The social function of rape myths

I have written a few times about the myths surrounding the topic of rape, but I’ve never written about why these myths have survived for so long and the social functions that they serve. Rape myths allow people to feel safe by letting them believe that rape rarely happens, and that when it does, it is because the person secretly wanted it or that they were “asking for it”. The myths enable us to maintain the belief that we live in a just world. They allow us to believe we can prevent future rapes. And in some cases they even maintain the Adam-and-Eve tradition of our culture, in which man s believed to be the innocent victim of the evil temptress – women.

Myths provide a false security

When we are confronted with the story of a rape, the easiest way to maintain our feelings of safety and invulnerability and to believe that what we are heating is indeed a work of fiction, not a true story. If we believe “many rape reports are false”, then we significantly lower our perceived chance of becoming a victim too. In 1976 a survey evaluating the acceptance of rape myths was conducted at the University of Minnesota School of Social Research. Most participants believed tht more than half of the women who claim to be raped lie about it because they are “angry at the man and want to get even”, or “they are pregnant and want to protect their reputation”. More than 49% reported believing that woman who say they are raped are “lying to call attention to themselves”.

There have been a few cases where women have recanted there stories, as happened in the widely publicised 1985 Gary Dotson/Cathleen Webb case in Illinois. However, the vast majority of women who report being raped are telling the truth. Even a woman who recants my not have lied about being raped. She may have decided to change her story for a number of reasons: such as to end threats from the rapist family or friends, or due to pressure from a religious leader who urges her to “forgive and forget”. Battered women often recant to the police in order to get the assailant out of jail, after he begs for their forgives and perhaps even offers to change his ways or to repay her in another manor.

The implication behind many myths is that there may have been sexual intercourse, but not rape. For example, the myth that “a woman can run faster with her skirt up that a man can with hos pants down” is simple enough. People who believe or quote this myth believe that a woman shuld be able to run away from and escape from any rapist, and if she does not, then she can’t have really wanted to get away. This fails to take into account such bodily reactions to fear as immobility, as well as the fear that if you do not do what he wants he may hurt or even kill you.

Many people believe that a rape has not occurred unless the woman fights to the point of exhaustion and sustains physical injuries, such as cuts, bruises, or torn clothing as proof of her resistance. A 1979 study completed at Iowa State University found an interesting difference between male and female attitudes towards rape survivors who did or did not fight back. In cases where the survivor resisted forcibly, male participants believed that the woman was more inelegant and less to blame than if they had not fought. But the women participants believed the inverse to be true.

According to the researchers, the findings supported established societal norms. The participants interpreted the survivors behaviour according to norms for their own sex: Men are taught to fight back and defend themselves, and see this as the intelligent, responsible thing to do; women are taught that men will be good to them and won’t hurt them if they do as they are told. The result is that many women believe if a woman is foolish enough not to follow a man’s directions, she “deserves what she gets”. The Iowa State University study also found that because they expect women to resist physical aggression, the men were less likely to believe a crime – a rape – had really been committed when the woman did not fight back. They were more likely to blame the nonresisting woman and to believe the rape was her own fault.

Some people concede that a man may have used force but still maintain that the woman “really wanted it anyway”.  More than 70% of the general public responding to a survey in 1978 believed that women are raped because, out of an unconscious wish to be raped, they do such things as dress provocatively. Rapist, however, know that this is not true. When a group of convicted rapists were surveyed only 7% said that the rape was the survivors fault.

Myths maintain our belief in a just world

We would all like to be able to believe that we live in a just world in which people get what they deserve. It would be nice to think that if we are good people and do the “right” things, then “bad” things will not happen to us. However, following this reasoning, if a woman is raped, then it must mean that she is bad or that she has done something wrong that makes her deserve it. Unfortunately though, all women, no matter how “good”, can be vulnerable to rape and other bad things. This can be hard for us to accept as it requires us to see ourselves as vulnerable.

Some women feel that if they can find what they did wrong to “cause” the rape and never do it again, they will not be vulnerable to being raped in the future. It is, however, important to separate the issue of vulnerability from blame. Indeed, there may be something you or someone else did that made you more vulnerable, or an easier target, such as leaving a door unlocked. However, that does not mean that you are to blame. Only the rapist is to blame for the ape. The fact that they took advantage of your vulnerability does not make you to blame.

Angela dropped her keys as she reached her apartment door. When she bent down to pick them up, a man grabbed her and forced her into her apartment, then raped her. Ever since, she has been extremely careful about having her keys securely in her hand because, she says “If I hadn’t dropped my keys, then he wouldn’t have raped me, and I don’t want it to happen again.”

Finding “the thing” that you did “wrong” and not doing it again may actually provide a false sense of security. While no one is ever entirely safe there are things that we can do to make ourselves less vulnerable. And recognising and being aware that you are vulnerable is one of those things, afterall how can we take steps to limit our vulnerbility unless we know that we are vulnerable in the first place?

When rape statments are withdrawn

Where the complainant does not wish to give evidence the case could not normally proceed. With intimates, withdrawal sometimes happens because the complainant is reunited with the suspect. Emotional and financial dependence was felt by police and lawyers to be a common reason for a woman feeling unable to pursue the allegation. In one case a complainant’s statement revealed that she wished to withdraw her allegation, although she still maintained that she had been raped: if her husband went to prison and lost his job, she would lose everything.

In interviews with police officers, it was suggested that it was important for them to warn the complainant about possible evidential difficulties with her case and what would happen if she went to court. The following quotes make the same basic point, but with different emphasis.

