Denying date rape statistic isolates and silences the victim, and facilitates plausible denial by the rapist.

 I recently postulated in my blog that, since one-in-five college women has been raped by graduation, a realistic expectation is that one out of every five women a college senior asks on a date will have been raped. The on line response surprised me.

I was accused of exaggerating the incidence of date rape, spreading lies, and sensationalizing a rare problem. The principle accuser selectively cited one Department of Justice study while simultaneously ignoring another Department of Justice study, a Centers for Disease Control study, and multiple other studies.

Facilitating rape with the worst myth.

Rape myths are the fabricated false claims that attempt to shift blame to victims of sexual assault or make unsupported assumptions about how the rapist had special insight into what she* really wanted.

The worst rape myth, however, is the myth that rape is uncommon.

Gathering rape statistics without causing pain.

No victim ever wants to answer a survey, “Yes. I was raped.”

To make it easier for victims to reply, questions usually ask if a woman has had experiences that are rape by definition: “Have you ever been physically forced to have oral, anal, or vaginal sex?”, “Have you ever been coerced to have sex?”, “Have you ever had sex because of a threat of harm to yourself of someone dear to you?”

“…doth protest too much, methinks.”

Deniers – persons who deny date rape statistics – claim these questions are leading and exaggerate reality.

However, it’s virtually unheard of to deny the statistics about any other specific crime, say, murder or shoplifting. So, right away, we know something is in play other than just wanting to be certain that everyone got the numbers right.

And there are some pretty obvious reasons.

Perversity motivates questioning date rape statistics.

Deniers likely represent the same persons who have or would like to rape someone. Denying date rape statistics makes it easier for them to walk away unscathed. It works in their favor when no one is paying attention.

So how does this work?

In the mind of the victim…

If date rape is rare, a woman who is raped feels that she is the odd person out and that in some way she is different. Different quickly leads to the conclusion that, “Since no one else got raped, I did something wrong…” This leads to the victim concealing the assault, and feeling very alone. And, it’s pretty certain that if she feels alone and humiliated, she will never tell anyone…ever.

So a victim who believes rape is rare will keep it secret as long as she can. And she certainly won’t tell anyone who could do something about it, a policeman, for example.

…and in the mind of those who hear the victim’s accusation.

Denying date rape statistics prejudices listeners against believing a victim if she does find the courage to speak up. The reasoning goes that if rape is rare, whatever happened, it wasn’t likely to have been real rape.

Variations of the same self-doubt issues are hauled out as accusations: For example, if rape is such a rare occurrence, “What did she do to incite this?”, “What’s wrong with her?”, “Can one really believe her?” And if she needs a day or a week or a month to gather her courage to tell anyone, “Why didn’t she say something at the time?”

In contrast, when school officials and/ or law enforcement officers acknowledge date rape statistics, there is greater possibility that a victim will report the crime, and that the rapist will be punished in some way.

So he “…doth protest too much…” for a reason?

The strongest human reactions occur around situations that have personal meaning. So what personal could drive a person to deny date rape statistics?

Obvious, but perverse.

Denial of date rape statistics, particularly by a male, seems to be an effort to diminish and to evade responsibility. A denier pretends to want to reduce anxiety about a rare problem, i.e., date rape. However, the false statement is really an effort to reduce the risk that he will be punished for whatever he wants to do.

Denying date rape statistics isolates and silences the victim and facilitates plausible denial by the rapist.

* Rape affects many more women than men, but men can be victims also.

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