I'm not surprised to read this. Any statistics about rape have to be taken with a huge helping of salt, because of all the issues surrounding data collection and self-reporting. However, I have read at least some reasonably reputable sources citing that in over half of all rapes that occur in the US, the victim is male[0].
Even if this is an overstatement, it's clear that the classic "man physically overpowers woman" narrative of rape is false - both because of the gender assumptions and because rape does not always involve physical dominance.
It's kind of sad that sexual assault and rape are oftentimes viewed through the lens of gender-based crimes. In reality, sexual assault and rape have nothing to do with gender, and should be treated as serious problems regardless of the sex and/or gender of both the victim and perpetrator.
By perpetuating a false image of rape/assault, we end up with a broken matched filter[1] for what constitutes rape. As a result, people tell themselves that what they experienced "wasn't really rape" - because the victim is male, or because they were under the influence, or because they were married to the perpetrator, or any other number of reasons. And this is how we end up with victims who stay silent.
[0] This is not the same thing as saying that over half of all rape victims are male!
I am not sure how your [0] can be true. The only scenario I can imagine where it is true, there are a lot of men who are raped repeatedly, but not as many women raped repeatedly, or more individual women victims.
Please clarify what you meant... citation would also be nice.
Even if this is an overstatement, it's clear that the classic "man physically overpowers woman" narrative of rape is false - both because of the gender assumptions and because rape does not always involve physical dominance.
I don't think this is really a classic narrative regarding rape. If anything, a lot of discussion of late has focused explicitly around how that's so often not the case.
It's kind of sad that sexual assault and rape are oftentimes viewed through the lens of gender-based crimes. In reality, sexual assault and rape have nothing to do with gender, and should be treated as serious problems regardless of the sex and/or gender of both the victim and perpetrator.
Sexual assault and rape are almost entirely about gender, because the effects and circumstances surrounding the crime show quite a difference between men and women; there are typically different causes and different issues to face. For example, men have to deal with the fact that they're more likely to be rasped by another man, or that if they're subject to sexual assault by a woman, that they're likely to face a "you're a man, you can't be raped" attitude. These are different challenges from those faced by women.
>men have to deal with the fact that they're more likely to be rasped by another man
Not really.
From a comment below:
One of the studies of the Bureau of Justice data notes that in a certain subset of the data, 46% of the male victims of sexual assault reported a female perpetrator.
54% vs 46% is not much of a difference. And then you have this from the article:
"Women were more likely to be abused by fellow female inmates, and men by guards, and many of those guards were female. For example, of juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, 89 percent were boys reporting abuse by a female staff member."
Surprised that this one didn't get any comment so far.
This is 100% contrary to popular belief. Another point that often surprises people is that most of violence occurs in the family, perpetrated by people that the victim knows extremely well.
I guess that depends where you live. Where I come from (near Montréal), the issue has been talked of a lot and there are posters in colleges and universities. Probably high schools too, but I wouldn't know.
I didn't comment when I saw this thread because I thought "well, that's common knowledge..." Interesting article on an important issue nonetheless.
I'm not downplaying the fact that men get raped. This is an important issue and people should be aware of it. I did upvote the thread.
I personally have at least one male friend who was by any sensible definition raped by a woman, as an adult. There is good reason to believe that this is an extremely unreported type of crime, and the data appears to back it up. I've been talking about the NISVS 2010 study for two years now, and no one believes me when I point out what its surveys show.
[Edit: I see by now a lot of people have commented on this story. What stands out to me is that still, even in the face of the data mentioned in this story, much of the discussion revolves around prison rape with a male perpetrator. One of the points in this story is that even prison rape doesn't tell the most shocking part of the story of male victims of sexual abuse. Paraphrasing from the story: One of the studies of the Bureau of Justice data notes that in a certain subset of the data, 46% of the male victims of sexual assault reported a female perpetrator.
