NCFM NOTE: With permission, we are excited to share the preface to Wendy McElroy’s newest book Rape Culture Hysteria. The outline of the book is here as a PDF. Additionally, we will soon publish Chapter Five: Comparison of the Key Surveys Regarding Rape, Why Do Rape Statistics Vary So Widely? Introduction, arguably the most comprehensive analysis of related statistics. It’s a must read and reference for anyone interested in the topic and truth.
Rape Culture Hysteria
By Wendy McElroy
Preface: Ain’t I A Woman?
Introduction
My Questions for PC Feminism
- Ain’t I a woman?
- Ain’t I a feminist?
- Ain’t I a victim of sexual violence?
Overview of the Book
Three Caveats
- The omission from self-respect
- The omission I regret
- This book has no academic pretensions
Conclusion
Notes
If one believes women are more powerful than men because we
own practically all of the vaginas, then women’s power to withhold
consent to sex is the greatest power there is. Which means the guy
who can take away a woman’s right to consent is basically a
superhero. Right? – Kate Harding [1]
Introduction
There is no rape culture in North America. There is a rape culture hysteria that is not based on evidence, statistics or reason. In fact, the politically correct (PC) myth or lie of a rape culture flies in the face of all evidence, statistics and reason because it is ideologically motivated.
The rape culture is a wildly successful fiction created by PC feminists who wish to embed their vision of gender justice into society. Proponents may or may not be sincere in their beliefs. The important question is whether they are correct. A primary purpose of this book is to examine rape culture claims in order to ascertain their validity, if any. It is my experience, however, that those who stoke hysteria rarely do so because they have the backing of facts and logic. Hysteria is more often used to short circuit the critical thinking of listeners.
If advancing rape culture hysteria is a strategy, then it has been a successful one. The energy and urgency of hysteria is vital to imposing draconian measures on key areas of society, such as university campuses. There, the due process rights of male students accused of sexual misconduct are being suspended in order to curb an epidemic of rape which does not exist. Without a righteous panic, however, these measures would encounter stiff resistance.
The ultimate goal of PC feminism is breathtaking in scope. It is nothing less than the deconstruction of the institutions, culture and values of Western society in order to reconstruct them anew according to a dramatically different blueprint of social justice. Innocent men who are devastated in the process are collateral damage and of no political consequence. So, too, are women who disagree with the blueprint.
Rape culture ideologues not only engender a climate of fear but also thrive upon it. Female students are afraid to walk across a campus in full daylight because they falsely believe they have a 1-in-5 or 1-in-4 chance of being raped. The anxiety created turns them into activists who tolerate no contradiction or questions from peers or experts. Professors watch as colleagues are terminated or slammed against a career wall for teaching incorrect ideas. They self-censor to avoid a similar fate, which means using only correct books, thoughts and words. Parents and the public do not question sensational headlines about rape on campus and so are outraged by the ‘epidemic’; they rush to endorse the passage of drastic laws. Critics who demand accurate data or freedom of speech are accused of being rape deniers or rape facilitators. The fear of slander and attack silences many.
Common sense can seem powerless against such crusading fear. More plausible findings on the rate of sexual assault are dismissed in favor of ones that cause a rush of righteous anger. Professors do not listen to logic but to the inner voice of caution about their own job security. It is useless to point out that no business or institution could survive if 20% of its customers were raped while using its services. Who would walk into Walmart if 1-in-4 shoppers would be sexually attacked in the aisles? But rape culture critics who raise such objections find that their characters become the topic of debate rather than the facts of rape.
I persist in objecting. I am female, a libertarian feminist, a victim of rape and domestic violence. I do not accept the existence of a rape culture in North America. And I have a question for PC feminists: Ain’t I a Woman?
My Questions for PC Feminism
Ain’t I a woman?
