@JustBrooke,
Brooke, Hawkeye has said that no man in his right mind would want to report the fact that he was raped because the admission would be too humiliating for him, and his report would not be taken seriously. But his tiny pea brain cannot wrap itself around the concept that women may be inhibited about reporting rapes for similar reasons.
It's incredible that an adult male could have such a rigid and narrow focus. And, it's not just on this topic, it's true of pretty much all the topics he posts about. He appears to garner more insults and put downs than anyone else posting at A2K because of his absurd conclusions and opinions, particularly in light of his juvenile insistence that he is always "winning" his case. He's like the little boy who hasn't been picked for the team and paradoxically insists that was because he'd outshine the other players. He's really a caricature. He is woefully uninformed, and misinformed, and essentially ill equipped to engage in discussion on any topic which actually involves the capacity for flexible thought.
Bright thoughtful people, either male or female, are a profound threat to Hawkeye. They expose his inadequacies and leave him feeing impotent and vulnerable. So, what else can this sputtering birdbrain do in response except lash out in anger, and resort to schoolyard name calling. So, I am a man-hating lunatic, you are young and naive, the normal men who post in this thread, like Intrepid, are all losers who have been duped by "feminists", and on and on. BillRM is his buddy because Billy Boy, who has all the intellectual heft of a fruitfly, is no threat to anyone, and he's willing to mindlessly stroke Hawk's tattered ego. Gee, isn't their brand of male bonding touching. Those two can commiserate about how they have been victimized by women in-between grunting, farting, and thumping on their chests.
Were Hawkeye and BillRM to actually talk about what they'd like to do to women, we'd likely hear the sort of sick trash talk you describe hearing from some guys on your campus--and probably even much worse. BillRM and Hawkeye actually do understand rape--from the perspective of the rapist. They really do want to degrade, demean, and punish women, that's evident from their attempts to do that verbally to all the women who have posted in this thread. Their "contributions" to this thread are nothing more than attempts at harassment, that's why they hang around here, just to harass. This is the playground for them to discharge their hostility toward women. Sad, sick, misfits, both of them.
I couldn't care less about most of the statistics they dig up. Their statistics reveal very little about the crime of rape, particularly because the ones they choose are designed to deny that rape exists as a significant problem for women. Women really don't need statistics to understand the crime of rape, those statistics aren't illuminating and they certainly don't capture how many of our decisions, even little ones in the course of a day, are affected by our concerns for our own safety. Where you park your car, where you can walk alone at night, whether it is safe to let an unknown repairman into your home, whether you can let that cute guy give you a lift home from the party, whether you have to look around before you open your front door to go inside, whether it is safe to walk to your car when your arms are loaded with bundles and packages, whether you can put your first name on your apartment mailbox or in the phone book if you are female and live alone, whether it is safe to study with a male classmate, you really don't know well, alone in his apartment, and on and on. Safety is an automatic issue for most women.
I think you have it much tougher than I did at your age, I think your campus world is much less safe than mine was. It's not that young men have radically changed, but they are more bombarded by sexual stimuli these days, and the boundaries for their behavior are weaker. Their sense of entitlement sexually may be stronger and issues about "consent" may be more easily rationalized away by them. I was always fairly confident that when I said, "No", to a man it would be clearly understood and respected, we didn't need campaigns to remind young men, or older ones, about that, even without the threat of date rape charges. We didn't need campus rape education programs or campus groups to help combat rape. Stranger rapes on campus were very rare (I don't recall hearing of any) and females felt safe walking from the library late at night or working alone in a lab.
We did our share of drinking in those days, but when I and my sorority sisters and friends dished the dirt about the men on the campus, and our experiences with them, no one talked about about feeling forced, or unduly pressured, or coerced into having sex. Even the pushy guys, knew when they had to take, "No" for an answer. I'm sure more was going on than we were aware of, but generally we all felt pretty safe. We were careful, but something like date rape really wasn't a major concern at all. We didn't have to be on guard with all men we just met, or at least we didn't feel that way. In some ways we were young and naive. Nowadays I don't think young women can afford to be naive or overly trusting. I think the potential for rape to occur is higher now.I admire how aware and alert and prepared you try to be.
I don't think you needed any help to rev up your fighting spirit, Brooke, you seem like quite a fighter, but I'm so glad you joined this thread. If you do get involved with your campus fight against rape please let us know how they they deal with the problem and whether their efforts are effective.
