Ongoing issue with rape being prevalent in India

[Davino]

@Buck Edwards You shared that a guy attempted to rape you. Would you mind telling us your experience?

We probably won't have a first hand report of an assaulter but maybe we can have a report of the other side.

So share what you feel comfortable  sharing, if any.

Did you know the aggressor? Where did it happen? What did you do afterwards? 

[mr_engineer]

With all due respect, here's what I will say. 

If you say that 'rape is due to sexual frustration', this is enabling the issue of rape. It gives sexually frustrated individuals the idea that 'rape is a legitimate option for me, despite the consequences'. It's not! It could be a temporary catalyst, but it's definitely not at the root of the issue. 

[Princess Arabia]

4 minutes ago, Kid A said:

Hijab is very effective in preventing rape.

What a shame if that's what it takes. I highly doubt how one dresses matters to a "real" rapist.

[Nemra]

@Davino

I don't see a problem if, for example, two people, one who likes to be raped by someone who likes to rape, no matter how much it could be horrifying for others. But I am against the rape that is not actually consensual, which is more prevalent. Rape wouldn't be so negatively viewed if it were actually consensual for people.

Edited August 19 by Nemra

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, mr_engineer said:

With all due respect, here's what I will say. 

If you say that 'rape is due to sexual frustration', this is enabling the issue of rape. It gives sexually frustrated individuals the idea that 'rape is a legitimate option for me, despite the consequences'. It's not! It could be a temporary catalyst, but it's definitely not at the root of the issue. 

Exactly. Some caveats to explore here, but definitely on the right track, imo.

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Nemra said:

@Davino

I don't see a problem if, for example, two people, one who likes to be raped by someone who likes to rape, no matter how much it could be horrifying for others. But I am against the rape that is not actually consensual, which is more prevalent. Rape wouldn't be so negatively viewed if it were consensual for people.

Yes, there are sexual fetishes of the sort and rape fantasies that people play out. Not the same as the actual thing, and I don't see anything wrong with playing out those fantasies if consensual and no one gets hurt unwillingly. 

[Buck Edwards]

14 minutes ago, Davino said:

You shared that a guy attempted to rape you. Would you mind telling us your experience?

We probably won't have a first hand report of an assaulter but maybe we can have a report of the other side.

So share what you feel comfortable  sharing, if any.

Did you know the aggressor? Where did it happen? What did you do afterwards? 

All I can say is that it's non consensual. I do get rape dreams because of it. I mean nightmares. I also orgasm during these nightmares.

This doesn't mean that consent is given. Rape is a crime and a lot of people confuse it with sex or "horny sex" or whatever. Rape is traumatising and I still deal with the trauma to the point I didn't even want to be a woman. 

The complex part of rape that bothers me the most is that when people assume that if a woman orgasms during rape (which a lot of women do) the question asked is "did you enjoy the rape?" it's highly offensive in my opinion to ask such a question to a rape trauma victim. 

Also other parts such as victim blaming and victim shaming. It's like the length of my skirt doesn't matter. If someone wants to rape, they will anyway. A woman's clothing doesn't invite rape. The other part is to assume that it was regret sex or maybe she was drunk. I'm like - even if a woman is drunk 😢, consent is still not given. 

Edited August 19 by Buck Edwards

[Moutushi]

8 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

What a shame if that's what it takes. I highly doubt how one dresses matters to a "real" rapist.

@Princess Arabia That's what I tried explaining to @Buck Edwards, that Islam is a major deterrent to men in the Middle East, I say this from first-hand experience of growing up there, as part of a Muslim cult. Marital rape, on the other hand, is, unfortunately, more common, and that is where men take out their aggression on women "who disobey them", Islam does to a certain extent encourage men to exercise their dominance on women they are married to, so that women stay in line, however, there's debate within Islamic sects about what degree of violence is permissible against women when they disobey their husband. I am not a Muslim and have major criticism of it, but having lived in the Middle East, I can see how Islam has served as a protection of women in public, but not so in the privacy of their homes with their Husbands/brothers/fathers 

[Moutushi]

5 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

All I can say is that it's non consensual. I do get rape dreams because of it. I mean nightmares. I also orgasm during these nightmares.