“Ain’t I a Woman?” was an impromptu speech delivered in 1851 by the black ex-slave Sojourner Truth at an Ohio Women’s Convention where woman’s suffrage was being hotly debated. Sojourner’s speech is one of most famous moments in American feminism but it is draped in lore, with several versions of the speech existing. The version preferred by history seems to be the one published in 1863 by Frances Dana Barker Gage. It came to be known as the “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech because of how frequently that question occurs.
The scene of the speech also differs slightly from version to version but some facts seem clear. Men in the audience were openly critical of female suffrage due to what they believed was “woman’s frailty.” After listening to the comments from men, Sojourner stood up and walked with dignity to the stage and the podium. A hush fell. She stated her position simply but with conviction.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?
Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? [2]
It is a bitter irony that contemporary women who reject gender politics must ask PC feminists, “ain’t I a woman?” The answer is even more bitter. It reduces to, “no, you are not.” If the woman is a rape victim, like me, then the answer can alter in essence to, “yes, you are…but not one who matters.”
At the 19th century suffrage convention, privileged men heckled women who dared to dissent; privileged men told women they needed the protection of the opposite sex. Today, it is PC feminists who view dissenting women, like me, and dismiss them as mistaken, deluded or worse. At universities, such feminists occupy positions of elitism and power. From there, they survey the female population and conclude that wayward women need to be enlightened and guided by them. (Wayward women include conservatives, feminists from other traditions, the religious, those who embrace conventional marriage or sex roles…and the likes of me.) PC feminists assume the role once played by the privileged men at the convention. Today, they are the ones who silence, attack and revile women who disagree.
The dismissal can go so far as to define the rebels not merely out of feminism but also out of womanhood itself. Former feminist Dr. Elly Tams described being viciously attacked by her PC counterparts when she questioned the rape culture. Specifically, she objected to how badly the movement treated men based solely on their gender rather than upon their acts or character as individuals. In backlash, Tams was widely slandered. She was officially declared to be a man, and awarded an “honorary penis” in the form of a sculpture. [3] Tam claims to have housed it in a place of honor.
Despite the constant use of the word “diversity,” the dominant voices in modern feminism demand ideological conformity and they do not tolerate intellectual differences. This one fact alone means they do not speak for women as a whole but only for a specific and narrow ideology: PC feminism.
Ain’t I a feminist?
Ain’t I a woman? With equal validity, I could ask, “ain’t I a feminist?” I have been an individualist or libertarian feminist since the early 1980s when my first anthology, Freedom, Feminism and the State, was published by Cato Institute (1983). [4] For decades, I have been a dissenting voice within feminism, as evidenced by my 1995 book, XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography, published by St. Martin’s Press. [5] I’ve written or edited several other feminist books and written hundreds of articles on the topic. But the feminist tradition to which I belong is scorned by the politically correct, if they deign to notice it at all.
Individualist feminism in America arose from the anti-slavery movement called abolitionism, circa 1830. In fighting for the rights of slaves, abolitionist women asked themselves: “do we not have these rights as well?” The answer was a resounding, “no, we do not.” The abolitionist Abby Kelley observed, “we have good cause to be grateful to the slave…in striving to strike his irons off, we found most surely that we were manacled ourselves.” [6] What manacled them were laws that discriminated against women in a manner strikingly similar to how they discriminated against blacks.
In short, individualist feminists sought to destroy the institution of slavery and to embed equal rights for all into the law. They made no distinction between black or white, man or woman. They believed that a just system of law spoke only of human beings and aimed at a peaceful coexistence in which everyone enjoyed equal self-ownership. By self-ownership, they meant the rightful jurisdiction that every human being had over his or her own body and property. They meant the same natural rights as those expressed in the Bill of Rights. That was their revolutionary vision: genuine equality through which a natural respect between people had a chance to flourish.
It is my vision as well. No legal privileges due to race, gender or any other secondary characteristic. No legal disadvantages either. Simply by being human, everyone is entitled to identical protection and peaceful enjoyment of their person and property. In terms of the just distribution of wealth and power, my form of social justice is when people peacefully rise or fall through their own merit, not through state intervention. This is the opposite of elitism; it is a society in which the disadvantaged have an opportunity to advance through hard work and merit.
