Sex, Consent and Culture
Mallory Carlberg, Shannon Slage and
Katie Wilder
Overview
• 1 in 6 US women and 1 in 33 US men experience
an attempted or completed rape
• 7 in 10 rapes or sexual assaults against women
are by a relative, friend or an acquaintance
• Most instances involve no weapon (one study of
college students found no weapon was involved
in 90% of cases)
• 2% of allegations false (popular figure); 8% to
10%
US Department of Justice (book); Philip N.S. Rumney (2006). FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF
RAPE. The Cambridge Law Journal, 65 , pp 128-158
Statistics by Race
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All women: 17.6%
White women: 17.7%
Black women: 18.8%
Asian Pacific Islander women: 6.8%
American Indian/Alaskan women: 34.1%
Mixed race women: 24.4%
Source: RAINN
Effects of Rape
• Victims of sexual assault are:
• 3 times more likely to suffer from depression.
• 6 times more likely to suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder.
• 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
• 26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
• 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
Source: RAINN
Reporting and Conviction Rates
• One of the most underreported crimes
• 54% of assaults go unreported
• Factoring in unreported rapes, 97% won’t go
to jail
Source: RAINN
Reasons for Underreporting
• One study of college-aged victims found:
– Almost half of the victims whose experiences met the
legal definition of rape did not label the experience as
rape
– 40% did not think it was serious or were not sure a
crime had been committed
– 13% did not know how to make a report
– 20% expected harsh or dismissive treatment by others
in the justice system
– Possibly because victims had been taking drugs or
alcohol in about 40% of cases
Source: book pg. 475-476
Who Rapes?
• Unfortunately most studies focus on male
perpetrators and presume female victims
• Surprising number of people will admit to
rape if it is not labeled as such
• Studies by Lisak and Miller; McHorter, et al
Who Rapes? Lisak and Miller Study
• 1882 college students, ranging in age from 18
to 71 with a median age of 26.5
• Ethnically diverse
Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists, Violence and Victims,
Vol 17, No. 1, 2002 (Lisak & Miller 2002)
Who Rapes?
• (1) Have you ever been in a situation where you tried, but for
various reasons did not succeed, in having sexual intercourse with
an adult by using or threatening to use physical force (twisting
their arm, holding them down, etc.) if they did not cooperate? (2)
Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though
they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on
alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing
their clothes)? (3) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an
adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to
use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if
they didn’t cooperate? (4) Have you ever had oral sex with an
adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to
use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if
they didn’t cooperate?
Who Rapes?
• 120 men, just over 6% of those surveyed,
admitted to rape
• 63% of that 6% reported assaulting more than
once
• The median number of assaults for this group
was 5.6 each
• 4% of men in the group assaulted over 400
times
Who Rapes? McWhorter
• 1146 newly enlisted men in the U.S. Navy
• Asked about their behavior since age 14 and
followed up with them intermittently
• Average age was 20 and the oldest person
surveyed was 34
Who Rapes?
• Similar results
– Found 13% of those surveyed admitted to rape or
attempted rape
– 71% of men who admitted to this admitted to
doing it more than once
– Average of the 71% was 6.36 assaults each
– Just 8.4% of the entire sample was responsible for
95% of all the assaults reported