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Rape is not a gendered or directional crime. Half of all rape victims are male. 40% of rapists are female. Rape is not a crime that men commit upon women. It is a crime that people commit upon other people. I didn’t just make up these numbers, but it is important to get some background before presenting the source.
So why is there this perception that rape is something that men do to women? This is simple to answer, but more complex to explain. We have very bad definitions of rape. Rape is being forced into non-consensual sex [dictionary.com]. When definitions vary from this we run into definition problems. The long standing legal definition of rape used by the FBI from 1927 till 2012 was
The longstanding, narrow definition of forcible rape, first established in 1927, is “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” It thus included only forcible male penile penetration of a female vagina and excluded oral and anal penetration; rape of males; penetration of the vagina and anus with an object or body part other than the penis; rape of females by females; and non-forcible rape.[FBI]
This definition of rape is extraordinarily problematic, as the quote points out. It defines rape as something that a man does to a woman. Under this definition it is impossible for a man to be the victim of rape or a woman to be a rapist. This is a very bad definition of rape, but it still informs much of our discussion about rape today.
Before we continue there is a very important fact that needs to be covered. The mechanic of sex. Having a good understanding of what is “sex” is very important if we are to distinguish forced to have sex from forced to eat peas or forced to clean your own room. For the vast majority of heterosexual sex the base mechanic is Man penetrates and woman is penetrated. I do find it odd that I need to be so simplistic and blunt, but I really do. In most sex the penis penetrates the vagina. A description of what men do during sex is penetrate. A description of what women do is be penetrated.
More important than the understanding of the mechanic of sex is the very simple observation that this mechanic does not change if the sex is non-consensual. If the man is the rapist, the victim is “Penetrated by force”. If the woman is the rapist, the victim is “Forced to penetrate”. Both of these are descriptions of rape. Both of these are non-consensual sex. Rape includes “Forced to Penetrate” and “Penetrated by force”.
Why did I make such a big deal of that? Because that is the foundation problem of our current definitions of “rape” The FBI changed the definition it uses for rape in 2012. This is what it changed to.
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.[FBI]
Do you see the problem with this definition? It only includes “penetrated by force”, not “forced to penetrate”. This is not a definition of rape or a description of non-consensual sex. It is a description of how a man rapes a woman. Despite this flaw this definition isn’t only used by the FBI, but many international organizations and most research on the topic of rape. If you don’t see it, the definition in the study is more clear.
So lets look at that study I mentioned.
Click to access NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
Before we look at the numbers, it is important that we look at the definitions. Is this study using “non-consensual sex” as it’s understanding of rape or “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.”
Rape is defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent. Rape is separated into three types, completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, and completed alcohol or drug facilitated penetration[pg 18]
Being made to penetrate someone else includes times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent
For female rape victims, 98.1% reported only male perpetrators.
a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%)
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Why is there such a huge discrepancy between lifetime and 12 month prevalence? 5 million men raped (forced to penetrate) and 21 million women raped as opposed to the same number in the 12 month period?
I don’t have a definitive answer for this. I expect that it is a problem with self reporting. Because men are told that it’s not rape, that they “got lucky”, men over time convince themselves that it was consensual, that they really did want it. Clearly there are problem numbers. 25% of male victimization happened in 2009? There is very clearly a reporting/recording error somewhere.
This may be one reason. “Results showed that the relative status of women at each site predicted significant differences in levels of sexual victimization for men, in that the greater the status of women, the higher the level of forced sex against men.” Source: the Hines study at http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf
If anything this suggests the rate of females raping males IS INCREASING as time passes and women gain more status.
Increasing I can believe, that 20% of all rapes of men happened in a single year I can’t. If the rate of increase that implies had continued from the date of the study we really would be living in a rape culture where the average man is raped 3 or 4 times a day. This isn’t remotely close to reality.