Ain’t I a feminist? The PC answer is, “no, you are not.” For one thing, individualists do not participate in the demonization of men or any other class of human being such as white or Christian. One of my favorite feminist quotes comes from the 19th century abolitionist Sarah Grimké, who declared, “men and women were CREATED EQUAL…. Whatever is right for a man to do, is right for woman….I seek no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks and permit us to stand upright.” [7]
PC feminists should take their feet off the necks of men and dissenting women. But doing so would involve abandoning the theory of patriarchy (white male culture) through which they view the wrongs of the world and conclude that women are always and everywhere oppressed by men. It would mean respecting opinions that differ from their own and abandoning orthodoxy. Reliquishing the theory of patriarchy and the demand for conformity will not happen. Until it does, men and uppity women will lumped together and labeled as “anti-feminists.”
Ain’t I a victim of sexual violence?
The last question I have for PC feminists is the most awkward one for them. Ain’t I a victim of sexual violence? As a teenager, I lived on the street for as short a period of time as possible; I experienced considerable violence, including a rape. In my twenties, I chose the wrong romantic partner and the mistake culminated in a domestic assault that was severe enough to leave me legally blind in my right eye. In each case, however, I was not attacked by men but by an individual man, and I hold those individuals responsible. I do not blame men per se. For one thing, most men I know now would put themselves in danger in order to defend me.
I recently stumbled across a poster, written anonymously, which expresses my feelings well.
Four years ago, I was raped.
I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it. I didn’t deserve it.
I also, however, didn’t blame society.
I blamed the man who raped me.
The ‘Patriarchy’ did not assault me.
‘Rape culture’ did not slip sleeping pills into my drink.
One man did.
And he did it not because he was taught to.
Not because society said he should.
He raped me because he is a bad person
and we should not be holding everyone accountable for bad people.
Don’t let rapists go free of responsibility by saying their choices
are made for them by society.
Bad people do bad things.
Don’t let them trick you into thinking that we are all to blame.
I learned brutal lessons from mistakes I made. And, no, I am not condemning myself for being harmed, for being a victim, but neither do I refuse to learn from experience. One lesson I’ve learned: I do not define myself as a victim because that would allow a rapist and a woman-beater to be an integral part of my self-definition. Who I am is not determined by what vicious people do to me but by the decisions I make, the person I choose to be. I refuse to become my victimhood.
And, yet, I make a point of mentioning I am a rape survivor. There are at least three reasons for doing so. First. I am not ashamed and I’m willing to speak about the attacks as long as it is in broad terms without personal details. Second, in a book about rape, having first-hand knowledge seems significant. It gives me a perspective that most women happily lack.
Third, by the standards of PC feminism, having been attacked gives me special credentials to speak out on the rape culture. My voice carries more weight – or, at least, it should according to the values of rape culture adherents. Anyone who has sat through a PC feminist gathering knows that a hushed silence falls over the group when a personal account of sexual violence is aired. After all, victims are the raison d’etre of gender and social justice warriors. Victims are the beating heart of the movements.
But victims like me are inconvenient. I’ve received the distinct impression that PC feminists would like to yank the victim-credential out from under women like me who both vindicate and debunk their ideology in the same breath. Some feminists actually grimace in anger when I speak of the violence I’ve experienced; the anger is directed at me and not at the men responsible. Their reason for doing so is simple. What I say about rape directly contradicts their vision of the rape culture, which has become core to their identity.
And so the PC answer to my question, “ain’t I a ‘victim’ of violence?,” is a resounding silence interspersed with glares of rage.
