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You're an idiot. It's not only feasible to obtain statistical data on unreported crimes, but it's a fairly common practice, and very easy to do. These don't quite jibe with the OP but they're close.

https://www.rainn.org/statisti...

As far as "imagining it happening so frequently" 3,292 women are murdered each year in the US(2010). They were each someone's daughter. At least 321,500 people are victims of rape and sexual assault each year, without even including those under 12 years old.

Further, the criminal justice system already errs on the side of protecting the innocent, and technology and investigative and forensic techniques are continually improving. While you are completely entitled to your opinion, just staying (in essence) "no system is 100% perfect and therefore we must never, ever, execute ANY of the guilty" (mostly based on a couple of incredibly rare historical cases) is too narrow a view IMHO.

On the final point though, I mostly agree. It is ludicrous for it to cost that much to house prisoners (especially with a lot of that money going to for-profit entities). That's the equivalent of advanced-college-degree level compensation, per prisoner. For that kind of money, we could at the very least, put some SERIOUS effort in to rehabilitation, which doesn't seem to be happening. Unfortunately, there is quite often an overlap between anti-death-penalty folks and those claiming prisoners are treated "too poorly" and should never be expected to do any actual productive work for their room and board...

Since you clearly were unable to grasp the logical implications of his statements ...

Don't be impertinent boy.

First, I don't see anyone claiming that actual rape doesn't happen, except sarcastically while committing logical fallacies ...

So discounting the permitted sarcasm, let's see what I wrote in the comment to which you are responding:

... he sought to trivialise rape accusations by comparison to witch accusations ... claiming that rape accusations are largely fictional and motivated by "character assassination." He wasn't arguing, was he, that we should give accusations of rape the very serious consideration they deserve.

Was he? You think none of this can logically be implied form his text?

... because it is so terrible, judicial systems often fail to hold evidence against accused rapists to the same standard as evidence of other crime

Bullshit. Or should I say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!

Let me repeat that again so it sinks in.

Repeat it till you are blue in the face ... a falsehood repeated is rendered no more true by repetition.

In no other felony case is the testimony of one witness, often emotionally involved with the accused and possibly with ulterior motives, with no other material evidence, sufficient for a felony conviction, but for rape it is.

That's pure delusion. I put it to you that you are personally more concerned that you might be the victim of a false accusation of rape than a victim or rape itself and that this is colouring your thinking (to the detriment of your reason).

Firstly it is obvious nonsense that rape is the only crime in which the situation might arise that a single eye-witness account forms the only direct evidence. How can you believe such a thing?!

More to the point, rape cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute successfully. Notoriously! Precisely because they so often rely on a single eye-witness who is emotionally involved. Duh!

That is the reason that so many feminist legal scholars call for a change to the usual burden of proof (such as exist only in your fevered imagination). For the record, I'm strongly opposed to these kinds of proposals. About the only variation from normal curial procedure I would entertain is a bar on the accused cross-examining the victim (but this might be extended to assault cases generally).

Because of this coincidence of the modern judiciary, rape is the ideal crime to disrupt the lives of political dissidents. They can't prove their innocence. All a government needs is one female to accuse a male dissident of rape, and that dissident's life becomes extremely complicated.

Pedophillia will do just as well, as will allegations of fraud, corruption, questionable business dealings ... and since you raise accusations against Trump you might want to consider the accusations being thrown at "crooked" Hillary. Rape holds no special place there, no.

I will concede that what occurs during increasingly nastily fought election campaigns might require special scepticism --actually it is not really "special" it is simply that motivation here is res ipsa locquitur. Generally however, and especially since this crime is so vastly under-reported, we must treat all accusations of rape with the utmost seriousness. To work from the false belief that these accusations are liable to be motivated by character assassination (such as in rare circumstances may be the case) without any evidence whatsoever that such motivation exists, or to publish such rape friendly balderdash really is disgraceful. To defame those brave enough to lodge accusation of rape by calling it "the new witch" ... Srsly!

