That said, I was looking for some numbers, and I was actually surprised by what the 2008 CVUS survey reported. Per Table 38, the gender breakdown for attackers of single-offender rape and sexual assault (including threats) is 78.1% male to 18.5% female (with 3.5% unavailable, and apparently a little bit of rounding), which is actually very close to the base rate for violent crimes of 77.6% to 19%. By these numbers, robbery stands out much more as gender-biased crime. Not what I was expecting. Apparently their sample size wasn't very big, so this may be a coincidence, but it is provocative.
This actually is the most convincing bit - and in light of that, I'm totally willing to admit my prior assumptions were off-base. I had been under the impression that rape was different in the % breakdown gender-wise, and it seems it in fact is not. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but taking the report at face value seems to indicate that rape doesn't happen significantly more or less the other violent crimes period, regardless of the gender of the people involved. That would indicate that reducing all violent crime would reduce rape too, by roughly the same amount, in theory. It does still beg the question of why most violent crimes are committed by men, though that is probably a topic for another thread.
As far as the ah, very aggressive comments directed my way... if you somehow felt I was ignoring you in some way, I apologize, as that was not the intent. There were frequently multiple posts that appeared to be directed at me, and while I did try to address most of the content in each one, But I am getting the distinct impression that simply continuing to disagree with ideas after the person who presented them believes they've "proven" it is something that merits hostility. I'm totally ok with you guys disagreeing with me, and I'm totally ok with the idea of potentially being wrong/mistaken/whatever. But I am not ok with the idea that I'm somehow being unreasonable or awful person just because I don't buy whatever arguments someone else (on the internet, no less!) happens to present. Now, methinks it would thus be best for me to bow out of this discussion for now, because I get the distinct impression that further comments will not be productive nor viewed in good faith by those currently here.
(Not that "men have a special propensity for violence" isn't also a bitter pill to swallow.)
"Special" may not be the most accurate way to think about it. It's not like men have a specific aggression organ or brain structure that women lack. What they have is a lot more androgens. The stuff governs aggressive and confrontational behavior in both the sexes. It's a quantitative difference, not qualitative. To the best of my knowledge, the only qualitative differences remain the basic reproductive functions.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but taking the report at face value seems to indicate that rape doesn't happen significantly more or less the other violent crimes period, regardless of the gender of the people involved. That would indicate that reducing all violent crime would reduce rape too, by roughly the same amount, in theory.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Rape occurs much less often than some other forms of violent crime. By those numbers, almost all violent crimes are (non-sexual) assaults - about six out of seven. Whether reducing all violent crime reduces rape depends greatly on the exact method used to do the reducing. If, for example, we give everybody a very good new burglar alarm system, that would reduce violent crime by reducing burglaries but probably would not reduce the number of rapes much.
But if we were to wave a magic wand and make people just generally less violent somehow, then yes, the rape rate would almost certainly decrease proportionately with everything else.
I found something else (using this tool) that I think is worth considering. It speaks to the point of rape definitions excluding male victims for a long time, and the resulting potential for skewed statistics. Unfortunately I can't link the actual table because it comes up in some kind of Javascript window, but I got it by using that tool and selecting Personal Victimization, year 2000-2012, Rape/Sexual Assault, by Sex.
Looking at that table reveals that 2012 is a bit of a watershed moment in the rape data:
- It's the first year that the DOJ obtained a statistically-significant sample of male rape victimization.
- The ratio of male-to-female victimizations is *drastically* out of line with previous years (0.61 men raped for every woman raped in 2012, versus a prior maximum of 0.29 in 2006)
- 2012 is the first year that the FBI and many state law-enforcement agencies normalized the definition of rape to include male victimization.
Certainly one data point does not a trend make, but I doubt it's mere coincidence that this uptick in victimization happens in the same year that our justice system settles on the notion that male rape victims are a thing.
I think this number is worth watching as more data points build up. I expect the statistics will ultimately turn out to militate against the narrative that "substantially all rape is men victimizing young women."
I think this number is worth watching as more data points build up. I expect the statistics will ultimately turn out to militate against the narrative that "substantially all rape is men victimizing young women."
But keep in mind that this anticipated data is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that rape is a substantially male behavior. It could be the case that when rape is not men victimizing women, it's men victimizing men.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
2012 is the first year that the FBI and many state law-enforcement agencies normalized the definition of rape to include male victimization.
Forced to penetrate is still treated as NOT rape.
Even if you agree with the argument used to justify this (that's it's just not the same thing dangit!), it is still someone forcing another person to perform sex without consent.