This doesn't mean that consent is given. Rape is a crime and a lot of people confuse it with sex or "horny sex" or whatever. Rape is traumatising and I still deal with the trauma to the point I didn't even want to be a woman. 

The complex part of rape that bothers me the most is that when people assume that if a woman orgasms during rape (which a lot of women do) the question asked is "did you enjoy the rape?" it's highly offensive in my opinion to ask such a question to a rape trauma victim. 

Agreed @Buck Edwards, it's incredibly offensive to assume that of a rape victim, gosh this topic is tough for me to emotionally grapple with as a man who tries to advocate for women's rights in places where they need it, like in the middle east. 

[Bobby_2021]

I don't have enough energy to educate the decadent westoids on how every other culture works.

Every eastern culture is far more rich and complex compared to the bland monolithic western culture. Stop projecting and resist your urge to think of it as weird. 

[Princess Arabia]

40 minutes ago, Moutushi said:

Agreed @Buck Edwards, it's incredibly offensive to assume that of a rape victim, gosh this topic is tough for me to emotionally grapple with as a man who tries to advocate for women's rights in places where they need it, like in the middle east. 

I can sense and feel this in you. I felt the trembling in your typing voice as you wrote this. That's how sensitive I am. You probably grapple with this issue more than women because of your sensitive nature and your genuine love for women. It breaks your heart to see this happen to them and you're trying your very best to help the best way you know how, but it gets frustrating because you can only do so much. I get it.

[bambi]

1 hour ago, Buck Edwards said:

All I can say is that it's non consensual. I do get rape dreams because of it. I mean nightmares. I also orgasm during these nightmares.

This doesn't mean that consent is given. Rape is a crime and a lot of people confuse it with sex or "horny sex" or whatever. Rape is traumatising and I still deal with the trauma to the point I didn't even want to be a woman. 

The complex part of rape that bothers me the most is that when people assume that if a woman orgasms during rape (which a lot of women do) the question asked is "did you enjoy the rape?" it's highly offensive in my opinion to ask such a question to a rape trauma victim. 

Also other parts such as victim blaming and victim shaming. It's like the length of my skirt doesn't matter. If someone wants to rape, they will anyway. A woman's clothing doesn't invite rape. The other part is to assume that it was regret sex or maybe she was drunk. I'm like - even if a woman is drunk 😢, consent is still not given. 

The end point is highly nuanced though, and a grey area to me.

There is a whole category of rape or sexual assault that is occuring between naked drunked individuals sharing a bed. There is so much nuance and grey area here that it almost needs new nomenclature.

We need to be able to see things on a continuum and handle the context to parse the severity of the situation. I have woke up before after a night out and woke up to girls having sex with me and I dont even remember bringing them home. I didnt class this is rape nor did I find it particularly traumatising at the time. But I definately wouldnt compare this to me being beaten up and raped in an alley by two large men. The latter would undoubtely cause me severe distress

 

[Nemra]

@Princess Arabia 

The problem is, how do we know if it's consensual? It's difficult.

How can we differentiate a person who likes that from a person who is really threatened, etc.?

I think having safeguards against rape is important.

Edited August 19 by Nemra

[Princess Arabia]

31 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Princess Arabia 

The problem is, how do we know if it's consensual? It's difficult.

How can we differentiate a person who likes that from a person who is really threatened, etc.?

I think having safeguards against rape is important.

Yes, I understand. That's why we have statutory laws. Plus, between adults, we know the difference between consensual and forced. Anyone that doesn't know the difference shouldn't be having sex.

[Davino]

2 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

This doesn't mean that consent is given. Rape is a crime and a lot of people confuse it with sex or "horny sex" or whatever. Rape is traumatising and I still deal with the trauma to the point I didn't even want to be a woman. 

Damn, that's tough

2 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

The complex part of rape that bothers me the most is that when people assume that if a woman orgasms during rape (which a lot of women do) the question asked is "did you enjoy the rape?" it's highly offensive in my opinion to ask such a question to a rape trauma victim. 