“We would always explain to them that they are going to get a hard time, we don’t sort of paint a rosy picture especially if… it’s one of consent but we’ll say that we will support them as much as we can and we are behind them. And we sort of prep a re them for what they are going to face and a lot of them realise that.”

“… if you do really think that it is going to be very difficult to prove, is it worth putting the victim through that and going to court and for them to find a jury don’t convict the person and then sometimes they could end up well nobody’s believed me at the end of the day, which is another sort of trauma for her.”

In warning complainants about the difficulty of securing a conviction, the police might put complainants off pursuing their case without meaning to. The four complainants who were interviewed felt that the police had actively encouraged them to withdraw their allegations. One complainant was told in no uncertain terms that the evidence in her case was weak, even given her injuries:

“I showed them my bruises right… and do you know what they said, ‘your bruises are not good enough’. I went ‘well what do you mean my bruises are not good enough? ’ – ‘your bruises ain’t good enough, you’ve got no case.’”

The manner in which the police deal with a complainant will obviously affect the way she feels. Even if they do not tell her to withdraw her allegation in so many words, she might be left feeling that it is her only option. An extreme example of this involved one complainant who recalled being taken to the police station where two male CID officers sat with her in a room and questioned her; she said that suggestions were made to her that sometimes women allege rape when it is not in fact true, and that her experience was likely to have been consensual given that the suspect was an ex-boyfriend of hers. Further, she alleged that, as far as they were concerned, blood which was found at the scene of the incident was seen as indicative only of ‘rough sex’ having occurred. At no point did the officers apparently take a statement from her, apart from recording her eventual decision to withdraw.

“They didn’t actually let me speak, I never wrote a statement with them, only to retract my complaint, that’s all I did. And that wasn’t my idea.”

Police and CPS law ye rs cited other fa c t o rs which might encourage rape complainants to withdraw their allegations. They thought that certain ethnic communities and religious groups put pressure on complainants to withdraw their allegations. Orthodox Jews were mentioned as one example. It was suggested that there needs to be more specific police training, so that they are better equipped to deal with sensitivities of this sort. As one lawyer put it:

“It may be difficult in [a big city] to cope with the diversity sometimes… police are not always experienced enough or trained enough to deal with pressures from cultural groups.”

Each of the complainants spoken to maintained that if they were raped again they would not report the attack to the police. Of course, too few complainants were interviewed to be able to generalise from their experiences. However, other research supports these findings. A study by Jennifer Temkin (1999), for example, documents the negative perception of rape victims about the way their cases were dealt with. Most complaints were of the disbelieving attitudes of the police and the insensitive ways in which cases were handled.

It should be pointed out that some stations attach a high priority to the care and support given to rape victims. This is reflected in initiatives such as the introduction of victim suites, often away from police premises, the appointment of chaperones in some forces, improved channels of communication to keep victims updated, improved training for officers of both genders and specialist help provided through Victim Support. However, until such initiatives become the rule as opposed to the exception and involve all those concerned, the task of improving police services is not yet complete (Adler, 1991; Temkin, 1999; Victim Support, 1996).

women, rape and the legal system

For a legal system to be fair it is vital that the rights of the defendant to a fair trial are upheld, but it is equally important for the complainants to obtain justice. The rights of both defendants and complainants must be balanced. Women should be enabled to obtain justice without jeopardising the rights of the accused. In rape trials though this is rarely the case, the defendant is too advantaged, allowing men guilty of sexual assault to go free.

Over the last few decades, the legal system has taken a rapping with freeing defendant after defendant following wrongful conviction: the Guildford four, the Birmingham six and Judith Ward, to name a few.  As shocking as these miscarriages are, miscarriages of justice resulting from wrongful acquittals should not be forgotten. It is an injustice not only when the innocent are convicted but also when the guilty go free, or when a case never gets to court at all.

The plight of the rape victim remains as acute as ever. They are viewed in and out of court with suspicion and hostility, and facilities which are meant to aid them are few and far between (Temkin 1987). In the US too, conviction rates are low. According to the FBI in only 16% of reported rapes end in conviction (Steketee and Austen). Consequently the courts have been described as a “disaster area” for rape victims (Bart and Moran 1993) and many of the reforms enacted have had a very limited effect (Allison and Wrightsman 1993). In Europe too, rape trials are an area of particular controversy (Pitch 1995). For example in Switzerland it has been estimated that only 2% of reported rape cases lead to a conviction (1994).

In the 1970s there were campaigns aimed at dispelling the myths surrounding rape. All sorts of myths were challenged: that rape was an expression of sexual desire; that rape was due to the irresistible urge of male sexuality; that rapists were crazed psychopaths; that rapists were black; that rape was a mere misunderstanding, etc… However, today many of these myths still exist strongly in many peoples minds, along with a few “new” myths.

One such prevalent myth is that men need protection from women who are prone to make false allegations for all sorts of reasons, ranging from spite and revenge through to fantasy and pretence (as a means of hiding their infidelity or sexual adventures) to confusing bed sex with rape. Or it is argued that a woman could have avoided the rape if she had not laid herself open to attack (victim precipitation), or she asked for it and secretly enjoyed it (victim participation). Myths about the nature of rape are contradictory, on the one hand rape is often seen as easy to get over, or as an experience that women should “lay back and enjoy”; and on the other hand, it is seen as a very serious crime. Rape is the ultimate form of objectification, in which the womans consent is overruled and her humanity denied. The offence poses a threat to physical integrity and this is compounded by humiliation and deprivation of privacy and autonomy. Yet rape is trivialised by women as well as men. It is argued that some rapes are not as bad as others. It is obviously true that there are different reactions to rape, as to any other trauma, but to argue that therefore rape should be graded according to its gravity misses the point. Rape is the ultimate denial of female subjectivity in a culture where a whole range of sexual practices operates in male interests.

