As promised, here is my take on the CDC’s “National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey,” which initially received attention for the one-in-five figure given for women raped in their lifetimes, and little else. After the initial news release, there has been little or no media attention paid to it. There is doubtless a political angle to this subsequent media and activist snubbing, because outside the rape numbers, the report offers some disquieting statistics about the politics of victimization.
The authors of this report are no doubt aware of the politics, which is why in the “executive summary” they not surprisingly give considerably greater attention to what the data alleges in regard to female victims, while down-playing the role of males as victims of violence; in fact males are almost never mentioned in the summary, which seems to deliberately skew some numbers to overshadow other uncomfortable numbers. One suspects that this summary was for media consumption, since you wouldn’t expect the superficial broadcast media to get past the salacious and actually examine the report in detail. Also, although there is a more-or-less equal mix of male and female researchers involved in the report, in the “acknowledgements” of those who “contributed” to the study, almost exclusively they are women, and all who no doubt have an advocate’s stake in the study’s findings; one suspects this because, according to the “methodology” section, the survey “was informed by the National Violence Against Women Survey, which provided a starting point for the development of the survey instrument,” which is indicative of the gender politics involved in the “study” of domestic violence.
Interestingly, this report coincides with a recent Justice Department study which claims that 25 percent of college women “have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14.” In fact, college women are more likely to be raped that non-college women; not only that, but the first six weeks are the period of most vulnerability, because female students are “adjusting to a new environment.” We’ve heard all of this before from women’s studies departments and university women’s associations trying to make themselves “relevant” to their clientele. The problem with this particular study is that it somehow must come to grips with the fact that reported rapes on college campuses tend to be lower than in the general public. A few years ago, the local newspaper gave the statistics on reported crimes at the University of Washington during the prior year; among them were six (as in “6”) reported sexual assaults, none which of which led to charges. This likely explains why the DOJ report focuses almost exclusively on “acquaintance” rape, usually under the influence of alcohol or drugs; educated, politically aware women, apparently, have a better understanding of how to define rape, or rather the people conducting the study do.
The CDC study claims to distinguish itself from the vast majority of studies similar to this one in the following ways:
• Interviewers ask a series of health-related questions at the outset of the survey to establish rapport and establish a health context for the survey.
• A graduated informed consent procedure is used to maximize respondent safety, to build rapport, and to provide participants the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether participation in the survey would be in their best interest.
• Interviewers establish a safety plan so that a respondent knows what to do if they need to discontinue the interview for safety reasons.
• Interviewers follow established distress protocols, including frequent check-ins with the participant during the interview, to assess their emotional state and determine whether the interview should proceed.
• The survey includes detailed behavior-specific questions on components of sexual violence and intimate partner violence that previous population-based national surveys have not measured. Examples include information on types of sexual violence other than rape, coercive control, and control of reproductive or sexual health.
• The survey is designed to assess violence in a way that is consistent across states.
Not mentioned here is that the biggest difference between this study and hundreds of others is that it has the audacity to include males as potential victims. Still, while it can be said that the CDC study doesn’t rely exclusively on a person’s “feelings,” the potential for magnification is just as great or greater, as we will soon see.
The study was conducted exclusively over either telephone land lines or cell phones, conducted in either English or Spanish (but not Asian dialects, which does have an apparent effect on the data), with 16,507 completed interviews and 1,542 partial interviews. 9,970 women and 8,079 men were involved in the survey. It might be surmised that unlike a written survey which would have allowed respondents to think about their answers, many of the results here could be characterized as “knee-jerk” responses, or attempts to “please” the interviewer. The writers, for their part, admit that some of the data might be open to interpretation:
“Psychological aggression, including expressive aggression and coercive control, is an important component of intimate partner violence. Although research suggests that psychological aggression may be even more harmful than physical violence by an intimate partner, there is little agreement about how to determine when psychologically aggressive behavior becomes abusive and can be classified as intimate partner violence. Because of the lack of consensus in the field at the time of this report, the prevalence of psychologically aggressive behaviors is reported, but is not included in the overall prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence. Expressive psychological aggression includes acting dangerous, name calling, insults and humiliation. Coercive control includes behaviors that are intended to monitor and control an intimate partner such as threats, interference with family and friends, and limiting access to money.”
