More than one in three young women say that they have been sexually assaulted after getting drunk - REALLY???

[CountessDracula]

OK I may be an old bag but in my yoof my friends and I used to get completely trollied and NONE of us were EVER sexually assaulted!!

Is this just another bullshit statistic?

[nailpolish]

does bum pinching count nowadays?

[tarantula]

Depends on whos doing the pinching

[beatie]

I'm intrigued too.

[OrribleOliveoil]

Probably said to make us feel guilty about going out. You know, working mothers etc. Yet more statistics and 'research' to make you feel you should feel frightened/guilty of something.

[CountessDracula]

I suspect not! Sexually assaulted implies something a little heavier than a bum pinch or an attempted snog in my book

[Mum2girls]

Depend I suppose on how you classify 'assaulted' - could it be that some of these women have merely received unwelcome advances? Dunno.

[Sarahx2005]

Hmmm glad I don't drink!

[nailpolish]

i think it might cd, everything is more pc nowadays.

men are scared to chat women up (how sad!)

[CountessDracula]

so why would they not say "have received unwelcome advances" then? Bloody hell I should think 100% have received unwelcome advances

[hellomama]

Having worked in family planning and sexual health clinics, I am constantly amazed (even now) by the amount of women who admit to having been sexually abused / assaulted / raped in some way, either in the past as a child / teenager or by a partner. Sometimes on discussion, the women are almost quite blase about it, kind of like its was this inevitable thing, and as its happened to some of their friends too, its almost the 'norm'. That makes me feel and

[erm]

yes I have been went out got blazing drunk (felt very weird don't know if I was spiked or not) had to leave nightclub very early friend put me to bed in her room but some lads we had met earlier came back to her house for a party.

Anyway I was passed out in an upstairs bedroom woke to find my friend screaming at someone to get off of me, apparently he was on top of me trying to have sex with me, my trousers and pants had been removed. Shudder to think what would have happened if she hadn't have found him.

I had no idea what was going on and wouldn't have been able to ID him or anything, very scary situation and one I would never get in again.

[teeavee]

I think what happened to you is relatively commonplace, unfortunately, erm. Similar things have happened to friends of mine, and I myself have been in a nasty situation due to excess alcohol more than once.

[CountessDracula]

blimey how scary is that. Come to think of it I remember dh and I being in a hotel room at a wedding with someone passed out on a bed and this horrible bloke who we didn't know trying to egg a couple of his mates on and saying he was going to shag her. DH went up to him and pointed out that he could end up in prison especially as we were witnesses and suggested that he left - he scuttled off with tail between legs.

[Bugsy2]

I'm amazed that people can remember what the hell happened. When we used to get absolutely smashed out of our heads on Friday & Saturday nights, we would rely on our less drunk friends to tell us who we got off with the next day!!!!
Would also like to know what constitutes sexual assualt.

[hellomama]

A few people have asked for the definition of sexual assualt. Some facts. Please don't read if this subject may affect you in a personal way.









WHAT IS RAPE AD SEXUAL ASSUALT?

The legal definition of rape is sexual intercourse with a woman "against her will". For a charge of rape to be brought there must be penetration of the vagina by the penis (by however small an extent). Although not all forms of sexual violence fit this rather narrow definition, they can be just as frightening and distressing as rape itself. The following can all be called sexual violence:

·flashing
· sexual harassment
· obscene phone calls
· verbal harassment ( e.g. unwanted sexual comments being made about a woman's body)
· being made to watch or take part in pornographic videos
· being forced to have oral sex
· being forced to have anal sex
· being touched in a sexual manner, against the person's will.
· being raped
· penetration by objects

HOW COMMON IS RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT?

Studies which have been undertaken suggest the following:
· Two in every five women have been raped or sexually assaulted 1
· One in seven women are raped in marriage 2
· 61% of rapes are committed indoors, usually in the woman's home 3
· 85% of rapists are men known to the woman 4
· 52% of women in Strathclyde reported being abused by a man they have lived with5.
· One in two girls will experience some form of sexual abuse (from flashing to rape) before they are eighteen years old6

1 Women's Support Project Survey 1989. 2 "Wife Rape, Marriage & the Law", Kate Painter, Manchester University, 1991. 3 "Concerns about Rape", Home Office Report on Rape, 1989. 4 As above. 5 Women's Support Project Survey 1989. 6 "An Exploratory Study of the Prevalence of Sexual Abuse in a Sample of 16-21 Year Olds, Child Abuse Studies Unit North London Polytechnic. 1991 .

[stitch]

i think maybe i am just not with it, but why would anyone want to put themselves into such a situation erm? what would make you want to get so out of your mind that you dont know what is happening to you?
OBVIOUSLY if the drink was spiked, thats a different story, but i cannot imagine any reason why people drink to such excess.

something else that has crossed my mind. say your friend didnt scream, and you didnt wake up. would you have even realised someone had just used you as a blow up doll? if you dont know it has happened, then it cannot be as traumatic as if you are actively struggling and screaming no?

i realise that what i am saying is not very sensitive, and i would never say something like this in real life. but i have heard of this sort of scenario a few times, and just dont understand the girls psychology here.

[stitch]

forty percent of women having been assaulted??

[Bugsy2]

Stich I can't answer for everyone but for some reason getting wasted seemed like lots of fun at the time. Fortunately, nothing really awful every happened to me, although I did snog lots of men I would never have let snog me had I been sober.
I did have friends who got in more awkward situations and who certainly got more than they bargained for or would have accepted had they been sober.

[CountessDracula]

well by that definition I have as I have been flashed at but I thought it was funny

[zippitippitoads]

I don't find it at all surprising, in fact i would have thought more assaults than that happened...there have been threads on mn concerning rape and many people have responded to say they have had that experience, sadly

[stitch]

but bugsy, isnt there a difference between getting drunk and happy, and drunk and completely out of your mind?

[hunkerpumpkin]

There was an article a little while ago that said that the police had tested hundreds of women who thought they'd been drugged and raped, but they hadn't, they were just very drunk.

I think it's sad that a lot of women don't think more of themselves than to regularly get that inebriated - quite apart from what could happen, it's just really bad for you!

[erm]

In response to stitch, probably the same reason a lot of people drink to relax, have fun etc.

Before this episode I have never had unprotected sex with a man drunk or sober or put myself in that situation. I have only had sex with one person in my life. I was always able to get myself home at the end of an evening. Thats one of the reasons I believed I was spiked I have never been so out of control (despite drinking far more on previous occasions). I believe we were deliberately spiked and stalked (how else would they have known we had gone home early). Another friend was so out of it she fell and broke her tooth the same evening.

You would think that being asleep in your friends home you would have been safe but no! I think it's disgusting that a man passing a room seeing a drunk girl asleep would want to have sex with her, as you said it's like being used as a blown up doll. Not very manly is it, having sex with someone because they are unconcious.

As for it being less traumatic I really don't think so as you try to remember but can't. How many other women have been used as blow up dolls by one or more men and have no recollection of it, can you imagine having sex against your will not knowing what was done to you and knowing that you could pass that man on the street and not know who he is?

[bossykate]

cd - why didn't you post a link to the article or the thread?

here

the reason i point it out is that the kind of remark creeping in now is exactly what nw is talking about in the article. no of course you shouldn't get so drunk as to become unconscious - but why is the focus always on the woman to change her behaviour? being drunk may be undesirable and unhealthy but it isn't a crime of violence.

another thing - i think the reason people may be surprised at the statistic quoted (i was) is that women are just so used to things like this happening that they don't even register - but the onus should not be on women to manage this undesirable behavious - nw argues that society should challenge the perpetrators not the victims.