Your methodology is flawed, plain and simple. Since this study was not one of perpetrators, but one of victims, there is no way to effectively reverse the numbers. You are making a very bold, definitive statement based on assumptions and faulty methodology. You’re ignoring lifetime numbers which are not 50/50, while using the lifetime numbers of perpetrators to calculate the number of perpetrators of the past year. It’s incredibly hypocritical to have a tagline that says, “the poisonous language of feminism” when you’re using this blog to make unproven assertions in this way.
While it’s important to discuss female on male rape (and female on female rape), making unsubstantiated claims like this only weakens your cause.
I will not even begin to deny that my methods are flawed. The methods are very flawed, but so are the methods of the study. Do you really think that 20% of all victimization of men happened in 2009? There is very clearly a flaw in the data. Do you agree with the definitions used that exclude male victimization?
I’m not making unsubstantiated claims. There is very real substance to my claims. There are flaws, but everything everywhere at all times is flawed. Perfect information does not exist.
The only big flaw in my analysis is that it goes against 40 years of feminist indoctrination. The root claim is that men have problems, not that men are the problem. Women not being exclusively innocent victims and men soulless aggressors goes against the propaganda you have been fed your entire life.
I would love to have the funding to properly research and properly document and properly study female perpetrators and male victims. I do not. So I make the best conclusions I can with the data that is available to me.
There is NO flaw in the math. The author is going on the official figures provided.
If what the report says is true AND the author’s definition of rape is true (ie male being forced to penetrate is rape- which sounds pretty reasonable to me) then the author’s figures are correct.
i am however dubious the there are ‘blanks’ on the report for forced penetration of males ie… male on male rape. Either those figures were bundled in with the ‘forced to penetrate’ crowd (which seems to me likely as it would suit the narrative that ‘men don’t get raped that much hey relax take a chill pill’) OR they weren’t collected.
both of which are non satisfactory.
Any more word or clarification on these figures i’d really be interested in knowing?
ps to the person above who said, “….this study was not one of perpetrators, but one of victims, there is no way to effectively reverse the numbers”
pray do tell me a better way to find out what percentage of a population have been raped and who by?? you seem to suggest we ask the perps?? the PERPS….ie the ones who have 1- actually been caught 2-Actually been convicted 3- You’ll need to find them… ALL OF THEM as asking 1000 rapists how many people they have each raped CANNOT THEN BE EXTRAPOLATED TO THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF A COUNTRY.
THE ONLY WAY you can find out with any degree of certainty what % of population has been raped is by asking a large random sample of the population have they been raped.
There are no flaws in the MATH, but there are potentially very big flaws in my assumptions. Everything has flaws, once you stop admitting that there are flaws you stray into the territory of divine truths. Trying to enforce divine truths gives us horrors ranging from young earth creationists to feminism to terrorism.
There are flaws in my assessment. The real question for anyone that wants to question my assessment isn’t if flaws exist, but if they can produce data and analysis that is less flawed.
If you look at the “lifetime” data, there are no blanks in the “rape” category. This is the category for some male on male rape. This is why the CDC claims only 1 in78 men are raped. The numbers in the “past 12 months” data for male victimization are so small as to be an unreliable indicator of rate of incidents. The numbers are not included elsewhere. We see the same thing with women forced to penetrate.
The CDC looked at victimization, not perpetration. This is potentially a very real flaw in my assumptions. Assuming that rapists are rapists regardless of gender is a reasonable assumption, but it may be wrong. The study didn’t look at rapists, so can not confirm or deny this assumption. Female rapists may be much more prolific in their crimes. In this case there are far fewer female rapists that do much more raping. Female rapists may be much less prolific. In this case there are far more females rapists that individually commit fewer rapes. That rapists are rapists is an assumption I’ve made without proof one way or the other. With out data to challenge the assumption, it is a fair and reasonable assumption. It is an assumption and potentially flawed.
