Late last year, after a minor Twitter brouhaha, I put up a blogpost criticizing author Christina Hoff Sommers’ views on the prevalence of rape in America. Today Sommers responded to that post with a four-pronged rebuttal, prompting a round of demands from her followers that I reply.
I’m happy to do so.
Sommers takes issue with my position on four issues — her role in the culture wars of the 1990s, the validity of a 2011 CDC study on rape, her analysis of the 2010 National Crime Victimization Study, and her position regarding rape in the contemporary United States. Let’s take each one in turn.
1. The Culture Wars
In my original post I said that anyone who was “around for the so-called Culture Wars of the mid-1990s” would likely remember Sommers, whose book Who Stole Feminism? “was a centerpiece of right-wing attacks on mainstream feminist theory and organizing at the time.”
Sommers describes this as a “faulty or fabricated” account, saying that she is a Democrat, that Nadine Strossen and Erica Jong wrote her fan mail, and that she, not her critics, represents “mainstream” feminism.
But Sommers is rebutting arguments I didn’t make. I didn’t say that Who Stole Feminism? was a right-wing or an anti-feminist work (although many prominent feminists have). I said that it was a centerpiece of right-wing attacks on mainstream feminism. Which it was.
Right-wingers and anti-feminists absolutely loved Who Stole Feminism? It was glowingly reviewed in practically every prominent conservative publication you can name and endlessly cited by feminism’s critics in print, online, and in face-to-face debates.
You couldn’t poke your head over a feminist parapet in 1995 without having Sommers’ book hurled at your head, is the point. Whether Sommers intended it to play that role in national debates around feminism or not, that’s a role it played.
2. The 2011 CDC Rape Study
In the video to which I was responding in my blogpost, Sommers characterized the CDC study’s questions in this way:
“No-one interviewed was asked if they had been raped or sexually assaulted. Instead of such straightforward questions, the CDC determined whether the responses indicated sexual violation. Now, 61.5% of the women the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced what the CDC called “alcohol and drug facilitated penetration.” Now, what does that mean? I mean, if a woman was unconscious or incapacitated, then every civilized person would call it rape. But what about sex while inebriated? Few people would say that intoxicated sex alone constitutes rape. Indeed, a non-trivial percentage of all customary sexual intimacy, including marital sex, probably falls under that definition.
There’s a lot going on here, so before we get to my prior critique of this passage and Sommers’ rebuttal, let’s unpack it a bit.
Sommers criticizes the CDC for not asking respondents if they had been raped or sexually assaulted, calling that a “straightforward” question. But the question is anything but straightforward. State laws vary widely in their definitions of rape and sexual assault, as does colloquial usage. To find out whether a person has been subjected to a particular kind of sexual assault, it’s necessary to ask them specific questions.
And what specific questions did the CDC use to, as Sommers put it, “determine whether the responses indicated sexual violation”? The primary one was this: Whether anyone had “used physical force or threats of physical harm to make [the respondent] have” oral, anal, or vaginal sex.
That’s not a vague question. It’s not an ambiguous question. It’s a simple, clear, narrow framing of the issue. And by that definition, using respondents’ answers to that question, the CDC estimates that nearly fifteen million American women have experienced rape in their lifetimes.
The second question the CDC used in that survey was the one Sommers characterized as asking about “alcohol and drug facilitated penetration,” suggesting that it was a catch-all term for any “sex while inebriated.” But let’s look at what that question, in the context in which it was asked, actually says:
“Sometimes sex happens when a person is unable to consent to it or stop it from happening because they were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out from alcohol, drugs, or medications. This can include times when they voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs or they were given drugs or alcohol without their knowledge or consent. Please remember that even if someone uses alcohol or drugs, what happens to them is not their fault.
“When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever…had vaginal sex with you? Made you perform anal sex? Made you receive anal sex? Made you perform oral sex? Made you receive oral sex?
That’s a lot of verbiage, to be sure, but it repeatedly and explicitly frames the issue under discussion as one of non-consensual activity, specifying at the top that it’s referring to circumstances in which an individual is “unable to consent to … or stop” sexual acts and then later asking about times when “you were … unable to consent.” In the questions about oral and anal sex (though not vaginal) the questioner returns yet again to the question of consent, asking whether someone had “made you” perform or acquiesce to those acts.
Go back and read Sommers’ gloss on this question again, and see whether it strikes you as a fair and accurate summary.
