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Aswad -> RE: Liz Trotta On Women Raped In Military: 'What Did They Expect?' (2/22/2012 11:00:39 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kalikshama
These classes are conducted in what grades? How would you rate their effectiveness, in terms of reducing unwanted pregnancy, and, to get back on topic, rape?
The grades don't correspond directly. You might translate it as junior high school, but the age group is 13-15 yo nominally, if they haven't changed it since my day. For kids born close to the semester cutoff dates, the parents can choose whether to start school early or late, which lets them be better matched to their peers. Thus, there can in theory be a span of 12-16 yo.
In practice, sex education classes aren't started before the entire class has entered puberty, since puberty is when the drives present, and thus the point in time when the classes become relevant. That's also when a pupil is able to relate to the material beyond the theoretical level. You will probably agree the concept of 'lust' is a lot less vague after the onset of puberty, for instance. Also, there's the practical side of it, which makes no sense earlier. Practicing how to put condoms on a dildo makes sense for those with the drive to get into a circumstance where a condom is relevant. Not so much for those without. Hence, waiting.
It's been somewhat debated whether immature exploration between consenting, age matched peers should be discouraged or not at the preschool level, with no emergent consensus. Christian preschool facilities in the bible belt will interfere with nudity, while more progressive facilities explain consent and empathy as necessary and let nature run its course otherwise. Most fall in the middle, which is to say they'll generally prevent coitus or the like, but usually not interfere with anything short of that. Life outcome statistics for rape favor the progressive approach, but cultural inertia and parental misconceptions favor conservative approaches.
In short, the policies tend to be pragmatic and realistic, from cradle to grave, so long as politicians don't get too involved. It's like with bikesheds. If the local politicians have nothing better to do at the time, an application to zone a bikeshed will take forever as they get bogged down in the paint color, wood choice and so forth. If they're busy, they just let people solve the problem instead. That's what happened to sex education, with the politicians being busy with other education related topics.
What's an unwanted pregnancy? [:D]
No, seriously, we still have them, of course. Most pregnancies are planned. Teenage pregnancy rates are 1.1% in Norway, with most carried to term and the father sticking around to raise the kid. Life outcome expectancy is slightly reduced. By contrast, in the USA, the rate is 7.5% and abortion is chosen in 1 of 3 cases. No idea about paternal participation. Life outcome expectancy is severely reduced. The UK has a rate of 2.7% or so.
It stands to reason we're doing something right.
As for rape, let's start by breaking it into categories, because lumping all rape under one heading will very substantially degrade the quality of the discourse, as well as being counterproductive as regards analyzing and halting rape. Consider this an instalment in the piecemeal reply to what I've bitten off earlier and am now hoping to chew. I will name and define the categories arbitrarily, but I am open to other definitions and names (in particular one may have unfortunate connotations on account of it being a nuance thing that I may miss as a second language speaker).
I will use a legal term from up here, redefining negligent rape to be cases where there is questionable or otherwise non-viable consent. For example, where status or power disparity, expectation pressure and similar factors cause a reluctance to indicate that consent does not exist, but where the proactive party perceives implied consent and could reasonably be assumed to halt if the lack of consent were indicated.
The legal term up here includes any sex you in hindsight regret, that the other party might have inferred that you would come to regret if they paused to think it through. I think that extended definition insults female autonomy and capacity for self determination and accountability, as well as turning any passion into a potential act of negligence (have you ever had a guy about to tear your pants off suddenly stop to ask "just so we're clear, I have your consent to get on with this, right?" and said yes?), so I don't include that in my definition of rape of any kind. Not because I dismiss the negative impact it may have, but out of respect, and out of concern for secondary trauma. I'll disclose my assumption that secondary trauma will exceed initial trauma in those cases, with the caveat that it's an assumption based on local conditions.
For this category, I do not have clear statistics, but I've seen increased awareness of the need to consider and verify that the woman isn't feeling undue pressure and neglecting to say so. As a man, I think that'll translate into a significant reduction. It has also resulted in generally reduced satisfaction for women, as the impact on spontaniety and desired aggressiveness has been to curb both. That gives me an additional pointer that the campaign will "do what's on the label", though my barbaric preferences on the subject of consent are to the effect that saying no in some way is a prerequisite to putting something in the domain where legislation has any business. That's as much as I'll voice on it unless asked.
Next up is "soft" rape, which I'll not keep putting quotation marks on, beyond this once (to indicate that I'm not attempting to dismiss the validity of the category, merely differentiate it from the converse). The definition I'm picking for this one, is cases of exploitation, pressure without threats, ignoring retraction of consent in flagrante delicto, and so forth. Further clarifying, by threats I mean substantial threats. If someone threatens to leave you if you don't get on all fours, that's a threat, but not a substantial one (it's the choice between dumping an asshole and putting up with an asshole because the asshole has served up that choice). If they threaten to put you out of a job, or threaten violence, or other things that have an impact beyond the scope of your relationship, that qualifies as substantive in my world. Also clarifying, 'ignoring' above refers to continuing, not escalating. By extension, this category does not include cases where withdrawal of consent is accompanied by behavior that requires force to continue the sex (i.e. if you say no, yet go along with it, that's soft rape; if you push him away, and he pins your hands, that's not soft rape, because pinning your hands means escalating).
