Quote from: Ashley4214 on February 18, 2010, 01:35:09 AM
The only statistics that exist indicate that women are rapists and men are raped between 1 and 10 percent of the time. However much under reporting there may be, I think it's just silly to argue that a male isn't the perpetrator and a female isn't the victim at least a majority of the time.

You can't rule everything with such an incessant degree of political correctness.

You asked why the assumption was being made, my argument is that it's because it is by a long way the most common variation of the crime, and I stand by that.

Acting like rape is always a hetero affair carried out by men against women just because other forms of rape are less common is not valid, just like acting like people are always straight and gender-normative is not valid. It is not valid because it makes things worse for minority victims. Belittling or waving away this fact with the tar of "political correctness" is silly and irrelevant. If I wanted to be "politically correct," I wouldn't spend my time drawing people vomiting blood and violating each other. This is about creating an inclusive social environment for marginalized people, not about feeling warm and fuzzy or patting ourselves on the back.

Women rape women. Women rape men. Men rape men. It happens all the time. It may be less common than male-on-female rape, but frankly, I don't care. Acting like women are the only victims and men the only perpetrators marginalizes those for whom that is not the case.

Hey y'all.

Prison.

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on February 18, 2010, 01:45:28 AM
Acting like rape is always a hetero affair carried out by men against women just because other forms of rape are less common is not valid, just like acting like people are always straight and gender-normative is not valid. It is not valid because it makes things worse for minority victims. Belittling or waving away this fact with the tar of "political correctness" is silly and irrelevant. If I wanted to be "politically correct," I wouldn't spend my time drawing people vomiting blood and violating each other. This is about creating an inclusive social environment for marginalized people, not about feeling warm and fuzzy or patting ourselves on the back.

Women rape women. Women rape men. Men rape men. It happens all the time. It may be less common than male-on-female rape, but frankly, I don't care. Acting like women are the only victims and men the only perpetrators marginalizes those for whom that is not the case.

When speaking to someone I assume they're heterosexual too until they indicate otherwise.

People say stuff (as opposed to just omitting stuff) that upsets me because of their generalizations and ignorance all the time. But I'd rather be upset and have a level of support proportional to the frequency of the subject than have to be hyper careful with everything I say to preempt the risk that I might offend somebody.

I don't expect society or individuals to self censor themselves out of hypersensitivity, including when it offends or upsets me. It's just something you have to live with if you want to be free to say what you want and not have to over think every single thing you say.

Quote from: Ashley4214 on February 18, 2010, 02:02:15 AM
When speaking to someone I assume they're heterosexual too until they indicate otherwise.

People say stuff that upset me because of their generalizations all the time. But I'd rather be upset and have a level of support proportional to the frequency of the subject than have to be hyper careful with everything I say to preempt the risk that I might offend somebody.

When speaking to someone, I assume I don't know what their sexuality is until they inform me, and guess what? I'm right.
It's not about not offending people, it is, as I have said multiple times, about creating a supportive environment for people to deal with what happened to them and get help.

This conversation is going nowhere. Sigh...

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on February 18, 2010, 02:07:10 AM
When speaking to someone, I assume I don't know what their sexuality is until they inform me, and guess what? I'm right.
It's not about not offending people, it is, as I have said multiple times, about creating a supportive environment for people to deal with what happened to them and get help.

This conversation is going nowhere. Sigh...

You're right it's not, because we don't agree and there probably isn't a definitively right answer.

This isn't a formal publication, it's a forum thread. It's just individuals giving their opinions. For that reason, I think it's perfectly acceptable for people to make generalizations and assumptions as you would in any discussion.

What would you prefer people do?

The majority of the content of this thread isn't applicably gender specific in any case. It just makes the assumption that male perpetrators and female victims is much more common, which it is.

This topic has dealt mostly with the issue of an unknown assaillant attcking a lone person, which is overwhelmingly male against female, and is also a very small portion of the rapes that actually occur. Of the rest, it's definitely mostly men against women, but not nearly to the overwhelming extent that the attacker-lurking-in-the-shadows type of attack is.

Alyssa, good points. I didn't mean to suggest that male-on-female rapes are a minority phenomenon, but rather that there are a good deal of rapes that do not fit that profile.