Societal expectations concerning rape reporting are also contradictory. One view is that if a woman is raped, she should be too upset and ashamed to report it; the other that she will be so upset that she defiantly will report it. Both views exist simultaneously, but it is the latter that is written into law. Any delay in reporting is therefore used against her. There is further contradiction in that the complainant should appear upset as a victim but controlled and calm as a court witness. If in court she appears lucid as a witness she may not be seen s a victim. If she appears too upset, she runs the risk of being seen as hysterical and therefore not believable.

One common theme throughout many of these myths is that they absolve men from responsibility for rape. Such myths are important, as rapists draw on them to justify their violence. In Scully and Marolla (1985), men convicted of rape were interviewed; one argued “she semi-struggled but deep down inside I think she felt it was a fantasy come true”. Rapists do not invent their rationalisations; they draw on social myths reflecting ideas that they have every reason to believe that others will find acceptable (Grubin and Gunn 1990).

Women have been accused of lying about rape from time immemorial, and some women do make false allegations of physical battery. According to police statistics, approximately 8% of rape, as compared to 2% of reports of other crimes, are false or lack supporting evidence.

Even if 8% of women do lie about rape, they are the exception, not the rule. If there is any rule, it is that sexual assault is by far the most underreported crime in the United States (national crime centre 1992).

Myths about women making false allegations override commonsense explanations of why they should run naked into the street, cry compulsively, spend the night in police stations for fear of retribution for taking the case to court, change their name, move home, or even go into hiding. The phase “false allegations” needs up-picking, the malicious woman who concocts a false story to take revenge on a past lover would not get very far in the legal system, where a past sexual relationship usually precludes cases even getting to court. It is possible that on rare occasions women who have perhaps been raped or abused in the past may allege that it has happened again, but it is unlikely that a sensitive investigator would not be able to uncover this. Temkin (1987) points out that there is no evidence that fabricated allegations happen more often in rape cases than for any other type of crime.

Most commonly, however, false allegations refer to the woman’s words pitted against the defendant’s protestation that she consented. In most trials, the fact of sexual intercourse is not disputed; the issue is the meaning of consent. Men’s exaggerated fear of false allegation is perhaps more about men’s fantasies of women. It reflects a society where forced sex is far more common than imagined and where women who are forced into sex often do not name it as rape.

Two Scottish researchers found that reasons given by the police for complainant fabrication included the following: to explain a pregnancy; as an excuse for getting home late; spite; hyperactive imagination; and remorse (Chambers and Millr 1987). Similar arguments are often presented in court by the defence.

Although the FBI estimates that only 10% of rapes are not reported, police data and the results of national surveys of sexual assault centres indicate that 50% are not reported (Hall 1995). In the UK this issue is even more pronounced with 60% of rapes not being reported.

However, many experts feel that these figures grossly underestimate the degree of underreporting. Underreporting is especially prevalent among illegal and recent immigrants, among women from cultural backgrounds that value sexual chastity, and among women who were attacked by someone they knew (Petrak and Hedge 2002)

The limited information available indicates that African-American and Hispanic survivors, as compared to European and American survivors, face more negative social reaction if they disclose attempted or completed rape (Crawford and Unger 2000). Of all groups, Hispanic women have been found to have the highest rates of staying silent and the lowest rates of asking for help from others. Sexual assault is considered such a stigma that many suffer in silence rather than risk social disapproval and rejection (Ullman and Filipas 2001).

The anti-rape movement of the 1970s resulted in greater public awareness of sexual assault and improved recording procedures and legislation, making it easier for women to come forward. However within less than 2 decades, this process started to be, and continues to be, undermined by a backlash that dismisses sexual assault as “rape hype” and feminist propaganda. This movement also alleges that researchers exaggerate statistics (Media Education Foundation 1992) and that date-rape victims “cry rape” as an excuse for “bad sex” (Roiphe 1993)

Women who regained memories of childhood abuse were accused of lying to gain attention, financial compensation or of waging a personal vendetta against a family member. There have even been efforts to eliminate federal funding for rape crisis centres (Gilbert 1993).

These and other forms of backlash have silenced and continue to silence women who have been sexually attacked, causing some women (at times myself included) to wish that they had been mutilated physically as well as raped, so that they would be believed and respected as truth-tellers and not ridiculed and alienated as liars.

Women may regret having sex (the morning after phenomenon), but this does not cause them to “cry rape”. Women may reluctantly agree to have sex, but there is no evidence that they cannot distinguish such occasions from when they do not consent and are raped. In 1991 a study was carried out by Painter which indicated that it is more common for women not not recognise certain situations, including being “coerced into sex”, as rape than to “cry rape” when dissatisfied with sex. Rather than being eager to classify themselves as having been raped, the opposite appeared to be the case. In other words, when they were raped, they were often disinclined to see it as rape. Painter concluded, firmly, that women are unlikely to “cry rape”. It is important to be clear that consenting to sex, however reluctantly, is different from being raped. Additionally not resisting in response to threats or coercion is also distinct from consenting. The focus of trials should not be placed so heavily on whether or not the woman resisted, but on what lead the defendant to the belief that she consented. It is for this reason that it is (or should be) essential for the defendant to give evidence, or at least to justify his failure to do so.

