'Rape culture' not the cause of sexual violence - RAINN

In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campus. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important not to lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime.

This trend has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions.

By the time they reach college, most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another . . . the overwhelming majority of these young adults have learned right from wrong, and enter college knowing that rape falls squarely in the latter category. Dr. David Lisak estimates that three percent of college men are responsible for more than 90% of rapes . . . It is this relatively small percentage of the population, which has proven itself immune to years of prevention messages, that we must address in other ways.

RAINN urges the White House to “remain focused on the true cause of the problem” and suggests a three-pronged approach for combating rape: empowering community members through bystander intervention education, using “risk-reduction messaging” to encourage students to increase their personal safety and promoting clearer education on “where the ‘consent line’ is.”

To be very clear, RAINN in no way condones or advocates victim blaming. Sexual assault is a violent crime and those who commit these crimes are solely responsible for their actions. That said, we believe that it is important to educate members of a campus community on actions they can take to increase their personal safety. In fact, we believe it’s irresponsible not to do so.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, we recommend not focusing prevention messaging towards potential perpetrators (with one exception, described below). Importantly, research has shown that prevention efforts that focus solely on men and “redefining masculinity,” as some programs have termed it, are unlikely to be effective. As Dr. Lisak has noted, we can benefit from decades’ of sex offender treatment work, which supports that it is all but impossible to reprogram a serial offender with a simple prevention message.

I am amazed at this outbreak of common sense.
Are you sure it is genuine?
Remember todays date.

Not surprised that the resident feminazis are avoiding this like the plague


Posted from TSR Mobile

I suppose there's not much they can make in the way of a coherent response. I do hope that they eschew dogmatic stubbornness for a bit of acknowledgement - at least in their own minds even if they can't bring themselves to admit it out loud.

One more pertinent passage:

It would have been helpful if you had included the part which deals with that 'one exception'. I had a look and it's the one thing that I think is currently the most important problem (and is demonstrated as such repeatedly in threads discussing consent issues).

I attempted to copy-paste the relevant paragraphs but that document is a nightmare to copy and paste from.

Notwithstanding our point above about the futility of directing prevention messages to
potential college perpetrators, there is one area in which such messages can have a salutary
effect. In our public education work, we consistently encounter confusion about the
definition of consent, particularly in cases in which one or both parties have consumed
alcohol or drugs. Students receive a tremendous amount of conflicting (and often
erroneous) information about where “the consent line” is.

Some campaigns and websites claim that the ingestion of even a single drink renders
someone unable to legally consent, while conversely others explain that anyone short of
unconscious can consent (in fact, the standard varies by state; most common is an
“incapacitation” standard, which itself is not always well defined in law). Still others giving
advice to students use imprecise, and therefore unhelpful, words such as “buzzed” to
describe the line.

It’s no wonder that many students are confused — and would benefit from clearer
education. (For a similar reason, education should avoid terms that have no real legal
meaning, such as “date rape.”) This is one area in which technology can play a big role.
Videos, interactive apps and websites should be utilized to explain, and demonstrate, the
educational information much needed by students.

Why do you believe the findings of this report over stories from actual rape victims?

Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.

Why do you believe the findings of this report over stories from actual rape victims?