How does this happen? ***possible triggers***

[MrsTrelis]

I was going to post this in chat, but changed my mind, as I think it might be better here.

This has been on my mind. A while ago someone I used to know when I was a teen/early 20's (I'm late 20's now) was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison. And rightly so. He was part of our 'group' but more on the outer circle if you see what I mean.

Not long after that someone else I used to know, and much better, when I was much younger (14/15), he dated my then best friend, and was older than us was found with inapropriate material on his PC and also sentenced to prison.
An old work colleague was convicted of the same thing.
An old housemate was found guilty of sexual activity with a minor.

I've just seen from some other old friends that someone else I used to hang out with has been sentenced for 12 years for rape.

Is rape happening more? Or is it just being taken more seriously -ie more convictions? Was my mum right and I was in with a 'bad crowd'? Or am I just more aware of the horrific things people do?

I don't want to be a 'there's a Pedophile round every corner' scaremongerer, but I can't find a way of getting my head around this. And how do we as a society challenge this? Because to me it seems there are too many people I have known that don't seem to understand or care that this just isn't acceptable, that it's not right.

I am now very vocal and stand up for what I beleive in and challenge views that don't sit right with me. But I didn't then, and I didn't have the confidence or strength in conviction to do so.

Sorry if this is all a bit too rambly and doesn't make sense, I'm just trying to get it all out of my head.

Don't want to read and run, but won't make a lot of sense right now painkillers

What you've posted makes a lot of sense. I'll come back when I'm more compos mentis if I may?

It does seem like a lot of convictions for a small sample size.

Afaik reports of rape etc are up but this is seen as a 'good thing' as it means women have more faith in the justice system.

We can speculate about whether rape etc rates have actually gone up.

Afaik the conviction rate has reminded quite constant.

Obviously 'new' crimes relating to online porn/grooming will be up because they didn't exist 20 years ago.

I've personally known men who've committed such crimes but have never known anyone who's been to court let alone convicted and imprisoned.

OK this is going to be to the point.

I've found as my eyes have been opened around the issue of male violence/male sexual violence, I notice it much more and I'm less likely to minimise men's behaviour. So it stands out more for me now. I also think that more men than women realise, are violent against women and children.

I know two men, one of whom I was quite close to, who have been convicted of accessing child sexual abuse sites. I know one man who rapes his wife. I know five adult men in their mid to late twenties who slept with 15 year old girls, when they were in positions of power over them - sports related, all of them (and I've changed that figure 3 times whilst writing this because I thought of more). That is one area that certainly used to get minimised and ignored or even encouraged . I think things are better now with DBS checks and other measures being brought in by sports organisations. But all that's before we even get on to the sexual assaults/DV/relationship abuse.

How many of us have had unwarranted arse pinches or breasts touched by men in nightclubs or at parties? It's all on the spectrum of men's entitlement to women's bodies. There was an eye opening thread a few years ago about small sexual assaults (many of which weren't that small). 1 in 5 women have been raped, so it follows that some of the men you know are bound to be doing the raping. It's insiduous.

The way to tackle it is to name the problem i.e. male violence and then tackle it from that premise. But until the problem is named we haven't got a hope.

I don't think rape and other sexual crimes are happening more (although how would we know?) but I do think they're been reported more. It is quite a high conviction rate you know though, I've known men whom I know do this stuff, but they haven't been accused of it, let alone convicted.

Agree with Scallops that until we actually acknowledge what it is, we won't be able to tackle it properly.

OP over the years I have made hundreds of friends and so far the only conviction has been for a speeding ticket. I must be lucky because none of my friends have come forward about rape or sexual abuse. Obviously a lot of people don't talk about it but you have to wonder did I just get lucky? Of all my friends my story of an emotionally abusive ex is so far the most disturbing. In well over 40 years my closest encounter with sexual crime was a friend of my ex who worked in the Sapphire Team in central London, so I heard horror stories and some strange ones although no names were every mentioned. Is it who you hang round with? Is it the peer pressures as you grow up that are different for different sections of society? Hard to say as far as I can tell.

www.womensgrid.org.uk/news/?p=4298

Stats on reports & arrests.

I don't know of anybody I grew up with or went to uni with who has been convicted for any sexual crime. In fact I don't know or know of anybody with a conviction for a sexual crime.

So yes, in some ways I thinknyour mum might have been right about your friends.

But the questions around whether there is increased awareness or increased conviction are still valid.

I don't know anyone with convictions for anything other than minor driving offences. I am not aware of any of my male friends or family members behaving in the way described in the opening post.

