Facebook supports rape?

rhubarb, both of my rapists were my partner at the time. One of them is my son's father. Both were someone's brother.

All three men who sexually assaulted me were friends at the time.

They were all someone;s son. None of their parents would want to accept their son was a rapist or capanle of sexual assault.

These ARE the average men in the street. None of them fit the criminal profiling, although my ex fits the description of a domestic abuser in every way. Btu that's a seperate issue. I was over the abuse. I'm in no way over the rape.

Would you say that all rapists have a sense of entitlement then? And an arrogance that sex is theirs to take and they will not be caught?
So a selfish attitude towards women? Or at least, to the women he believes he 'owns'?

Uppity, I understand what you are saying and you are right that you cannot tell the difference by looking at someone or even knowing them for a short period of time. The most prominent members of society are abusers. My mother is a church-goer, a foster carer and has adopted 2 mixed race children, to others she is a saint. To me she is a controlling abusive neglectful and selfish woman. I can now see psychological traits in here that others cannot, because she puts on a face to them but in private she was and is very different.

But I try to steer away from including personal experiences because there is always someone with an opposing experience that contradicts what you are trying to say.

So me saying that I think rapists do share some common characteristics is not the same as me saying that you can tell a rapist a mile off. Not at all. The whole reason for profiling is to try and identify traits to help police investigations, to help support groups, to help raise awareness, to help prevention.

I think the world is a bit depressing, unfortunately. There are lots of women on the Relationships board who have indeed been raped by their partners, who are all someone's brothers, sons, fathers ("but he's such a good dad, the dcs adore him" etc) .

Crap, but true. Which is why it's important to counter the idea of rapists as always "Other", and why we have to tackle the culture which leads so many men to feel entitled to ignore women's right to bodily integrity.

'And if we thought that rapists were no different to our partners, our sons, our brothers and our fathers then that makes for a depressing world.'

It is a depressing world. It is sad and horrible. But rapists aren't usually strangers - we used to believe that myth and now we don't - and they're not lonely, unmarried men we can just 'tell' are 'not right' - and they're almost certainly not all like the men who're profiled by forensic psychologists, because we know most rapists are not caught.

It is horrible but IMO it is worse not knowing the reality, than accepting the reality is depressing.

Lenin yes they are, I accept that, but I do not accept that everyone's father, son, brother, partner is not particularly different to a rapist. Call me an idealist but I just can't believe that. If I did then I would not want to bring my daughter up in such a world or live in it myself.

OK if you genuinely want to know what might be construed as a rape myth, I guess the idea that rapists are somehow different from your average joe in the street, is a rape myth IMO.

the problem here I think, is how people are defining difference. It seems to me that you Rhubarb, with your pin pointing of entitlement, don't have such a massive yawning gap with what I think actually. My big problem with what you seemed to me to be saying (and I'm being careful how I phrase this because I don't wnat to put words in your mouth) is that you seem to be saying that that sense of entitlement is rare. I don't think it is, I think it's quite common. And the reason I think that, is that 1 in 4 women are either sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetimes and although sex criminals are repeat offenders, it is nto the same tiny handful of men doing this, it must by definition be quite a large pool of them. (I read somewhere 1 in 60 had been estimated but I don't know how accurate that is.)

And so by definitiion, that's a large number of men in society, it's not some marginalised little group. And that group is expressing ideas which are not a million miles away, from the ideas many men who are not rapists, have - and indeed, many women. So the "othering" of those men, as if they are somehow very different, as opposed to being on a continuum, seems dangerous to me.

I have said until I am blue in the face frothy that I do not set out to be proven right and neither do I think I am wholly right. I came on here for a debate and I was accused of vile things like not believing rape victims. That is so upsetting that I cannot let it lie. It has nothing to do with being proven right and everything to do with my character and reputation.

Thank you Uppity and I hope you don't think I was dismissive of your experiences.
I think profiling is useful as the Met Police said, for raising awareness, to prevent and to instruct. And if we thought that rapists were no different to our partners, our sons, our brothers and our fathers then that makes for a depressing world.

Rhubarb, why are you more concerned about getting people to say "you're right" than understanding the survivors' POV and experiences?

I don't get it.

This isn't an attack, please don't construe it as such. I'm just confused and probably in the wrong state of mind to be dealing with this thread atm.