The FAA is a federal agency. Aren't all federal databases open and online? Airplane registrations are; radio licenses are.

Well, one difference is that radios and airplanes don't tend to be owned by kids. So lets say your kid is a popular Youtuber or Viner. Your phone number is unlisted, so various viewers including pedophiles and whatnot cannot easily find him/her based on name. Now your kid flies his drone in a video. All of a sudden, several of his/her "fans" look up his/her name and street address in the federal database. Most likely no one will show up at your doorstep, but it takes only one crazy stalker. There are serious privacy and safety implications here.

Given that a vast majority of rapes are comitted by a family member or someone he knows, what have you done to stop the kid's uncle? What protections are in place to stop his mother from violently violating him? How are you restraining his best friend whose only desire and purpose in life is to insert himself into the boy's rear? If you think about those, you'd say it's silly, but there's an 82% chance this would happen and not some stranger. I really don't get this irrational paranora, since people never look at the facts involved, nor the exceedingly low chance it's some random stranger...

However, that being said, some precautions are prudent. Some you register yourself in his place, and their you go. Although, you probably don't mind handing out your phone number, and with that they can easily find out your name and street address......

I gave your suggestion a shot, and as it turns out the only nonsensical thing here is that you think anyone will listen to you, believe you, or give a shit what you think when you post something like this without any evidence, logic, or basis in fact. In the future, try posting some actual data if you want to not look like a complete tool.

Long story short, you're not very good at this. Drink Coke, Play Again.

1, to the GP: RAINN says that 1 in 6 women has been the victim of rape. That's different from "will be over the course of their life". That rate is guaranteed to be higher. 1 in 6 in the "have been" category would imply that 2/3rds of the average surveyed woman's rape risk is behind them to reach the 1 in 4 figure, which is not at all an unreasonable assumption.

2. When you want to cite data, don't cite secondary sources. They tell you the name of the Bureau of Justice study, so let's actually read it. We immediately notice first off that annualized rate of rape for non-college students is 8 per 1000, not 6 per 1000, so they chose the lower figure. Being in college actually *reduces* a woman's rate of being raped. But let's just go with the lower figure. A rate of 6 per thousand over... oh, let's just say 50 years... is 1-(1-0.006)^50=26%. Now, we chose the lesser percentage (6 per 1000 instead of 8 per 1000), and the average woman lives a lot longer than 50 years, but we're again assuming a higher rate of rape in the younger years counters this. In no way does the cited data argue against the fact that one in four women will be raped over the course of their lifetime.

3. I don't know what "Ali's study" is or who Ali is, but it's irrelevant given the above. However, I will point out (and shouldn't have to) that it *is* illegal to have sex with someone who is visibly intoxicated to the point that they cannot make a reasonable decision. I'm not going to dig up the laws on all 50 states for you, but just to pick the largest state, here's California's statute. If the person is slurring their speech and can hardly walk, they're not cogent enough to consent to anything. You can't give *any* legal consent in such a situation. You can't sign over your house, you can't transfer ownership of your car, etc. And that's a damned good thing.

Note that this only applies to cases where the person has drank so much that they are visibly impaired to the point that they can no longer make reasonable judgements. As always with such cases, the courts apply a "reasonable person" standard - they're impaired suchly if a "reasonable person" objectively looking at the situation would judge their decision-making abilities as being that impaired. Being "a little tipsy" or "buzzed" does not meet this standard.

funny, but RAINN pretty much confirms it by my read:

https://www.rainn.org/get-info...

9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.

In 2003, 1 in every ten rape victims were male.

Now, they don't break it down by gender of the assailant, but 90% and 10% are pretty in-line with the numbers reported by GP. But, perhaps you'd care to share the special "RAINN says I'm correct and don't have to support my claims, but everybody else has to support theirs" page they created for you?

The number of men who actually carry out rapes is relatively small, so long as you only define rape as a violent act that occurs in dimly lit alleyways. Once you open it out it becomes substantially larger.