Since this alludes to the subject of domestic violence, and the national media said almost nothing about the survey’s findings in this regard, I will try to fill in that gap here. Nearly 50 percent of both women and men report “lifetime” instances of such “abusive” behavior; frankly, whenever I hear a sobsister screeching loudly with self-pity, I think that this must constitute “domestic violence” for the person who must tolerate this on a daily basis. However, given the fact that some people would call this “normal” behavior, the need to expand what constitutes abusive behavior, whether psychological, physical or sexual, allows such things to be subject to "interpretation."
Keeping on the subject of domestic violence, the report defines physical violence in the following way:
“Physical violence includes a wide range of behaviors from slapping, pushing or shoving to more severe behaviors such as being beaten, burned, or choked. In this report, severe physical violence includes being hurt by pulling hair, being hit with something hard, being kicked, being slammed against something, attempts to hurt by choking or suffocating, being beaten, being burned on purpose and having a partner use a knife or gun against the victim. While slapping, pushing and shoving are not necessarily minor physical violence, this report distinguishes between these forms of violence and the physical violence that is generally categorized as severe.”
What do the numbers tell us? 30.3 percent of women claimed to be the victim of either being slapped, pushed or shoved during their lifetimes, compared to 25.7 percent of men, while 24.3 percent of women and 13.8 percent of men claimed to be the victim of severe physical violence, such as being hurt by pulling hair, hit with fist or something hard, kicked, slammed against something, tried to be hurt by choking or suffocating, beaten, burned on purpose, used a knife or gun. Yet these numbers disguise a more “fascinating” trend: In the previous 12 months, 4.5 percent of men claimed to have been “slapped, pushed or shoved” compared to 3.6 percent of women, while 75 percent as many men as women claimed to be victims of “severe” violence. Is this what they mean by “equality of the sexes?” It is clear that we live in a different time now, and that the focus solely on women as victims and men as perpetrators is not only misguided but false. No doubt some activists will be scrambling for explanations to explain away female-inspired violence.
The same goes for “psychological” abuse. In the past, men were told to “take it like a man” or go to sleep for 20 years like Rip Van Winkle. Apparently some are tired of the hypocrisy. 48.8 percent of men compared to 48.4 percent claimed to be the victims of “expressive aggression” or “coercive control.” These were defined as the following:
(Expressive aggression)
Acted very angry in a way that seemed dangerous
Told you were a loser, a failure, and not good enough
Called names like ugly, fat, stupid or crazy
Insulted, humiliated, made fun of
Told know one else would want them
(Coercive control)
Tried to keep from seeing or talking to family or friends
Made decisions that should have been yours to make
Kept track of by demanding to know where you were and what you were doing
Made threats to physically harm
Threatened to hurt him/herself or commit suicide s/he was upset
Threatened to hurt or take away a pet
Threatened to hurt someone you love
Hurt someone you love
Threatened to take your children away from you
Kept you from leaving the house when you wanted to go
Kept you from having your own money to use
Destroyed something that was important to you
Said things like “If I can’t have you, then no one will.”
It is easy to be cynical about these things. People say things they “don’t mean” all the time, and “victims” with aggressive personalities are likely to find “threatening” any behavior by a partner that does not give sufficient ground. However, as I intimated before, since these definitions were previously being used to inflate the numbers for the benefit of females, it is only fair that males also “benefit” from them. Size doesn’t matter if we are talking about how domestic violence is initiated and exacerbated. Psychological “violence” also follows the same pattern as physical violence; 18.1 percent of men compared to 13.9 percent women claimed to be the victim of such abuse in the prior 12 months—and nearly twice as many men as women in that period claimed to be the victim of “coercive control.” What does this tell us? That men are learning to control their behavior, while women are given rationalizations to explain questionable behaviors, mainly because all anyone cares to know is if they are victims? At any rate, what the statistics are telling us is that domestic violence—whether physical or psychological—cannot be “solved” by the politics, attitudes and methods currently in use.
Now it is time to examine the statistics on sexual violence. This is how the report measured this topic:
• Rape is defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent. Rape is separated into three types, completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, and completed alcohol or drug facilitated penetration.
--Among women, rape includes vaginal, oral, or anal penetration by a male using his penis. It also includes vaginal or anal penetration by a male or female using their fingers or an object.
--Among men, rape includes oral or anal penetration by a male using his penis. It also includes anal penetration by a male or female using their fingers or an object.
• Being made to penetrate someone else includes times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.
--Among women, this behavior reflects a female being made to orally penetrate another female’s vagina or anus.
--Among men, being made to penetrate someone else could have occurred in multiple ways: being made to vaginally penetrate a female using one’s own penis; orally penetrating a female’s vagina or anus; anally penetrating a male or female; or being made to receive oral sex from a male or female. It also includes female perpetrators attempting to force male victims to penetrate them, though it did not happen.
