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[Chew]

The 33% has migrated up from 25%. The 25% study was college students and was shoddy to say the least.  I think the study included sexual harrassment in the definition of rape. It was thoroughly discredited.

[Trinoc]

nuff said.

Possibly not nuff said at all. Maybe the low conviction rate is largely due to there being no plausible case to answer in many cases.

How are reporting rate statistics gathered when by definition one side of the equation is, well, unreported? Are a self-selecting group of women from "difficult" circumstances asked by worthy (female) counsellors whether they have ever had sex which they considered with hindsight was a bad idea (from which it is an easy to claim to have been coerced)? According to some definitions of rape I have heard, if a woman gets drunk, insists a man sleep with her (impugning his manhood if he should refuse), then decides in the morning it was a bad idea, she should be able to retrospectively claim rape.

If rape is to mean anything it has to be a physical assault against one's will at the time it happens. Broadening the definition to include any encounter deemed a mistake after the event simply cheapens the idea, and gives some people an excuse to regard real rape as less serious than it really is.

[amheuaeth]

According to some definitions of rape I have heard, if a woman gets drunk, insists a man sleep with her (impugning his manhood if he should refuse), then decides in the morning it was a bad idea, she should be able to retrospectively claim rape.

whose definition of rape is that? certainly not a legal one. i've never heard that as a definition of rape before, and i find it hard to believe that anyone would call that rape. 

it could be the definition of tequila, but not rape.

[Trinoc]

According to some definitions of rape I have heard, if a woman gets drunk, insists a man sleep with her (impugning his manhood if he should refuse), then decides in the morning it was a bad idea, she should be able to retrospectively claim rape.

whose definition of rape is that? certainly not a legal one. i've never heard that as a definition of rape before, and i find it hard to believe that anyone would call that rape. 

it could be the definition of tequila, but not rape.

You clearly haven't had the dubious privilege of being the sole man sharing a flat with a group of late 1970s radical feminists ...

I have heard it suggested in less extreme contexts, though. I remember a UK TV series some years ago about a group of radical lawyers in which a female barrister expressed the opinion that it was perfectly justified for a woman in a case to claim rape if she changed her mind the morning after.

In the UK at least, if a man gets drunk he is still considered to be fully responsible for his actions, whereas if a woman gets drunk then, in matters of sex at least, she is considered vulnerable and anything she does is seen in the context of having been taken advantage of by the other party.