Yes, this is leading somewhere.

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1216728]

Comments

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Am not sure about the fact that everyone can view other people's answers...

[andrewducker]

Hence it being "me, or someone I know" - and as you know a lot of women you're not breaking any confidences.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I'm presuming this is leading either towards a current news story, or statistics about crime taken out of context?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

ALso, the results will be a bit meaningless, won't they? Unless where you're going with this is something to do with openness and the internet/

Lots of your friends know each other. If you, for example, had been raped or sexually assaulted then we could all tick the yes box but it would say nothing about the prevalence in this not-too random sample of people because we'd all know about the same instance.

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

i knew this was going to high, but didn't expect it to be this high...

Thats chilling...

what i would be interested in knowing, is the results accross different circles of friends...

i suspect it would vary quite a lot...

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

It IS chilling. I thought it would be more like 20%.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Or rather, that I know of, which is a very different thing.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

And how many ever reported it to the police? My guess is very few.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm shocking it's as *low* as 90%.

I suspect there are a number of people voting who are uninformed about their acquaintances.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Unfortunately a lot of women don't tell their friends because they worry that they wouldn't be believed...especially if they were attacked by someone else from within that circle of friends...

[matgb]

If you, for example, had been raped or sexually assaulted then we could all tick the yes box

I reckon that's where it's leading. There's another dodgy amnesty survey stacked full of leading questions coming out, and while it's a worthy fight, over egging it to make it look worse devalues the argument and makes it easier to dismiss.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

*nods*

But one imagines all will be revealed...

[matgb]

What, you think 80% of Andrew's readers know absolutely no one that's been raped or assaulted? The question is a leading question, which is why the stats on a lot of surveys make things appear terrible (instead of merely very bad)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Or that they aren't convinced enough to answer "yes".

It's often mentioned in the news that conviction rates for violent (and some non-violent) crimes are below 10%. Often this can be due to lack of evidence.

If someone says that they were raped, robbed, mugged or assaulted but there's not enough evidence to convict (or even prosecute), who's to say that their acquaintances are going to be convinced?

If communicator is correct (which is likely, in my view) then sn actually interesting result for this poll would be to see how many reported it to the police (although obviously, it could just be one or two people that all the "yes" answers know), because then you have a situation where people are being open enough to tell real life friends or internet friends but not the authorities which demonstrates both the problem with the statistics on crime and with dealing with the crime itself.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Much like saying "look, we arrested fifty terrorists!" for crimes that, two years ago, weren't terrorism and even now are just regular crimes that you're (possibly illegally) extending terrorism offences to cover, one might say.

[figg.livejournal.com]

If you want a scarier poll, ask for numbers rather than existance.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

That's a very broad range. What exactly constitutes an "attempted sexual assault"? It could entail anything from grabbing someones genitals to a slap on the backside or a drunken grope in a nightclub?

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

Surely the thing about statistics, right? I mean, to start with, the BIG OR. There's quite a lot of difference between 'I, or someone I know' (if you know a fair number of people, as I reckon I do). Don't want to sound off too much as obviously a bit drunk but am thinking this is going to be approximately as meaningless as

I have eaten chips, or beans, or visited the zoo, in the last week, or year

Also your comment below.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

That's hopefully the point of the question.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

To be trite, if this builds up to Andy saying "Well in fact you can ALL say yes", this will not have been the best way to tell us.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Whereas I am surprised that there are any 'no' answers at all. But then maybe I'm just cynical.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

What's even more depressing is that I had a quick look at the names under 'view answers' and at least one of the people who answered 'no' does know someone who has been raped, though they obviously don't know that.

*sigh* The world kind of sucks.

[zz]

maybe he's looking for people that've been left out, as a to do list >:)

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

There Andy, a follow up poll, what would we expect the percentage to have been..

probaly support my circle of friends idea too..

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That could be it.

[alcippe.livejournal.com]

And I'm sure many of us know more than just *one* person who has been raped/sexually assaulted/attempted, too.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Me too ... I posted a question ages ago and was shocked (but not surprised) by the number of people I know who had been raped, sexually assaulted or barely escaped from same ... and given I know hundreds of people, there's really zero chance that I wouldn't know someone who matched Andy's question

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Why would that be depressing? I've had a lot of crap in my life and I don't go around telling all my friends that (just a fair number of you that I trust) ... so that that person doesn't know, why should that be depressing?

Several of my friends have cancer, but not all of them have told me. Given the percentages, it's very likely that more than one of my friends has HIV or AIDS and hasn't told me.