It didn’t strike me as one, so I said this in my post:
She suggests that the CDC counts consensual “sex while inebriated” as rape — indefensible, if true — but she does so by selectively and tendentiously quoting from the questionnaire. In fact, that section of the questionnaire — read to all respondents, but never mentioned by Sommers — states specifically that the questions within it concern sexual contact that “happens when a person is unable to consent to it or stop it from happening because they were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out from alcohol, drugs, or medications.”
Sommers knows this, but she deliberately excludes it from her writing and speaking on the topic in order to facilitate her misrepresentation of the CDC report.
In today’s rebuttal, Sommers accuses me of selective quotation since I left out the third and fourth sentences from the question. But in her video she quoted none of the language at issue, and in a 2014 Time magazine piece she quoted only the two I left out, omitting the initial statement that the questions to follow concern non-consensual sex specifically.
Do I think the CDC’s question was worded as well as it could have been? No. Do I think it left open the possibility of misinterpretation? Yes. But whatever its flaws, the question began with an explicit, unequivocal declaration that the question concerned non-consensual sex. If Sommers has publicly acknowledged that fact before today, I’m unaware of it. (And yes, I just spent a good fifteen minutes Googling.)
One more item on the CDC study before I move on.
In the video, Sommers declared that “61.5% of the women the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010” had responded in the affirmative to the question about drug and alcohol facilitated assault. It would be easy to assume from this phrasing that only the remaining 38.5% of those categorized as having been raped were so identified as a result of saying that they had experienced sexual assault as a result of “physical force or threats of physical harm.”
As it turns out, however, many of the women in the study had experienced multiple forms of sexual assault, and only 41% of the study’s reported assaults were in response to the drug-and-alcohol question. If Sommers had a good reason for using the potentially misleading 61.5% figure instead of the far more straightforward 41% number, I haven’t heard it.
I raised this issue in my original post, by the way, but Sommers didn’t address it in her reply.
3. The 2011 NCVS
In my blogpost I contended that Sommers was exaggerating the differences between the CDC’s rape rate and that obtained by the Department of Justice’s more conservative National Crime Victimization Survey by comparing completed rape numbers from the NCVS with completed-plus-attempted rape numbers from the CDC. In her response today, Sommers says I was “wrong.”
This one is easy: I was wrong.
Here’s how it happened. The NCVS report Sommers cited gave an estimate of 188,000 rapes in the United States in 2010, the figure Sommers relied on. But another report on the same data — this one analyzing only rapes committed against women — found that 143,000 women experienced completed rape that year, while another 89,000 experienced attempted rape. Since the NCVS report did not state explicitly that the 188,000 figure included attempted rape, I concluded that the discrepancy between the 188,000 number and the 143,000 number was a result of the exclusion of men from the second sample, and that the 188,000 figure applied only to completed rapes.
But like I say, I was wrong.
It turns out that the DOJ changed the way that it tabulates rape statistics in 2011. By counting incidents of rape rather than victims of rape, the new formula produces higher numbers. And while the the survey Sommers cited in her video used the old formula, the one I found — analyzing statistics from the same study conducted in the same year — used the new one. My interpretation of the data was plausible, but incorrect. I apologize for the error, and I’ll be correcting the original post.
4. Sommers’ Views on Rape
In the tweet that started this whole exchange, I said that Sommers had fallen further “down the rape denialist well” than I’d previously realized. That phrase — rape denialist — was one that incensed her supporters on Twitter, and explaining it was one of the things I set out to do in my post.
In today’s Facebook post Sommers said that “contesting statistics about rape is not the same as trivializing the crime or being a ‘denialist.'”
I agree with this. In fact, I agree with it so much that I said essentially the same thing myself in a response to a comment on my blogpost more than five months ago:
“The problem that I have with Sommers, ultimately, isn’t that she believes that there are fewer rapes happening in this country than I do. There’s a lot of ambiguity in the statistics, and reasonable people can disagree about which ones should be taken the most seriously.”
So if it’s not our disagreements on which statistics are most reliable that led me to use that term, what was it?
Well, it’s a few things. Partly it’s her misrepresentation of the data, which I addressed in part above and may say more about in another post. But more than that it’s her rhetoric.
According to the NCVS, which Sommers has described as the “gold standard” of sexual assault statistics, three hundred thousand rapes were committed in the United States in the most recent year for which we have information. According to the CDC, something like twenty million American women are survivors of rape or attempted rape — and that remains true even if you, like Sommers, discount their alcohol and drug statistics as unreliable.
In the face of all this, Sommers has described the rape crisis in America as “manufactured.” She has compared it to the Satanic ritual abuse hoaxes of the 1980s. She has declared that there is a “false accusation culture on campus,” and she has approvingly signal-boosted supporters who compared rape accusations to the Salem witch hunts.
