A Drinking Glass That Can Prevent Sexual Assault | Hacker News Reader

A Drinking Glass That Can Prevent Sexual Assault

core77.com

38 pointsdsr1247 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6122049

some 400,000 women are rendered unconscious and subsequently raped each year

This is unbelievable. If this is true, and assuming most of the victims are not repeat ones, it stands to reason that almost every woman that goes out drinking for more than a few years will be raped. How can there be that many rapists out there?

Are you assuming no repeat rapists?

No, let's assume that the average perpetrator commits four felonies before being charged or otherwise removed. That's still 100,000 active felons at any given instant.

Eyeballing that figure tells me that the true number for this sort of thing is actually higher still (US population 313 million). Although in the vast majority of cases, no formal charges will be made, and little will be done about those carrying these sorts of things out, and it is likely that those carrying these sorts of things out do this much more than four times

You're probably right, sadly. Maybe clubs serving alcohol should require some type of pat down/search for drugs as well as firearms. I don't have any good preventative answers for this one. Females have a very dangerous life to navigate; can never let their guard down.

The 400,000 figure does not seem to exist anywhere else online. Searching "400,000" and "rape" returns no results regarding date rape, the closest results I can find relate to the number of rape survivors in the Congo (400,000). This wikipedia article on date rape suggests that roughly 2% of date rape victims have been drugged, so if the 400,000 figure is to be believed that means there are 20,000,000 date rape victims every year? That seems... unbelievable! This figure seems to be pulled out of nowhere. Also worth mentioining that the #1 date rape drug is... alcohol! This article smells a lot like FUD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug#Frequency_of_occ...

edit: and in the video the project creator claims over a million people are victims every year, again no citation.

edit edit: found a study that claims 4% of rape victims had been drugged[1] and according to RAINN there are ~200,000 rape victims every year[2]

[1] https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/212000.pdf

[2] http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of...

So assuming the RAINN figure is accurate and the study figure is accurate that means there is ~10,000 drug involved date rapes per year.

I would not be surprised if a factor was mixed in for the "most rapes go unreported, especially date rapes," estimates.[1] Given these figures, either the 3% conviction rate or the 46% reporting rate, a person could take numbers that may or may not already include these adjustments and apply the most helpful. 10,000 x 33 = 330,000, might as well round up to 400k.[2]

I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, but abuse of confidence intervals is an common problem, even among those with good intentions and little idea that what they're doing is misleading.

[1] http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-ra...

[2] This guy says 400k, but we know that less than half are ever reported, so it's probably closer to a million. And so on.

RAINN's numbers only cover the US, as far as I can see, and the US is only about 5% of the world's population. So if we extrapolate naively from your numbers, we end up with 160,000, which is a lot closer to the figure from the article.

This would be great if drink spiking was an actual problem, but the overwhelming evidence is that in most cases the victim simply drank too much alcohol and then blamed their subsequent problems on their drink being spiked. (Your drink being spiked also provides a socially acceptable excuse for being out of control in a way that irresponsible alcohol consumption does not.) Furthermore, better detection & prevention of drink spiking will only serve to exacerbate this problem, as young women will have less reason to monitor their alcohol consumption, safe in the knowledge that their drink won't aid in their subsequent abuse.

The way to prevent substance-related rape is easy: (1) don't drink excessively and (2) drink with somebody who will look out for you, preferably someone who is sober.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/3256331.stm

> The way to prevent substance-related rape is easy: (1) don't drink excessively and (2) drink with somebody who will look out for you, preferably someone who is sober.

Maybe some people want to drink excessively (1) and with friends who also want to drink (2). For that matter, if you want a really easy way to prevent rape, why not just lock yourself alone in a room all day?

An excessive comparison, perhaps, but I think we shouldn't be so quick to blame the victim here. The thing is, people should be able to drink excessively on occasion if they want to without having to justify it. It's a problem with society that needs to be fixed if they can't do that.

And whether you personally intended it or not, comments like "the overwhelming evidence is that in most cases the victim simply drank too much alcohol and then blamed their subsequent problems on their drink being spiked" are misguided (victims, by definition, don't need to "blame" anything other than their attacker). Also, citation needed.

> Maybe some people want to drink excessively

Just because you want something doesn't mean you get to have it.

> comments like .. drank too much .. are misguided

You missed his point completely. If this cup solves a non-existent problem it won't help anyone.

Those glasses are a pragmatic solution to a moral problem, so there's not point in discussing the moral problem, and your parent is presenting a pragmatic (as depressing and curtailing to personal freedom as it is) solution in counterpoint to the glasses.

The moral problem is some people rape people who are intoxicated or who they got drunk with the intent to rape. The ideal, moral solution is people stop raping. The number of people of who rape (EDIT: and the number of rape episodes) should absolutely be reduced, but ending rape altogether isn't going to happen in our lifetimes.

So, to reduce the number of rapes we can use things like the cups (which could avoid intoxication by date rape drugs) but also try not to drink too much, especially if you don't have someone to watch out for you.

1: Citation, please.

2: Stop blaming victims.

It's not blame. It's advice.

Same as telling someone to lock up their bicycle to avoid it getting stolen, and not leave the GPS visible in the car.

It is disgusting victim blaming. Now also on HN. Yay.

Fully agree. Of course alcoholics are very good at coming with excuses and explanations about how it's their right to drink and the rest of society has to pay the price.

