I’m assumning, Stonebow, that you’ve never been raped. If you had, you would know that a rape is infinately more degrading, humiliating, and horrific than a plain old assult.
Men who rape (or women who rape, for that matter) are monsters who have chosen the worst possible way to degrade another human being.
Trust me, rape versus a punch in the face (or being beat to a pulp, for that matter), are just not the same thing.
Right, Guin, I’m here. Don’t know that I have anything constructive to add, though.
Can anyone dig up any evidence pro/con the rape-as-aggression idea? oh, here. Don’t know how convincing the cite is.
There are a number of extremely conservative Christian groups who believe that it’s women’s responsibility to prevent men from lusting after them. Rape, in their view, isn’t really the rapist’s fault. The bad victim shouldn’t have enticed her (it’s always a her, obviously :rolleyes: ) That’s tangential to the current discussion, though.
Please don’t misunderstand me on this. I think that rape is one of the worst things that one human being can do to another. In some cases even worse than murder. I just questioned the idea that sex has nothing to do with it. That seems so counter-intuitive- both in theory, and in my experience with rapists and rape victims- that I can’t figure it out.
I also know that not all rapes are equal, just by the nature of the offense. Some are infinitely more violent, soul-crushing, and damaging than others. Even at best, though, I know that it is an experience that I’d never wish on my worst enemy.
Maureen- in this case, you are of course, right. But legally, doesn’t ‘some guys just don’t stop when they’re asked to’ definitely fall under the definition of date rape?
Conintuing without a woman’s consent falls under the definition of “rape.” Whether it happens between boyfriend and girlfriend, first date, what have you.
Date rape is a term which surfaced recently for the particularly heinous act of meeting a woman and then asking her on a date with the specific intent of raping her. That there’s a drug specifically used to facilitate this and is termed “the date rape drug” disgusts me no end.
Or, if it IS about sex, it’s about taking sex and turning it into a weapon. Sex is supposed to be about making people feel GOOD, and this turns it into something completely opposite.
If I can, let me throw my .02 regarding this issue.
Prisoner’s position is reprehensible. No doubt.
Alice, I’m terribly sorry and I pray for a quick and complete recovery.
As a former prosecutor (and I did criminal defense in my past as well), I have dealt with many, many vicitms of rape. The vast majority of rapes that I dealt with did NOT involve strangers. It involved friends, family members, husbands, lovers, and neighbors that knew each other. When someone is dealing with aquaintance-rape cases, the claim that the victim “placed herself in a bad situation” often arises. The problem I have with this position is that it places the responsibility on the victim. The focus is misplaced. In almost every case I dealt with, the perpetrator manipulated the events in order to make sure the victim was alone, vulnerable, and otherwise not in a position to defend herself or seek help. Can you look back and second guess what the victim could have done to avoid it? Many people do. I guarantee the victim does every single day for the rest of her life. I believe the focus should not be on what the victim “should have done to avoid the situation,” but on what the perpetrator did to set up the situation.
Of the stranger-rape cases I handled, not ONE CASE had the so-called “mitigating” issue regarding how the woman was dressed. (Frankly, the fact a person would refer to that as mitigating is fairly repugnant. I’m sure the person that referred to that did not mean to “mitigate” the rapist’s actions.) Stranger rape cases occur at the place and time of the predator’s choosing. I can’t think of one rape case that I handled that didn’t happen at a targeted location (ie. a grocery store or mall parking lot, jogging trails, areas next to gyms, et cetera), or was not the result of a home invasion. Stranger sexual assaults are not crimes of opportunity, they are planned. The “woman who dressed sexy, went to the bar, and wandered into an alley only to stumble upon a bad person who then takes advantage of his new-found opportunity” is not a very realistic example. Your typical stranger rape case involves a predator who
Try As I Might…, thank you. Your two cents carries a lot of weight, and I appreciate your perspective on this. You explained in one post what I’ve been fumbling through an entire thread trying to say.
Welcome to the Dope, BTW. Stick around.
I just think that this bears repeating.
Clearly, the people using the word “mitigating” did not mean to use it in that manner - I was going to remark on that myself, but I thought it obvious.
What you are saying is that “choice of dress” is, in your experience, not a factor in the chain of causation leading to a rape. I’ll defer to your experience in this, though I find it hard to believe - if, as you say, stranger-preditors deliberately select their victims, that these assaults are “planned”, surely knowing the attitudes out there, choice of dress is an important selection criterion? Maybe even more important than in the “she wandered out of the bar dressed in a miniskirt and stumbled over a rapist” scenario, the scenario you think unlikely.
Does this not sound somewhat familiar: “I watched the house for days, that slut had it comming, look at the way she dressed”? Somehow, I always thought that a proportion of rapists thought like that, based on reading newspaper accounts and the like; but if this is untrue, please let me know.
However, if you are claiming that nothing a woman does, no choices a woman makes, have any effect on the chain of causation, I must beg to differ.
