Slashdot Mirror
The War On Campus Sexual Assault Goes Digital
HughPickens.com writes: According to a recent study of 27 schools, about one-quarter of female undergraduates said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college, but most of the students said they did not report it to school officials or support services. Now Natasha Singer reports at the NYT that in an effort to give students additional options — and to provide schools with more concrete data — a nonprofit software start-up in San Francisco called Sexual Health Innovations has developed an online reporting system for campus sexual violence. One of the most interesting features of Callisto is a matching system — in which a student can ask the site to store information about an assault in escrow and forward it to the school only if someone else reports another attack identifying the same assailant. The point is not just to discover possible repeat offenders. In college communities, where many survivors of sexual assault know their assailants, the idea of the information escrow is to reduce students' fears that the first person to make an accusation could face undue repercussions.
"It's this last option that makes Callisto unique," writes Olga Khazan. "Most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, yet most victims know their attackers. Some victims are reluctant to report assaults because they aren't sure whether a crime occurred, or they write it off as a one-time incident. Knowing about other victims might be the final straw that puts an end to their hesitation—or their benefit of the doubt. Callisto's creators claim that if they could stop perpetrators after their second victim, 60 percent of campus rapes could be prevented." This kind of system is based partly on a Michigan Law Review article about "information escrows," or systems that allow for the transmitting of sensitive information in ways that reduce "first-mover disadvantage" also known to economists as the "hungry penguin problem". As game theorist Michael Chwe points out, the fact that each person creates her report independently makes it less likely they'll later be accused of submitting copycat reports, if there are similarities between the incidents.
"It's this last option that makes Callisto unique," writes Olga Khazan. "Most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, yet most victims know their attackers. Some victims are reluctant to report assaults because they aren't sure whether a crime occurred, or they write it off as a one-time incident. Knowing about other victims might be the final straw that puts an end to their hesitation—or their benefit of the doubt. Callisto's creators claim that if they could stop perpetrators after their second victim, 60 percent of campus rapes could be prevented." This kind of system is based partly on a Michigan Law Review article about "information escrows," or systems that allow for the transmitting of sensitive information in ways that reduce "first-mover disadvantage" also known to economists as the "hungry penguin problem". As game theorist Michael Chwe points out, the fact that each person creates her report independently makes it less likely they'll later be accused of submitting copycat reports, if there are similarities between the incidents.
Or will they just assume the guy is guilty?
"Hey, I don't like that guy. Let's all report him through the rape app. We're girls so we'll be believed over him, particularly by the media. The media will even believe us after it's been shown that we were lying because it fits with their narrative."
According to a recent study of 27 schools, about one-quarter of female undergraduates said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college
So basically they asked about touching and sex just so they can put the phrase "nonconsensual sex" and "one-quarter" together?
Those 2 are nowhere near the same level of severity to be reported in that fashion.
I've been touched plenty times nonconsensually, I figured "that's a bit too familiar" (yes I'm a man, yes by women), however I wouldn't place those occurrences nowhere near anything having to do with rape.
I think this is a pretty cool idea (improving the likelihood of reporting rapists and ill-informed post-adolescents). But will it be able to avoid collusion on the part of those reporting? Multiple persons with an ax to grind (or just wanting to "tease" someone) could seemingly file multiple reports triggering the escrow's release. That, in itself, is not the problem. It's the consequences of free (or possibly anonymous) condemnation. I still think anything that improves reporting of (genuine) assault is a good thing. I just worry about how technology has an equal hand in facilitating asshattery.
There are two goods I would like to see from an effort like this: punish the truly criminal and better educate those poisoned with the antique ideals of past generations. I didn't have the best education regarding this (but it was better than most maybe) as a child and must frequently question my thinking regarding other humans. Yes, I'm talking about men. I prefer to be inclusive, but men are the fucking problem here.
I just don't want to ruin someone's life because of poor guidance (by parents, peers, media, educators, etc.). I expect that a small percentage of false-positives is to be expected. But I don't want to provide a means to facilitate it.
