To not see why people are so annoyed...?

[curiousgeorgie]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2709730/Richard-Dawkins-sparks-outrage-Twitter-debate-saying-date-rape-bad-stranger-rape-worse.html

Sorry for the daily mail link, I know some don't like that.

I think I agree with him and I don't think it takes anything away from victims.... Am I wrong?

No matter who rapes you the end result is the same. Pain, shame, anger, trust issues, fear of men, fear of unknown situations, panic attacks, grief

But if my experience was rape I can honestly say I didn't experience any of those beyond being a bit angry and even that didn't last. I definitely did not suffer pain, shame, trust issues, fear of men, fear of unknown situations, panic attacks or grief.

Oh and I used one of my nom-de-plumes earlier but I'm not doing so now.

But that's the point phaedra and lizzie what happened to you both (very sorry to hear) meant what it meant to you.
No one else can define that experience for you and say it was 'worse' or 'not as bad' as someone else's experience.....someone else might have gone through the exact same situation (same purportraitor, same environment etc) but it would have meant something different to them and had a different affect on them. Not better/worse, just different.

That's why using rape as an example in his 'look at me and how clever I am' point actually just made him look stupid.

Some acts of rape are worse than others. That statement, for many many many people, is simple common sense. By denying that, IMO you are downgrading the horrific nature of the worst incidents of rape. Saying that some acts are worse than others is not the same as saying that the non worst acts are fine.

Rape is rape is rape.

Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

Err can you give me a case where rape ISN'T premeditated?
Or do you mean by that that the man hasn't put a plan together 3 days in advance to rape said woman and just happened. Oops sooty about that ....

In the eye of the law, there is some grading though.
So take will carry on heavier sentence if the woman is under 13yo than if an adult for example. Or if the man used a weapon to coerce etc.

However it doesn't say that one rape is worse than the other. It says the circumstances around it are worse.

So, Sliced, you are given a choice:

1. You are having consensual intercourse with your boyfriend. You develop a migraine and ask him to stop. He is very close to orgasm and continues for 10 seconds. He then apologises.
2. You are walking through a park on your own in the dark. A very big and tall man approaches you, and tells you to lie down in the bushes and take your clothes off. You feel frightened and obey him. He then rapes you before running off. AS "rape is rape is rape" I assume that you will find it impossible to choose between these 2 scenarios?

And interestingly it doesn't say that if you know the man, then it's not as bad as if you don't for example. So tape by your date is just as strongly sanctioned as if you had never seen the man before.

I would love to see questions such as 'how was the woman dressed' being unacceptable during a trial too.

How about scenario three? Being gang raped and beaten at the age if 15?

But I don't consider that any more or less of a rape than a girl who's been drugged on a date, or a wife forced by her husband or well any form of rape.

And I think to start grading rape in terms of a scale of how bad it is compared to another form of rape is dangerous territory to be going in to. Also I think it is insulting to victims.

It's almost sort of saying 'Well you shouldn't feel too bad, there are WORSE forms of rape you know'

MostWicked - the experience of being raped in one's sleep by one's partner would not be 'mild', though, would it, to use Dawkins' own terminology? It would still be serious to the victim. Just because it's not as extreme as the example you give, doesn't make it serious.

I did not suggest that that rape was "mild" or "not serious", just that the other rape was clearly more horrific, so all rapes are not equal. All rapes are horrific, but some are more horrific.

I have already said that Dawkins' choice of words was wrong.

And why do people need the details of a rape to be extreme or horrific in order to justify it as rape?
I have said repeatedly throughout this thread that all rapes are horrific.
Penetration without consent is rape. No justification is needed. But aggravating factors make some rapes worse.

PhaedraIsMyName, I completely understand that. My exh would have sex with me without proper consent. I didn't actively object, but I didn't co-operate either, I just put up with it until it was over. It was in the final weeks of me gathering together the courage to leave. The final time was quite rough, but I knew in my head that that would be the last time, so I didn't really care that much. That could be considered rape, but I didn't feel like I had been raped, just pissed off with myself for marrying him in the first place and staying when things got bad. There is no way I could ever consider that experience to be equal to a more violent rape and despite it fitting the definition, I don't consider that I was raped.

But theherb..... sliced just said that rape was rape.
So the answer to your question would be that both scenarios are rape.

Exactly the reason I didn't report my boyfriend.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you Lizzie. You explain that this kind of occurrence was a product of the attitudes of the 70s and I think that's why it's so important to challenge people who are still purveying these attitudes, such as Dawkins. If he is allowed to say'date rape' isn't as bad as stranger rape, he is encouraging the belief that the kind of crime committed against you is more acceptable. It isn't. It shouldn't have happened to you and it shouldn't be something any other woman has to put up with either. So we need to say that all rape is bad.

Yes, rape can be accompanied by other crimes such as battery or abduction and then the victim endures more in addition to the rape. But rape is always wrong and we can't allow anyone to perpetuate the myth that it's in some way more acceptable if the rapist is a friend, boyfriend or husband of the victim. Let's not go back to the 70s, let's say it was outrageous then and it still is now.

