yeah yeah yeah 
Man, you know they had to have it coming. 
A while back I attended a panel discussion where one of the speakers (IIRC some sort of sexual assault prevention trainer, although this wasn’t the topic of the presentation) did a little exercise to make a point about how different men and women’s perspectives on this issue can be. He went up to the whiteboard, drew a line down the middle and designated one half for women’s responses and one for men’s, and asked us to say what kinds of things we did to avoid being raped.
The women in attendance (a mixed group of university students, faculty, and staff) had so many examples that our side of the board was soon filled with things like “don’t walk alone at night”, “don’t leave your drink unattended”, and “park in a well-lit area”. A side discussion broke out in the audience when woman explained that she always unlocks the driver’s side door of her car using her automatic door opener, because using the key also unlocks the passenger side door which would allow an assailant the opportunity to jump inside. “Oh, I didn’t know that!” “That’s a good idea, I should do that too!” Some women were actually taking notes on these safety tips, which the speaker said he often observed when he did this exercise.
On the men’s side, there was a comment from one man who said he carried a concealed weapon so if anyone tried to rape him he could shoot them. This was the only response to the question that any of the men in attendance came up with. None of them were writing down the women’s safety tips.
As the speaker pointed out, fear of rape simply is not a concern for most men and they don’t do anything at all to avoid it. He said this wasn’t universally true of men, for instance men who’ve been in prison have often learned plenty of tips for avoiding rape, but that for the average adult man the question of how to avoid being raped just isn’t on his radar.
I mention this because it may help to explain to some of the men here why women may react badly to well-intentioned suggestions from men on how they can avoid sexual assault. Even if you’re doing your best not to sound judgmental or victim-blamey, unless you are some sort of trained expert on the subject of sexual assault prevention then the average adult woman has already spent waaaaay more time thinking about this than you have. Her everyday life includes taking special safety precautions that you most likely do not. We have years of experience in the field, and it would be nice if you guys could stop and think about that before offering unsolicited advice.
Lamia, let me say how fantastic your posts are. Truly fantastic.
OTOH, on these boards at least, even someone with a certain level of expertise in defense and prevention of sexual assault is often met with accusations of “slut shaming” or “blaming the victim” whenever you point out that there are things that women can do to make themselves safer.
Perhaps that might have something to do with why the men in your story had so little to say about preventing rape. As well, of course, as for the reason you mention - most men are not at risk for rape. And they are bigger, stronger, meaner, and generally more experienced in fighting than women are.
Okay, I will certainly think about it. In return, I hear all kinds of horrific stories about how women are raped and harassed and sexually assaulted. So maybe your years of experience aren’t working as well as they might, and maybe there are things you could learn from those who have spent time studying the fields of hand-to-hand combat and personal safety.
Regards,
Shodan
My experience has been that Internet advice on self defense is really not of much value. It’s something that needs to be seen and practiced. Kick him in the balls might be good advice, but what you really need to do is suit up and spar to be able to pull it off (I’m more fond of knees as a primary strike). As far as more general personal safety advice, we do know it. However, no matter how safe you are, there are still date raping jerks out there. Guys you thought you knew we’ll enough to trust, but you were wrong.
And, if you’d read the thread, you’d understand that sometimes it is a choice not to escalate to violence. If you think you can get aware with “merely” being raped and avoid getting beat up or killed in addition, that might be a good trade.
There’s something to be said for the idea that the advice one gets from an expert in hand-to-hand and personal safety is, to a layman and on this forum, not easily distinguishable from the advice one gets from J. Random “Slut-Blamer” Chowderfuck.
Case in point, despite the fact I know intellectually what your name means, I rarely remember that you’re actually a martial artist.
Or maybe, no matter how many precautions you take (short of locking yourself in a box), you’re going to get assaulted.
Mine was my ex-father-in-law. Married to his son for 25years, knew the man for 30. He’s the grandfather of my children and I’d spent many occasions alone with him. Liked him, respected him and thought of him as a surrogate father. Went to visit him after his wife died (and I’d been divorced from his son for a few years. Remarried) He stuck his tongue down my throat, pinned me up against the kitchen counter, rubbed himself on me. And couldn’t seem to understand that there was a problem with that despite my obvious revulsion. Begged me to spend the night. Told me it was perfectly okay since I wasn’t married to his son any longer. Asked me not to tell my husband.
