of all the sexual assault that happens, more than 80% of the victims are women and more than 95% of the perpetrators are men.
This is demonstrably false. I followed your link and found that the original citation is “U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence Against Women Report, 2002.” I wasn’t able to find this specific report to check the data, but the reference I usually use is the often-cited 2011 CDC Sexual Violence report, which is 10 years more recent, and which is also the origin of the “99% of rapists are men” myth (but more on that later), so I don’t think you’d object to it too much.
Here are the statistics for sexual violence in the year 2011, according to the CDC:
an estimated 1.6% of women reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey. The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.
And
The percentages of women and men who experienced these other forms of sexual violence victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey were an estimated 5.5% and 5.1%, respectively.
Added together, we see that 7.1% of women and 5.1% of men reported being victims of sexual violence in 2011. That is, 58% of victims of all sexual violence in 2011 were women, and 42% were men. For every 3 female victims, there were 2 male victims.
Now on to your second claim: that more than 95% of perpetrators are men. From the “Characteristics of Sexual Violence Perpetrators” section about a third of the way down, keeping in mind the percentages above:
For female rape victims, an estimated 99.0% had only male perpetrators (more on this later…). In addition, an estimated 94.7% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape had only male perpetrators.
And
For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (an estimated 79.3%) had only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims had only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (an estimated 82.6%), sexual coercion (an estimated 80.0%), and unwanted sexual contact (an estimated 54.7%). For noncontact unwanted sexual experiences, nearly half of male victims (an estimated 46.0%) had only male perpetrators and an estimated 43.6% had only female perpetrators.
To help us with the breakdowns of these numbers, earlier in the report we find that:
1.7% of men were made to penetrate a perpetrator in the 12 months preceding the survey [and] an estimated 1.3% of men experienced sexual coercion in the 12 months before taking the survey [and] an estimated 1.6% of men having experienced unwanted sexual contact in the 12 months before taking the survey [and] an estimated 2.5% of men experienced this type of victimization (noncontact unwanted sexual experiences) in the previous 12 months
So, of the 1.7% of made to penetrate male victims, 82.6% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.3% sexual coercion, 80% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, 54.7% were female, and of the 2.5% noncontact, 43.6% were female.
So, 1.4% of the 1.7% made to penetrate, 1% of the 1.3% sexual coercion, .9% of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, and 1.1% of the 2.5% noncontact.
So, 4.4% of the 7.1% of men reporting sexual violence had female perpetrators. That is, 62% of sexual violence against men is committed by women (in 2011).
So, going back to our numbers above, we see that 62% of the 42% of sexual violence with men as victims was committed by women.
Our final numbers are: 74% of sexual violence in total is committed by men, and 26% is committed by women. Which ain’t great, but that feels a lot more realistic, and it’s a far cry from the intentionally misleading numbers you’re citing.
BUT IT GETS WORSE…
What happens when we look at just rape? Note that first we have to figure out what the CDC means by “rape”, because at first “99% of rape is committed by men” looks pretty damning.
Well, “rape” is defined by the CDC for the purposes of this study as “completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration”. That is, only being penetrated counts as rape.
Men, on the other hand, get the completely separate category “made to penetrate”, that is, “being forced to have sex with someone, just doing the penetrating instead of being penetrated.”
So, 99% of rapists are men because rape is intentionally defined as “being penetrated” to exclude male victims of rape from the statistics. I wonder why…
Well, what happens when we actually look at those numbers, counting “made to penetrate” as, y’know, rape, because it is rape?
an estimated 1.6% of women (or approximately 1.9 million women) were raped in the 12 months before taking the survey
And
The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.
