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[Sheb]

Montague, do you really think banning the sale of assault weapons and large clips would be a drastic attack on the rights of Americans? I mean, when some stuff is made with the express purpose of killing people, and is largely used to kill people (and has almost no other legitimate use except shooting at a firing range) doesn't it seems logical to ban it sales, or at least tightly control it?

[Truean]

I'm a practitioner rather than an academic and view field practice as generally superior to any study

No, actually, peer reviewed studies are better to base things off of than anecdotal evidence.  I'm not even saying that sexual gratification doesn't have a part in it, but rapists by and large are driven by other things as well.  This is why I am rebutting Virex's assertion that rapists are 'normal dudes'.  Even in studies designed to determine this very question, it's been shown that while both rapists and non-rapists are pleased by normal consensual sex, rapists typically respond more to scenes of rape than non-rapists.  Ergo, there are other elements at play.

I can respect that argument. I really can. I like the theory behind empiricism and the intention is wonderful. I gather you're saying peer review has merit because it allows replication by others and has several controls to try and preserve empirical validity. <--- I will 110% agree with you that it has merit, but hopefully you'll excuse me if I have a different point of view. It's the age old "Empiricist v. Rationalist," model.

If I were to speak in more scientific terms, then I'd say that I use "case studies," of many individuals, rather than statistical models based upon a study with a large N published in a peer reviewed journal. These undoubtedly have value. As for case studies, won't you concede that actually talking with these people in a confidential, open 1 on 1 environment provides valuable data too? Now, let's be clear, the data I gather from my "case studies" of any or several individuals I've dealt with only applies to those individuals rather than establishing a general rule, but I'm not really trying to establish a general rule. I'm trying to represent him in court, so for my purposes, it works. Just as my methods produce only a model of the individual defendant before me, an empiricist's equations and statistics produce only a "general trend" or an equation of data with a statistically significant formula of some data points. Concerning each of the individual participants in the study, how well this reflects upon them, depends upon how far away they are from said model (which should be a bell curve but those can be skewed in the sample in question and be one humped or two, etc).

One major point though, I'd rather have an individual case study tailored to each and every defendant than a bunch of studies. I can't deal with hypotheticals or abstractions. One size fits all, or tailor made...?

[Capntastic]

Rape is being revealed by study to be less about sex itself and more about anger, feelings of inadequacy, and power over someone else.  It's a constellation of psycho-sexual frustration, and Virex saying that rapists are 'just normal dudes' is a really uninformed and sort of inexcusable thing to say.

Edit:  Here's Virex's quote from a few pages back: 

One of the main thing people are always forgetting is that rapists are normal men, not some rabid savages that need education.

Normal dudes cam suffer from anger, feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness. Your and Virex' statements are not dichotomic in any way.

Rape isn't normal.  Taking out your anger, feelings of inadequacy, and powerlessness, or even desire for sexual gratification out on someone else, against their consent, is not normal. Again, there is a different mode of cognition prevalent amongst rapists involved that in many cases presents itself alongside actual mental illness.

[Frumple]

I'm kind of wondering if the powerlessness/control thing would partially explain some of the higher male rape rate.  There's a lot more social pressure on men to be powerful and have their shit together (mastery of their domain, whatever that is) than there is on women...

Ehn... while that's probably, as you say, part of the explanation, the increase in male rape is pretty much directly due to the absolute shit-poor environment of th'US's prison system. Female rape rates in our prisons are higher than outside them, as well, from what I understand.

Now, mind, the prison environment probably kicks all that rot into high gear, but the primary cause for the increase has been the environment engendered by the rampaging human rights violation that is our prison system.

And yeah, re: Guns: I'm kinda' sorry about kicking that derail/discussion into gear. I don't exactly want guns to be banned (nevermind that's been pretty strongly proven to reduce violent crime ♪), I just want people coming in for a concealed weapons permit (or a gun license at all, really) to have to prove they can pass a fucking multiple choice test -- preferably one that can be passed by answering the same thing to all the questions -- at the very least. I really, really, don't think that's too much to ask. Maybe my run in with the vetting system was particularly lenient or something, I'unno, but considering the very-much-serious responsibility of gun ownership, shit like what I ran into shouldn't be flying.

Final point, re: !SCIENCE!, yeah, True, the ideal -- and peer reviewed -- study in the social science fields involves both statistical and field work, both raw numbers and as-many-anecdotes (on the ground interaction, case studies, etc.) as possible (given funding, scope of study, etc.). There's not really a 'versus' going on there if the scientists involved are doing it right.

[Deadmeat1471]

Rape is being revealed by study to be less about sex itself and more about anger, feelings of inadequacy, and power over someone else.  It's a constellation of psycho-sexual frustration, and Virex saying that rapists are 'just normal dudes' is a really uninformed and sort of inexcusable thing to say.

