Steubenville high school football players accused of raping an allegedly drunk 16-year-old girl found guilty.

[zombieApocExtraordinaire]

Originally Posted by helenejen

Sweden's method of reporting rape is also much more rigorous than most countries. To the question of Sweden's ranking:

"But that is a misconception, according to Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention in Stockholm. She says you cannot compare countries' records, because police procedures and legal definitions vary widely. "In Sweden there has been this ambition explicitly to record every case of sexual violence separately, to make it visible in the statistics," she says. "So, for instance, when a woman comes to the police and she says my husband or my fiance raped me almost every day during the last year, the police have to record each of these events, which might be more than 300 events. In many other countries it would just be one record - one victim, one type of crime, one record."

If that's true, that's insane way of recording sexual assault. How can they record 300 or so incidents? Based on her memory?

Furthermore, "an on-the-face-of-it international comparison of rape statistics can be misleading.

I understand that. I didn't compare Sweden to Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Even the USA. I compared it to Europe. I would imagine if nothing else Sweden has a comparable way of recording sexual assaults to her neighboring Scandinavian countries, but I could be wrong. Never looked into it. I just remember reading an article when I lived in the UK about Sweden's rape problem. I also read plenty of articles about UK's knife crime problems and associated 'chav', 'yob' and 'ned' (in Scotland) culture.

[Saritaschihuahua]

Originally Posted by helenejen

Sweden's method of reporting rape is also much more rigorous than most countries. To the question of Sweden's ranking:

"But that is a misconception, according to Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention in Stockholm. She says you cannot compare countries' records, because police procedures and legal definitions vary widely. "In Sweden there has been this ambition explicitly to record every case of sexual violence separately, to make it visible in the statistics," she says. "So, for instance, when a woman comes to the police and she says my husband or my fiance raped me almost every day during the last year, the police have to record each of these events, which might be more than 300 events. In many other countries it would just be one record - one victim, one type of crime, one record."

Furthermore, "an on-the-face-of-it international comparison of rape statistics can be misleading.

Botswana has the highest rate of recorded attacks - 92.9 per 100,000 people - but a total of 63 countries don't submit any statistics, including South Africa, where a survey three years ago showed that one in four men questioned admitted to rape.

In 2010, an Amnesty International report highlighted that sexual violence happens in every single country, and yet the official figures show that some countries like Hong Kong and Mongolia have zero cases reported."
BBC News - Sweden's rape rate under the spotlight

This is super interesting. It brings to mind that statistics can't be taken for granted and the method by which these are kept is very important to know.

I was once under the assumption that the U.S. had statistical accuracy until I realized when discussing the unemployment rates of the U.S. vs. Spain with someone in Spain who works for the Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, that that's not always the case. For ex., Spain keeps very rigorous unemployment statistics - if you lost your job, you're counted as unemployed until you find a new one or are retired. Here in the U.S., unemployment statistics take into account only people who are collecting benefits (unemployment) or looking for work very actively.

In the U.S., once unemp. benefits run out, they are dropped from the statistics (which makes it look as if they were employed). Same with those who stop seeking work after having found none. Those are also dropped as unemployed. Lastly, those who have had to take part-time work because they could no longer find full-time work, are also considered employed.

Using this inaccurate method, U.S. unemployment stats always end up looking much better than they actually are.

[thethreefoldme]

Originally Posted by katzpaw

This is a good summary:

That's a great video... which highlights how imperative it is that sexual education in schools incorporates teaching teens that ONLY yes means yes. No means no is just not effective. Silence or passivity is not consent.

Teens need to be taught about the various forms of sexual abuse... often times they believe these things are socially acceptable or even expected of them. The problem is they are not even aware of what constitutes rape/coercion.

So long as this level of ignorance is allowed to persist, rape culture will, too.

[SandyCo]

I have to confess that I didn't read all 685 posts (!!!) in this thread. However, I think people's various reactions to this case are fascinating. Here is my two cents:

First of all, I don't think girls are "asking for it" when they behave inappropriately, because the people in their lives should be decent human beings and not take advantage of their inebriation, skimpy dress, etc. But having said that, girls do need to be taught that you can't always trust others, that your "friends" may not really be your friends, and you need to be careful not to drink so much that you lose the ability to protect yourself.

This is where personal responsibility comes in. Do I have the right to go to an ATM at 2:00 a.m. in a bad area, right across the street from a bar? Absolutely! Is it still the mugger's fault if I end up robbed? Yes! However, don't I have an obligation to myself to not deliberately put myself in harm's way? Again, yes.

The reality is that many teenaged boys don't see a passed out drunk girl as someone to take care of. Instead, they see an opportunity. When a clear "NO" cannot be obtained, they see it as consent. This is absolutely wrong, of course, but we're talking about how things are, not how we'd like them to be!

Drinking to the point of unconsciousness leaves you completely vulnerable to whatever anyone in the immediate vicinity wants to do with you. That's frightening. Why aren't more teenagers warned about the dangers of binge drinking?

I saw photos of the families crying over their sons' "harsh" sentences. Really?! If that had been my son, I would be crying because I'd obviously failed to raise him as a human being! I could only watch 15-20 seconds of the video, and I felt sick to my stomach. My grown son and I talked about this; he would have tried to stop it, and if that failed, he would have called the police. No matter what, those boys were not the victims, and all of their sobbing in the courtroom is BS compared to how they were treating that poor girl in the video! What they did was a crime, and they needed to be punished for what they did. What is this attitude of "boys will be boys"?! In this case it was "boys will be disgusting creeps and rape an unconscious girl", and that's supposed to be overlooked?!

I agree that there should have been more parental supervision, and that if you know your kids are stealing your alcohol, maybe it would be a good idea to 1) Get a locking liquor cabinet, or 2) Remove all alcohol from your house for a few years.

I'm sorry that this happened, but in a way, I'm not sorry that the videos etc. came to light. It's sad to realize how some boys will act when they think no one else is watching.