As a woman, a feminist, and a survivor of sexual violence, I know the rape culture is a lie that harms women and victims of violence as well as men. It calls itself “justice” but the goal is to impose a specific ideology that legally disadvantages one class of people (white males) in order to benefit others. PC feminism calls itself “diverse” but it wages war upon true diversity which lives or dies in the ability of people to dissent and to make decisions about their own lives. The feminist movement once championed human rights while insisting that people shoulder responsibility for themselves. The current movement is a mockery of its past. If snapping my fingers could reverse the dogma and intolerance, my hands would be numb from overuse.
Real feminists still walk among us. Individualist and equity feminists — like Christina Hoff Sommers, Camille Paglia and Cathy Young — still work for real equality and respect between the sexes. But many more people need to speak out. In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the truth began with one child who believed the evidence of his eyes over what he was told. The crux of the story: Swindling clothiers convince an Emperor that he is wearing fabulous garments which can be seen only by those who are worthy. Not wishing to appear unworthy, the Emperor parades proudly and publicly in the buff. None of his subjects have the honesty or courage to speak the truth of the Emperor’s nakedness. Finally, a child calls out, “The Emperor is naked!” When he does, the reality quickly spreads and the Emperor’s clothes are revealed as a scam. Truth is like that. Lies need to be enforced; the truth needs only to be spoken.
PC feminism sustains itself through government support and by silencing those who disagree on the ground that they are unworthy. Nevertheless, the Empress has no clothes.
Stupid ideas spread when people who know better refuse to confront them. This would include college presidents and administrators terrified of challenging their academically deprived and anti-male women’s studies departments, and it would include most of the mainstream news media, which have worked so hard to evade or botch coverage. –John Leo [8]
Overview of the Book
Rape Culture Hysteria is an introductory overview of the ideology, history, psychology and statistics that surround the rape culture. It argues passionately against the severe damage being inflicted upon women, men, victims of sexual violence and society in the name of social justice.
The book is written in a popular style because it addresses the bastion of gender sanity in North America: the average person whose intelligence and common sense is woefully underrated. The book has trappings of scholarship, such as footnotes, but they are provided only as a courtesy to readers who wish to pursue a point. The most onerous aspects of academia have been avoided because they seem designed to shut out civilians: the arcane jargon, incestuous references, bizarre math, and studies that are inaccessible even to the intelligent reader. Academia has become a closed club for elites who look down their noses at the average person. And, yet, it is the average person who must live under the laws that their ‘data’ and activism facilitate.
Many aspects of the book will be controversial. For example, I believe women and men need to empower themselves by learning self-defense and taking common sense measures to reduce their chance of becoming a victim. Social justice warriors will call this victim-blaming and call me a rape denier. Their response only serves to obscure the real difference between advocating crime prevention and blaming victims.
Another controversial point: Contrary to political wisdom, I believer the rape culture deeply harms those who have been victimized by sexual violence. At its worst, the rape culture uses victims in an ideological high-stakes game of power. At its best, the rape culture unintentionally obstructs the ability of injured human beings to heal.
The book ends on a hopeful note, however, with positive recommendations to repair the damage and to return society to gender sanity. We can fix this.
Rape Culture Hysteria is divided into seven chapters.
Chapter One: The Fiction of the Rape Culture. Chapter One defines “the rape culture” and explains why the phenomenon does not exist in North America. Many of the concepts touched upon will be developed in later sections. For example, the real rate of rape in America is addressed even though the chapter on statistics examines the rate in detail. Chapter One also glances backward at the history of how the rape culture became embedded into society, especially into academia. Then it looks forward to an emerging and powerful trend within rape culture politics, which may deeply impact daily life in North America: microaggressions.
Chapter Two: Intellectual Framework and Myth History of Rape Culture. The myth of the rape culture did not arise in an intellectual or historical vacuum, and it is impossible to understand the concept without grasping the theoretical framework from which it draws meaning. In a straight-forward manner, Chapter Two explains the specific theories upon which the rape culture is based, including social construction, gender, the patriarchy, post-Marxism, and social justice. The chapter places particular emphasis on the seemingly innocuous slogan, “the personal is political.” The history of the rape culture is traced from Susan Brownmiller’s pivotal book Against Our Will to the current day. The chapter considers and rejects three of the rape culture’s founding myths: rape is an essential part of patriarchy; men have created a mass psychology of rape; and, rape is a part of normal life.
Chapter Three: Dynamics of the Hysteria and Psychology of Rape Culture True Believers. The dynamics of the rape culture politics are laid bare through a presentation of the predictable strategies and behavior of rape culture adherents. A recent travesty is used to showcase those dynamics. On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone accused members of a University of Virginia (U-Va) fraternity of gang-raping a female student. The accusation was quickly revealed to be a hoax or a delusion. The unraveling at U-Va. is a perfect vehicle to illustrate how rape culture dogma is maintained even when it is revealed to be untrue. An analysis of the rape culture mindset springboards off the U-Va story, as well as a discussion of effective tactics with which handle confrontations.
Chapter Four: Data, False and True. The rape culture myth rests on a mixture of blatantly untrue and unfounded ‘facts’, which have been repeatedly and meticulously refuted. And, yet, they lumber forward in academia, politics and the media. The dead facts walking among us are called zombie stats because they defy the refutation that would lay a normal lie to rest. They are kept alive by those to whom the lies are useful and so are repeated like a mantra that drowns out contradicting evidence. This chapter examines of some of the more prevalent zombie stats:
- one in every 4 or 5 women will be raped in their lifetimes;
- only 2% of all rape accusations are false;
- one in 3 male students would rape if he could get away with it.
Where did the faux ‘facts’ originate? What evidence, if any, supports them? Which stats better reflect reality and how are they derived?
Chapter Five: Comparative Studies and Surveys. This chapter compares and contrasts four of the most important, frequently cited studies and surveys on rape. The studies are: NCVS, National Crime Victimization Survey from Bureau of Justice Statistics; NISVS, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from Centers for Disease Control; CSAS, Campus Sexual Assault Study from National Institute for Justice; and, UCR, Uniform Crime Reporting Program from the FBI. The sources are analyzed independently but also compared to each other in terms of definitions, methodology, findings and the uses to which they have been put. Major strengths and problems with each are explored and compared. Lesser studies are also analyzed in passing.
Chapter Six: Harms of the Rape Culture. A gender war is fragmenting men and women into enemy camps, and destroying the recognition that we are all human beings with a shared humanity. Whatever diversity exists between the sexes and between individuals should be celebrated, not assaulted. The gender war must end. The myth of the rape culture is harming victims of sexual violence, women, men and the institutions of society, especially universities. Chapter Six offers in-depth perspective of the extreme damage being inflicted on innocent people, with emphasis on the damage done to victims of rape and to the value of academia. Victims are a focus because rape culture adherents claim to be their greatest champions; I believe the opposite is true in terms of the impact that rape culture warriors have upon victims. By contrast, the harm to men receives less attention in this chapter because it is highlighted throughout the book.
Chapter Seven: Solutions to Rape Culture Hysteria. Moving Toward Sanity. We can fix this. This is the ultimate message of the book. We can fix this. Undoing the specific damage wrought by the rape culture is not only possible but also within reach. The solutions offered in this chapter range from radical suggestions, such as abolishing the Department of Education, to more modest ones, such as repealing Title IX of the Education Act. Other remedies include privatizing higher education to provide the competition that offers freedom, and removing the power of the federal purse in academia. In addition, rape must be recognized as a criminal matter to be handled by police who are trained in forensics and investigation techniques.
Three Caveats
In addressing the rape culture, I make two omissions. One is a matter of self-respect; the other, a matter of regret.
Caveat #1. The omission from self-respect. It is seems mandatory for a critic of the rape orthodoxy to preface herself with defensive remarks about how seriously she takes the issue of rape and how profoundly she empathizes with the pain of victims. No one who knows my history can doubt how seriously I take rape; no one can doubt that I empathize. The issue once devastated my life.