Which is, again, because male rape victims are effectively excluded from this definition. Also, we have this:
an estimated 1.7% of men were made to penetrate a perpetrator in the 12 months preceding the survey
And
Characteristics of Sexual Violence Perpetrators For female rape victims, an estimated 99.0% had only male perpetrators. In addition, an estimated 94.7% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape had only male perpetrators. For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (an estimated 79.3%) had only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims had only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (an estimated 82.6%), sexual coercion (an estimated 80.0%),
Note that these numbers clearly show that made to penetrate happens just as much each year as “rape”. This means that fully half of rape victims are men (in 2011 - the number fluctuates in the other years of the study, but not more than 5%).
Finally, if 99% of rapists are men and 83% of “made to penetrators” are women … then an estimated 42% of the perpetrators of nonconsensual sex (that is, rape) in 2011 were women.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I think it’s important to debunk this sort of misandrist misinformation.
Edit:Here’s a Time article that confirms these numbers. They also mention that boys under 15 are more likely to be sexually assaulted than women over 40, and are more than twice as likely to be assaulted as girls under 15.
The article seems mostly fine to me, though I admit that I did initially just scan it for the statistics. The only thing I saw that I really disagreed with was her assertion that “made to penetrate” victims shouldn’t call themselves rape victims, and I absolutely believe that they should. I do fully agree with the author that getting drunk and then regretting your actions the night before should not constitute a crime of the same seriousness as forcible rape, and I also believe that the CDC’s questionnaire is misleading and far less than perfect. What were your problems with the article?
As far as Cathy Young herself, I’d never heard of her before, but according to her Wikipedia page it seems like we might agree on quite a bit. The Wiki article is short, however, so I may not have the entire story. Is there some reason I should dislike her?
As far as Cathy Young herself, I’d never heard of her before, but according to her Wikipedia page it seems like we might agree on quite a bit. The Wiki article is short, however, so I may not have the entire story. Is there some reason I should dislike her?
I don’t know much about her, but I do know that she’s kind of consistently had shit takes about like, gamergate, and I think SA more generally, but sue me if I’m wrong, I don’t really know too much. It’s mostly like, old news shit takes that I can’t remember the specific basis for. I associate her with bringing bad vibes to the function, and MGTOW shit. In any case, I think it would probably be better practice to just, cite the study that she’s citing directly, if that’s the actual like, statistical set that you want to have a citation of, right, that’s probably better practice. Especially if you’re using the same source she is for your analysis, that kind of makes her analysis a little bit, both redundant, and not really like, on topic. But I’m not your grandma, you can do whatever you want.
For the article itself, I think if I’m reading it correctly, and maybe also the study, then I kind of, disagree with her extrapolations about drunk sexual acts. Mostly in this-
" It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the CDC’s male respondents who were “made to penetrate” someone would not call themselves rape victims—and with good reason." -type of shit. It’s a study that inherently relies on self-reporting, right, but the basis of the study’s questions are to kind of get away from this blanket “Hey, were you raped?”
-type of shit. There are definitely cases in which people have been SA’d, and would accurately describe a SA experience if you were to question them, but wouldn’t define the act as SA. I think this is probably the case for a lot of male SA, and I think this is legitimately the case for prison SA, in many instances, if I’m remembering correctly. So I don’t really think that the person’s testimony should be considered reliable, and more than that, I think the “appealing to the theoretical person’s definition of a thing as being accurate to the thing” tactic is a little, weird. Gives me bad vibes.
For the study, right, I know I just said, sometimes people don’t accurately self-report, right, but I think I’d also probably think that it’s a mistake to kind of, prioritize the “last 12 months” stats, because they’re “more accurate”. They’re not really more or less accurate, they’re just kind of, more accurate to what they are specifically about. Which is questioning if SA happened in the last 12 months, among the polled peoples. We don’t really know if there’s kind of just a specific subset of the population of women, through some other factor or age range, that’s experiencing SA at higher rates, which I would think is probably somewhat likely. But that’s also, my dumb ass, so who knows. In any case, given that, I kinda find her-
“In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape—and why shouldn’t it be?—then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.”
-to be a kind of cherry picked and sensationalist, while also kind of treading a maybe more socially acceptable “centrist” libnuts kind of position. It’s technically accurate, which oh yes, pog futurama reference that nobody gets the context to, but you can kind of see why it’s like, stupid, right?
