Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I am not a rapist, part III

Preface to part III: It's been mentioned more than a few times that the language around this stuff is fuzzy. So, defuzzing: I consider rape to be refering to penetrative sex, which is a subset of the broader, equally horrifying catagory of sexual abuse. However, in these posts I am using rape as a shorthand for 'sexual abuse, including rape'. /preface

So, the less comfortable route. "Some of [the people I love and trust] are rapists."

Let's accept this, for the purpose of intellectual exercise, as being true. How can I possible love and trust rapists? Two possibilities come to mind: either the rape is a past event and they have significantly changed, or I can't tell they are rapists.

Now, I'll conceed I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack, but I'm not burnt out either. So if I can't tell someone I know well is a rapist, then either there are no significant social cues, or they are abnormally good at hiding or supressing them.

Either of these is pretty frightening; I don't think I need to dig into the ramifications.

So, stepping back out, we come back (with one modification) to: either my loved and trusted aren't rapists, or they are and I can't tell.

I reject option B. There must be cues and indicators that this type of behaviour has happened or is happening. So, back in happy "rape is a thing that happens to other people" land, right?

No, unfortunately. Now that I've hauled out this huge mirror, I need to use it. I can't stop just because I've hit an answer that makes me comfortable.

How do I know my loved and trusted are not rapists? By our interactions and awareness and shared history. By our common context. The only reason my loved and trusted get a pass on those nasty stats is because of that context. If I do not have that context, then I can't give them a pass. The numbers are vile, but they are impartially so. If I'm looking at some set of people without that context, I must assume that the numbers apply, and work from that.

Well, hang on then. How do I know I am not a rapist again? Same thing: context. How do I know you (impersonal, third person) aren't? Well, I don't. Flipping that around, how do you know I am not a rapist? You don't. Not without that context.

James

Labels: I think too much

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...: SExual predators, especially ones that prey on children, are usually terrifyingly good at hiding it. Even *I* can't identify them all the time, and I am far more intimately familiar with what to look for. That's how they get away with it. That's how they can convince the parents of a child that they'll make a good babysitter, and how they convince the friends/coworkers/parents of the victim that his accuser is making it up, and how they continuously avoid consequences.

\/''''\/ Gorra, Terror of the North

|\,,/|; 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Speaking of stats, I'm somewhat curious as to the deviation in those numbers mentioned. Since I haven't read the original article, does someone have them available?

Also, we're definitely discussing the physical act of violation here, not the issue of mental 'rape' or whether or not thinking about rape makes you a rapist?

- B; 3:48 PM
Anonymous said...: The problem with the statistics, B, is a lot of it depends on which statistics you're looking at and what questions they were asking. The numbers between "reported rapes" and "rapes that went to trial" are often quite different, for example (and are used to justify the idea that rape isn't as previlent as women keep saying it is, because otherwise it would be prosecuted effectively a lot more often - forgive me, I've been dealing with this attitude a lot lately and I have no patient for it), as well as the difference between studies that look at rapes reported to police versus anonymous studies that ask people if they've been raped and if they reported it to the police.

Some stats quote "world wide" studies and others quote "American" studies.

If you look through the posts to the second one James made on this, he links to a post by Kyraam and she's using states from the edmonton sexual assault awareness group.

- Anna

PS: James, blogger's being a pain and not letting me log in.; 8:12 PM
James said...: B,

(Brian?)

For the stats, I strongly encourage you to do as Anna suggests and follow up on Kyraam's links. Also, with a little big of google-fu, it's not hard to track down some of the bigger studies and check their citations. Although as Anna points out (and as a general rule with stats) pay extra attention to the assumptions and goals built into the study.

Regarding what I'm talking about (in these posts) when I say rape, reread this entry. It's right near the top. :)

James; 10:42 AM