Sex without consent always equals rape when a man does it, so essentially it's a test women are not allowed to fail.
But keep in mind that this anticipated data is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that rape is a substantially male behavior. It could be the case that when rape is not men victimizing women, it's men victimizing men.
Lets say we define masturbation as requiring penetration and then argue that it is a substantially female behavior. Hmmm it seems like that would skew the numbers rather terribly.
Heres an interesting fact the place with the highest documented rape rate in the US is a womens prison. Even though only women can be guards in womens prisons.
As humans, we have a tendency to cling to ideologies. Any positive set of beliefs can quickly turn malevolent once treated as ideology and not an honest intellectual or experiential pursuit of greater truth. Ideology does in entire economic systems and countries, causes religions to massacre thousands, turns human rights movements into authoritarian sects and makes fools out of humanity’s most brilliant minds. Einstein famously wasted the second half of his career trying to calculate a cosmological constant that didn’t exist because “God doesn’t play dice.”
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This actually is the most convincing bit - and in light of that, I'm totally willing to admit my prior assumptions were off-base. I had been under the impression that rape was different in the % breakdown gender-wise, and it seems it in fact is not. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but taking the report at face value seems to indicate that rape doesn't happen significantly more or less the other violent crimes period, regardless of the gender of the people involved. That would indicate that reducing all violent crime would reduce rape too, by roughly the same amount, in theory. It does still beg the question of why most violent crimes are committed by men, though that is probably a topic for another thread.
As far as the ah, very aggressive comments directed my way... if you somehow felt I was ignoring you in some way, I apologize, as that was not the intent. There were frequently multiple posts that appeared to be directed at me, and while I did try to address most of the content in each one, But I am getting the distinct impression that simply continuing to disagree with ideas after the person who presented them believes they've "proven" it is something that merits hostility. I'm totally ok with you guys disagreeing with me, and I'm totally ok with the idea of potentially being wrong/mistaken/whatever. But I am not ok with the idea that I'm somehow being unreasonable or awful person just because I don't buy whatever arguments someone else (on the internet, no less!) happens to present. Now, methinks it would thus be best for me to bow out of this discussion for now, because I get the distinct impression that further comments will not be productive nor viewed in good faith by those currently here.
"Special" may not be the most accurate way to think about it. It's not like men have a specific aggression organ or brain structure that women lack. What they have is a lot more androgens. The stuff governs aggressive and confrontational behavior in both the sexes. It's a quantitative difference, not qualitative. To the best of my knowledge, the only qualitative differences remain the basic reproductive functions.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Rape occurs much less often than some other forms of violent crime. By those numbers, almost all violent crimes are (non-sexual) assaults - about six out of seven. Whether reducing all violent crime reduces rape depends greatly on the exact method used to do the reducing. If, for example, we give everybody a very good new burglar alarm system, that would reduce violent crime by reducing burglaries but probably would not reduce the number of rapes much.
But if we were to wave a magic wand and make people just generally less violent somehow, then yes, the rape rate would almost certainly decrease proportionately with everything else.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Looking at that table reveals that 2012 is a bit of a watershed moment in the rape data:
- It's the first year that the DOJ obtained a statistically-significant sample of male rape victimization.
- The ratio of male-to-female victimizations is *drastically* out of line with previous years (0.61 men raped for every woman raped in 2012, versus a prior maximum of 0.29 in 2006)
- 2012 is the first year that the FBI and many state law-enforcement agencies normalized the definition of rape to include male victimization.
Certainly one data point does not a trend make, but I doubt it's mere coincidence that this uptick in victimization happens in the same year that our justice system settles on the notion that male rape victims are a thing.
I think this number is worth watching as more data points build up. I expect the statistics will ultimately turn out to militate against the narrative that "substantially all rape is men victimizing young women."
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
But keep in mind that this anticipated data is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that rape is a substantially male behavior. It could be the case that when rape is not men victimizing women, it's men victimizing men.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Even if you agree with the argument used to justify this (that's it's just not the same thing dangit!), it is still someone forcing another person to perform sex without consent.
Sex without consent always equals rape when a man does it, so essentially it's a test women are not allowed to fail.
Lets say we define masturbation as requiring penetration and then argue that it is a substantially female behavior. Hmmm it seems like that would skew the numbers rather terribly.
Heres an interesting fact the place with the highest documented rape rate in the US is a womens prison. Even though only women can be guards in womens prisons.
Heres another interesting fact...Female inmates typically report more incidents of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence than males. source http://newsok.com/female-prison-in-oklahoma-has-highest-rape-rate-in-u.s./article/3922988