Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"?

No, she surely would have let everyone know if she had such a tie in.

You know Hawkeye I had spend a little time looking around that website and I saw nowhere where they was even asking for donations.

The whole site smell of money and they are doing big time lobbying of the Florida State legislator and that is not cheap either.

There seem to be gold in those hills

Sexual assault potentially underreported due to stigma, report suggests
By Ana Alvarez
Senior Staff Writer
October 25, 2010

A recent University report suggests extensive underreporting of sex crimes on campus, students and administrators said.

The annual Campus Crime Report, released last month by the Department of Public Safety, indicated that there had been 10 claims of "forcible sex offenses" made in 2009.

Statistics from a 2000 report by the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics predict that about one in 36 female university students is the victim of rape or attempted rape each academic year — suggesting that just over 100 female Brown students would have been victims last year. At other Ivy League universities, the number of reported forcible sex offenses ranges from eight to 17.

Director of Health Education Frances Mantak said that since sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes, the large gap between the crime report number and the actual number of cases is "normal and expected."

Catherine McCarthy '11, president of the Sexual Assault Task Force, said that though she would not be able to estimate the number of actual cases of sexual assault, 10 "is not even in the ballpark."

Mantak said one reason for the low number is the shame associated with being a victim of sexual assault. The practice of victims denying assault in order to protect themselves is common in other traumatic experiences, especially in a culture of victim-blaming attitudes, she said.

"Claiming identity as a victim is difficult," said Anna Quinn '13, a Women Peer Counselor.

She said that even the differing definitions of sexual assault makes reporting sexual assault difficult. "A lot of people have regrettable sexual encounters," Quinn said, but defining an assault is sometimes tricky.

"We have to listen but be careful never to label someone else's experience as assault," Quinn said.

Yet those interviewed agreed that the decision to report an assault — and, if reported, to involve the police in the investigation — should be completely up to the victim.

Mantak said the best approach to handling any situation of sexual assault is "victim empowerment and victim choice."

"Reporting should be 100 percent up to the survivor. The University has no right to tell the police if a survivor doesn't want to," McCarthy said, since a legal investigation has more severe repercussions, takes more time and takes a larger toll on the victim.

"It is up to the victim how much they want to go through," McCarthy said. "There should be no obligation for them to do anything."

The University should help victims learn their options, including choosing whether to report, Mantak said.

Quinn said this is what WPCs aim for when dealing with victims of sexual assault — to "let them know their options."

There are many victims who don't officially report but instead seek support, Mantak said.

"There are a lot of ways of talking about the experience," she said. "If we focus on number of cases reported, we lose sight of people who talk to friends, therapists or WPCs."

According to McCarthy, the University's system with dealing with assaults "is slowly improving." One recent improvement, spearheaded by the Sexual Assault Task Force, was a change in the sexual misconduct policy, which now separates sexual assault offenses into two categories — one for less severe cases of non-consensual assault and another that deals with violent acts and penetration. The separation, McCarthy said, allows for expulsion to be considered for offenses falling in the second category.

Another improvement has been the addition of a staff position specifically dealing with sexual assault. Before the hiring of Trish Glover as the University's sexual assault response and prevention program coordinator, the "lack of staff was glaring," McCarthy said.

Glover is no longer on staff, but Mantak has taken over her responsibilities and said there is a search underway for Glover's replacement, which she hopes will be over soon.

But, Quinn said, even more important improvements can be made at the University — not necessarily in dealing with reported sexual assault cases, but in addressing their prevention.

"There are some good conversations going on, but the University could do more," Quinn said.

At the heart of the issue, Quinn added, is that even if Brown can provide all of the adequate resources to victims, most cases will end up unreported because of the continuing social stigma against victims.

"If you are comfortable, there are people there to help, but it is easier said than done," she said.

Mantak added that current coverage of William McCormick III's case deters successful handling of sexual assault cases. McCormick, a former member of the class of 2010, is suing the University because he believes he was unfairly removed from Brown after being accused of rape.

Coverage of a case where the victim's side is unreported is "not a good place to learn about the dynamic of sexual assault" at Brown, Mantak said.

In a letter published in The Herald last April, students from the Sexual Assault Task Force, including McCarthy, wrote that the coverage, which focused "on the truthfulness of the victim's statement, rather than on the University officials' alleged misconduct," did "the entire Brown community a disservice."

In the end, regardless of how an assault is handled — whether it is reported or not — supporting the victim and increasing awareness of sexual assault is what matters, Quinn said.

"The feeling of violation is what needs to be talked about, whether it counts as a crime or not," she added.
http://www.browndailyherald.com/sexual-assault-potentially-underreported-due-to-stigma-report-suggests-1.2380359

Bureau of Justice Statistics predict that about one in 36 female university students is the victim of rape or attempted rape each academic year

Rape is the only crime in which the victim must prove his or her innocence.

There is an age old question: Whose fault is it when someone is raped?

The answer: Rape is always the fault of the rapist.


What is victim blame?