Is spiking of drinks really that common? I've only ever seen GHB or Ketamine used recreationally. I've never heard anyone say they'd been intentionally and maliciously dosed, although I've seen people ingest by accident.

> Is spiking of drinks really that common?

No, I doubt that it is because rape is relatively uncommon.

Does it matter if its common? If its something we can prevent, why not?

Focussing attention on something scary but rare leads people into danger when they ignore the much more common risk.

We know that people make mistakes when drunk, and we know that some people use alcohol as a rape-drug. In England it's much more common for people to make bad choices about sex when they're drunk than for a predator to deliberately spike a drink with a drug.

Having a shot glass with whiskey in it and the label "safe" is just weird.

Indeed. Most common thing to spike drinks with? More alcohol.

You can prevent a lot of uncommon things by never stepping foot outside of your house, but then again there are always trees that fall on houses, tornadoes that rip up houses, hurricanes that flood houses, earthquakes which break apart houses - and those are just natural causes, then there's the poisons in your household cleaners, knives, etc...

Because everything has an opportunity cost, however small.

Utilitarianism, as well as "just good horse sense" suggests that finite resources should be allocated to solving problems that cause greater sum harm than lesser sum harm.

If you read the article, it effects around 400k. I'd say that's 400k too many.

I know several people who had this happen to them — and those are just the ones who've opened up about it, which obviously not everybody would do, so I may or may not know even more than I think.

I know several people who had this happen to them

It's far, far, more likely that you've had friends who drank too much and then assumed, in the absence of an actual toxicology report or other corroborating evidence, that they were drugged.

Ref: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/case-studies/burgess-spiking...

From what I heard it's actually mostly done by friends, minus the raping part. I know that's how it happened to me once with MDMA.

From what I understood it seemed that it was more about 'lightening up and having some more fun,' although I'm not sure how running around all night wondering whether I'm losing my mind would make me have more fun,

Ummm...why not create disposable (or reusable) testing strips or something instead?. You can carry them in your wallet/purse and you don't have to rely on the bar/club to buy new glassware.

Because this is automatic, and doesn't require that inebriated people maintain their own quality controls.

With a strip, ignoring the fact that it's a socially awkward thing to do, when are you going to test your drink? Before you take every single drink? I know people who have been drugged this way and they swear they never left their drink alone.

it would be simpler and more effective to integrate this technology into drink straws and other paraphernalia. Bars will be hesitant to replace their entire glassware supply.

It is in drink straws.

Sorry, where did you see that?

>Because this is automatic, and doesn't require that inebriated people maintain their own quality controls.

Is not automatic...it requires every single bar or club to change their ENTIRE line of glassware and you to trust that they did!. Plus, a rapist could easily buy a glass that looks exactly the same as the ones of their favorite bar and exchange it.

>With a strip, ignoring the fact that it's a socially awkward thing to do, when are you going to test your drink? Before you take every single drink?

You carry the strip with you ALL THE TIME and toss it into the glass every time that you're holding it. I mean, it doesn't have to be a nasty looking tiny strip...you could have ice cubes or even go design crazy with tropical umbrellas that scream "RAPIST IN THE CLUB" when activated....

IIRC they are also planning to make drinking straws that incorporate the testing technology.

I read that, but nobody drinks whiskey, beer, etc with straws.

Cool tech, but what bar owner is going to buy these?

Assuming they cost more than regular glasses, why would you want to advertise the fact that your glasses are Roofie-proof? That's a creepy precedent to set

With a generous helping of FUD, any bar owner who doesn't buy one of these will be assumed to be a creeper.

-OR-

Clubs catering to really, really rich people. (at least, until the price comes down)

I'm wondering how well it survives repeated steam-cleaning, and whether it somehow indicated when it's aged too much.

I hadn't considered the extra-high heat used in bar-grade dishwashers. I was thinking about how great a solvent alcohol is.

If these were single-use plastic glasses, I think that would be a best case scenario, but then you're pretty much limited to ballgames.

Liability is a nightmare in bars already. I can only see most bar managers buying these if forced by an outside agency.

I remember an Australian study into drink spiking found that out of a pool of women who claimed to have been drugged, not a single one actually showed evidence of drugs other than alcohol. Now the definition of "drink spiking" includes having extra spirits added to a regular drink, or maybe just drinking too much.

A true urban legend that makes good headlines in a society prone to moral panic (not to say it never occurs, but the prevalence is grossly, hugely distorted).

Security mindset time!

This invention is cool, but relies on either staff telling customers, or customers all being informed. In the former case, it is unrealistic to expect to staff to be able to carry this out at a busy bar, and weird stuff happening to uneducated customers would only either freak them out, or make them go "cool new glasses!".

In the case of customers being informed, I go and acquire a range of interesting drugs that might have the desired effect, and test them until I find one that isn't caught. Or, y'know, just go back to surprise extra alcohol and a bit of social coercion when that alone isn't enough (discounting here any extra kicks from the other effects of any drug on the victim).

People would pick it up over time. I think a more serious issue would be that once these glasses entered the public's mindspace, people might expect that their glassware has it when it doesn't, creating a false sense of security.

Ooooh, nice addition! Also, surprise glass swap-out!

that's certainly one of the more productive $50k projects I've seen crowdfunded.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/drug-rape-prevention-drink...

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