The police treatment of rape cases has radically changed in the last few decades. The catalyst for this was, in part, an episode of the BBC television series police in 1982, in which police officers were seen in a live investigation of a woman reporting a rape. The brought to the public’s attention the harsh interrogation techniques rape complainants were subjected to and provided the impetus for the police to reform the procedures (Scott and Dickens, 1989). As a result of pressure from the Womans National Commission following publication of its report “violence against women” (1985), the Home Office issued a circular calling for improved police training to deal with rape and sexual assault, the appointment of more women police surgeons and the provision of better facilities for medical examination of women who had been attacked. Police handling of rape and sexual assault complainants, if not perfect, has greatly improved. Most police officers now have had some training (although this is often fairly minimal) and a chaperonage system is in place in many stations.

The number of women reporting rape and sexual assault to the police has doubled over the past decade in Britain, but the proportion of reported rapes resulting in a conviction has more than halved there are possible reasons why more women are reporting rape: confidence that the police will believe them has undoubtedly increased and greater acknowledgement of the prevalence of violence against women within the community could well have had an effect; but there could also have been an actual increase in the prevalence of rape.

	1	2	3	3a	4	4a	5	5a
	Total number of cases reported to the police	Total number of cases proceeded against at magistrates court	Total number of trials committed for trial	Percentage of cases that that did not proceed from 2 to 3	Number of cases appearing at crown court	Percentage of cases that do not get from 3 to 4	Total found guilty	Percentage of  guilty who got conviction of “rape”	Percentage of reported cases that end in conviction
1985	1842	884	758	10.2%	569	25%	450	53.3%	24.4%
1986	2288	927	804	13.3%	593	26.2%	415	44.8	18.1%
1987	2471	1048	867	17.3%	649	25.1%	453	43%	18.3%
1988	2855	1288	1082	16%	799	26.2%	540	42.9%	18.9%
1989	3305	1400	1140	18.6%	930	18.4%	613	43.8%	18.5%
1990	3391	1467	1147	22%	914	20.3%	561	38%	16.5%
1991	4045	1711	1323	22.7%	961	27.7%	559	32.6%	13.8%
1992	4142	1648	1184	28.2%	933	21.2%	485	29.4%	11.7%
1993	4589	1704	1202	29.5	892	26%	455	26.7%	9.9%
1994	5039	1782	1266	29%	940	26%	425	25%	8.4%

This trend has continued, and in 2008 the percentage of reported cases which ended in conviction was at an all time low of 6%.

In 1993 a study was done by Lees and Gregory in which women who had not reported their rape where asked why. The most common reason (57%) was a lack of confidence that the police would believe them, or take them seriously, particularly if they knew their attacker. Other reasons were fear of further attack from the assailant or his friends (18%), fear that the man would return, as he knew where they lived (14%), fear that if the man was of professional status he would the advantage over them (in one case the assailant was a high-ranking police officer). Several women did not report the event as they felt, or were made to feel, that the rape was their fault because they had gone willingly to the man’s home. Finally, 15 women were put off from reporting because they did not want to testify in court. Reasons including belief that a conviction was unlikely; belief that she, the victim, would be “on trial”; fear of reprisals by the man; not wishing to involve relatives; and not wishing other people to find out what happened. The reality of woman’s fear of retaliation were brought home by the case in 1995 of a husband who was acquitted of raping his wife only to return to their home days later where he beat her to death in front of their children.

Have you ever asked a woman who has been raped if she enjoyed it? Have you ever asked her if she was asking for it by wearing short skirts? Have you ever asked her if her shoes are not real leather but a “cheap” fake, implying that she may be too? Have you ever asked her to describe loudly in detail what happened in front of room of people? Have you ever asked her why she did not fight back more strenuously? Have you ever asked her whether she has ever had an abortion? Asked her about past sexual relationships? Ever demanded details of her menstrual cycle? Probably not… but these are all questions that have been asked in court. In fact these questions are encouraged on the grounds that they are the only way to protect men from false allegations. These questions also have the side effect of destroying the womans credibility.

So, if only 6% of rape cases end in conviction does this imply that the other 84% are examples of false accusations? Well I don’t think so… especially after myself reporting a rape a few years ago and never getting to court at all… women often put themselves through all the above only to have the defendant acquitted and walk free.

I will leave you with an example of this, which occurred in 1984 when Alister Winter (not real name) was accused by Julie (not real name) of rape. Julie was living with her parents in Sussex and had a boyfriend. One night she went to a Christmas party and got talking to a man there, when she went to leave he claimed that his car would not start and asked if she could give him a lift, thinking that it was a simple good deed she agreed. When they got to his home he insisted that she come in for a Christmas drink to say thankyou. She agreed to go to his flat and once there, the mans mood changed. He offered her drugs, which she refused, saying she had to go as she had to up early the next day. He physically stopped her from leaving, blocking the door and gripping her wrists. The more scared she got the more he seemed to enjoy what was happening/ he threatened to break her arm if she resisted, she pleaded with him and pretended to have an asthma attack. He pushed he down and raped her. After the rape he kept saying how he was not finished with her.

Julie managed to convince him that she needed her inhaler from her car, he made her leave her bag and shoes in his flat to ensure that he would return. When they got to her car Julie managed to leep in and lock the doors before he stopped her. She then drove off with him following her until she got to the police station; half naked, with no shoes and no bag.