If that is the case, what is the point of educating people to be “street smart”? To be aware of their surroundings? To avoid secluded areas? Not to take risks or engage in risky behaviour?
Advice like this:
http://www.wcstx.com/prvntrpe.htm
Lead me to believe that if you do not take their advice, you are in fact increasing your danger. If that isn’t true, why bother with the advice?
Naturally, once a rape has occurred, it is pointless (if very human) to worry or blame oneself about it. However, even more important than making victims feel good and avoid self-recriminations, is making sure as few women as humanly possible fall victim in the first place. Sending the message that the woman’s choices are irrelevant to her chances of getting raped is counter-productive, unless it happens to actually be true.
Naturally, there is the argument that women should be free to dress as they please without fear, go as they please without fear. No woman should have to consider this shit. I agree, in a better world no woman should. But rapists are out there, and until society evolves for the better, the danger will have to be faced.
The question is how far back does the chain go, before it becomes meaningless?
Try this: She’s worked with the guy for 3 years. They’ve gone out on business lunches, danced at business functions…etc. Normal everyday stuff, things that people do every single day. So when he asks her to bring over some documents to his apartment, during the day; she does. It’s hot, he offers her a drink.
He drugs and rapes her.
Where does the chain of causation start? The color of her lipstick? The time she bend over to pick up a pencil and her co-worker “noticed” her? That first dance at the Friar’s club? Should she have not taken the glass of soda, he offered her? Should she not have trusted her co-worker not to rape her?
What reasonable choice did she do wrong? At what point should her inner voice say, “This is dangerous?”
Can I interject just one thing here?
Malthus, this part of your post:
is rather condescending. You make it sound as if, after being raped, all a woman needs is a hug and a cup of tea. That of course no one should blame themselves, that’s just silly. I feel I should tell you now, the emotional and psychological trauma are at least equal to the physical trauma inflicted. It’s not just a physical crime. That’s why rape is so horrible. It’s invasive in every possible way.
I don’t think Malthus is getting it, and I don’t think he’s ever going to get it.
Bound and determined to somehow make women responsible for the actions and deluded thoughts of their attackers.
As I said before - some men find conservative dress coming - how about we take your quote and modify it:
Your quote:
My quote
It is a difficult question. The most general answer is the one you yourself - a woman should make the choices that are reasonable in the circumstances. Naturally, even the most alert and wary person may fall victim, in spite of her care. However, I do not believe that this fact makes being wary and alert unimportant.
I would re-emphasize that this is not a matter of a woman “doing wrong”.
That is a good point, and I see that what I said earlier in this thread did not distinguish propperly. I believe that if a person protects themselves as well as they are able that should help reduce violent crimes (rape included). Telling someone after the fact that they acted badly is beyonde stupid and into callous and heartless.
I advocate getting lifts from friends, avoiding dark places, arming yourself (to the level that legality and your own ability allows), avoiding the bad parts of town, not acting in a way that might enflame those arround you (no matter how bigotted they might be, or how much you have the right to act the way you want).
To expand on my mentioned walk arround San Francisco at night wearing goth and a vinyl skirt. When I approached a croud or other risky situation I let up the skirts zipper a little so I could move more easily. I was also carrying a walking stick. I happen to be very good at stick fighting, and so if I were attacked by gay bashers (or the fashion police 
) I could defend myself well and effectively. This is what I see as acting wise. When most apparantly easy victims are dangerous foes, then violent crime becomes less worthwhile to the potential offender. This will reduce the number of such offenders, allowing the police to concentrate on those few that remain. Oh well, pie in the sky dreaming, but still I can hope.
P.S. All the very best Alice (spelled your name right this time, me <- :wally )
P.P.S. prisoner makes me sick.
And no one is saying that people shouldn’t be careful. What’s being said is that one can’t control or predict the impulses of other people and therefor can’t be part of the causation, unless they actively participate. No one actively participates in being raped.
Yes, but conscious choices are either right or wrong, depending on the result. If you insist that people have the ability to effect the outcome of certain events, and that event turns out badly; then the logical assumption is that they made a ‘wrong’ choice.
Malthus,
Of course it makes sense to take precautions and to be aware of your surroundings. There are many things people can do to protect themselves. No argument there.
However, the fact that a rapist thinks to himself that “the slut deserved it,” in my opinion, only evidences his predator behavior. I would argue that many rapists, especially those who engage in stranger-rape crimes, view all or most women as sluts (or sub-human or whatever other demeaning concept) no matter what they are wearing.
I only want to point out that the scenario being discussed, the woman in sexy clothes leaving a bar, may not be the most indicative scenario of what really happens. By the way, even if this example is indicative, has anyone stopped to wonder why the rapist is hanging outside of a club in the alley? That would be a classic example of targetting a location. In my opinion, any woman walking into the alley would be walking into the trap laid by the rapist. The rapist in this scenario would be very unlikely to ignore a woman who walks into the alley just because she has on a turtleneck.