This is not the language of statistics. This is not the language of reasoned debate over the precise magnitude of a serious social problem. This is the language of denial.
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May 13, 2015 at 9:56 pm
Dr Fumanchu
Bro you get R E K T . Leave while you can.
May 13, 2015 at 10:09 pm
Pablo García-Campo
(Sorry bad english)
Some questions for anyone who are passing by the comments
-how can we stop false rape accusations? do you think it’s an important issue (even if the numbers are obviously below real rape cases, you know, in our culture a rapist -or someone suspect of being one- is punished harshly by society, gets killed socially)
-should we punish false rape accusations with harder sanctions? (i propose the same jail time as a rapist to stop it when is proven that the supposed “victim” was intentionally lying)
-Do you agree that the intention behind Hoff Sommers rethoric is to improve rape statistic and analysis, to improve prevention and meassure efectively the effectiveness of anti rape campaigns? or do you think she has obscure intentions?
i see her as someone trying to clean the bad image of current feminism and at the same time fighting for men and women’s rights but seriously, without the often misandrist view of the current movement (yeah, i know some feminist say that misandry doesn´t exist and ridiculous and sexist claims like that are what’s killing current feminism -also mainstream feminists like Jessica Valenti are making the job easy for antisexist critics-).
May 13, 2015 at 10:39 pm
bluestarz
Facts and feminism do not go well together.
May 13, 2015 at 11:25 pm
Mike Smitts
She referred to the campus rape crisis –
in which even the authors of the 1 in 5 (for college this time, not for the general population) don’t really stand by their claims, and Sen. Gillibrand quietly withdrew that statistic from her website –
in which Emma Sulkowicz’s mattress project is currently in the process of being considered as harassment despite unquestioning media approval, in which Rolling Stone’s A Rape On Campus story (that YOU and countless others decried critics of, using the same sniveling weasel language you see here, even as their completely reasonable criticisms helped the story became undone) is now resulting in two separate lawsuits for the frat and the dean that it defamed in the pursuit of social justice narrative, in which Jameis Winston’s rape accusation is similarly falling apart, the three biggest stories of last year about this issue –
in which Harvard lawyers are joining with civil rights minded individuals and feminists like Emily Yoffe to call out a kangaroo court system in which judicial boards designed to handle plagiarism charges are put in charge of adjudicating what should be a police matter under demand of the federal government, propping up a system that used to not work in one direction so it can not work in the opposite direction –
in which “leftist campus radical” now apparently involves excluding anyone from campus who you find disagreeable, trigger warnings to get rid of problematic material, the censorship of statues and films and plays and performers and art, much of which is done in response to the same “cultural” concerns that led to the calls of a rape crisis in the first place –
as a moral panic. Because the preponderance of evidence says that it is.
May 14, 2015 at 12:33 am
versimilitude
Not only did he get rekt, Angus apparently can’t tell the difference between hyperbole and how real people talk.
May 14, 2015 at 12:54 pm
diomavro
The fact that you label leftistis who dislike the neo feminist narrative right-wingers is ridiculous. In fact, not a single person I’ve met in the last 4-5 years who is leftist would agree with the feminist “patriarchy” narrative.
Just FYI by the standards we use today I would have been sexually assaulted over a dozen times. Sometimes your partner wakes you up in the middle of the night and you aren’t in the mood or are sleepy but they get their way anyway. We can’t even be a little selfless without the other person being characterized as a monster.
This stuff is completely incoherent. Violence or implied violence(if you don’t go through with it you confident that they will become use superior force to get it out of you anyway) are the only coherent ways to define rape. The rest is nonsense and incompatible with free speech.
May 14, 2015 at 12:59 pm
diomavro
Other comment was copied wrong from clipboard use this one:
The fact that you label leftistis who dislike the neo feminist narrative right-wingers is ridiculous. In fact, not a single person I’ve met in the last 4-5 years who is leftist would agree with the feminist “patriarchy” narrative.
Just FYI by the standards we use today I would have been sexually assaulted over a dozen times. Sometimes your partner wakes you up in the middle of the night and you aren’t in the mood or are sleepy but they get their way anyway. We can’t even be a little selfless without the other person being characterized as a monster.
This stuff is completely incoherent. Violence or implied violence(if you don’t go through with it you are confident they will make use of superior force to get it anyway) are the only coherent ways to define rape. The rest is nonsense and incompatible with free speech.
May 14, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Angus Johnston
I didn’t label anyone a right-winger. I said that right-wingers — self-described right wingers — loved Sommers’ book. They did. You could look it up.
