wish to talk about their experience and hide it for numerous reasons, those who have been falsely accused would also not want to talk about it. Admitting that you were falsely accused is admitting you were at some point charged of rape and to many people they would be afraid to speak up about it as if word got out the accusation alone could ruin a life (sadly the same is true for being a rape victim).

I mean how would one even go about such a task?




I say this with all due respect to every participant in this thread: I do not see the point in splitting hairs over statistics.

Whether 1 out of every 5 women has been the victim of sexual assault, or it is really 2 out of every 5 or it is really 1 out of every 10, we have a problem. And people believe that we do not take that problem seriously.

Maybe we are missing the kinds of leaders who can humanize the issue. We seem to treat it as an issue of male-dominated law enforcement agencies, male-dominated academic institutions, a broken justice system, and misogyny, among other abstract things. Maybe we are missing somebody like Martin Luther King, Jr. to remind us that we are failing humans who are deserving of the same dignity and respect as all other humans. Maybe we need somebody to remind us that we are not living up what is written in many of our constitutions.

A good start might be to stop making it a women's issue, a prisoners' issue, etc. Maybe if every victim of sexual assault--male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; rich, middle class and poor; black, white and Hispanic; urban and rural; famous and common; young and old--developed a sense of solidarity and did something like the 1963 March on Washington then we could no longer deny that we have a problem and no longer do nothing to correct it.
 
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yasic

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I say this with all due respect to every participant in this thread: I do not see the point in splitting hairs over statistics.

Whether 1 out of every 5 women has been the victim of sexual assault, or it is really 2 out of every 5 or it is really 1 out of every 10, we have a problem. And people believe that we do not take that problem seriously.

Maybe we are missing the kinds of leaders who can humanize the issue. We seem to treat it as an issue of male-dominated law enforcement agencies, male-dominated academic institutions, a broken justice system, and misogyny, among other abstract things. Maybe we are missing somebody like Martin Luther King, Jr. to remind us that we are failing humans who are deserving of the same dignity and respect as all other humans. Maybe we need somebody to remind us that we are not living up what is written in many of our constitutions.

A good start might be to stop making it a women's issue, a prisoners' issue, etc. Maybe if every victim of sexual assault--male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; rich, middle class and poor; black, white and Hispanic; urban and rural; famous and common; young and old--developed a sense of solidarity and did something like the 1963 March on Washington then we could no longer deny that we have a problem and no longer do nothing to correct it.

The problem is how you address it. For instance the second article of the OP seems to be implying that the school was wrong for not punishing the alleged rapist despite the police declaring they would not pursue charges. This implies that the suggested action, at least via said article, would be to assume a rape charge is true and take action based on this assumption. In such a case, the existence and magnitude of false rape accusations do in fact matter when discussing such a moral deviation from our normal criminal justice proceedings.

So let me ask you then: How do you propose we correct this?
 
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LOVEthroughINTELLECT

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The problem is how you address it. For instance the second article of the OP seems to be implying that the school was wrong for not punishing the alleged rapist despite the police declaring they would not pursue charges. This implies that the suggested action, at least via said article, would be to assume a rape charge is true and take action based on this assumption. In such a case, the existence and magnitude of false rape accusations do in fact matter when discussing such a moral deviation from our normal criminal justice proceedings.

So let me ask you then: How do you propose we correct this?




"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

We need more public consciousness. We have had an epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S., the problems of gun violence and mental illness are therefore on everybody's mind, and therefore we are being forced to confront the problem. Other than the Duke lacrosse case--which most people have forgotten about--has there been anything to bring the problems you mention to public consciousness?

If it is mostly high school and college kids who are being falsely accused and mistreated by the justice system, do they have enough power as a group to organize and mobilize?

Maybe like Herb Goldberg has said, men need have the anger that women have had as they have fought sexism.

Better yet, we could get women to see that when innocent men are denied justice that everybody, including women, suffers.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Though it does happen often enough that some of these false rape accusations are recorded as such because police will pressure the victim to the point that they'll admit it was "false" just to get the pressure to stop.

There was one specific story a woman wrote to this end about her own rape. I can look for the post if anyone is interested.

I'd like to see it.
 
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yasic

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"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

We need more public consciousness. We have had an epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S., the problems of gun violence and mental illness are therefore on everybody's mind, and therefore we are being forced to confront the problem. Other than the Duke lacrosse case--which most people have forgotten about--has there been anything to bring the problems you mention to public consciousness?

If it is mostly high school and college kids who are being falsely accused and mistreated by the justice system, do they have enough power as a group to organize and mobilize?

Maybe like Herb Goldberg has said, men need have the anger that women have had as they have fought sexism.

Better yet, we could get women to see that when innocent men are denied justice that everybody, including women, suffers.

The problem is all system have injustice to some. Under our system plenty of innocent people are currently sitting in jail. We we less strict, more rapists and murderers would be walking the streets free. Compromise must be reached.

