Talk:Rape/Archive 3

message: This page contains graphic content.  Images as well as text may be triggering to users suffering from rape trauma syndrome.--Survivor 06:21, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: *Trigger Warning* for sexual assault survivors

message: Just wanted to speak as a rape survivor.  I have been keeping an eye on this page for several months now.  I have noticed that what i guess is vandalism lends this page a very anti-survivor bias.  Many of the things I have read which are presented to be nuetral and let stand for months are actually what most rape crisis centers would consider rape myths.  I am very glad to have found this talk forum.  Thank you to the moderators for allowing discussion on the issues.
- a survivor
Just adding after taking a look at the archives that many of my points have been twisting very slightly to make no sense at all.  This was done by changing the sentence structure or one or two words here and there.  I believe one of your vandals uses subtle manipulation to undermine other people's posts.
:Well, you should be able to look in the edit history and show us examples of this subtle manipulation, then.  You do realize that if they were making a good-faith attempt to improve the article, it isn't WP:vandalism even if it isn't what you wanted the article to say, right?  -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:25, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry.  It's just that working on this article really oversensitizes one if one is both a survivor of sexual assault and of false accusations of sexual assault.  People on both sides accuse you of trying to censor "the truth" because you're actually trying to let both sides be told instead of only theirs.  It gets very painful. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism in the Rape section

message: One of the most widely quoted statistics on rape is that "One in four women have been raped", originating with a survey conducted by psychologist Mary Koss in 1985. The survey found that 27.5% of college women were victims of a rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. While also noting this statistic includes attempted rapes as well as actual rapes, it is also important to recognise that 73% of the rape victims did not categorise their experience as rape. (That distinction was made by Koss herself, based on the definition of rape used by most North American legal statutes.) In a study conducted on women in college by the National Institute of Justice, 48.8% of rape victims did not consider themselves "raped." The NIJ posited that these women may have avoided the use of the word "rape" due to embarrassment, reluctance to be blamed for the incident, not understanding the legal definition of rape, or because they did not want to think of an acquaintance as a rapist. Koss' study found that women who had been raped by someone they knew were less likely to label their experience as a rape than those who were raped by strangers, but found the experiences of both types of victims in terms of psychological trauma and relationship/sexual problems to be the same. Koss also found that a majority of the women surveyed for her study tried to stop the rape from happening. 84% tried to talk their attackers out of raping them, and 70% physically struggled against their attackers.
These facts are often overlooked or minimalized by those who wish to shed doubt on the 1-in-4 statistic.
References:
Koss, Mary. "Hidden rape: sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of students in higher education." In Burgess, A.W. (ed.) Rape and Sexual Assault II. Garland, New York, 1988 
Koss, Mary P. and Sarah L. Cook. "Facing the facts: Date and acquaintance rape are significant problems for women". In Current Controversies on Family Violence. Edited by Richard J. Gelles and Donileen R Loseke. Sage, California, 1993.
Muehlenhard, Charlene L., Susie C. Sympson, Joi L. Phelps, and Barrie J. Highby. Are rape statistics exaggerated? A response to criticism of contemporary rape research. The Journal of Sex Research 31(2), 1994, pp 144
National Insitute of Justice. The Sexual Victimization of College Women. December 2000. Available online at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/182369.htm
Orman, Katie. The Date Rape Research Controversy. AARDVARC. Available online at: http://members.aardvark.net.au/~korman/rape/controversy
Warshaw, Robin. I never called it rape: the Ms report on recognizing, fighting and surviving date and acquaintance rape. HarperPerennial, New York, 1994.
:The above is extremely POV. Mary Koss was a quack of the first degree, and the misuse of her fradulent statistics is a grave crime of propoganda. We went over her methods in my psychology class, and they are unacceptable to almost anyone who is informed of them. She counted as rape: 
*having consensual sex under the influence of alcohol or other drugs
*having consensual sex and later regretting it 
:and 
*having consensual sex after having been talked into it or persuaded (i.e. in a completely non-agressive manner)
:Her "facts" are about as useful as the "10%" figure on homosexuality (based entirely on if active duty sailors had ever had a homoerotic experience). These sorts of bogus studies deserve discussion, but not the disgraceful interpretation I found in the article.  18:34, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, Sam_Spade... And why should anybody believe you, when you don't bother to cite anything to back up your claims?--John 11:08, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've looked at the National Insitute of Justice report, which states that rape is defined as "forced sexual intercourse including both psychological coercion as well as physical force." If the threat of force is 'psychological coercion' I have no problem with that, but if it means any form of persuasion, or even giving someone alcohol, we need to be very suspicious. The report does not make its criteria for psycholgical coercion clear. Any study which counts as 'rape' experiences that the women themselves do not consider to be rapes should surely be treated with scepticism. Paul B 14:33, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is the question involving 'date rape.'  Even mary koss herself has conceded years later that her question regarding voluntary intoxication was  misleading and did not actually meet the legal definition of intoxication rape.  Not just that, but questions do not necessarily include a threat of physical force as the only criteria.  And as has been stated, the vast majority of women surveyed don't consider themselves to have been raped, so that's a bit questionable.  -Nathan J. Yoder 14:01, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mary Koss and the "One in four" statistic

