Rape convictions fall to a record low in England and Wales. Dame Vera Baird said in her annual report "what we are witnessing is the de-criminalisation of rape"

University campuses in my area have done some excellent work on the subject of consent. To my mind, this should be an integral part of sex Ed at secondary schools and parents too.
The fact that there are such antiquated views around what makes sex consensual in this day and age disgusts me.
False accusations of sexual violence account for around 4% of reports and within that statistic are those which have been “unfounded”, so not necessarily false but perhaps without enough evidence or victim co-operation to continue. Additionally this stat is in line with any other crime, so happens no more regularly when it’s a sexual crime.

I can't believe what I have just read, Watermelon.

So-called 'promiscuity' does not mean that non-consensual sex is anything other than rape. Attitudes like this suggest that a woman's worth is connected to her virginity, and this in turn suggests that she is worth less if she is not 'pure', which begs the question 'worth less to whom?' To a prospective husband? To the father who will have to keep her until a suitable man comes along? These attitudes are anachronistic to say the least, not to mention misogynist.

Rape is such a hard crime to prove. Nightmare for the woman. Having to give evidence in court is harrowing.

I too sat on a rape case as a member of the jury. It became quite apparent that the boy wasn't guilty. We were listening to this evidence then shown CCTV of the pair of them

We went and sat in the Jury room to discuss. One woman was adamant he was guilty. Nobody agreed.

I felt very sorry for the girl as she stressed she didn't think she'd been raped but a teachers had told her she had been ,and then, on the third day, the Judge called a halt to proceedings and directed us to find him Not Guilty.

Cases like that should never have made it to court. Many others should.

I imagine this might not go down well here but in USA don't they have different levels of rape?

So a girl going out on a date with a boyfriend ends up being raped. Date Rape. A hideous crime

But we hear of men attacking 76 year olds in graveyards as they tend their husband's grave. And there was one case where a man broke into old people's home and raped women who were suffering advanced stage of dementia. Would these cases get a more severe sentence?

As has been said it's a very difficult trial to take part in. Many women won't bother due to the fact they think nobody will believe them. That needs addressing.

I think the days of commenting on what the victim was wearing are all but over now.

But it usually end up being his word against hers and in many cases there is reasonable doubt. So no convictions

Very sad and something we'd hope can be improved on in future

There is a problem here. Often the public think rape means a stranger attacks a woman and forces her to have sex with him, often using violence which leaves clear evidence. But this isn’t true of the majority of rapes. Most rapes are perpetrated by a man already known to the woman. This makes it extremely difficult to convict. Often there is no violence so little evidence. There are undoubtedly men who rape, and there are also undoubtedly women who cry rape falsely. One person’s word against another. Little or no tangible evidence. I wouldn’t want to be on the jury in such cases.

I don’t know whether I’d report it if I was raped. If I was attacked and raped by a stranger I’d certainly report it. If on the other hand, I was raped by someone I knew, and I felt my own behaviour had put me into an uncompromising position, then I don’t know. I really don’t know what I would do.

I do know that I would never cry rape if I had agreed to sex, but regretted it afterwards.

I won’t go into detail, but I do know of one person who reported rape falsely and knowingly, in order to cause harm to the person she accused. Thankfully he was found not guilty very quickly, but the distress caused to him and his family at the time and after was enormous.

Galaxy, it was so long ago, it's just part of who I am now. I'm sure I remember a thread on here a while ago, along the lines of the MeToo movement, where women declared their rapes/assaults.

Unfortunately, a huge percentage of women have similar experiences. It's why I would always believe someone who said she was raped/attacked. There is no point making false accusations because almost no cases of genuine rape get to court, therefore almost no false rape claims would get to court either. What would be the point of accusing someone KNOWING nothing would come of it?

I believe that the normalisation of porn must have an effect on modern behaviour. There's still the belief that the only safe conviction is if a virgin is attacked by a stranger which is so rare in the murky real world.

A woman has to prove that it happened to her in a way that is different to proving you've been burgled or robbed. If your character is pulled to pieces in court then you'd have less confidence in getting a conviction.

Historically a woman was said to be 'asking for it' and I'm sure this attitude persists. In parts of the world where women have few rights it's more than your reputation which suffers, as we all know.