• Sexual coercion is defined as unwanted sexual penetration that occurs after a person is pressured in a nonphysical way. In NISVS, sexual coercion refers to unwanted vaginal, oral, or anal sex after being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy; feeling pressured by being lied to, being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority.
• Unwanted sexual contact is defined as unwanted sexual experiences involving touch but not sexual penetration, such as being kissed in a sexual way, or having sexual body parts fondled or grabbed.
• Non-contact unwanted sexual experiences are those unwanted experiences that do not involve any touching or penetration, including someone exposing their sexual body parts, flashing, or masturbating in front of the victim, someone making a victim show his or her body parts, someone making a victim look at or participate in sexual photos or movies, or someone harassing the victim in a public place in a way that made the victim feel unsafe.
Talk about leaving no stone unturned. I admit that the first thing I observed was that the report considered the possibility of rape by a female perpetrated on a male laughable—a woman cannot force a man to “penetrate” her if his penis is not erect; if it was, it must mean that he “consented.” This apparently even applies to 13-year-old boys who have penetration with adult females, incidents of which we have heard of once or twice in the past; regardless if it is “consensual,” it is still legally rape. It is also to be noted that rape need not be penis or object penetration; “fingering”—and one suspects “tonguing”—can fall under the category of rape. Rape can also be any time when the female cannot make an “informed” decision if she wants to have sex, because of the influence of drugs or alcohol. One can easily imagine questions like "Did you ever have sex when you were drunk?” If the answer is "Yes," then this is defined as "rape" in the report. A “victim” of rape can also be someone who was “made” to penetrate someone else; note in this case that it is possible for two women at once to be victims.
“Sexual coercion,” on the other hand, is a particularly tricky definition. It is a loaded, almost perverse claim that rape includes “being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy; feeling pressured by being lied to, being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority.” This is a political, not a legal, definition of rape; it certainly falls in line with the belief of some radical feminists, like Catherine MacKinnon, that all heterosexual sex is some form of rape.
Now the numbers. 18.3 percent of women, as defined by the researchers, were raped during their lifetime, 1.1 percent in the past 12 months. Of these, 12.3 percent, or 1 in 8 were, according to the report, “forcibly” raped during their lifetimes. 1 in 200 were reportedly forcibly raped in the previous 12 months. In the “other sexual violence” category, there was no estimate on how many were “made to penetrate” another person, while 1 in 8 felt coerced, and a rather surprising 1 in 3 experienced “non-contact unwanted sexual experiences”—one would think that with all the sexually-incorrect images that feminists tell us pervade our lives, that the number would be closer to 100 percent. For men, despite the recent news reports out of Penn State and Syracuse universities, and the still greater likelihood that men are much less willing to admit that were raped (especially by another man), there is no attempt to quantify the potential number of victims within the prior 12 months—likely because most of the victims are boys who are not subject to the report. Otherwise, one percent of males claim to have been forcibly raped during their lifetimes.
Other statistics: Despite the stereotype that Hispanic males are violent and over-sexed, “only” 14.6 percent of Hispanic women interviewed claim to have been raped in their lifetimes. This compares to 22 percent of black women and19 percent of white women; despite the fact that Asians constitute 5 percent of the population, there was no data offered in regard to them, probably because of language difficulties. Fewer Hispanic women also claim to be victims of “other sexual violence” than white and black women. Among males, only white males registered in the rape category, although this may have something to do with they are more willing to admit that their “manhood” was violated; all males reported “other sexual violence” about half the frequency of women. However, in the prior 12-month period, a slightly higher percentage of men (2.5) claimed to be the victim of “other sexual violence” than women (2.3 percent). The activists, advocates and the media always claim that crimes against women are under-reported; this, obviously, is more true of male victims.
In regard to victimization by intimate partners, defined by rape, physical violence and stalking, excluding rape the number of victims were about the same between men and women. Additionally, while women were three times more likely to claim to be “impacted” by intimate partner violence, some of the measurements, like “having nightmares,” would probably not occur to men to report, and the fact that there are almost no public or private resources for men to contact in cases of domestic violence would also impact these numbers.
Overall, the CDC report is probably the most “balanced” study of its kind yet released. Even if some of its numbers could be accused of being exaggerated, it nonetheless should be regarded as a model for future research on the subject matter it examines. Any report that excludes males cannot be trusted to tell the “whole truth,” and at the very least the CDC report gives us an idea of what that is.
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