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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To want to know why rape is so common?

352 replies

AnneNonimous · 09/08/2013 15:00

And want to understand why it happens?

I have been raped twice, once as a 14 year old and once as a 20 year old. I'd say 99% of the women I know have been raped at some point in their lives too. Growing up I almost accepted it as some kind of right of passage. It was just something that happened to women.

I was discussing this with a good friend of mine recently. She has been raped before and said she thinks its something all men have in them. She revealed to me that her husband had told her when he stayed the night at a female friends house recently he had imagined raping her.

I don't believe her, or don't want to believe her at least. I must admit my faith in men is extremely sparse and my life experiences have probably left me bitter but I do have a dad and a brother and I wouldn't want to believe they could ever be capable of being a rapist. I am disturbed by what my friend has told me about her husband and have never liked him but also know there won't be much I could tell her to make her see this.

But the fact still remains that it's very very common. If not rape then some kind of sexual abuse/assault. Aibu to want to understand why this is?

OP posts:
frogspoon · 09/08/2013 21:17

Constant, I do see where you are coming from.

I realise that many people who I am not close to would not tell me that they were raped, but with my closest friends and family I would be surprised if they didn't. I have more than 5 very close friends/family, and as I have said, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have been raped.

However many people on here have said that they and many of their friends have been raped (the OP said 99%). So why are the results so skewed for different people?

CailinDana · 09/08/2013 21:24

Absolutely no one in real life knows i was raped by a boyfriend. No one.

It's not just shame that stops people from talking - when do you bring something like that up? "have a cup of tea, by the way i was raped." Only once in my entire life has a casual conversation turned to the subject of rape and the group just went quiet. No way would i just talk about it in a social situation. I wouldn't be able to hold it together and it would be horrible.

Just because no one has told you they've been raped doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

GetStuffezd · 09/08/2013 21:33

And it's also worth remembering that just because you weren't necessarily reduced to a gibbering psychological wreck with long term intimacy problems, it doesn't lessen the fact you were raped.

Many women become "wet" during rape. NOT a sign of arousal but the body's natural defence mechanisms protecting itself.

This is just such a complex topic and one I find extremely depressing.

Original poster
AnneNonimous · 09/08/2013 21:34

OP back again,

I just want to thank everyone that have shared their experiences on this thread. I feel extremely touched, especially that so many people can discuss on here what they don't feel they can discuss in real life.

I do not know any of you (as far as I know), and you may just be usernames on a screen from where I'm sitting but I have felt a connection with you all from this thread.

I am perhaps naively shocked at some of the attitudes towards rape that are coming from (I presume) women. It has opened my eyes to how big the problem rape survivors face actually is.

I'm keen to do something to try to tackle this problem. I don't know quite what yet but something. Wouldn't it be great if mumsnet organised an anti rape event?

Anyway, thank you to those who have offered kind words or shared their stories - I really do appreciate it.

OP posts:
FrauMoose · 09/08/2013 21:37

I used to volunteer on a phoneline for people who had been raped and/or sexually abused. Some callers rang many, many years after the events in question had taken place. Sometimes it would be the first time the caller had told anyone. It's not unusual for people to make an initial disclosure to a GP or health worker because the longer term consequences of rape and/or abuse include various types of physical and mental health problems. Also the professional confidentiality may make it a little bit easier to make this kind of disclosure.

The person you know who abuses alcohol and/or who has an eating disorder and/or who self harms might have been abused or raped.

I'm not saying that all alcoholics or anorexics or people who self-harm, have had these experiences. Just that a high proportion of people who have been raped or abused - especially if the abuse has been repeated - will probably have difficulties of this kind.

WilsonFrickett · 09/08/2013 21:39

None of my friends know I was sexually assaulted. Neither does my DH. Because it happened when I was 15 and drunk, so for years I believed it was my fault. Now I know it was not my fault, I still don't choose to talk about it - how could I bring it up?

And yet I guarantee if my RL friends were on this thread it would never once cross their minds that something like that could have happened to someone like me.

Im glad of that in a way, because it shows it hasn't had any outward effect on my life. But if they were saying 'it hasn't happened to me or my friends so it can't be common' then I would be very upset indeed.

WilsonFrickett · 09/08/2013 21:42

Op you should look at the I believe her campaign, there's also a Facebook page. And I think if you started a thread anywhere on MN except perhaps on AIBU, I'd like to think you'd be offered support. Thanks for sharing your story - I know you've changed at least one poster's perception and helped another make sense of something that happened to her in the past.

Emilythornesbff · 09/08/2013 21:44

Very good point farumousse about people with alcoholism/ AN often having experienced abuse.

Emilythornesbff · 09/08/2013 21:45

Thanks to all of you sharing so frankly. I do believe it helps others.