If it were, as the OP's article suggests, that false rape accusations were but non-existent, then it may in fact make sense to break the rule of 'Innocent until proven guilty' in this case if it can be argued for the greater good. In this case we would be sacrificing the near insignificant number of falsely accused to bring justice to a plethora of rape victims and rapists. How could you argue otherwise?

It still stands on that huge if which has yet to be demonstrated.
 
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Ana the Ist

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From what I can see, no one here is turning on victims. The only people who are turned upon are people who falsely accuse other people of rape (most often women who accuse men of rape).

Of course, no one does take rape seriously even if it is true rape, as long as the victim is a man and the rapist is either a woman or an inmate in a prison. Don't pick up the soap, buddy!

How could one even get accurate statistics when the false allegations are sometimes ALSO false?

I Am a False Rape Allegation Statistic » Almost Diamonds


Also a few choice quotes from Wikipedia:





And while we can all agree that maliciously accusing a person of rape when they did not commit it is a heinous thing to do, can we also admit that if there are a hundred accusations of rape, eight men falsely accused (at most) is a slightly smaller problem than 92 women (or men) ACTUALLY assaulted?

To be honest, the posts in the thread so far have only served to show that rape ISN'T being taken seriously, because rather than discuss the very real and sadly common problem of sexual assault and the inept way our justice system handles abusers, most of you are concentrating on the relatively few cases where someone -isn't- raped.

And Ken, the OP posted two cases, but if you want more you only need to check out this fancy new thing called 'Google'.

‘He’s still skating’: Rapist teacher freed after 30-day prison sentence - NY Daily News

Missouri family becomes target in small town after teen says she was rapedÂ[bless and do not curse] - NY Daily News

The roots of the military's sexual assault problem

Are America's rape laws too lenient?

'Text message rapist' Timothy West acquitted of rape despite apology secretly recorded by cops - NY Daily News

Suspect in 2005 Buck case said he knew it was rape | The Colorado Independent

Julie Bindel investigates why is rape so easy to get away with | Society | The Guardian

Etc. etc....

And note, these are just the ones that get talked about, the ones that end up as internet articles. Plenty of people don't make a public scene of it, and plenty that try to get ignored.

That 8% number still has to be too low though. There are at least two other types of false rape allegations which it doesn't cover. The first would be a false rape allegation which results in a conviction. The second would be a false rape allegation which gets dismissed by the accuser. When you add just those false allegations which result in a conviction, I would expect that number to at least double to 16%. Add those which have been dropped by the accuser and I think 24% or roughly one quarter of all rape allegations are entirely false.

If you really wanted to reduce this number, I'd propose that the accuser face time equal to that of the accused.
 
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Gadarene

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The problem is all system have injustice to some. Under our system plenty of innocent people are currently sitting in jail. We we less strict, more rapists and murderers would be walking the streets free. Compromise must be reached.

If it were, as the OP's article suggests, that false rape accusations were but non-existent, then it may in fact make sense to break the rule of 'Innocent until proven guilty' in this case if it can be argued for the greater good. In this case we would be sacrificing the near insignificant number of falsely accused to bring justice to a plethora of rape victims and rapists. How could you argue otherwise?

Quite easily - removal of presumption of innocence in one case would also set a worrying precedent, and I'd love to know how people pushing for this think it definitely won't return to bite them in the posterior at a later date.

Removal of this would actually make us more likely to end up in the kind of society described by those in objection to such a move - one where it is simply sufficient to make an accusation in order to get someone convicted.

You would be increasing the number of innocent people punished by the system, which is what presumption of innocence works to minimise. It is a fundamental right of most democracies, and asking that it be removed for one group alone is not equality. It is entitlement.

And as a side note, given that most people arguing for removal of presumption of innocence think rape is a gendered crime (i.e. it being something men do), I don't see how one can argue that demanding removal of presumption of innocence in rape cases is anything other than sexist.

There are of course problems with the prosecuting of rape, but that doesn't justify increasing injustice in some misguided attempt to compensate for it.
 
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softart

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Rape is not taken seriously because most of the time, the woman lies about it just to get back at the guy. Sometimes it could be consensual sex, which she later regrets - and so she screams rape. Other times, it could be something totally bizarre - like the Israeli girl accusing the Arab guy of rape even though they had consensual sex. Her contention was that he lied about being Israeli and this therefore constitutes rape. Bizarro logic.

There are other cases where women call even rough sex as rape. So if everything falls under the rape category, then what really is rape? This is why judges become confused - on the one hand, they want to punish the perpetrator, but then again they don't want to end up punishing the wrong guy by taking a loose woman's word at face value.

This is why I like the Islamic way of doing things - you will never hear dishonest women putting men's lives at risk by lying about rape. That could backfire. In the west, women could bludgeon a man and get away with it.
 
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Jade Margery

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That 8% number still has to be too low though. There are at least two other types of false rape allegations which it doesn't cover. The first would be a false rape allegation which results in a conviction. The second would be a false rape allegation which gets dismissed by the accuser. When you add just those false allegations which result in a conviction, I would expect that number to at least double to 16%. Add those which have been dropped by the accuser and I think 24% or roughly one quarter of all rape allegations are entirely false.