This discussion is so far outside of people's gender norms and assumptions that it becomes hard to have a proper debate without constantly referencing the data. These are currently the best firm data sources we have on this subject, and the narrative should eventually change to reflect the available information. Women can be and sometimes are sexual offenders, and not only towards other women and children].
[2nd edit: Aaaaaaand it's flagged off the front page. Glad I was here two hours ago, or I would have missed this excellent summary of the latest studies in a very interesting branch of sociology. The large majority of HN users should really broaden their horizons a little].
Pretty sure even these statistics are underreported. For example, when in college, I have been molested by women at least twice without consent, and have never reported it -- principally for fear of ridicule from the authorities and fellow students. If you include the question that led to the famous '1 in 4 women are raped in college' statistic (http://aspiringeconomist.com/index.php/2009/09/11/rape-stati...) -- I have been sexually assaulted around 10-15 times.
Colleges have very few or no policies about sexual assaults against men. This is unfortunate.
Men issues go beyond that. Men have shorter life expectancy than women. They have higher morbidity rates. Majority of work-related deaths are men. Unlike breast cancer, that affects 1 out 8 women, prostate cancer is in 90%+ of elderly men. ( But it is less aggressive.) Rates of substance abuse are higher in men. In pretty much every health metrics, men do worse than women.
Not to mention the immense college education, high school graduation, and literacy problems for young men that somehow have managed to not be a national discussion issue.
Once you take into account that women usually friend-zone a man before they've had the chance to have sex and men usually friend-zone a women after they've had sex (from once to many times). This isn't surprising at all. I've certainly been in situations where I've been aggressively prompted to participate in sexual intercourse with a former partner or current partner I was losing sexual interest in. I was never "made to penetrate" because I was explicit in my intent not to participate, but I can completely see how other men put in the same position being pressured to participate in a sexual act in which they have no interest/desire.
Just because two people have had consensual sex at least once, does not mean that both are interested in participating in additional sexual acts.
What's confusing about what I wrote? I've had many conversations about that observation with the sample of the population known as my friends and acquaintances and they generally agree. There exists the possibility that there are samples of the population for which this anecdotal information does not apply. This observation only needs to be valid for some of the general population to support under-reported figures for this type of sexual coercion.
As it stands, your comment is unsubstantiated as to why my comment is why you don't like these kinds of issues on HN. Does my observation make you uncomfortable? Or do you disagree? Or do you consider it to be an overly broad generalization. I'm been on HN for a while and have earned most of my karma from comments (not hitting the front page), and based on past experience, my comment isn't really that out of line. The only thing I see I could have done differently is to put a disclaimer that its possibly that my observation is overly broad and based on many instances of anecdotal observations (n > 50 && n < 100)
The article answers your question. "Stemple began digging through existing surveys and discovered that her hunch was correct. The experience of men and women is 'a lot closer than any of us would expect,' she says. For some kinds of victimization, men and women have roughly equal experiences. Stemple concluded that we need to 'completely rethink our assumptions about sexual victimization,' and especially our fallback model that men are always the perpetrators and women the victims."
Farther along, readers of the article find out, "The final outrage in Stemple and Meyer’s paper involves inmates, who aren’t counted in the general statistics at all. In the last few years, the BJS did two studies in adult prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities. The surveys were excellent because they afforded lots of privacy and asked questions using very specific, informal, and graphic language. ('Did another inmate use physical force to make you give or receive a blow job?') Those surveys turned up the opposite of what we generally think is true. Women were more likely to be abused by fellow female inmates, and men by guards, and many of those guards were female. For example, of juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, 89 percent were boys reporting abuse by a female staff member. In total, inmates reported an astronomical 900,000 incidents of sexual abuse."
The really frustrating thing is that this interviewing technique has been used to help female rape and sexual assault victims report their experiences since the 60s, and there are widespread concerns that not doing so leads to under-reporting, yet researchers in the field have been incredibly hostile to anyone who asks men the same kind of questions.