Julie was covered in bruises and cuts, and had gotten a STI. She attempted suicide and ended up in psychiatric treatment. But Alister Winter was acquitted, although the judge unusually made an order for him to pay his legal costs of £15000. A friend of Winter was quoted in the media as saying “he used to have any woman he fancied, and has probably raped many times and gotten away with it”.

In 1993 Winter again appeared in court. It transcended that he had been taking women and raping them showing them the newspaper cutting from the previous trial as a method of making sure they did not tell as he would only be acquitted anyway. On this occasion he was found guilty of rape, buggery and administering controlled substances to have sex with female clients.

The “rape controversy”

Had an unfun week… many arguments with many people, mainly on the topic of rape… on people lying about being raped, using it to punish men… which is odd as last time I checked rape was not gender specific, men can be raped too and women can be rapists.
So thought would take some time to discuss the topic here.

Now firstly I know I am biased, I hate the idea of anyone lying about having being raped for several reasons, the major one being that it makes people question the truth of the stories of those of us who HAVE been raped. I don’t think that people who spread these ideas of people lying about it realise how much it hurts to have people call you a liar. When you are raped all control is lost, your perception of the world is shattered, it’s no longer a kind, nice, safe place, suddenly it becomes a unknown, scary place full of danger and dangerous people. You blame yourself, and you’re convinced that others will blame you too, that they will judge you, pick the event apart and find a way to confirm that, yes, it was your fault.

Imagine if you left your car parked outside your home, that you always leave it in that place, but then one day you go outside and its been broken into. Then you go to the police and instead of helping they say “well you shouldn’t have left it in the street”. Now yes, that may be a valid point, but it’s not really helpful is it? Instead of being helpful advice it instead makes it seem as if you caused the burglary rather than that you could have prevented it.

Last week someone also said to me that if there is no evidence then no crime occurred :/ , seriously? So therefore we can all do whatever we like as long as we are clever and don’t leave evidence? I could murder someone by pushing them off a bridge and be totally innocent as the evidence may point to suicide.
How many trials do you think have ended due to insuffient evidence? In fact most legal systems do not even use the word “innocent” in part for this reason, a lack of evidence may be grounds to end a trial but a lack of evidence by no means proves innocence… a lack of evidence is just that, no proof neither of innocence nor guilt.

In the cases of rape this idea of evidence can be even more complicated. For a start few (if any) rapists are stupid enough to commit the act in the middle of a crowded street, so that’s witnesses out of the question. That and the fact of bystander apathy, I mean how many times have you (the reader) walked past a man screaming at his partner, a woman crying on the floor, etc, and not intervened? How many people do you think have been cornered crying out for help only for no one to come? I can even give a few examples of this, the most well known of which has to be the story of the “good Samaritan”, which to be honest I expect most of you will have heard, but for those who have not I’ll give a quick overview: in this tale a man is mugged and left hurt in the road, as he lay there people walked past crossing over to the other side of the road and ignored his plight. Eventually a man came along and helped the man, hence the name of the story of “the good Samaritan”. Another example of this is that of Kitty Genovese, who in 1964 was walking to her car in New York when a man attacked her with a knife, she yelled out and as lights turned on in a nearby building the man fled, when no one appeared on the scene though he returned to continue the attack. The whole incident lasted over half an hour during which time she managed to drag herself to the door of a building and was witnessed by thirty-eight, but not one person intervened or even called the police.
In college all the women had to attend rape safety sessions, in which we were told that if we were ever in a situation where we needed help never to shout “help” nor “rape” but instead to call “fire” as people are more likely to come!!!
And even when there are witnesses how often do you think they actually come forward? Even when they do they get treated like liars or criminals themselves for not intervening, told that if what was happening was wrong then they would have done something wouldn’t they? So obviously they are lying or exaggerating. Let’s just ignore the idea that a person can be scared, let’s ignore the idea of self preservation, let’s ignore that the person may not have known what to do, instead obviously they are just lying.

How about DNA? Surely there is DNA evidence isn’t there? Well not all rapes leave DNA evidence, using an object is technically rape, and objects do not have DNA. Also rapists are not stupid, they do know that they have DNA, they do know that they will leave evidence. Some will even force their victim to shower after the event, or will put things in place to ensure that they cannot report the event for a period of time which will limit the available evidence. Even without this though it can take a person a whole fully comprehend what happened, and even longer before they feel able to talk about or admit it. After being raped you’re not thinking about the evidence, in fact you’ll do anything to not think about anything involving the incident at all. But you can still smell them, still feel them, feel the dirt on you, slowly working its way through your skin into your very being. All you want to do is clean it off, to clean them off, to forget about it, to get rid of anything and everything involving it, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, if you clean enough and deny it enough, then maybe it didn’t happen, maybe it was not real.

In fact quite often the main source of evidence comes from character witnesses, and on the basis of a few people saying that the accused is a “nice person” many cases are dropped… as if no person if capable of being nice but also committing a crime… as if any wrong doing can be forgiven or ignored due to a lifetime of “niceness”. If I was to shoplift and then have a few people say “no, she couldn’t have, she’s too nice for that” no one would drop the case, and the fact would be that I had still shoplifted, still committed a crime, and it’s almost a character requirement of abusers to be able to live a double life, otherwise, well they wouldn’t be able to abuse anyone would they? Abusers are masters of deception, able to seem perfectly kind, normal and functional to the outside world, maybe even respected, yet as soon as that front door closes become mean, violent and abusive. How often do we hear on the news neighbours of convicted criminals and abusers say how shocked they are as “they always seemed so nice”?
This can sort of be seen as an example of the “halo effect”. People strive to maintain consistency in their beliefs, often at the expense of the truth. If a person has some salient trait that is good, it tends to colour the way in which all his/her other characteristics are seen. In the eyes of other people they are distorted to fit in with the one estimable trait. People are unwilling to accept that others may be a mixture of good and bad: they try to see them as a consistent whole. So in this case as the character witnesses describe all the persons good traits and list any good deeds they have done people are less likely to be able to imagine them ever doing something bad, especially not something as bad as rape. This is exacerbated by the tendency of the victims character flaws and past sexual history being questioned and enforcised to portray them as “immoral” or “promiscuous”.