Even the most vile transgressor deserves to face their accusers.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
Notice how "evidence" and "courts" aren't words used anywhere in this.
Write a script to automatically file rape claims against every male in the school. It gets held by the escrow service, so the university can't even see the fact that everyone has a rape claim against them, at least, not until they've asked for the data during an investigation.
Someone eventually escalates some situation or another and the university pulls the data on the person and - Woah, 33 pre-existing rape claims! You're expelled buddy! And then this gets shared with every other university, and you make newspaper headlines, so all google searches of your name turn up rape accusations and, well, good luck ever getting a job or college education for the rest of your life.
And all this, without a single court getting involved.
"Social Justice"? More like modern Salem witch trials.
its like 4chan, for rape.
But seriously, as soon as I saw the ada initiative on there, i knew it was bullshit. Selena Deklemann herself tried to entrap me once as an enemy of feminsts, by trying to cajoule me into going to meet her behind the florist dumpster alone, and after i repeatedly refused accused me of harassing her at Open Source Bridge.
Then there is the matter that the founder of the ada initaitive, which is also listed in there, currently has a federal case open for a false rape claim against her husband, among others that she has made over the years to others, except for the fact that she killed herself over the issue. Schwern vs Plunkett
I once tracked down the "one in four" number. It turns out they include all drunken sex, all cases of not asking permission at each step and pretty much every other bullshit thing they could throw in to inflate the number. And why am I reading this on Slashdot anyway?
Sexual (and physical) assaults are crimes - but they are not crimes limited to one gender nor are limited to one gender upon another. Ideas like this perpetuate stereotypes while significantly reducing real rights and freedoms.
Statistics have shown that lesbian people (as an example) experience domestic violence at a very similar rate to that of heterosexual women (Waldner-Haygrud, 1997; AVP, 1992). It has been estimated that between 17-45% of lesbians have been the victim of at least one act of violence perpetrated by a female partner (Burke et al, 1999; Lie et al, 1991), and that 30% of lesbians have reported sexual assault / rape by another woman (Renzetti, 1992).
In short, if such a system is to be introduced, it needs to be gender neutral, have significant oversight and be tightly tied to the legal system.
*** Don't be dull.***
Maybe its not PC to say what he said, but look at it this way. I have a 6 year old daughter. I am going to teach her (when she's older of course), "if, in college, you go to a party without any friends and get totally smashed and dress very revealing, your likelihood of something bad happening to you is going to rise dramatically. Use your common sense."
Is it non-PC to tell my daughter that? Should I instead say, "honey, do whatever you want, get drunk, show your cleavage, go to parties where you don't know anyone. Cause you know, nothing that happens is ever your fault."
Women shouldn't have to tame their behaviour because some guys can't handle it
Police officers shouldn't have to wear heavy uncomfortable bullet proof vests because some gun wielding criminals can't handle being good law abiding citizens. That's about as sensical as your statement. It's unrealistic to expect there to be no criminals, just as it is unrealistic to expect there to be no rapists. "They can't handle it" cause that's the stereotypical macho masculine view. That a man should just man up and if he doesn't he's a pussy that can't handle it. Fuck things like mental health or how he grew up or whatever the fuck else right? Being piss drunk makes you an easier target as you can't think/control your bodily normally. By no means does not drinking remove all risk, it just reduces it. It's hysterical that rather than acknowledging that fact, you'd rather refute it by saying we should be living in some utopia where no one does any wrong. Fuck off.
From TFS:
https://www.aau.edu/uploadedFi...
Overall, 11.7 percent of students across the 27 universities reported experiencing nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching by force or incapacitation since enrolling at the IHE.
Which is about HALF of the fabled 25%.
The magic 25% (i.e. the long parroted and continuously debunked legend of 1 in 4 women being raped) was reached through following fiddling of numbers.