What we hold to be true is NEVER the whole truth. We can not know the whole truth. What we hold to be true is what comes closets to the objective truth. The theory of gravity isn’t just unproven. It has been proven false. We still hold the theory of gravity to be true because it is closer to the truth than any other explanation for why things fall down. This is true for my analysis as well. It is not the whole truth. It is just closer to the truth than what came before it.
Interesting analysis, thanks. What interests me, beyond pure numbers, is the effect that sexual violence have on each gender and it’s symptoms. because, as some circles are advocating the “rape culture” definition, it would be very interesting to see the actual effect of all acts that are now grouped under “sexual violence”. I’ll try find something and publish it on my site. and thanks again.
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Hey! I absolutely agree with you that made to penetrate should be part of the rape definition, AND the rape percentage calculation. There is a huge flaw in your statement “40% of the rapists are women”, though. You’ve calculated this based on 100 rapes of females and 100 rapes of men, but the ratio isn’t 1:1 as you suggest.
If we combine the life time victims of “raped” and “forced to penetrate”, and compare that to life time victims of “rape” with females the ratio is about 1 out of 6 according to this survey and 1 out of 8 in most others. (This is not the only study that lists forced to penetrate, and a lot of them include this in the “rape” number).
As the life time numbers are those who add up with other surveys, and are consistent. I really think it is these that should be put as foundation for such a claim.
The CDC study is consistent with other studies. The lifetime numbers are consistent with other studies lifetime numbers and the last year numbers are consistent with other studies last year numbers. I think that the numbers from “Last year” are both more accurate and a better predictor of NEXT year. If you have the gender break downs of perps from on the Last Year group I would prefere to use them, but they where not published.
Wait, out of the 100 men you chose, 79 of them were raped by women? Do you have the sources for this information?
I am only asking this because in the link you provided, it said “male rape victims and male victims of non-contact unwanted sexual experiences reported predominantly male perpetrators. Nearly half of stalking victimizations against males were also perpetrated by males.”
I think the information you are asking about is on page 24 of the study linked in the post (this is page 33 of the pdf).
“For three of the other
forms of sexual violence, a majority
of male victims reported only
female perpetrators: being made to
penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion
(83.6%), and unwanted sexual
contact (53.1%).”
You should take a course in statistics before trying to wade into interpreting stats. You’ve used “weighted” data, for one thing, to suggest that “men and women are raped at the same rate.” You clearly don’t understand what weighted data is. Your claims are woefully ignorant and misleading.
My degree required several courses in statistics. I know how to properly assign weights to normalize data and create accurate statistics.
But none of this is needed for my interpretation of the CDC’s numbers. in 2009 1.27 million men where “forced to penetrate” and 1.27 million women where “penetrated by force”. These are numbers directly off of the report. If there is a problem with these numbers bring it up with the CDC. These are not my interpretation and extrapolation from the raw numbers. These are the numbers published by the CDC.
Firstly, you’re comparing data from two different columns. From the columns you’re using, 21,840,000 women were raped and 5,451,000 men were made to penetrate. As well, you’ve taken figures from the weighted data column. As a lot more women were sexually assaulted, the data is weighted in order to compare the vastly different numbers. If you took any courses in stats, you clearly were not paying attention and it’s a travesty if the teacher’s gave you passing grades. You are misleading people with your invalid claims.
Yes the figures are from weighted data columns. These columns are not weighted to compare vastly different rates but weighted to make the sample more representative of the general population. It takes no further weighing of the data to pull the numbers from the report.
If you look at the pic I conveniently provided of the table I’m referring to my numbers are coming from the past 12 months column. The numbers are circled and everything. In the past 12 months (data from the year 2009) 1.27 million men where forced to engage in unwanted sex and 1.27 million women where forced to engage in unwanted sex. This is 1.1% of men and 1.1% of women. Look at the number’s I’ve circled. These are the numbers I’m using. These are weighted numbers. But they are weighted to be representative of the general population, not to compare rates between men and women.