Probably, this kinda stuff is why I remember not liking her that much. Take this all with like, a mountain of salt, though, I am somewhat known to be a pretty good vector for misinfo, lies, and deceit. If I say that, then I’m free from the burden of proof, or like, holding reasonable positions, right? I can just say whatever I want? That sounds right, let’s go with that.
I’m just going to leave the cdc report on sexual assault from 2010-2012 that says the same thing as my initial claim, with the same statistics in detail, for you to draw your own conclusions from. Check the tables from page 18 onward.
My friend, statistics aren’t sexist. They just are. I don’t really have time to sit here and argue that women suffer more from sexual violence than men do. It’s not really up for debate, and I’ve learned not to engage the people who think it is.
If you’re going to accuse me of misandry because I’m defending a woman’s prerogative to feel safe, I’m just not going to fire back. Have fun with that.
I think you’ll want to check those numbers, actually, since they perfectly match everything I’m saying (since it’s the published CDC report from the same time). But it is reassuring that even the source you cite has the same numbers I’m citing.
If you’re so certain that your numbers are borne out by the data, could you please point out exactly where your claim that “more than 80% of the victims [of sexual assault] are women and more than 95% of the perpetrators are men” is borne out by the yearly data in this report?
My friend, statistics aren’t sexist. They just are.
I agree, which is why I took the time to cite the statistics exactly, instead of throwing out random numbers that aren’t borne out by the data.
I don’t really have time to sit here and argue that women suffer more from sexual violence than men do. It’s not really up for debate, and I’ve learned not to engage the people who think it is.
I’m not arguing that women don’t suffer more from sexual violence than men do. I’m just arguing that women suffer much less from sexual violence compared to men than is usually believed, that women commit sexual assault much more than is usually believed, and that men are raped as often as women are.
As you say, this is not up for debate, and whether you “debate me” or not, it won’t change the facts, and I’ve made sure that this information is now available and organized for anyone who doesn’t insist on closing their eyes to misandry.
Edit in response to your edit (the last line of your comment): That’s not an accurate description of what’s happening here, and playing the victim under the guise of “I’m just defending a woman’s prerogative to feel safe” isn’t going to work when all I’ve done is show that your misandrist claims about the perpetrators and victims of sexual violence are not correct.
Thank you for taking the time to break down these numbers. That CDC report is extremely misleading and this is not the first time I’ve seen someone attempt to break down the numbers. But you’ve done an especially good job of explaining it.
I didn’t claim that the statistics I made were on rape or penetration or any specific form of sexual violence. Just that incidences are much higher in women being the victims and men being the perpetrators.
Anyway, I’m not continuing this conversation further. It’s completely ridiculous to look at these statistics and draw the conclusion that I must be misandrist for reading the numbers how they are, because your breakdown of the numbers don’t exactly line up with mine but they still paint the same overall picture.
This is demonstrably false. I followed your link and found that the original citation is “U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence Against Women Report, 2002.” I wasn’t able to find this specific report to check the data, but the reference I usually use is the often-cited 2011 CDC Sexual Violence report, which is 10 years more recent, and which is also the origin of the “99% of rapists are men” myth (but more on that later), so I don’t think you’d object to it too much.
Here are the statistics for sexual violence in the year 2011, according to the CDC:
And
Added together, we see that 7.1% of women and 5.1% of men reported being victims of sexual violence in 2011. That is, 58% of victims of all sexual violence in 2011 were women, and 42% were men. For every 3 female victims, there were 2 male victims.
Now on to your second claim: that more than 95% of perpetrators are men. From the “Characteristics of Sexual Violence Perpetrators” section about a third of the way down, keeping in mind the percentages above:
And
To help us with the breakdowns of these numbers, earlier in the report we find that:
So, of the 1.7% of made to penetrate male victims, 82.6% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.3% sexual coercion, 80% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, 54.7% were female, and of the 2.5% noncontact, 43.6% were female.
