I think an important point that was explained to me earlier on here that we must value what happened with the OP … for example if thousands of people die of natural causes every day that does not take away the suffering of the person who lost a loved one in that moment…. Solidarity with OP and many others is important … while it is true that we are not blind to what goes around…
After reading the last comment of the chief arguer in here, I think we’re talking about two different things. You seem to believe I’m claiming that every man knows THAT someone they know has committed rape. That’s not what I’m talking about.
The majority of men who’ve raped are never known to anyone except their victims.
That’s my entire point. Everyone who knows at least 10 men knows at least one rapist (without necessarily knowing which 1/10 it is) because that’s how common it is statistically.
I am not saying that everyone knows who those rapists are amongst their friends and family.
Why? Because rape is the least reported and least prosecuted crime. And rapists are generally in denial that they have in fact committed rape, even after convictions — which also are extremely rare.
Once again, these data come from the FBI’s UCR (which is readily accessible to the public as others have also stated) and doing simple math.
My undergraduate degree is in criminal justice and criminology, and my master’s is in clinical social work, and part of that education required extensive research in both fields. I’ve also worked as a police officer and a victim advocate at my county Superior Court. And I’ve co-led group therapy with state and federal convicted sex offenders — most of whom were still in denial about the crimes they had not only committed but had been convicted of and are still on probation and court-ordered treatment for. I’m not pulling these claims out of thin air.
Also, worth mentioning that after witnessing how I was responded to in this thread by a few people and the mods silencing me from responding at a certain point despite staying far more respectful than one person in particular talking to me, the OP went ahead and deleted her account.
But on that note, I do want to thank those who’ve jumped in to speak much-needed truth in here.
Also, @Kense if you go back and actually look at what was said by you and me, the only one calling anyone names was you… We’ve all got the receipts for reference.
@TheMidnightOwl thank you again for your wealth of knowledge and experience in this area 💖
@Kense i would not expect the majority of people to know that they know a rapist, because rapists aren’t advertising it or wearing a t-shirt proclaiming they are. You probably know several hundred men — are you saying that it’s statistically unlikely for any one of them to be a rapist without you knowing that they are?
I agree, most men AREN’T rapists, thankfully. But doe to the intimate and solitary nature of cuddling, and the fact that this site might attract those who are predators, it seems a reasonable for us to maintain a sense of caution, doesn’t it?
I have posted comments in support of the OP and at least one other woman here who said her boundaries were violated, plus a general statement of support to all victims/ survivors. I stand by that. And as upsetting as it is, I do think @TheMidnightOwl's last comment is true, that i must know at least 1 man who has committed an act of sexual abuse or worse, and I don't know who he is. I'm sure of all the men I've known in my life, there are more than one. But I've never known a man who admitted that to me. Not 1 that I can think of.
But I was abused by my male cousin when I was a kid. He would still deny it. Not only that, ALL the adult men and women in my family denied that it happened to me at all. To my detriment. I was 3 when it happened and I didn't know until I was almost 40 when I straight up asked my mother if anything had ever happened to me because it was coming up in therapy.
I have know 7 women in my life who have committed sexual abuse or worse, and another woman who might have. And I would have expected only 1 of them to be possible of such an act. So the rest would have been a surprise.
So we all probably know a woman who has done it as well. 25% of men have experienced intimate partner violence by a woman. And men are even less likely to report than women are, so it's higher. I used to co-lead a peer to peer support group for adult survivors of child abuse for 5 years. So many men came through that group who had been sexually abused, mostly by the women in their lives, and they had never told anyone outside of that group, except maybe their spouse. It's all a secret.
And I've never admitted this publicly, though I have to quite a few friends (women more than men becuase I feel more supported by the women in my life in this regard), but 6 of the 7 women I know who committed this type of violation did it to me. And the other I'm not sure of also might have done it to me.
And though no one has admitted it to me, I know other men in this forum have been abused too. And they should be under no pressure to admit that here. I'm finally at the point in my healing that I can admit it without any anxiety.
I am not saying or implying that women are more likely to commit such acts. Because so many of the women in the group were abused too. And everyone, man, woman, and their spouses and children, had suffered and were suffering immensely.
What i do want to mention, in support of all the survivors, is that this whole sexual abuse thing happens in denial, lies, silence, and secrecy. And the vast majority of offenders were abused themselves. In silence. That's not to say the majority of survivors become abusers. That's not true. But I'm speaking out because I want to do a little to lift the veil of secrecy. And because the conversation overall in our society leans heavily against men and largely lets women off the hook for what they do.