I really had no idea of this phenomenon. It surely is very counter-intuitive. I've been researching and is very common.

Quote

Abstract

The review examines whether unsolicited or non-consensual sexual stimulation of either females or males can lead to unwanted sexual arousal or even to orgasm. The conclusion is that such scenarios can occur and that the induction of arousal and orgasm does not indicate that the subjects consented to the stimulation. A perpetrator’s defence simply built upon the fact that evidence of genital arousal or orgasm proves consent has no intrinsic validity and should be disregarded.

from Science Direct: Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation

More on this from another article

Quote

But how can this be? How can a victim’s experience of rape, especially violent rape, include an orgasm? If you are a blogger on one website (which I refuse to honor with a link) the explanation is simple: “You’ve suddenly realized that actually, in spite of what you thought before it happened, in reality you wanted to be raped and you’re… loving every minute of it… that fact alone makes ‘rape’ an act of consensual sex.”

No. This is not the explanation. Rape and arousal can happen simultaneously, and one does not exclude the other. As disgusting as they are, that blogger’s words illustrate a common error of conflating arousal and conscious intention. An orgasm, at least in popular understanding, represents a peak of sexual pleasure, a state of euphoria. In that perception, if someone is experiencing rape, shouldn’t pleasure be absent? Shouldn’t the body, you know, shut that whole thing down?

We really need a better understanding of human sexuality and human physiology. Just as Todd Akin (and hundreds of years of science) was so wrong in thinking that rape can’t lead to pregnancy, I and many others were entirely wrong about arousal and climax during rape. Despite what many rapists would like to believe, arousal does not mean that an assault was enjoyable or that a victim was asking for it. So what does it mean?

Quite simply, our bodies respond to sex. And our bodies respond to fear. Our bodies respond. They do so uniquely and often entirely without our permission or intention. Orgasm during rape isn’t an example of an expression of pleasure. It’s an example of a physical response whether the mind’s on board or not, like breathing, sweating, or an adrenaline rush. Therapists commonly use the analogy of tickling. While tickling can be pleasurable, when it is done against someone’s wishes it can be very unpleasant experience. And during that unpleasant experience, amid calls to stop, the one being tickled will continue laughing. They just can’t help it.

from: What Science Says About Arousal During Rape? Yes, orgasms can happen to rape victims.

The tickling analogy makes a lot of sense.

2 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

Also other parts such as victim blaming and victim shaming. It's like the length of my skirt doesn't matter. If someone wants to rape, they will anyway. A woman's clothing doesn't invite rape. The other part is to assume that it was regret sex or maybe she was drunk. I'm like - even if a woman is drunk 😢, consent is still not given. 

Yes, that whole processing reasoning is backwards.

And I don't support that type of reasoning because it totally comes from the wrong place. However, maybe 99% is fault of the aggressor and 1% naivety from the victim, bad place, bad time, things of this sort. Hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Thanks for sharing your experience and it has helped me to understand this complex issue better.

I appreciate it, have a nice day

Edited August 19 by Davino

[Moutushi]

2 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

I can sense and feel this in you. I felt the trembling in your typing voice as you wrote this. That's how sensitive I am. You probably grapple with this issue more than women because of your sensitive nature and your genuine love for women. It breaks your heart to see this happen to them and you're trying your very best to help the best way you know how, but it gets frustrating because you can only do so much. I get it.

@Princess Arabia I appreciate you seeing and feeling where I'm at, yes I find it incredibly frustrating because I can only do so much from where I'm at <3 

[Harsh Bagdia]

This is super-interesting and super-badass ❤️‍🔥

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[eos_nyxia]

12 hours ago, Moutushi said:

@Princess Arabia That's what I tried explaining to @Buck Edwards, that Islam is a major deterrent to men in the Middle East, I say this from first-hand experience of growing up there, as part of a Muslim cult. Marital rape, on the other hand, is, unfortunately, more common, and that is where men take out their aggression on women "who disobey them", Islam does to a certain extent encourage men to exercise their dominance on women they are married to, so that women stay in line, however, there's debate within Islamic sects about what degree of violence is permissible against women when they disobey their husband. I am not a Muslim and have major criticism of it, but having lived in the Middle East, I can see how Islam has served as a protection of women in public, but not so in the privacy of their homes with their Husbands/brothers/fathers 