Edit:  Here's Virex's quote from a few pages back: 

One of the main thing people are always forgetting is that rapists are normal men, not some rabid savages that need education.

Normal dudes cam suffer from anger, feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness. Your and Virex' statements are not dichotomic in any way.

Then they should stop playing league of legends.

[Virex]

That wasn't exactly what I meant with that line. I meant normal in the sense that they have been brought up in largely the same way as you or me and had the same education. I was arguing that in most cases, education isn't going to work because rapists don't have a different education in the first place. (Note that education may help with unintended sexual assault, such indecent touching or exposure, but even then the largest gain is probably in changing social norms)


Labeling someone abnormal because she's not neurotypical is sketchy at best, so I avoided including that in my reasoning. For example, the given studies, as far as I know, don't establish a neurological profile that's uniquely correlated with rape tendencies; it does establish a correlation but there are lots of people that have those characteristics but do not commit sexual crimes.

[Capntastic]

One major point though, I'd rather have an individual case study tailored to each and every defendant than a bunch of studies. I can't deal with hypotheticals or abstractions. One size fits all, or tailor made...?

The reason anecdotal evidence doesn't work is that bias inevitably sinks in, through any number of ways.  People are notoriously rational, and the reason studies are dependable is because they seek to remove bias.  So while in your experience, you haven't noticed much aggression based sexual assault, or whatever, It's impossible that your sample group is skewed, you're hitting confirmation bias, or you're not looking for the specific signs. 

This isn't a slight against you or your profession, it's just the reason why "in my experience, children tend to pay for candy in change" isn't a reliable statement of fact.  If, as a cashier, I have three kids pay in change in one day, it's going to cement in my mind that kids are annoying and pay with gross sticky change.  I'm going to, in my own brain, without thinking, lower the relevance of the hundreds of times kids pay with crisp clean bills.  If called to testify about kids paying with change, my own personal bias is going to completely override the truth of the situation.

[Vector]

Sorry, Frumple, I meant "number of male rapists, as opposed to the number of female rapists."  I wasn't talking about victimization numbers.

[Capntastic]

That wasn't exactly what I meant with that line. I meant normal in the sense that they have been brought up in largely the same way as you or me and had the same education. I was arguing that in most cases, education isn't going to work because rapists don't have a different education in the first place.

My original point is that as a culture we need to be prepared to talk to our kids about not assaulting people just as much as we need to be prepared to tell our kids to take precaution.

And, to build on that, we need to stop stigmatizing therapy and mental illness, so that people who need help don't feel completely isolated, fighting against something that could benefit them greatly and prevent them from harming themselves and others.

[Virex]

My original point is that as a culture we need to be prepared to talk to our kids about not assaulting people just as much as we need to be prepared to tell our kids to take precaution.

True, but the largest gain here is not in rape prevention (as that typically requires one to willfully ignore some very clear sings), but in preventing the 'less severe' cases of sexual crimes such as inappropriate touching or harassment.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And, to build on that, we need to stop stigmatizing therapy and mental illness, so that people who need help don't feel completely isolated, fighting against something that could benefit them greatly and prevent them from harming themselves and others.

Yeah, that's never going to happen. I don't think there's ever been a civilization where being perceived as weak or in need of help isn't stigmatized.

[Leafsnail]

Look at what is happening in Syria. IIRC Syria has a mostly disarmed population. One of the reasons that a well armed population is important is to resist the tyranny of their own government.

One counterexample would be Tunisia, which has the least armed population in the world but which managed to overthrow its leader very quickly.  And has had democratic elections.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, Tunisia's success was less due to their people's effectiveness and more due to Ben Ali being smart enough to see what was coming and cut his losses early. It could have easily ended up like Libya and Syria if he had been more stubborn and shortsighted. 

[Capntastic]

.
And, to build on that, we need to stop stigmatizing therapy and mental illness, so that people who need help don't feel completely isolated, fighting against something that could benefit them greatly and prevent them from harming themselves and others.

Yeah, that's never going to happen. I don't think there's ever been a civilization where being perceived as weak or in need of help isn't stigmatized.

"Hasn't yet happened" doesn't mean impossible, nor does it mean it's not a goal wholly worthy of being sought out.

[Virex]

Look at what is happening in Syria. IIRC Syria has a mostly disarmed population. One of the reasons that a well armed population is important is to resist the tyranny of their own government.

One counterexample would be Tunisia, which has the least armed population in the world but which managed to overthrow its leader very quickly.  And has had democratic elections.

As opposed to Jemen, which has the largest amount of guns per capita of any country that has a central government competent enough to keep track of that. Large parts of it are under the de facto control of local warlords and although they managed to get their president to run, it's unlikely that the nearly feudal structure of the local governments is going to change any time soon.