No, not really, as the research of people like David Lisak shows. Rape is the act of a small percentage of repeat predators.

The "rape culture" model is finally being laid by the wayside; as RAINN's recent memo to the White House task force notes, "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime."

or harass a woman

Based on some statistics from the Department of Justice, "harassing a woman" is the one thing on your list that is wildly unlikely to result in a conviction or jail time.

Perhaps the problem is that your knowledge of this issue lacks scope. The only thing I can suggest is that you do a little research on your own, an effort that includes, but also scales outside, the confines of a women's studies curriculum and/or mainstream media. As far as feminism vs geek culture goes, the status quo on that is only a search away. Start with 'anita sarkeesian' and 'jessica watson'. If you do enough research, you'll start seeing the bad statistics they use. Here, I'll give you the first one on me:

http://www.rainn.org/get-infor...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12...

Articles like Chu's are nothing new. These 'social justice warriors' are charlatanesque professional victims and people like Chu are their male white knight brigade, always charging in to the rescue (despite their hatred of the damsel-in-distress trope, go figure). I don't know his real intentions, but the fact he (badly) attempts to equate us as slightly less vile versions of elliot rodger is a perfect example of the rhetoric filled fallacies typically used to shame men who don't accept the feminist party line. Whether it's "grow up" from the left, or "man up" from the neocons, it's all just shaming language.

Chu's whole article is a diatribe against geek/nerd culture, thus he's targeting ALL the individuals within it, equating their sense of morals as a mishmash of silly stereotypes found in video games and geek social faux pas. I thought generalizing like this was something feminists eschew? I guess only when it happens to women. How 'progressive.'

Yeah. Because rape is super easy to prosecute.

In modern US more that 200 thousand women are sexually assaulted each year http://www.rainn.org/statistics

No, read it again. It indicates about 200 thousand PEOPLE are sexually assaulted each year.

About 100% of assaulters are men.

Factually false.

If we want to combat sexist prejudiced stereotype bullshit in society, we need combat all of it. And that includes the sexist notion that any man is "lucky" to have sex. The sexist notion that men cannot or do not refuse consent to sex. The sexist notion that men are not raped, and fucked-up definitions of "rape" which categorically deny the possibility of a man being raped (except by another man).

Lets look at a very recent survey done by the United States Center For Disease Control. It defines "Rape" as attempted or competed forcible penetration of the victim as well as drug/alcohol facilitated completed penetration of the victim. It reports lifetime "rape" rates at about 18.3% of all women and about 1.4% of all men. However this report has a brand new section, a category that has been implicitly excluded for pretty much all previous rape research. It's a category called "made to penetrate". I will remind you that "made to penetrate" does is EXCLUDED from the definition of "rape". The report gives a lifetime rate of 4.8% of all men "made to penetrate".

And lets be clear on what "made to penetrate" means. I was recently reading a message board which had nothing to do with sexuality where, out of the blue, someone commented on the stereotype that men cannot be rape victims, and posted a request for men to share their stories if they had ever been raped. A completely generic non-sex-related community with a fairly random sampling of male readers. Unsurprisingly most of the replies were anonymous. They included reports including a man raped at gunpoint, a man walking on campus in the dark being tasered by an unknown woman then handcuffed to a tree raped and tasered again to the rapist could remove the handcuffs and run off, multiple reports of men discovering their drink had been drugged and being unable to fight off their attacker, multiple reports of men being threatened with being accused of rape themselves if they did not submit - including a case where a man walked into his bedroom to find a naked woman demanding sex and when he resisted she deliberately scratched his neck and hands and threatening to claim he tried to rape her. The reports just went on and on. Those are just what I recall offhand.

Not a single one of those incidents qualifies as "rape" in the CDC survey, not a single one of them constitutes "rape" under virtually any rape survey ever done. They fall under the brand new category "made to penetrate"..... because somehow forcible penis-in-vagina sex is not rape when a woman does it. All men are sex-obsessed animals without the ability or right to decline sex. Because any man who gets raped is "lucky" he got to have sex.

