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This article claims:

Every year, an estimated 1 million people are date raped, and many of them are victims of date-rape drugs, potent mixtures that disrupt the central nervous system.

I suspect the "article" appears to be more advertisement for the brand and company than actual article but it is being linked from The DrudgeReport today as though it were actual news.

Is the claim of 1 million date rapes backed up by any reputable studies? I am not interested so much in the definition of date rape so much as seeing that the company has done more than pulling a nice round number out of there air and using it for the claim. I am doubly dubious since the apparent reference to the claim on the article links to the home page of the company making the product.

Andrew Grimm
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Chad
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    What @dmckee said. This question is in strong need of definining what "date rape" is. And any answer worth its salt should really analyze how many reports are false (e.g. revenge, post-sex regrets, other reasons for false accusations). – user5341 Dec 11 '12 at 20:35
  • @DVK - I agree that it needs to be defined... I would even be ameniable to a study that took the broadest definition of the term. This seems like an example of "hey here is a nice round number we can use" to make it seem like the problem is large enough to warrant backing the development of our product to market. I smell venture capital bait all over this. – Chad Dec 11 '12 at 21:01
  • @Chad does the article give a more precise definition? Maybe a better citation from it would help? – Sklivvz Dec 11 '12 at 22:10
  • @Sklivvz - No it does not. After that line it talks about the drugs used and how the product will detect them. Honestly I am less worried about the definition, than that there is a reputable study that has a result they are claiming. – Chad Dec 11 '12 at 22:25
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    Alcohol is the #1 date-rape drug... – Sam I Am Dec 12 '12 at 04:31
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    Is the figure supposed to be world-wide, or specific to a certain country? If it were for a specific country, we could work out if date rape according to this claim would account for more rape victims than there are total rape victims. – Andrew Grimm Dec 12 '12 at 06:58
  • Note that the claim says "Many", so that could be a figure that is substantially lower than 1 million. Maybe it's easier to first search out global figures for rape, then local percentages for date rape (I imagine there are wildly different national averages). – Benjol Dec 12 '12 at 13:05
  • Their definition of "date raped" is clearly broader than "date raped using drugs", so you'll want to look at fairly broad definitions. – Yamikuronue Dec 12 '12 at 16:58
  • @Benjol - I am not asking are there 1 million dateraped using drugs. Just is there some reputable study or agency that is estimating that there are 1 million date rapes. I am under the belief that this is more of a 1st world problem than an global one but I am receptive to one that shows the problem is wider than generally under stood. – Chad Dec 12 '12 at 17:35
  • Related: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8440/have-one-in-ten-women-suffered-rape – Mechanical snail Dec 15 '12 at 14:17

1 Answers1

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The exact number of date rape is not known since there is fear of inflated statistics in accounting for rape numbers in USA. Also according to a 2013 global review, 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence and more often than not, cases of violence against women go unreported.

Date rape is a subset of acquaintance rape where nonconsensual sex occurs between two people who are in a romantic relationship. "Acquaintance rape also includes rapes in which the victim and perpetrator have been in a non-romantic, non-sexual relationship, for example as co-workers or neighbors. Date rape is particularly prevalent on college campuses, where it frequently occurs in situations involving alcohol or other date rape drugs, which may facilitate the execution of drug facilitated sexual assault DFSA".

Per CDC in 2010, the annual estimated number of completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration rape victims is 780,000 out of estimated rape victims of 1,270,000. The life time estimated number of Completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration rape victims is 9,524,000 out of estimated rape victims of 21,840,000 in USA. About 5% of women (5.2%) experienced attempted forced penetration, and 8.0% experienced alcohol/drug-facilitated completed forced penetration. One percent, or approximately 1.3 million women, reported some type of rape victimization in the 12 months prior to taking the survey.

Per CDC in 2013, the annual estimated number of rape victims in USA (Completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration) is not reported since relative standard error > 30%. The life time estimated number of rape victims in USA (Completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration) per CDC 2010 is 4,098,000 out of estimated rape victims of 11,162,000. Nearly 1 in 10 women in the United States (9.4%) has been raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.

However, National Crime Victimization Survey by Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2013 quotes a different total annual rape victims number of 96970 (students 31302 and nonstudents 65668) where completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration numbers are not exactly known since survey does not specifically ask about incidents in which the victim was unable to provide consent because of drug or alcohol consumption.

pericles316
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    Thats a huge variance from 1.3 milling to less than 100k – Chad Jul 08 '15 at 14:11
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    @Chad No surprise. There's a lot of bogus "rape" data, including survey questions rigged to produce higher numbers by including things that aren't rape. (For example, I've seen survey questions that define consenting to sex in order to keep a partner from leaving as rape.) – Loren Pechtel Jul 08 '15 at 23:24