Have you ever been sexually assaulted?

[JoeyDonuts]

Also, unless you're carrying a courier bag with top secret information, the contents of your wallet/purse/fanny pack/backpack are NOT worth your life. Whenever I walk around at night, I carry a "Dummy Wad" of cash. It's basically a single 20 dollar bill folded around a small stack of paper cut to the same size as the real bill, and held in place with an inexpensive clip of some sort. The idea is, when you are confronted and someone threatens you for money, you whip this thing out and make sure he gets a good look at it. DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Maintain a reactionary gap of several feet between you and him if possible, but hold your dummy wad up with one hand. Decide a direction your'e going to go and then in the same motion - throw the dummy wad one way and start moving the opposite way. Make your way to a public place, preferably indoors and then call the cops. Basic psychology would tell us that your assailant is going to see what appears to be a fat stack of cash, and then chase after it when you pitch it. He's going to be pissed when he finds out it's almost all fake, but by that time you will be hopefully getting close to 50-100 yards away and close to a public place. This plan is not foolproof, but it stands a great chance of getting you the separation you need to get away from the dirtbag. Keep in mind when I tell you this...I usually carry a loaded handgun and would have the ability to drop the guy at any point. However, as a responsible CCW holder, I will only use it in cases where I feel my life is threatened. If I have an out that minimizes the possibility of a violent confrontation, I'll take it every time.

That's why I carry a dummy wad.

 

[gumboot]

I just want to add my voice to those offering gratitude and respect to those who have shared their personal experiences, many of which must have been quite traumatic. It is not an easy thing to open yourself up to strangers like that. You have shown true courage. Thank you.

 

[bokonon]

Just one? Who's turn is it to use it tonight?

Don't bogart that joint.

 

[Wudang]

Has this been posted yet?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t60447681m7531l2/

Abstract The belief that it is impossible for males to respond sexually when subjected to sexual molestation by women is contradicted. Previous research indicating that male sex response can occur in a variety of emotional states, including anger and terror, are corroborated. Eleven cases of male sexual molestation by females are classified and described. A post-trauma reaction occurs in which sexual function and psychological state are affected. The men were all personally interviewed. Recognition of this phenomenon should lead to increased identification of male victims as well as to better medical, psychological, and legal services for them.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Has this been posted yet?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t60447681m7531l2/

I posted an extract from a review earlier in the thread which cited that research. Thanks for linking to the original research though.

 

[Dancing David]

I have been raped twice. Once by a stranger, once by my ex-husband after we separated. After some of the things claimed on this thread, I don't wish to share more than that, other than to say in my experience as a 'victim' and as a sometime counsellor on a rape advice line, Skeptigirl's assertions are, in the main, wrong. I don't have the links to studies, though I note some have been posted.

As a new poster, I hesitate to disagree with someone who is clearly an established poster here. But I think Skeptigirl has done a huge disservice to both men and women who have experienced rape or sexual assault, whether as minors or as adults. Stating as fact that men cannot have erections unless aroused, and can't be raped by a woman, and that women cannot experience arousal or orgasm during rape, just serves to intensify the guilt and shame that some victims feel because what happened to them didn't conform in every respect to an outsider's perception of what rape and sexual assault is.

I apologise for my mangled English, anger and frustration has taken away my ability to think and type coherently tonight.

Hi Agatha, welcome to the forum, thank you for you rhonesty.

Don't ever be afraid to disagree with someone. usually Skeptigirl and I are in agreement, she has contructed sucha narrow defintion of the point she is trying to make, it makes it hard to have a discussion to the side.

I worked DV for three years and have had many friends who were involved in rape crisis counseling.

Sceptgirl has unwittingly set herself up in support of perpetrators and other revisionists. She is blowing smoke out her wazoo, which is too bad, because usually she is very coherent.

It is very similar to the arguements that "Men can not be the victim of domestic violence."

This time she is stuck in some sort of smug cloud that reminds me of her arch nemesis, CFL.

 

[luchog]

If your assailant is under the influence or one of those rare people that OC just doesn't do anything to, you're going to be screwed.

I can't speak for pepper spray, but I do eat, and cook, a lot of very very spicy food, so I probably have a higher than normal resistance to it.

I know for a fact that I have a very high resistance to CS agent, thanks to my military training experiences with it, and my drill sergeant was almost completely immune to it.

 

[tyr_13]

I avoided this thread for quite a while, since it's such a hot-button for me that I had doubts about my own ability to remain rational.

I've been holding back for the exact same reasons. It's hard not to come on and write out a novella. Lucky for me this is the busy season at work, so I don't have much time to torture myself with it.

 

[Darat]

Folks the topic of the thread is not skepticgirl, personal opinions/musing split to AAH.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[The Painter]

More men are raped than women. If you include prison populations.

It is estimated that a man is raped every three and one-half seconds of every day in America (compared to once every 18 seconds for women). Is the fact that most of these rapes take place behind prison walls a reason to ignore it?

 

[Fiona]

Can you give the source for that, The Painter? It is a curious thing that the pervasive fear of prison rape I see in the posting of american members is not nearly so widespread in the uk, so far as I can tell. It seems to be very commonly raised in the US, in jokes and film and ordinary conversation: yet it is very seldom mentioned here. Of course that says nothing about the real incidence: but it is not a high profile part of our culture in the same way.