And one notable fact is that not a single one of them reported their rape to the police. The rate of women reporting rape is abysmally low, but it doesn't remotely compare to the effectively ZERO rate of men reporting rape. The social stigma, victim blaming, shaming, and rape-denialism against women is an abomination, but it is as bad or worse for any man attempting to report being raped. Not a single one of the male rape victims reported it to the police.... but there was one case of a male rape victim who tried calling a rape-support hotline. And you know what happened? The person who answered the phone (presumably female) CALLED HIM A LIAR and told him to stop making prank calls. Seriously, how fucked up is that? A fucking RAPE SUPPORT LINE calling a rape victim a liar, saying no you weren't raped and stop fucking calling. Solely because the victim was male. Pure unadulterated sexist ideology and prejudi

In modern US more that 200 thousand women are sexually assaulted each year http://www.rainn.org/statistics . It is in the country where there is the real police, courts, laws, therapy, etc. About 100% of assaulters are men.

Besides, many cases are not reported for fear of exposure. It is yet without domestic violence, harassment, etc.

I mean it is not rare. A figure in millions does not seem unrealistic to me, especially in Middle Ages.

You win the award for "totally unable to view a concept of another time outside of his 2012 blinkers". As if other cultures were exactly like our own at this point in time and were all about sex, all the time. You forgot to mention the point that if women didn't like sex, then they'd just suffer spousal rape. That's standard modern dogma. You are sentenced to write a 2,000 word self-criticism due in one week which will be reviewed by a representative of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, and a contribution of $500 or the same in labor at minimum wage rates to the that organization.

It's not for life

http://www.rainn.org/public-policy/sexual-assault-issues/state-statutes-of-limitations

But you better hope you can keep them from changing their minds for 5-10 years, in the US at least. I don't know about Sweden, couldn't find anything with a quick search.

Do you really think they would have any difficulty coming up with an *actual* rape victim if they were behind this? Someone who had a black eye, bruises on their wrists and arms, signs of forced entry, high emotional distress

It's a common rape myth that rape is not ``real'' unless it is committed by a stranger, involved physical violence and/or a deadly weapon, and the survivor resisted all physical contact. The reality is that, in the majority of rapes, the attacker is known to the victim, and in nearly half, the attacker is a friend or acquaintance. A weapon is used only 11% of the time.

It's important to dispel these myths; they give cover to attackers by enabling them, and those around them, to believe that forcing someone to engage in sexual activity without consent ``is definitely not rape'' because what they did does not fit the armed-stranger stereotype. If someone does not consent to a particular activity, whether or not she (or he) has consented to anything else, proceeding with that activity is rape.

You have no reason to take my advice, especially as an AC, but since you've shared a bit of your history, I'll do the same. I've had several long-term, deeply loving relationships with women, all of whom had been victims of some kind of sexual abuse, including forcible rape, date rape, "minor" child sexual abuse (single incident, no penetration, fondling only), and severe childhood sexual abuse (multiple abusers from age 5 through teen years, including blood relatives, frequent vaginal & oral penetration, cumulative physical damage leading to inability to have children).

According to RAINN One in six women are victims of sexual assault, and you appear to understand this. The statistics against falsely accusing rape are not that overwhelming.

My statement is, when one in six women are sexually assaulted, those charges are more likely to be presumed to be true at first. If it were not the case where one in six women are sexually assaulted, say, more like six in 100,000 for murder, then it would be a situation where presuming it to be true at face value wouldn't make sense.

To put this in perspective, in order to produce the same number of false accusations of sexual assault as actual occurrences of sexual assault, we would need one in six women to falsely accuse a man of sexual assault. To do the same for murder, we would need just six people in 100,000... I think I could find six people in 100,000 willing to falsely accuse someone of murder (or just "mistakenly"). Meanwhile, convincing one out of every six women to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault? I'm sorry, but I think the morals of even our society are too high for that one to be tractable.