So, 1.4% of the 1.7% made to penetrate, 1% of the 1.3% sexual coercion, .9% of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, and 1.1% of the 2.5% noncontact.
So, 4.4% of the 7.1% of men reporting sexual violence had female perpetrators. That is, 62% of sexual violence against men is committed by women (in 2011).
So, going back to our numbers above, we see that 62% of the 42% of sexual violence with men as victims was committed by women.
Our final numbers are: 74% of sexual violence in total is committed by men, and 26% is committed by women. Which ain’t great, but that feels a lot more realistic, and it’s a far cry from the intentionally misleading numbers you’re citing.
BUT IT GETS WORSE…
What happens when we look at just rape? Note that first we have to figure out what the CDC means by “rape”, because at first “99% of rape is committed by men” looks pretty damning.
Well, “rape” is defined by the CDC for the purposes of this study as “completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration”. That is, only being penetrated counts as rape.
Men, on the other hand, get the completely separate category “made to penetrate”, that is, “being forced to have sex with someone, just doing the penetrating instead of being penetrated.”
So, 99% of rapists are men because rape is intentionally defined as “being penetrated” to exclude male victims of rape from the statistics. I wonder why…
Well, what happens when we actually look at those numbers, counting “made to penetrate” as, y’know, rape, because it is rape?
And
Which is, again, because male rape victims are effectively excluded from this definition. Also, we have this:
And
Note that these numbers clearly show that made to penetrate happens just as much each year as “rape”. This means that fully half of rape victims are men (in 2011 - the number fluctuates in the other years of the study, but not more than 5%).
Finally, if 99% of rapists are men and 83% of “made to penetrators” are women … then an estimated 42% of the perpetrators of nonconsensual sex (that is, rape) in 2011 were women.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I think it’s important to debunk this sort of misandrist misinformation.
Edit: Here’s a Time article that confirms these numbers. They also mention that boys under 15 are more likely to be sexually assaulted than women over 40, and are more than twice as likely to be assaulted as girls under 15.
you should probably look up the author of that times article, and read it more closely.
The article seems mostly fine to me, though I admit that I did initially just scan it for the statistics. The only thing I saw that I really disagreed with was her assertion that “made to penetrate” victims shouldn’t call themselves rape victims, and I absolutely believe that they should. I do fully agree with the author that getting drunk and then regretting your actions the night before should not constitute a crime of the same seriousness as forcible rape, and I also believe that the CDC’s questionnaire is misleading and far less than perfect. What were your problems with the article?
As far as Cathy Young herself, I’d never heard of her before, but according to her Wikipedia page it seems like we might agree on quite a bit. The Wiki article is short, however, so I may not have the entire story. Is there some reason I should dislike her?
I don’t know much about her, but I do know that she’s kind of consistently had shit takes about like, gamergate, and I think SA more generally, but sue me if I’m wrong, I don’t really know too much. It’s mostly like, old news shit takes that I can’t remember the specific basis for. I associate her with bringing bad vibes to the function, and MGTOW shit. In any case, I think it would probably be better practice to just, cite the study that she’s citing directly, if that’s the actual like, statistical set that you want to have a citation of, right, that’s probably better practice. Especially if you’re using the same source she is for your analysis, that kind of makes her analysis a little bit, both redundant, and not really like, on topic. But I’m not your grandma, you can do whatever you want.
For the article itself, I think if I’m reading it correctly, and maybe also the study, then I kind of, disagree with her extrapolations about drunk sexual acts. Mostly in this-
" It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the CDC’s male respondents who were “made to penetrate” someone would not call themselves rape victims—and with good reason." -type of shit. It’s a study that inherently relies on self-reporting, right, but the basis of the study’s questions are to kind of get away from this blanket “Hey, were you raped?”
