[jr2]

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/11/3610327/college-men-forcible-sex-study/


Very small study ~70 samples but warrants more study and action, I think.

Basically, many think its a normal part of being masculine. But when you throw the word rape into the question, a switch goes off and they would not engage in that behavior.

They don't know what rape is - they have been taught the rules but cannot reason the morality behind them.


Also, those that openly admit they would rape display openly hostile attitudes towards women.

And another study mentioned suggests women think men can't control said behavior (hyper-active sex drives).

[zookeeper]

Well, in all fairness, people who say they have "Intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse" but specifically have no "intentions to rape a woman" could simply have a rather different scenario in mind than the ones who would say the latter. Rape implies something that the victim at no point consents to, whereas by intention to force people might refer to, for example, the idea of something that's initially forced but turns consensual.

I'm sure it's still largely indicative of harmful ideas and attitudes among that 31.7%, but it seems pretty safe to say that they wouldn't all actually rape if given the chance.

Of course, there's still the 13.6% who said they would.

[Lorric]

Forcing a woman to have sex seems like the very definition of rape to me. I am confused how they could have a different definition.

[Beskargam]

Lorric, things get a lot more complicated when you add in alcohol and universities. Mostly th alcohol. Hook up culture also makes tthings complicated. I'm not defending rape, rape culture, nor generally predatory practices. Just saying that the line tends to become a bit of a morass for many people.

Sidenote: I got an email from my school yesterday saying that a rape and been reported. First time email has been sent out, policy has changed over the past year.

[Scotty]

Things don't get anymore complicated, because intoxication legally removes the ability to give reasoned, confirmed consent.  Whether or not people think it has magically become a grey area, it's still rape.  If this study gets a larger sample size and more results to back up the conclusions gathered from this one it would, at the very least, provide a tangible foundation to build a more effective anti-rape program.

[Bobboau]

"force" can mean "convince" or "manipulate" or "badger" or any number of other things.
It doesn't have any relation to consent, it's more objective oriented. These numbers show that a disturbingly large number of men are going to be really aggressive in trying to get laid, but it doesn't suggest they are rapists, it suggests they didn't understand the question, or interpreted it differently than the people asking. poorly worded question gives poor data.

[Bobboau]

Things don't get anymore complicated, because intoxication legally removes the ability to give reasoned, confirmed consent

I don't think this has anything to do with the article and is a completely separate issue.

[Scotty]

I don't think "forced" is in any way appreciably similar to "convinced" and the article agrees with me.

According to the survey, which analyzed responses from 73 men in college, 31.7 percent of participants said they would act on “intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse” if they were confident they could get away with it. When asked whether they would act on “intentions to rape a woman” with the same assurances they wouldn’t face consequences, just 13.6 percent of participants agreed.

"Intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse" is pretty strong wording.  It doesn't mean they're rapists, no, but then that's not what I said at all.

it would, at the very least, provide a tangible foundation to build a more effective anti-rape program.

In this instance, said program would come in the form of a rape education program.  Because obviously a good number of these people are not actually aware of what rape is.

Things don't get anymore complicated, because intoxication legally removes the ability to give reasoned, confirmed consent

I don't think this has anything to do with the article and is a completely separate issue.

It does have to deal with Beskargam's post, to which I was replying.

[Bobboau]

It doesn't matter what you or I think, what matters is what the guys anwering the question thought and the divergence between their responces would indicate to me they had a different interpretation of the question.

[Scotty]

It doesn't matter what you or I think, what matters is what the guys anwering the question thought and the divergence between their responces would indicate to me they had a different interpretation of the question.

...or it indicates that there's a disconnect between the concept of rape and the concept of forced sex when there isn't really one besides perception?  "Intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse" is pretty clear, and if these guys think that's not rape, there's a very big issue there.

[Bobboau]

or not, its inconclusive, more work needed before conclusions can be made.

[Scotty]

If this study gets a larger sample size and more results to back up the conclusions gathered from this one it would, at the very least, provide a tangible foundation to build a more effective anti-rape program.

Yes that is also what I said.

[deathfun]

What the article mentioned and that I still cringe to is where some men have developed this entitlement to a woman's body, that it is their right to take control of a woman's body

Sociology behind it is fascinating, but it still baffles me that people come to believe that

[Bobboau]

If this study is repeated with a proper sample size they need to make sure they address why the two answers are different and not just assume it's because men don't understand what rape means.

[Beskargam]

Yaa so I made a stupid statement and I didn't read lorrics post correctly. What I said was wrong and morally questionable.

[karajorma]

Bob, I fully agree with you that a question on the difference between forcing a woman to have sex and raping a woman needs to be added (perhaps asked after the others so as to not skew the results)

That said, there is a chance a lot of guys thinking there is a difference have the disconnect between rape and force at the line between raping some woman walking home on a dark night vs having sex with a drunk girl at a party who is saying no but too drunk to stop them.

I.e they're rapists, just not in the attacking strangers definition of the word.

The difference might simply be that the guys who said they would rape a woman knew that the latter is rape but just don't care.

[BirdofPrey]

It suggests to me that there is a disconnect between the two definitions in some people's minds.

That said, I think the sample size is far too low to gather much meaningful data, so they need to do a bigger study, not only with more people, but in more than one spot (as it stands this is only marginally indicative of the demographics of a single university).  Beyond that, though, I think the focus is far too narrow.  They didn't ask what women think, so they can't determine if it's a problem with men or the culture in general, and tey also didn't ask if it's ok for women to do the forcing or raping or it it's acceptable to do it TO men.

[Luis Dias]

It doesn't matter what you or I think, what matters is what the guys anwering the question thought and the divergence between their responces would indicate to me they had a different interpretation of the question.

...or it indicates that there's a disconnect between the concept of rape and the concept of forced sex when there isn't really one besides perception?  "Intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse" is pretty clear, and if these guys think that's not rape, there's a very big issue there.

Exactly, the very incongruency between these two figures should ring an alarm bell in the researchers, but instead we got the internet flooded with the usual clickbait one liner statistics-from-hell that are just damn useful to portray our world as being infested with monsters all throughout, better safe than sorry, just look at this horrible horrible culture, let's bring authorities on the matter, let's create instead a authoritarian system that prevents all these monsters from ever ever acting on what they randomly said to a bad interviewer one day.

This is just the first steps of justification for a push towards an authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen before, merely paralleled by extreme right wing neo-conservatives pushing to things like the patriot act and so on. Kangaroo court systems justified by kangaroo statistics, color me surprised.