As for the rest of it, I’ve never characterized consensual sex as rape. Never have, never would. If you’re happy to go along with sex with your partner when you’re not particularly in the mood, then go for it. Have fun. Freely chosen agreement is consent, whatever its motivation.
But when you say that “violence or implied violence” is the only “coherent” standard for defining rape, you’re saying that no doesn’t mean no. You’re saying that if someone tells you to stop and you don’t want to stop you don’t have to stop unless they’re afraid you’ll physically overpower them.
And you’re wrong about that. You’re wrong morally, and you’re wrong legally. When someone says stop, you stop. Anything else makes you a rapist.
May 14, 2015 at 7:42 pm
Puggleby
When you said you had an apology here I expected to see an apology for the claims you were making against C. H. Sommers. Instead I see a simple apology for not doing your research before posting claims.
What I also see here is an arrogant person who is not actually sorry for anything.
“around for the so-called Culture Wars of the mid-1990s” would likely remember Sommers, whose book Who Stole Feminism? “was a centerpiece of right-wing attacks on mainstream feminist theory and organizing at the time.”
Your quote here, whether you intended it to be or not, is an implied accusation. Or at least it appears that way to anyone who reads it. CH Sommers has no control over how her book is used and quoted. Just as you have no control over how someone censors out sections of your writing when posting quotes. To fault her for that is nonsensical. And no, that may not be your intention, but it certainly seems to be.
” I didn’t say that Who Stole Feminism? was a right-wing or an anti-feminist work (although many prominent feminists have).”
I’d also like to point out here that you don’t apologize for the misleading statement. Nor do you say that Who Stole Feminism? isn’t a right-wing or anti-feminist work. You merely deny an accusation by stating you did not particularly say things in that way. And in fact you add in the little tidbit that it has been accused of being so. That little bit really does not help your argument for innocence here.
Your argument about the wording on the rape questionnaire is questionable. In Sommer’s argument she addresses your points by explaining her issues with the questionnaire. Your argument largely seems to address your points by explaining your issues with Sommers. You admit that the questionnaire is open to misinterpretation but then state that, “the question began with an explicit, unequivocal declaration that the question concerned non-consensual sex.” So this question was not open to misinterpretation by your own statement.
“As it turns out, however, many of the women in the study had experienced multiple forms of sexual assault, and only 41% of the study’s reported assaults were in response to the drug-and-alcohol question.”
I would like to know by what means you validate these numbers? Are you using the very questionnaire that Sommers is questioning the accuracy of? And what definition are you using here for sexual assault?
No need to use quotes around the word wrong. You were wrong. It’s not hypothetical. You didn’t check your facts.
“The problem that I have with Sommers, ultimately, isn’t that she believes that there are fewer rapes happening in this country than I do. There’s a lot of ambiguity in the statistics, and reasonable people can disagree about which ones should be taken the most seriously.”
The last section again does not help your argument. Rather than showing your desire to have an accurate answer it shows your desire to defame Sommers for, by your own admission, having a problem with her personally. For perceived, whether accurate or not, “misinterpretations” of the data.
She does back up many of her arguments with facts, statistics, and sources, as can be seen in the article that you wrote this in response to. Faulting her for a simple comparison and saying that it isn’t the “language of statistics” is trivial.
“The language of denial…”
Ultimately your article seems like a childish rebuttal and trying to make sense of the point you were attempting to make gave me a headache. You focus too much on attacking Sommers and not enough on validating your viewpoints.
May 14, 2015 at 8:34 pm
Angus Johnston
Shiu, I haven’t used the word “epidemic,” so I’m not sure where you’re getting it from. But yeah, if I agreed with Sommers’ minimizing rhetoric, I guess I’d also agree she wasn’t a denialist.
May 14, 2015 at 8:54 pm
Angus Johnston
Puggleby, let me take one more swing at the right-wing question, since it’s raised so many hackles.
I have no particular opinion about Sommers’ politics. As I said in my initial post, I haven’t followed her career at all in the last two decades, and I didn’t know much about her then. Is she a right-winger? Is she an anti-feminist? I don’t know the answer to the first question, and I don’t think any answer I’d give to the second would mean very much.
But yes, when I said that her book was beloved by right-wingers and anti-feminists I was making a value judgment. Of course I was. I’m not claiming to be “innocent.” I’m merely clarifying what I said and what I intended.
As for the rest, here goes:
The initial clause of the intoxication question in the CDC study is an unequivocal statement that what’s being asked about is non-consensual activity. Subsequent clauses muddy those waters a bit, but any fair description of the question must acknowledge that it is framed as a question about sexual assault. As far as I know, Sommers never publicly acknowledged it before today.
