A topic that comes up again and again is that of the “nice guy rapist,” or “acquaintance rapist.” He might be a good friend or someone that everyone considers a all-around good guy. This type of rapist is more common than the one depicted in movies or stories; the one that looks sinister and lurks in the shadows.

An article from the Centre Daily discusses the confusion and backlash that often follows when a woman is a survivor of an acquaintance rape:

“When they realize what happened to them is not OK, they struggle with, ‘Who can I tell?’ Because everyone else knows him, because everyone else thinks he’s a great guy,” Fishel said.
To one former Penn State student, this profile is all too familiar. Several years ago, she reported to police that she was raped on campus by a man she’d recently met.
“I knew that I was going to be blamed for it,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “My own mother, when I first told her, was like, ‘What did you do? What were you wearing?’ It’s just a perfect example of the way society treats it.”
She found the backlash for reporting the assault almost worse than the assault itself.
“Someone said she was sorry that I regretted having sex with him and had to bring this out against him,” she said. Other people told her, “He is such a loving and wonderful guy, how could I ever accuse someone like that of being essentially a rapist.”

One woman who had been sexually assaulted used facebook as a creep check. Obviously she couldn’t have known that her attacker would do anything to her, but it does show the extent to which people use social networking sites to see if potential friends or dates pass the normalcy test. Family photos? Check. Normal hobbies? Check. Plenty of friend posts? Must be well-liked… check.

Unfortunately, that leads to an early conviction that the individual can be trusted:

“What I saw of his profile and stuff like that was pictures of him and his parents,” she said. “You’re not going to assume that he’s some kind of, someone that’s going to harm you in any way.”

These sexual assault scenarios are all too common on campuses and to make matters worse, they are often treated as less traumatic to the victim, when the betrayal of trust can make it all the more worse.

So, if there were a sexual assault reported to the police on your campus, what would you consider a “timely” notification to students that the assault had been reported?

Personally, I think I’d want to know relatively quickly, so I could take appropriate actions to protect myself.

Sooo… About three months after the incident? Yeah. That sounds about right.

According to the Daily Collegian:

The federal Clery Act requires universities to report in a timely manner crimes “considered by the campus to represent a threat to students and employees.”

Though Penn State Police originally reported what they now suspect was an April 5 sexual assault as an “assault on a female,” police said they reported what they thought was appropriate at the time.

“Whether it’s an assault or a sexual assault — that’s just a play on words,” said Detective Bill Wagner, one of two detectives who investigated the incident.

In this case, determining the veracity of the victim’s claims was the first priority, Wagner said.

“We don’t go out reporting sexual assaults that don’t occur,” he said. “We’re going to investigate it.”

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a “play on words.”

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A quick article that highlights the disparity between the number of rape cases seen at the local hospital in State College, PA last year and the number of cases reported to the local police.