Maybe, but do they articulate what they mean by the "us," "our," and "we," in the below assertions?
The experience of men and women is 'a lot closer than any of us would expect,' she says.
Stemple concluded that we need to 'completely rethink our assumptions about sexual victimization,' and especially our fallback model that men are always the perpetrators and women the victims."
Those surveys turned up the opposite of what we generally think is true.
That even the points you call out are buried, neither of which answer the question I brought up, sets off my spidey-sense. "What does the author want to be true?"
Well, there's the new legal definition of rape, according to justice.gov, which reads... The new definition of rape is: “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” [1]
The headline said sexual assault, not rape, so presumably they are aware of this definition and chose not to invoke it. But this definition precludes the possibility of men being raped by women who force themselves onto the men.
> But this definition precludes the possibility of men being raped by women who force themselves onto the men.
I'm not so sure about that. It says "penetration...without the consent of the victim" and it doesn't specify that the victim must be penetrated. It defines the act that must happen, and it specifies that it must happen without the consent of the victim. But it doesn't specify if the victim is penetrating or being penetrated.
It does take a careful reading to parse correctly though, so your point largely stands.
As written it reads as though the victim is the one being penetrated, but doesn't explicitly state it. I've always figured that whoever wrote it simply didn't realise that the victim might be the one doing the penetrating and so didn't even think about whether that should be included or excluded in the definition.
No, it doesn't — this legislation was specifically designed to include male-on-male rape:
A person (A) commits an offence if he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis
There's no clause which limits applicability to females.
It's true that there is no offence in the UK of female-on-male rape. That's because the definition of rape in the UK is deliberately quite narrow, and specifically applies only to forcible penetration with a penis. Other sexual assault is defined by e.g. "assault by penetration".
The fact that it took 85 years to make that update to the definition speaks volumes about how much thought, as a people, we've given to male victims. Kind of disgusting really.
In the U.S, jokes are often made about male sexual assaults (look at the movies, for example). Sexual assault is horrible, regardless of age/gender etc. So it's good to have open discussion about it and bring awareness.
That's a trigger word that means different things to different people. To me, it means "someone who advocates that women should have social and political equality with men." Under my definition, I'm a feminist, and I'd be a little surprised if you weren't. What does it mean for you?
That's the issue. "Feminist" and "feminism" alone are too vague to convey any meaningful ideological position. One must elaborate what type or school of feminism they adhere to, in order for a conclusion to be made. Even still, in some cases, it's not enough (e.g. TERFs).
Someone who believes something or another about women's rights, and is statistically more likely to dismiss or suppress any discussion of men's issues.
The problem is we can't talk this "men issues" without being called "anti-feminist." In fact, any attempt to talk about the struggles of being a man is invariable associated with anti-woman rhetoric. It's as if feminists want to have a monopoly on victimhood.
It's an incredibly bizarre situation.
EDIT: The downvotes only further illustrate my point.
EDIT: The downvotes only further illustrate my point.
No, as thoughtful comments to you that preceded my comment in time[1] point out, your statement "In fact, any attempt to talk about the struggles of being a man is invariable associated with anti-woman rhetoric" appears to be factually incorrect, because a woman who appears to be a feminist is the main source interviewed for the article submitted here. A comment that deals more directly with what the submitted article says may perhaps help bring about more thoughtful discussion here, which is always the goal on Hacker News.
This is a bad Hacker News comment, as are several others here. They responded to a substantive article with indignant ideological complaints that were guaranteed to derail the thread, and did.
Part of the problem is that any legitimate "men's issue" attracts misogynists and anti-feminists like moths to a flame, and they discredit the discussion by their association.
This is a near-universal problem with social issues. People tend to remember the angry shouting of the Westboro Baptists and TERFs of the world and forget about the calm, reasoned arguments buried under the rubble.
They don't - the downvotes (none of them mine) are because this is a somewhat dismissive mischaracterisation of the issue.