One other thing people bring up during this discussion is that some people report a rape only to revoke their statement at a later date, people then interperate this as meaning that the rape never occurred and the initial report was a lie. But you have to take into account how hard and stressful a court case is, especially when you have been raped and so already feel vulnerable. When you report a rape every aspect of your life is picked apart, people imply that you are lying, people take small aspects of your life and blow them up to turn you into the bad one, it’s a painful and stressful experience, and many people just cannot cope with it. Add to this the fact that you have to see the person who did this to you, have to sit in the same room as them, here them accuse your testimony as a life, listen to them blow up every character flaw, all while you have to relive the event over and over both in your mind and through describing it to others.

Ok, now let’s have a think about why on earth anyone would lie about such a thing. Revenge? Honestly what the hell would anyone have to do to you for you to think that the best revenge would be to accuse them of rape? There are a million and one ways to get revenge on someone, who on earth would jump to a rape accusation as their first revenge plan?

Let’s now move on to the statistics, I hate statistics… you can use statistics to prove or disprove basically anything, you can manipulate them to say whatever you want. Also statistics on the topic of rape are difficult to acquire, a lot of people never report what happened to them which naturally messes with the numbers. A lot of people don’t report what happened but do speak to anonymous helplines and charities, so we can get an idea of the figures from adding these to the police reports, but even then we cannot get a definite idea of exactly how many people have been raped. Another thing which often screws with the data is that some reports take children into account whereas others do not which obviously messes with the numbers.
If we were to assume that the 1 in 5 statistic is correct though is this really “fear mongering”. As I was told it was last week? I mean ok, 1 in 5 is a lot, but that still means that 4 in 5 (i.e. the majority) will never experience rape… in fact all the 1 in 5 statistic really means is that pretty much everyone at some point in their lives will know someone who has been raped.

Right… now for the bit that I’ve been putting off… the idea of justifications for rape… when I told someone that I had been raped more than once the person decided that obviously I was a pole-dancer or a hooker, so therefore is it ok to rape people in these professions? Personally I think not, I do not think that you can say that people working in the sex-trade are ok to rape, no one should be ok to rape, because rape is not ok.
Some people seem to think that it’s a woman’s own fault if they were wearing revealing clothing, drunk, alone, etc. But I think that is ridiculous… so what? Men are not responsible at all? Men are just these creatures who cannot help but have sex with anyone who has some skin on show or who has been drinking? I honestly think that this way of thinking is not only hurtful to women, but actually demeaning to men, men are not just masses of instinct who cannot help themselves, and implying that they are is sort of implying that they are a lower being than women…

I have never heard these excuses in the case of male rape though… nor in cases of female rapists. So what can we gather from this? Maybe that people in general either do not believe or think about rape being anything but a man raping a woman, or maybe people think it’s ok to rape women but that the idea of raping a man or of a woman raping someone is not ok? In either of these ideas isn’t the route the same? A bit of a sexist stance?
In fact the idea that all women should not go out (or deserve to be raped if they do) in certain outfits, should not drink, should not go to certain places, etc. is not really too large a leap from “get back in the kitchen” is it? So we should live in a world where men can do whatever they like but if a woman does anything on their own or feel sexually liberated then they are in the wrong and should be raped? In fact that sounds a lot like the world one of my abusers would have liked to have lived in, he used to use sexual violence as a form of “punishment” if/when I did wrong. I’ve lived in that world, and I never want to go back to it, nor would I ever wish that world on to anyone.

The other ridiculous argument I’ve heard in the last week is that the idea of and the statistics surrounding rape are a “feminist propaganda” spreading fear and hatred of men… I don’t even know where to start with this… As I’ve already said rape is not limited to men attacking women, but can be men attacking men, women attacking women, and women attacking men. Also, feminism isn’t about hating men, I’m not going to write a essay on what feminism is right now but basically anyone who thinks it’s about hating men really doesn’t know much about the topic.
Also, if we quickly think of the logistics of this we’ll see that it’s not really feasible; this idea relies on a MALE DOMIATED police force altering the statistics of reported rapes. Actually, to be honest I don’t think I need to continue that point as I think it speaks for itself.

What causes Abuse?