Again, from TFS:
To assess the overall risk of nonconsensual sexual contact, prevalence measures were estimated that combine the two behaviors that constitute sexual contact (penetration and sexual touching) and the four tactics discussed above (physical or threat of physical force; incapacitation; coercion; AAC [Absence of Affirmative Consent]).
Absence of Affirmative Consent being a catch-all category for any kind of "explicit" and "active, ongoing voluntary agreement" of "both partners".
The question that makes 11.7% into "1 in 4 women" being:
Since you have been a student at [University], has someone had contact with you involving penetration or oral sex without your active, ongoing voluntary agreement? Examples include someone:
- initiating sexual activity despite your refusal
- ignoring your cues to stop or slow down
- went ahead without checking in or while you were still deciding
- otherwise failed to obtain your consent
When that question, which no longer talks about rape but about failure to read minds and thus tell if someone is still deciding and a failure to "otherwise obtain consent" (possibly in written form) we get the magical 1 in 4 numbers.
Which would dictate that every family that has at least one female child, also has at least one rape victim (two grandmas + mom + daughter = 1 of them must be have been raped).
But even then more fiddling with numbers is needed to reach the magic 1 in 4 value. Such as limiting the survey response to seniors only.
According to the AAU survey, 16.5 percent of seniors experienced sexual contact involving penetration or sexual touching as a result of physical force or incapacitation. Senior females (26.1%) and those identifying as TGQN (29.5%) are, by far, the most likely to experience this type of victimization.
And if it needs to be more obvious that they get those numbers by padding the set and expanding the time frame...
Students who are relatively new to school may experience higher risk because they are not as familiar with situations that may lead to an incident of sexual assault or misconduct.
Examination of the rates for the current academic year show this pattern holds for undergraduate females.
Among freshmen, 16.9 percent of females reported sexual contact by physical force or incapacitation.
This percentage steadily declines by year in school to a low of 11.1 percent for seniors.
And then there are other issues...
Like defining "penetration" as "when someone's mouth or tongue makes contact with someone else's genitals", without defining whose mouth and whose genitals are in question.
The way question is defined, both giving and receiving oral sex constitutes penetration.
On whom? Well... On both giver and receiver of oral sex, according to such a loose definition.
Or "physical force" being defined as "holding you down with his or her body weight, pinning your arms, hitting or kicking you, or using or threatening to use a weapon against you".
Which equates physical violence and a gun to your head with "being on the bottom".
Or how numbers reported don't really match up.
Like penetration numbers for fem
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have a great idea.
We can set up a system. Let's call it a "Criminal Justice System". Catchy, ain't it?
Then, we train and hire people specifically to deal with "aggressors". We can split them up into "Cops","Prosecutors", and "Judges".
I guess we'll need to pass some kind of rule or something that says you can't have sex with someone unless they want the same. And no Groping and stuff.
So, once in place, any women is is raped or assaulted in any way, can file charges. The perp is taken away by the cops, the Prosecutor argues he should be take away for a long time, and the Judge agrees or disagrees. Maybe you can have something like a bunch of random people make that decision too.
There ya go, an effective, level-headed way to deal with the aggressors!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There are two major aspects to this. The aspect that seems to be en vogue to talk about is the perpetrators of the crime. The other aspect, that people get very upset when it's talked about, is how to avoid being a victim. As this thread shows, some people automatically assume that discussing how someone can avoid being a victim somehow excuses the behavior of the perpetrators. It doesn't. It merely acknowledges that there are circumstances beyond the control of the would-be victim, and that it is in that individual's interest to control those circumstances that they have influence over to avoid being victimized.
When I meet to buy or sell property through the classifieds I am very mindful of the meeting place and the surrounding circumstances. I don't bring more money than I'm prepared to spend. I keep the money separate from the wallet. If what I'm purchasing or selling is small enough to be readily moved I pick locations that are public, visible, and in safe areas. I pick either times of day where it's light outside, or else I pick places that are more likely to be safe even at dusk or early evening. I leave a printout of where I went with the contact info, I tell someone, and depending on what it is or if I cannot satisfy some of these other conditions (like for large things that will be loaded into a vehicle once and only after purchase) I bring someone along. In any meeting place I attempt to maintain awareness of what's going on around me.
