Facebook supports rape?

Oh sorry, I was confused at which post you were referring to, Rhubarb

That's not an analogy, it's an anecdote.

And it's exactly why a lot of people didn't consider I was raped. Because I had snogged the bloke and had allowed him to sleep in the same bed as me so clearly I was inviting sex.

I'm really sorry if the analogy was wrong. It's just something I thought about. I don't mean to suggest one kind of evil is comparable to another, of course. I just was trying to understand how people can be brainwashed, basically.

I'm sorry, I don't see what's awful about it but as I say, if I'm wrong I'm sorry.

Uppity, that was me with some of my boyfriends/ friends. None of them touched me or stormed out and I consider that to be normal. At least amongst my friends.

Sorry, there I go again. I really am off to bed in case the Nazi crap comes up again.

Sorry not you Uppity.

I am speechless at that analogy.
I'm not in this debate anymore.

Viz normal man - here's a story.

a friend of mine. He knows this girl at work, fancies her, goes out with her (in group of friends) and rolls back to her place, both drunk, snogging etc. He thinks sex is on the cards she thinks not. So he stays the night, no penetrative sex, just lots of what our society calls foreplay (and sensible people call non-penetrative sex).

This happens five times in a row and he gets pissed off and doesn't want to go back sxth time, but gets drunk and does. When penetrative sex doesn't happen again, he gets up, gets his clothes, has a bit of a rant about not wnating to come over in the first place and storms out. She shouts after him: "Freak!"

I've told that story to a few people, and some of them have said: "well actually she's right, he is a bit of a freak, a normal man would have just shagged her". When I pointed out that this would be rape, they all came up with reasons why it wouldn't be really - she was a cock tease, they were drunk, she obviously wanted ti really otherwise why would she keep inviting him bakc and on this night, almost insisting on it - etc. All the reasons why, if they were on a jury, this friend of mine would almost certainly get let off if he had done what they say a "normal" man would have done and raped her. (Oh in addition, lots of witnesses over those 6 weeks, that they were rolling back drunk to her place every friday night, so they would not have believed her anyway)

So I think we need to be careful about what we assume other peopole think "normal" is. I've been by how many people have thought this friend of mine abnormal because he didn't rape a woman he had an opportunity to without any comeback. He's considered an extreme non rapist in some circles.

To return to an analogy made earlier - and I'm really sorry if this is the wrong thing to do, I hope it's not - it seems to me it's like saying that, in Nazi Germany, it was 'ordinary' to be a Nazi. We would all say now that that society was deluded, and sick ... but within it, it wasn't so very unusual to be a Nazi, was it?

Ella, sorry but I disagree. 3 out of 4 women are not raped thank god.
But you have made your conclusions and I doubt I would get anywhere if I were to argue with them at this time of night, no doubt you feel the same about me.

It's time for bed.

I agree with that Lenin.

Uppity - they can only profile convicted criminals and that is a letdown, but profiling has proved very useful in searches for serial criminals and has been used in court by the prosecution. So whatever you may think of it, it does have its place. But yes, it is flawed because you cannot profile everyone.

Same with psychology and sociology - they are flawed because they cannot analyse everyone.

I think rapists are ordinary men, sadly. Or at least 'within the norm'. They're not so very unusual. 1 in 4 women get raped, and most rapes are not by strangers (so most rapists are not going around raping huge numbers of women). So it cannot be very unusual (in terms of numbers of men in the population) to be a rapist.

This is awful, and sad, and depressing. It is inexcusable.

I think as well, with profiling of rapists, they are only profiling the reported rapists.

And seeing as how most rapists aren't reported, they aren't going to show up.

Is a continuum a useful idea?

Hope we can move on from that frothy.

Lenin - of course it is not. I have repeated that it is impossible to know who is a rapist. But that statement is very different to thinking that rapists are not any different to ordinary men.

I go back to my other point. Do you agree that acquaintance rapists have a sense of entitlement, are selfish to this point and believe that they have a right to sex?

Are these not therefore characteristics that might be shared?

Agree to disagree

Mainly for my sanity though seeing as I'm normally an argumentative cow :(

Agree to disagree?

frothy, there is a difference between rape profiling and domestic abuse profiling. Have you read the Met Police's report? That is not to say that I am dismissive or disbelieving of you by the way, but as you can see we all have experiences of abusers in one form or another.

When experiences are brought in it makes the argument very personal and very sensitive and so I am going to take my leave now.
I hope you can see now that just because my views are different, I am not in any way dismissing rape or rape victims or anything of the sort.

I've just skimmed this but I have no faith in profiles. The men who raped me wouldn't appear on any profile. Very different people, both successful and popular, both attractive, all that kind of thing. They raped me because they could.

We live in a society where the common perception of rape is about screaming and fighting, struggling against some stranger who steps out of a dark alleyway. The truth is so much more prosaic. Generally I suspect rape is about being asleep or so out of it that you can't give consent - well that's how I was raped anyway. Neither of those men thought they had raped me but they did. They don't identify as rapists, no one would think they were rapists and in fact I've been told by several friends (women) that it was my fault and I wasn't actually raped. And I'm sure that's what those men have told themselves too. As far as they are concerned, they're not rapists. But they are

I see what you are saying, Rhubarb. But I think that rather than focussing on the pathology of individual rapists, we would be better off looking at what is happening in society at large that is giving so many men the message that they can rape and get away with it. The problem is endemic, and part of this screwed up systemic male privilege. You could almost say that given how powerful the messages we all receive about male entitlement, the question should really be why don't even more men rape? And the jokes on that facebook page just illustrate that we DO live in a rape culture. Combatting that, rather than profiling, is the way forward, I think.

I guess that is what is meant by 'radical' feminism- getting to the root of what is wrong, rather than the sticking plaster approach of trying to understand what is wrong with particular individuals rather than our society as a whole.

I think there's always going to be risk with laypeople saying they can recognize criminals. None of us is (AFAIK) a criminal profiler and there's no case we're looking at. I think that is why I find the profiling a bit of a problematic discussion. And then, we end up with this problem of wanting to believe - as I'm sure we all want to believe - that we would know rapists if we saw them and that the men we love could never do such things. Not everyone who genuinely believes such things can be right. So yes ... it really is depressing.

I understand that Lenin and I agree that blaming women is common, even by other women. Call me naive but whilst I see your point I do not think that an ordinary man is no different to a rapist. There are many men out there who work tirelessly for rape victims, who dedicate their lives to rescuing children from sexual slavery, who hunt down paedophiles and who campaign for changes in the law to protect women. They are very different to rapists and I think Elliott is missing this.