There is a lot of debate over Reddit about this sensitive subject. First of all, I want to say that rape and sexual assault is a horrific thing for anyone to experience. However, I do believe that knowing the correct statistics for rates of occurrence is a good first step.

  • The commonly thrown out statistic is that 1/3 women are raped

  • I think part of the reason why men have a reaction against this statistics is because they think it implies that a good portion of men are rapists -- maybe not 1/3, but it has to be a good proportion for 1/3 of women to be raped

  • Something else I wonder, intuitively perhaps it seems extremely high to imagine that 1/3 of our female friends have been raped. This in itself is a disturbing thing to imagine, and perhaps men (and myself) are just ignorant.

  • Moreover, there's confusion over lifetime victimization versus rate per year

  • Something to note: we should be wary of the lifetime rate of having a crime committed against you. For instance, in 1995 physical assault rates against women/men are 1.9% and 3.4%, but if you look at lifetime rates, its 51.9% and 66.4% respectively. We have to ask ourselves in this case, while 66% seems high, is it high over the course of a lifetime? Perhaps, perhaps not.

  • There is also contention on "college campuses" being a hotbed for such crimes, with some arguing that it is the most common place for it to occur

Sources I've come across: