It truly is astonishing sometimes just what a remarkably thought-terminating taboo the topic of rape and sexual assault is. Of course it's a gravely serious one, but I don't exaggerate when I say most people are more comfortable talking about genocide than they are about rape.
Is it because a mass atrocity is more impersonal, or is there a degree of puritanism to the whole angle?
That said, mjg59 has always been a vested partisan on these topics, so I wouldn't use him to make any broader points.
Lets just start with "rape" being used as an all encompassing term for all sexual crimes, which can get very confusing, after all it happens everyday where someone willfully engages in sex and is simultaneously the victim of rape (e.g. statutory rape). So it is a word covering a vast topic.
Historically, victims of rape were more inclined to keep it to themselves than tell someone, because they were not believed; when they were believed nothing happened to the perpetrator; and sometimes the victims were made out to be deserving of the rape. This is not just true of women, but there are many stories of children who told their parents that people at their churches touched them and then the parents did not believe their own children (double victimization).
Lets take a single modern day accusation...Jameis Winston accused of rape by a freshman college girl. Just look online and you will find opinions on everything from: people assuming he is guilty because he is black she is white; people feeling its just another white girl making up lies about a successful black man; that the redneck town of Tallahassee was persecuting a poor black kid; that the good ol' boys club helped cover up a rape for the start football player; that she was just a drunk freshman slut or a gold digger; that he later didn't pay for crab legs from publix so he must be a rapist...it just goes on and on. The reality is there is one fact, no one knows what the hell happened, maybe even the two subjects don't know because of alcohol, but everyone has an opinion as to what happened instead of an honest conversation about prevention.
You generally won't have these types of controversies with genocide victims, because...well the victims are dead, and its hard to fake dead. Then again there are still many holocaust deniers around the world. Further, still there are many people who don't know there are active genocides taking place right now, and I'll tell you this I have talked to people about Darfur who claim that is not a genocide and I have to admit that makes me pretty damn uncomfortable.
I don't think this is an appropriate parallel... apples and oranges as it were.
Admittedly, I only skimmed both articles, but this article appears to be about misinformation regarding recidivism rates affecting the judgment of legislators. The article you linked is in regards to someone being confused about what constitutes rape.
Why should OP be scared that somebody may label them as a rape apologist for linking this? For broaching the subject of what happens to people convicted of sex crimes?
I had the same thought as you, having also skimmed the articles. Having now read them more fully, it seems that patzerhacker's (admittedly, somewhat kneejerk) reaction draws closer parallels than I initially thought.
In that email, Ted Ts'o disputes the common knowledge that 1 in 4 women are raped. It does not, in my opinion, rise to the level of rape apology (though clearly, that is subjective), and attempts to explain that perhaps the "1 in 4 women are raped" statistic (that seems pervasive) is an exaggerated claim. His best piece of evidence, IMO, is that of the women cited in the statistic that results in the 1 in 4 claim, only 1 in 4 of the 1 in 4 even categorize their own reports as "rape". Whether that's right, wrong or indifferent is not mine to say, as I can see merit on both sides of the argument.
The article here, regarding recidivism of sexual offenders is doing the exact same thing as what Ted Ts'o attempts to do, which is to take a popular, but possibly wrong statistic, and give it more context which may render the original statistic moot.
The parallels are indeed close, which makes me glad that I did not initially downvote patzerhacker's comment without reading both articles. That said, I am not savvy to the nuances of either statistic, so I cannot claim to be authoritative on either, but as a non-interested, passive observer, it seems that Ts'o's branding as a rape apologist seems unfounded, from the information that was linked in the article, and Garrett's claims seem overblown, and predicated on the false dichotomy that because Ts'o doesn't believe A, he must believe B, which does not seem to be the case in his email.
I don't think its the fear of getting called nasty names, its the fear of people calling your boss, spouse, etc. and bringing down the modern, low-energy, high-damage version of a mob. When it only take a couple of minutes a day to ruin someone's career or life, the risk is a bit high.
vezzy-fnord|10 years ago
Is it because a mass atrocity is more impersonal, or is there a degree of puritanism to the whole angle?
That said, mjg59 has always been a vested partisan on these topics, so I wouldn't use him to make any broader points.
will_brown|10 years ago
Historically, victims of rape were more inclined to keep it to themselves than tell someone, because they were not believed; when they were believed nothing happened to the perpetrator; and sometimes the victims were made out to be deserving of the rape. This is not just true of women, but there are many stories of children who told their parents that people at their churches touched them and then the parents did not believe their own children (double victimization).
Lets take a single modern day accusation...Jameis Winston accused of rape by a freshman college girl. Just look online and you will find opinions on everything from: people assuming he is guilty because he is black she is white; people feeling its just another white girl making up lies about a successful black man; that the redneck town of Tallahassee was persecuting a poor black kid; that the good ol' boys club helped cover up a rape for the start football player; that she was just a drunk freshman slut or a gold digger; that he later didn't pay for crab legs from publix so he must be a rapist...it just goes on and on. The reality is there is one fact, no one knows what the hell happened, maybe even the two subjects don't know because of alcohol, but everyone has an opinion as to what happened instead of an honest conversation about prevention.
You generally won't have these types of controversies with genocide victims, because...well the victims are dead, and its hard to fake dead. Then again there are still many holocaust deniers around the world. Further, still there are many people who don't know there are active genocides taking place right now, and I'll tell you this I have talked to people about Darfur who claim that is not a genocide and I have to admit that makes me pretty damn uncomfortable.
afarrell|10 years ago
mfoy_|10 years ago
Admittedly, I only skimmed both articles, but this article appears to be about misinformation regarding recidivism rates affecting the judgment of legislators. The article you linked is in regards to someone being confused about what constitutes rape.
Why should OP be scared that somebody may label them as a rape apologist for linking this? For broaching the subject of what happens to people convicted of sex crimes?
bmelton|10 years ago
The approximation is here: http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html
In that email, Ted Ts'o disputes the common knowledge that 1 in 4 women are raped. It does not, in my opinion, rise to the level of rape apology (though clearly, that is subjective), and attempts to explain that perhaps the "1 in 4 women are raped" statistic (that seems pervasive) is an exaggerated claim. His best piece of evidence, IMO, is that of the women cited in the statistic that results in the 1 in 4 claim, only 1 in 4 of the 1 in 4 even categorize their own reports as "rape". Whether that's right, wrong or indifferent is not mine to say, as I can see merit on both sides of the argument.
The article here, regarding recidivism of sexual offenders is doing the exact same thing as what Ted Ts'o attempts to do, which is to take a popular, but possibly wrong statistic, and give it more context which may render the original statistic moot.
The parallels are indeed close, which makes me glad that I did not initially downvote patzerhacker's comment without reading both articles. That said, I am not savvy to the nuances of either statistic, so I cannot claim to be authoritative on either, but as a non-interested, passive observer, it seems that Ts'o's branding as a rape apologist seems unfounded, from the information that was linked in the article, and Garrett's claims seem overblown, and predicated on the false dichotomy that because Ts'o doesn't believe A, he must believe B, which does not seem to be the case in his email.
cperciva|10 years ago
protomyth|10 years ago