herdirtylittleheart:

I don’t know what a person’s personal reasons might be for choosing not to report a rape but there are many hurdles that victims face, and this kind of bullshit message is one of them. 

This question just shows how ignorant you are about the realities of reporting rape or sexual assault to authorities. You’re making the dangerous assumption that police are always sensitive to victims and that reporting rape actually leads to consequences for the rapist. Generally (especially in certain parts of the world) it leads to further trauma for the victim. Many victims are in shock and processing the trauma of their assault, which can get in the way of getting to a police station immediately to report and complete a sexual assault forensics exam. Being ridiculed, criticized or blamed by police officers, getting naked for professionals to complete invasive exams on your private parts, having to defend your own rights, these are difficult and vulnerable things to do when you are reeling emotionally from being raped. Not only that but even if you still have the rapists ejaculate on or inside of you there is no way to “prove” that the sex was not consensual. (Not to mention the thousands of untested rape kits sitting in police stations all over the USA.) Even if you are believed and the authorities are supportive the long drawn out judicial process is generally in favour of the offender and comes at a great emotional cost to the victim. 

I’m going to save my own sanity here and just cut and paste information from Rape Abuse Incest National Network’s website:

Only three out of every 100 rapists will ever spend even a single day in prison, according to a new analysis by RAINN of Justice Department data. The other 97 will walk free, facing no consequences for the violent felony they have committed. Because rapists tend to be serial criminals, this leaves communities across the nation at risk of predators.

While the percentage of rapes reported to police has risen in recent years, a majority — 54% — still are not reported, according to the Justice Department. But increasing reporting alone won’t solve the problem: only about one out of four reported rapes leads to an arrest, and only about one out of four arrests leads to a felony conviction and incarceration.

RAINN’s new analysis is based on the most recent available Justice Department data, using an average of the five most recent years when available. Based on older data, RAINN had previously estimated that about 6% of rapists ultimately go to prison for their crime.

“This staggering statistic sends a clear message to offenders that they can commit this horrible crime and get away with it. The single most important thing we can do to prevent rape is to put more rapists in prison,” notes Scott Berkowitz, RAINN’s president and founder. “That’s why we have made it a priority to pass the SAFER Act and eliminate the backlog of untested DNA evidence from open rape cases.”

Of course I would encourage all victims of rape or sexual assault to go to the authorities and press charges, rapists deserve to be held accountable, but I also understand the realities of taking these steps and why many victims choose not to. 

AND before you start going off on how it’s unfair and men are falsely accused of rape, let me remind you that false accusations account for between 2 and 7% of all reported rapes. Which means your statistical odds of being falsely accused of rape as a man are negligible. In fact men are more likely to be sexually assaulted themselves than to be falsely accused of rape. Meanwhile 1 in every 6 women in the USA will experience ACTUAL rape. And that statistic is specifically for rape, the number skyrockets if we include all sexual assaults. 

So ask yourself this; what do you gain from not believing someone who says they are raped? What do you gain from requiring proof? KEEP IN MIND THAT RAPISTS GAIN PLENTY FROM THE FACT THAT OUR KNEE-JERK REACTION AS A SOCIETY IS TO DISCREDIT VICTIMS! 

TLDR; You’re a douche bag for sending this message.