I'd feel tempted to take the law into my own hands although I know it's wrong.

GagaJo - I suspect many of us will have similar experiences. Like most dreadful life events we manage to integrate them into who we are without allowing it to define us.

This thread suggests the fear of false accusations towards men and the belief that 'proving' rape is very difficult remains a driver. This despite Lolo81 reporting (accurately) that the evidence suggests only 4% of reports could be so categorised.
I've long wondered whether juries in rape (and child sexual abuse/exploitation) cases should be given independent academic research information to help challenge the myths and preconceptions that may come with them into the trial. I do understand the complexities of that because it seems in the USA the defendant and the alleged victim can call experts so I'm not convinced it wouldn't just muddy the muddy waters further.
It's the work of women's groups that led to the investigation that will now take place into what Vera Baird called the de-criminalisation of rape. That's why feminism remains so important.

I think there is something about education on rape myths, I had a discussion recently with someone who expressed disbelief about an alleged rape because the woman had sex with someone in the days after the event. As I understand it this is a relatively common reaction to assault, I think peoples preconceptions are still tied up with women being either virgins or whores or many of the other tropes. I also fully agree witha pp about the role of porn in all this.

I absolutely know that rape occurs and that both the rape and the treatment afterwards is a horrible ordeal for the woman involved. I think the days have passed where women are criticised for their dress or behaviour. However it becomes very difficult to prove a rape if the woman involved is still having sex with the alleged rapist after the rape, or is still exchanging texts with the alleged rapist. It’s also difficult to prove rape if the woman doesn’t present herself to the police until days or weeks after the rape. Personally I don’t think juries expect women to be pure, they are members of the public and have sex lives themselves. My husband was a jury member on two rape trials and he told me it was impossible to convict as the timings, the evidence from other people about movements, the evidence simply didn’t stack up to be able to convict. The same with the case I mentioned previously where the the woman reported the man maliciously. Unfortunately this does happen, and has to be recognised. Also rape does happen and has to be recognised, charges need to be brought, and convictions are too low.

Women dont behave in this way though, so it's awful to have those expectations of them. We dont hold those expectations of other victims, we dont say to those who were mugged, if you go to the shops the next day you cant have been mugged.

I understand that Galaxy, but I’m trying to take a balanced view. No one can say with 100% knowledge that all women who complain of rape have been raped, or that they haven’t been raped. The truth is somewhere in between. It is known that juries are unwilling to convict where the evidence is ambiguous.
One factor is that many more cases of alleged rape are taken to court now. I know this because my nephew and another nephew’s wife were both in the police, and they told me that there were recommendations from government that more rape cases should be prosecuted, as it was felt that not enough cases were prosecuted. That has led to increased numbers of cases hitting the courts.
I don’t how you know that women don’t behave maliciously. The numbers may or not be low, but it does happen. In the case I know of, it was to prevent the father having access to the children.
It’s impossible for people to know what happened in any alleged rape case without having full access to all the evidence. We cannot come out with a blanket belief of either women or men. It’s simply not that black and white.

I've long wondered whether juries in rape (and child sexual abuse/exploitation) cases should be given independent academic research information to help challenge the myths and preconceptions that may come with them into the trial
Iam I sometimes wonder why we hold our jury system so dear, but don’t the defence & prosecution counsel have a duty to present evidence that dispels myths &
preconceptions?

No-one here, or anywhere else I've ever been, claims that 100% of rape allegations are true. The research evidence was posted upthread by Lolo81. It says 4% are found to be either untrue or lacking in the evidence needed.

I agree with the points LoLO81 makes about the need for the kind of education university campuses have identified on the subject of consent. We need to introduce that into the high schools. Similar education could be made available in primary schools.
Galaxy raises the point about rape myths. Our society shifted a little in its views of the children who were sexually exploited by grooming gangs. Initially, police and other agencies dismissed those children as making poor life style choices. That approach was reflected by many members of the public and it was the work of women like Maggie Oliver and the health workers in Rochdale supported by Nazir Afzal at the CPS who led to cases being properly investigated.
We need a similar high profile approach to the appalling situation where Vera Baird believes rape is being decriminalised.