message: Pakaran, any chance you could give some details on this item you added:  "and this [distaste for referencing sexual rape just for effect] is becoming more so since rape victims and their allies are fighting usages which they feel weaken the word."?  To clarify:  I don't think it's incorrect information but I think the article would benefit from specifics on just which rape victims and allies are taking action against this phenomenon, and what kind of action they're taking. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:56, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In internet culture the term is sometimes used as a  dysphemistic reference to having one's online writings voted/moderated downwards by a large number of people.
has always struck a bad chord with me because I've never seen it used this way.  Ever.  Not even on Slashdot.  I don't doubt that someone out there uses it this way, but is it a specific and significant enough usage to merit singling out here?
I also see problems with Magicalspirits' recent change to this section.  Does it express a particular POV well?  Yes.  Does it do so in an NPOV manner?  It doesn't; it asserts that the use of "rape" as a dysphemism "creates a decoupling within our language of the horror associated with this term", which is certainly a reasonable belief but isn't one held by everyone.  Likewise, changing "is usually considered" to "is considered" asserts that everyone considers it demeaning or disempowering of rape victims -- untrue unless you try to assert that all the people who do use "rape" as a dysphemism are intentionally demeaning and disempowering rape victims, an extraordinary claim with no supporting evidence. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:56, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fighting the deliteralization of "rape" 

message: I have added this quote twice:
The researcher Metzger wrote of sexual assault:
"Rape is loss. Like death, it is best treated with a period of mourning and grief. We should develop social ceremonies for rape, rituals, that, like funerals and wakes, would allow the mourners to recover the spirits that the rapist, like death, steals. The social community is the appropriate center for the restoration of spirit, but the rape victim is usually shamed into silence or self-imposed isolation," (Metzger, D. (1976). It is always the woman who is raped. American Journal of Psychiatry, 133 (4), 405-408.)
It has been deleted twice.  Is there a problem with it that can be resolved?  Of course the article title could be better-  but perhaps it is taken out of context as 1976 was after the women's lib movement.
thanks.
:I don't think it's a bad quote, but I think there is the question of why we're quoting it; is it making a point that isn't otherwise made in the article?  That's a serious question on my part; I wasn't the one who removed the quote and I don't know why the person who did, did so, but I did notice that it was the third quote we had in that section and I did wonder if we were choosing the quotes that we did because they clarified particular points, or because they stressed particular points.  Those two may seem like they're the same thing, but one is making sure that the reader understands the situation so as to draw their own conclusions, and the other is trying to make sure that the reader draws the conclusion we want.  One is NPOV, and the other is not. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotes

message: While the contenders in this dispute may not be ready to focus on it, i would expect consensus that it is a serious deficiency to make the cross-cultural assertions of the opening 'graph w/o acknowledging that most of the history of rape theory is the theory of rape as a property crime against the husband and/or father.  Our antipathy to that theory should not keep us from documenting that sordid past, and in fact it is naive to attempt to combat it while ignoring it.
As it reads now, the first 'graph in effect denies that past and, i think, its probable continuing dominance in the psychology and perhaps even the written law of many cultures.
(BTW, The Red Queen by Matt Ridley does not deal with rape in law or on rape as a prosecutable offense, but is valuable about the implicit psychology of rapists and of others' attitudes on rape; it may point to works more pertinent as sources or deserving mention.) 
--Jerzy (t) 14:58, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)
If anyone has access to groliers online encyclopedia from a university please look up the history listed there.  It is excellent.
- a survivor
here it is:
Groliers Online Encyclopedia
http://www.ncwiseowl.org/
To access Groliers Online Encyclopedia free of charge- just click on Encyclopedia and then text only version (pop up window) and type in search term rape. It is the top return. This entry is one of the best overviews for the topic of rape that I have found. It covers recent aspects (date rape) as well as the history of rape in our society. It includes the concept that women are a legal possession of their spouse or father, information on date rape drugs such as rohypnol and ghb and the Bosnia rape trials.
This is also a good example of what an actual encyclopedia article on rape looks like.
When this is unlocked I plan to add some of the information regarding the content of Groliers entry on rape.  It lists fome very important historical aspects for rape survivors. I hope no one has any objections.  I will be as nuetral as possible.  Possibly just a short quote from Groliers encyclopedia. --Survivor 06:22, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of the concept 

message: Well, crap.  Just after I revised the description of the Perth 2003 incident to correct what I thought was a mistaken inference that it was a "study", I notice that tucked away in the "External Links" section was this link, which confirms that it was indeed a study, based on all victims who had requested police involvement during that period, not merely 44 of them whose systems turned out to be clean.  The study was supposed to continue for another 12 or 18 months, which at a quick calculation means it probably ended around January of this year; I wonder if the results are available? -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:45, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More information on the Perth 2003 incident 

