Do we live in a Rape Culture?

[Benton]

(05-09-2016, 12:14 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: Doesn't have hospital have to report it to the police if someone comes in and says they have been raped?

Edit: Even if you triple the amounts of rapes / sexual assaults and attribute them all to women it would be .006% of the woman population.

To the first, I believe so, but I can't so say in every state. And that's usually as far as it goes.

Typically, it would be something like a person would come in, say they were sexually assaulted and they needed a test for STDs or a pregnancy test, or they were scared about their parts because of some kind of trauma. The nurse/doctor calls the SANE nurse, who calls the cops and orders a rape kit. And then usually the person says they don't want to press charges or that it was a mistake, or whatever. The cops don't have to have the victim's cooperation, but as a court reporter, I saw several cases over the years that seemed pretty solid get dropped because the victim refused to testify. One guy beat a woman half to death and penetrated her repeatedly with a flashlight. The cops had the guy in bloody clothes, the flashlight, and a witness to part of it. Case got dropped because the week before trial the victim refused to testify (the guy doing the assaulting had a kid with her and she was afraid if she testified and he didn't go to jail, she'd lose custody). EDIT: I forgot, he also admitted to it when they first arrested him, even though he sobered up later and said he didn't admit anything.

To the second, my stories are purely anecdotal and I wouldn't try to guess at how they relate nationally. According to CDC numbers, Kentucky is higher in sexual assaults than the national average.