Cherriesarelovely · 09/08/2013 21:46

Several of my friends and my friend's 19 year old Dd was gang raped. Absolutely hideous. Of these wonen only 1 reported the rape to the police. I have concluded that rape is fairly common and that the vast majority of people don't report their rapes.

frogspoon · 09/08/2013 21:48

Wilson, you say you would be upset if your friends thought because it hadn't happened to them or their friends, it can't be common. But seeing as they have no idea that this happened to you, what would you like them to think?

Maybe people close to me have been through this. I really hope that they haven't because it is a horrific thing nobody should go through.

Cherriesarelovely · 09/08/2013 21:49

Just to add, people who are sharing their experiences are being very brave xx

AlpacaLunchYoubringyourbooster · 09/08/2013 21:51

Dfanjo I suspect that probably has a lot to do with it. It is trivialised,offered up as entertainment and viewed by the masses.

The content out there is disturbing.

schmee · 09/08/2013 21:54

Petey - you seem to be making the proposition that it can't be true that rape happens a lot, otherwise women would be living in fear of rape. So in making one important point (i.e. that we shouldn't live in fear of rape), you are denying the experience that around one third of women have (being raped or assaulted).

It is possible that women are capable of recognising that rape is something which happens frequently, but deciding to live their lives anyway. I think that was the point of the slutwalk.

Also, agree with other posters that probably you know many more people who have been raped than you are aware of. Only about three people out of the many tens of people I currently count as friends know about my experiences, and those only do because they were there during the immediate aftermath.

NiceTabard · 09/08/2013 22:04

The other point related to Schmee's is that most rapes are carried out by people known to the victim - friends, partners, ex partners, work colleagues and so on. I am not sure how women changing their behaviour would assist with any of that.

The idea that women changing their behaviour will protect them from rape is basic victim blaming.

CailinDana · 09/08/2013 22:08

I was raped while sleeping beside my boyfriend. How could i change my behaviour to stop that? Stop sleeping? Stop having relationships?

MirandaGoshawk · 09/08/2013 22:24

Nobody in my 'circle' knows that I was raped, only a couple of very old friends who I told at the time. I don't want to re-live it or have to try to explain why it was rape & not seduction. So if I was in your 'circle' you wouldn't know. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened to your friends.

CorrineFoxworth · 09/08/2013 22:27

How could the answer to the question why rape happens so frequently be anything but, because there are a lot of rapists?

frogspoon · 09/08/2013 22:30

How could the answer to the question why rape happens so frequently be anything but, because there are a lot of rapists?

Not necessarily, there may be few who get away with it many many times.

WilsonFrickett · 09/08/2013 22:31

frog I would like them to think. Before they opened their mouths to say 'well that's not my experience so it can't be true' I'd like them to think a little bit more deeply about the issue. Not, as some - a few - posters on this they'd have said 'nah, it's not common cos it hasn't happened to me'. Thus negating the experience of millions of women.

NiceTabard · 09/08/2013 22:35

Given the number it must be more than a few, even if each rapist is as prolific as someone like John Worboys.

If it is a small number and they are all repeat offenders then it would be pretty easy to catch them all I'd have thought and that sure aint happening.

I think it is probably more than any of us feel comfortable imagining. Given the sheer quantity of rapes that are happening.

frogspoon · 09/08/2013 22:37

I just find it hard to imagine any of my kind considerate and gentlemanly friends (make sure i get home safe in the dark) could possibly be capable of that.

Also as I said before, I was horrified to find that one friend had sexually abused minors, and even though he pleaded guilty and is in jail, I still can't believe it.

CailinDana · 09/08/2013 22:38

Ime both men and women often have strange ideas about what rape actually is. A poster recently wrote about a very threatening situation in which a very new boyfriend whom she had been kissing dry humped her aggressively. She was frightened so she gave in to sex. To me that is clearly rape but because she took off her own trousers a few posters said she had initiated sex and therefore it wasn't rape. It's beliefs like that that give rapists license to do as they please.

PrettyKitty1986 · 09/08/2013 22:40

I wouldn't personally say it was that common. I have never been raped/sexually assaulted and neither do I know anyone who has. I am aware that not everyone talks about it, but still...99%?

Nearly every single woman you know has actually been raped? I find that...astonishing.

Not related to the op, but - Most rape statistics I read I would initially take with a pinch of salt. Even within this thread there are wildly different statistics being thrown about. I do wonder why some people post statistics when they clearly don't know what they're on about Hmm

NiceTabard · 09/08/2013 22:41

That's the problem frogs isn't it, that you can't tell who is and who isn't, there is no way of telling. As that is such an uncomfortable feeling, and so scary, people tell themselves that there are hardly any out there, and they must have something about them that would tip people off.

Look at that poor bloke in the papers with that woman who was murdered who got strung up by the tabloids because he had crap hair.

Look at all of the men up for violence against women in courts who get told by the judge that they are getting leniency as they are hard-working/law abiding/have a nice family/have a responsible job etc etc etc.

The fact is that most of the time you find out is because he does something to you, and of course at that point it's too late.