To me it's so obvious I think I must have missed something.

In a classic Dawkins stranger rape, a man holds a knife to a woman's throat, drags her into an alley, rips her clothes from her and forces his penis into her vagina.

In a classic Dawkins date rape, a man doesn't stop when his chattel a woman tells him to, and forces his penis into her vagina.

Actually the rape part is exactly the same - he forces his penis into her vagina. What differs between the two episodes is not the rape but the surrounding assault (or not), threats (or not), GBH (or not), etc.

Rape is rape is rape. Sometimes rape is accompanied by other violent or manipulative/threatening acts - we can rank those, perhaps, from zero to attempted murder, but by doing so we are not ranking the rape itself.

I think that you have to judge what the man does as one overall crime, not several separate crimes. Otherwise I think that you actually risk devaluing the crime of rape.
Hitting someone in a pub brawl should not be judged in the same way as hitting someone to force them onto the ground so that you can rape them.

Why he is he talking about this?
I agree with oxford bags on page 1

Agreed mrshathaway
And he did not compare rapes where differing degrees or forms of violence or coercion were used.

He compared scenarios with different perpetrators. Date rape is not necessarily non violent. And as I said upthread even it were you would then be comparing degrees of violence not degrees of rape.

Presumably being such a self professed great thinker he should be prepared to examine that flaw in his argument.

It might be possible to say that some sexual assaults are more vicious, or more prolonged, but that in no way depends on the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. That is a redherring.

in the example given above of the 12 year old gang raped. Is it less terrible if she is gang raped by people she knows (as in fact does happen in some gang culture 'ceremonies'). Same victim. Same offence. But different perpetrators. Of course it isn't!!

Yes, also agree with theherbofdeath
Oh. Horrid. Need to leave the thread. Too upsetting.

Abso Thank you. Phaedra and Lizzie are the same person. I suppose it was rape but I don't think one can ignore the circumstances surrounding it.

I agree that to ignore the circumstanced does feel like "downgrading the horrific nature of the worst incidents of rape. Saying that some acts are worse than others is not the same as saying that the non worst acts are fine"

I'd feel a fraud saying that I had suffered as much as say the women in the situations I mentioned.

This is going to offend many of you but and I'm not setting out to do that but to explain my own, personal reaction to what happened to me.

As an analogy my situation seemed more like finding the CD player has been stolen from my car, whereas others are finding everything you own has been stolen from your house which has also been trashed and defecated in. I'd feel a fraud saying one is as bad as the other.

theherb again that misses the comparison he made. Hitting a friend in a pub brawl is bad, hitting a stranger is worse. Would be the analogous (nonsensical) comparison.

The only difference that I can think of between stranger rape and rape where the rapist is not a stranger is that the latter is far more likely to happen.

It's so much more complex than just sex

As a Gynae nurse, I completely agree with this statement. Women are often raped, not by a penis, but by fingers, bottles, pieces of wood, ornaments, toys or anything else the rapist can get hold of at the time. And this happens whether they know their victim or not.

phaedra sorry I didn't realise you were the same poster

God this thread is just horrible, reading all the shitty things that people have been through. I guess trying to define 'degrees' of shitness regarding rape is such a personal thing to each person.

I think that's what pisses me off the most....that this douchebag of a man - someone who claims to be a great 'thinker' - seems to have created (yet more) controversy with his thoughtlessness just for the sake of attention, with no thought for those it may affect.

Wanker.

OP probably hid this thread a long time ago...

I disagree, I think most people do rate assault from a stranger as worse than from a known person. I don't know why. Even the media reporting is different.

Child snatched & killed by a stranger!

is much scarier than

Child taken & killed by her father!

Or,

My son stole £300 from me! Is not as bad as "Someone burgled my house & stole £300!"

I guess it's to do with measuring how likely that even is to happen to us, and most of us think we can filter out the bad guys from our lives so the familiar type of villain isn't so freaky (probably most of us can filter most of the time).

Coz of course there's grading; including the vulnerability of the victim, whether the culprit went to extra lengths to get to them (breaking into a home as opposed to grabbing someone off the streets) and if they suffered in additional ways.

I would be upset to have 300 pounds stolen

I would be upset to be burgled.

I would be really, really hurt and upset if one of my children stole 300 pounds from me. As they would be stealing more than money

I don't think it's really the rape that is being compared. Rape is rape.

But if you were jumped on on a dark winter's night by someone wielding a knife who you had never met, who might mutiliate you, or kill you, who threatened to kill you if you didn't do what he wanted.

I would def find that that had more and longer lasting influences on my life such as the fear of going out at night, fear of travelling on my own. Than if a bloke I had been out with a few times decided he was going to rape me because he knew I wouldn't agree willingly.

It would have a big effect on my life but not as big an effect imo.