I've never been sexually assaulted nor been hit by anyone other than my mother.

I don't mean my mother sexually assaulted me . The hitting was "smacking " for misbehaving.

Thanks for all your replies, and Jackie for the link, I'll have a good look through that later on today.

I think the positive -relative to the situation- is that these men are being caught, prosecuted and convicted, this is at least a feeling of not only are women being believed, but also that by securing a conviction these men are being punished and a message sent. I'm aware of how rare convictions are for rape cases. This dosen't alter the fact that it shouldn't be happening at all, but it is progress on just ignoring it all together.

museumum I don't doubt my mum was right about some of the friends I had. I grew up in quite a poor socioeconomic area also which I think does influence this kind of thing. I left nearly all of these friends and acquaintances behind a good few years ago, and they're no longer people I see, or socialise with.

sausage I feel lucky too, in that I'm sort of ok, and despite having known these people nothing happened to me. But now that I wrote that, it's not actually true, because I was sexually assaulted, though not raped, when I was 16. So I also wonder if that has a bearing on any of this?

This is the first time I've posted here in Feminism, but it won't be the last, and if nothing else I am more motivated to educate myself more not just about what is happening but what I can do to get involved.

I don't think it's helpful to imply that sexual crime is more likely to occur if you are in with the wrong set of friends because it suggests that sexual crime is OK if it is happening to women from a particular socio-economic class and it is also victim blaming (women who aren't clever enough to choose the right sort of friends have only themselves to blame) and also it gives everyone else a false sense of security (the 'my DC won't become drug addicts because they are in with the right middle class set mentality' ).

I, too, have only known one friend to ever be convicted of speeding. However instead of being reassured that everyone is driving to the speed limit, I understand that lots of people nationally are convicted of speeding so even my small experience may be an indicator that lots of people are driving too fast and getting away with it!

If you asked me whether I know lots of people who suffer from sex crime, off the top of my head, I'd say, no, of course not. Then, on thinking about it for a moment, I'd recall the dad who became a volunteer at DCs' primary school but went to prison for sexually abusing his daughter and the two acquaintances of exDH who went to prison for raping a woman whilst at work.

Then, when I think about it a bit more, I'd remember the conversation last week between 18 year old DD and her friend concerning the friend's boss (in his 30s) at her Saturday job and how he regularly grabs her, whirls her around and pinches her bottom. And then I'd get very angry at people who claim never to have been affected by sex crime - because they must be living on a different planet to the one I'm on.

Agree with Scallops and Basil - we need to start naming the problem.

Thank you rosabud for that post. You've articulated why I was feeling so uneasy by the posts that followed mine. This isn't about who you know. This is about the fact it is so pervasive. We know it's so pervasive because initiatives like this are necessary: Project Guardian

I think the fact that campaigns like that and Sapphire and Operatin Yewtree are bringing sexual violence more to the forefront is highlighting some of this more obviously so it seems like there is more about. This can only be a good thing. But none of those campaigns name the problem. They skirt around it. So we are addressing the symptoms, not the cause.

Rosa I have never had my bottom pinched. And that was despite a phase of wearing jeans so tight I had to lie on my back to pull the zip up and often paired with over the knee boots. I have never had my breasts or bottom fondled or groped by anyone who didn't have my prior permission. As far as I know as I've been told by men and women I'm physically attractive.

I don't know any man even at the level of an acquantance who has been convicted of a sexual offence.

This comment is not intended in any way to deny that very bad things happen to very large numbers of womrn and children but your experiences are yours. Mine are mine and I do not live on another planet.

Yes but you are still missing the point. I can you tell that you are missing the point because you mention wearing tight jeans and being attractive. Perhaps men don't pinch your bottom because of that, perhaps they think, because you are attractive and/or confident enough to wear tight clothes then they'd better not mess with you? Perhaps it's easier to pinch the bottom of a less attractive, younger and more vulnerable woman - one who doesn't want to lose her job? Maybe it only happens to women who dye their hair? Or women who wear purple socks?

The point is, it is not OK whoever it is happening to. The second point is, it does not matter what you wear, what your hobbies are, where you live - it could happen to you. The third point is that just because it's never ever happened to you or your DCs or your friends or relatives or neighbours or the lady who walks her dog past your house every day - it is still, according to statistics and lots of anecdotal evidence in everyday life, happening to lots of other women. The fourth point is: so if it's happening to lots and lots of women, how odd is it that none of the women you have eve encountered have ever mentioned anything like that to you?

