poster campaign aimed at men cuts rape rate by 10%

The Lambeth campaign and the Liverpool poster are very heartening.

I really don't understand why we can't talk about and compare current campaigns which focus on male on female acquaintance rape.

What exactly is wrong with doing that?

This piece here for eg

"More than one-quarter of male
victims of completed rape (27.8%)
were first raped when they were
10 years old or younger (data not
shown). With the exception of the
youngest age category (i.e., age 10
or younger), the estimates for age
at first completed rape for male
victims in the other age groups
were based upon numbers too
small to calculate a reliable estimate
and therefore are not reported."

I do think it is a bad idea to grab stats from reports without thinking about them properly.

There are some difficulties with the figures that were provided earlier. They include child abuse. I do not think that the poster in the OP is intended to target child abusers, which is a completely different dynamic again.

The initial complaint was that the campaign in the OP did not target female rapists.

I think that complaint deserves a little piss-taking TBH. Where are all these female rapists? How many men are getting drunk and waking up to find a woman penetrating them with something? Really, is it that common that we need to drop the whole men raping men, women and children thing and concentrate on female rapists?

and I am finding your persistence in targeting me a little bit unsettling, boney

Boney, this thread isn't about male rape. If you want to discuss that, start your own thread. Trying to stop women talking about rape is a. wrong and b. extremely aggressive - not a great approach for someone who is concerned about rape.

don't be ridiculous, boney

I did see this poster while visiting family over Christmas - not sure if it's only in Liverpool as I haven't noticed it anywhere else.

anyfucker

I would still like to know why you find males being raped an amusment.

Wow. That Lambeth campaign is excellent.

It's really heartening that at last this is beginning to happen.

Here's a link to the "Real Men Know The Difference" campaign, which goes into a lot of detail about why they've done it and why they've done it in the way they have.
www.lambeth.gov.uk/KnowTheDifference/index.htm

I would have thought the "Be Careful Out There" posters would mean rape reporting is less likely. As I said earlier, smashing rape myths is key, although it's a long game.

The other prongs of the initiative - That article says "The reversal in the trend related to sexual assaults reflected the impact of the new education program, better training for police officers and more effective investigation and enforcement".

On a tangential note, I see that there have been a few cold case convictions of rapists recently. DNA on file from a previously reported but unsolved rape case and then linked via a subsequent conviction, one of which was for domestic violence. Having previously been downhearted about investigative methods and treatment of rape victims and their cases by the police and the judiciary and therefore unsure about reporting, I would now be more inclined to help add to the information for the police to go on, even if I had to play a long game myself.

There are forces out there taking these crimes seriously. Kent Police have started a database of serial domestic abusers. Probably deserves a thread on its own, but I have Fridayitis.

It's understandable that people who pick you up personally on your posts, will come to someone's attention

AnyFucker

Nope. I have problems with seeing it in posts:)

but its good to be noticed tho XD

PS. In an very un MN moment, You are one of my favourite posters

Possible AB, but unlikely.

The message is clear - it doesn't matter how pissed you are - it's rape.

On the whole, women don't report rape. Between 60% and 90% of all rapes are not reported. Precisely because cases like this, are those where women decide that no-one will believe them, or go into denial about it.

It's highly unlikely that this poster will have made them even more convinced that there's no point reporting.

you don't do irony, do you, Boney ?

I've noticed that about you

Women will have seen this ad too. And possibly thought..If I report the rape, they will just presume I was in a pissed and pathetic state. Maybe the ad has just caused women to be 10% less likely to report rape.

AnyFucker
"I think we should have a discussion about hamster rape here
It's rare, but it exists
Who is thinking of the hamsters ?"

why belittle the point being made?

Yes I get where you're coming from, it's totally valid. And I can only agree - it is about the problem with men, the construction of masculinity, the culture of entitlement, etc.

Which is why I like this poster - it is the very start of tackling it. But only the very start, mind. I too have reservations about it telling young men that they shouldn't rape or sexually assault women because it's illegal, rather than assuming that no decent man would want to rape a woman because, er, that's not a nice thing to do. Still, we've got to start somewhere I suppose.

...Having said that, I thought that most men who rape other men, aren't actually gay, they're generally barking homophobes who target gay men (or men who don't measure up to their concept of masculinity).

I think this is a bit of a gay "rape myth", it applies to what our rape culture calls "real" rape but not the majority of non-consentual sex. From what I have seen (working with US non-profits many of whom worked on these issues - admittedly a very particular perspective), there's a lot of sexual violence in the gay male community and a great deal of acceptance of it.

This isn't a "what about the (gay) menz" rant. I think this is relevant to the feminist discussion on rape because I think it illustrates (again) that rape doesn't exist because of women and what we do, but because of the male culture our society nurtures - I.E. It's not women we need to do something about - it's men.

Does anyone know what the other prongs of the initiative were?

Oh and also take your point about not knowing how much the ads contribute to the fall in rape and sexual assaults, but we never know how much each bit of the jigsaw contributes to an initiative - we just know that to get the result you want, you need all the bits there. And I agree with others, that just having that message there, that spotlights the behaviour of potential perpetrators instead of potential victims, is in itself a worthwhile thing.

sp yes I take your point about men in the gay community using status etc. to rape younger and less powerful men, and I think that would need to be dealt with in a very different way to a mainstream campaign - it would need to target gay media and clubs etc. Having said that, I thought that most men who rape other men, aren't actually gay, they're generally barking homophobes who target gay men (or men who don't measure up to their concept of masculinity). Having said that, given that most gay men won't report rape either, I don't know how reliable the figures are, but I'm sure some organisations must have done some good research on this.

Cailin That's why I like it regardless of the impact it has in a six month trial. I hope they replace those awful TFL "get a cab or you deserve it" posters in the UK.