Now where you almost have a point is in that they didn’t publish any numbers for perpetration based on the last 12 months numbers. Both the lifetime numbers and the past 12 months numbers are weighted and normalized to be representative of the general population as a whole. I’ve made the assumption that the rates of pepetration are consistent between the data sets. I’ve repetedly stated this assumption both in the original post and in the comments. Since the number from both data sets are weighted to represent the general population and we don’t have perp data for the past 12 months I’m assuming that these rates are consistent.
So in the 12 month data set both men and women are forced to engage in sex at almost exactly the same rate. Applying the only perp data to this data set gives us an estimation of 40% of rapists are women.
Now there are some assumption’s I’ve made, these are very reasonable and sound assumptions. The data for perpetration is mismatched between columns that are both representative samples of the general population. Pointing this out ad nausium doesn’t make it not the best information available. If you can link where the CDC published an addendum or something to this study with the perpetrator information for the past 12 months, I would be happy to use that. If not then this is the best information available to me.
“From the columns you’re using, 21,840,000 women were raped and 5,451,000 men were made to penetrate.” – and whatever pretended to be a discussion here is ended.
If you need to differentiate between “being raped” and “being made to penetrate”, whatever else you have to say can be safely written off as intentional misleading.
I am comparing “Forced to have sex” to “Forced to have sex”. “Forced to have sex” includes both “Penetrated by force” and “Forced to penetrate”.
If you think “Forced to have sex” is only bad when it happens to women by men I would love to see you justification for excluding half the people “Forced to have sex”
I have no problem with the new FBI definition of rape. It says that (oral, vaginal, or anal) penetration is occurring without the consent of the victim. If you establish that the male in the female/male rape scenario is the victim, there is still penetration occurring without HIS consent..
In other words they’re saying, “Yo, somebody put something in someone without some person giving the go-ahead.” Since they didn’t specify who the victim is (penetrator or penetratee), they can apply this to all persons.
Well if it was interpreted that way, you would be correct.
However the CDC definition of “rape” is remarkably similar, it could have the same interpretation, but clearly doesn’t. It clearly doesn’t because they have a different category for “forced to penetrate” for a different form of penetration without consent that they don’t consider “rape”.
I doubt that your interpretation of the new FBI definition is the interpretation actually used.
I am just here to nitpick your language, but i kind of find the statement that “A description of what men do during sex is penetrate. A description of what women do is be penetrated.” problematic. Women are (ideally) fully autonomous creatures being fully able to actively participate in sex, What men do is penetrate but what women do is envelop.
I agree 100%. If I was writing the report, I would have used that language. “Penetrated by force” and “Enveloped by force”. I however did not contribute at all in any way to the official report published by the CDC. Because “Penetrated by force” and “Forced to penetrate” is the language used in the report I mirrored that language to minimize confusion.
For our next truth revealing – can we please, please, PLEASE do a study on how many man have been FALSELY ACCUSED or threatened to be falsely accused of RAPE?
Almost every other man I’ve ever spoken to has had, in some minor or major way, been falsely accused of rape, yet we’re told it’s “miniscule”.
Bullshit.
Let the truth be heard!
I would love to find a study that systematically studies this. I know of none and I can’t do that kind of work on my own.
There is a real issue with definitions on “False Rape Accusations”. How you define the problem is going to have a very real impact on it’s prevalence. If you are talking about intentionally false malice accusations reported to the police intended to punish the accused, these are very rare.
When you get into morning after regret “rape” talked about with friends (and this can and does destroy men) You are looking at a massive number of men. But getting actual numbers for women that gossiped about rapes that never happened, but they think the rape did happen, is just not a number we can get.
Your math and the conclusions drawn based on the data are incredibly flawed. I realize this was posted last year, so… Just checking—you do know this by now, right?
My math isn’t flawed. My conclusions are not flawed. I did make some assumptions that could be flawed. But the math is very simple and the conclusions are very solid based upon my assumptions. Now if you think the assumption’s I’ve made are flawed, I would like to see evidence of that.
