1 in 6 female Australian students raped

[Serafina]

And you are missing the point that i am commenting on a general problem, not just Julian Asange.

You are also missing the point that i proposed that such charges should be kept out of the public forum - and that this would protect BOTH the (potential) victim and the (potential) rapist. If Julian Asanges case had been handled in such a way (impossible as that may be), he would not have been subject to the smear-campaigns he was subject to due to these charges.
I really see no reason why rape charges should be made highly public. In fact i see no such reason for most crimes - the only one given is "public interest", which doesn't really cut it (for me). Certainly it should be subject to the interest of both the accused and the accuser - and in the case of rape, the (potential) victim HAS a high interests that the charges are not made highly public (and so does the accused party).

But yes, let's just call actually caring for the interest of the involved parties "highly emotive", as if taking emotions into consideration is a bad thing. Who needs arguments anyway

[Crown]

And you are missing the point that i am commenting on a general problem, not just Julian Asange.

You are also missing the point that i proposed that such charges should be kept out of the public forum - and that this would protect BOTH the (potential) victim and the (potential) rapist. If Julian Asanges case had been handled in such a way (impossible as that may be), he would not have been subject to the smear-campaigns he was subject to due to these charges.
I really see no reason why rape charges should be made highly public. In fact i see no such reason for most crimes - the only one given is "public interest", which doesn't really cut it (for me). Certainly it should be subject to the interest of both the accused and the accuser - and in the case of rape, the (potential) victim HAS a high interests that the charges are not made highly public (and so does the accused party).

But yes, let's just call actually caring for the interest of the involved parties "highly emotive", as if taking emotions into consideration is a bad thing. Who needs arguments anyway

While you busy yourself by moving the goal posts, wanna fetch me a cup of tea as well?

Hey asshole, what you said is easily read. AT NO POINT in the post which I initially replied did you comment on the accused. AT NO POINT in the post which I initially replied did you suggest that rape crimes should be kept out of the public forum.

WHAT YOU DID SAY was;

But plenty of other people will NOT believe you, and there's still plenty of accusations against rape victims going around. I'd like to direct your attention to the case of Julian Asange as an example, where the two victims were accused of anything between "they just want attention" to "they are american spies out to ruin him", including on this very board.

You were using the Asange case as an example of how the plaintiffs were being 'stigmatised' by this very board. Presumably since you consider this board as being open, and not misogynistic you were attempting to show how even by politically left leaning liberal minded people, a rape victim was being stigmatised.

Hey, guess what? You're example is full of shit for the reasons I already pointed out. THAT is what you and I are discussing. Get it?

[Thanas]

Yes, supposed.

This stigma is something that's been asserted to exist for the last 25 years since I started getting educated on sexual assault around age 10. I ahve yet to see any evidence of it. Rape victims are handled with kid gloves by.. practically everyone. That isn't necessarily a bad thing; they ahve been through a traumatic experience.

When the defence in some cases consist of merely "well, she is a slut and clearly wanted it", aka pointing out behavior like "the accuser has a history of getting drunk and having dirty, dirty sex with men out in the garage parking lot and now she expects us to believe differently in this case when she had no problem with it hundreds of times before? Your honor, this is clearly a case of buyer's remorse, not one of rape", then there is no way this can work without a pretty screwed up preconception about morals etc.

Likewise, we have, in this very thread, seen different examples of how rape victims are treated, even with links. Like the case in sweden. Do you deny the stigma there is also not real? What is your experience to fall back on in cases like this?

[Big Phil]

Yes, supposed.

This stigma is something that's been asserted to exist for the last 25 years since I started getting educated on sexual assault around age 10. I ahve yet to see any evidence of it. Rape victims are handled with kid gloves by.. practically everyone. That isn't necessarily a bad thing; they ahve been through a traumatic experience.

When the defence in some cases consist of merely "well, she is a slut and clearly wanted it", aka pointing out behavior like "the accuser has a history of getting drunk and having dirty, dirty sex with men out in the garage parking lot and now she expects us to believe differently in this case when she had no problem with it hundreds of times before? Your honor, this is clearly a case of buyer's remorse, not one of rape", then there is no way this can work without a pretty screwed up preconception about morals etc.

Likewise, we have, in this very thread, seen different examples of how rape victims are treated, even with links. Like the case in sweden. Do you deny the stigma there is also not real? What is your experience to fall back on in cases like this?

Can you actually point to either statistics that show this to be a common defense or else a few specific examples where this is a common defense? Perhaps you could direct me to the links you mentioned, as I appear to have missed them.

[Todeswind]

Can you actually point to either statistics that show this to be a common defense or else a few specific examples where this is a common defense? Perhaps you could direct me to the links you mentioned, as I appear to have missed them.

Strauss Kahn and Jilian Assange (misspelled) are using it at the moment if you need prominent examples of it but we'd probably save time directing you to rape cases where it didn't come up. It isn't just "a" rape defense it is often the core of any defense in a rape case where they can prove that sexual contact occurred.

[Big Phil]

Can you actually point to either statistics that show this to be a common defense or else a few specific examples where this is a common defense? Perhaps you could direct me to the links you mentioned, as I appear to have missed them.

Strauss Kahn and Jilian Assange (misspelled) are using it at the moment if you need prominent examples of it but we'd probably save time directing you to rape cases where it didn't come up. It isn't just "a" rape defense it is often the core of any defense in a rape case where they can prove that sexual contact occurred.

I can't say I've been following the cases all that closely, but I haven't seen either of them (or their attorneys) claiming that the women are sluts who wanted it. Both are claiming it was consensual, but that's far different from "she's a slut who wanted it."

Just to add, "she's a slut who wanted it" is really a tacit admission of guilt. I sincerely doubt an innocent person would ever frame a sexual encounter in those terms.

[Knife]

I worry about the 'culture' of stigma and mental/emotional trauma in the system as well.

One of the big things you're supposed to do with patients with horrible conditions is to treat them, not like a horrible condition, but a person first, who happens to have a horrible condition. Kids with cancer go through that a lot, always looked at like this poor dying person, nothing but open sympathy and long sad faces saying 'you poor poor thing'. Constantly bombarded with such things, it really gets to the kids, causing them to go into fits of depression and lose hope. Health care personnel are constantly reminded and trained to see them as people first, kids who need kid stuff that occasionally need to go off and do medical stuff for a disease they have. So in the case of rape, have we moved the pendulum completely to the other side, where as years ago it was the 'she was a slut/woman and deserved it therefore the male isn't at fault' to the 'poor victim, always a victim and always traumatized and stigmatized'. Are we as a culture, meaning well and meaning to move forward, actually causing harm by reinforcing the notion of emotional/mental trauma and the thought of they are culturally stigmatized, whether or not it is true, with how we run things now?