The 41% figure comes from the CDC study, as does Sommers’ 61.5%. The first is the percent of total reported incidents that involved intoxication, the second is the percent of respondents who answered one or more questions in the affirmative answered the intoxication question that way.
I put quotes around the word wrong because I was quoting Sommers. And then I validated her assesment by using the word twice more, myself, without quotes.
On the last stuff, you don’t find my arguments persuasive. Others do. I don’t know that there’s much more to say, other than that I was rebutting Sommers in this piece because it was a rebuttal to Sommers’ attacks on me. I’ve written pretty extensively elsewhere about my own views on this stuff, and those writings aren’t hard to find if you’re interested.
May 14, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Puggleby
Sommers was defending her stance from comments you made against her. She was not “attacking” you. This is further evidenced by the fact that she does not attempt to attack your person, as you do to her, but defends her initial points with cross references to other sources which she also sites in her response to your claims. She uses these sources to defend her points, not to attack you.
Also, again, you are making claims against Sommers person based on how you’ve personally seen others interpret her work. There is nothing statistical about that. By your own admission you do not know much about her but are making personal judgments.
Also when defending the validity of a study it’s good to use cross references that support that your viewpoints or opinions. Sommers did this while you did not. That’s statistics. This borders more on opinion.
I don’t believe I am interested in more of your work. What I’ve seen here is a major turn off. You argue the technicalities of wording (and personal interpretation at that) and fail to make a strong point or argument. You did not defend your points with facts, references, or statistics. You also did not do much in defending the validity of the CDC study (which is where cross references would have com in handy) but assume that the reader will believe in it’s validity as much as you do.
May 14, 2015 at 10:07 pm
A Response to Christina Hoff Sommers | iheariseeilearn
[…] A Response to Christina Hoff Sommers. […]
May 14, 2015 at 10:33 pm
PixelMamba
A bit off topic, but in a response to an earlier comment, you wrote:
>>>”But when you say that “violence or implied violence” is the only “coherent” standard for defining rape, you’re saying that no doesn’t mean no. You’re saying that if someone tells you to stop and you don’t want to stop you don’t have to stop unless they’re afraid you’ll physically overpower them.
And you’re wrong about that. You’re wrong morally, and you’re wrong legally. When someone says stop, you stop. Anything else makes you a rapist.”<<<
I am pretty sure what he meant was forced sex and sex under duress. I think forced sex, or conditions under duress, defines rape pretty well.
Forced applies when it's against their will, consists of an inability to interpret the situation in an informed manner (i.e. mentally impaired, too young) or is without their knowledge (i.e. unconscious, drugged, mentally compromised).
Duress applies pretty much anytime consent is given under threat, fear of retribution or reprisal, or ultimatum.
It's important to remember consent is body language as well as verbal. That's crucial when say, reading body language so you know when "stop" is a pillow word or serious.
May 14, 2015 at 10:48 pm
Angus Johnston
Pixel, he said that in the absence of violence or the threat of violence — actual physical violence — there’s no such thing as rape. He said that sex acquiesced to out of fear of retribution or reprisal or ultimatum does not count as rape unless the specific fear is the fear that “if you don’t go through with it…they will make use of superior force to get it anyway.”
That’s what he said. Anything else is “nonsense.” That’s what he said.
It’s repellent. But it’s what he said.
May 15, 2015 at 9:12 am
Puggleby
He did not say “physical” violence if you want to nitpick at words. That’s something you implied. He also did not say “sex acquiesced to out of fear of retribution or reprisal or ultimatum does not count as rape unless the specific fear is the fear that…” In fact all he said was, “Violence or implied violence(if you don’t go through with it you are confident they will make use of superior force to get it anyway) are the only coherent ways to define rape.” Violence can be emotional as well as physical.
Also the word coherent is in here as well; “logical or consistent.” Which can be agreed with without being “repellant” as rape has always been considered violent.
This is something that may be up to interpretation and also an opinion that may have more depth to it, had you actually attempted to discuss with the author and asked more of his opinion before labeling him repellent and going on a “that’s what he said,” rant while putting your personal interpretations in his mouth.
I’m in agreement with Pixel, “I am pretty sure what he meant was forced sex and sex under duress. I think forced sex, or conditions under duress, defines rape pretty well.”
Your problem with understanding others seems to come from the lack of consideration for the fact that perhaps they are not using words in the exact same way you are. Also it’s a bit funny that you complain about Sommers twisting your words while you do it yourself to, rather than discuss, create an attacker out of someone with an opposing viewpoint.