If you really wanted to reduce this number, I'd propose that the accuser face time equal to that of the accused.

Bolding mine.

You have exactly no proof, experience, or studies to support this assertion--not even poor ones. You are literally pulling numbers out of your rectum and in the process accusing thousands of victims of lying. You have no idea what you are talking about, and I doubt you actually read any of the links I or Strathos posted, or you would probably not be making such ignorant assertions.
 
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Redac

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Rape is not taken seriously because most of the time, the woman lies about it just to get back at the guy. Sometimes it could be consensual sex, which she later regrets - and so she screams rape. Other times, it could be something totally bizarre - like the Israeli girl accusing the Arab guy of rape even though they had consensual sex. Her contention was that he lied about being Israeli and this therefore constitutes rape. Bizarro logic.

There are other cases where women call even rough sex as rape. So if everything falls under the rape category, then what really is rape? This is why judges become confused - on the one hand, they want to punish the perpetrator, but then again they don't want to end up punishing the wrong guy by taking a loose woman's word at face value.

This is why I like the Islamic way of doing things - you will never hear dishonest women putting men's lives at risk by lying about rape. That could backfire. In the west, women could bludgeon a man and get away with it.

This is so ignorant and wrong on so many levels that I wouldn't even know how to begin responding to it.
 
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Redac

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This is so incredibly typical. A thread about rape and the response to it turns into a thread all about false rape accusations and how common and bad that is and how we should deal with that. Never mind the much larger issue surrounding actual rape; let's just talk about how so many of these victims are actually just liars.

I'd like to see it.

It was the first link Jade posted. She saved me the trouble of going and looking for it.
 
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Gadarene

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This is so incredibly typical. A thread about rape and the response to it turns into a thread all about false rape accusations and how common and bad that is and how we should deal with that. Never mind the much larger issue surrounding actual rape; let's just talk about how so many of these victims are actually just liars.

Again, you are misrepresenting what went on in the thread. Someone made the perfectly valid point that a lot of rape cases turn into he said she said, even with things like DNA evidence. It was Strathos who brought up the topic of false rape accusations in general. At that point there had only been a reference made to a single case.

If it is relevant to why rape isn't being treated in the way you would like, then it is scarcely irrelevant to bring it up, now is it?
 
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keith99

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Again, you are misrepresenting what went on in the thread. Someone made the perfectly valid point that a lot of rape cases turn into he said she said, even with things like DNA evidence. It was Strathos who brought up the topic of false rape accusations in general. At that point there had only been a reference made to a single case.

If it is relevant to why rape isn't being treated in the way you would like, then it is scarcely irrelevant to bring it up, now is it?

Bolding mine.

I'm wondering just how the poster you are responding to thinks rape allegations should be treated?

It seems a trial and the normal rules of evidence are not sufficient.

Seems to me that is taking rape seriously. If what that poster wants is conviction based just on the claim than bringing up false allegations is all the more relevant.
 
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SharonL

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The he said, she said defense, the casual way sex is done now, the morals of the population not at a high standard and many things cause this awful crime to go unpunished.

I had a friend who dated a girl and she wanted to get married and he said no, she said I'll cry rape if you don't marry me - he didn't marry her and she yelled rape - he went to jail for a year.
 
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Ana the Ist

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If you go back and read post 16 which describes which cases can end up labelled as "false allegations"....there's a particular case you don't see. Cases where the accuser dropped the charges. There's good reason not to add those if you think about it, as there's many reasons a woman/man would drop the charges that have nothing to do with the charge being false. Since the whole basis of the link's argument is that dropped charges are bolstering false accusations numbers. However, such cases don't get added to the statistics...basically destroying the entirety of the argument presented in that link is false.
 
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Ken-1122

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The interesting thing about this fancy new thing called Google, is they also have plenty of examples of false rape accusations! Even false rape accsations in the military. If rape were not taken seriously, many of these false rape accusations initially would not have gone anywere.

Ken
 
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Ana the Ist

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Bolding mine.

You have exactly no proof, experience, or studies to support this assertion--not even poor ones. You are literally pulling numbers out of your rectum and in the process accusing thousands of victims of lying. You have no idea what you are talking about, and I doubt you actually read any of the links I or Strathos posted, or you would probably not be making such ignorant assertions.

You're right that I'm guessing at the numbers, but that's all I can do. There haven't been any studies on how many men convicted of rape were falsely accused. We know this happens because DNA evidence has set many men convicted of rape free....but exact numbers are hard to come by.

As for your "studies" I did respond to them. If you missed the posts I'll gladly point them out. I tend to avoid anecdotal evidence (unlike the OP) but if that's what you really want I'll be happy to provide that as well.

As for the "accusing thousands of victims of lying"...they aren't really victims if they're lying are they?? What about the men who's lives are ruined because of a false conviction? Are they not victims?
 
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