Rape is....

…complicated. A simple issue wouldn’t need to be so misrepresented, would it?

Take the production, "Rape is..." for example (http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org).
30% of the film’s discussion guide is about prostitution and the sex trade.

Not ‘prostitution and rape’ but ‘prostitution and the sex trade’. So what is the link to rape you ask? Well, the guide makes only two links:
1. Vednita Carter’s “perspective” we are told “is that prostitution and rape are profoundly related. She thinks prostitution contributes to a climate in which rape is tolerated”.
2. “In Nevada, where prostitution has been legalized, the rape rates are the 4th highest in the country”.

We are offered nothing more in support of Vednita’s contention than anecdotes. She has worked with lots of prostitutes. We also gather that she was a prostitute herself once, forced into it by being driven to distant bars and given no money to get home, apparently. Would you trust someone who told you that story, and nothing else, to be a reliable source of behavioural science theory? You would? You are over 16 aren’t you? I know a really great bar we could go to, it’s only a few minutes drive from here.

But hold on, what’s going on in Nevada? That looks like evidence, doesn’t it? Well no, probably not.

For starters three other states, where prostitution is illegal, have a higher rate of rape. That needs an explanation, but gets none.

Prostitution has always been legal in Nevada, not in all counties all the time but in many counties most of the time. Now the rate of forcible rape in Nevada was very similar to that in the rest of the USA until 1970. Within 5 years it then rose to over 70% more than the USA average. While the average in the USA in 1975 was 26.3 forcible rapes per 100,000 of the population, in Nevada it had become 47.1 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs). Since 1975 this rate has fallen 10% in Nevada to 42.7 in 2002 while overall in the USA on average it has risen by 25% to 33.0.

Nevada’s other violent crime rate rose by 67% in the 5 years between 1970 and 1975. So it isn’t hard to see that something else went on over these 5 years. Who knows what it is? But it is clear that the idea that a straightforward link between prostitution and rape is established by these two factlets, an idea the film makers appear to want us to adopt, is plainly absurd. In truth the only connection most could draw from this guide is that the film makers think they are appealing to some seriously gullible people.

Rape is… complicated, if you look at it from all sides. Simplistic workshops that misrepresent the facts will be as likely to make the problem worse than better. Rape won’t be resolved until we start being rational and objective and truthful about sex and start treating the problem with a mindset free from political correctness in order to give it the depth of objective enquiry it deserves.

Understanding a complex issue rather than simply demonising men might also mean that we find ways to reduce the impact of rape. But maybe some influential people don’t really want that to happen at all.