I do these things because while it is completely against the law for someone to rob me, I know that there are people in this world that will try to rob me anyway. I could go through life without taking this kind of care and get indignant when I hear of robberies or when I'm robbed, or I can accept the fact that there are bad people, take precautions to not be harmed by them, and move on with my life.
The nature of the discussion of rape is much of the time in fallacy. In many ways, the motivations of the robber and the rapist are not wholly dissimilar. Both want something. Both are willing to ignore the wants of the victim in order to get it. It's not about power, it's about being callous in taking what one wants against the will of the victim. Both obviously know that it's wrong, but they do it anyway because it's about what they want.
I don't know how effective a system like the one the article describes is going to be. The prosecution of rape is already complicated by the nature of physical evidence and by the difficulty in distinguishing forced sexual contact with consensual sexual contact, becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate as time past the episode passes. Look at accusations against Bill Cosby, somewhere around forty women have accused him of sexually assaulting then, but without physical evidence collected at the time, all Mr. Cosby has to do is invoke his right to not speak with authorities and he will never see the inside of a courtroom. In the case of this escrow idea, if women don't go to the police/hospital to document their attack then justice cannot be served against the attacker. Conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An accusation without supporting evidence does not meet that standard, even when everything in that accusation is true. I suspect that's why juries are asked to find a defendant either, "guilty," or, "not guilty," rather than, "guilty," or, "innocent." "Not guilty," does not mean innocent. It simply means that it could not be proven.
So that brings us back to the whole point, try to avoid being a victim in the first place. Ideally all bad people would be caught or would stop, but pragmatically, bad people exist and being intelligent about the dangers in the world can prevent or reduce the number of bad things from happening to you.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In the US, our society, the male is still expected to be the aggressor. And the girl still often does play somewhat hard to get. In the old days, what was called trying to get to 2nd - 3rd base, can now be called sexual assault, if the girl decides later (after the fact, much later) that's she's mad at the guy or pissed off, for nothing having to do with the mutual groping session.
The PC society and over concern of things of this nature are sending mixed messages to young folks of both sexes.
I'm not talking about overt rape, or violent sexual assault, but instead, redefining what is expected groping for want of a better term....where a girl expects the guy to be an aggressor. Guys often have doubts when and where to try, but know they are expected to. If you don't try some sexual advances, you are doomed to be relinquished to the dreaded "Friend Zone".
*sigh*...what was once known as being a boy, is now termed ADHD and they drug them. What was known (and expected) as males trying for heavy petting, is now borderline (at least) sexual assault.
Common sense on things like this have gone straight out the fucking window....I'm glad I'm not having to grow up in this day in age, with so many mixed messages...and the fear that a normal male with nomal (at least by recent history standards) sexual drives and attempts...can potentially have his life ruined by accusations and permanent exile to the sexual crimes lists out there....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually there's some evidence contradicting that - though it's probably true of violent rape (as opposed to coerced or exploitative. Though actually coerced is probably lopsided as well since we don't have nearly as many women in positions of power). There's also some evidence suggesting that men under-report rape by much larger margins than women (also domestic abuse). Probably linked to the fact that our culture is steeped in homophobia (in the case of M-M rape) and machismo (in the case of F-M) "She got you drunk and raped you? Really? You expect me to believe you didn't want it?"
But to the main point, yes, rape is (probably) statistically one-sided. Do you really not see a problem with that? Hell, I live in a state with one of the highest rape rates in the country, and my girlfriend avoids walking alone at night out of not-entirely-unreasonable fear. Meanwhile I have enjoyed wandering the streets and parks in the wee hours of the morning for most of my life.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.