"Victim blaming is holding the victim responsible for what has happened to her/him. One way in which victim blaming is perpetuated is through rape myths. Rape myths allow us to blame the victim and are often common false beliefs." Safe Campus Project

http://www.umaine.edu/SafeCampusProject/RS.htm

The two main theories behind victim blame are the Just World Hypothesis and the Assumptive World Theory (Invulnerability Theory).

Summary:

Just World Theory: For the most part victim blame occurs when someone initially attempts to assist a rape victim and is unable to remedy the situation satisfactorily. This is likely due to lack of knowledge about rape trauma syndrome, what to expect and how to best help victims. At this point the would-be helper feels the need to re-establish their idea of the world as a just place. In order to retain this comfort zone it is sometimes concluded that the victim must have deserved his or her fate because a remedy cannot be found.

Detailed explanation:

"The tendency to blame rape victims has resulted in competing theories to explain those conclusions reached by fault-finding observers. Observers' motivational needs have been broached by the "just world" theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978) and the need to protect one's own sense of invulnerability." (Schneider et. al., 1994).

The most well known theory behind victim blaming is the just world hypothesis. "Individuals that have a strong belief in a just world can have this belief challenged when they encounter a victim of random misfortune such as a rape victim. The individual wants to believe that the world is a safe, just place where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Even when evidence suggests otherwise, the individual is very reluctant to give up this belief that the world is not just. In the face of contradicting evidence, research suggests (Kleinke and Meyer, 1996) that people with a high belief in a just world will do one of two things: either they will try to eliminate the suffering of the innocent victims or else they will derogate them for their fate. Since it is impossible to reverse the crime of rape, and thus relieve the victim of her suffering, the rape victim is often subjected to derogation and blame. In this manner, the person who believes in a just world can maintain this belief as there is no longer a suffering person, but a woman who deserves her misfortune."

The invulnerability theory states that rape victims are a glaring reminder of our own vulnerability. No one likes to think they could loose control over their own body or life. By deciding a rape victim did something concrete to deserve the assault the observer creates a false sense of safety. If they can avoid doing that particular thing or action then they create the illusion of invulnerability for themselves.

According to the World Book Encyclopedia 2007 entry for "Rape" only 2% of accused rapists are convicted. In contrast FBI studies indicate that only 2% of all rape reports are false. "Low conviction rates result from insufficient evidence to prosecute, dismissal of trial due to technicalities and reluctance of victims to testify. For these reasons, low conviction rates do not imply false reporting". According to The New Encyclopædia Britannica rapists also have high acquittal rates due to the fact that there are often no witnesses to the crime.

A recent poll found that a third of respondants believe women who flirt are partially responsible for being raped. Amnesty International

Who deserves to be hurt?

No one wonders what the victim of a mugging or violent murder did to deserve it.

Rape is a crime of violence, power and control. No one "deserves" it.

In the article "The Rape of Mr. Smith" It is pointed out that the law discriminates against rape victims in a manner that would not be tolerated by victims of any other crime. In the situation, a lawyer asks questions of a hold-up survivor.

It is sometimes claimed that a rapist can't stop their sexual urges once the victim has 'provoked' them in some way. If you made someone very, very angry- is it justifiable that they loose control of their impulses and kill you? No. Under the law people are required to control themselves.

The only factors that come into play in increasing the risk of rape are those that make people vulnerable. The greatest predicting factor is having been sexually assaulted previously (because of PTSD). Having been abused as a child or adolescent doubles the liklihood that a person will be sexually assaulted as an adult.
http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip/vb.html

Feminists Who Celebrate Rape
by Wendy McElroy

In the award-winning radical feminist play by Eve Ensler entitled The Vagina Monologues, a 24-year-old woman plies a 13-year-old girl with alcohol, then sexually seduces her. By statute and by feminist definition, this "seduction" is rape. Yet, from the stage, the little girl declares, "Now people say it was a kind of rape ... Well, I say if it was rape, it was a good rape..." Apparently, the reference to "good rape" has been deleted from some performances but the surrounding language makes the rape’s goodness clear. For example, the little girl eulogizes her orgasm:

"She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed..." She gratefully concludes, "I’ll never need to rely on a man."

In the past year, a nationwide endeavor has been underway to have the play performed on every college and university campus. After it was staged at Georgetown University, Robert Swope – a bi-weekly contributor and a token conservative voice for the student paper, The Hoya – asked a question in his column. Swope wanted to know, "Is there such a thing as a good rape?" The column entitled "Applauding Rape at Georgetown: Vagina Monologues In Its Second Year" was scheduled for late March. The editors yanked it before publication. When Swope complained, he was dismissed from the paper for showing "disrespect." Editor-in-chief, David Wong explained that Swope’s "ridiculing [of] the women’s studies program and condemning the women’s center creates the appearance of some personal vendetta..."

A few months earlier (10/19/99), Swope had published a column entitled "Georgetown Women’s Center: Indispensable Asset or Improper Expenditure." He opened with the question, "What do you get when you glorify...the rape of a minor, promote lesbianism, insult heterosexuals and attack men? Answer: An event by the Georgetown University Women’s Center." Swope remarked upon how faculty from the Women’s Center had reacted to a presentation of the pro-rape Vagina Monologues by giving it a standing ovation. An odd reaction given that one of the Center’s primary purposes is to support women who have been raped. Swope called for the Center to be disbanded.

