The myth of the scary monster of a stranger in a dark alley panting while he waits for a scantily clad lone woman to walk by needs to die, the sooner the better.

Why doesn’t the government, or journalists, if they *really* want to “help women lower their risk of being raped” pay for Public Service Announcements that inform women that they are far more likely to be raped by a friend or family member while stone cold sober than they are to be raped after a night out sloppy drunk?

Maybe they should advise against women even knowing any men, since knowing men seems to be, statistically, the most significant factor in a woman’s rape risk.

Okay, the assumption here is that somehow this article is informing women. What, exactly, is it informing them of? Women don’t know about rape? They haven’t heard about it incessantly from their mothers, fathers, teachers, friends and television from the moment they started growing breasts? <strong- Cara

I’m late too, but this is what jumped out at me. Articles like the BBC one – and any number of others (trigger warnings all, especially the last, whose fucking URL needs one) – purport to teach women about a subject in which they are guaranteed to be way ahead of the men writing the articles. Plus, the men who write such articles invariably seem to think that it’s some Great New Insight on their part.

What distinction does the editor think we’re making? My guess is they think rape only means forced coitus. Are we ever going to get past that thinking?

Wow, most rape analogies never fail to disgust me. How the hell does someone equate walking around waving $100 bills in a bad neighborhood to being raped while you just so happen to be under the influence of alcohol? Oh yeah, my bad, because when you are drunk you are waving your slut flag around saying “rape me!”

Very true.

Hugh, you can’t afford to be this naive – as statistics show, bars and back-alleys don’t have much to do with rape. 12% of women experiencing sexual violence from an intimate partner – that works out to being over 245,000 Australian women sexually assaulted by the person closest to her. That’s not going to happen in an alley or anywhere near a CCTV camera.

ohhh snap. Hugh just got served.

Who would have thunk?

Could someone please explain to me how looking at this comment: I do by the way accept that we live in a rape apologist culture now that I’ve seen and as soon as you accept that I’m not part of it I’m off to different forums to spread the word and help our cause and inferring that Hugh wants my approval is somehow flattering myself? I thought that it was reading.

Seriously, dude, you’re fucked in the head. If you keep commenting, yes, I will ban you, because there’s a difference between argument and vomiting all over someone’s blog. But you’re clearly an idiot and an insincere one at that. You just went from “oh, but I’m just trying to learn, I’m such a Nice Guy(tm)” to head spinning around in circles in 60 seconds flat. It’s impressive, but nothing to be proud of.

Why on earth, by the way, would I delete a comment that calls me a Nazi? It just makes me look more levelheaded and sane, even if I’m acting like a dick. Which I don’t think I was, but it’s not even relevant. Because I’m not the one invoking Godwin’s law. Because I’ve both been on the internet and thinking critically for more than 5 seconds.

Over half of the women surveyed (57%) had experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence over their lifetime.

More than a third of women (34%) had experienced this violence from a former or current partner, although violence from a former partner was more common, and more likely to result in women being injured and feeling that their lives were in danger.

12% of women reported experiencing sexual violence by an intimate partner (current or former) over their lifetimes, including instances of attempted (3%) and completed (6%) forced intercourse (i.e. rape).

Here’s my source (notice the .gov.au domain, indicating it’s a webpage maintained by the Australian Government):
http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/statistics.html#internatsurvey