-type of shit. There are definitely cases in which people have been SA’d, and would accurately describe a SA experience if you were to question them, but wouldn’t define the act as SA. I think this is probably the case for a lot of male SA, and I think this is legitimately the case for prison SA, in many instances, if I’m remembering correctly. So I don’t really think that the person’s testimony should be considered reliable, and more than that, I think the “appealing to the theoretical person’s definition of a thing as being accurate to the thing” tactic is a little, weird. Gives me bad vibes.
For the study, right, I know I just said, sometimes people don’t accurately self-report, right, but I think I’d also probably think that it’s a mistake to kind of, prioritize the “last 12 months” stats, because they’re “more accurate”. They’re not really more or less accurate, they’re just kind of, more accurate to what they are specifically about. Which is questioning if SA happened in the last 12 months, among the polled peoples. We don’t really know if there’s kind of just a specific subset of the population of women, through some other factor or age range, that’s experiencing SA at higher rates, which I would think is probably somewhat likely. But that’s also, my dumb ass, so who knows. In any case, given that, I kinda find her-
“In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape—and why shouldn’t it be?—then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.”
-to be a kind of cherry picked and sensationalist, while also kind of treading a maybe more socially acceptable “centrist” libnuts kind of position. It’s technically accurate, which oh yes, pog futurama reference that nobody gets the context to, but you can kind of see why it’s like, stupid, right?
Probably, this kinda stuff is why I remember not liking her that much. Take this all with like, a mountain of salt, though, I am somewhat known to be a pretty good vector for misinfo, lies, and deceit. If I say that, then I’m free from the burden of proof, or like, holding reasonable positions, right? I can just say whatever I want? That sounds right, let’s go with that.
I’m just going to leave the cdc report on sexual assault from 2010-2012 that says the same thing as my initial claim, with the same statistics in detail, for you to draw your own conclusions from. Check the tables from page 18 onward.
My friend, statistics aren’t sexist. They just are. I don’t really have time to sit here and argue that women suffer more from sexual violence than men do. It’s not really up for debate, and I’ve learned not to engage the people who think it is.
If you’re going to accuse me of misandry because I’m defending a woman’s prerogative to feel safe, I’m just not going to fire back. Have fun with that.
I think you’ll want to check those numbers, actually, since they perfectly match everything I’m saying (since it’s the published CDC report from the same time). But it is reassuring that even the source you cite has the same numbers I’m citing.
If you’re so certain that your numbers are borne out by the data, could you please point out exactly where your claim that “more than 80% of the victims [of sexual assault] are women and more than 95% of the perpetrators are men” is borne out by the yearly data in this report?
I agree, which is why I took the time to cite the statistics exactly, instead of throwing out random numbers that aren’t borne out by the data.
I’m not arguing that women don’t suffer more from sexual violence than men do. I’m just arguing that women suffer much less from sexual violence compared to men than is usually believed, that women commit sexual assault much more than is usually believed, and that men are raped as often as women are.
As you say, this is not up for debate, and whether you “debate me” or not, it won’t change the facts, and I’ve made sure that this information is now available and organized for anyone who doesn’t insist on closing their eyes to misandry.
Edit in response to your edit (the last line of your comment): That’s not an accurate description of what’s happening here, and playing the victim under the guise of “I’m just defending a woman’s prerogative to feel safe” isn’t going to work when all I’ve done is show that your misandrist claims about the perpetrators and victims of sexual violence are not correct.
Thank you for taking the time to break down these numbers. That CDC report is extremely misleading and this is not the first time I’ve seen someone attempt to break down the numbers. But you’ve done an especially good job of explaining it.
Page 25 and 32. Male perpetrators only statistic.
It’s not ambiguous.
I didn’t claim that the statistics I made were on rape or penetration or any specific form of sexual violence. Just that incidences are much higher in women being the victims and men being the perpetrators.
Anyway, I’m not continuing this conversation further. It’s completely ridiculous to look at these statistics and draw the conclusion that I must be misandrist for reading the numbers how they are, because your breakdown of the numbers don’t exactly line up with mine but they still paint the same overall picture.
Have a good night.