My assumptions are Rapists are rapists regardless of gender. Do you have evidence showing that female rapists have very different patterns of predation than male rapists? If not, this is a very sound assumption.
I’ve assumed that that demographics for rapists are consistent across the “Lifetime” and “Past 12 months” data sets. If you have the demographics for rapists for the “Past 12 months” data set I would love to have the numbers. They where not published in the report. Consistant demographics for rapists is a sound assumption unless you have better data to present.
So yes, there are flaws. Everything everywhere at all times is with out exception flawed. It’s not a question of if flaws exist or have the potential to exist, but if you can provide data or analysis that is less flawed.
“Do you have evidence showing that female rapists have very different patterns of predation than male rapists? If not, this is a very sound assumption.”
It isn’t, though. If you don’t know, you don’t know. Without anything to back it up, assuming that women and men rape at the same rate is just as unjustifiable as assuming that one gender rapes 10, 20, 100 times as often as the other. We simply cannot know from this data.
“I’ve assumed that that demographics for rapists are consistent across the “Lifetime” and “Past 12 months” data sets.”
Can I ask why you used the “Past 12 months” data instead of the “Lifetime” to begin with? I would think that the “Lifetime” would be more accurate. Bigger sample size. But is there any reason you thought the “Past 12 months” data would be more accurate?
As for the mathematical errors— Have you read the CDC’s response to this article? This will probably be more thorough in explaining than I will:
Yes I have seen the CDC response. Read “Less than 20 living women have been raped” on this blog if you want my thoughts on that. Also, if you care to note, I’m the 2nd commenter on the link you posted.
You almost have a point that the assumption that rapists are rapists is potentially flawed. I don’t substantially edit posts once posted, but I really should change it to “40% of rapes are committed by women”
And Yea, a valid reasonable question. I do have good reason to say “Past 12 months” is more accurate than “Lifetime”. The same exact people answered the questions for “Past 12 months” and “Lifetime”. The sample for “Lifetime” is the exact same sample as “Past 12 months”. The EXACT SAME SAMPLE. Peoples memories of the past 12 months are much more accurate than their memories of 20, 30 or 60 years ago. There is much less time to rewrite history in their own minds. Also “Past 12 months” is a much better predictor of “Next 12 months”. Since the goal of this research, the goal of advocacy and activism is to reduce the incidents of rape in the “Next 12 months”, the “Past 12 months” is a much better indicate of current patterns.
Your post seems to ignore men who are penetrated (by 93.3% only male perpetrators). I guess that is because there were no 12 month numbers for them. In the Lifetime data, that adds another 29% to the number of rapes perpetrated against men, which would translate to another 367,479 to the extrapolated number of men raped. Now we are not given a number for “only women”, but lets say that all of these rapes that were not “only men”, were only women (probably not, but lets do it so we can have some sort of numbers). This adds 27 male perpetrators to your pool & 2 women. So now we have 229 rapes, 146 by men & 82 by women. That leaves us with 67% male and 33% female perpetrators of the rapes extrapolated in that way (I don’t really think it’s a particularly valid way, but it is trying to draw some conclusion from the numbers as presented).
I wonder why the numbers were too small to extrapolate for men being raped in the past 12 months? Since there were 7,421 men interviewed, and assuming that the ratio held, 0.3% of them should have been raped according to their definition, which is 25 (over their threshold for inclusion). I guess because this is built up by adding incidents from 3 different categories, each of which probably had numbers too small to be included (ie. fewer than 20 respondents). Obviously, a similar mismatch between the 12 month and lifetime data for forced to penetrate also could apply here, but my sense would be that it would be much harder to “forget” or rationalize being forcibly penetrated, and that culturally, these always would have been recognised as rapes (if not legally). That of course call into question the legitimacy of extrapolating the 12 month numbers from the lifetime ratio, but what can you do. Demonstrably some men are raped (penetrated by force) each year, overwhelmingly by other males (at least 93.3%) and we have to account for their experiences when trying to estimate the proportion of sexual assaults perpetrated by women vs. men.