No reasonable person or group objects to discussion about issues that affect men. What they do object to—quite reasonably—is the often-associated attitude which runs along the lines of "Men suffer from <any problem> too, it's not a feminist thing!", which isn't really helpful.
The idea suggested by this article is that men are actually approximately as likely to suffer from sexual assault as women are. That's a perfectly valid possibility, and it's likely true.
But what's the general goal of a "feminist," if you can use such a broad term? Let's keep it simple, and say that "a feminist's goal is to further the cause of equal rights for women." Given that, why would we expect feminists to be talking about the effect of sexual assault on males? It's not their responsibility to do so, and I'm absolutely certain that most feminists would not object to male campaign groups which highlight the problem of male sexual assault. The problems which affect both genders, even in this area, are actually quite different!
The problem with these discussions is the ease with which one can focus on outspoken minority groups. The vast, VAST majority of feminists are not "anti-male"; that vast majority of men are not anti-feminism. It's easy to get carried away by overemphasising the views of minority groups.
Your comment is ultimately a meta version of that - in truth, there's very little opposition to discussing men's issues, but instead a fair bit of opposition to discarding womens' issues because "men have it bad too."
The trouble is that in a way, feminists talk about the effect of sexual assault on men all the time. Much of the feminist campaigning on sexual assault and rape is based around the claim that they're gendered forms of violence against women that don't generally affect men. Indeed, quite a lot of feminists use the exact 2010 CDC report mentioned in the article as evidence that men don't get raped (usually by not counting men who are "forced to penetrate" despite saying they consider this rape). Yet because feminism is supposedly not about men, anyone who challenges these claims is accused of making everything about men and derailing the discussion away from women's suffering, because "it's not about the men".
Quite a lot of the feminists who do this don't even realise that they're not including many men who meet their definition of rape, simply because the issue was never mentioned by anyone with a wide audience until a few months ago.
Also, despite men's issues not being a part of feminism, quite a few feminists loudly insist that feminism is the real movement helping men, that anyone who disputes this is obviously just out to disparage feminism and not really trying to help men, and that because all men's problems are caused by patriarchy it's unfair to call feminists out for supporting those supposedly patriarchal ideas. So the net result of all this is that most feminists are helping perpetuate the shitty status quo for men whilst having convinced the world that they're actually challenging it. Needless to say this pisses people off.
>Given that, why would we expect feminists to be talking about the effect of sexual assault on males?
Because "feminism fights for men too!" is something we hear all the time.
>It's not their responsibility to do so, and I'm absolutely certain that most feminists would not object to male campaign groups which highlight the problem of male sexual assault.
This is incredibly false. Any feminist will tell you that most rape does not fit the "large stranger overpowers a woman in the streets" scenario. This is what people are talking about when they talk about rape culture.
If that is truly the case, then why do many feminists believe that every man on the street must be treated as a potential rapist?
Let's be clear - the phrase "many feminists believe" is a weasel phrase worthy of being placed alongside Fox News and their infamous "some people say" thing.
You've demonstrated that one woman is so concerned she's going to be attacked that she assumes every man is a rapist. That's a terrible state of affairs, but not for the reasons you think.
Because it's a passive statement meant to cast aspersions on feminism as a whole by associating the movement with these hypothetical feminists you speak of, while at the same time citing no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement. It's a typical tactic used for demagoguery and yellow journalism, allowing the author (you, in this case) to make an inflammatory statement without having to take credit for originating a ridiculous idea that most of the time can only charitably be considered anything but an outright fabrication.
>citing no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement
>outright fabrication
I provided a link to the source. I recommend you review both it and the hundreds of comments agreeing with it. Most major feminist sites picked up on it at the time as well, and it is also listed as a source on the "geek feminism" wiki.
That's not a source demonstrating that many feminists are afraid of being raped. Its a piece of evidence that a woman fears this, and a lot of women agree with her. By conflating their gender with the feminist movement, you're intentionally conflating the two, and implying that non-feminist women are not afraid of being raped, and further that feminism is itself at the root of their fear.