Society in the "West" is still trying to make sense of what it means when the ones you are supposed to be able to trust and love you instead violate you. We are still very much in the process of adjusting how we think and talk about it, especially in public to other people. IMO a lot of progress has been made in the last 20 years or so, so that sexual assault isn't just seen as something that mainly happens when strangers jump out of dark alleys or manage to roofie your drink in a bar. Nor is it something that mainly happens while you are wearing the wrong kind of outfit, being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, while giving out the wrong signals. (Because apparently just existing is also "giving out a signal".)

If people who are raped are solely responsible for preventing rape (both on a moral and a practical level), then the uncomfortable implication of most rapes (allegedly) being done by someone the person knows is to just not trust anyone and let them close to you, lol. To live in a bubble, to stay single, and to not have any male friends or unnecessary acquaintances. But if everyone who was raped, sexually assaulted, or molested avoided the opposite sex, somehow that would be women's fault too for "depriving men". So this whole issue has gotten tangled up in the gender wars along the way.

It seems like sexual abuse amongst family members is the hardest thing for people to wrap their heads around though, out of all the things people want to not talk about, sweep under the rug, and minimize (either that it could not possibly be that bad, that it never happened, or that it doesn't happen that frequently therefore it probably never happened to the person speaking about it). It has gotten miles better though. Actually, one benefit of Youtube and the internet is more people being able to tell their stories without barriers to entry. The actual strong deterrent to this fixation that people lie about SA for attention is that not that many people actually want being raped or molested as their "claim to fame" unless there is a goddamned good reason for it. There is usually some amount of shame, humiliation, or at least reticence to get over, and that's even if no one shames you along the way.

It's also much harder to blame someone for not avoiding SA, usually a child, without looking like a complete sociopath.  Unfortunately, based on some of my own early experiences, my expectations of a good number of people are so low that I assume that if they could publically blame a child for being raped, they would. The "rationality" is just a cover for whatever it is that they both want and can get away with justifying.

Edited August 20 by eos_nyxia

[LSD-Rumi]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't have experience with India so I don't know why rape is so common there.

I would guess the problem is related to the culture's lack of acceptance for casual sex. From what I understand sex in India mostly requires getting married, which leaves many people sexually frustrated.

All countries in the Middle East forbid casual sex, yet rape is not common (except in Egypt, Egypt is like India in a lot of ways). It is something related to poverty, hood upbringing, and low moral development.

Edited August 20 by LSD-Rumi

[eos_nyxia]

To those of you who said that rape is not common in the Middle East @LSD-Rumi  @Moutushi (??), and anyone else who knows anything and is inclined to answer:

1. How do you know that it's not underreported? What's the process for going from filing a claim, handling and investigating evidence, to actually getting someone convicted? How safe do people actually feel reporting? If someone reports their rape, is there the possibility to be violently retaliated against (either from the police or others in their community), along with extreme social shaming and ostracization? (Note: people often don't feel safe reporting here in Western countries either, because of the social shaming/ ostracization factor.)
2. Corruption and Social Values: How trustworthy and invested are the police, basically? Like, there can be a huge disparity between the law on paper and how it's actually handled most of the time... Also, do primarily religious authorities handle these cases in some Middle Eastern countries? (Alternatively, how subservient is the government, even if not technically hyper-religious, to religious authorities of a fundamentalist nature?)
3. What is the actual definition of rape from country to country in the Middle East? I'm under the impression that it's defined much more strictly and conditionally than we define it here. In Western countries (at least in Canada/ the US), we have the term "sexual assault" which is an umbrella term for a whole bunch of things where proper consent is deemed not possible, including: having sex with an inappropriately aged minor as an adult (aka. "statutory rape"), rape, molestation, drugging someone so that they can't consent properly, molestation and groping, etc.     ....basically, I'm wondering how easy is it to by-pass legal loopholes?

Edited August 20 by eos_nyxia