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[BlitzDungeoneer]

And then it constitutes as rape, no matter who you're talking to, I should hope.

[Dutchling]

I'm just gonna go grab some popcorn and be an even bigger person.

[Bauglir]

Talkin' about rape here, so there's your trigger warning (though I'm already lost in a sea of posts doing the same thing)

Oh, for fuck's sake. The number of people who prefer to define a problem out of existence is baffling. "Well, look, that number's obviously too high, but it's a lot lower if we decide that no action can be rape unless it fits the gut-level mental image conjured by the word!" Heaven forbid you have to examine your understanding of the universe. My God, you might have to revise a definition! And it's sure as shit way more important than people who have to live with anything ranging from a minor fuckup to a life-altering assault.

I don't give a fuck what "rape" is any more. I'm just fucking tired of people trying to redefine their actions, or actions they imagine they'd like to take, out of the realm of even possibly being associated with the word. I'm tired of people working, with alarming dedication, toward a world in which they don't have to think about their own behavior because evil is "something other people do". Why the fuck is it so hard to say, "Well, maybe this could be rape, so I guess I'd better think about the specific context instead of just reassuring myself that it's fine."

[i2amroy]

Honestly, it just really pisses me off. I don't have anybody to talk to about my problems. So what the fuck am I supposed to do if at the one place where I can talk about them I'm just ignored?

Make a topic in Life Advice. I've never seen a thread there go without replies for too long, and they're guaranteed to be about you.

This right here. This is less a "I desperately need to talk about something" thread and more of a "get it off of your chest" thread. Yes, we do often address posted problems with advice, but this is not the "I need advice about my particular problem right now" area, that's over in the Life Advice board (which is why it is titled "Life advice". In addition if a problem is particularly difficult we might not have very good advice to give you instantly, which can cause the topic to drift.

Note on rape statistics, but the UN's study on the number of police recorded rape offenses in 2012 (as illustrated by this graph) puts the US at 26.6 recorded offenses per 100,000 people. A similar chart just focusing on the US that was published by the Bureau of Justice put the rate in 2003 at .5 people per 1000 (50 per 100,000), and included a definite downwards trend at the end point of their data (which was over a decade ago).

Even if we assume that only 1 in 10 rape offenses actually get recorded (so 266 offenses per 100,000 people), we're still almost 62 times lower than the given number of "1 in 6". It makes me kinda skeptical of that figure when I give the data a safety factor of an order of magnitude to account for observation error and it's still short by yet another order of magnitude.

It might also be worthwhile to note that the numbers in the US have been in a pretty steady decrease since ~1992, one that (if the UN statistics are correct) has continued on to this day, the number reported in 2013 to the UN is almost half of the number reported by the Justice Bureau in 2003.

[Bohandas]

Talkin' about rape here, so there's your trigger warning (though I'm already lost in a sea of posts doing the same thing)

Oh, for fuck's sake. The number of people who prefer to define a problem out of existence is baffling. "Well, look, that number's obviously too high, but it's a lot lower if we decide that no action can be rape unless it fits the gut-level mental image conjured by the word!" Heaven forbid you have to examine your understanding of the universe. My God, you might have to revise a definition! And it's sure as shit way more important than people who have to live with anything ranging from a minor fuckup to a life-altering assault.

I don't give a fuck what "rape" is any more. I'm just fucking tired of people trying to redefine their actions, or actions they imagine they'd like to take, out of the realm of even possibly being associated with the word. I'm tired of people working, with alarming dedication, toward a world in which they don't have to think about their own behavior because evil is "something other people do". Why the fuck is it so hard to say, "Well, maybe this could be rape, so I guess I'd better think about the specific context instead of just reassuring myself that it's fine."

Well, what about the converse?, Redefining actions into it until it becomes such a broad term that it loses all meaning.

[Bauglir]

-snip-

I'm not sure if you're angry with someone here, or if it's just something you're saying whilst we're on the topic.