Now as pointed out in the response linked to above, the original study did not include incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized individuals, in which you would expect to see more same-sex rapists (among the inmates in a single-sex correctional facility, anyway – I guess mixed sex rapes could occur with correctional or other staff or in a mixed sex health care institution). Although, I guess some of the incidents recorded in the study could be incidents that occurred while the victim was institutionalised in the past – do you know if these were excluded? I haven’t been able to see that addressed in the description of the survey Perhaps they should have included institutionalised individuals in the proportion that they occur relative to the general population.
None of this lessens the shock that I feel to hear that an estimated 1.1% (1.27 million, ffs) of men were forced to penetrate in the last year. It is hard for me to get my head around it (as a woman). Aren’t there mechanical impediments to that? (Sorry if that sounds flippant, but I’m reeling here & it is what first comes to mind). Obviously, if that is happening at that rate (and even the lifetime rate is surprising to me – and I accept you reasoning as to why men would be less likely to report past incidents vs. more recent ones in the survey), then it will mean that a lot of women (and some men) are making it happen. So, arguing whether it should be 40% of rapes perpetrated by women vs. 33% is trivial beside getting our (collective) heads around the finding that 1.1% of men were forced to penetrate in 2010. Holy crap, that’s a lot of men forced to have sex against their will in one year. Someone should tell somebody.
I found a column that disabuses me of the myth that I referred to in my comment: http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2014/09/11/the-flesh-is-weak-on-the-erection-equals-consent-rape-myth/
First, let me say thank you. I have only had one other valid criticism. That being based on the numbers I can say “40% of rapes are committed by women” not “40% of rapists are women”.
I don’t have a calculator handy to double check your math, but your point of not including the male victims penetrated by force is very notably valid. (And that 40% Vs 33% is trivial when compared against the common claim of 1%) While I will defend my 40% claim because of non-reporting in the past 12 months column, this is a valid criticism.
To answer some of your question. The CDC did not include people in institutional settings (like prison). There sample sets are for the general population and normalized to be representative of the general population. As best as I can tell all incidents from institutional settings where excluded, even for people that are no longer locked up.
Including prison rape would really skew the numbers for both number of male victims and number of male rapists. Best guesses have more rapes happening in prison than in the general population. And these are mostly male on male rapes. Though it is worth while to point out that last year there was a study done on juvenile facilities that found female prison guards raping the children they had locked in cages was pandemic.
There aren’t really mechanical impediments to “forced to penetrate”. Though this is a common enough thought. It was proven and agreed that physical arousal is not consent. There are about 50 ways to force an erection from rubbing it to penis pumps.
Lastly someone should tell somebody. This is why I wrote a blog post about it. I’m trying to tell people.
This explains it rather clearly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phM3XLHp0CY
So by my personal meta study on “rape” I’ll define rape as “Forced to penetrate” and exclude “Penetrated by force”. By this fabricated definition of rape, so few women have been raped as to make the numbers unreportable.
If we are allowed to just use what ever “definitions” we want for reporting rape it is just as fair to say that so few women have been raped as to make the number indeterminate/insignificant as to say that only 1 in 71 males have been raped in their lifetimes.
Is this an interpretation for my meta study that you can agree with? That so few women have been raped that the number is not reportable and insignificant?
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I was raped while being tied up and gagged by a woman years ago a woman can get away with it
I would just like to know what references you used exactly for your statistics. Exact location preferred
Reading is a powerful thing. Try it some time. The information is all in the post. There is a link to the CDC study. The tables I took a screen shot of for you are on page 18 and 19 (28 and 29 of the pdf). This is also clearly stated in the post.
Any other information that I’ve already said that needs to be reitterated for you?