The causes of interpersonal abuse are complex and overlapping. However, the following are widely regarded to be some of the most important factors:

• Early learning experiences: This factor is sometimes described as the “life cycle” of abuse. Many abusive parents were themselves abused as children and have learned to see hurtful behavior as normal childrearing. At the other end of the life cycle, some adults who abuse their elderly parent are paying back the parent for abusing them in their early years.
• Ignorance of developmental timetables: Some parents have unrealistic expectations of children in terms of the appropriate age for toilet training, feeding themselves, and similar milestones, and attack their children for not meeting these expectations.
• Economic stress: Many caregivers cannot afford part-time day care for children or dependent elderly parents, which would relieve some of their emotional strain. Even middle-class families can be financially stressed if they find themselves responsible for the costs of caring for elderly parents before their own children are financially independent.
• Lack of social support or social resources: Caregivers who have the support of an extended family, religious group, or close friends and neighbors are less likely to lose their self-control under stress.
• Substance abuse: Alcohol and mood-altering drugs do not cause abuse directly, but they weaken or remove a person’s inhibitions against violence toward others. In addition, the cost of a drug habit often gives a substance addict another reason for resenting the needs of the dependent person. A majority of workplace bullies are substance addicts.
• Mental disorders: Depression, personality disorders, dissociative disorders, and anxiety disorders can all affect parents’ ability to care for their children appropriately. A small percentage of abusive parents or spouses are psychotic.
• Belief systems: Many men still think that they have a “right” to a relationship with a woman; and many people regard parents’ rights over children as absolute.
• The role of bystanders: Research in the social sciences has shown that one factor that encourages abusers to continue their hurtful behavior is discovering that people who know about or suspect the abuse are reluctant to get involved. In most cases, bystanders are afraid of possible physical, social, or legal consequences for reporting abuse. The result, however, is that many abusers come to see themselves as invulnerable.

What can I do if I know an adult is being abused?

As a friend or family member of someone who is being abused, we often feel unsure of what is happening and helpless to change the situation. Below are a few guidelines and suggestions for helping in a Domestic Abuse situation without taking over and further denying the victim the ability and right to chose what is best for him or her.
How can I know for sure if someone is being abused?

Accept the fact that you will probably have to ask to be certain. Many people think that abuse victims do not want to talk about their home-life or situation. Many victims do make efforts to hide the abuse. They often do so because they fear embarrassment, their partner finding out, being blamed, not being believed, or being pressured to do something they’re not ready or able to do. Ask the person privately. Understand that an abuse victim may not open up immediately. Don’t be judgmental or pressuring – this relieves the burden of having to speak out and often results in the victim being more willing to disclose information, it also demonstrates your concern and willingness to help.

Keep it simple. If there are specific observations that are the source of your concern, you might approach the conversation by opening with, “I noticed ‘a, b and c’ and I’m concerned about you. Is there something I can do to help?” Or, “It seems like you’re stressed out and unhappy. If you want to talk about it now or another time, I’ll keep it confidential.” Understand that a victim may not open up when first approached with an offer to help, but they do remember you offered. Open the door, let them know you are receptive and be prepared that you may have to wait.

People are sometimes hesitant to approach a friend or loved one about their concern because they feel that it is “none of their business”, or that their help will not be wanted. But the notion that “what happens behind closed doors is off limits” often allows isolation from help and support for many victims. Very little is lost if your offer to help is refused, but many victims only need someone to reach out and offer support to begin moving toward making a change in their lives.

If you ask, be prepared to respond supportively

There are many things you can do to prepare yourself to offer supportive and empowering assistance to an abuse victim.

Learn all you can about domestic violence – Review the material on this website and the other sites, talk to a domestic violence advocate, read or participate in posts to message boards on domestic violence topics.

Initiate a conversation in private and make sure you have enough time for the conversation if the victim decides to open up.

Let go of any expectations you have that there is a “quick fix” to domestic violence or to the obstacles a victim faces. You must realize that staying in the relationship may be the safest option the victim has until they can figure out another plan. This does not mean that staying in the relationship is “OK”, but it does mean that it takes time and planning for a victim to come to grips with the problem and figure out what to do or where to go.

Challenge and change any inaccurate attitudes and beliefs that you may have about abuse victims and battering. A person does not become an abuse victim because there is something wrong with them. In reality, they become trapped in relationships by their partner’s use of violence and coercion. The better able you are to recognize and build on the resilience, strength, resourcefulness and decision-making abilities of the victim, the more you will able be to help them.

Providing supportive and empowering help

To help an abuse victim, you must understand the affects that living with abuse has on their self-esteem, sense of self-worth and belief in their own ability. A victim of domestic violence is not simply a physical captive – they are actually an emotional and mental captive as well. Support involves helping to rebuild or reinforce the victim’s belief in themself and their own abilities.

Believe the person and tell them you do. Remember that abusers most often behave differently in public than they do in private. So, even if you know the partner, you may never see them behave the way they treat the victim privately.

Listen to their comments. If you actively listen, ask clarifying questions, and avoid making judgments and giving advice, you will most likely learn directly from them what it is they need.

Build on the victim’s strengths. Based on the information they give you and your own observations, actively identify the ways in which they have developed coping strategies, solved problems, and exhibited courage and determination, even if their efforts have not been completely successful. Help them to build on these strengths.

Support their decisions. Remember that there are risks attached to every decision an abuse victim makes. If you truly want to be helpful, be patient and respectful of a person’s decisions, even if you don’t agree with them.

Validate their feelings. It is common for victims to have conflicting feelings – love and fear, guilt and anger, hope and despair. Let them know that their feelings are normal and reasonable.

Avoid victim-blaming. Tell the victim that the abuse is not their fault. Reinforce that the abuse is the partner’s problem and responsibility, but refrain from “bad-mouthing” the partner. Focus on the partner’s negative behavior in your comments and not on your negative opinion of the partner’s personality.

Take their fears seriously. If you are concerned about their safety, express your concern without judgment by simply saying, “The situation sounds dangerous and I’m concerned about your safety.”

