Something I've been thinking about today. Is sexual assault being exaggerated by society? I have at least two (female) friends who have been raped. One of them, at least, continues to be affected by it, claiming to have nightmares and major trust issues, over a decade after the fact.

A couple questions.

• If society didn't make sexual assault out to be as horrid as they seem to, do you think victims would be better off emotionally and mentally?
  
• Is it really that bad? I mean, I know it's bad. But as long as you're not contracting any diseases or getting pregnant (which should be remediable), is it much worse than, for example, getting robbed?
  

I'm hoping this subject, in a serious tone, isn't too taboo for this community. But if it is, feel free to delete the post. I, of course, do not support sexual assault nor would I ever perform it.

I suppose part of it depends on if it is rape or violent rape. The latter could be especially traumatic.

http://www.aaets.org/article178.htm

1) No. I do not see how you could have this without having an issue of extreme machismo and more far-reaching problems of equality. A better question is "what if society didn't have a general atmosphere of slut-shaming or victim-blaming"?

2) Your comparison is illusory since you do not include the condition of "so long as you are not also getting stabbed or maimed." Sexual assault and robbery both have associated risks. However, it seems very reasonable to suppose that sexual assault is much more likely to escalate into, say, rape, than robbery (the latter case being potentially low-risk supposing that the intent of the robbery is not to murder or physically assault as a primary objective). And yes, it is still that bad, because you are running the risk of disease (which has a very good chance of being incurable) and pregnancy (which has complicating factors such as culture perspective on abortion, the availability of abortion methods, an investment of time and money and energy if the fetus is kept, etc.)

If you let there be degrees of rape, then some is over-exaggerated and some is not exaggerated enough. As a whole, however, I'd guess that the majority of rape would be small degree, like drunk boyfriends and their girlfriends. This would still be very traumatic for the girl, but probably not life-scarring and definitely not as traumatic as a complete stranger full blown raping the shit out of you when you're trying to walk home. The latter, I feel, can have a huge impact on one's life, and the negative affects might not be emphasized enough. The former, however, is probably slightly over-emphasized in some cases, and indeed with the social view on rape victims of lesser-degree rape may just be trying to get attention.

Better practice your skills guys:

Attachments:

Of course. Its unbelievable that you could even know two people who have been raped, unless you are black or happen to know girls from extremely bad families. The vast majority of rape is committed by family members. The popular imagery of random assaults or drunken boyfriends is nonsense. FBI stats before they were removed listed the actual rape occurrence rate at something like 4 in a 1000 in urban areas. Consider that 90% of that is familial, and 90% of it is perpetrated by negroes (and most of that on other negroes) and you're looking at... not a whole lot of sexual assault.

But aside from the point that its a pathetically blatant, entirely fabricated victim industry, its interesting where your mind goes. Why, yes, in fact, even if all the sexual assault hysteria were true, it would *still* make far more sense to treat it seriously and help people *actually* get over it rather than act like it ruins people's lives forever. This is one of the more obvious ways to detect a fake social ill - if people were actually being raped at even 1% of the levels the hysteria would suggest, society would *NEVER* respond to it in the way it is "responding" to a manufactured crisis (which is to say, anyone not immediately in the presence of a university/media/government couldn't give a shit.)

It sounds like you're going to have this problem a lot. The amount of taboo subjects and outright dystopian, 1984-style re-writing of history and reality that's been going on for the past century (the past 50 years in particular) have made modern life pretty weird. You're going to find yourself attempting to apply logic to the world, only to discover that things never quite seem to add up. This is invariably the result of a stupid, fake frame that's been set for you in advance without your realizing it. This will be worse depending on where you grew up; urban areas are the worst for being the most deluded.

The fact that you're thinking about this at all would suggest you're either a university student or spend too much time on reddit, probably both. Reddit is populated mainly by university students, so its basically insane. Universities are terrible for filling your head with all sorts of incorrect ideas about reality - after all they're full of young, idealistic individuals who are certain we're just one more social program away from utopia (having been sold these pretty lies by their professors, who were the previous vanguard for this hopeful naivete.) Alas, if only this were true.

"Boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are over-romanticized terms for just "another stranger"; a boyfriend or girlfriend is perfectly capable of raping their partner and it wouldn't be any different from a being raped by a complete stranger (if not worse because there is supposed to be a relationship of trust between the two) because sexual assault is unwanted, non-consensual sexual advances. If someone says "yes", then have fun. If they say "no", nothing, "no", don't respond, etc., then it's non-consensual. The key point is whether there is explicit consent. Whether the parties involved forgive each other and decide not to report an incidence is another matter entirely.

I reiterate: in your examples, the former could be even worse than the latter because there is supposed to be a relationship of trust and consent. (But really it doesn't fucking matter which is worse since they're both already wrong.)

EDIT:


what the fuck am I reading lmao

How does this in any way justify rape? Why would you ignore rapes that are committed by family members/ Why would you ignore rapes by "negroes" on other "negroes"?

The fact that you're thinking this suggests you're one of the radical MRA folk or a misogynist and a racist.

