Article content continued

It is easy to maintain an environment of moral panic when media, academics and high-level politicians succumb to the rape-culture myth

The difference between our two camps is that rape-culture skeptics are actually happy to see proof that violent crime of all kinds, including rape, is diminishing, while rape culturists are happiest when they see “proof” that the risk for rape is going up. Moral panic is oxygen to the rape-culture movement, a movement that seeks to demonize all men and victimize all women. And it is certainly easy to maintain an environment of moral panic when media, academics and high-level politicians succumb to the rape-culture myth. The hysteria has even, apparently crept into our justice system. A new trial has been ordered for an Alberta man accused of sexual assault because Judge Darwin Greaves wrongly “entered the fray” to put obstacles in the defence lawyer’s interrogation of the complainant, according to the Alberta Court of Appeal. That is, influenced by his belief in rape culture, the judge is alleged to have overstepped the boundaries of appropriate judicial intervention on behalf of the female complainant.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice reports that crime in general, including sexual assault, has dropped more than 60% between 1995-2013. The rate of sexual assault is 6.1% per thousand annually; averaged over four years, the risk of sexual assault for women is one in 50. Of the one-in-50, one in three is a completed rape, making the actual risk of rape 0.16 per year. Moreover, the risk is lower on campus than off.

But this is news rape culturists don’t want to hear. They are far happier to put their faith in “studies” that would be laughed out of a first-year sociology course. The latest in a series of such misleading reports is the sensationally entitled, “Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders,” published by the journal Violence and Gender. The study, conducted at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, concludes that a third of males would rape a woman if they could get away with it.