Obviously, we need to strike a balance. You don't want to go too far and have the patient suppress their trauma and end up with thousands of women with PTSD after a traumatic attack, on the other hand, we should probably take responsibility for cases where we make matters worse and are actually traumatizing and stigmatizing patients who other wise would have coped with the mental/emotional trauma better except for the constant reinforcement that they are stigmatized and mentally/emotionally traumatized.

[SVPD]

When the defence in some cases consist of merely "well, she is a slut and clearly wanted it", aka pointing out behavior like "the accuser has a history of getting drunk and having dirty, dirty sex with men out in the garage parking lot and now she expects us to believe differently in this case when she had no problem with it hundreds of times before? Your honor, this is clearly a case of buyer's remorse, not one of rape", then there is no way this can work without a pretty screwed up preconception about morals etc.

I don't know where these cases are, because as I have pointed out we now have laws, at least in the U.S., prohibiting introducing the sexual/behavioral history of the victim except in very, very limited circumstances. I am not aware of any rape case that is seriously defended with the "weel she is a slut and wanted it" or anything substantially similar. These laws are frequently known as "rape shield" laws.

The only thing I can imagine that you are referring to are cases where the defense is claiming the sex was consensual, and doing so using highly predjudicial language. Either that, or these sorts of defenses still arise from time to time in Germany, which I would find very surprising indeed.

Likewise, we have, in this very thread, seen different examples of how rape victims are treated, even with links. Like the case in sweden. Do you deny the stigma there is also not real? What is your experience to fall back on in cases like this?

No, we have not. We've seen one anecdotal case from Sweden, and we have had a very general assertion that attitudes towards women and rape in Australia are rather boorish, behind the times, and problematic.

I can't speak to that specific case in Sweden, and I am not claiming that no one ever under any circumstances has an outdated blame-the-victim mentality. I am speaking of the general cultural attitude towards rape in the United States, and that is not one of blaming the victim, nor of stigmatizing them. Public attitudes towards rape have been significantly changed by both government and women's groups making serious efforts both to enact legislation to prevent a lot of the blame-the-victim/short skirt tactics of the past, and to educate the public.

I am deeply surprised to learn that the attitudes of Australians are significantly different, and of the Swedish case, as I had always thought attitudes towards rape in most western countries had paralleled those in the U.S.

In any case, that attempt to educate the public is largely what I am taking issue with. At one time, it made sense to have lists of "rape myths", to advise women that they might not be believed or would be humiliated in court, and so forth. That time, however, is now several decades in the past, and real, tangible changes have been made. Despite this, there has been no serious effort to adapt to these changes, or celebrate them amongst advocacy and women's groups, and I suspect a very strong traditionalist mentality as well as a conflict of interest is to blame. Quite frankly, when you are making your living off the problem of rape, it is to your benefit if that problem stays as large as possible.

More significantly, there is impact on the criminal justice process. Any time a celebrity is acquitted of rape, we are told what a terrible effect it will have on women coming forward, as if this were somehow relevant. The assertion seems to be that if a prominent person is accused of rape, they should be convicted in order to encourage women to report rape. Some of them may very well be getting away with it, but the effects on future cases should not be part of the calculus of guilt or innocence, especially since it is a cornerstone of our justice system that it is better to acquit the guilty than convict the innocent.

As to my personal experience, I have already spoken of my wife's situation. I will say that while the rape itself was highly traumatic and she avoids speaking of it, the aftermath was really not, aside from the perpetrator coming by her house to harass her and her father chasing him off with a baseball bat. She was not humiliated, abused or rejected by her parents, the police, the prosecutor/court, her school, or anyone else. She was a juvenile at the time and clearly this is anecdotal, but I do not think she is a rarity in that regard.

Similarly, I have encountered several women in law enforcement claiming to have been raped, and I have never seen anyone treat them with anything but the utmost courtesy. I am sure that having a smaple taken with a rape kit is very, very unpleasent, but it's an unfortunate necessity of evidence collection.

On the other hand, I have encountered women who claim to have been raped (both professional encounters and those I have met personally) at some point in the past, but who did not report it and who claim the reason is the "hell" they would have to go through.

Quite frankly, I think this supposed "hell" is a self-fulfilling prophecy the vast majority of the time. Women are told it is hell to report a rape, worse than the rape itself, and so don't report it (especially if they know deep down their claim is weak in the first place). Hence we get women not reporting rape, and those numbers are then used to justify the assertion that it must be sheer hell to report it!

I apologize if this got long-winded, but I wanted to be thorough. The bottom line, for me, is that I see no real evidence that the situation is the way it was several decades ago, no real evidence that rape advocacy groups have adapted their message, and every indication that enough hard questions are not being asked when statistics like the OP come out.

[Ford Prefect]

These laws are frequently known as "rape shield" laws.

Kobe Bryant. Rape shield laws didn't do anything to stop the defense dropping a bombshell like 'are the injuries of the victim consistent with someone who had had sex with three different men in three days' as well as other ways to cunningly assert things about her sexual history, and the media was absolutely loaded with information which painted Faber in a particular way (and you're tripping if you don't think the defense played a role in that). Whether Bryant was innocent or not isn't really relevant, but that case really tested rape shield laws and the result wasn't pretty.

[weemadando]

I'm aware of cases where the defence used "the so-called victim came onto my client and then attacked him when she changed her mind." This is in a case of a random assault on a stranger in public where the victim fought them off, not a drunken situation at a party etc.

But the point was that the victim then has to go through everything on the stand again and by weasel-ing around with "scenarios" like the above, and then the defence has opened the door to investigate whether the victim has in the past engaged in such "high risk sexual behaviour" and the like.

[SVPD]

These laws are frequently known as "rape shield" laws.

Kobe Bryant. Rape shield laws didn't do anything to stop the defense dropping a bombshell like 'are the injuries of the victim consistent with someone who had had sex with three different men in three days' as well as other ways to cunningly assert things about her sexual history, and the media was absolutely loaded with information which painted Faber in a particular way (and you're tripping if you don't think the defense played a role in that). Whether Bryant was innocent or not isn't really relevant, but that case really tested rape shield laws and the result wasn't pretty.

No, I'm not tripping if I don't think the defense had anything to do with that. The press is a business and would just as readily fry Bryant for ratings as see him acquitted for ratings.

Just because Bryant is a celebrity does not mae it a test; rape shield laws had been in place a very long time before that. In any case, the result was not at all "not pretty". Whether the victim has had sex with multiple partners in the hours immediately before or after the alledged rape is not covered under rape shield laws because it can explain vaginal trauma for a reason other than rape; the victim's general sexual history on the other hand has no exculpatory value. Similarly, the presence of someone else's semen in the victim's underwear is evidence of multiple sex partners within the space of a short time.