So… guess I wasn’t being careful enough when I visited him to offer my condolences in the death of grandma. My fault for not knowing how to kick him in the balls when I arrived at his house.
Context is important. A panel discussion is very different than a thread started by a woman who just had a scary or frustrating experience, which is often the setting on this board.
So are you claiming that you can effectively teach people hand-to-hand combat and self-defense fighting techniques here in this forum?
If not, then exactly what extra qualifications for listing common safety precautions comes from martial arts mastery?
I got into an argument once with a male friend because I wrote a blog entry that was more or less on this topic, and his response was that as a man, he too often worries about being assaulted (not sexually, but assaulted) and that this isn’t the sole province of females.
I asked him how often he walks to his car in a deserted parking lot while holding his keys in his fist so that each key sticks out between your fingers, as a rudimentary weapon in case he needs to gouge an attacker’s eye or face. He rolled his eyes and professed that nobody actually does this. I told him that I do. It was a suggestion in the safety seminar I had to take during fresher’s week when I was in college, and I’ve done it ever since. I know a few other women who do. I’ve never heard of a man doing this.
As for Shodan’s commentary, I respectfully suggest that “shut up and stop whining about misogynistic comments on the Internet” does not seem like a great anti-assault strategy to me, but then I’m not an expert like he is.
I’m not trying to argue against your overall point, which I agree with, but as a data point - I’m a guy, late 30s, have never been attacked or assaulted in any manner, and I carry my keys like this when I’m walking alone in an area where I feel I may be vulnerable.
So now you’ve heard of a man doing this.
Fair enough. Data is always appreciated. 
Well, I wasn’t necessarily talking only about combat techniques. In fact, IME giving advice of that sort doesn’t lead to accusations of slut-shaming as often as other kinds of advice, like “don’t get drunk in public” or “don’t let yourself get set up”.
[QUOTE=redtail23]
So are you claiming that you can effectively teach people hand-to-hand combat and self-defense fighting techniques here in this forum?
If not, then exactly what extra qualifications for listing common safety precautions comes from martial arts mastery?
[/QUOTE]
See above. If you can’t tell the difference between giving advice, and teaching a complete course in personal safety, I can’t help you.
[QUOTE=MsWhatsit]
As for Shodan’s commentary, I respectfully suggest that “shut up and stop whining about misogynistic comments on the Internet” does not seem like a great anti-assault strategy to me, but then I’m not an expert like he is.
[/QUOTE]
Not real good at reading comprehension either, I see.
[QUOTE=Zeriel]
There’s something to be said for the idea that the advice one gets from an expert in hand-to-hand and personal safety is, to a layman and on this forum, not easily distinguishable from the advice one gets from J. Random “Slut-Blamer” Chowderfuck.
[/QUOTE]
I think the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between advice and slut-shaming is much of the problem.
Regards,
Shodan
Especially when we’ve actually raised awareness, gotten a few people to reconsider their positions.
This excellent post reminded me that in a college anthropology class once, on the first day of class, the professor gave us an assignment to make a list of our top five fears in life. After we had turned them in and he had reviewed them, he talked to us about how gobsmacked he was that every single female in the class had listed “being raped” as their top fear. He actually got a little bit emotional about it. He had high school aged daughters, he said, and he was shocked at the thought that the fear of being raped must occupy their thoughts as much as it did.
Well, it is worse than spiders.
Regards,
Shodan
asshole
It amazes me that people will post crap like this, then whine later that no-one takes them seriously.
Asshole indeed.
I’ve been following the thread since Day 1, but I haven’t posted because I worried that I’d let my anger get the worst of me, that I’d come off as shrill and hysterical, and because - as the exact opposite of Olives - I feel like I don’t have the right to really dig into this topic, because I’ve never been raped or experienced more than a passing discomfort due to unwanted attention.
Ambivalid and Living Well, thank you for hanging in there and coming back again and again to engage in an honest discourse. It would have been all too easy to throw your hands in the air and walk away. Panaccione, you’re getting there. I can see you earnestly want to participate. Please, focus on what other people are saying, and try to delay drawing conclusions from it. I think you’ll do better if, instead of insisting that the conversation go one way or another, you let the others share their views and follow where they’re going.