May 15, 2015 at 1:21 pm
Angus Johnston
If I’d thought what diomavro said was ambiguous, Puggleby, I would have asked for clarification. I didn’t, and don’t.
You’re right that he didn’t say physical violence specifically, just violence. But as you yourself noted, he followed that up with a reference to fear that your assailant “will make use of superior force” to have sex with you against your will.
What can “make use of superior force” mean in this context other than physically overpowering someone? Maybe you have an alternate explanation, but I don’t. In my reading, diomavro clearly stated that rape is only rape if you force someone to have sex or they acquiesce due to fear that you’ll exert such force.
I’m not twisting his words, I’m reading them. If I’m reading them wrong, okay. Show me how. Because I don’t see it.
You’re right that I wasn’t trying to convince him to change his mind. I was pointing out that his definition of rape is inconsistent with the law and noting that I find it reprehensible.
If you want my definition of rape — if you want to know the perspective I’m coming from when I call diomavro’s position repellent — here it is, in two parts:
First, if you have sex with someone who is unable to freely and meaningfully consent — because of age, incapacity, unconsciousness, or any other reason — it’s rape.
Second, if someone doesn’t want to have sex with you, and you know or should know that this is the case, and you have sex with them anyway, it’s rape.
The first of these two principles is pretty self-explanatory, but let me say a little bit more about the second.
My view is that if someone hasn’t consented to have sex with you, you have a moral obligation to respect that. It doesn’t matter why they don’t want to have sex with you, and it doesn’t matter how you get around their lack of consent. If they’re not consenting, and you have sex with them, you’re raping them.
There are other questions to be answered in fleshing this definition out, of course — how we define consent, how we establish whether consent exists, what it means to say that someone “should know” that they don’t have consent — and I’d be happy to discuss them if you like. But this, in a nutshell, is where I’m coming from.
May 15, 2015 at 5:04 pm
Marcel Weiher
A couple of points:
1. The “right wingers loved her book” context
If you didn’t mean anything by it, why did you include this? Of course you meant it, as “smear by association”. Of course, this says nothing about the book, and everything about you, as you apparently find it sufficiently damning if “the wrong kinds of people” like something. And if “the right kind of people” don’t like it.
In other times, this might have been called “bipartisanship” or “reaching across the aisle”. Or, this may be too radical, the book should stand on its own merits, and not be evaluated by whether the right or wrong people like it.
2. Facts and Figures
Glad you came out and admitted that you were wrong. That takes courage, and I applaud you for it.
3. The CDC study’s problematic wording
You admit that the wording is “less than ideal”. It is less than that. Particularly, the following:
“When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever…had vaginal sex with you?”
The problem is that it isn’t clear how the “and unable” binds. Does it bind “(drunk, high, drugged or passed out) AND unable to consent”. Or does it bind “drunk, high, drugged or (passed out AND unable to consent)”.
Another issue is that it counts being drunk and unable to consent as rape, even if that state applied to both parties equally. You assert that these problems do not matter, even though at the same time this particular survey with these particular problems yields vastly different numbers, numbers that are inconsistent with just about everything else known about the subject.
For example, the simple fact that in this survey, men are “raped” at the same rate as women (if you include “forced to penetrate”), strongly suggests that the participants of the survey did read the instructions simply as “did you have sex while drunk or high”.
You write “something like twenty million American women are survivors of rape or attempted rape”. No, according to the CDC, the same number of men are survivors of rape or attempted rape. Either you take the CDC numbers or you don’t, no cherry picking.
4. The “Crisis”
In the end though, we come back to language, something you dismissed in the comments to your earlier piece, despite the fact that it is THE crucial issue, once you have to admit (as you did), that her numbers are correct.
‘In the face of all this, Sommers has described the rape crisis in America as “manufactured.” ‘
The thing is: there is no “crisis”. Yes, rape is a Bad Thing™. Really bad. No one in their right mind disagrees with that.
However, as I pointed out before, a “crisis” is something quite different, that goes beyond “Bad Thing” There is a crucial elements of the situation worsening, a complex system potentially going out of control completely and, if the right action is not taken, turning into complete catastrophe.
If you are unclear about the difference, here are a couple of examples: the Cuban Missile Crisis was a crisis. The cold war was not. The financial crisis of 2008 was a crisis, the long erosion of the middle class by right wing politicians starting with Reagan was not.
Adding “crisis” does not make one thing worse than the other (for example, IMHO the long term erosion of the middle class by Reagen-esque politics is far worse than the financial crisis). Conversely removing “crisis” from something does not make it better, or belittle the problem. They are just different things.