Rape shield laws are not intended to exclude evidence that actually does call into question the victim's credibility regarding that specific incident. If they did, they would be an unconscionable attack on the rights of criminal defendants. This case vindicated their use; it did not impeach them as the defense was able to call into question the forced nature of the sex, not the victim's overall sexual history. Protecting rape victims from bullshit "slut" defenses is well and good, but the moment it goes into the territory of concealing evidence that directly pertains to the case, it has gone too far.

[SVPD]

I'm aware of cases where the defence used "the so-called victim came onto my client and then attacked him when she changed her mind." This is in a case of a random assault on a stranger in public where the victim fought them off, not a drunken situation at a party etc.

That would be a case of stranger-danger rape, which is really not what I'm concerning myself with here. Attitudes towards rape have almost nothing to do with this since there are none of the "I bought her dinner so she owes me sex" or "we were making out and she didn't say no" matters to contend with. It's essentially the same as a robbery where the victim is sexually assaulted instead of having their money taken.

The defense claim is not credible, but is not really reflective of rape attitudes; it's simply a claim of desperation that might be used in any criminal trial hoping the jury is stupid.

But the point was that the victim then has to go through everything on the stand again and by weasel-ing around with "scenarios" like the above, and then the defence has opened the door to investigate whether the victim has in the past engaged in such "high risk sexual behaviour" and the like.

In the U.S. in any state I'm aware of the victim cannot be questioned about their generalized past sexual history. Only sexual history that directly pertained to the incident in question (like in the Bryant case; sex with multiple partners in a short time could also explain vaginal traume) are permissible.

However, the victim should have to go through it again on the stand, as with any other crime where the victim testifies. Defendants have a right to confront their accuser. Again, they are on trial for a very serious crime, and there should be no watering-down of a defendant's rights just because of concern for the victim.

[SVPD]

Furthermore, there's the problem that women are constantly being told "there's a stigma attached to rape, you won't be believed, you'll go through hell blah blah blah" and so forth from the very people that are advocating for rape victims. This makes for a strong potential for self-fulfilling prophecy where women aren't reporting it because of what they're being told it will be like if they report it.

Maybe because that's still the experience many women have?

Sure, the police will generally believe you insomuch as they'll start an investigation. But plenty of other people will NOT believe you, and there's still plenty of accusations against rape victims going around. I'd like to direct your attention to the case of Julian Asange as an example, where the two victims were accused of anything between "they just want attention" to "they are american spies out to ruin him", including on this very board. The same is happening to plenty of other rape victims. This is especially problematic if the rapist and the victim are from the same community - she'll face such accusations from former friends or neighbors.
Also, due to the way how traumatic rape can be, just plenty of people saying "i don't think he did it" can be very injuring to the victim - because that carries the indirect accusation that she is a liar and that this never happened to her.

Again, I cannot speak to the experiences of women elsewhere, but in the U.S. at least, there are NOT a lot of accusations going around.

Furthermore, there is a big difference between "not beliving the victim" in the sense of understanding that she is making a serious accusation and waiting to see what the evidence is before making a final judgement, and "not beleiving her" in the sense of assuming she is lying. The latter is a rarity. The former is entirely proper. Women should not expect everyone to simply accept what they say as unquestionable truth simply because they claim to be a rape victim.

Women in general do not face these same false accusations as Assange's accusers - this is a myth, at least in the U.S. that is the result of rape advocacy groups utterly failing to recognize changes in social attitudes and preaching a situation for rape victims that is a good 25 years out of date. Assange's accusers are a singularly inappropriate case to cite simply because of the political baggage attached to the case. They are not representative of rape cases as the norm.

As for police investigations - while they are usually carried out in a professional, neutral manner, there is the very real danger that the evidence will NOT suffice for a conviction. If that is the case, the victim went trough a very dramatic repetition of her trauma and risks the above-mentioned social stigma for nothing.

Why exactly is this a danger? This is precisely how it should be. If the evidence is unconvincing then the defendant should not be convicted. We cannot simply assume that he's getting off and the victim has gone through everything for nothing; if there is a not guilty finding then there is an excellent chance that the victim was not, legally speaking, raped, no matter how she may feel about it.

This isn't really a matter that can be resolved. Especially in the case of attempted rape, there is often no physical evidence except possibly some bruises - certainly nothing that is clear evidence for rape. In th case of rape by anonymous assault, the rapist might just be impossible to find. If you are raped while drunk (or similar situations), it boils down to your word against his - while sex clearly occurred there is no evidence that it was rape.
That's a VERY hard situation to deal with, much more so if you're already suffering from a trauma - like rape victims do.

On the contrary, there is excellent physical evidence available as long as the victim doesn't accidentally destroy it, which is why rape advocacy groups constantly emphasize not to shower - one of the truly sound pieces of advice they DO give.

The social stigma these days is just as real as it was 30 years ago. It no longer consists of "you're a slut for being raped" or "you brought this upon yourself" - it consists of the difficulty of conviction in most cases and the fact that many people will simply doubt it a la "this guy is not a rapist".

This is not social stigma. This is the criminal justice system functioning as designed.Reclassifying it as a "stigma" is giving undue weight to the feelings of the victim at the expense of the defendant. Moreover, an acquittal does not mean everyone thinks the victim is lying; it means that whatever did happen wasn't legally rape. People who are friends of the victim are likely to be sympathetic to her regardless of the verdict, friends of the defendant are going to be the same way towards him, and everyone else is most likely to make up their minds based on what they know of the facts, not an imaginary distrust of rape victims. In some cases stigma may attach, but that is most likely to be related to an extremely weak or inconsistent allegation in the first place.

Again, that pertains to the U.S.; I do not presume to speak to your experiences in Germany.


All of this is a reason why rape is often not reported - many women hesitate because they're afraid of being called liars, that their very real trauma never happened. And even those who don't might not bother because catching the rapist is often impossible.[/quote]

Umm.. that's really not a problem. Mainly because their traume may not be very real. They may feel that it was; they are not necessarily lying, but rape victims are not entitled to the unquestioning acceptance of what they say from society at large, and definitely not from the courts.

Again, this is the self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of portraying this in a realistic manner (i.e. "you will need to have a rape kit done, you will need to testify, and you need to understand that the person you are alledging raped you is a criminal defendant with rights, and what happened may involve legitimate questions as to your credibility and the events, just as in any other criminal case") we insist on portraying this as "stigma" ("No one will believe you without crushing irrefutable evidence, it will be total hell, everyone will hate you, and the rapist may get off even though he's clearly guilty")

No, women are not going to want to report it when their probable experience in reporting it is being demonized, and when they are being given this unrealistic picture that their accustation is automatic truth, and any acquittal or other failure to convict the defendant cannot possibly be for any other reason than favoritism.

