Why do some people minimize rape?

Question

If I would be given the choice of being raped or killed, I would choose death.

Rape is NOT about sex, rape is about denigration, is telling the other person you are nothing, you are subhuman and I have the power to take away all your dignity.

Rape is serious and people that don't take it seriously make me think that they could be potential rape criminals themselves. Creepy

Or could be that they just lack empathy?

Do you think they are serious? Or do you think is their way of "having fun" by posting such comments?

Mike T, you asked:

"But if you have never raped someone how do YOU know what its about?"

And...do YOU know?? Have you raped someone then?

Creepy in here sometimes

Answer 1

http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ad361896/anne/cease/rapestatisticspage.html

Obviously a lot of people male and female do not appreciate the seriousness of rape. That second link shows that 84% of men admitting to actions classified legally as rape didn't think they had done anything wrong. The number of unreported rapes largely come from the victims blaming themselves.
One obstacle we face as a society is all these different classifications of rape. Rape should simply be rape, not date rape, wife rape, violent rape, statutory rape etc. One thing keeping people from seeing the gravity of forced none-consensual sex is this idea that some forms of rape are worse than others. All have a scarring impact and all should be thought of the same way. Perhaps that is why some treat the topic so flippantly. MHO.

Answer 2

Um that's your choice but if I had to choose I would choose rape over death...because then I would still be alive.

Rape is totally serious...so much that it should be serious when a false accusation is made...making a false accusation should be punished in SAME EXACT way as rape itself.

To me rape is stupid too....with all the BS stuff people are willing to do..just seems sick.

Answer 3

This is probably wrong BUT sometimes I minimize rape b/c I think... what if this girl is lying and the guy really didn't do it. When I was in high school my brother was accused of raping someone and I felt very strongly that he would have told me if he'd done something so terrible b/c we were so close regardless of the consequences.
A year later a girl in our neighborhood lied to her brother and told him that some guy raped her and her brother killed the guy. After the brother killed him she confessed that she lied and told him that because her feelings were hurt... I take rape very seriously, but I find myself sometimes giving the guy just a little benefit of the doubt for these two cases I know of first hand... it IS NOT a topic to be taken lightly tho.

Answer 4

Firstly, I seriously hope that you are not serious about your assertion that you would rather be dead than suffer the denigration of rape. Think about it...life is the greatest gift we have been given, and you would choose to give it back just so that you can hold on to your dignity??? And if you are correct in your belief that rape is about another person telling you that you are nothing, subhuman and that they have the ability to take away all your dignity - recognize that your understanding and knowledge of yourself has absolutely nothing to do with how another person feels about you or treats you.

Now, as to why people seem to take the subject a little less than seriously...I don't honestly believe that this is the case. I think that many of the callous and less than empathetic comments are simply the extreme to counter their impression of the one sided issue of rape. There have been many discussions about rape in this forum, and many feel that women do not take the rape of men seriously, nor do they see the severity of women falsely accusing men of rape. Its merely part of the back and forth of this category...

Answer 5

i am actually unsure of why some people are so quick to minimize rape/molestation/sexual assault and all its ill effects on individuals and on society as a whole. i sometimes thinks the people who are not sympathetic have simply never had an experience where they were vulnerable and taken advantage of. everyone i know who has been abused at one point, whether it be sexually or physically, has an ability to understand how difficult life is after rape. also, those that have experienced abuse first hand, male or female, understand how rampant it is. AND IT IS RAMPANT. many of the women i know, and some of the men, too, have been sexually abused at some point in their lives. i don't think the statistics on it are exaggerated or skewed at all, based on my own personal experience and the experiences of my friends and family. people need to be able to see outside themselves. women say, "well, it never happened to me, why are you feminists making such a big deal out of it?" men say "i've never known anyone that was molested. i think you're all making this stuff up." well, guess what? YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD. you do not know what everyone's experiences are, and you never will.

i guess an inability to be compassionate is probably behind the apathy and sometimes anger directed at women who speak out on sexual abuse.

and, of course, there are those that are potential sexual abusers themselves. unfortunately, they are out there. but i think more than not it's just apathetic, close-minded people who lack empathy.