I'm specifically angry with Bohandas, sorry. Or, really, anybody whose argument boils down to "I don't think that's rape because it doesn't fit my predetermined mental image of the crime." Which is as thoughtful a response as declaring it a totally different crime to rob a bank electronically, because it didn't involve blowing up a vault door.

My God! Somebody thinks to cite a respectable source of data to oppose another respectable source of data, instead of going with their gut intuition and rejecting the numbers as "Eh, I don't buy it, my gut probably knows better."

You, I like.

Well, what about the converse?, Redefining actions into it until it becomes such a broad term that it loses all meaning.

Yeah, but nobody's actually doing that. It's only a valid argument if your metaphorical boots are so thoroughly greased that all surfaces count as slippery slopes to you.

[Bauglir]

That's totally fair. Sorry, by the way - each of those responses was a completely separate train of thought, jammed into one by the frequency of ninjas. I wasn't actually intending to shame you in particular by suddenly turning around to praise somebody else.

[Rolan7]

@Bauglir
Sexual harassment is still bad, and can be absolutely horrible.  I just don't see why rape can't continue to be a specific, particularly awful subcategory, as it always has, and as most people understand the word.  When I hear statistics like "1 in 3 women will be raped in college", that tells me nothing anymore, because the definition (according to some vocal people) is so stretched.  Completely distracting from the *actual real horrible* issue of people getting drugged or coerced into sex, even on college campuses.

I'm specifically angry with Bohandas, sorry. Or, really, anybody whose argument boils down to "I don't think that's rape because it doesn't fit my predetermined mental image of the crime." Which is as thoughtful a response as declaring it a totally different crime to rob a bank electronically, because it didn't involve blowing up a vault door.

A lot of what we're discussing isn't rape by the dictionary or popular understanding.  But there's a perfectly useful term already, sexual harassment.  Demanding a change in definition is what demands a reason, not sticking with what everyone knows.

The equivalent is like redefining "robbery" to mean all acts of theft.  Since theft is bad, so we should call it by a more violent term.  It's pointless and causes people to think "He was robbed, but he probably just misplaced a pencil or something".

[Bohandas]

-snip-

I'm not sure if you're angry with someone here, or if it's just something you're saying whilst we're on the topic.

I'm specifically angry with Bohandas, sorry. Or, really, anybody whose argument boils down to "I don't think that's rape because it doesn't fit my predetermined mental image of the crime."

Well, what about the converse?, Redefining actions into it until it becomes such a broad term that it loses all meaning.

Yeah, but nobody's actually doing that. It's only a valid argument if your metaphorical boots are so thoroughly greased that all surfaces count as slippery slopes to you.

Rape- The crime, typically committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with the offender against their will

Source: Oxford Dictionaries (emphasis mine)
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/rape

[Rolan7]

OK, I feel I have to take objection to that simply because of the first part. That just... no. Just no.

That it's a crime?   
Well, it does qualify with "typically".  Which is probably true.  But yeah... I don't like that either.  Doesn't need to be there.

[Orange Wizard]

Bloody hell. What have I started?

I'm sorry, everyone.

...

this graph)

... does that mean bigger numbers are better (i.e. less rape) or smaller numbers? I'm bad at graphs.

[scrdest]

If I understand it correctly, it's the number of cases normalized to population (because of course a country of 10 billion is going to get statistically more cases than a country of a 1000, even if the latter is Somalia-tier shithole.

[Orange Wizard]

Giving Sweden the most cases and Indonesia the fewest? That doesn't sound right.

[hops]

I don't understand people who complain about being lonely and then push me off when I try to be friend with them.

Like, dude, have you ever considered that might be the reason why you're lonely?!?

[scrdest]

Giving Sweden the most cases and Indonesia the fewest? That doesn't sound right.

Reporting, I'd suspect. The graph explicitly counts the cases that get reported to the police. Sweden, pushing for equality, would have higher rates as they'd be more likely to get reported, whereas in other countries people will keep it in the family or what have you.

Either way, the surprising thing is that, with Sweden so high, Canada is so low and US is in between. Quite peculiar.