It is not surprising at all that people should not want to report it when they are fed an unrealistic idea of what the process should be like, and then warned how awful it will be when the criminal justice system treats rape like any other crime.

[Eleas]

Again, I cannot speak to the experiences of women elsewhere, but in the U.S. at least, there are NOT a lot of accusations going around.

Of course there are. The "Rape Shield" law, while admirable, does not exist because the USA is a shining beacon of moral purity in this instance; such a notion is incongruous given how the gender equality index puts America barely ahead of France in terms of tangible statistics, which to put things mildly is unflattering. It exists to counterbalance the inevitable attack on the accuser through questioning her behavior, a tactic effective precisely because it exploits ingrained cultural patterns and mores.

Then again, of course, I could just take your word for it. As a thirty-something male Texan I'm sure you have vast first-hand experience in being on the receiving end of such attacks. Honestly, you remind me of those idiots who claim racism is dead because laws today promote equality. We have had numerous threads on SDnet in which similar rape situations have been discussed. All too frequently, they descend -- as this thread did -- into focusing not on what happened, but what she did to encourage it.

Women in general do not face these same false accusations as Assange's accusers - this is a myth, at least in the U.S. that is the result of rape advocacy groups utterly failing to recognize changes in social attitudes and preaching a situation for rape victims that is a good 25 years out of date.

So in other words, you're dismissing the words of an entire block of organizations of (professed) victims as being out of touch and ignorant, purely on the strength of your opinion?

[SVPD]

[
Of course there are.

4 anecdotes do not make for much of a case that this is commonplace in the U.S. Your first and second lins is highly questionable as a site that is anything but neutral, and seem to involve quite a bit of selective fact cherry-picking. The third is a single judge - in canada, which is outside my experience. The last does not involve a legal complaint of rape, but an academic discipline board, is 13 years old, which is over half of the 25 year spn in which I've claimed rape attitudes have changed, and involves a case of "Sexual assault", not rape. While sexual assault is no more excusable than rape, it is still a lesser crime and cannot be counted s an incident of rape, and from the article there seems to have been confusion among the board members about what the difference between them is.

The "Rape Shield" law, while admirable, does not exist because the USA is a shining beacon of moral purity in this instance; such a notion is incongruous given how the gender equality index puts America barely ahead of France in terms of tangible statistics, which to put things mildly is unflattering.

No one is claiming that the U.S. is a "shining beacon of moral purity", simply that a lot of progress has been made on this issue, and quite frankly, simply acting amazed that the U.S. could possibly be ahead of France on a social issue is not terribly convincing.

It exists to counterbalance the inevitable attack on the accuser through questioning her behavior, a tactic effective precisely because it exploits ingrained cultural patterns and mores.

On the contrary, it does not have anything to do with "cultural patterns and mores" any more than any other irrelevancy in any other criminal case. What it does is codify that, so that the matter is not reliant on a prosecutor remembering to object, or a judge deciding the relevancy.

Then again, of course, I could just take your word for it. As a thirty-something male Texan I'm sure you have vast first-hand experience in being on the receiving end of such attacks.

Being on the receiving end of attacks does not, in any way, qualify you to speak to the overall societal issues, any more than being robbed makes you an expert on street crime. Itqualifies you to speak about what it's like to be raped. However, I have dealt with rape cases and I'm married to a rape victim, so I'll thank you to shut the fuck up.

Honestly, you remind me of those idiots who claim racism is dead because laws today promote equality. We have had numerous threads on SDnet in which similar rape situations have been discussed. All too frequently, they descend -- as this thread did -- into focusing not on what happened, but what she did to encourage it.

So in other words, people are not simply conforming to sacred cow ideas and politically correc attitudes. Your personal outrage at hearing things you don't like isn't much of an argument.

So in other words, you're dismissing the words of an entire block of organizations of (professed) victims as being out of touch and ignorant, purely on the strength of your opinion?

Yes, pretty much. We are talking about organiztions of victims, who are anything but objective observers or neutral parties. I've pointied out the major logical flaws in their positions, and their demands that all victims be treated with unquestioning trust. I haven't seen a counterargument, just your above appeal to popularity.

[Eleas]

4 anecdotes do not make for much of a case that this is commonplace in the U.S.

Neither does your sum total of zero anecdotes/evidence make a case for the inverse. Failing that, the next step would be going back to statistics of relative gender values and/or incidence of rape as indicators of current trends. Your argument presupposes that the US is an anomaly in this instance, and I'd like you to prove it.

Your first and second lins is highly questionable as a site that is anything but neutral, and seem to involve quite a bit of selective fact cherry-picking.

Which you do not prove, only assert.

The third is a single judge - in canada, which is outside my experience.

Broadly similar culture, if a bit more liberal.

The last does not involve a legal complaint of rape, but an academic discipline board, is 13 years old, which is over half of the 25 year spn in which I've claimed rape attitudes have changed, and involves a case of "Sexual assault", not rape.

When it comes to stigmatization, which is the subject on which I opposed you, the difference is so trivial as to be irrelevant.

While sexual assault is no more excusable than rape, it is still a lesser crime and cannot be counted s an incident of rape, and from the article there seems to have been confusion among the board members about what the difference between them is.

You're falling prey to legalism here. The specific legal term has very little to do with prevalent attitudes, which was the subject on which we appear to differ. Indeed, in this quote you yourself point out the cognitive overlap.

No one is claiming that the U.S. is a "shining beacon of moral purity", simply that a lot of progress has been made on this issue, and quite frankly, simply acting amazed that the U.S. could possibly be ahead of France on a social issue is not terribly convincing.

1. You do claim that the US, unlike countries with a far greater degree of gender equality (a fact) has rid itself of victim-blaming when it comes to women. That is an extraordinary claim, requiring commensurate evidence.
2. I do not "act amazed". I point out that the US, in terms of a broad swath of social issues which just happen to be the subject at hand, is fairly considered reactionary by many nations, and should be expected to display their more parochial attitudes to a greater degree.

It exists to counterbalance the inevitable attack on the accuser through questioning her behavior, a tactic effective precisely because it exploits ingrained cultural patterns and mores.

On the contrary, it does not have anything to do with "cultural patterns and mores" any more than any other irrelevancy in any other criminal case.

Stop moving the goalposts. This is not about laws, this is about views. Laws are at best an indicator of this, and may be an outlier.

<snip irrelevancy>

Being on the receiving end of attacks does not, in any way, qualify you to speak to the overall societal issues, any more than being robbed makes you an expert on street crime. Itqualifies you to speak about what it's like to be raped.