So, let me put this into perspective for you. False accusations of rape are horrible, and they are wrong, and if they're done maliciously people need to be held accountable. However, I doubt very much so that one in sex men are falsely accused of rape. I find that HIGHLY unlikely.

You're a real radfem, aren't you?

In the United States, odds are that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

First, I don't believe the RAINN stats on rape. I don't believe that so many women get raped. I checked RAINN's sources and they don't really tell you where exactly they get their statistics. They do give a long list of different studies they supposedly used to get their numbers here:

http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims

but you really can't find where that 1 in 6 number comes from. They don't tell you that. They don't tell you because it's not a valid statistic. It's a product of the imaginations of the paranoid people working at RAINN. RAINN is full of radicals who are just looking for ways to inflate sex assault statistics to epidemic levels. Take a look at the FBI's rape statistics for some numbers that are more grounded in reality:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/forcible_rape.html

RAINN is full of shit and so are you.

Women earn approximately $.80 to a man's $1

The pay gap is due entirely to the way the statistics are compiled. It completely ignores the fact that there are not equal numbers of men and women working in every field. Women are more likely to work part-time instead of full time. Even women working full time are likely to work fewer hours than men. They are more likely to leave their careers for extended periods of time. Women are more likely to chose to work in lower paying service industry positions than men. Women earn less money because they chose to earn less money. There is no pay gap when studies compare men and women doing similar jobs with similar levels of education, experience and seniority:

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/CAREER/trends/12/12/womenpay/index.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119920.html

The pay gap is another feminist myth, it's full of shit and so are you.

Most women in the US are not allowed to control their own bodies, as numerous State and Federal government regulations have been imposed on their reproductive systems and available medical procedures.

What the hell? I suppose you want all medical procedures for women to be completely unregulated? I'm willing to bet if that were the case you'd be bitching about how the government did nothing to protect women from unsafe medical procedures and fraudulent doctors. You're crazy. Women are fully able to 'control' their bodies.

The brunt of housework and child-rearing still falls primarily on women.

You make child rearing sound like some hellish chore or prison sentence. Women who feel like that don't have any business having kids in the first place. This will probably shock you, but many women *want* to have kids and they *want* to take care of them as the primary care taker. You are out of your mind and completely disconnected with reality. You've read one too many Dworkin books and they've fried your brain.

ALL of these forms of oppression stem from misogynistic beliefs--primarily pushed by those in power, but to a certain degree they are perpetuated by ignorant fools who buy into them.

Nearly all of the 'oppression' that people like you speak of is nothing more than an imaginary creation of your paranoia and victim complexes. You are a damn nut, and I'll not waste anymore time dissecting the rest of your drivel.

In the United States, odds are that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. For college-age women the rate is 4 times higher. Women earn approximately $.80 to a man's $1. Most women in the US are not allowed to control their own bodies, as numerous State and Federal government regulations have been imposed on their reproductive systems and available medical procedures. The brunt of housework and child-rearing still falls primarily on women. ALL of these forms of oppression stem from misogynistic beliefs--primarily pushed by those in power, but to a certain degree they are perpetuated by ignorant fools who buy into them.

The anonymous individuals advocating rape on a message board are part of that system of oppression--which causes concrete harm to women every day in the United States. Based on the content of this "speech" there is nothing worth protecting. Combating oppression is far more important than protecting the anonymity of those who would propagate oppression.

No speech is being outlawed here. Troglodytes are still free to shout their hateful words all they want--but they can't expect to do it as anonymous cowards (to borrow from Slashdot's own term).

IF the government were to ever turn around and use a progress-setting precedent like this for regressive purposes, then we have another battle on our hands worth fighting. But to defend the anonymity of these abusive people is to uphold the "right" of bigots to persecute others anonymously.