The below is the most important sentence I wrote for addressing the specific topic at hand and not the general sort of question being presented.
The topic isn't about justifying violence, its about whether society's current approach to violence isn't completely batshit insane. And so my answer is, "Yes, yes it is." Nobody seems to really know how to approach helping others who are experiencing grief. If you actually cared about someone who experienced trauma you would not respond the way we currently do, which is what the OP appears to be boggling at. The following Last Psyciatrist posts are interesting explorations of the topic of dealing with grief and trauma (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/12/funeral.html) (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/09/what_should_i_saydo_to_my_son.html).

Part of my motivation for posting was to expressly dissuade the original poster (OP) from inevitably considering "Men's Rights Activists" (MRA) or "Men Going Their Own Way" (MGTOW) as valid approaches to reality. Neither of these are quite the same thing as hating women, and both are mistaken. The MRA crowd is very explicitly men who attempted to apply logic to the insane socio-political world we now live in, finding it doesn't add up, and deciding that hey it must just be a few bad apples, if only we could institute one more social program (but for men this time) then we would find ourselves in utopia! They've applied logic, but they're still caught in the same stupid frame that social activism is the solution to problems.

MGTOW have a different problem, which is that they obviously didn't finish watching the Matrix. The gnostic metaphor in the movie (ala Plato's Allegory of the Cave) is presented early on, in the form of the red pill and the blue pill. Taking the red pill means acknowledging the horrible truth of the world around you. MGTOW are basically the character of Cypher. They took the red pill, and they wish they could go back into the Matrix because this shit is way too real. But the most important scene of the movie, the one that brings unique insight to the gnostic metaphor, is actually a little further in.

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Now, in the movie, Neo is the only one capable of reaching this state of being, so Cypher wanting to get his ass out of the real world is perfectly reasonable. But in actual life, anybody can become "Neo." Acknowledging the horrible reality of the world won't require you to constantly be on the lookout for ways the system is trying to screw you. You can in fact learn to deal with the world as it actually is, unconsciously. For example, acknowledging that a friend of yours has been through extreme trauma, you do not follow the retarded script the system has given you, but instead say "Hey, that sucks. Let me know if there's anything I can do" and then never bring it up again because that's how you deal with other people's problems when you're not a raging narcissist incapable of recognizing that they're an actual human being (as opposed to the completely insane "I have got to fix you!" attitude that narcissists have because other people aren't real, and they're annoying with their tears and shit.)

Whew. Unfortunately there is more yet to say. Ultimately even though anyone can learn to deal with reality as it is, part of undertaking that journey is learning how to deal with others who will mock you for trying to take it. They'll try to dissuade you by spewing out the latest buzzwords "misogynist" and "racist" and so on. You can try to apply logic to these insults as well, but all you'll find is, "Hey, doesn't your system cause a woman to be psychologically damaged for the rest of her life? You may say you like women, but it seems like you're the one who hates them with every fiber of your being, gleefully destroying a person's life forever and then claiming you've done the opposite!" Or, "Hey, it seems to me that if we acknowledged ethnic differences we'd actually have far less death, destruction, and pain. The american black community in the 50s was thriving (after all, those buildings weren't *built* as burnt-out crackhouses), its almost as if its actually *your* social activist policies that have caused all the damage in the first place!"

Alas, again, applying logic to the stupid frame that has been set for you is a non-starter. The insults being tossed out aren't factual claims about your standing. They're more like self-defense mechanisms. The lady doth protest too much. You're never going to get someone to give up *one* part of the system they believe in. Because if that *one* part is mistaken, then the whole thing may be mistaken. But even if it were just that one part, if you're right then you're still telling them that they're one of the most horrible human beings who has ever lived - someone who is destroying otherwise psychologically healthy people for no good reason at all. But that's chaotic good for you. It just maps directly back to evil.

I must have totally misread something. My apologies.

EDIT: No I didn't.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 6 2014, 8:14 pm by Sand Wraith.

No, that isn't what the OP is boggling at. There's no need to guess what he's confused about, he stated it pretty clearly, and your responses aren't relevant to the question he presented. You've hit upon every topic from how much you feel the frequency of rape is overstated, to secret FBI rape demographics, to society's failure to care about victims.

While seemingly all compelling topics to you, none of them actually address the questions which the OP found himself boggling over.

You seem to think that society would be better off helping rape victims "get over it". The OP, however, is suggesting that society should not provide help to the victims of sexual assault, because there isn't actually anything for them to get over in the first place. He's questioning whether rape is actually an inherent evil, or if that's just been engrained into us by society, and in reality it's not any worse than getting your wallet stolen or getting punched in the face.

Now, to actually make this post relevant to the topic:

1) "Is the only reason rape victims feel so bad about being victims because of society's perception of sexual assault?"

No.

PTSD is identified in rape victims from areas where there are no societal expectations against it, even when it's much more common than here. Chimpanzees have behaviors similar to ours, and they gang up on anyone who attempts to commit rape, even if it's the alpha male. I don't think they have some mass media telling them to feel that way about it.