Neither does blithe ignorance and insistence on your own superior viewpoint lend you authority, and yet you persist.

Plus, of course, the fact that you're flat-out wrong. Rape doesn't happen in a vacuum. It does not just qualify you to speak about the incident: it qualifies you to speak about the context in which it was set, the repercussions it had, the mechanisms behind it and, most saliently, the opinions that paved the fucking way.

However, I have dealt with rape cases and I'm married to a rape victim, so I'll thank you to shut the fuck up.

Shut the fuck up. You're privileged and you come across as utterly ignorant and safe in that privilege. Point two: I have been raped. My girlfriend has been raped. Several friends have as well. Your outrage on behalf of your partner is laudable, but it doesn't entitle you to shit in terms of credibility, nor give your patronizing assertions any sort of weight.

So in other words, people are not simply conforming to sacred cow ideas and politically correc attitudes. Your personal outrage at hearing things you don't like isn't much of an argument.

Wasn't your personal outrage a fine argument just a moment ago? Or was that just a non-sequitur intended to stifle arguments? The first impulse of the bigot is, of course, to dismiss opponents as "politically correct".

Anyway, nothing you said in the above addressed my statement. I pointed out that legal measures do not public opinion make, and equated this to the equally laughable idea that racism is dead because of equal rules and regulations. I then pointed out the incidence of threads where "this is what she did to deserve rape" reared its ugly head (seeing as the board is primarily US-dominated in its attitude), whereupon you predictably dismissed it with a strawman.

So in other words, you're dismissing the words of an entire block of organizations of (professed) victims as being out of touch and ignorant, purely on the strength of your opinion?

Yes, pretty much. We are talking about organiztions of victims, who are anything but objective observers or neutral parties. I've pointied out the major logical flaws in their positions, and their demands that all victims be treated with unquestioning trust.

Just as your rank idiocy in making a blanket statement on the US as a whole, you now attempt to make a blanket statement on all rape victim organizations in order to dismiss their positions (however diverse they are in, you know, reality) as obviously invalid. I must take issue with that.

[SVPD]

Neither does your sum total of zero anecdotes/evidence make a case for the inverse. Failing that, the next step would be going back to statistics of relative gender values and/or incidence of rape as indicators of current trends. Your argument presupposes that the US is an anomaly in this instance, and I'd like you to prove it.

My argument is not that the U.S. is an anomoly at all. I am pointing out the progress the U.S. has made, and have stated repeatedly that I can't speak to the situation in other countries. The only area I can see that the U.S. appears anomolous is in the use of "rape shield" laws, and that may not mean anything at all since different countries have different legal systems and they may not serve any purpose elsewhere.

The relative incidence of rape is not what I'm claiming the U.S. has made progress on, either. Where I'm claiming progress has been made is in the attitudes of society in general and the legal system. Without change in the attitude of society in general, rape shield laws would not have been called for and passed. Neither would other legislation, such as the requirement for states to pay for a rape test at no cost to the victim as part of VAWA.

The statistics on gender trends and rape is precisely what I'm calling into question. Indeed, the body of statistical evidence is all over the fucking place. Statistics for false rape reports range from 2% to 50%, and a large part of the problem is simply separating out what a "false report" is and when it has been made. Obviously a flat-out lie is a false report, but what do we call those situations where the female does not really intend to lie but rather convinces herself what happened was rape? Or when she simply does not understand the law?

You're falling prey to legalism here. The specific legal term has very little to do with prevalent attitudes, which was the subject on which we appear to differ. Indeed, in this quote you yourself point out the cognitive overlap.

I'm not falling prey to legalism at all. Rape is a crime - a serious one. That is a large part of the prevalent attitudes towards it.

You do claim that the US, unlike countries with a far greater degree of gender equality (a fact) has rid itself of victim-blaming when it comes to women.

I did not claim the U.S. has "rid itself" of that; I pointed out that it has been banned from use as a defense tactic, and that it is no longer the prevailing social attitude. Some people still may victim-blame, but they are a relative rarity now.

As for the "fact" of gender equity, I do not see that gender equity can be measured that precisely. To the best of my observation, the U.S., Canada, and most of Europe are all essentially the same in that regard, possibly certain other countries as well, and I do not see a lot of merit in attempting to precisely measure such a complex thing.

My cricticism was simply of your nose-in-the-air assumption that France must necessarily be superior on any social issue to the U.S. That alone causes me to question the validity of measures of gender equity as that attitude seems all to prevalent amongst those measuring such things.

That is an extraordinary claim, requiring commensurate evidence.

It is not an extradordinary claim at all. More importantly, what exactly is blaming the victim is the debate in the first place. My point has been all along that a lot of things that are claimed to be "blaming the victim" are really not - namely a healthy skepticism of taking an accuser at their word, a desire to see all the facts before rendering judgement, and a desire to see the rights of the defendant respected, and their reputation and life not trashed prior to a conviction. Some of these things, however, have been equated to a "short skirt defense" by some people here.

Your demand for statistical evidence of what country blames victims more often is dishonest because we are still debating what blaming the victim is - a fact you cannot possibly have missed. Moreover, it is a distraction technique: I am not claiming the U.S. is better than any other country; I am claiming it has made progress in the last 3 decades and current anti-rape advocacy is behind the times. Whether the U.S. is better now than it was in 1981 is not in any way related to how the U.S. compares to any other country, so I can only imagine you're trying to start a U.S.-Europe pissing contest so as to talk down to Americans for some reason.

I do not "act amazed". I point out that the US, in terms of a broad swath of social issues which just happen to be the subject at hand, is fairly considered reactionary by many nations, and should be expected to display their more parochial attitudes to a greater degree.

Quite frankly, I don't really give a shit how the U.S. is viewed by other nations, and I would point out that you're verging on an appeal to popularity.

Stop moving the goalposts. This is not about laws, this is about views. Laws are at best an indicator of this, and may be an outlier.

I am not moving the goalposts at all. Changes in the law which I have cited reflect changes in social attitudes. They are certainly an indicator, but they are not an outlier; in fact they are the best indicator simply because rape is a serious crime. How it is handled in the investigative and judicial process is the most important social attitude issue. One of the major claims made in regards to social attitudes is that rapes go unreported because of what the victim will be put through after reporting it. You are trying to draw a social/legal distinction that does not exist; the matters are inextricably intertwined.

Neither does blithe ignorance and insistence on your own superior viewpoint lend you authority, and yet you persist.

Ah, in other words "stop saying things I don't want to hear." The only people I see blindly insisting on the superiority of their own viewpoint are the "everything is blaiming the victim" crowd.

Plus, of course, the fact that you're flat-out wrong. Rape doesn't happen in a vacuum. It does not just qualify you to speak about the incident: it qualifies you to speak about the context in which it was set, the repercussions it had, the mechanisms behind it and, most saliently, the opinions that paved the fucking way.

