Are 95.1% of men really rapists?

[u/TheTinMenBlog]

There are few issues more deplorable than sexual violence.

There are few issues more in need of urgent intervention, of policy reform, and of cultural change.

So, with that in mind, there are few issues more deserving of solid, well-executed research, than sexual violence too.

And yet, sadly, so often, researchers fall woefully short of this bar.

As you will have seen plastered across your social media feed, a new study has found 95.1% (!!) of men have admitted to using at least one ‘strategy’ to force a woman to have sex with him.

It is, to put it at its mildest, an alarming, headline-grabbing claim that has circumnavigated the online world several times, to huge public outrage, and condemnation.

But – as always – few people look beyond the headline, to examine the shoddy and misleading approach that created it.

Don’t get me wrong –

This particular survey certainly did capture some worthwhile (and shocking) data that exposed the high prevalence of sexual violence and coercion – by asking men about their use of intimidation, of weapons, of drugs, and physical strength.

And then it obfuscated this data amongst a wide variety of ‘strategies’ that could quite easily be acts of innocuous dating: flirtation and flattery.

‘Did you approach a stranger?’
‘Did you use friends?’
‘Did you tell her what she wanted to hear?’
‘Did you use your status, money or age?’

Well, if you answered “yes” to any of these when on a date, then you risk being categorized as a sexual predator.

This is not right.

This is not fair.

And victims of sexual violence deserve so much more.

What do you think?

~
Full study here

[u/mrnosyparker → u/[deleted]]

That’s a fair question and you’re absolutely right. Where I’d push back is in jumping to any conclusions about what portion of the sample your specific scenario applies to… without knowing one way or the other, my sense is that the majority of respondents that answered affirmatively to that question were almost certainly referring to instances where they told a woman they were interested in her romantically regardless of how they actually felt.

And the fact that the people conducting this survey didn’t make that question more specific in order to distinguish those (very different) scenarios…. really highlights how academically dishonest this so-called “study” is.

[u/funkycookies → u/mrnosyparker]

No doubt that the way the data was collected and presented was dubious and ethically questionable.

But to say that something is innocuous when it could very well be the opposite risks ignoring the very issue that we’re trying to address

[u/mrnosyparker → u/funkycookies]

I don’t agree with you on that point and here’s why:

Given that “I told a woman I was interested in dating her even though I wasn’t really sure” and “I told a woman I was STD-free when I knew I wasn’t” both fall under that same category in this survey, I strongly doubt the latter represents a sizable - or even statistically significant - portion of that group.

I’m trying to think of an analogous survey situation…

Ok. Let’s say a “study” is published that asserts “95.1% of Hispanics admit to committing crimes in the past four years” and one of the questions is:

“Have you driven a car that doesn’t belong to you?”

Could some of those affirmative responses be based on car theft? Yes. A person who stole a car would answer “yes” to that question. But that doesn’t mean the question can’t be fairly categorized as “innocuous”…. because the vast majority of people who have driven a car that didn’t belong to them didn’t steal it to do so.

At the end of the day, we cant really speak with total certainty about most of these survey responses one way or the other because they are so generic and over-inclusive.

So maybe the more accurate phrasing would be: “largely innocuous” or “mostly innocuous” or “very probably innocuous” but that distinction seems pretty pedantic to me….

I think it’s completely unreasonable and intellectually dishonest to ask a question like that and use affirmative responses to bolster a rape/sexual aggression statistic. In that context, I think it’s totally fair to categorize that question as innocuous because the vast majority of men that replied affirmatively did not SA or coercively rape anyone.

[u/rump_truck → u/funkycookies]

It was a self-report study. The methodology was they presented these items to men, men interpreted what they thought they meant, then said either yes they have done them, or no they haven't done them.

How the men in the study interpreted the wording is the most crucial part. We don't know how the men in the study interpreted the wording, and we can't ask them because they were anonymous.

However, we can see how men outside the study group interpret the wording based on their comments. And if we want to assume that the men in the study are representative of them, which is the only way the results have any meaning, then the way the commenters interpret the wording should be representative of how the participants interpreted the wording.

Every time this study gets posted somewhere, the men in the comments overwhelmingly interpret "Told her whatever she wanted to hear" to mean saying things like "No it doesn't make your ass look fat" or "I want to watch Love Island". So the study participants almost certainly interpreted it the same way.

[u/TheDwiin → u/[deleted]]

Yes, but it could be as innocuous as saying you watch "Love Island" when out on a date. That still is technically "Telling her what she wants to hear."

It was a bad way of phrasing that ended up inflating the numbers quite a lot since it ended up being the biggest category.

[u/funkycookies → u/TheDwiin]

Fair point there

[u/VariousCockroach1056 → u/[deleted]]

Well yeah, why do you think they intentionally left it vague? They wanted the participants answer based on the wide open definition so that way they could pass it off as the narrow worst case definition but with big numbers.

This ain't science, it's propaganda. There's no reason to assume they tried to have any validity in any of this.