Weeks after the original protest SlutWalks are still in the news for better and for worse. Better, because the movement has spread to enough countries you could almost call it global; worse, because many individuals still seem hell bent on blaming victims.
I love the irony when writers try to dismiss the culture of victime blaming while the comments on their article fill with material from the absurd to the downright misogynistic. My favourite example: a comparison of wearing “slutty” clothes to an individual, whose bleeding, jumping into a shark tank full of the hungry beasts. Women are stupid and men are uncontrollable beasts. Ever feel like society is screaming at you not to look behind the curtain?
So let’s discuss some of the myths being thrown around. That rape is about some type of irrepressible sexual desire, rather than a crime of power perpetrated against those considered weak.
First we need to consider this whole notion of rape occurs when some woman is attacked by a criminal in a darkened alley. Although that tends to be the type that make the headlines, it’s actually the minority. Fifty-five percent of women who are sexually assaulted know their attacker. Further more a large percentage of these cases involve alcohol, generally to the point of abuse, on behalf of both parties. We’ll get to more on that in a later post.
So, what does make a victim?
There is a continuing theme that rape happens to “attractive” or “hot” women. There is nothing I can find that supports this assumption. When it comes to violence, authorities and researchers just don’t seem to be interested in “hot or not” statistics.
The only support I’ve seen consistently dragged out on this matter is that young women make up the largest portion of sexual assault victims. Which is true. Women under 25 actually make up 52% of all sexual assault victims. If we assume that all women under 25 are drop dead gorgeous and immediately turn dog ugly the moment they turn 25, I guess this makes some kind of sense. What this completely ignores however is young people, in general, are far more likely to be victims of all violent crime in general. In fact, 49% of all violent crime will involve victims in the small twelve year range between 12 and 24 years of age. This trend is even stronger when you consider those from 0 – 25 actually end up being under one quarter of the population.
Younger populations have high risk factors when it comes to being victims of crime. They are more likely to been seen as weak, are generally poorer, and more likely to engage in “party culture”.* They are also more likely to commit crimes. Sorry to link New York Times (article limit and all that) but they have a fantastic info-graphic of homicides in New York City. Thirty-seven percent of victims were under 25, 46% of victims were under 25. Further more it seems almost no one over 45 either gets killed or finds it worth killing, representing only 16% and 9% of the statistics overall.
Being young does raise your risk of sexual assault, it also raises your risk to be robbed or murdered. Crime generally happens to the young.
So is there any other aspect that victims of sexual assault hold in common? Unfortunately the biggest victims of sexual assault are those we consider vulnerable. Those who are considered to have disabilities are 66% more likely to be the victim of a sexual assault. Those with cognitive disabilities are the ones most like to be a victim of crime. Quite simply because not only are they unable to defend themselves from an attack but their ability to give evidence and testimony are likely to be strongly compromised. Again those with disabilities are more likely to be victims of all violent crime. Rapists, like all other perpetrators of crime, attack those who are least able to help themselves, not on a sexy scale.
How else can we show that rape rally isn’t about sex? How about the fact that most male victims of rape are actually attacked by heterosexual males?
In prison and military cultures rape is generally committed by heterosexual men on other heterosexual men. Victims are chosen because they are considered low-ranking, often being younger and new additions to the existing dynamic. Rape is used as a weapon of humiliation in order to show dominance. Unfortunately getting stats for rapes in prisons and the military is even harder to pin down than it is in the general population, not only due to a reluctance to report but reluctance on behalf of authorities to take complaints seriously. Figures for the rate of sexual assault in prison seem to range anywhere from 4% to 20%.
Another reason why the whole, rape is committed by lustful men, rings false is the amount of sexual assault that occurs among sex workers.
In 1998, sex workers who were working on the street were interviewed in San Francisco; 68% reported being the victim of sexual assault. Of those victims 46% were raped by customers. While those involved in selling sex are often dressed provocatively, they are also offering sex. To put it crudely. If rape were a need or desire for sex, why would you rape someone who has already given, or is willing, to give you sex?
I think this also puts a dent in the atrocious theory that many rapists are just sad sack losers who can’t get laid, but this post is already far too long.
Next post: How we can actually work to stop sexual assault rather than trite finger pointing at low-cut blouses.
