Rape statistics are extremely difficult to untangle, and a wide variety of numbers get thrown around, but it’s hard to pin down which one is accurate. Statistics for cis women are more widely discussed and reported, while statistics for cis men are harder to access and are probably even less reliable. Coverage of the trans […]
Tag: rape culture
False Accusations and Rhetoric
Every now and then, a story about false rape accusations breaks and becomes the all consuming story and narrative about rape for a few days, perpetuating a wide variety of incredibly harmful beliefs about rape and what happens when people file accusations of rape. It is extremely difficult to find statistics on false accusations, but […]
Nice Guys and Behavioural Conditioning
I’m having an ongoing discussion lately about Nice Guys, and the insidious role they play in our society, specifically in the sense of social conditioning. Rape culture is something we talk about a lot, and we also talk about the origins of it, and I feel a bit silly writing yet another post on rape culture, […]
What To Do When Someone Approaches To Tell You About Sexual Assault or Abuse
When a person comes to you to tell you that ou has experienced sexual assault, rape, incest, molestation, or abuse, it’s a scary and intense thing. A lot of people freeze in this situation, even people who have experience with these kinds of conversation. Even (sometimes especially) people who have experienced these things themselves. It’s […]
This is Sexual Assault: The Importance of Calling Things by Their Proper Names
Content warning: This post includes, as you may imagine from the title, discussions of rape and sexual assault, and parts of it are graphic. One of the many obstacles faced in combating rape and sexual assault is that people are often reluctant to name these acts. While this may seem like a primarily academic concern, […]
‘Why Didn’t You Report It?’
One of the myriad of unhelpful statements offered to people when they talk about their rapes is ‘did you report it,’ which will be followed by ‘why didn’t you’ if no report was filed. It’s one among a pile of things which displays alarming ignorance, and it’s often accompanied by the attitude that someone wasn’t […]
What Kind of Person Would You Like to Be?
In the abstract, it is easy for us to make pronouncements about the kind of people we would like to be. We can assert the way in which we would like to act in a given situation and we can even, on some level, believe that this is what we would actually do. But, somehow, […]
Adult Inaction on Statutory Rape, Stalking, and Harassment Leads to Death of 15 Year Old Student
Content Note: This post contains discussions of abuse, bullying, rape, rape culture, suicide, and slut shaming. I was horrified this morning when I cracked open my RSS feed to read a story from the New York Times about charges being brought in Massachusetts against nine students who harried a young woman to death. ‘9 Teenagers […]