# Is dressing like a slut "asking for it"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 11, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519 "2011-05-11T14:30:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/81 "2011-05-12T21:15:49Z")
> [@margin](#): > > Oh, and no matter how many times you protest too much, you’re still blaming the victim. You use that phrase “blaming the victim” as a cudgel, as if that’s a Known Evil Thing and if you can demonstrate or argue that I’m doing it, then I’m Evil and my point is Wrong. But “blaming the victim” is neither well defined nor absolute. I’m making the point I’m trying to make. I think it’s a reasonable one. It stands or fails on its own regardless of whether it is or is not “blaming the victim”. If you disagree with parts of my post, feel free to point out which ones and in which way you disagree, but so far you have not done so in any meaningful way. > [@](#): > > The only constant you find in rape is the rapist. I have no idea what you’re saying. > [@](#): > > All your protestations aside, you’re saying that A shouldn’t have gone to the club, shouldn’t have worn those clothes, otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten raped. Clearly in this hypothetical, if A hadn’t gone to the club and worn those clothes, she would have been much less likely to be raped. She certainly wouldn’t have been raped by that particularly rapist at that time and place if she’d been at home playing boggle. Take anyone who ever was killed by a drunk driver. If they’d stayed inside their house, they wouldn’t have been killed by that drunk driver. Anyone who ever died in a plane crash? If they hadn’t flown, they wouldn’t have died. Hero cop dies in the line of duty? If he hadn’t become a cop, he wouldn’t have. Is that “blaming the victim”? > [@](#): > > And I really do hate it when people say, “I’m totally not blaming the victim but they shouldn’t have worn that outfit or left the door unlocked, because it’s partially their fault.” I’m not going to say whether I’m “blaming the victim” or not because that’s such a loaded term. But why is it taboo to say “you shouldn’t leave your door unlocked if you live in a bad neighborhood, doing so makes you more likely to be robbed”? And if you can say that, why can’t you say “you left your door unlocked and got robbed? Well, it sucks that you got robbed, and whoever robbed you should be caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but had you not left your door unlocked it’s possible you wouldn’t have been robbed”. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/82 "2011-05-12T21:16:52Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If the roommate left the door unlocked, allowing the murderer in, then the roommate did something which, had he not done it, the murder wouldn’t have occurred. I’m going to rephrase that as “If the roommate left the door unlocked, allowing the murderer in, then the roommate did something which, had he not done it, the murder WOULD HAVE BEEN LESS LIKELY to occur.” ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/83 "2011-05-12T21:56:30Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > “Guilty”, “to blame for”, “responsible for”… none of these are precisely defined terms (except sometimes in legal terms, which is not what we’re discussing here). > … > Are you disagreeing with my underlying point or with my choice of words? I agree that we are not talking about the law. But I do have a fairly precise idea of what I’m talking about: _moral_ responsibility. So I suppose I’m disagreeing with your point. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If the roommate left the door unlocked, allowing the murderer in, then the roommate did something which, had he not done it, the murder wouldn’t have occurred. For any event, there is _always_ an inconceivably long chain of events and circumstances leading up to it. Any number of different decisions by any number of different people could have made things happen differently. If the butterfly hadn’t flapped his wings just so… the question is not what decisions and circumstances in any sense enabled the event, but which of those have moral significance. There is no particular moral quality to leaving an unlocked door, or wearing any sort of clothing. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If this situation happened and you knew both parties (well, both roommates, not the murderer), would you be angry at or blame the one who’d left the door unlocked? I hope I’d be clear enough in mind, despite the shock, to not blame the roommate, and to assure him that he should not blame himself. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/84 "2011-05-12T23:07:25Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > For any event, there is _always_ an inconceivably long chain of events and circumstances leading up to it. Any number of different decisions by any number of different people could have made things happen differently. If the butterfly hadn’t flapped his wings just so… the question is not what decisions and circumstances in any sense enabled the event, but which of those have moral significance. There is no particular moral quality to leaving an unlocked door, or wearing any sort of clothing. This is the rub. Clearly we can come up with any number of situations in which someone’s actions lead to something happening… I chose a red shirt for my baby to wear, and he was gored by the angry bull that happened to randomly be running down our suburban street. Oh, woe is me, I’m partly responsible! (Yes, I know bulls don’t actually gore red clothing, it’s a silly hypothetical). The difference to me is to what extent the outcome is a potentially predictable outcome from the action taken. Can a reasonable person predict that dressing your baby in red will lead them to being gored to death by a bull? No. Could a reasonable person predict that leaving the door unlocked if you live in a bad part of town could lead to your house being robbed? Yes. Obviously there’s not a hard and fast dividing line there… but that doesn’t mean the distinction is meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/85 "2011-05-12T23:48:25Z")
> **[Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence)** > > 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Here is a cross section of rape victims. Ten percent were men. Thirty percent were children. Oh those provocative kids and men, dressing too sexy. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/86 "2011-05-12T23:56:55Z")
I believe that when most young woman “dress like a slut” they are simply donning decorations; their clothes do not advertise they are yearning to be raped. However, at my age, I’m just grateful that many young girls do dress revealingly. Who wants to look at revealingly dressed women my age? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/87 "2011-05-13T00:04:35Z")
**MaxTheVool** - it is potentially predictable that going on a date dramatically increases a person’s risk of being the victim of a violent crime. Or that sitting on the front porch dramatically increases a person’s chance of being a victim of a drive-by shooting. Crossing a street dramatically increases the chance of a hit-and-run occurring. Hell, leaving the house at all exponentially increases all kinds of risks, in easily foreseeable ways. So that can’t be a dividing line. In any case, I’m not sure what the analogue might be to the unlocked door in your scenario. A door is either locked or not. How does this relate to a person’s choice of attire? I can’t imagine that you’d argue that there’s a particular mode of dress that you think would “lock the door.” So - what exactly is it that isn’t analogous to the silly hypothetical of the bull and the baby or the silly examples I listed, but is contributory to the chances of a rape occurring? Every real person has to make everyday decisions about his or her appearance, right, and it’s just a series of independent, kind of mundane choices. Which are the ones that are causative or even predictive of rape? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/88 "2011-05-13T00:26:32Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > **MaxTheVool** - it is potentially predictable that going on a date dramatically increases a person’s risk of being the victim of a violent crime. Or that sitting on the front porch dramatically increases a person’s chance of being a victim of a drive-by shooting. Crossing a street dramatically increases the chance of a hit-and-run occurring. Hell, leaving the house at all exponentially increases all kinds of risks, in easily foreseeable ways. Indeed, and we judge that the benefit of these activities outweighs the risks. When we judge that the risks of an activity substantially outweigh its benefits, we avoid the activity, and sometimes even publicize the dangers of that activity so that others don’t face its risks. However, [these](http://wrc.ucr.edu/Resources/Safety+Tips.htm) [campus](http://www.southernct.edu/womenscenter/sariskreductiontips/) [women’s](http://depts.washington.edu/womenctr/?page_id=154) [centers](http://womenscentersjc.org/index.php/prevention/presentations/22-rape-prevention) have no difficulty in saying, “it’s not your fault if you get raped, but here are some things you can do to lessen the risk.” If anyone doesn’t blame the victim, it’s campus women’s centers. Saying, “consider taking these actions to lessen your risk of rape” isn’t a weird thing to say; on the contrary, acting as though rape is less predictable than lightning strikes is what’s weird. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/89 "2011-05-13T00:32:54Z")
That would be a weird way to act. Are you suggesting that’s what I said? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/90 "2011-05-13T00:35:20Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > That would be a weird way to act. Are you suggesting that’s what I said? No. I’m suggesting other people have said things–e.g., “The only constant you find in rape is the rapist”–that remove any ability from potential victims to protect themselves, and imply heavily that any attempt to offer ideas on how to protect oneself from victimization is identical to blaming the victim. Only you can tell us whether you find yourself in that camp or not. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/91 "2011-05-13T00:39:51Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > **MaxTheVool** - it is potentially predictable that going on a date dramatically increases a person’s risk of being the victim of a violent crime. Or that sitting on the front porch dramatically increases a person’s chance of being a victim of a drive-by shooting. Crossing a street dramatically increases the chance of a hit-and-run occurring. Hell, leaving the house at all exponentially increases all kinds of risks, in easily foreseeable ways. I agree that there are often VERY gray areas. Joe drives a car to work. Joe gets in a car accident and dies. Do we say he bears some of the responsibility? Joe drove a car to the convenience store 40 miles away to get a candy bar, in a pouring rainstorm, at 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day when presumably the most reckless and drunk drivers around are all on the roads. He gets in a car accident and dies. Do we say he bears some of the responsibility? Those two situations feel very different to me. I can’t give you a mathematical formula for a line and what’s across the line, but then that’s true of any number of human ideas and endeavors that we still generally accept as meaningful. (And of course, in both of those cases, if he was killed by a drunk driver, any discussion of whether Joe was partly responsible does not relieve the drunk driver of any of the blame (s)he deserves.) ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/92 "2011-05-13T01:12:46Z")