If and when there is actually a political movement that threatens the established order, the government won't need cases like this to persecute their opponents. The FBI has a long record of intimidation (and even murder) against dissident groups. The period of McCarthyism in the 40's and 50's virtually wiped out the once-rich tradition of radicalism in this country. The ruling class will use whatever means are at its disposal to hold on to power, and they certainly won't let any laws get in their way.

Tiny?

Have you ever looked at any rape statistics out there?

Here: http://www.rainn.org/statistics/

You can dig deeper if you like, but the summary on that page is 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault, compared to 1 in 33 men. Half of the rapes/sexual assaults against women are by "friend/acquaintence", which includes co-workers.

That means most women know multiple women who have been victimized by men; maybe not raped in parking garages, but enough to establish that men are definitely a source of potential threat. I don't question that at all, as I know that most of the women I have met, if they have not actually been victimized themselves at some point, have come close enough to realize they need to be careful, and if they have been lucky enough for that not to be true, they certainly have lots of friends who have been victimized. I would frankly be stunned if I ever met a women who didn't know someone who had either been raped or molested, by a man. So far, to the best of my knowledge I haven't (though naturally I have not asked every casual acquaintence I have, my closer friends are at 100%).

Most sexual assualts on men are BY men (99% of all rape is by men, in fact). So I'm not exactly sure how it's equally reasonable for a man to live in the same kind of fear a women should, especially considering that most men are capable of overpowering most women, but the same is not true of men vs other men. For a man to fear rape by a women borders on the ridiculous; that's like a 1 in 3300 chance, and I bet if you research that figure you'll find the vast majority of female on male sexual assault occurs when the female is adult and the male is not. I have several male friends who have been molested as children (by men, mostly, but hey, this is all anecdotal anyway right?) but I've never met a man who was forcibly raped by a woman. I've had male friends who were taken advantage of while drunk, but they weren't exactly emotionally scarred by it.

But go ahead and establish your very reasonable stance. Women definitely should not worry that men acting like they are not sexually satisfied pose any kind of risk to them whatsoever. Those silly ladies, someone should tell them they have nothing to worry about, huh?

You need to realize this is not an intellectual exercise for most people. This is a reality. It may not be pretty, but there it is. Perhaps you might want to consider, if you are a man, how your actions can be construed by people who have some reason to fear you. Unless you just don't care about your impact on others, of course, which is often the case, and is part of the problem IMHO.

Condoms and education on how to use them work pretty well. (Check out in 1980 when this education was made mandatory for every marrying couple in Iran: http://tinyurl.com/27nepb - just drag the bottom slider to the right to see progress over time, height indicates number of children born per woman.)

I would also like to note that you are not taking rape into account. (Check http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html for stats.)

Now, I don't feel like getting into an argument since this all boils down to morals pretty much instantly, but I felt I'd post this since thoughts didn't appear to have crossed your mind yet.

All in good will,
Regards.

"One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men." http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html

"Approximately thirteen million people (approximately 5% of the U.S. population) are victims of crime every year. Approximately one and a half million are victims of violent crime." http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

In 2004, one of the worst recorded years for terrorism, ~9000 people were injured, and 1900 died. Sexual assaults in 2004 were about 200,000, and 44% were under 18, so about 88,000 minors. I'm not sure if I'd rather have been raped as a child or been injured by a bomb going off, but sexual assault is certainly more widespread.

*Tourism Statistics

*Child abuse statistics

Are you sure that they're filtering because of COPA and not for some other reason? I work for a consortium of 35 public libraries and not one filters because of COPA. A few have filter software installed on computers in the children's room, but that's it.

Yup. They're filtering because of COPA. Before COPA, the PCs in the Children's Department were filtered and the PCs in the Adult area were not, so patrons could decide which was appropriate for their use or the use of their children. We had a nice computer and Internet use policy, and would have stayed with that system. Instead, we now have filters on all our computers (even the staff ones), and we have to keep unblocking things like the local Board of Education site, or a local car dealership, or the RAINN website.