Actually SGM yes you did but it has been deleted.
Do you understand how hurtful it is as a woman to be told that my views imply that I blame victims for their rapes, oh that comment with the that I don't believe in rape - who was that again? Someone said I claimed to be an expert and so on. Everything I said was torn apart and used to make accusations that offended me as a woman, as a feminist and as a mother.

I apologised as I realised I had upset SQ and Amor. But because I believe in criminal profiling I am dismissive? Offensive? I have not mentioned anyone's experiences so that also makes me dismissive? I do not feel qualified to mention the experiences posted and would not presume to even address them - because you know what? I feared more attacks if I did mention them so I kept quiet.

I would like to know what I have said that is a rape myth and why it is so, but I would like to leave this now as enough damage has been done all round.
Thanks to those who have seen my point of view, it helps to know that I am not going mad.

Oh i don't for a moment think you're in favour of rape or rapists or the FB page Rhubarb, I didn't get that impression from your posts.

I don't know whether I'm for or against profiling either, maybe for some of these very rare rapists, the fewer than 10% who are the stereotype ones (strangers in dark alleys, breaking into your house etc.) it may be a useful technique, I don't know enough about that to comment. I would simply say that for the other well over 90% of rapists, the common or garden ones, profiling would be unlikely to be very useful. Even if their crimes were ever reported.

Oh sorry something else occurred to me. I don't mean to imply that lots of rapists don't understadn what they're doing is wrong btw. I think they do understand that they shouldn't do this, but they don't make the jump to calling "this" rape. They hide behind "assertive" "masterful" "passionate" "a bit forceful". But never rape, because very few men actually think of themselves as rapists, even though lots of them very obviously are, otherwise you wouldn't be getting 1 in 9 women being raped.

Particularly when they are young. Once they get past a certain age, I cannot believe that they haven't discovered enough about sex, women etc., to not know that this is rape, but I don't know... it might be worth more discussion on this thread or another some time.

I don't want to post on this thread again but just to clear up a few things.

I have not said that anyone thinks all men are rapists, I have said that Elliott's sentence could be construed as such.

Uppity - I am against rape and such facebook groups and would hope you believe that. I am sorry about what happened to you and I understand you disagree with profiling but that does not change the fact that many people do still use it.

This is my last word, yes it's a blog. I felt so strongly about this, because I am mortified that some people could actually think that I am dismissive of rape victims and that I blame some rape victims for their own rapes.

You might disagree with me, but for god's sake you cannot surely think that of me? Because if you do then I am clearly doing something very very wrong.

And as I have apologised over and over again, this time I hope you don't mind if I call it quits.

Oh I'm OK. It was years ago and tbh I wrote it off at the time as just bad sex and slightly resented the fact that he had shagged me instead of letting me sleep. The thing is, it hadn't even occurred to me that I had the right to have words with him about it, to tell him that what he'd done was wrong, the way Amor did with the guy who raped her. I was so brainwashed that I didn't even think he'd done anythign wrong, I just accepted it as something women had to put up with if they ever got drunk and went to bed with a (male) friend.

I'm talking about it here and now because I think it is a very useful illustration of very common attitudes to rape. Both he and I, were oblivious to the idea that I should have any sort of choice in whether the penetrative sex which occurred hours after the first flush of going to bed with him, should take place or how. I resented him waking me up, but not once did I think "that was rape". Not until the other day. And I'm absolutely suer he didn't. I just want lurkers out there, to understand that rapists are not a race apart, they're not sociopaths or mentally ill or anythign like that, they're normal charming, self-deprecating (in his case) men, who rape because they feel entitled to and don't necessarily understand that that's what they're doing.

And that was the one thing I agreed with Rhubarb about - the sense of entitlement being the root of the problem. Without it, you just couldn't get that scenario. ah ah and something else I picked up on - she's not here now and I'm not sure if she's comgin back so will do this in third person, but this idea that now schools are teaching about consent etc., so there's no excuse for any young man not to know it's wrong, that there's no reason for that entitlemnet - well, that may be true, but in that case, why are young men still opining when asked in surveys, that rape is a woman's fault and that if she comes back to your room, you've got the right to have sex with her, etc. etc.? This implies to me, that we may be teaching consent issues in theory, but we're not teaching it with any conviction and the message isn't getting through. So what are we doing wrong, and how can we put it right?

Sorry for the essay btw.

Uppity- that is such a powerful illustration of everything that is wrong with that Facebook page. I'm so sorry that this has brought up stuff for you though.