Simply put, soft rape is the most common type. For instance, coitus with someone that's dead drunk. Or pressuring your date to "put out" because you spent a lot of money on courting her. Or a boss having sex with an employee without threatening to fire her, yet clearly exploiting the power disparity. Or proceeding to sex when your date says she's not ready (classic juvenile example), or verbally abusing, intimidating or other ways of pressuring the date into unwelcome sex. I'm not certain whether I would classify the case of "sex or breakup" (and, by extension, "all the other girls" with the implication that you'll move on if you don't get what you want) as soft rape, since the threat isn't substantive, but to a teenager (where it's most prevalent, I think), it may well seem substantive.
This category of rape has been significantly reduced, and the stigma against victims has been reduced, as well. It remains a problem, and the adult population suffers under political, public and media neglect of the topic (in this way, we're well behind Europe generally, I think), but the new generation has far less of this problem. Even just raising awareness of where the line is drawn is exceptionally useful, and it also helps counteract maturity related problems in this area.
On that last point, I will offer a related example, as I recently had the opportunity to witness 18 year old guys attending a course in traffic safety, specifically on the subject of nighttime driving. As anyone with a car knows, if you park it without turning down the headlights, the visibility beyond your car wil become significantly impaired, and an oncoming driver may not realize you've parked, thus turning off their long distance lights in passing. This can lead to not seeing a zebra crossing with pedestrians in it, due to the contrast difference, and thus hitting the pedestrians. The responsibility for the accident is obviously on the driver, who should have adapted their speed and lighting to the prevailing conditions. The parked car is contributory, in setting up a dangerous circumstance, but it's the person controlling a fast-moving, heavy hunk of metal that's responsible for addressing that danger. Half the teens in attendance placed the blame (during the quiz) with the person parking the car so that the situation occured. Pointing out the fact that they're the agentive participant, in control, with the ability to avoid the danger, made it clear to them that they are in fact responsible for preventing the danger of an accident from becoming a factual accident in that situation. (Anyone that doesn't agree with the assessment might want to reconsider their position, as this is a very precise analogy in terms of responsibility in a lot of rape cases.)
She may be the one who got drunk, but he's still the one with the stick— it doesn't go there on its own.
Finally, we arrive at "hard" rape (same note about quotation marks as before), which is when there is an assault of some sort involved, or a substantive threat. It can involve force, strict coercion, privation, some sort of restraint, or whatever. The act is clearly malicious (though malice need not be implied in all cases) and there is a clear absence of consent. It need not involve violence, or even particularly forceful sex, but often involves one or both.
That category is dropping among ethnically Norse Norwegians, but dramatically rising for Norway as a whole. Police maintain statistics on ethnicity, but they are not "pushed" at the general population. That is, there's no attempt to keep people from reading these statistics, but all public discourse, media coverage and so forth will consistently use the undifferentiated numbers, which are horrific. The disparity in some areas is 25-to-1 between ethnically Norse and the three leading ethnic minorities. These figures are taboo, as they are apt to induce racism, raise questions about the Labor Party immigration policies and bring up the subject of exile for first generation immigrants committing felonies prior to even gaining citizenship.
Reported fraction is increasing across the board, which is good. Prosecution and convictions in soft rapes are still as low as ever, which is bad, and related to known factors. Investigations are marginal, again bad. Prosecution and conviction of hard rape is very high when the perpetrator is ethnically Norse (virtually every case reported; in one instance, about a thousand men in the area were forced to give DNA samples for testing and registration in the national DNA database for "persons of interest in connection with a reported crime", one of them being the perpetrator), and moderate otherwise.
Also, it's worthwhile to distinguish special groups, such as prison, military and marital rape. I'll see if I can dig up anything to indicate the occurence of military rape, but I've not heard of it. Prison rape is not an issue, essentially, as our prisons are oriented towards rehabilitation and return to society as productive citizens, with a lot of resources spent on avoiding 'hardening' and network building in prison. Marital rape is still a problem, but it's dropping in the ethnically Norse population, while stigma is fading. Though, the perception that it is less serious than otherwise persists. I'm going to refrain from commenting on that, as my views are complex, conditional on circumstances, and not really related to the topic at hand. Suffice to say that I'm happy the problem of marital rape is receding.
The overall victimization rate pr capita is half that of the USA.
We could do better on all counts, I reckon, but the next generation of ethnically Norse is turning out better than the previous one by a substantial margin, in most categories, if not all. Part of this is related to better coverage of consent and responsibility and so forth in sex education classes, and the willingness to deal seriously with human sexuality in those classes, warts and all. Sex is generally conveyed as being a good thing, which consenting partners engage in for mutual pleasure, with a lot of diversity to it, and concerns that need to be addressed for it to be consensual, pleasurable and responsible, without consequences that one will regret. Children is generally conveyed as something one should plan ahead of time, with stable finances in a stable relationship, and which enriches people's lives and will probably be desired one day. Rape is conveyed by way of its consequences, and in terms of the most common causes, the responsibility of the agentive party, and (in some areas) the risk management (while it's not PC, nor in the curriculum, a lot of places will still include a warning against the dangers of excessive inebriation). Information on the stigma issues, on the places to contact for support, on what to do and where to go, and so forth, is being included. Most interestingly, rape of men is being included, and that's lead to a significant rise in both reporting and in the number that seek help after such events.
At least, this is my impression from teachers and sex education volunteer medical workers I know, and what I've read. It's encouraging, but it's not perfect. And we still have plenty of work to do.
Hope this answers the questions well enough, and pardon the excess (which is setting up for other posting).
Health,
al-Aswad.
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