That's a really good example Iam64, I worked in an area related to childrens homes 20 years ago, and the attitude to those children was very depressing, depressed resignation in many cases.
I think there is something about maintaining a laser like focus on women in these debates, I sometimes wonder if we dont talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable to realise this is the backdrop to womens lives.

I was interested in the US legislation on rape and they do define different levels and types of rape and the sentences appropriate to the crime, with the death sentence still applicable in some states (although it hasn't been used). It seemed to me quite a good idea to have levels of crime,I thought it might result in more reporting and more sentencing. However than I looked at the figures and read this
According to FBI statistics, out of 127,258 rapes reported to police departments in 2018, 33.4 percent resulted in an arrest.[13] Based on correlating multiple data sources, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) estimates[30] that for every 1,000 rapes, 384 are reported to police, 57 result in an arrest, 11 are referred for prosecution, 7 result in a felony conviction, and 6 result in incarceration. This compares to a higher rate at every stage for similar crimes.
So it seems they experience the same difficulties as we do.

trisher, that's a depressing bit of news. It prompted me to google the outcomes in Scandinavian countries, where equality and a less punitive prison approach seems to succeed in many areas of life. Not so with rape, Denmark, Finland Sweden all experiencing similar difficulties to those in the S and UK. Women are organising and complaining that the Justice system is failing them.

The idea of different grades of rape was discussed by Greer recently, and got her into all sorts of trouble, I didnt agree with everything she said but she made me think harder about the subject than I have ever thought before. I understood when she she talked about the almost commonplace every day occurrence of rape.

I was going to post the same thing GagaJo, rape is about power, control and the humiliation of the victim. It isn't about sex.

I couldn't believe your post either Watermelon. A society where casual sex and promiscuity has nothing to do with it. If it did, if men raped for sex and sex alone, there would presumably be plenty of willing participants, but as has already been stated here, rape isn't about sex.

I cannot remember exactly when, it must have been about 1980. My brother who went on to practice family law wrote to a national newspaper to express his disgust at the trial of a man accused of raping a prostitute. In his summing up, the judge asked the jury to consider whether or not a prostitute can be raped!!!

When a woman says no, it means no. It doesn't matter what she's wearing, how much she's had to drink, whether of not she's taken drugs, how many sexual partners she's had previously, if the man in question is her husband, someone she lives with or is currently dating or if she changes her mind quite literally at the last minute.

Would I report it if I were raped? I hope I'd have the courage to do so and understand why out of fear, some don't.

The categorising of different levels of rape has nothing to do with the ideas behind it, it's much more to do with setting levels of sentencing that are appropriate to the crime. So first degree rape with torture can attract sentences of 0-99 years, or even in some states the death penalty, whereas third degree rape gets 3-8years.
It would be nice to think that this would increase conviction rates but actually it doesn't seem to.

I always remember the rape case of a young girl in Glasgow,she had to gve evidence and was in bits as her underwear was held up for all to see,apparently girls who wear nice underwear are asking for it...the man got off,the girl committed suicide.What a waste of a life.The whole way of approaching rape has needed an overhaul for decades .What women wear or when they say no shouldn't come into it,the fact that they were violated is all that counts and the attitude of a poster upthread about her jury duty is sadly still around ...NO means no ...

What a terrible thing to happen paddyanne, that poor girl.
Of course no means no, whenever and wherever it is said. And of course a prostitute can be raped.

paddyanne, I remember that case but didn't know the young woman had committed suicide. I find it difficult to understand how some people can dismiss/minimise the impact of rape, or deny how often it happens.

I don't know if this should be a separate thread. I've been shocked by the defence in recent murder trials when the perpetrator admits their sexual partner died as a result of injuries sustained during what they call "rough sex". They deny murder because they say the woman was a consenting participant.

Yes, I would report a rape without a 2nd thought.

Things aren't getting any better, are they Iam64 and I'm sure you're aware that due to the bad influence of porn we women are supposed to enjoy being half-strangled to 'add to the pleasure' which is really sick IMO.

In the old days women were expected to be 'better' than men (demure?) but now we're supposedly allowed to behave equally sex wise it's as though modern women are being punished for it. "Get back in your box" in other words.