# How to reduce rape by half? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 7, 2017, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943 "2017-11-07T03:50:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/101 "2017-11-08T18:43:13Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Do you really feel like you have a firm understanding of who rapes and why? I don’t know if anyone has a firm understanding. We know more about stranger rapists > [@](#): > > Most rapists tend to be young … with most under age 25. Many come from low economic backgrounds and are members of minority groups; most choose victims of their own race … Many rapists’ psycho-sexual backgrounds include histories of conflict and other trouble with women … marked inability to relate to women personally and sexually. > > Rapists are usually unarmed. Most stranger rapists plan their attacks and most have histories of violence. One in three has a prior record for a violent crime and 25% have been before the court for rape. [Cite](http://harfordmedlegal.typepad.com/forensics_talk/2006/09/profiling_rapis.html). Acquaintance rapists are a lot murkier, but > [@](#): > > •Sex offenders are overwhelmingly male, typically have access to consensual sex, and were not sexually or physically abused as children. > •Men are more likely to commit sexual violence in communities where sexual violence goes unpunished. > •Sex offenders are experts in rationalizing their behavior. > •Cross-cultural studies of rape identify the following factors as contributors to sexual violence: sex-role socialization, rape myths, lack of sanctions for abuse, male peer group support, pornography, adversarial sexual beliefs, lack of empathy, and all-male membership groups such as fraternities and sports teams. > •Alcohol abuse has been identified as a strong correlate of college rape. > •In a study on male sexual coercion, 23% of college men admitted to getting a date drunk or stoned to engage in sexual intercourse. > •Alcohol can be a disinhibitor and increase sexual impulsivity, as well as lower women’s detection of risk and impair their ability to resist assault. > •Intercourse cannot be consensual when the woman is incapacitated due to intoxication. [Cite](https://sapac.umich.edu/article/196). The mention of alcohol abuse applies both to the perpetrator and the victim, of course, and thus education to reduce the likelihood of someone getting drunk and raping might be almost as effective as educating women not to put themselves at risk by getting drunk. It just seems unfortunate that advice like “guys are going to try to get you drunk and take advantage of you” comes across as slut-shaming, or victim-blaming, or saying that women can never have a drink in public, or whatever. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/102 "2017-11-08T18:46:03Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It just seems unfortunate that advice like “guys are going to try to get you drunk and take advantage of you” comes across as slut-shaming, or victim-blaming, or saying that women can never have a drink in public, or whatever. > > Regards, > Shodan Wait, it’s wrong to warn my daughter that she should be careful because there are some guys who may try to get her drunk and take advantage of her? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/103 "2017-11-08T19:00:27Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Theres something fishy about the numbers. Reading the program, I don’t see any real reason for the number of attempted rapes to be so drastically lower. My guess is either they got lucky or something else is going on. I think that rapes are lower _among women who had the training_. That doesn’t mean there were fewer rapes on the campus, or in the area, just that those women weren’t victims. So it’s possible that all the training does is make a rapist move on to someone else-- it doesn’t actually eliminate rapes. So as a personal solution, it works pretty well, but as a global solution, maybe not so much. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/104 "2017-11-08T19:05:29Z")
It seems to me that things like “sex-role socialization, rape myths, lack of sanctions for abuse, male peer group support, pornography, adversarial sexual beliefs, lack of empathy, and all-male membership groups such as fraternities and sports teams.” would be things that could be addressed by education and awareness campaigns: it sounds like acquaintance rape is encouraged or discouraged by the culture that surrounds it, and cultures can be changed–think about drunk driving, or seat belts, or harsh corporal punishment. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/105 "2017-11-08T19:11:24Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I think that rapes are lower _among women who had the training_. That doesn’t mean there were fewer rapes on the campus, or in the area, just that those women weren’t victims. So it’s possible that all the training does is make a rapist move on to someone else-- it doesn’t actually eliminate rapes. > > So as a personal solution, it works pretty well, but as a global solution, maybe not so much. I suppose that’s possible, just like it might be possible that if we trained this particular guy not to rape anyone, the woman would just be raped by someone else. Possible, but not IMO very likely. Reducing the pool of possible victims is going to tend to reduce the incidence overall, just like reducing the pool of possible perpetrators is. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/106 "2017-11-08T19:24:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It just seems unfortunate that advice like “guys are going to try to get you drunk and take advantage of you” comes across as slut-shaming, or victim-blaming, or saying that women can never have a drink in public, or whatever. It would be less likely to come across that way if men were tsk-tsked half as much about drinking as woman are. [When one considers that rape is the only major violent crime in which women are more likely to be victimized than men,](http://https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf) it does seem a little bizarre that we focus so much on what women do to protect themselves. One might guess this has less to do with data-driven risk assessments, and more to do with paternalistic sexism. As a society, we seem to take it as a given that men are gonna do what men are gonna do. So we focus on controlling women’s behaviors, because women are apparently infinitely more amenable to instruction. Don’t wear yoga pants after 7p. Don’t get drunk. Don’t go out at night alone without a man by your side. etc. A while ago, I theorized that men are socialized to want women to feel vulnerable and afraid of male predators. When women see themselves as potential prey, good guys are needed to serve and protect, reinforcing their sense of masculinity and worth. This means men collectively have a vested interest in making sure women’s behaviors continue to be policed under the guise of safety. Sadly, they also have a vested interest in allowing men’s behaviors to continue unchecked. And why wouldn’t they? I wouldn’t want to be constantly tsked-tsked either. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/107 "2017-11-08T19:26:48Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > It seems to me that things like “sex-role socialization, rape myths, lack of sanctions for abuse, male peer group support, pornography, adversarial sexual beliefs, lack of empathy, and all-male membership groups such as fraternities and sports teams.” would be things that could be addressed by education and awareness campaigns: it sounds like acquaintance rape is encouraged or discouraged by the culture that surrounds it, and cultures can be changed–think about drunk driving, or seat belts, or harsh corporal punishment. Could be - but my earlier link discussed the lack of evidence that programs that attempted to change attitudes in men led to changes in behavior. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Just that, as far as this thread is concerned, there is a program that changes women’s behavior that apparently has some success, and less evidence that attempts to change male attitudes have had anything like the same success. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/108 "2017-11-08T19:40:36Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Wait, it’s wrong to warn my daughter that she should be careful because there are some guys who may try to get her drunk and take advantage of her? If you added, more context like “but if it happens it is not your fault, and there is no shame in being the victim of a criminal. The fact that you were attacked won’t change how much I respect and love you” There are thousands of teenage girls walking the street in active prostitution, because some charming guy promised to give them the world and love. And once she fell for him he would have a group of his friends gang rape her, and then use the threat of telling her parents and friends that the was raped to force her into prostitution. The first part is called “grooming” and the second is called “seasoning” This may seem absurd, but the issue with slut shaming is that it can send a message that if someone is raped, or makes a bad decision on a Friday night that they are broken and devalued just for having the wrong penis in them. Seasoning is typically a combination of psychological manipulation, intimidation, gang rape, sodomy, beatings, deprivation of food or sleep and isolation. Shame is an insanely powerful psychological weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/109 "2017-11-08T19:52:21Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > If you added, more context like “but if it happens it is not your fault, and there is no shame in being the victim of a criminal. The fact that you were attacked won’t change how much I respect and love you” I can do that, if it makes it better. However, I’m torn with the contradictions of parenting now, where telling them not to do something, and then they do it and bad stuff happens, saying “See? I told you not to do that” ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/110 "2017-11-08T20:15:27Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I can do that, if it makes it better. However, I’m torn with the contradictions of parenting now, where telling them not to do something, and then they do it and bad stuff happens, saying “See? I told you not to do that” Yep, that is the pickle, all I can say is that I don’t know how to help without suggestions that would edge on causing existential crisis. My personal choice was to decide that a personals past, present or future sexual events were unimportant, and instead focus on encouraging consent and respect. But we do not live in some utopian world and we still hold onto a lot of abrahamic concepts that make this difficult. Hopefully other people can provide helpful suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/111 "2017-11-08T20:18:31Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem with the study is it conflates rape and sexual assault. According to the Justice Institute of British Columbia one of every 17 women is raped in her lifetime. Yet this study found a rate of 10%. If this were true the average women would be raped over seven times in her life. This is not possible. It seems like almost all of the sexual assaults in the study are unwanted touching and not rape. While reducing unwanted touch is obviously a laudable goal it is not cutting the incidence of rape in half. It may be because in Canada we don’t have a legal definition of “rape”, just different degrees of sexual assault? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/112 "2017-11-08T20:54:34Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > It may be because in Canada we don’t have a legal definition of “rape”, just different degrees of sexual assault? Under the English common law definition circa 1847, rape was limited to the forcible vaginal penetration of a woman against her will by a man other than her husband. Any other form of sex crime had to be prosecuted as simple assault or battery if it prosecuted at all until the last century. While the legal terms differ it is a just a matter of degree in a practical modern context in the US too. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/113 "2017-11-08T21:44:01Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I can do that, if it makes it better. However, I’m torn with the contradictions of parenting now, where telling them not to do something, and then they do it and bad stuff happens, saying “See? I told you not to do that” From what I can tell, the shaming effect operates more insidiously than this. As an example, someone earlier in this thread remarked on women leaving the gym at night in yoga pants. He offered this up as an example of reckless behavior. Now imagine hearing these kinds of opinions expressed throughout your life, all the time. Not just about yoga pants, but about anything that could conceivably elevate a woman’s risk by some unknown quantum. So what happens when something then happens to you? Your mind instantly recalls all those so-called risky behaviors you’ve been warned to stay away from. And gosh, you realize that you did some of those things. You had two drinks instead of one. Or maybe you drew attention to yourself by wearing a skirt instead of pants (or maybe you wore pants that were extra flattering!). You then become ashamed because you failed to live up to the standards of safety preached at you all of your life. My question to you is why do you need to advise daughters to drink wisely so they aren’t raped? Why not just say drink wisely? There generally is no good reason to drink until incapacitated regardless of who you are and what you’re doing. By making it be about rape prevention rather than their general health and safety, you are implicitly telling them 1) rape is the only thing that makes alcohol abuse dangerous and 2) getting raped is a natural consequence of getting drunk. Both are untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/114 "2017-11-08T21:59:50Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That’s rationalization though. Education may reach a tiny percentage of them, but you won’t get a 50% reduction that way. > > It’s not just rape, ALL crime is reduced primarily by people protecting themselves and their possessions. We lock our doors, we avoid dark alleys. It’s just easier and more effective to teach people how to reduce their likelihood of becoming a victim than to teach evil and crazy people to be less evil and crazy. We don’t teach identity thieves how to not steal people’s identities, we teach people how to avoid identity theft. You’re missing the excluded middle, which is bystander intervention - teaching people to recognize when others are at risk of rape or sexual assault and to _safely_ intervene. We have some evidence this is effective at reducing incidents of intimate partner violence and sexual assault at the high school level. What it comes down to is a school climate where all participating members have low tolerance for that kind of behavior and understanding exactly what it is when they see it. It’s just plain false that rapists know what they are doing is wrong. Most rapists, even convicted rapists, even rapists serving time for breaking into women’s homes and raping them at knifepoint, do not believe what they did is rape, or they assign at least some of the blame to women. There used to be a chilling Reddit thread making the rounds in which men who had committed rape were asked to share their experiences. There were maybe two cases of intentional serial rapists who preyed on their female friends in college and mindfucked them into acquiesence (which is some terrifying shit to read, I promise), but the thread was filled with scores – SCORES – of men who had no concept of what they were doing until they looked up into the terrified face of their partner. In other cases, the men knew she didn’t want it but it was a split second decision where they really weren’t hit with the weight of what they had done until it was over. The thread has since been removed from Reddit, but [some snippets remain](https://jezebel.com/5929544/rapists-explain-themselves-on-reddit-and-we-should-listen) in the form of analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/115 "2017-11-08T22:06:00Z")
Here’s a good example: > [@Reddit thread](#): > > I’m a good man. I have a wife and a couple of kids now and I’m a good father and husband. I’m a pretty moral guy. But I think the thing that has always stuck with me…is how close I came to actually doing it. If I hadn’t looked up at her face and seen what she was feeling, I might have continued. In my mind, at the time, she wanted it. I can remember staring at the ceiling while on the couch thinking “in a couple of minutes she’s going to come out here and get on top of me.” > Or: > > …It was then I looked at her face. She was petrified. I at that point pulled myself together, rolled off her and apologized. My hormones were RAGING. I asked her why she didn’t want to. I told her what I thought above. She started to cry. From the article: > [@](#): > > …our culture is unable to address rape with the sobriety and clarity the topic deserves because we are still unable to address sex with the sobriety and clarity it deserves. The contention that rape should be regarded as an asexual act has done nothing to remedy this. Nor will it. As activist and writer Wendy McElroy points out, “there can be as many motives for rape as there are for murder and other violent crimes … Rape is every bit as complex.” Insisting that no rape is ever “about” sex but is rather about an individual man acting on a patriarchal mandate to sow terror by exercising “power” does a disservice to us all. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/116 "2017-11-08T22:35:43Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I can do that, if it makes it better. However, I’m torn with the contradictions of parenting now, where telling them not to do something, and then they do it and bad stuff happens, saying “See? I told you not to do that” I can’t tell you how to handle it, but I can tell you a little about [mitigating factors of PTSD](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11413097&postcount=116), if it helps. I think it gives us some good direction in understanding why PTSD is so much higher among rape victims than other types of trauma. **Meta-Analysis of Risk Factors for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Trauma-Exposed Adults** by Chris Brewin (University College London) Bernice Andrews and John D. Valentine (University of London.) I’ve long since lost the paper, but I saved the post. Here’s the part that might be particularly relevant: > [@](#): > > The three factors relating to events during and after the trauma (i.e., greater trauma severity, lack of social support, and more subsequent life stress) convey the strongest risk of PTSD, with effect sizes that are individually small to moderate in Cohen’s (1988) terms. Next, there was a group of demographic and prior history variables that had similar effect sizes in the range of .10 to .19, including female gender; lower SES; less education; lower intelligence; a positive psychiatric history; a reported history of abuse, other trauma, or childhood adversity; and a family psychiatric history. These individual effect sizes are generally regarded as small, according to Cohen. Finally, two variables, younger age at trauma and race (minority status), had effect sizes that were weaker still, although highly significant because of the large numbers involved. What this would seem to indicate is that of the top three factors examined as predictive of PTSD, _two_ of the influencing factors had no direct relation to the trauma itself – it would seem that a large part of whether or not someone will develop PTSD depends on their circumstances immediately following the trauma. IOW, the single best thing you can do for a rape victim immediately following trauma is to support that person. They don’t need to be told, ‘‘I told you so,’’ society has told them that rape is the victim’s fault from the time they were old enough to understand words. If you reinforce the already socially entrenched idea that it’s the victim’s fault, you will increase the likelihood of PTSD. > [@](#): > > Other reasons why pretrauma variables do not appear to be > powerful predictors of PTSD include the possibility that their effects are mediated by later aspects of the trauma or of the person’s response to the trauma. That is, their effects are distal rather than proximal, and their impact is diluted by one or more intervening variables. For example, **it has been shown that the association between childhood abuse and later PTSD is mediated by the experience of shame** Bolding Mine. More generally, when you look at cognitive therapy for PTSD, it is extremely common for victims of trauma, particularly interpersonal trauma, to take on a significant portion if not all of the blame. One theory for this is that people really can’t psychologically deal with the idea of being completely helpless and having no control, regardless of the facts. One of the main goals around cognitive therapy for PTSD is to dismantle the self-blaming cognitive schemas. What I’m saying is, victims don’t need any help blaming themselves for what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/117 "2017-11-08T22:49:05Z")
By the way, in that linked post, I make a risk-factor comparison between two types of people, an innocent schoolgirl and a prostitute, which seems weird out of context. I was directly refuting someone’s claim that it’s less bad for a prostitute to get raped vs. an ‘‘innocent’’ virgin, because the prostitute has sex all the time, therefore rape should be no big deal to her. (yup.) ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/118 "2017-11-09T00:21:46Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > From what I can tell, the shaming effect operates more insidiously than this. > > As an example, someone earlier in this thread remarked on women leaving the gym at night in yoga pants. He offered this up as an example of reckless behavior. > > By making it be about rape prevention rather than their general health and safety, you are implicitly telling them 1) rape is the only thing that makes alcohol abuse dangerous and 2) getting raped is a natural consequence of getting drunk. Both are untrue. A couple of things here: I don’t consider “wearing yoga pants” risky behavior and I would never caution my daughter not to wear them. The other is, it seems like getting wasted at a party, walking down a dark street at night, letting a strange guy give you drinks, are behaviors that are risky. I mean, shouldn’t I tell my son and daughter - “Don’t walk around dark alleys at night by yourself. You might get mugged or worse”? And isn’t the fact that some guys may spike drinks or other crimes something to warn my daughter, and son for that matter, about? How do I warn them about things like that and not have them feel guilty for not heeding my warnings later if something bad happens because of them doing what I warned them against doing? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2017, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/119 "2017-11-09T00:51:42Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > The other is, it seems like getting wasted at a party, walking down a dark street at night, letting a strang guy give you drinks, are behaviors that are risky. **I mean, shouldn’t I tell my son and daughter** - “Don’t walk around dark alleys at night by yourself. You might get mugged or worse”? And isn’t the fact that some guys may spike drinks or other crimes something to warn my daughter, and son for that matter, about? No one is arguing not to tell your kids to look out for certain things that can endanger them. The part is bold is the crux of it, right? Tell your sons _and_ daughters this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/120 "2017-11-09T00:54:47Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > The part is bold is the crux of it, right? Tell your sons _and_ daughters this stuff. Ok, that’s no problem. So, what’s the issue then? It seemed up-thread that telling my kids to avoid risky behaviors was frowned upon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943.md?page=7)