If you were raped would you report it?

[darleneconnor]

A topical question.

I didn't in the past because I was in denial.

For the sake of my privacy I still wouldn't now. It'd make me feel so guilty leaving someone to go free and maybe do it again but psychologically I coudln't cope with a court case and all that goes with it.

Women do NOT have a responsibility to report rape.

Rape victims have no responsibility to respond to rape the way anyone else says they should.

We live in a society where it is basically legal to rape women - most of us don't report it when we're raped and when we do, we're not believed or treated as if it's partly our fault. We have a 94% chance of not getting justice and being branded as liars and we now have the added anxiety of being charged with wasting police time if we withdraw charges because we can't face being humiliated in court, or can't get a conviction because juries are so desperate to let rapists walk free. How can we possibly have any responsibility to report in that climate?

This thread has sickened and scared me so much. I've always known the convictions were low but to here the struggles to even be believed are horrifing.

I agree with what EvilEyeButterPie posted Mon 08-Nov-10 23:18:50, everyone has one of these stories to tell whether you realise it or not. Looking back on my life I now see that the time I lost my virginity wasn't my choice. I had been in bed with my then boyfriend kissing, I said no and pushed him away but he went ahead anyway- I just thought I shouln't have led him on. Or there's the time I was drunk in a club and a stranger came up to me and started groping me, gods know how far that would have gone if I hadn't got away and stood by my friends.

I'm truely terrified for my DN, and any future children I have.

I wouldn;t, I don't think.
First time it happened to me was by a man I worked with, when I was 17. We were on a staff night and had been kissing all night, everyone knew I liked him...later on he pushed me into an alleyway and raped me anally. I was a virgin, hadn't gone any further than kissing before.
I told people but no one believed me. That confused me as well and I felt that maybe I should have been clearer that I didn't want to do it? (Although I had said no, and I did struggle). I became known as the girl who lied, everyone in the town seemed to know. I still had to work shifts alone with him as well.

The only thing that made it 'better' was a few years later, I was with a few male friends who I had also worked with at that time and one of them made a joke about it. I was gutted and upon seeing this another man I worked with piped up, 'what he did to OnceUponA was rape and we all know it'.
Made me feel better to know that there was someone who believed me.

I was also sexually assaulted at Uni, attempted rape but I managed to get away. Was by a guy I lived with. No one believed me then either because he and I had been such close friends before.

There is a tendency to disbelieve the victim, and I wonder why this is.

What a profoundly sad and depressing thread . I'd like to think I would report it, but having read some of these responses I'm not so sure now. I started reading Lucky by Alice Sebold, but found it so harrowing I couldn't finish it. She is amazing though.

My sister was a juror on a rape case a few months ago. The woman had invited the man, who she sort of knew, home. She had agreed to foreplay but said "no" when he tried to go further. He raped her anyway. He was found not guilty.

The defence, and some of the jurors agreed, said that as his first language wasn't English he may not have understood "no". As my sister pointed out to the jurors, when he had first gone into her flat he had asked whether he could smoke and been told "no" so he clearly did understand the word.

My sister couldn't sleep for a while because she felt that she could have done more to convince the others and also because she is convinced he will do it again.

This thread makes me so sad and really angry but, knowing what this woman went through, I don't think it's a black and white answer.

I wouldn't was raped by strangers when I was 14 and didn't even tell anyone till I was 21 and had a breakdown.

Even now I see the accusing looks as I have had depression and people jump to conclusions on my mental health if I have a bad day and the doctor put my dizzy spells (due to low blood pressure) down to my previous depression saying I was attention seeking.

Going to the police would be 10 times worse and with such low success rates I wouldn't want to put myself through it.

You also have to consider your family they would be open to abuse if the courts decided you were lying and it is a lot for children to go through- their mum being raped, then abuse as people defend the rapist and if you don't get a conviction could cause serious problems between you, tour children, the community etc...

It is terrible to see so many people feel the same as me and seeing so many people who have been raped shows we are being let down by the police and justice system.

Agree eldritch what a profoundly sad and depressing thread.

I am pretty good kickboxer so would make it hard for the man but should I get raped I absolutely would report it.

Yes, without question.

i hope i would have the courage to, & to do so asap. my hubby has been accused of an offence (not rape) that allegedly occurred several years ago, before i met him. If the accuser had said something earlier, i would possibly 1) never have met him (2)not have been pregnant when the accusation was made (when i found out, i thought its not a good idea to become pregnant with this going on & was waiting for my cycle to start so i could go on the pill again, but i was already pregnant), so now, if he's found guilty, he will lose his job, probably not work again, probably go to jail, lose reputation, friends, relationship with his child from previous marriage, miss out on his new daughter (personally i believe he is innocent & he swears he is), i will lose my home as can't keep up repayments, & payment protection won't cover it i'm sure, so will have to move to a cheaper area with a 6 week old baby, & wouldn't want to put someone else in asimilar position, hence hoping i would report it ASAP.