> [@margin](#): > > The only constant you find in rape is the rapist. So all rapists are equal? The violent rapist that jumps someone in a dark alley is the same as the slightly drunk, socially clueless guy that takes advantage of a smashed lady is the same as the guy that says, 5 miles from civilisation, “blow me or walk home”? And they are all the same as the 6’9" basketball star with 3 bodyguards in the next room, is the same as the rugby star that had room-mates unexpectedly burst in during a sexual encounter and then join in with the victims “approval”? For some rapists, how you are dressed won’t make a difference. For others, they won’t see how the lady is dressed as an invitiation to rape, but they will impute how she will behave and what she wants - having formed this opinion they are more likely to act a certain way. There’s a term to describe this right? What I am trying to say is that how a woman is dressed is likely to change the rapists perception as to whether she’s “playing hard to get” or “really doesn’t want it”. And don’t come back with all sorts of crap about “playing hard to get”. I know for a fact, that my wife of 13 years sometimes likes to be pursued, and I don’t think she’s some sort of unique snowflake. I know that sometimes I like to be pursued. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/93 "2011-05-13T01:43:07Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] I’m suggesting other people have said things–e.g., “The only constant you find in rape is the rapist”–that remove any ability from potential victims to protect themselves, and imply heavily that any attempt to offer ideas on how to protect oneself from victimization is identical to blaming the victim. Only you can tell us whether you find yourself in that camp or not. [/QUOTE] I don’t belong in that camp. If that’s what others believe, I’ll let them speak up and say so, but it doesn’t seem to me that that particular implication was there. Those sites don’t say “adhere to the following dress code,” though, or anything like that. I’ll bet that within a click or two of those sites, there’s even a fact sheet that says something about myths about rape that involve whether dressing a certain way invites rape. And clothing is what the thread is about. That’s the issue that **Max** said wasn’t cut-and-dried, even though he did add the bit about the “sketchy club.” I don’t think that if the thread title had been “Is a workshop telling women to try not to walk alone or in the dark and teaching them to trust their instincts a worthless sexist idea,” **margin** would have made the same post. That’s what my question is - what’s the rule about what dress options are high risk, and which ones offer the worst rape risk-to benefit ratio? I wouldn’t deny that a person can take steps to defend against the worst, but I would suggest that it’s hard to see how any of those steps occur while he’s dressing himself in the morning. If nobody has any suggestions as to what prophylactic wardrobe techniques we’re talking about, we’re stuck with the after-the-fact arguments about a particular victim’s appearance, which like you suggested earlier is neither very useful nor very compassionate. It seems to be the case that the only context in which this discussion comes up is when it coincidentally tends to suggest that a particular rape just might have been avoided if only… and I think that explains why sometimes the response is more categorical than is warranted. **Max** , I think if “responsibility” is a stand-in for strict factual causation, the answer to all these questions is yes they are responsible, to some degree or another. Whether it’s meaningful is what I’m wondering. I don’t at all think this is true of you or **Left Hand** , but one of the frustrations of this topic is that it’s very hard to believe, much of the time, that the reason for focusing on something like how a victim is dressed is not to mitigate the culpability of the rapist. Frankly, it’s generally pretty hard to see what any given victim did that was so terribly risky - including dressing like a normal person. But somebody always thinks that’s a good time to talk about prevention. To the extent that we’re even disagreeing, I think it’s only about a relatively small point. I’m not saying that it’s literally irrelevant how a person is dressed. I think that I am saying that I don’t see how it’s ethically or morally or, I don’t know, narratively important (and I think that “feels very different” that **Max** mentioned must have something to do with ethics or fairness or something along those lines). I agree that it might be important to an individual’s approach to prevention if we could articulate high-risk, but I don’t think we can, and failing that, I find it very hard to take a position on at what point the benefits no longer outweigh the possibly-nonexistent risk. ---
**Author:** ![mac9891](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@mac9891](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac9891)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/94 "2011-05-13T01:47:25Z")
This isn’t even a debate what cloth someone wears or doesn’t wear on thee body does not justify a violent act such as rape by any stretch of the imagination. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/95 "2011-05-13T02:19:42Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > And clothing is what the thread is about. Technically, it’s about whether the clothing means the dresser is consenting to rape. While some idiots answer that in the affirmative, it’s an idiotic idea. It’s moved on to talking about whether we can look at factors that might exacerbate or mitigate the risk of rape. **margin** appeared to suggest to me that the victims can’t. I find that idea suspect, but maybe I’m misunderstanding. **olive** suggested earlier in the thread that there was data that rapists don’t consider the dress of potential victims. That’s interesting if true, but I’m skeptical, especially since I suspect there are a lot of acquaintance rapists who use the victim’s dress as a way to rationalize their actions. However, I’d be interested in seeing data that looks clearly at how (and if) rapists respond to the dress of potential victims. Looking at that data is no more blaming the victims than it’d be blaming victims to look at the times of day during which rape is most likely to occur. If it turns out that rapists are likelier to rape women in scanty clothing, for example, one might conclude that women who wear scanty clothing should be extra-aware of their surroundings, just as should women who are walking alone at night, or just as should black men who are traveling alone in 1950s Alabama, or the like. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/96 "2011-05-13T03:15:31Z")