No, actually it doesn't. It qualifies you to express your perceptions of those things, but it sure as shit does not suddenly make you a social scientist.

Shut the fuck up. You're privileged and you come across as utterly ignorant and safe in that privilege. Point two: I have been raped. My girlfriend has been raped. Several friends have as well. Your outrage on behalf of your partner is laudable, but it doesn't entitle you to shit in terms of credibility, nor give your patronizing assertions any sort of weight.

Neither does you being a rape victim, nor your girlfriend, so you can shut the fuck up. In fact, it calls your entire credibility into question. I, on the other hand, have been formaly trained on how to handle a rape case - unlike you my expertise does not come from my own sense of outrage at my victimization or that of my wife.

Claiming I'm "priviledged" is simply a bullshit attempt at poisoning the well, and how I come across to you is pretty much irrelevant. Quite frankly, I do not give a shit if your little feelings get hurt. That's precisely the attitude I'm arguing against - that rape victims are entitled to special treatment and to go completely unquestioned and unchallenged. It's bad enough that you do it on a message board; I shudder to think what might happen if this attitude were allowed to creep into the legal process.

Wasn't your personal outrage a fine argument just a moment ago?

My personal outrage was directed entirely at your assumption that I have no experience with rape simply because I'm not exhibiting what you think are the "correct" attitudes. Yours, on the othger hand, amounts to "I'm a rape victim! I get to tell everyone else what they're allowed to think, and anyone who doesn't I'll just start calling a bigot, privileged, equate them to racism or whatever other pejorative I can think of in order to shift the discussion to them defending themselves! Hevane forbid any hard questions are asked or serious debate is entertained!"

Or was that just a non-sequitur intended to stifle arguments? The first impulse of the bigot is, of course, to dismiss opponents as "politically correct".

Ahh, yes, the appeal to bigotry! "My attitude is correct, anyone who does not agree must be a bigot". A bigot against what? Rape victims? Wow, we really are retreating into the poisoning the well here, I'll just claim SVPD is a bigot for.. no apparent reason!

No, you're a lying fucktard. Aside from the laughable assertion that I'm bigoted against rape victims,w hich would make me bigoted against my own wife, claims of bigotry and privilege on the part of your opponent simply for stating things you don't agree with is pretty much the definition of out of control Political Correctness.

Anyway, nothing you said in the above addressed my statement. I pointed out that legal measures do not public opinion make, and equated this to the equally laughable idea that racism is dead because of equal rules and regulations.

Unfortunately, both your assertion and your comparison are wrong because rape is a crime, while racism is a broad range of social attitudes most of which are not criminal. How we legally treat crimes pretty much is the public opinion towards them. That's why we have a representative government, you do realize?

I then pointed out the incidence of threads where "this is what she did to deserve rape" reared its ugly head (seeing as the board is primarily US-dominated in its attitude), whereupon you predictably dismissed it with a strawman.

I did no such thing. Indeed, you simply asserted such threads exist. Given that you've a conflict of interest in trying to determine anyone else's attitudes towards rape, your assertion in that regard is pretty much worthless.

Just as your rank idiocy in making a blanket statement on the US as a whole, you now attempt to make a blanket statement on all rape victim organizations in order to dismiss their positions (however diverse they are in, you know, reality) as obviously invalid. I must take issue with that.

My rank statement about what in the U.S. as a whole? That it has improved int he last 30 years? It has. You're the one trying to start a pissing contest with European countries, a topic I did not entertain except to express surprise at the self-evaluations of some Europeans here and to state repeatedly I can't speak to other countries. So first, you can quit lying.

Second, you can take issue with it all you want, but conflict of interest is conflict of interest. Rape victim organizations have absolutely no business compiling rape statistics, and even less business drawing conclusions based on those statistics. That is best left to people for whom the issue is an abstraction.

[Losonti Tokash]

Your claim that "My wife is a rape survivor, therefore I cannot be making bigoted statements" is literally equivalent to "I can't be racist, I have black friends!" The fact is, you cannot really understand what it's like. You can pretend you do, but you really don't until it actually happens. I feel I should mention that your attitude in this thread has confirmed the fears of rape survivors who post and lurk on this board that the police simply do not care. This is not me overreacting, this is not me staging hypotheticals, this is something that has been told to me directly by rape survivors (and others) who have read what you have said here. You have single-handedly ensured that at least one person will probably never come forward and simultaneously made police officers look like a bunch of apathetic jackasses.

Good work.

[Knife]

Your claim that "My wife is a rape survivor, therefore I cannot be making bigoted statements" is literally equivalent to "I can't be racist, I have black friends!" The fact is, you cannot really understand what it's like. You can pretend you do, but you really don't until it actually happens. I feel I should mention that your attitude in this thread has confirmed the fears of rape survivors who post and lurk on this board that the police simply do not care. This is not me overreacting, this is not me staging hypotheticals, this is something that has been told to me directly by rape survivors (and others) who have read what you have said here. You have single-handedly ensured that at least one person will probably never come forward and simultaneously made police officers look like a bunch of apathetic jackasses.

Good work.

And exactly which violent crime can we not say that about? So, cops can't sympathize or empathize with any victim in your model.

[Block]

Your claim that "My wife is a rape survivor, therefore I cannot be making bigoted statements" is literally equivalent to "I can't be racist, I have black friends!" The fact is, you cannot really understand what it's like. You can pretend you do, but you really don't until it actually happens. I feel I should mention that your attitude in this thread has confirmed the fears of rape survivors who post and lurk on this board that the police simply do not care. This is not me overreacting, this is not me staging hypotheticals, this is something that has been told to me directly by rape survivors (and others) who have read what you have said here. You have single-handedly ensured that at least one person will probably never come forward and simultaneously made police officers look like a bunch of apathetic jackasses.

Good work.

1) What place does this post have in a discussion about attitudes about rape? This is whiney drivel.
2) If his posts confirm fears that your "friends" have then they're morons who can't read. He clearly said you should go to the cops because you'll be treated fairly. To take the opposite from that is fucking stupid.
3) If your "friends" have a problem, let them post for themselves, or pm him, otherwise you're just appealing to emotion without any evidence to back it up as far as I can tell.

[Bakustra]

1) What place does this post have in a discussion about attitudes about rape? This is whiney drivel.
2) If his posts confirm fears that your "friends" have then they're morons who can't read. He clearly said you should go to the cops because you'll be treated fairly. To take the opposite from that is fucking stupid.
3) If your "friends" have a problem, let them post for themselves, or pm him, otherwise you're just appealing to emotion without any evidence to back it up as far as I can tell.