I was raped once and violently sexually assaulted by a gang of boys before I was even 15. I didn't report it then and wouldn't now having just gone through a domestic violence case where I posted complaints about both the police and social services treatment of me. Both services treated me as a perpetrator of a crime as I had defended myself and the ss even threatened to take my child away if I had the temerity to be beaten up again. The media have made UK a haven for men who hate women with equal rights and use violence to get their own way. Every word we speak about gender violence is put into "italics" to emphasise this is just what we say, not what actually happened. We are branded guilty until we prove ourselves innocent and the men in the "justice" system keep it that way whilst wringing their hands in fake concern at the total lack of action on this. 100,000 rapes a year and 600 convictions - the figures speak for themselves really.

vickiw1 that is exactly how the system works. A woman's word isn't worth much and if she is a victim it is worth even less. This is for all cases not just rape.

No. Rape is effectively legal so I don't see the point really.

For me it would depend on how ambiguous the circumstances were. For example, if it was a stranger / violence involved etc then probably yes I would.

If it was a boyfriend/spouse/date rape or any situation where my saying 'no' could be in doubt then I probably wouldn't put myself through it.

I am sure I would report it, the bastard would get off scot free, and then I would have to take justice into my own hands at some ater date and finish him off, ending up incarcerated myself. That is how UK justice works, no?

Actually DH would probably see to the finishing off for me, thinking about it. There are very many protective and kind blokes out there, we need to hang onto that.

I didn't and very much doubt I would if it happened again.

I did and I would again. Mine did not get to court and I endured a lot of pain by reporting but me standing and saying what you did to me was wrong and knowing he was scared that he would be charged made me feel like I had stood up to him and took some power back. But I totally understand why you wouldn't want to.

Wow i really didnt expect so many replies to this. Ive tallied up the respinses. The numbers might be a bit out because it was hrd to quantify some of the responses. There were 73 replies to the original q. Only 14 said they would report it and 3 of those said they wouldnt take it to trial. There were 29 maybes, .22 probably nots and17 nos. The %were 19%,27%,30% and.23% respectively. Of peopke who said they were raped 32 (63%) didnt report it vs 12 (27%) who did.

Sorry for typos, have done this on phone.

I believe that on some university campuses in America, they keep a list. I am not sure exactly how it works but this seems to be a reasonable system for catching serial acquaintance rapists (strangers seem more likely to be reported anyway at the moment):

Women can anonymously (or semi anonymously - see below) report a man who has assaulted them - no one doubts their word, no proof is asked for but they can leave an account if they wish. If the same name appears on the list more than, say, three times then the police can investigate further and the women can be contacted, in complete confidence, by the organiser of the list (if they have chosen to leave contact details for this purpose alone) to see if they want to bring a case together. The police are not told the women's names unless they have specifically been contacted and consented. If the women have not left details and/or do not want to take it further even as a group then the police could go and talk to the man anyway which may make him think twice about repeating his behaviour. Should we be doing this in the UK?

I go cold imagining my naive, innocent, sweet DDs at university in a few years time, open to being sexually assaulted by any male student/lecturer/janitor who has discovered he can get away with it whenever and with whomever he fancies by simply saying she had had a drink and asked him for rough sex.

I feel for you all. And understand. In the meantime i would not encourage my DDs to report a rape. Nor would I go the vigilante route...your friends/OPs/you are merely likely to end up in prison thus making life worse.

Gosh thanks for working out the stats darlene! They're interesting as the "vibe" reading the thread is that most people said no they wouldn't, but in fact that's not the real answer IYSWIM.

flamegrilled did your attacker get charged / convicted? I think it's great that you felt able to report and that it made you feel a bit better about it IYSWIM. That's how it should always be.

Oh, the university list thing obviously only works in a small community, like a university, but it seems to me that young single women living alone (as you do at Uni) are especially vulnerable and this could be a good place to start.

Well I think that's the sort of thing they should be doing notplato, I can't understand why it doesn't happen already TBH.

No it was my boyfriend and I was aged 15 it happened a few times in the space of a month and at first I was in shock and then I discovered I was pg I left it to late because I wanted to decide and the marks and bruises were gone so no forensic evidence sadly if it happened again I would try to go to the police quicker so he was not charged but I feel I stood up to him regardless and if he ever does it again I will have no problems going forward and giving evidence.

He was also over age but I was advised against pursuing so they just put it on record I think.

I don't know how to say how impressive what you did was (reporting him) without sounding patronising.

The stories of people reporting and being believed and treated well, should be the norm, not the exception.