I want to discuss briefly where some of the numbers of rape victimization come from and why they are stupid.

First lets start with the number of reported crimes. These numbers are quite low, as you can imagine. In the states the police report the number of reported crimes to the FBI. The Uniform Crime Reporting handbook is the handbook the FBI prints out that tells them how they want police to submit these numbers.

Here is the handbook before the recent definition change.

Youll need to turn to pg 20 for this gem:

NOTE: By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending on the nature of the crime and the extent of injury.

In plain english if a woman rapes a man, thats not counted as a rape but as an assault or something else. Rape can only happen TO women.

This definition just recently changed (like last year) amidst some hooplah that males would finally be counted amongst victims. Here is the new definition:

The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

The victim must be penetrated and further the victim's mouth must be penetrated by a sex organ. If you think about this for a bit you can see its pretty difficult to actually rape a man, especially if youre a woman.

Now I want to go a step further. The other major statistical basis for "all men are the rapists" are the National Crime Victimization Surveys (also conveniently put out by the Dept of Justice)

Here the definition for rape is given as (you have to click over on the definitions tab, I dont know how to link it directly - the emphasis is mine):

Rape—Unlawful penetration of a person against the will of the victim, with use or threatened use of force, or attempting such an act. Includes psychological coercion and physical force. Forced sexual intercourse means vaginal, anal, or oral penetration by the offender. Also includes incidents where penetration is from a foreign object, such as a bottle. Includes male and female victims, and both heterosexual and homosexual rape. Attempted rape includes verbal threats of rape. (Rape and sexual assault are combined into one victimization measure.)

Rape requires penetration. In order for a man to be "raped" his attacker has to shove something inside of him, penetration. If I have sex with a woman, she can ALWAYS be considered raped because I penetrated her. I can never consider it rape because I was not (normally) penetrated. At least for this survey.

Theres one more survey, very similar to the NCVS but since the NCVS at the time didnt catch as many unreported rapes as academics were sure were out there they changed some of the questions and got the National Violence Against Women Survey. This survey is older and no one really references it, except RAINN because its where you get the juicy "1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime".

Here on pg 13 you can see the definition it used:

Rape was defined as an event that occurred without the victim’s consent, that involved the use or threat of force to penetrate the victim’s vagina or anus by penis, tongue, fingers, or object, or the victim’s mouth by penis.

They include their questions that they used. I wont copy and paste them here but they explicitly state that rape requires a man (or a boy) to put his penis into you.

Finally, the center for disease control recently did their own survey in 2010. Its been posted here a few times so Im sure many of you are familiar with it.

Here is that survey's (the NIPSVS) definition: (on pg 17)

Rape is defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent. Rape is separated into three types, completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, and completed alcohol or drug facilitated penetration.

Among women, rape includes vaginal, oral, or anal penetration by a male using his penis. It also includes vaginal or anal penetration by a male or female using their fingers or an object.

Among men, rape includes oral or anal penetration by a male using his penis. It also includes anal penetration by a male or female using their fingers or an object.

This one spells it out as plainly as possible. Rape requires penetration.

Now whats interesting about this last survey is its the only one that also asked about BEING MADE TO PENETRATE. Now they arent going to classify that as rape (even though thats what it is) but they do at least fucking ask. Their findings are summarized on table 2.2 again here is the study. They found that 1,267,000 men were made to penetrate which is about the same number of completed and attempted rapes of women (table 2.1) of 1,270,000.

This begs the question, if men and women are being forced to have sex without consent (a typical definition of rape if you dont have your biased head up your ass) then why do all of these national surveys require rape to be penetrative instead of just non-consensual sex?

I definitely dont have an easy non-conspiracy answer but I found this interesting. From this article in Time about rape and consent (emphasis mine):

So here, of course, is the heart of the debate. If rape is sex without consent, how exactly should consent be defined and communicated, when and by whom? Those who view rape through a political lens tend to place all responsibility on men to make sure that their partners are consenting at every point of a sexual encounter. At the extreme, sexual relations come to resemble major surgery, requiring a signed consent form. Clinical psychologist Mary P. Koss of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is a leading scholar on the issue, puts it rather bluntly: "It's the man's penis that is doing the raping, and ultimately he's responsible for where he puts it."

Mary Koss is the author of the 1 in 4 women will be raped in their lifetime study. Im sure everyone has heard it thrown around as a statistical soundbite. In a nutshell she got the numbers she wanted when she asked if women had ever had sex after deciding they didnt want to earlier because the man served them alcohol. She is of the old school that believes rape is only something done to women and rapists are only men (you should google "define rapist" without the "s to see what I mean). I think thats where we are at now. We are just now realizing rape may not be a gendered crime at all. Just like at first we thought domestic violence was just men abusing women, but come to find out its just as likely to be women abusing men. All of the initial domestic violence studies came in with this same bias. They were looking for rates of men as perpetrators and women as victims and all the scholarship of that time had that bias in them. I think its that way with rape now. Its defined to exclude men as victims and its just now starting to turn that men are even defined as being capable of being victims.

I want to end by saying none of these surveys were done by women's studies departments (though many of them serve on the boards that designed them. These are our own government agencies promulgating this biased nonsense.

tldr; If someone tells you men commit about 99.99999% of all the rape ever then explain its because men cant even be counted as victims of rape, only as perpetrators. In short these rape statistic arent worth a shit in the rain with a slicker on and you would have to be a fucking tool to believe them. To criminalize an entire gender based on so shaky a statistical foundation is....unethical.