Answer 6

THANK YOU for the question...
As some of you may know already I am completely open concerning my torturous childhood at the hands of my biological Father. I was raped whenever he felt like it, drunk or not. I was beaten so many times I still have the physical,emotional, and spiritual scars to prove it. once beaten so bad that he left me for dead.I am a SURVIVOR! I do not have any self pity!

My Husband has taught me Martial Arts for the last 21 years of our marriage - I stand proud to be a Mother who raised her boys to respect women - and her daughter to respect men....

Rape is, in every case, not simply a violation of law, but the; the forceful sexual assault of other human beings without their consent carries criminal penalties because we as a society believe that the right to bodily integrity is more than just a catch phrase.

It is all I can do to remain civil to complete morons who feel that rape is no big deal....I think it is due alot to women hating music - overbearing Mothers constantly screaming at their sons because they are mad at all men - and Fathers not being Fathers, not showing and teaching their sons how to be REAL men...

I will agree that there are many unscrupulous females out there who lie, and are manipulators and yell rape when it didnt happen...I have to be fair

Answer 7

Some people do trivialize rape, and that should be condemned, yet some perspective is needed on this whole issue.

For a start, the context of rape differs widely, from vicious assaults by strangers, to the kind of sustained abuse an early poster has talked about, to date rape type instances. It's the same name, but the seriousness and impact of those crimes differs widely.

The leading feminist author Germaine Greer goes further than I would in her comments, yet succeeds in making the point very succinctly:

The whole article needs to be read in context to understand the specific abridged pieces quoted, and the body of language in the complete article, whilst published in a daily newspaper, is (like the subject) of an adult nature.

"There is a solution, but it is not recognised as such by feminists or legislators. That is to abolish the crime of rape altogether, and instead to expand the law of assault to include sexual assault in varying degrees of gravity; so that, for example, mutilating assaults on children would be recognised as many times graver than penetration of a grown woman.

/---/article continues/---/

There are feminists who would be outraged at the idea of downgrading the crime of rape in such a way; indeed some feminists have demanded that convicted rapists be castrated,

/---/article continues/---/

In exchange for allowing the offence to be downgraded, women should demand the lessening of the burden of proof. No one could take the uncorroborated statement of a complainant as sufficient basis for depriving a man of his liberty for years. But if what is alleged is common assault with a sexual component, and carries a lighter penalty, women's testimony could safely be given more weight. And we would not all be subjected to the silliness of protracted and hugely expensive trials involving inebriated undergraduates who collapsed in bed together and woke up unable to remember exactly what transpired."

Answer 8

I too would choose death over rape. I was almost raped several times as a child, and it ruined my life for years. It is one of the main reasons I have trouble with anything stressful in life; stress reminds me of rape, which reminds me of getting stabbed during one of them, and I devolve into an emotional cripple.

Rapists take away your dignity, your self respect and your innocence. It is very difficult to get these back.

Answer 9

Johno I have hope for you- I beleive you are one of the males on here thats an equalist. Lots of times this past week I had to look to see that It WAS you making the comments.

My sister was raped. She was pregnant at the time. She broke up with her husband (he was not the rapist) and has not had a relationship since. Her daughter was 25 this week. When I think that this caused her to avoid not only physical intimacy but the emotional intimacy as well. She missed a lot AND it has affected her daughter. She has said she wished he had killed her. I feel helpless with her (and I am not the helpless type) I can do NOTHING to help her get through this and she will not do counseling.

Answer 10

They know what their doing, they don't care about anyone.If the did it would not happen.When it dose happen they stand a 50-50 chance nothing will happen to them.If you see anyone posting comments about rape being fun or ok they need to be reported.Lets lock them up and throw away the key.Every woman child or man is a potential victim