Elsewhere, Swope asked, "why is rape only wrong when a man commits it, but when it’s by a woman committed against another woman, who just happens to be 13-years-old, it is celebrated and a university club sponsors it?"

A flurry of letters in The Hoya excoriated Swope. A female professor associated with the Center declared, "such a viewpoint does not represent a legitimate contribution to campus "debate." Another woman called Swope’s well-reasoned piece "hysterical" and "scurrilous," containing statements that "breed hate and fear." Yet another woman called The Hoya irresponsible for printing such criticism.

Then, in an unrepentant column entitled "Intellectual or Political Pursuit" (02/11/00), Swope called the Women’s Studies program "another arm of the feminist movement" that aims at transforming "American colleges and universities into ideological indoctrination camps." Among other examples, he pointed to program’s newsletter (Women’s Studies News, February-March 2000) that advertised openings in Hillary Clinton’s campaign for Senate. He called the advertisement "left-wing political advocacy funded by an institution [Georgetown University] that isn’t even supposed to be in the business of politics." No less a personage than the associate dean felt it necessary to shoot down Swope’s claims.

Swope’s dismissal from The Hoya is not the first time he has critiqued the GU’s administration on the issue of censorship. The periodical Campus (Spring 1999) featured an article by Swope entitled "Administrators, Student Leaders Willing Co-conspirators in Georgetown Theft." He described an incident in what seems to be a series of attempts to stifle conservative opinion at this Catholic university. On October 8, 1998, over 2,000 copies of the conservative student journal The Georgetown Academy were stolen and, presumably, destroyed. The Academy had criticized the university’s pro-gay "Safe Zone Program" by which pink triangles – reminiscent of those worn by gays in Nazi concentration camps – were to be hung on dormitory and office doors. When a similar program was conducted at Carnegie Mellon, a resident assistant who refused to co-operate was dismissed.

Although The Academy asked a campus group for gays and GU’s President O’Donovan to condemn the theft, neither party responded. The same was not true of The Hoya that openly applauded the thieves in an editorial (10/16/99). Or of The Voice, GU’s weekly newsmagazine, that accused those at The Academy of being "heterosexual extremists." The President finally condemned the "alleged" theft...after feeling the pressure of the national media and when threatened with a forthcoming letter from the Student Press Law Center (Arlington). The Law Center advised him to support First Amendment rights on campus, an issue that has become litigious in the last few years.

Alan Charles Kors, who co-authored the book Shadow University, The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses, commented on Swope’s dismissal from The Hoya. Kors called it a common scenario with student newspapers. "A paper solicits its token conservative columnist, and then when he speaks his honest mind, the editors run for cover." According to a March 28th press release from the Georgetown Ignatian Society, The Hoya is receiving prominent criticized for Swope’s dismissal. William Peter Blatty, an alumnus and author of The Exorcist, sent a letter-to-the-editor which read, "With all that the demon says and does in my novel, never until I read of The Hoya’s and Leo O’Donovan’s support of The Vagina Monologues, and their suppression of Robert Swope’s article, have I truly appreciated the meaning of the word "obscenity." According to Swope, however, not one member of the faculty has commented.

Meanwhile, the editors are suddenly explaining the dismissal by referring to hitherto undisclosed factors, such as Swope’s lack of timeliness. Of course the firing had nothing to do with passages from the suppressed article that described audience reaction to The Vagina Monologues. Along this vein, Swope wrote, "Like clap-ridden sailors in a Southeast Asian strip joint, the mostly female audience who attended the monologues hooted and hollered, laughing and clapping at just about every piece presented, including this perverted one entitled "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could." The latter is a reference to the drunken 13-year-old who calls her genitalia "coochi snorcher." Nor could the firing possibly have anything to do with the article’s renewed call for an end of funding to the Women’s Center which should be made to "exist or not in the marketplace of ideas without subsidy."

In the final analysis, however, this sad situation on the Georgetown campus is cause for encouragement. At least, the words "First Amendment" have been spoken and some prominent voices think something is amiss.

April 2, 2000

Wendy McElroy is author of The Reasonable Woman.

Rape suspect arrested 25 years later
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) -- Officials have finally solved a decades-old rape case.

According to police, DNA evidence has linked 45-year-old Renis Olriedge to a brutal rape that occurred 25 years ago.

In 1985, a 14-year-old girl was walking across the campus of Deerfield Beach High School when she was attacked and sexually assaulted.

Investigators said, Olriedge was arrested two years ago on a drug charge, and his DNA was entered into a national database.

The person who wrote the article you posted, Wendy McElroy, is not a fan of the play--she feels it's too anti-male. But the play has proved popular with female audiences for the past 14 years, and, thanks to the playwright, Eva Ensler, who formed a non-profit organization, it has raised a great deal of money to help fight violence against women.