Now that an actual MAN has corroborated some of the accusations, maybe it’ll be taken seriously?
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Some 50% of women surveyed said the perpetrator was larger or older. More than 46% of the women were held down. In 56% of the instances, men used verbal pressure. Men used a physical threats more than 26% of the time and caused physical harm in more than 25% of the instances. Some 22% of the women were drugged.
Survivors faced long-term consequences, such as increased rates of HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis and menstrual problems. More than 30% said they had an unwanted first pregnancy, while 24% said they had ever had an abortion in their lifetime – higher percentages than among women whose first sexual intercourse was voluntary.
So are people understanding this is a big deal yet? Yeah. Probably not.
Information like this always makes me think of the stereotypes about adult women dating/marrying, how some men complain women don’t like sex as much as men.
Gee, I wonder why.
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Oh my God. I could not be more grateful for my awkward and sweet high school experience. I cannot imagine.
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This was the paragraph that really got me, because teen girls get labeled as sluts when they’re raped by older men, and if they try to get an abortion, well then, they’re really bad.
The average age of women who experienced forced sexual initiation was 15.6. The average age of the partner or assailant at the time was 6 years older. Among women whose first sexual intercourse was voluntary, the average age was 17.4.
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Love the euphemism ‘forced sexual initiation’. By which I mean jesus fucking christ, it was rape.
I know, I know, it’s the language of the study, but use the godamn correct term, study/article authors.
(This is not having a go at you @chgoliz. More total exasperation at the euphemism.)
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I can understand why they want to put it that way, though, having lived through it myself.
When friends who only met me since that rape happened discuss their “first time” and ask me about mine, I always need to preface by explaining the first time I had sex was not the first time I had penis-in-vagina penetration. We always say “rapes don’t count because they’re assault”, and I largely agree with this, except if a rape is your first time being penetrated by a penis, it definitely changes how you view the first consensual time, and can affect when that first consensual time happens. You don’t just dust yourself off and say, “so what? doesn’t count”. You’ve experienced penis-in-vagina, and you hadn’t experienced that before.
After my rape I had to wear a menstrual pad for three days because every time I urinated I started bleeding again. The first consensual time I had to ask my partner to lean a bit to one side because a scar was still healing, six months later. And definitely that I had already been “sexually initiated”, albeit in the context of rape, had an affect on how quickly I decided to consent (there was definitely an element of, “oh well, it’s already happened” resignation in the decision-making).
So, yeah, I can see why they need to distinguish the sexual initiation part as being an outcome of rape, as much as we try to de-romanticise rape by confining it to the realm of assault.
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(Hug) You did not deserve that. Thank you for sharing your truth here.
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One of the rape myths that really bugs me is the one that says if the victim didn’t get pregnant and didn’t get an STD, there must have been no major damage done. I’m weirdly pleased the study notes injury and infection can be a long-term consequence nevertheless. That needs to be called out more often.
And with victim numbers as high as they are, this affects everyone, including men who have never and would never rape. We all end up dealing with it to a greater or lesser extent.
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Well that’s one fucked up myth.
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And a follow-up:
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This whole “fashion magazines coming out with insightful political commentary” thing is taking me time to get used to.
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Well, somebody has got to do it, since serious news outlets have not had a great track record lately…
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Oh yeah, I’m grateful they are doing it. I’m just wondering how the self-styled “serious journalists” get any sleep at night.
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Teen Vogue is onto something?
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Either they don’t or they really do think that they doing good work… which makes it worse.
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ETA: really just a toxic mess of white supremacist misogyny. He’d fit in well on the alt-right.
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Wow this is a huge surprise to me. I studied his works in my class on Pragmatism. My professor was one of the top experts in the field. It literally never came up. Dewey had a lot of fantastic philosophy. I am so sad to learn of this.
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