I am not bashing women. I love women. And I have spoken out plenty against men over the years. There is never an excuse for abusers. Ever. Never ever. I'm not even saying women do as much damage. I don't think they do.
I support all survivors and everyone who has ever seen someone they love hurt because they were a survivor
Yes, that’s also true. An even darker figure of crime (aka even less known, and even less often reported) is female perpetrators of violent crimes like DV and SA.
It all boils down to these facts:
Violent crime particularly SA and rape is nowhere near as rare as many in society think it is.
The definitions of sex crimes include way more situations and “acts” than what the average person thinks it is, which is probably a contributing factor in why so many are convinced it’s more rare.
Some people have been sexually assaulted or even raped and don’t recognize that because it didn’t look like it does in the movies or whatever idea they’ve been given about how these crimes occur — and by whom.
People who have committed rape and SA are typically not overt (although if one is paying attention they usually do exhibit red flags in some way……like the ways I’ve highlighted in prior comments……but in our society, it’s not a red flag to many people because the way rapists talk to/about/treat women publicly is so normalized.)
Just because it wasn’t reported doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Just because it wasn’t prosecuted after being reported doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Being a vulnerable person (which includes all minors and women) means you’re at an inherent risk of being harmed like this by someone at least once in your lifetime.
This site — and truly any online platform that leads to in-person meetings with essentially strangers — creates scenarios ripe for predators to harm women, in particular, and many men who join this site are here to do exactly that. Some are intentional hunters, some are opportunists, but the OP and everything she said about her experience is not rare.
And the main point that led to this totally unnecessary argument — we all know at least one person who has committed a violent crime, specifically sex assault or rape, even if we have no idea which one of our friends and family they are. If one is so convinced they don’t, then they probably know the guy super well, just without much self-reflection…
Hey, I saw a few people visit my profile from this thread, probably wondering who i am. I'm not new to the site. Been here over 10 years.
I changed my name and took down my pics this week for safety reasons. Something happened and I just feel safer this way right now.
If you are curious about my old name, dm me and I'll let you know.
Anytime you throw most in front of something it’s usually based around emotion not facts. Then I’m the only one to get a time out when midnight owl started calling myself and another member names. No biased moderation there.
Look, even if the math is given, there's probably going to be some denial response but I'll try. @TheMidnightOwl already added some good stats in regards to the number of people who have been victimized by rapists.
I'll add another fact as to the number of self-admitted rapists themselves. This paper: Cross-Sectional Predictors of Sexual Assault Perpetration in a Community Sample of Single African American and Caucasian Men shows multiple studies across different populations that show around 25% of men confessed themselves to activities that qualified as sexual assault. And that's just the number that confessed! According to this, if you know just four men, you statistically know at least one who has committed sexual assault.
And those are the generous numbers. If we count sexual coercion, which a lot of the cuddlers here have suffered from:
Almost a quarter (24.5%) of these men acknowledged committing an act since the age of 14 that met standard legal definitions of attempted or completed rape; an additional 39% had committed another type of sexual assault involving forced sexual contact or verbal coercion. An expanded version of the Malamuth et al. [1991] confluence model was examined using path analysis.
We're looking at 24.5 + 39 = 63.5% chance that a man has attempted to verbally coerce a woman. If you literally know one guy it's almost a two-thirds chance that he may have, at one point in his life, pushed past a woman's boundary of consent. Now is it possible that the action was unintentional, standards were different before, etc? Sure, but the point stands that the prevalence of this damaging behavior that puts women in a very unsafe place is much larger than any of us realize.
Can you really see that and say that most of us don't know a rapist, sexual assaulter or sexual coercer? We're just talking facts. This is from a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal - Aggressive Behavior: Volume 32, Issue 1.
As I said above, 100% of my cuddle sessions (6 or 7, I think) have led to the guy at least trying to move things toward sex. Was I raped, or even assaulted? No. But even when I’ve made my boundaries clear before ever settling down to cuddle, every single time it’s me pushing hands away. First from the chest, then one of two things, either hands going down my legs and attempting to go between them, or him begging me to touch his genitals. One guy flat out masturbated behind me while spooning within 15 seconds of laying down.
It just gets tiring.
If after you made your boundaries clear, his wandering hands go where they shouldn't, it's assault. They usually think it's just normal guy behavior and don't believe they did anything wrong. It doesn't matter what you are whether it's with someone you met on a cuddling site or a strip club. You don't touch anyone without their permission.
edit: I'd like to add, wouldn't most the fun be knowing the other person is just as into it instead of being a creep?
@trnguy Thank you for posting that. As so many of us have said multiple times, the datasets are out there for anyone who wants to factcheck me. I’m not teaching a class or publishing a research article, so I’m not going to do literally everything for all the readers who want to argue with me here. Lol Especially when facts don’t satisfy emotion or cognitive dissonance…. I’ve already spent way too much time and energy on this.
@sagantyson I’ll pm you. Thank you for speaking out about this and adding more truth to this thread.
@Mike403 Yes. This kind of boundary pushing behavior is so normalized for far too many men to feel entitled to do, and a huge part of why it doesn’t get reported because women are also conditioned to expect it to some degree and even just brush it off. We are also more likely to default into either “freeze” or “fawn/appease” nervous system states rather than fight or even flee, which then gets used against us later as evidence of consent when it was just compliance. Our entire world and especially judicial system needs to be trained on this basic understanding of human psychology and trauma physiology.
As for your last question, someone actually attuned to their partner would only enjoy an enthusiastically consenting/reciprocating partner, yes. This highlights another huge piece to this — far too many men have been conditioned to have no concern for what the experience is like for the other person, so it’s not a mood killer to be told no. Then throw in entitlement for those who perpetrate, and sometimes being told no ups the ante and makes the experience even more exciting for the guys who need an ego boost about how strong and in control they are.
One thing I find to be a total head scratcher is guys who send unsolicited d*ck pics. Has that ever worked in a guy's favor in the entire history of the internet/texting?
Abusive behavior by humanity is overwhelming to me, being an empath (to an unhealthy degree). I often think about the peace of not knowing so much, before the internet. So reading about the things that have happened to men and women here, also constant memories of the abuse in my past…I’m so sorry for the pain each of you has experienced. I truly wish strength & safety for everyone.
@Mike403 indeed! Not once has an unsolicited pic make me say, “oh, well, now that you’ve shown me what you’ve got, I guess I’ve changed my mind!” Not even once!
I am grateful that I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve truly felt unsafe, but then again, I haven’t had that many cuddle sessions yet.
As a professional cuddler dealing with similar issues, I really resonate.
And honestly, I think the site could do more to make this more sustainable for professionals. I've gotten to the point that I have a phone call with ever new client where I explicitly state I follow the cuddle site rules and stick to platonic boundaries, and they still get violated. I find the majority of the men I've interacted with here are ultimately looking for something sexual.
Intention is everything. And I don't think people here understand the power of platonic touch as a healing modality. Oftentimes, a cuddle with me is the first time men have experienced loving touch by a woman without sexuality attached to it, and it can be confusing for them. Our culture sexualizes loving, caring touch, and I've had to counsel many men on this.
I feel the site could do a better job of educating on cuddling and what can happen in cuddle sessions and how to navigate sexual arousal when it happens. Because it will happen! We're human. It's what we do in response that matters. Just because there's arousal doesn't mean there needs to be action.
I also feel that being unable to have a real conversation with someone until after a booking is made really makes the screening process challenging. I've had several men no longer interested in cuddling with me because I say immediately there is no chance of sexuality. I've had others agree to that and pursue it anyway in the session.
Just some thoughts and wanting to say, girl, you're not alone. 🫶🙏
oof havent read the rest of the thread yet but just wanted to say 95% is an insane stat.
EDIT
Alright I read most of it. Unsurprisingly this thread got highly derailed.
Id argue due to the 6 degrees of separation rule, you or someone you know, knows a sexual assaulter.
Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also known as the six handshakes rule.[1] Mathematically it means that a person shaking hands with 30 people, and then those 30 shaking hands with 30 other people, would after repeating this six times allow every person in a population as large as the United States to have shaken hands (seven times for the whole world).
Maths be mathing.
But like, given that there is such a high reported number of boundary pushers listed here, which is breaking of consent.. you dont really need to go 6 degrees out me thinks.
Very disappointing and sad to hear, sorry you went through that. It seems like risky business, I would imagine especially in cities where SW is illegal, making those kind of people flood the website, which is very unfortunate. Maybe there should be some kind of regulations/protections in place, but no idea how that would look like in practice.
The more I learn, the more I realize this is a very very niche activity, and these people are ruining it for everyone else, we barely have this website and all the cuddling apps are shut down, so it's quite sad. You cannot (you can try...) simply go into the regular dating apps to look for platonic cuddles because in those apps "cuddle" is interpreted as code word for s*x, and people might just think you are a weirdo for using the word...