I started out at a library in a different state, and I'm still in touch with the librarians there. They also had filtered access in the Children's Department and unfiltered access in the Adult area, which minors could access with parental permission. Now everything is filtered to meet COPA. They aren't real happy either.

You know if only 30% of prisoners report being raped during their term, that's really not that high considering the fact that 1 in 6 women are victims of rape or attempted rape nation wide. (Source Source 2). I'm not saying prison rape or any rape is right. I'm just making the point that 30% of prisoners being raped is not a hugely alarming statistic. And the statement by the parent that people suggesting that the problem of prison rape is overrated deserves to be raped is quite ironic. Using the parents logic: If he deserves to be raped for using his right to free speech then certainly prisoners would deserve to be raped for possession of marijuana. No one deserves to be raped. Fact is people make jokes about it. They don't mean to hurt anyone by the jokes. But most humor is at least mildly offensive to SOMEONE. That's where the phrase the butt of the joke comes in. The fact that the butt of prison rape jokes happens to be the butt of the prisoner makes no difference. Lighten up a little.

Just when I think the Democratic Party is starting to grow a spine and stand up for some libertarian principles rather than pander.... No, this is not intended as flame-bait - it is an expression of frustration with a binary political system that has segmented every issue into a "They don't think it's right?!?! Then it MUST be right! Write up a bill legislating it for us to vote on, intern! Oh, and say it's to protect the children!!!" - mentality.

Here's a wacky idea - instead of legislating a bill "protecting [kids] from a coarsening culture" (Senator Bayh) in fictional video games, how about a bill protecting kids from real gun violence (Over 5,000 kids killed by guns in the US in 1997), real poverty (35,000,000 in 2003 in the U.S), and real rape (204,000 in the USA 2003-2004)? Oh, right, that would involve hard choices about civil liberties, responsibilities, Constitutional rights and freedom of choice, and other complicated things. Screw it, it won't get votes. Ban those nasty video games instead!!!

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/issues/?page=ki ds#1

http://www.rainn.org/statistics/

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/income_wealth/002484.html

http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GU NS/GUNSTAT.html

Yeah, no shit. In case anyone doubts this, check out this site for some statistics on rape sentencing. It's pretty sad.

What a wonderful way to ruin a Friday. Now I'm all angry.

It'd be real easy to go on an off-topic rant here, but I'll try and keep it /.-centric by commenting that these kinds of crimes, where people are actually harmed, physically and emotionally, should be so much higher on the legal system's to-do list than figuring out how to shut down Johnny MP3 ripper. How in the hell does the DMCA even make it to the floor for debate when we don't take care violent offenders?still don't care

From the link: The good news is, the expected sentence tripled from 1980 to 1997. The bad news is, the expected sentence for a forcible rape is still only 128 days (up from 39 days in 1980 and 99 days in 1993). By comparison, the expected sentence for robbery is now 59 days; for murder, 41 months.

Like: don't rape, because you wouldn't want to be raped. Most people don't have any trouble following that one.

The United States is a RAPE PRONE society. "Most" people may not have this problem, but it's still epidemic because of the social impression that men are supposed to be dominant and agressive, which this article supports. More than too many of my close female friends have been victim of this sort of activity. I've been a part of Rape Awareness coalition, and it IS F*CKING EPIDEMIC.

Take a look at: RAINN: It's amazing just how bad it is.

Prudes jump right from this one to "never have casual sex"

Let's just use inflamatory language here. Yea, so if a girl wont screw you on the first date she must be a prude. Language like this leads to "dominant male" attitudes towads women.

Articles like this are interesting, becuase I think it's important for "geeks" to become more social than they often seem to be now. Social does not equal sex. Sex can become something that happens when you're social, and his points to be safe and thoughtful are great. However it's still full of all the old sexist stereotypes that I would hope the more intelligent (?) readers of Slashdot would be able to pick up.

C-out