None of these elements apply to the “rape crisis”: the situation has actually been getting consistently and significantly better for the last 30 years, there is no “crisis moment” that is detectable, there is no large system (all of society) that is at risk of descending into chaos if the appropriate remedial action is not taken now. There is no urgency about this particular point in time, the urgency is equally applicable to 10 years ago or 20 years ago (more so in fact, because the situation was worse then).
I think Mrs. Sommers credits the people she criticizes with knowing the difference between a genuine “crisis” and the situation right now, and when you assume that, you come to the conclusion that the mischaracterization of the situation as a crisis is intentional, hence “manufactured”. There is a lot of evidence for this point of view, but I tend to go with the old adage “never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity”.
May 15, 2015 at 5:35 pm
Angus Johnston
Marcel, my impression is that most of the points you raise have been hashed out before, and that even where they haven’t, we’re unlikely to reach common ground. Some of this stuff we just disagree on, and some of it we interpret so differently as to make it impossible for us to have a productive conversation. If anyone wants me to respond to one or two of your arguments I’d be happy to do that, but I’m not going to try to rebut them all.
I will, though, say one thing. You write that “there is no urgency about this particular point in time” with regard to rape in America, that because there was more rape a few decades ago, there’s definitionally no crisis now. (I hope I’ve done your position justice with that summary — I’ve tried to keep my thumb off the scale.)
My response? I agree that there was far more rape in America a few decades ago, and that rape was far more accepted by society. Rape rates have, to the best of our ability to measure, dropped a lot since the mid-20th century. The numbers are dramatic, and the story they tell is incredibly welcome. So yes, I do believe that long-term trends are in the right direction. I’ve written about this before, in detail, on more than one occasion.
So why do I still call rape in America a crisis? Because although the numbers are better, they’re still horrific. Use the CDC’s numbers, use the DOJ’s numbers, use whatever numbers you want — they all tell me that rape is still shockingly prevalent. They all tell me that there’s still a huge amount of work to be done.
Rape rates are dropping. They’re dropping fast. But they’re dropping precisely because we’ve begun to address rape as a crisis.
Now, yeah, we can quibble about nomenclature. And yeah, if anyone were to come to me to say that we’re facing a *worsening* rape crisis in America, I’d tell them they were wrong. (And I have.) But if you want to tell me there’s no rape crisis in this country you have to say one of two things: Either there was a crisis and it’s over, or it was never a crisis at all.
And neither of those assessments makes much sense to me.
May 15, 2015 at 5:45 pm
Angus Johnston
One other thing, Marcel. You say that nobody in their right mind disagrees that rape is really bad and really serious. And yet every time I post about rape, I get commenters coming to my blog to tell me that acts that the law clearly categorizes as rape aren’t really rape at all. Every time.
So forgive me if I’m not as sanguine as you are that everybody’s on the anti-rape team.
May 15, 2015 at 6:30 pm
Puggleby
You are quite ridiculous.
The word force does not automatically apply to the physical properties. Superior force means in greater size (physical) or power (which can have a variety of other meanings.) As I have already pointed out you can emotionally twist someone and exert superior force in such a manner. That’s one simple example.
You admit that your opinion is personal bias. Yes, you are reading his words, but you are also applying your personal understanding and interpretation to them. This is why you probably should have asked him a few questions before casting labels.
I am not arguing what constitutes as consent. That was not my concern. My concern was that you are adding a meaning that you implied to someone else’s post and attacked them as a result.
I said nowhere that you should try to convince him. If I had said that it would have implied that I thought he was wrong. But, as I understand and believe his meaning to be personally, I don’t. What I meant is that you should try to better understand someone’s viewpoint before casting a label on them and trying to smear their name.
Nobody in their “right mind” would disagree that rape is bad or serious.
Commenters are coming to your blog because you posted a link on Sommers’ response to your initial allegations. That was an invitation if you didn’t know. You even advertised that it included an apology. You should have expected some opposing viewpoints.
Now you’re trying to turn around and cry “attack” when you initiated both Sommers’ response and the comments that have been brought to your blog.
May 15, 2015 at 6:46 pm
Angus Johnston
Puggleby, I don’t see where I’ve complained about anyone coming here to comment, but I think we’re at an impasse here. We each find the other’s interpretation of diamavro’s statement unconvincing. Let’s leave it at that.
May 16, 2015 at 8:58 am
Angus Johnston
[new comments snipped]
Marcel, Pugglesby, at this point you’re both just recycling arguments you’ve already made while ignoring my responses to them. I’ve given you a platform to do that for long enough. We’re done.
May 16, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Puggleby
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how those were recycled arguments.
I didn’t ignore any of your responses. I even said I agreed with you on dropping the initial discussion.