My god you're a fucking douchebag.
1) See, the point is that his stated positions on rape and attitudes toward it have discouraged people that have been raped from trusting the police, which is a direct response to what SVPD was saying about stigmatization being a myth. I highlighted your hang-up so that your feeble little mind could process this without running into stack overflow. Also, you have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped.
2) You're also so fucking stupid that you have no idea that sometimes, the words people say and the meaning that they communicate are opposed. Or you're some kind of robot, unable to comprehend something as simple as basic sarcasm. But there is a third option, that you have so little sympathy for people that have been raped that you willingly pretended a lack of comprehension. Whichever way, you have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped so I won't bother explaining further. It'd be like explaining algebra to a catfish.
3) You have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped, do not understand why these sorts of things ought to be said publicly, and should be hit with a pipe wrench. Cheers!

Your claim that "My wife is a rape survivor, therefore I cannot be making bigoted statements" is literally equivalent to "I can't be racist, I have black friends!" The fact is, you cannot really understand what it's like. You can pretend you do, but you really don't until it actually happens. I feel I should mention that your attitude in this thread has confirmed the fears of rape survivors who post and lurk on this board that the police simply do not care. This is not me overreacting, this is not me staging hypotheticals, this is something that has been told to me directly by rape survivors (and others) who have read what you have said here. You have single-handedly ensured that at least one person will probably never come forward and simultaneously made police officers look like a bunch of apathetic jackasses.

Good work.

And exactly which violent crime can we not say that about? So, cops can't sympathize or empathize with any victim in your model.

Haha yeah, it's a model when actual people who were actually raped (and if you demand proof then nobody ought to ever touch you again, let alone fuck your worthless carcass) express their genuine feelings that the opinions stated by a police officer indicate that the cops don't really care about people who have been raped! Hell, why accommodate people who've been raped anyways! Discussions move so much quicker if they aren't there to speak up for themselves!!

(PS: I bolded the part you should have read before making yourself look like a heartless fucker.)

[Block]

1) What place does this post have in a discussion about attitudes about rape? This is whiney drivel.
2) If his posts confirm fears that your "friends" have then they're morons who can't read. He clearly said you should go to the cops because you'll be treated fairly. To take the opposite from that is fucking stupid.
3) If your "friends" have a problem, let them post for themselves, or pm him, otherwise you're just appealing to emotion without any evidence to back it up as far as I can tell.

My god you're a fucking douchebag.
1) See, the point is that his stated positions on rape and attitudes toward it have discouraged people that have been raped from trusting the police, which is a direct response to what SVPD was saying about stigmatization being a myth. I highlighted your hang-up so that your feeble little mind could process this without running into stack overflow. Also, you have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped.
2) You're also so fucking stupid that you have no idea that sometimes, the words people say and the meaning that they communicate are opposed. Or you're some kind of robot, unable to comprehend something as simple as basic sarcasm. But there is a third option, that you have so little sympathy for people that have been raped that you willingly pretended a lack of comprehension. Whichever way, you have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped so I won't bother explaining further. It'd be like explaining algebra to a catfish.
3) You have literally no sympathy for people that have been raped, do not understand why these sorts of things ought to be said publicly, and should be hit with a pipe wrench. Cheers!

1) I understand his point, it's made in a bullshit way that attacks someone who is trying to show why victims SHOULD come forward. Cops do listen, they do investigate, sometimes the tactics they use are wrong due to lack of training and that needs to be corrected, but the whole "you'll be seen as a slut" myth that is perpetuated by some victim's advocates is at least as damaging.
2) You're an idiot and your statement has nothing to do with ANYTHING. What sarcasm is there in his post other than "Good Job"? I have plenty of sympathy for people who've been raped, but I'm not going to discuss my personal life with you because it's not your business.
3) Go fuck yourself you worthless shitposter. He could've made his point with any number of other methods available and chose to go lowest common denominator, and deserves to be called out for it.

[Bakustra]

Actual people who have actually been raped have said that this makes them unwilling to come forward to the police. You do understand that, right? You do understand that these are actual people who this concerns directly, who are saying "You are doing something wrong." Now, your response is basically telling them what to think- that they should not be concerned, that they are wrong, wrong, wrong. So what gives you the right? That is why I am contemptuous of you- you didn't stop to think of how this is hostile towards people that have been raped. Here, let me give the equivalent of a little hand-puppet show:

PERSON: Gee, SVPD, what you are saying doesn't make me trust the police at all. In fact, I really don't want to tell them anything!
YOU: What whiny drivel. He said that you can come to the police, so you're clearly wrong! Trust the cops because they say to!!
ME: What the fuck is wrong with you?
YOU: Fuck off, shitposter.

Now, I used sarcasm as an example of somebody's meaning being opposed to the literal meaning of the words they are saying. This was done to give your puny brain a point of comparison. The overall point though, was that the people that Los was speaking for, (and I can sympathize with that) are getting a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of what SVPD is saying. But apparently they're all just feminazzys seeking to nefariously trap people in cycles of victimhood, am I right?

Frankly, I'd rather be a shitposter than post about how people that have been raped are idiots because they don't trust the police because of things that actual police officers have said, like you do. At least shitposting is at worst annoying rather than actively toxic, which what you posted is. It actively encourages the silencing of opposing viewpoints. I just told you that you were an asshole who, in my opinion, deserved some physical harm, as presented in an over-the-top way.

[PainRack]

Actual people who have actually been raped have said that this makes them unwilling to come forward to the police. You do understand that, right? You do understand that these are actual people who this concerns directly, who are saying "You are doing something wrong." Now, your response is basically telling them what to think- that they should not be concerned, that they are wrong, wrong, wrong. So what gives you the right? That is why I am contemptuous of you- you didn't stop to think of how this is hostile towards people that have been raped. Here, let me give the equivalent of a little hand-puppet show:

PERSON: Gee, SVPD, what you are saying doesn't make me trust the police at all. In fact, I really don't want to tell them anything!
YOU: What whiny drivel. He said that you can come to the police, so you're clearly wrong! Trust the cops because they say to!!
ME: What the fuck is wrong with you?
YOU: Fuck off, shitposter.

What you just said.... goes against this board standards in so many ways that it becomes stupid.
1. We aren't supposed to make purely emotive arguments. Granted, this whole thread is heading that way but again, using hearsay and unsupported statements from unknown people is not a substantive point whatsoever.
2. What he said IS correct. If said posters have actual issues, they could either post and voice out their feelings. If Losonti Tokash elects to be their defender, then actually ADDRESS the issue other than whining.

You know. Like asking SPVD to actually put up studies or evidence to show that his assertion that there either exists no real stigma or that rape advocates don't advocate rape prevention and etc. Something like what the rest of the POSTERS are doing.

