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So the word "rape" has become one of those not PC words? :roll:
Some states make a distinction between sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault ("rape" isn't the legal term anymore).
No, I am saying it from the perspective of common sense, experience, and knowledge.
Why go to a non-legal authority if you can go to a legal one that will bring real charges against a person? Why involve someone who will only possibly punish them through their career if you could get them put in jail, which would take down their career anyway? Plus, I've had the training in the military. I know what is being taught. We are taught to assume the accused is guilty, to ignore any beliefs about how that person would never do such a thing. I'm willing to bet such training is also in colleges as well. In places such as schools and the military and even likely some businesses (but this may depend on the business and the person accused), an accused person is assumed guilty until proven innocent, and people know this. Whereas in our legal system, a person is assumed innocent until proven guilty. It is a lot harder to prove yourself innocent, especially given some of the things we know about these situations, than it is to prove someone else is guilty given those same set of circumstances. In a courtroom, a person needs more than a simple accusation and unreliable testimony in order to convict a person on such rape accusations.
And that was about rapes reported to police, not sexual assaults/rapes reported in other fashions, which would most likely have a higher possibility of being false. Think about it. You want to get someone else in trouble but don't want to get yourself in trouble as well and you are in college. So you figure if you know of a time when you had sex with someone while you were drunk you can use that. It then becomes a he said/she said report. And with the way our colleges are working, in no small part due to media and just PC-ism, there would be an investigation by the campus which would require less evidence to prove that a rape happened than if it were reported to proper authorities, especially if the report is coming more than a couple of days after the incident.
This is the sort of thing that happens in the military. There are women that take advantage of the fact that the military basically treats any accusation of rape as the guy is guilty, especially if he admits to having sex with the woman while she had been drinking at all, even if he had also been drinking. The police and/or DA would not likely have enough evidence to even bring such a case to trial, let alone convict the guy, but that isn't the case when it comes to punishment by an outside organization. Or, like that report that was done a couple of years ago, they compiled the number of women vets who were claiming sexual assault on VA benefits forms and used that as an indicator as to how many women in the military were being sexually assaulted. This is completely flawed. Those women are specifically looking for benefits and something like sexual assault can get them some benefits without providing any proof whatsoever that it happened. They didn't even have to have reported it while they were in, just claim it on the form.
You can believe who or what you want. I am pointing out that it is wrong to claim a false accusation statistic would be the same for non-legal reporting as it is for legal repoorting. There are different factors that come into play, including likelihood of being found "guilty" and facing punishment (which would be higher with non-legal reports).
You seem to be mounting a rational opposition to my views. The rest of you, please take note.
Good questions. I'll use some logical deduction to attempt to answer them, but be advised that this may get a bit complicated.
Let's start by defining terms to make sure we're all on the same page. Rape is the "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim" (FBI). Now right away, that last clause suggests that rape and non-consensual sex are one and the same. Are they?
I will answer this in terms of set theory. A set is a well-defined collection of items or objects. For one set to be a subset of another, anything in the first set has to be in the second. For example, the set of all the different shades of blue is a subset of all the different colors out there. And a set is its own subset. Now by rule, if two sets are each others' subsets, then they are the same set.
Still with me? OK good. Let's classify the set of all acts that qualify as rape as set R, and all acts that qualify as non-consensual sex as set N. Let's agree right now that R is a subset of N. If anyone disagrees with that, then either they don't understand what subsets are, or they don't understand what reality is. Now the big question that remains is whether N is a subset of R. If that occurs, then N = R, and we are done. But is it? Notice, we have not yet established a definition of what non-consensual sex is. Now, merely proving that all non-consensual sex is rape would prove that N = R, precluding this need. But this brings us right back to where we started.
What is my position on whether N is a subset of R? I honestly don't know. I think it would make sense, but an interesting example--mutual drunk sex--was offered as a possible counterexample. So really, that's what we need to establish. It all comes down to examining that. Which, BTW, raises the question of what "consent" means--an entire discussion in its own right.
I think it was pretty clear that I was referring to the common-vernacular definition, not the DSM-IV definition. But you are technically correct.
Little if any of this has any basis in facts.
And again, strictly speaking from probabilities, I'd have to go with an organization that has countless man-hours of these kinds of investigations.
"There are a lot of [rape] cases where there's no other evidence than one person's word against another. Both sides are saying they had sexual intercourse but [don't agree that it] took place in the [same] way … I don't think there's much more we can do to increase the conviction rate. I would like to see a more straightforward debate about the issue."
Do you not realize that this puts a serious damper on your argument?
And why exactly are rapists rarely punished in a court of law? Did you ever consider that rape survivors have rights, too?
I would encourage you to read this for investigation strategies of ruling out the highly unlikely, but entirely possible, chance of a false accusation. This notion that rape allegations all come down to "his word vs. hers" is simply false.
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