Then again, this isn't the kind of thing that should need to be explained to anyone. It's beyond common sense. It shouldn't be terribly difficult for you to imagine a big fat ugly hairy stranger coming up behind you, ripping off your pants while you desperately try to escape his sweaty clutches, holding you down by your wrists and hair and putting his massively obese hairy body on you so you can't get away, and then anally raping you for a long and bloody duration. Does it feel like it's not really a big deal to you when you imagine that scene happening to you? Because if so, you have some serious mental health problems, and some pretty disturbing fetishes as well.

2) "Is rape really any worse than every other petty crime?"

Yes.

See above.

On a side note, I think you're a bad person. Sitting around all day trying to mentally justify rape to yourself (specifically male-on-female rape, it seems) is pretty psychotic.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Feb 6 2014, 3:56 am by Azrael.

I did go on quite a journey there. But everything I said is immediately relevant to the topic. The OP asks:
The answer is obviously yes, which I have stated above. Azrael somewhat strangely quotes my direct answer to this question in his claim that I did not directly answer the question. But "yes" is a fairly boring answer. One is left to wonder why society is acting as it does, and what that means as an individual living in said society. Further, the mere asking of the question has placed one in the classic gnostic scenario: do you want the truth or do you want the pretty lies? Which leads to... all that other shit I said.

In my experience with mental illness, people who have undergone traumatic experiences are made worse by peer pressure telling them it's not as bad as what they think it is.

So no, I'm not inclined to believe that at all. I think it would make it worse for the victims because you're just squelching support for them to deal with it.

----

Any crime that causes serious psychological trauma to another person is not a "petty" crime.

The confusion you seem to be experiencing here stems from the fact you've misunderstood the OP's question as being more sensible than it actually is, resulting in neither your explanation nor your responses being relevant to the OP's intended topic.

As already pointed out, the OP's question is not asking if the victims of sexual assault would be better off if society cared more about them. He is actually asking the exact opposite: Would the victims of sexual assault be better off if society cared less about them?

Your response included the phrases "if you actually cared" and "experienced trauma", which suggest that there is something to care about, and that being the victim of sexual assault is traumatic. Both of these notions directly contradict what the OP has suggested.

As quoted previously, the first part of the question presented is:


Since the wording seems to be causing some kind of confusion, I'll reword it for the sake of clarity.

"If society treated sexual assault as though it was okay to do to someone, do you think the victims would be better off emotionally and mentally?"

The answer is obviously no, which I have stated above.


This.

The spectrum of "how to handle trauma victims" has more major landmarks than

(A) Ignore the trauma entirely
(B) Take the trauma seriously

In particular it also contains

(C) Plunge into an insane sanctimonious moral hysteria, fabricate evidence, fundamentally re-work society, destroy everything and everyone while ensuring trauma victims experience no relief, no one is ever punished, and new dangerous criminals are created at every opportunity.

Since (C) is the reality, and the OP appeared to be asking why we engage in (C) when we could engage in (B), that is how I interpreted it. It's certainly the more favorable interpretation. If you believe (B) to be the current reality, and do not believe (C) exists at all or is even capable of existing, then I suppose it would make sense to assume he is asking why we don't move from (B) to (A).

@Esponeo:

Reread your posts. I didn't misread anything. You are just wrong and your claims are pretty unsubstantiated and, frankly, absurd.

How about you show (C) actually occurs?

EDIT:

(B) does not occur to a sufficient degree. There are still too many people who take rape casually and spread an attitude that finds it acceptable.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 6 2014, 8:32 pm by Sand Wraith.

No, he didn't. His two-part question was very straightforward, however disturbed it may be. (B) is not relevant to this topic at all.


It doesn't matter what anyone believes to be the current reality, and as mentioned, (B) is not relevant to his question.

Using your own terminology, the first part of his question is simply "Would it be beneficial to the victims if we engaged in (A)?"

A question which you've managed to continually avoid answering in favor of digressive tangents regarding other topics.

This could use some clarification.

If it's directed at me, that's a couple of big assumptions. I thought up the topic maybe an hour before I posted it. I hardly see how you'd interpret me as sexist.
If it's at him ^{_{(which I'd hope it is)}}, ignore that.


Not so much how they're treated post-rape, but how the crime itself is perceived to the public.

It shows. The original post is lacking a lot of information, and you've provided no information or research on the topic other than briefly mentioning your own anecdotal evidence.

The fact that you're needing to clarify the topic after 15 posts and 3 days of discussion indicates that it's incomplete. From what I gather, your actual discussion point is whether or not Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) would still occur in rape victims if society's view of rape was different. This discussion is more oriented toward the psychology behind PTSD and what causes PTSD.

I'm locking this thread because the original post is incomplete/misleading, and the replies to the thread have skewed away from the original poster's intended discussion. If you intended to have a discussion on PTSD (as it seems to be, just with citing rape as an example), please create a new (well-written) topic on the subject. If you believe this topic should not be locked, please write a more complete post to replace the existing first post of this thread (possibly including referenced articles, statistics, your stance and arguments, opposing arguments / evidence and why they may be wrong, how it may vary between demographics, what makes it similar / different to likened scenarios, a clear discussion point or question, etc.) and PM me or another moderator to get the topic reopened.