Again, let's run this through since you're now running on the idiot train at the moment.

Loo essentially used an "oh, you made us cry" and used that to devalue SPVD argument that there exists no stigma for rape victims. That's dumb. What Loo said may be true, but its should NOT have been part of an argument against SPVD argument but rather rendered as an emotive statement .

[Eleas]

My argument is not that the U.S. is an anomoly at all. I am pointing out the progress the U.S. has made, and have stated repeatedly that I can't speak to the situation in other countries. The only area I can see that the U.S. appears anomolous is in the use of "rape shield" laws, and that may not mean anything at all since different countries have different legal systems and they may not serve any purpose elsewhere.

Allright, then I misread your point and find myself in agreement.

The relative incidence of rape is not what I'm claiming the U.S. has made progress on, either. Where I'm claiming progress has been made is in the attitudes of society in general and the legal system. Without change in the attitude of society in general, rape shield laws would not have been called for and passed. Neither would other legislation, such as the requirement for states to pay for a rape test at no cost to the victim as part of VAWA.

Allright, then I misread your point and find myself in agreement.

The statistics on gender trends and rape is precisely what I'm calling into question. Indeed, the body of statistical evidence is all over the fucking place. Statistics for false rape reports range from 2% to 50%, and a large part of the problem is simply separating out what a "false report" is and when it has been made. Obviously a flat-out lie is a false report, but what do we call those situations where the female does not really intend to lie but rather convinces herself what happened was rape? Or when she simply does not understand the law?

I misinterpreted your meaning. Your general attitude seemed high-handed to me, and coupled with the focus on this sort of situation ("are you sure you didn't want it on some level?") plus the dismissal of every rape victim organization, I felt you were dismissing the victims as a matter of course.

You're falling prey to legalism here. The specific legal term has very little to do with prevalent attitudes, which was the subject on which we appear to differ. Indeed, in this quote you yourself point out the cognitive overlap.

I'm not falling prey to legalism at all. Rape is a crime - a serious one. That is a large part of the prevalent attitudes towards it.

I have to apologize. I took the context you spoke in to be all about stigmatization as a cultural and societal impulse. I didn't fully get your POV, thus I felt you were conflating the legal issue of rape contra other sex crime with the phenomenon itself. Those are different things, yes?

As for the "fact" of gender equity, I do not see that gender equity can be measured that precisely. To the best of my observation, the U.S., Canada, and most of Europe are all essentially the same in that regard, possibly certain other countries as well, and I do not see a lot of merit in attempting to precisely measure such a complex thing.

Here I have to disagree. While it is a complex issue, the equality index I speak of is a pretty potent indicator of the level of actual power and agency women have in society.

My cricticism was simply of your nose-in-the-air assumption that France must necessarily be superior on any social issue to the U.S. That alone causes me to question the validity of measures of gender equity as that attitude seems all to prevalent amongst those measuring such things.

Here I think you may have misread my meaning. My opinion is the reverse: I feel that equality in France is a bad joke, and that any society that fails to exceed its quota has significant problems. Perhaps I am biased on that account.

Your demand for statistical evidence of what country blames victims more often is dishonest because we are still debating what blaming the victim is - a fact you cannot possibly have missed.

Moreover, it is a distraction technique: I am not claiming the U.S. is better than any other country; I am claiming it has made progress in the last 3 decades and current anti-rape advocacy is behind the times. Whether the U.S. is better now than it was in 1981 is not in any way related to how the U.S. compares to any other country, so I can only imagine you're trying to start a U.S.-Europe pissing contest so as to talk down to Americans for some reason.

Not so. I felt it pretty obvious that, given how a few years back a prosecutor literally told the victim "you'll have to excuse me, but you really do look like a hooker" (Swedish link, but Google translator should be able to handle it), the Bjästa case, etc. ad nauseam, that you didn't contest the fact that victims are indeed blamed as part of shaming tactics in other countries. Your defense was then viewed through that perspective, and I concluded you were dismissing similar tactics and opinions for the US only. I understand now that I was mistaken.

I do not "act amazed". I point out that the US, in terms of a broad swath of social issues which just happen to be the subject at hand, is fairly considered reactionary by many nations, and should be expected to display their more parochial attitudes to a greater degree.

Quite frankly, I don't really give a shit how the U.S. is viewed by other nations, and I would point out that you're verging on an appeal to popularity.

It has nothing to do with popularity, it has to do with relative levels of equality. You thought I wanted to engage in nationalistic bashing. I didn't and don't; I see no need to do so. Some of the sentiment may have filtered in from the post where I chastised SanchezTheWhaler for comparing the US to a fictional monochrome Europe, but that was exactly what I was opposing. Different nations have different views on these matters, to varying degrees.

Changes in the law which I have cited reflect changes in social attitudes. They are certainly an indicator, but they are not an outlier; in fact they are the best indicator simply because rape is a serious crime. How it is handled in the investigative and judicial process is the most important social attitude issue. One of the major claims made in regards to social attitudes is that rapes go unreported because of what the victim will be put through after reporting it. You are trying to draw a social/legal distinction that does not exist; the matters are inextricably intertwined.

I think we have a fundamental disconnect here. I've not read this as being specifically about the legal system; I've read it (perhaps with the Bjästa case in mind) as an indictment of the reaction of society as a whole. How will you be treated by colleagues, friends, etc? Will you be ostracized, reported against by ostensibly neutral parties, trivialized or threatened as in the Bjästa case? How will authorities react if everyone but the victim claims that "she just does it for the attention"?

Yours, on the othger hand, amounts to "I'm a rape victim! I get to tell everyone else what they're allowed to think, and anyone who doesn't I'll just start calling a bigot, privileged, equate them to racism or whatever other pejorative I can think of in order to shift the discussion to them defending themselves! Hevane forbid any hard questions are asked or serious debate is entertained!"

Not so. I waited until you played the rape card, because I had no intention of doing that until the subject was raised and forced my hand. This was after you dismissed the viewpoint of the victims as being irrelevant, or so I took your words to mean.

*deep breath*

At any rate, I apologize for my more vitriolic outbursts. They were unnecessary, inflammatory and pointlessly personal, and I'm sorry to have said them. Moreover they attacked my perception of your argument rather than your actual intent, which I misread.

So again, I'm sorry. I had a shitty day, which predictably made me leap into an argument I should have approached in a rational manner.

<snip fallout>

Second, you can take issue with it all you want, but conflict of interest is conflict of interest. Rape victim organizations have absolutely no business compiling rape statistics, and even less business drawing conclusions based on those statistics. That is best left to people for whom the issue is an abstraction.

I agree on the first, but not completely on the second. It would depend on how extreme said conclusions are.