But yes, "the world kind of sucks". The world also rocks. And the best way to be is stopping any more suckitude and celebrating the rockness of the world. Otherwise it's too easy to descend into a spiral of depression (anger is of course totally justified)

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Sorry, should have been clearer - I meant depressing in that the 'no' number is even lover and the 'yes' number even higher than it looks.

[andrewducker]

I totally disagree. Because I wanted to know how many people knew someone who'd been sexually assaulted, and didn't want people who didn't know anyone _else_, but had been themselves, to answer no.

[andrewducker]

I haven't been.

And there's about 6 different 'groups' of friends whose link is me there, plus a large chunk of people I only know through LJ who aren't a single group.

[andrewducker]

I'd agree. That would be terribly crass.

Funny though.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I always felt that rape was "occasional" and something generally not discussed. Thats why I'm surprized that most people have been or know someone who was raped.

Of course ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... yes, that's depressing.

I was shocked when I found out how many of my friends had been the victims of sexual assault (or threat thereof), and while most of them were women, by no means all.

The thing is, even if it were just 1% (and it's much higher) then you'd have to know very few people indeed for it to have not affected someone you know.

It's a particularly vile form of power violence and society/the media have blurred the line a little about what is expected/acceptable/not acceptable in terms of consent ...

There's a clear line that says:
"it must be willing, uncoerced, informed consent at every stage or it's RAPE"

And then the media plays up the "going out, getting drunk and trying to pull" for both men and women ... if you're drunk (or on drugs) how can you be giving valid consent, or for that matter, how can you be sure that the other person is giving valid consent, even if she/he says "come and f*ck me now!" before throwing up on your shoes ... and the next day, one of you can have full recollection that everything was discussed and agreed before and during the act, and the other person can draw a total blank and refuse to believe they gave consent and in that case be totally convinced (and convincing to a lie detector) that rape or SA has occurred. Something like that nearly happened to me (we were getting on like a house on fire, she obviously had a few more white wines that either of us realised, she took me back to her place ... and the next day when we met up, she had no memory beyond halfway through the evening. I was very upset by this and while I believe consent was given while she was still sober enough, if things had gone further (as she wished at the time) then it could have gone very badly the next day. I guess I (and all other men) will have to stick to women who don't drink or do drugs, because otherwise it's far too risky.

... I got so paranoid about this at one point that for a previous girlfriend who was into BDSM I insisted on getting her to record consent on video tape before we did anything. And for safety I guess you'd need to video *everything* so that there is evidence one way or the other about whether a safeword was ignored.

*sigh* ... and no, I'm not arguing that it's not rape if at any point a "no" is ignored ... just that the only safe sex is no sex :-(

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

surely as its lj and large amounts of people know it each other, 10 people could say yes and all be talking about the same person. I guess it depeneds what you are trying to prove....

[andrewducker]

Yes, they could be. And that's fine by me, because my point is based on how many people who have been attacked people _know_, not how many have been.

Actual point to follow when I have time to write an LJ entry.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

what about the option, 'not that they have told me, although there were rumours, but they might well be false'

[andrewducker]

From the cross-section of people we know, I can confirm that you should be ticking the "yes" button above.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

*splutters chunks of half chewed apple at the monitor*

[matgb]

Note it's not rape, it's sexual assault or attempt thereof. For which the scary statistic is:

And add to that, the BCS survey also takes in the question of prevalence (i.e. lifetime experience) in addition to incidence (annual figures) giving a top-line figure of 23.8% of women aged between 16 and 59 who reported having been subjected to sexual violence at some point between the 16 and whatever age they were when the completed the survey - that’s 3,720,000 women as a raw figure.

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/07/02/tackling-sexual-violence/

I know two people who have been raped, and many more who've been assaulted in some way, including my current partner.

Which means the real answer to the question is very likely to be "everyone", but a lot of people won't necessarily know it as it's not always discussed.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth the one that first came to my mind is a girl I know only vaguely who was strip-searched by the police, entirely inappropriately, while underage. I think that counts. Probably arguable though.

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

And, of course, you may know someone who has been even if you don't know that yourself. I mean, they just might not have told you.

btw

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I can't BELIEVE you got 100 people to reply to a poll. I think highest I've ever managed is 50-60. I thought it was some kind of homeostatic limit..

[tisme.livejournal.com]

Yep, four of those No's are wrong, at least.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I can confirm one no is wrong, and I suspect it's not any of your four.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I suspect that a lot of the 10% are wrong (this is borne out by Andrew's post on this further up, in which he says that he knows for a fact that several of them ARE wrong)