I refuse to provide the standard preface, however, and for two reasons.
First, no one has any business lecturing me or any rape victim on whether she understands the overwhelming impact of sexual violence. No one has the right to question my sincerity; it is an insult. And, yet, this is exactly what the preface mandated by PC voices entails. They demand that I defend my motives and character even before a discussion begins; this is yet another way in which rape culture skeptics are silenced or diminished. For one thing, the demand assumes rape culture adherents are the ones who care passionately about sexual assault; they are the judge and juries of who else does. Not a single adherent with whom I’ve spoken or debated felt it necessary to open by reassuring the audience that she took the subject seriously or was sincere. Those motives were taken for granted. By contrast, the demand for a defensive preface assumes that skeptics are indifferent or callous toward victims. This is not a point on which I will tolerate the lecturing of others. I refuse to sanction insulting assumptions.
Why do rape culture proponents open discussion by calling the motives of dissenting women into quesiton? They derive great advantage from doing so. It allows PC feminists to claim the high ground of understanding and compassion. It means a woman who questions their position is questioning an intellectual and moral authority, and must rush to declare an equal depth of caring. It creates a rigged exchange in which, again, I refuse to participate.
A second dynamic is at work with the demand. Requiring me (or anyone) to assure an audience of my good intentions shifts the focus away from whether my statements are correct and toward an assessment of my motives or character. Frankly, it is offensive in the extreme to expect a victim of sexual assault to affirm her ‘right’ to speak out by assuring an audience of her sincerity. It is an indirect form of ad hominem and a personal attack. Again, I refuse to participate.
Caveat #2. The omission I regret. Except in passing, the book does not discuss male victims of sexual assault. I am aware of the extent and brutality of the sexual violence committed against men. Male rape is one of the most underreported and widely-dismissed crimes in society. Existing in the shadows, many male victims feel the same sort of shame and humiliation that was experienced by raped women in the 1950s, before liberal feminism lifted much of the stigma. There is no similar voice to champion sexualy abused males. And, yet, if the prison and military populations were included, the rates of male and female rape would probably be comparable. The male rate might even be higher.
My omission is not the result of indifference, although this is what male victims have come to expect. The standard dismissal was illustrated by a Q&A period at a speech I delivered; a comment was directed to me by a female student who angrily proclaimed, “women are overwhelmingly the victims of rape!” I shook my head from side-to-side.
“You disagree!” She seemed shocked.
“If you factor in military and prison rapes,” I replied, “then I think the numbers of men and women may be roughly comparable.”
“You can’t include prison,” she objected. “Those are totally different circumstances.”
I asked if circumstances determined whether forced sex was rape. The student was smart enough to realize the intellectual precipice on which she stood. The evening had revolved around one assertion; namely, circumstances such as drunkness or the absence of protest had no revelance to whether or not a woman had been raped. If the questioner maintained that being imprisoned meant forced sex was not rape for a man, then I would have immediately replied, “which circumstances mean forced sex is not rape for a woman?” To the student’s credit, she backed away. In my opinion, she did not do so not out of fairness to men but because her argument might have rebounded against women.
Others PC feminists display an explicit enjoyment of male pain, perhaps because they view it as some sort of payback. A popular saying on rape culture T-shirts, coffee mugs and posters is, “I bathe in male tears.” Jessica Valente’s t-shirted photo boasting this slogan is easily found on the Internet.
In a 2014 Slate article, “The Rise of the Ironic Man-Hater,” pop-feminist Amanda Hess explained [9] in all earnestness, “But man-hating is not just for fun: It’s also a clever tactic for furthering the feminist agenda….[I]ronic misandry is typically paired with expressions of ‘overt femininity, bordering on the exaggerated’.” Expressions of hatred are viewed as clever politics, as a way to turn the tables on the patriarchy. Yet, when men make similar statements about women, their words are condemned as acts of violence and proof the rape culture exists.
