I think rape is very much a distant thing to students who haven’t experienced it themselves. It’s a TV show reality or a lifetime movie topic. They look at their fellow students and they assume that none of them have been raped. I was always on the other side of the fence, looking at my fellow students and wondering who had been raped. We talked about rape during one sex ed class and I really felt that the curriculum failed miserably. Rape was farther distanced from the students that day, despite the teacher doing her best to avoid that.

We didn’t talk about the things that go into a non-stranger rape, from assumed consent to coercion. The class dissolved into nervous giggles and then into jokes and comments. I wanted to stand up and tell my story to say, “I’m someone you’ve known since we were in kindergarten. I’m your age. I’m one of you and this happened to me and I’m sure I’m not the only one.” Someone needs to do that because, on one hand, it gives people who have been raped a measure of relief to know that their entire class has an idea of what they’re going through and on the other hand, it gives the potential rapists something to think about.

I believe some people will rape anyway, for one reason or another, and this won’t help them. Nothing really will. However, the rest thinking of their date/partner/spouse/friend/friend with benefits/whatever being hurt as badly and as enduringly as the speaker was will make them pause before raping or “maybe” raping someone (in the UU sex ed course way). Combined with communication lessons and stressing enthusiastic consent, this could work.

Okay, I’m going off-tangent here.
But I believe that if you teach them all this in a discussion abled way and teach them basics of human communication at the same time, you would most definitely have less men in the future that “accidentally” rape a woman, because of naivety or just because they are unable to communicate well enough.

As for the violently natured version of rape, they just need to be taught how to communicate their problems, and have readily available help. Help should be for everyone, not just victims. I’m sure that someone that made someone else a victim, at some point were a victim of some sort in their lifetime. So to stop the chain of violence must be through open-mindness of the hurt person and someone there to help them figure out the core of their problem and just to have someone there to listen.

I found this journal article to include well-designed, well-executed, and well-analyzed research:

Sadler, A.G., Booth, B.M, Cook, B.L. and Doebbeling, B.N. “Factors associated with women’s risk of rape in the military environment,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 43 (3), 262-273, March, 2003

This article provides compelling data behind 29 - 30% of military women being raped during their military careers. But the data could be considered old (they spoke, of course, with veterans, in order to get a picture of rape across entire military careers). This is particularly true because the military environment continues to develop and has recently begun to work specifically to reduce rape within.

The other research which I found relevant and well executed is the Armed Forces 2002 Sexual Harassment Survey (clicking the link will download the PDF report to your computer):

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2004/d20040227shs1.pdf

This survey asks specifically about the experience of the military women interviewed over the last 12 months. The results say that over the 12 months prior to the survey, 8% of women experienced sexual coercion and 3% experienced sexual assault. Draw the conclusions you want, but these numbers mean that over a twelve month period, more than 1 in 10 women are having sexual relations they don’t want to engage in.

So this break-down of the data isn’t as clean or as high-impact as the 1-in-3 data given above. I am continuing to look into this more, and may have additional information to bring in the future.

Taking them in the order presented (not in the order of importance!): 1. the statistic cited here is questionable. I’ve worked for the military in Behavioral Health for over 5 years now. I find it hard to believe that 1 in 3 women in the military are raped by other military members. I DO believe, in fact know to be true, that way too many women are raped by other military members, but where does that number come from? Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it so.

2. We had a training video at one of my bases for young, new military members that was very similar to the described video from OWL and I think it had good impact on all who saw it. It is so important for males to recognize that if the female is incapacitated (i.e. inebriated), she is NOT capable of consent for first time sex and you better know her pretty well before you continue a sexual relationship under those circumstances.

3. As someone who has worked with many, many women who have been sexually molested by family members, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I’m working and socializing with child molesters all the time - I just don’t know it. Of course some of the boys and men who receive education on this topic are rapists. There is no way around it. The way to work with rapists (and child molesters as well), is to work with them respectfully, but clearly and firmly. No ALWAYS means no. Children (not adolescents!) are ALWAYS off limits sexually. Family members (some blurry lines here but in general) are ALWAYS off limits sexually.

4. The last point I want to make is actually what I think is the most important point and I think Dr Rayne expresses this very well and Barb does earlier also. Respectful interaction, beginning at birth and continuing throughout life, is the single most important interaction to reduce rape. Almost all people who have been treated respectfully the majority of their lives have grave difficulty treating another human being with sufficient disrespect to allow rape to occur. Children and adolescents in our culture are so accustomed to being treated disrespectfully, they look forward to reaching the age where they can do the same. And so the distress continues. I don’t post to this blog very often because I’m in such agreement so often with Dr Rayne that there doesn’t seem a need for me to chime in and say “yeah, what she said”, but I do want parents to take this blog seriously - your life and the life of your children will be greatly enriched!