@Arella Mae,
But I think that women still tend to blame themselves, Arella Mae. They say things like, "I shouldn't have had so much to drink" or "I should have seen it coming" or "why did I leave myself alone with him?" They know something bad happened to them, they know they feel awful, but the fact so many of them don't tell anyone about the incident, means there is still a lot of shame and a lot of self blame. And they know if they report it, particularly to the campus authorities, they may not be believed, and their life on campus is going to be difficult.
Just look at the trolls who continue to deny the problem of date and acquaintance rape. They think I'm making up definitions of rape, or making up rape laws, when the crime is already is already on the books--it is non consensual sexual intercourse/sexual penetration, and it doesn't have to involve physical force. That is already law. And very intoxicated women are legally considered unable to give consent--so sexual intercourse with those women is rape--according to existing laws. But the trolls have been excusing and defending the men who rape under such conditions. And I'm sure that is the prevalent attitude among a lot of men on college campuses--they convince each other it is acceptable behavior, despite the fact that all college campuses publicize the rape laws of their state--yet these men still commit rapes. That's what I meant in my other post about a sociopathic attitude toward rape--these people just ignore existing laws. They ignore the need to have "consent", as the law defines consent. They can only do that because there is so low a probability they will be charged or convicted. They can only do that if they completely disregard the welfare and feelings of the females involved.
So, is it any wonder the women are reluctant to report rapes and sexual assaults, or even to tell anyone what happened to them? Where are they going to find support? Particularly if they have to go through a campus inquiry and campus judiciary procedure, because, in some ways, those things sound like a worse ordeal than having to report it to the police, and academicians can't investigate or evaluate things like that with the same means, or experience, that law enforcement can draw upon. It's as though everyone knows these rapes are happening, they just don't have enough "evidence" to prove it, and the victims know that too, so they remain silent.
I was really impressed by the attitude and behavior of the man in the news article I posted who, after he sobered up, realized what he had done to his house-mate was wrong, he talked to the woman about it, he was concerned about having harmed her emotionally, and he turned himself into the police. Wouldn't it be wonderful if more people, particularly those college men who rape, did the same thing? What's apparently missing from the college men who commit these rapes is some normal sense of guilt about what they did--the kind of guilt that other man displayed by admitting what he did was wrong. Are the college men so emotionally disconnected they really lack any awareness that they are hurting these women? Do they just not give a damn? It's like those high school kids in Canada who committed and witnessed a gang rape, and seem to have regarded it as some form of entertainment. Even when they sobered up they still regarded it as "entertainment"--sort of real life porn--that's why they were posting and exchanging photos and videos of the rape. There is something very sick about all of this. What's missing is the capacity for empathy.
There is very little difference between the rapist who just got 103 years for raping that women in her 90's in her hospital bed, and the college guy who rapes an extremely intoxicated woman in a frat house. Both simply take advantage of an extremely vulnerable woman who is not in a position to offer much resistance when raped. Both are rapists. The difference is in how society views their victims--the 92 year old will be seen as credible when she says the sex was non consensual, but when the college woman says the same thing, there are doubts about her credibility that the sex was unwanted. So, one man is on his way to prison for a very long time, and the other one is free to rape another women after the next party.