message: :Counter-argument: Lewis Thomas in his "Lives of a Cell: notes of a biology watcher" notes a strong argument of how rape is not only not an evolutionary benefit to the rapist but that it is strongly maladaptive and therefore selected against.
And ... what is that "strong argument"?  I'm pretty sure we should be presenting the argument itself rather than just asserting to the reader that it's strong.
:Furthermore, in his just published book (Adapting Minds: MIT Press) David Buller tackles the whole of evolutionary psychology noting that theories in this field are often provably based on faulty research and heavily biased data. 
Has he been able to show that the theories of evolutionary psychology about rape are based on faulty research or heavily biased data?  If he has, we owe readers the details.  If he has not, it's deceptive to be talking about other theories he's managed to make a case against, in order to suggest he has one against this theory as well. 
:He further goes on to show 
"argue" rather than "show", I'm fairly sure we should be using.
:that what is interesting about rape is that if indeed it is "programmed into the male brain" then why is it that most men don't rape? 
Actually a fairly weak argument.  Evolution is all about statistical effectiveness; if a gene produces adaptive characteristics in a statistically significant percentage of the population, it is likely to be selected for.  Stating "well, there are individuals in whom those characteristics don't manifest" does not disprove the theory.  Likewise, if a particular genetic complement produces a tendency towards certain behavior, there may be plenty of individuals in whom that tendency never actually produces that behavior.  It does not dispel the possibility that the tendency, in those in whom it has manifested, has had a statistically significant effect.
:For Buller rape as biological imperative doesn't add up.
Redundant, surely, if we're presenting his actual arguments for why rape as biological imperative doesn't add up.  -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:42, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, if by "one step up from original research" you mean "nothing like original research", then yeah.  The point of original research is to discourage those who would see Wikipedia as a place to publicize theories that they can't get past peer review anyplace else.  That's obviously not the case here; these theories have clearly received plenty of attention and debate without Wikipedia.  For us to pass judgement and say "We will not cover any of this controversy because they have failed to reach consensus (and besides it's pretentious and largely baseless anyways)" is hardly justified. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:49, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I think you missed my point. What I was trying to say is that it's not really good for articles to treat every minority viewpoint, and it's especially not good to treat minority viewpoints which are new to the point where one has to quote authors in the present tense. By "one step up from original research" I obviously don't mean "nothing like original research", otherwise I would have said that. What I mean is that a first person did original research, and then a second person reports on it in the article. To forestall the argument that every article eventually sources "original research", note that the facts in less-controversial articles are agreed-upon by massive numbers of people. We shouldn't be pulling in every new idea that comes up; they should be validated by the academic community first. Jeeves 17:55, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't miss your point, I disputed it.  Your arguments unfortunately don't coincide with the facts; you clearly have strong feelings on this matter but just as clearly don't have a strong grounding in the facts.  You claim these must be new theories because they're being described in the present tense, but did you notice that one of the sources was Lives of a Cell, first published over three decades ago?  These are not new theories, nor obscure theories; the scientific community has yet to reach consensus on whether to accept these theories but it would be ridiculous for Wikipedia to decide that we will never cover scientific theorizing until consensus is unquestioned.  The phrase "one step up from original research" is meaningless if the step in question is everything that makes original research objectionable to begin with. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: This was actually my original objection. The "argument...counter argument: ..." stuff isn't encyclopedic in nature, it's debate. Debate can and should go on the talk pages, but not in the article itself. Since the topic has its own article anyway, I don't think we need to give more than a cursory mention of it here. Jeeves 05:37, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counter-arguments to sociobiological theories of rape 

message: While I do think the additions describing the tendency for prison rape to be seen as the "just reward" of a prisoner were phrased in very POV form, I think there's some undeniable truth to them that really deserves to be addressed.  If you tried telling a 'joke' on the radio about any other form of rape, you would most likely be out of a job by the end of the day as outraged listeners flooded the lines.  However, if a male celebrity goes to prison, jokes about him having to "bend over to get the soap" are inevitable -- and if the crime for which he was put in prison was a sexual one, people who would never think of condoning any other form of rape are suddenly cheering on the notion. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:54, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prison rape perceived as "just punishment" 

message: Can you people stop deleting the picture of rape (missionary postition) that I am adding to this page? It is an appropriate addition, even thought some of my other edits may have been vandalism. 70.60.43.74 00:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, but thats not a very convincing argument. Not only does that image not depict rape, but an image that actually did was not too long ago removed, as being offensive. Also, accusing an arbiter clearly acting in good faith of vandalism is probably not a good stance to be taking as an anon. Sam Spade 00:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: It is clearly not a picture of rape, (except perhaps in the opinion of Andrea Dworkin), and even if it were, what point would we be trying to illustrate? func(talk) 01:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI this is the image in question. (Comment added after page archival) - Draeco 07:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images