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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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The problem is that many women who are actually raped don't report, fearing getting mislabeled as a false accuser

It's certainly true that a very high number of rapes go unreported, but I don't think that it's because women are worried about being labelled a false accuser. In the UK for example, rape accusers get lifetime anonymity. The press literally cannot print their names, ever. We don't seem to have more or fewer rape accusations than peer countries as a consequence.

I think rape victims who don't report it do so because they don't want to relive the experience again and again, that they are doubtful that anything will come of it (often true due to the nature of the crime), that they blame themselves to some degree or that they think that putting the rapist behind bars won't undo what happened (which it won't, of course).

I think rape victims who don't report it do so because they don't want to relive the experience again and again, that they are doubtful that anything will come of it (often true due to the nature of the crime), that they blame themselves to some degree or that they think that putting the rapist behind bars won't undo what happened (which it won't, of course).

You're missing a really-big one, namely "the woman doesn't actually want her boyfriend to be subject to the immense penalties for rape". Because yeah, a very-large chunk of rapes are "girlfriend says she's not in the mood tonight, boyfriend fucks her anyway, she doesn't put up a fight because she doesn't think it's that big a deal" - and a rape conviction is definitely a big deal.

The mistake a lot of people make when thinking about rape is to picture the modal rape as a marauding molestor on the street forcing himself on a screaming woman. Aggravated rapes like that are rare. When you talk about "rapes" - as currently legally defined in the West - you're mostly talking about drunk hookups and "not in the mood tonight"s.

I think rape victims who don't report it do so because they don't want to relive the experience again and again, that they are doubtful that anything will come of it (often true due to the nature of the crime), that they blame themselves to some degree or that they think that putting the rapist behind bars won't undo what happened (which it won't, of course).

Of course, but these dynamics are in effect for literally every other crime.

Rape is not different, you generally have evidence that isn't just "black eye" like it is for every other type of assault, and the demand for rape [to punish] vastly exceeds its supply.

Men have to suck up "living through it" when they report assault or theft. Since women are equal to men, the notion they're "too re-traumatized" is special pleading.

Since women are equal to men, the notion they're "too re-traumatized" is special pleading.

They are not equal in this sense. Women are in general much weaker and lower in fortitude than men.

Well, not really. The issue here is that I would have to admit to being beaten, and the admission is just as bad for men as it is for women in the spheres men and women are "supposed" to dominate.

You really want to fuck [the distaff counterpart of] a man who just got home from being mugged or losing a fight, even if in the moment they enjoyed being in the fight (worse if they rated the experience positively re: bike_cuck.jpg[1])? Can't imagine that's particularly attractive; really, a man being robbed or beaten is probably about as much a turn-off for women as a woman being raped is for men.

They're both instances of being required to admit you're a 'failure' of your gender, as having to revisit it requires you tell a bunch of strangers that you were easily tricked or bullied into giving away the resources that [the other gender instinctively believes] yours is supposed to guard.

Thus, I believe either one constitutes a task of identical emotional difficulty (and exposing the same liability), and men are simply underrating the negative effects being stolen from (or not reacting to having been stolen from) has on women in the same way, and for the same reasons, that women tend to underrate the negative effects of body count (including and especially due to rape) on men.

Which is why I can't accept "well, women are inherently less able to do this because gender"; the burden of having to overcome one's own instincts to submit to the legal system that depends on evidence rests in equal measure on the shoulders of all.


Remember, privilege is simply the mechanism by which one escapes this mismatch between instinct and duty/fairness. Let's take the Clancy case- your instinct tells you to kill your children, and your privilege would let you get away with it, so the tension coming from you needing to deny your instincts is gone and you may kill at will. What relief from the burden of resisting yourself.

(And to think men believe women have less emotional fortitude, when women are infamous for using everything they think men care about to manipulate men into granting women more privilege. That is why they scream "racist" and "sexist" at you- women don't truly care about those things, they just know that men can be convinced to, and men fall for it time after time after time. To state you're completely immune as a class to the way women observably function is arrogance at best and stupidity at worst.)

In the same way, your instincts tell you not to seek redress for rape or theft because it'll be difficult and embarrassing, and your privilege to turn any accusation into an instant conviction lets you escape that difficulty. (And a "double standard" is an area where you get to let your instinct override duty in [implied] exchange for letting your counterparts' instinct override duty in a different area that's not mentioned in the initial complaint, but accumulating a social shortfall owed to the truth in the direction of the party that got the worse deal.)


[1] Men attach negative sexual valence to being stolen from or defeated because they aren't generally thinking about the effect it has on female attractiveness when it happens, even if it ultimately means nothing to give away victory. Men also haven't fully figured that out; ironically it was their mothers, not their fathers, who failed to properly teach them about women.

Women treat casual sex the same way when there are no other negative consequences for the same reason; slut-shaming is [among other things] an evolved intra-female (and to a point, male) reminder that men don't like that kind of conspicuous consumption. It remains an evolved response for women because 60 years of contraception doesn't erase the "sex = death" instinct that thousands upon thousands of generations stamped into their brains.

Rape is not different

It is. Sex isn't illegal, but sex without consent is illegal. That doesn't apply to e.g. murder or battery. Rape almost always happens in the privacy of a bedroom, whereas most crimes of personal assault happen publicly. Consent is also extremely hard to prove or disprove.

demand for rape [to punish] vastly exceeds its supply

In the UK about 85% of rapes go unreported, when comparing police reports to the victim of crime survey, which is the gold standard for measuring actual prevalance of crime. There is plenty of supply.

You seem to believe that the two statements:

  • False rape accusations are common
  • Rape is underreported

...are mutually exclusive. But they're not. They both can be (and I believe are) true.

Consent is also extremely hard to prove or disprove.

Again, my answer is "lol, lmao even".

Women are always believed, unless the rapist wasn't a native, in which case the police don't care (I figured I'd need to mention that specifically because this is the UK you're talking about, but it's not like it's that different anywhere else).

That doesn't apply to e.g. battery

Nonsense: you "consent" to a bar fight, you're perfectly within your rights to claim it was an unprovoked offense retroactively when you regret it the next morning, or when it doesn't buy you the entrance to the in-crowd you were hoping for.
Just like sex.

"But diseases, emotional trauma, and the risk of an 18-year-long injury" also apply in the same measure to losing a bar fight- sadly, there's no Plan B or DNA matching for black eyes.
Guess we'll have to let that inequality slide.