I do not believe in ghosts and I am quite vocal about that and dismissive of the views of people who do. None of my friends have ever mentioned to me their experiences with the supernatural. I am clever enough to realise that these two facts may well be linked.

No I am not missing the point.

You said And then I'd get very angry at people who claim never to have been affected by sex crime - because they must be living on a different planet to the one I'm on.

I , that is me, myself, I , personally have not been affected by a sex crime. And odd or not none of my close female friends going back decades have ever raised this as a matter which has directly affected them. Why is it so difficult for you to believe?

And I did not in anyway say it was ok for it to happen to other women- but nice bit of reinterpretation there.

Your final paragraph is simply insulting. Nothing I said is denying the reality of sexual crime. Your cleverness doesn't seem terribly obvious from your interpretation of what I said.

I hope you are equally incensed by the head of the CPS's decision not to prosecute Lord Jenner. I'm surprised there's not a thread about that. So very badly handled in so many ways.

You could start that thread, Still? I'm sure you'd get interest.

OP, if you think of the range of connections that we all have (old work colleagues are a group that would number in the hundreds for many), it's not so surprising that you have some convictions in that group. And if a significant minority of women are raped in a lifetime and 85%+ of those are raped by someone they know, it stands to reason that if you know a rape victim, you are quite likely to know her rapist.

I suppose because for me and people I know, there is literally no-one who has not had something happen to them or done to them.

Maybe it's to do with part of the country people live in or something.

I'm in North London and all of my friends have had something - had stuff shouted at them, comments when they were in school uniform, threatening following, being wanked at, flashed, felt up, groped, to more serious sexual assault and rape. The rape is less talked about, and although statistically I must know people who were sexually abused as children, certainly no-one has ever told me about it.

It's just so common that I think many people do find it unbelievable that an entire friendship group of women would have entirely escaped all this. Not that people don't believe you, but it's a bit like someone saying "I've never seen an aeroplane" or "I've never been on a train" it's just so so ingrained in people's fundamental experience of life and as being something inevitable and normal that there's just a total lack of understanding how that can possibly be.

That's how it feels to me anyway.

Also yy to the point that it is nothing to do with being attractive.

Although there are some traits that seem to invite certain types of comment, we have had a thread on here and it does seem that some girls who developed breasts early / had big breasts / blonde or red hair / etc seem to be a bit of a magnet. It happens to everyone though. (Well apart from apparently it doesn't, but enough that "everyone" is a realistic way of describing it).

"And odd or not none of my close female friends going back decades have ever raised this as a matter which has directly affected them. Why is it so difficult for you to believe?"

I think because it comes across that a. this means that some women must be lying as b. it's not as common as everyone makes out and so c. why is there such a fuss. So, while you probably don't mean it like that, that's how it sounds, TB entirely frank.

Oh god sorry for multiple posts!

I also don't know any men who have been arrested of or convicted of sex crimes.

Maybe I am living on a different planet, I can only say what has happened to me and what my friends have said. If you don't want to believe that then that is your choice but it doesn't change the facts in my life. Sorry but I can't change what has happened to me.

Thank you, Whirlpool, for answering that point! Yes it's so difficult to believe that there is a whole friendship group that have never experienced it because, as you say, it is such an ingrained part of life. Even if no one in your friendship group has experienced it, you are still statistically likely to have witnessed it happening in the street to others.

Also, I think that people who answer posts consistently with "I have never experienced or noticed or heard of this particular thing (sex crime/ghosts or whatever) are, by inference, denying the existence of the particular thing. At the very least, it is minimising it. It is certainly the opposite of naming and tackling the problem.

"your experiences are yours. Mine are mine and I do not live on another planet."

Luckily we're not dependent on people's individual experiences to inform us of how widespread the problem is, we have research and data and sites where we can find out and the evidence is out there for anyone who wants to examine it.

I was musing on this assertion that if you've never had a sexual attack happen to you, you've never been affected by sexual crime.

I have a very good friend who has the opinion that women be bitches and she's never had anything bad happen to her in the way of male entitlement regarding her body.

I've never told her I've been raped because I simply don't feel safe to tell her. She has no idea (as far as I know). She's a very dear friend and we talk about everything and anything, but there are things I can't tell her, things I can't share with her or discuss because I don't feel safe to. If she were on this thread, she'd say she doesn't know anyone who has been raped too. She'd say sexual violence doesn't affect her life in any way. But it does. It affects her friendship with me in ways she doesn't know.

Just a thought.