I really think that woman’s choice of clothing has little or nothing to do with whether or not she gets raped. Many, many, many victims of rape are sleeping in their beds or going about their daily lives. I’m not saying that one particular rapist might not choose a victim over another potential victim based on clothing, but he may well base it on anything else as well. For every victim that someone could argue was “dressed too sexy,” think of how many other victims were asleep in their beds, jogging, going to the store, attacked by someone the know, et cetera. All of those scenarios are based on other triggers or factors besides how a woman is dressed.
Let me throw one other thing out there as well. Let’s accept that the debated scenario is indicative of your typical rape case. For every rapist out there who targets a woman wearing sexy clothing, don’t you think there equal numbers of other rapists out there who target women for other reasons? Maybe the victim dressed too conservatively, looked too much like the “All-American girl-next-door,” looked too much like an ex-girlfriend, appeared too passive, appeared too aggressive, et cetera, et cetera.
Of course, I fully support all of the awareness programs out there. We can all agree that they are valuable even if they only prevent 1 single rape. However, I don’t believe any rape prevention center will tell you that those guidelines will prevent rape. (And I should say that I don’t think you’re saying that.) In the end, I am loathe to point my finger at someone who anyone who was raped nor rape victims in general. Rapists rape for their own horrifying reasons. The length of the skirt is an excuse. It is not an explanation and certainly not a justification.
This is not my intention to imply this. You are reading something into my posts I hope is not there.
This is also not my intention.
I thought I said the exact opposite, several times.
I have tried to explain my position at length, but I am finding that I am being misunderstood a lot.
I wanted to debate this stuff, because I think it is an important topic and one which should be discussed. I discuss it because I care a lot about the women in my life, and maybe to learn something. If I am causing distress, or being thought of as condescending, ignorant, or mysogenistic, maybe it is better that I just stop now.
If you want to actually debate this topic, please let me know. If not, I’ll go on to other things.
I feel that I’ve tried to be polite and sensitive about what is admittedly a very difficult topic, while trying to hold to what I think is the truth. Evidently I’ve failed somehow, and for that I’m truly sorry. 
First off, so sorry to hear your news, alice. I can find no words.
Second, prisoner90210 is a dink.
Thirdly:
Regardless, I’m confident in guessing that many rapes are sexual in nature. Not for the victim, certainly, but for the rapist. And not for all rapes, certainly, but for a certain percentage of aquaintence rapes. Do not underestimate the power of lust. It can override all common sense and result in criminal acts sometimes.
And the victim may have sexual activity on the mind, too, at first. Things can just go too far. That’s the unfortunate nature of the beast.
Take as an example the movie The Accused. Yes, it’s fiction, but I understand it to be a very accurate portrayal of a real event that’s unfortunately not an uncommon one.
The plot: Sexy woman goes into a bar, possibly with an one-nighter on her mind. She flirts with a guy. They go into the back room, and she acts very seductively towards him. They start sucking face. He puts her on the pinball machine and takes her panties off. At this point she has a change of heart and tells him to stop. He doesn’t. She gets more insistant, but he keeps going. She screams out in protest, but no one cares. When he’s done, two more guys take their turns while a crowd cheers them on.
So, was sex part of it? Absolutely. In fact it could be said that she initiated it. For her it was all about the sex up until she said no. For the rapists it was largely about sex far longer than that. In fact, for days and months afterwards, many of the accused men thought she was a hussie who couldn’t get enough. For them it was still about sex.
This story actually sheds light on a lot of topics covered in this thread. Nobody planned the rape. Her mode of dress was a contributing factor, as were some of her actions. (But not proximate causes, natch.) The rapists were strangers. The rapists were not repeat offenders. There were things she could have done to have prevented it (in hindsight). It was mostly about the sex.
Having said that, I should mention that I believe it was not her fault, at all, and it was the rapists fault 100%. She wasn’t “asking for it.” But looking at this “real life” scenario flies in the face of a number of assumptions I’ve been picking up in this thread.
On a slightly new topic, I’d like to mention something about women protecting themselves. The onus is not partly on women to take precautions, it’s 100% on them. We’d like to think that a woman can walk naked through the ghetto at midnight without getting attacked. We’d like to think that the law can “clean up this town.” Morally and legally, that’s correct. But morals and laws have little to do with reality. If a guy attacks you in a dark ally (or in your bedroom, for that matter), your morals aren’t going to save you. Neither is the law going to help until it’s too late. You can cry “but it’s wrong in every circumstance!” all you want, but that’s not going to help you in that situation. Righteous indignation is no replacement for a good can of mace or a decent judo chop.
Malthus, you seem to be tap dancing around the issue, here.
Outside of every day common sense and self preservation, do you believe a woman is partially responsible for being raped?