 

[my_wan]

Can you give the source for that, The Painter? It is a curious thing that the pervasive fear of prison rape I see in the posting of american members is not nearly so widespread in the uk, so far as I can tell. It seems to be very commonly raised in the US, in jokes and film and ordinary conversation: yet it is very seldom mentioned here. Of course that says nothing about the real incidence: but it is not a high profile part of our culture in the same way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape
http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/RapeInPrison.html
Historically in the US rape in prison has been used as a fear tactic to scare people about prison. Kind of like part of the punishment for getting convicted.

 

[Fiona]

That is barbaric.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

This Human Rights Watch report estimates it at about 70,000 sexual assaults in prison per year. Which if I have done my sums properly is 8 per hour.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-show-widespread-prison-rape

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/prison/report.html

Shockingly, it also reported this:

Nationwide, a higher percentage of inmates, 2.9 percent, reported staff sexual misconduct than inmate-on-inmate abuse. A prison in Nebraska had the highest reported rate of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse, 12.2 percent. The BJS survey asked inmates to indicate whether their sexual activity with staff was “willing” or “unwilling.” In the prison context, however, this distinction is meaningless.

What ever the figure is, it is absolutely horrendous, but I haven't seen anything yet to back up the rate that Painter quoted. It would be interesting to see a source Painter - you didn't even give a link to your quote to help us hunt it down.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I've been sort of avoiding this thread because it hurt to much to read some of the things being posted here, but I wanted to post a few thoughts that have been running through my mind about Fiona and I hope she doesn't mind me posting them openly in the thread where I hope they'll be construed as commentary and not in PM where they could be misconstrued.

- I don't think there's any UK radio show for the U.S. show "Loveline", but if you can find podcasts or downloads of it, check it out. Your freeze response sounded eerily reminiscent of stories women who have suffered sexual assault describe.
- Which leads me to a recurring theme on that show when women who have that experience/response seem to have - sexual assault when they were younger. And it's not just women it seems, but anyone who has been put in a position of powerlessness, especially sexually appears to be programmed to have the same non-responsive response when a sexual assault occurs. Fight or flight seems to be suppressed and a freeze (and perhaps deny) response seems to take over in adults who have been assaulted or molested as children.
- I would gladly share a bed with you with the inherent "you're only crashing here" agreement and the only concern you would have would be my snoring and stinky feet. It utterly sickens me to think about guys who have forced themselves on women who only made the mistake of being hospitable. I have shared rooms/cabins with 3 women who post/ed to this forum, 1 who was a long term Platonic friend of mine and a number of women where we got drunk and decided to crash together. I made moves on some of the latter and a couple were receptive. The rest I just let sleep and we went our separate ways in the morning.

Sharing a bed is not an invitation for sex and sharing a house/apartment in separate bedrooms sure as hell isn't.

 

[The Painter]

It would be interesting to see a source Painter - you didn't even give a link to your quote to help us hunt it down.

How does me giving you a link Help you hunt it down? You wouldn't have to hunt anything down. It would be given to you.

http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/jailhouserock.html

Some of their stuff comes from the ACLU. You could look there too


PS. this is the USA not the UK

 

[Oliver]

...

Regarding the OP: Yes. Oh, and I survived it.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

How does me giving you a link Help you hunt it down? You wouldn't have to hunt anything down. It would be given to you.

http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/jailhouserock.html

Some of their stuff comes from the ACLU. You could look there too


PS. this is the USA not the UK

Actually, your link doesn't give any source for the once every 3.5 seconds figure, it just asserts it - not even a mention of the type of methodology used, or who did the study. The estimate I found gives a figure of 8 times per hour (for any sexual assault including rape in prison)and in the same report, the highest estimate they mention is double the one I quoted. So that is 16 per hour. About once every 4 minutes. Maybe the writer got confused that mixed up his units - impossible to say without seeing the research it is based on.

Like I said, I think this is shocking and abhorrent, but overstating the case and claiming that there are more men raped in prison than the total amount of female rapes makes no sense to me. Unless they actually have some figures to back that up.

I'm just going to check whether I can find asimilar figure for the incidence of female rape per year to see if they got that roughly correct.

ETA - based on figures here for rape or attempted rape, I get 100/hour (about 1.7/minute) for women - they also mention other surveys that give the figures of about half of this. So I really don't know where your source is getting its figures.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/172837.pdf

 

[truethat]

I think the idea that a man can't be raped is just a misunderstanding that essentially what constitutes a rape is without permission forcing a woman or a man into sex. So if a man is asleep say and a woman starting giving him a blow job, that would be rape, if he woke up to find the woman having sex with him that would be rape.

Now skeptigirl says this isn't so. However lets put it this way as an example.

Your husband or boyfriend or whatever, goes on a buisness trip with three women and three men. All have separate rooms. They all go down to the bar and have a few drinks and then he comes up to his room alone, pops an excedrin PM and knocks out. He wakes up and Janey is jumping all over him. He shoves her off. Now as his wife wouldn't you think he was raped? A man can get an erection easily while sleeping, the animalistic desire for sex or readiness for sex doesn't mean consent. You have to ask the person the person has to physically or vocally agree. He didn't agree. That could be rape.

 

[Seanette]

As assault does not need to have been completed but should clearly have been with the intent to force one to have sex.

I'm female, answered yes. Intercourse was not involved, fondling and forced fellatio were (this was when I was ages 7-10, my (now late) father was the offender).