I wanted to address something Ambivalid said, because I think it deserves more consideration.
miss elizabeth answered this with some very good tactics. I’d like to answer it with some strategy.
I think it’s a mistake to say that men who rape are not rational actors. First, it falls into the fallacy that men aren’t capable of thinking straight when their dicks are hard. It’s insulting to men, and it means that we underestimate the very people whose behavior we’re trying to change. Yes, there are the men that both miss elizabeth and Olives have talked about - men who don’t believe that what they do is rape. But these men aren’t exactly eager to examine their behavior and the consequences for the women they harm. It’s why, along with raping, they do everything they can to reinforce rape culture by minimizing what women experience, insisting that they are entitled to sexual gratification, and casting victims as the villains.
Rapists are extremely rational actors. They put effort into picking and grooming victims. That’s why acquaintance rape is so much more common than stranger rape. An irrational actor would attack random women and drag them into an alley. A rational actor uses emotional manipulation and social norms to a) isolate a victim, b) deprive her of choices, c) violate her, and finally d) minimize what he did so he can go out and do it again.
I think there’s a strong parallel between rapists and domestic abusers. They feel entitled, but they know on some level that they’ll get in trouble for it. So, they hide the behavior they know will get them arrested, and they bluster about the behavior that draws condemnation.
What really, really bothers me is how few good men - the ones who would never rape - believe that the men they know would do such a thing. They are shocked to hear that a man they know and count as a friend would intimidate, coerce, or outright force a woman into sex, and because they are so unprepared to believe that a man they like and trust would do such a thing, they defend that man at the expense of his victim.
It’s exactly the same dynamic rape victims go through. He was nice. He was reasonable. He didn’t set off any alarm bells. He listened, and he responded in exactly the way necessary to put her at ease. And then, when they were alone, he raped her. The only difference between the rapist’s victim and the rapist’s friends, is that the victim is the one who knows, without a doubt, what that man is capable of. His friends didn’t see it and didn’t experience it, so they can’t grasp it. They can’t really believe that a man they call a friend is capable of that act.
To them, rapists are seething, hateful Mr. Hyde wannabes or sly, whiny Nice Guys. They expect a rapist’s behavior to be consistently, demonstratively misogynistic, and they’re ready to tell off any man who would act that way in front of them. What they don’t pick up on is the more subtle clues, the ones which can be written off as whining or grouching or venting, or the complaints and put downs that are understandable bitterness from a psycho girlfriend or bad breakup.
A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my brother and a work friend of his/acquaintance of mine. She had just started the final stretch of divorcing her ex-husband. It was about as ugly as most breakups and divorces are. She’d had a god awful day, and she was emotionally fragile. She broke down in front of my brother and I and told us some of what she’d been through. Emotional neglect and abuse, some shoving, name calling, and slut shaming - all of it coming from her ex - and it was very easy to believe that she’d just sat there and taken it until she couldn’t take it anymore, which was when she’d moved out and filed for divorce.
I hugged her. My brother held her hand. Between the two of us, we did a decent job of comforting her and assuring her that she was not to feel embarrassed. Afterwards, my brother - who knows her ex-husband - shook his head and said, “I can’t believe it was that bad. I had no idea he was treating her like that.” He was stumped by it.
And I realized I was staring at him in disbelief. It’s not that my brother particularly liked this guy. They got along. It’s that it had never occurred to him that actual, real people do very bad things. It’s like he thought domestic abusers sprout a new tentacle every time they throw a punch, or that they all wear wife-beater t-shirts and boxers and sport thick stubble, even at work. Our friend’s ex-husband never wore a sandwich board that said “I am an asshole to my wife.” He didn’t act towards his coworkers and friends the way he acted towards her, and he didn’t act towards her the same way when they were in front of people as he did when they were alone.
Women learn first- and second-hand before we are out of our teens that the way a man behaves with his friends and the way he behaves towards us while in front of his friends has nothing to do with how he behaves towards us in private. I know that men understand this, but I wonder how many of them get this on the same visceral level women do.