Basically what I see here is someone blocking and attempting to demonize those that are breaking up his narrative rather than actually having discussions. Apparently you were asked questions you were uncomfortable answering.
And sure go ahead and snip this comment too since it’s direct and bound to make you feel uncomfortable.
May 16, 2015 at 1:58 pm
somePasserby
Okay, so
1) how do we define a rape “crisis” ?
2) Did the questionaire in question indeed contain passage that amounts to, fullquote “if they had ever had sex because someone pressured them by “telling you lies,” “making promises about the future they knew were untrue,” or “showing they were unhappy.” All affirmative answers were counted as “sexual violence.” ?
No 1 is a straightfoward, practical question for assessing and managing “crisises”.
No 2… if it is true, it disqualifies the entire questionaire, IMO.
May 16, 2015 at 2:52 pm
Angus Johnston
Pugglesby, I’m neither blocking nor trying to demonize you. I’m noting that the current conversation is degenerating into repetition and invective, and drawing it to a close. I’m trying to do that politely. Sorry if you don’t like it.
May 16, 2015 at 3:11 pm
Angus Johnston
Passerby, I’m done being cross-examined about the phrase “rape crisis.” Accept or reject my position, it’s up to you. Hundreds of thousands of rapes every year, the overwhelming majority of them unpunished. That’s a crisis to me.
As for the second issue, I think the issue of how we understand sexual violence is an important and complex one, and I’m glad the CDC is trying to gather data on sexual acts that fall outside the realm of legal prohibition.
And yes, I do think that lying to someone with the specific aim of getting them to have sex with you is sexually predatory. I think that trying to wear someone down after they’ve told you they don’t want sex — “pressur[ing] you by wearing you down by repeatedly asking for sex, or showing they were unhappy,” in the words of the study — is vile behavior too.
And while those behaviors are grouped under the general heading of “other sexual violence” in the study, and while yes, I agree with you that that’s a poor phrasing, the specific category they’re placed within is “sexual coercion,” which I see as both accurate and descriptive.
If you pressure someone to have sex with them by lying, that’s coercive behavior. If you try to wear them down in the face of them telling you they don’t want sex, or try to guilt them into it by telling them how sad their rejection makes you feel, that’s coercive behavior.
As I’ve said more than once, I think the CDC study is flawed. It’s a first attempt to do something really important and radically new. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t flawed.
May 16, 2015 at 4:12 pm
Angus Johnston
One more thing about the legal definition of rape, since it seems to be in question.
Under New York State law, a person is guilty of rape or sexual assault in the third degree — a felony — if they engaged in a sexual act after
“the victim clearly expressed that he or she did not consent to engage in
such act, and a reasonable person in the actor’s situation would have
understood such person’s words and acts as an expression of lack of
consent to such act under all the circumstances.”
So if you try something with someone, and they say no, and a reasonable person would understand that they meant it, and you go ahead anyway — even for a moment — you’re guilty of rape or sexual assault under New York law.
Doesn’t matter whether you were hoping to change their mind by trying again, doesn’t matter why they said no, doesn’t matter if they stop resisting and let you go ahead.
If they say no, and they mean it, and you do it anyway, you’re committing a felony.
May 16, 2015 at 5:56 pm
somePasserby
So basically, being honest about one’s feelings in a relationship is by definition coercion if those feelings are not happy.
That’s nice to know.
Lying is, of course, vile behavior, but it is almost by definition non-violent behavior, and trying to drag it alongside sexual violence creates confusion at best, contaminates the study at worst.
Classifying lies as coercion also seems rather questionable (lies are, duh, deception – not coercion).
Also, do my high heels count as lying (they make me look taller than I am, thus communicating false information)?
May 16, 2015 at 8:03 pm
Angus Johnston
It’s easy to mock the language of the CDC study, particularly when you strip fragments of questions from context. As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s a flawed study. But I’m not sure what words like “disqualifies” and “contaminates” mean in this context.
If a question on a survey seems poorly worded to me, I’ll take that into account when assessing the validity of the responses to that question. If I disagree with the survey creators’ interpretation of their results, I’ll interpret it as I please. If I have criticisms of their methodology, I’ll raise them, and hope they’re corrected in the future. All of that is pretty standard in dealing with this kind of data.
So yeah, I take the CDC study with a grain of salt. Some of its results seem strong, some seem wobbly, and some are downright confounding. But the project is a worthy one, and some of its findings strike me as useful contributions to our understanding of sexual assault — a vital topic where we lack reliable data.
But none of this is anything I haven’t said before.
May 21, 2015 at 5:55 pm
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