I would never go so far as to claim "feminists want to have a monopoly on victimhood," but talking about these types of issues from a male perspective requires walking a thin that can easily be misconstrued as more 'red pill' ranting.
The author of the study is described as a feminist and specifically says we need to talk about sexual assault as experienced by men. Let's applaud feminism that's aimed at that kind of equality!
Let's not applaud ANY feminism. Would you applaud a chauvinist for being a chauvinist? No, you wouldn't. Do not accept sexism from anyone. I do not consider recognizing a biological and quantifiable difference as sexist.
Next time you read the word feminist, think chauvinist and see if you feel differently... I'm sure you will.
Now, if someone said "respect the author, despite being sexist", I'd support that.
I didn't read this study, but when I was younger I read, "You are going to prison". It pointed out that so many
rapes are carried out in prison. Even twenty years ago, my
friends girlfriend said, 'Well, they deserve it!". My come
back was 'but wendy, most are in there for non violent drug
offenses. friends girlfriend, "Well that's not a legitimate
book anyways--I was written by a ex-con". Well the book
scared me.
For a different perspective of sexuality in a male only environment, I recommend Surprised By Joy, by C. S. Lewis. It begins with his life in boarding school.
Lewis could quite easily have been describing life in prison. I found it astonishing.
Man, I come to HN expecting articles about the latest javascript MVVCVCCMCCV framework, the release log of some marginally different overhyped product, yet another person flaming DHH for expressing his opinion on anything, etc... but always wind up staying for these gender politics articles. This place is like 4chan/g/ without the anime.
... can we please keep this kind of gender politicking off of Hacker News? I mean, I get the cases where it's directly relevant to the software development industry, like the Github debacle, but this sort of thing is purely the domain of MRAs and SJWs and women's studies departments and the like.
The loudest voices in the debate may at times be at the extremes, but the issue is still enormously relevant.
I would say it's especially relevant here, though not necessarily this particular story. The way women are treated online is still very, very much different from the way men are treated. And this has widespread and significant effects on damned near everything. Whether it's the structure and makeup of online communities (like this one) or the acceptance of women's voices in online gaming and tech journalism to the participation of women in hacking/development activities and the encouragement/discouragement they receive to do so, and so on.
Sorry to see you're getting downvoted, I agree with you though. Been here for many, many days and these sort of easy-drama articles have unfortunately become more of the norm over the years. They tend to capture everyone's attention but not really add much value from a strictly hacker/startup perspective.
Best thing you can do is just flag and move on, or log out and set your homepage to /best. FWIW, the founding father has moved on from the site, so what does that tell you about where its been headed?
I am a hacker, and I find this interesting. Changing perceptions on traditional gender roles and issues is very much within the realm of intellectual curiosity. I don't see a problem with this story wrt. the guidelines.
The story was just fine with respect to the guidelines. The thread, unfortunately (and predictably), was not. I share your frustration about that, but I also understand why many users flagged the story—not because it's uninteresting or unimportant, but because HN, or rather a small subset of HN users, can't manage to discuss it without a flamewar.
Even if this is an overstatement, it's clear that the classic "man physically overpowers woman" narrative of rape is false - both because of the gender assumptions and because rape does not always involve physical dominance.
It's kind of sad that sexual assault and rape are oftentimes viewed through the lens of gender-based crimes. In reality, sexual assault and rape have nothing to do with gender, and should be treated as serious problems regardless of the sex and/or gender of both the victim and perpetrator.
By perpetuating a false image of rape/assault, we end up with a broken matched filter[1] for what constitutes rape. As a result, people tell themselves that what they experienced "wasn't really rape" - because the victim is male, or because they were under the influence, or because they were married to the perpetrator, or any other number of reasons. And this is how we end up with victims who stay silent.
[0] This is not the same thing as saying that over half of all rape victims are male!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matched_filter