Offer help. As appropriate, offer specific forms of help and information – these can include recommendations for social services, legal referrals, support groups, etc. If you are asked to do something you’re willing and able to do, do it. If you can’t or don’t want to, say so and help identify other ways to have that need met. Then look for other ways that you can help.

Be an active, creative partner in a victim’s safety planning effort. The key to safety planning is taking a problem, considering the full range of available options, evaluating the risks and benefits of different options, and identifying ways to reduce the risks. Offer ideas, resources and information.

Abusers are often blind to their own abusive behaviour

If people, in relationships believe that they are entitled to give orders – that it is their right – they don’t necessarily think that ordering their mate around is abusive. They usually think that their assumed rights, prerogatives and privileges make this kind of behavior okay. They are then blind to their abusive behavior.

Similarly, they may think that they have a right to put down their partner, or to tell their partner what s/he’s thinking, meaning, and so forth. They might think they are entitled to act the way they do because of their age, because they’ve been around the place longer, are of a superior gender or race, or because they make more money than their mate. Their sense of entitlement blinds them to their abusive behavior.

The abuser may think verbal and/or physical abuse – acts against their mate – are justified because their mate “makes them do it”. Many people who batter both verbally and physically and who are jailed as a consequence, believe it is their mate’s fault – as if their mate did the verbal and physical abusing. This “crazy” thinking blinds them to their abusive behavior.

The abuser may hold a belief in the right of one person to wield power over another person. This belief blinds abusers to their abusive behavior.

People who indulge in verbal abuse are also blinded to their abusive behavior when they are lacking in the ability to acknowledge and accept their mate’s feelings, interests, talents, perspectives and opinions. This inability to acknowledge others’ feelings may sometimes be as a result of a personality disorder or even a result of childhood abuse that the abuser has experienced.

rape is RAPE – regardless of past events

Did you know that marital Rape was only made a criminal act in the UK in 1991? Up until then it was considered impossible for a man to rape or sexually assault his wife. To quote:
“A husband cannot rape his wife unless the parties are seperated or the court has by injunction forbidden him to interfere with his wife or he has given an undertaking in court no to interfere with her.” (The Law Made Simple, The Chaucer Press, 1981)

Rape is rape, regardless of the relationship between the rapist and the victim. It can be a total stranger; someone you recognise by sight, but have never really communicated with; someone you know superficially, a neighbour or a colleague; a friend, a boy-friend or a former boyfriend; a live-in partner, or a former partner; someone you are married to or have been married to in the past.

Rape is a very personal and intimate traumatic experience. Our experiences of and reactions to rape may differ widely, and although there are many similarities in the way that we feel about being the victim of rape, regardless of the relationship between us and the rapist, there are differences between stranger and intimate/acquaintance rape, and in this section I am trying to describe and offer an understanding of some of the specific problems regarding marital rape (or rape by an acuaintance) as opposed to stranger rape.

Please note that in this page I refer to wives and husbands, however, it can be understood to refer to all rapes perpetrated by an intimate. Also, I am only looking at rape and sexual assault on women, since this is by far the most common situation, though rape and sexual abuse also occur too frequently to men and within same-sex relationships.



Martial Rape Vs Strange Rape -  the main differances

Stranger rape is usually a one-off, someone you don’t know, with whom you don’t share any experiences or history. When the assault happens, there can be no doubt as to what is happening: that it is Rape (though even in such situations the victim will often wonder what she has done to precipitate the assault and will blame herself).

In marital rape the circumstances are very different. It is – quite apart from a physical and sexual violation – a betrayal of trust. Here is a person whom you thought you knew intimately, with whom you share a history, a home and quite often children. Here is a person whom you have made love to on a frequent basis often over many years, with whom you have shared your most intimate secrets and fears, and whom you believe to love you, want the best for you, who would never intentionally hurt you. Marital rape is so destructive because it betrays the fundamental basis of the marital relationship, because it questions every understanding you have not only of your partner and the marriage, but of yourself. You end up feeling betrayed, humiliated and, above all, very confused.

Another problem victims of marital rape face is that such instances are rarely a one-off, but a repeated if not frequent occurance. This can be a huge issue to the victim, because she will feel as though she has somehow ‘asked for it’ by staying or putting herself in the situation where it can happen again. Also, once it has been tolerated on a number of occassions, she may question her right to then act upon it.

Many women who are victims of marital rape have great difficulty in defining it as such. The traditional idea that it is impossible for a man to rape his wife and that somehow, in taking our marriage vows we have abdicated any say over our own body and sexuality, basically denied ourselves the right to say ‘no’, is still prevalent amongst wives as much as amongst their husbands. A wife being raped will often question her right to refuse intercourse with her husband, and while she may realise that legally it now constitutes rape, there are many reasons which may prevent her from perceiving it in such a light.

We prefer to see it possibly as a communication problem (did I make it clear enough that I did not want intercourse tonight), we may see it as an act for which the man is not fully responsible due to his nature (men have a biological need to have sex and if there is a woman next to them in bed when they are in the mood they just cannot help it), we may see it as a misunderstanding (although I told him I didn’t want to, maybe I gave him the wrong signals somehow), we may have religious issues which question our right to refuse intercourse (I have got to submit myself to him and accept his will above mine as my Lord and Master).

Basically, as wives being raped by our husbands, we look for every reason, every excuse to deny it is Rape because we do not want to accept the alternative: it is Rape, he is hurting and humiliating us with intent, we can no longer trust him, turn to him in comfort, gain reassurance and protection from his company and our home is no longer safe.