Together, we know a lot of victims of rape and sexual assault.
Curiously, none of us seem to know any rapists.
Considering sexual assault is a problem that conservatively affects about 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men — an estimate of almost 24 million Americans in total — it’s odd that we don’t know any of the ?perpetrators.
But the archetypal rapist is almost created to be someone we couldn’t know.
He’s ugly.
He’s friendless.
Cruelly sadistic, completely ?unsociable.
Likely in and out of jail.
He’s a straw man those who do commit sexual assault can easily hold up and say, “look, guys, that isn’t me.”
According to a 2002 study by David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and Paul Miller of the Brown University School of Medicine, about 6 percent of college men surveyed — 1 in 17 — are rapists.
This study might not be representative of college men nationally, but it does give an indication of how ?widespread the problem can be.
Women do commit sexual assault, but it is comparatively rare. Nearly 98 percent of all sexual assaults are committed by men, according to a report by the White House Council for Women and Girls published in January 2014.
Who lurks behind the straw man?
They can be attractive.
Often, they have a consenting sexual partner. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 22 percent of incarcerated rapists are married.
After all, rape isn’t really about sex, it’s about power. Compared to men who do not rape, those who do are often motivated by a need to dominate, in part to reaffirm their hyper-masculine attitudes and ?beliefs.
They can be your friends.
A 2005 DOJ study indicates that 73 percent of assailants are known to the victim. Of these, 38 percent are a friend or acquaintance, 28 percent are an intimate partner and 7 percent are a relative. Maybe we just know them from class. Maybe we only ever see them at parties. Maybe we live with them. Maybe we talk to them every day. If 1 in 17 college men has committed a sexual assault, this is a ?statistical inevitability.
They can be calculating.
Taken together, 76 of the admitted rapists in Lisak and Miller’s study enacted 439 attempted or completed rapes, averaging 5.8 assaults each. These men made up 4 percent of the entire sample. Following this data, the overwhelming majority of men are not rapists, but most rapists are serial rapists.
In a paper about these serial “undetected rapists,” Lisak concludes that they are strategic in their selection and grooming of potential victims. They only use enough violence to be successfully coercive and rarely resort to actual weapons. Instead, they use abusive psychology and alcohol to weaken their victims.
They’re running free.
An estimated 60 percent of rapes are never reported, according to DOJ data collected between 2008 and 2012. Of those reported, only 10 percent lead to a successful felony conviction. Even fewer lead to any prison time at all.
These data paint a bleak picture, but they’re not insurmountable. Though administrative and legal changes could help, simple ?behavioral changes can too.
Stop treating women like ?objects.
The phrase “hit it and quit it” literally refers to your sexual partner as a thing, not a person. So does the word “target.” Reexamine party themes that denigrate women, like the various iterations of “men and a not-so-clever pun on hoes” parties.
Be more accepting.
LGBT-identified people experience higher rates of sexual assault, in part because they are still marginalized by society at large. Transgender people are particularly vulnerable. Sixty-four percent of trans people have experienced sexual assault in their lifetimes, according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Sometimes these assaults are a manifestation of hate toward ?LGBT-identified people.
Don’t haze.
Sometimes hazing is simply a euphemism for socially-sanctioned sexual assault. IU ?fraternities and sororities are officially banned from hazing and have actively organized against ?the practice.
Reject current norms of ?masculinity.
Social standards of masculinity are too-often divorced from what real men are or want to be. Pinning one’s manhood on heterosexual success is not only homophobic, it discourages male victims of rape from reporting. Male rapists are also more likely to adhere to a standard of ?hyper-masculinity.
Don’t laugh at rape jokes.
Jokes targeting victims of rape — most often women and prisoners — aren’t funny, they’re threatening. Laughing at rape jokes tells any “undetected rapists” in your vicinity that rape is no big deal. It tells rape victims that their trauma is ?laughable.
Keep people safe.
At parties, help make sure everyone gets home safely. Find ways to take care of anyone who might have had too much to drink. In the same way you would take away a drunken person’s keys so they wouldn’t drive, try to safely step in when you think someone might be too drunk to consent.
Believe victims.
At some point in your college career, one of your friends might disclose to you they were raped. It is true that sometimes people make false claims, but the number of real sexual assaults far outstrips imagined ones. As a friend, your default should be to believe.
Shun rapists.
Your friend might also disclose the identity of their attacker, who could be someone you know. Stop hanging out with this person. Stop inviting them to parties where they might prey on other people you know. At the very least, avoid inviting the victim and the ?accused to the same event.
Call out anyone contributing to rape culture.
All of the above are recommendations to combat rape culture, or societal acceptance of the attitudes that make rapists think what they’re doing is OK. We’re not being overly politically correct. As long as so many of our peers are raped at IU every year, we’re being practical.