Other PC feminists appear to acknowledge male victims but they include men in such a manner as to actually ignore them. For example, they are mentioned in footnotes, in passing or through the use of neutral language that includes only women when any practical application arises. An example of the latter is California legislation SB-967 through which a “yes means yes” standard was imposed on California campuses in January 2015. The text of the bill uses gender neutral terms such as “student,” “accused,” and “complainant.” [10] Once a perfunctory nod to male victims occurs, however, the campus focus snaps swiftly back to the narrative of “females as victims,” “males as predators.” Indeed, the neutral language may be nothing more than a way to sidestep problems with Title IX law which requires gender equity in tax-funded programs, including campus hearings on sexual violence.
Why then do I omit male victims of sexual assault? First and foremost, such an exposition demands a book of its own. It would be fitting companion to Rape Culture Hysteria but the topic needs separate treatment. For example, exploring the reality of male rape would require an entirely different direction of research and analysis. Instead of exploring existing studies and statistics, it might require original research since very little data are now available on prison rape, for example. Finding solid statistics on male victims would be difficult. The NISVS is one of the most cited studies on sexual violence. Its approach illustrates just one problem with sorting out male rape victims. It states that forcing a male to penetrate another person – that is, compelling sexual coitus – is not considered to be rape. The NISVS explains [11],
“As an example of prevalence differences between the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey and other surveys, the lifetime prevalence estimate of rape for men in this report is lower than what has been reported in other surveys (e.g., for forced sex more broadly) (Basile, Chen, Black, & Saltzman, 2007). This could be due in part to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey making a distinction between rape and being made to penetrate someone else. Being made to penetrate is a form of sexual victimization distinct from rape that is particularly unique to males and, to our knowledge, has not been explicitly measured in previous national studies. It is possible that rape questions in prior studies captured the experience of being made to penetrate someone else, resulting in higher prevalence estimates for male rape in those studies.”
The tables offered [12] by the NISVS reveal that, if forced penetration is counted as rape, then the rate of rape for both sexes may be roughly equal: rapes for women are 13% (weighted); forced penetrations for men are 11% (weighted).
The NISVS is far from alone in refusing to classify sexual acts that may be forced upon men as sexual violence even though the identical acts are classified as such for women. Researcher Mary P. Koss, for example, commented [13] on methodologies for measuring rape in her 1993 paper, which is still used as a touchstone,
“Detecting the Scope of Rape: A Review of Prevalence Research Methods.“ Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.”
I vehemently disagree. But this book is not the proper venue in which to do so. This book’s purpose is to confront and to refute the rape culture on its own terms. And, because the rape culture does not recognize males as sexual victims, they are not included in the narrative, except in the preface, except to point out what this cruel omission says about PC feminism.
Several links to discussions of male rape are included in the Notes below [14] to encourage readers to pursue the issue of sexual violence against men. To the extent males are viewed as victims in this book, however, the focus is upon the treatment of male students accused of sexual assault who are stripped of due process by campus sexual assault hearings.
Caveat #3. This book has no academic pretensions. As mentioned earlier, end notes are provided to allow readers to follow-up on points of interest but they are provided for utility alone. Chapter Five on surveys offers rather dry exposition on and comparison of the most significant sources of rape data; the section is the closest to an academic presentation within the book but its focus is accessibility. The book is meant to be useful and it makes no apology for flaunting academic conventions that serve no reasonable purpose and interfere with readability.
Conclusion
Rape culture hysteria is devastating society, and it does so even as the rate of rape falls sharply.
Rape Culture Hysteria states, “The Empress has no clothes.” The book presents a thorough overview of the destructive lie of the rape culture and of the social justice movement in general. It invites others to confront the absurd and vicious notion that North America is a rape culture.
The book also invites open discussion from rape culture adherents. Nothing is as important to the issue of rape and to freedom itself than open and vigorous debate. Sadly, PC feminism stifles individual women even as it claims to represent “women” as a class. PC feminism is now the political status quo with the power and funding to persecute heretics. And, yet, the ability of an individual to disagree with the status quo is where human freedom lives. The words, “I disagree,” are the heart of liberty; the ability to act on that disagreement is liberty in motion. If PC feminists cannot tolerate uppity women who disagree, then I doubt their commitment to women and to diversity.
People have been politically Balkanized. But there is good news. We can fix this. People of benevolence and common sense can prevail. It happens all the time.
Notes:
[1] Kate Harding, Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What
We Can Do about It. https://www.amazon.ca/Asking-Alarming-Rise-
Culture-about/dp/0738217026 http://thoughtcatalog.com/nicole-mullen/2014/03/its-time-to-ramp-up-rape-culture-hysteria/ Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[2] Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?” text at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/ain_t_i_a_woman.htm. Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015. The original, as reproduced by Frances Gage in The History of Woman Suffrage (1881), volume 1 is also reprinted at the URL.
[3] Dr. Elly Tams, “Leaving the sisterhood: A recovering feminist speaks,” A Voice for Men, Aug. 13, 2012. http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/leaving-the-sisterhood-a-recovering-feminist-speaks/ Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[4] Freedom, Feminism and the State, ed. Wendy McElroy (Washington DC, Cato, 1983; 2nd ed., Holmes & Meier, 1991). See also Wendy McElroy, “How the history and theory of individualist feminism differs, especially re: equality, justice and class,” June 3, 2008. http://www.wendymcelroy.com/plugins/content/content.php?content.116 Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[5] McElroy, XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 1995.
[6] Abby Kelley in An Anti-Slavery Album, or Contributions from Friends of Freedom, Western Anti-Slavery Society Collection, Library of Congress, p.100.
[7] Sarah Grimké, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman Addressed to Mary S. Parker, 1838. https://archive.org/stream/lettersonequalit00grimrich/lettersonequalit00grimrich_djvu.txt Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015
[8] John Leo, “Let’s Challenge the ‘Rape Culture’ Warriors,” Minding the Campus, Dec. 11, 2013. http://www.mindingthecampus.com/2013/12/lets_challenge_the_rape_cultur_1/ Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[9] Amanda Hess, “The Rise of the Ironic Man-Hater,” Slate, Aug. 8, 2014. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/08/08/ironic_misandry_why_feminists_joke_about_drinking_male_tears_and_banning.html Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015
[10] SB-967, Approved by Governor, September 28, 2014. Filed with Secretary of State, September 28, 2014. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB967 Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[11] “The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010 Summary Report,” Centers for Disease Control, p. 84. http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[12] “E-lert: Hidden Victims: Men Who are Forced to Penetrate,” Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, March 11, 2014. http://www.saveservices.org/2014/03/e-lert-hidden-victims-men-who-are-forced-to-penetrate/ From NIPSV, pp. 18-19 Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[13] Mary Koss, “Detecting the Scope of Rape: A Review of Prevalence Research Methods,“ Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol 8 #2, June, 1993, pp. 206-107. http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/8/2/198.full.pdf+html Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
[14] The following links provide a range of information on male rape:
- Nathaniel Penn, “Son, Men Don’t Get Raped,” GQ. On male rape in the military. http://www.gq.com/long-form/male-military-rape Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
- Anonymous, “Rethinking Gender and Assault: a male perspective,” The Stanford Daily, Jan. 11, 2015. A male rape on campus. http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/01/11/rethinking-gender-and-sexual-assault-policy-my-story/ Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
- Staff Reporter, “More men are raped in the US than women, figures on prison assaults reveal.” The Daily Mail, Oct. 8, 2013. On male rape in prison. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
- “Let’s look at male rape, shall we?” From the website Don’t Need Feminism. A general overview of male rape in the United States. http://dontneedfeminism.com/post/71293039484/lets-look-at-male-rape-shall-we Retrieved Sept. 20, 2015.
Rape Culture Hysteria
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