It’s actually a frustrating question, research-wise. There are plenty of studies to show that there’s a perception that a victim dressed a certain way is deserving of more _blame_. Even the data I’m familiar with that deals only with actual rapists’ perspectives tends to concern the same question - was it kind of her fault for any of the following reasons? Which I don’t think is the same question as whether the rape happened because the victim was dressed a certain way, not least because it’s a question a person can answer irrespective of whether or not they were actually involved in the incident. It’s a moral question. There is one study I read recently that claimed that 3 out of 25 rapists gave responses that supported the notion that victims’ dress affected their desires. It’s not a very compelling study for plenty of reasons, though, and I’m still not sure that’s the same question. There’s a PDF [here](http://u.tt/files/cms/criminology_journal_2009.pdf#page=185), which I think should go to the right page. It is clear that for some rapists, rape is linked to sexual attraction. Since manner of dress certainly can affect sexual attraction, I think it’s safe to say that if the claim is flatly that rapists don’t consider dress, it’s inaccurate, in the same way it would be inaccurate to say that rapists don’t consider hair color or muscle mass or something. Anything stated with that level of overbreadth is probably wrong when it comes to human behavior. But I don’t think **olives** made that claim; she said that we don’t have any evidence that more provocative dress increases the risk of sexual assault. I think that’s true, even though we might make that inference (subject to the questions how much, what is provocative, and so what?). ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/97 "2011-05-13T04:00:42Z")
Ok… From a Princeton[study](http://webscript.princeton.edu/~tlab/wp-content/publications/Olivola&Todorov_JESP2010.pdf) > [@](#): > > We often form opinions about the characteristics of others from single, static samples of their appearance > – the very first thing we see when, or even before, we meet them. These inferences occur spontaneously, > rapidly, and can impact decisions in a variety of important domains. and from Wikipedia.. > [@](#): > > Slut or slattern is a pejorative term applied to an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. If someone thinks that a particular lady is sexually promiscuous is it unreasonable that he filters what she is saying through that prism and is less likely to \*\*interpret \*\*a no as a no? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/98 "2011-05-13T04:17:22Z")
> [@margin](#): > > The logical thing would be for men to find the wearing of skimpy clothes attractive, because one hears all the time that men like to look at women. Why, then, should dressing in a revealing way—or however one defines slutty-----be upsetting or angering? Rape is not something that one does affectionately, for example. It strikes me as an incredibly angry, furious act. > > Men who want to get laid, one would think, would approve of women who dress like this and women who in fact like sex and having sex with various men. I had hoped someone else would respond to this, someone who had actually studied rape psychology. But, since no one else has, I’ll offer my inexpert two cents: Lots of men do like to look at sexy, skimpily-clothed women. But to some men, it just makes them feel frustrated and powerless. Frustrated, because they believe (perhaps justifiably) that they, personally, have no chance having consensual sex with or even being looked on favorably by those women. Powerless, because by dressing skimpily, those women are teasing him, dangling something in front of him that he desperately wants but will never be allowed to have. If she “likes sex and having sex with various men,” that just makes it worse: if she’s sexually available to other many other men but not to him, that puts him at the bottom of the totem pole, below those other men in status. ---
**Author:** ![TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/99 "2011-05-13T05:38:21Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I had hoped someone else would respond to this, someone who had actually studied rape psychology. But, since no one else has, I’ll offer my inexpert two cents: > > Lots of men do like to look at sexy, skimpily-clothed women. But to some men, it just makes them feel frustrated and powerless. Frustrated, because they believe (perhaps justifiably) that they, personally, have no chance having consensual sex with or even being looked on favorably by those women. Powerless, because by dressing skimpily, those women are teasing him, dangling something in front of him that he desperately wants but will never be allowed to have. If she “likes sex and having sex with various men,” that just makes it worse: if she’s sexually available to other many other men but not to him, that puts him at the bottom of the totem pole, below those other men in status. Yep. The guys I’ve met that give off a rapey vibe are the guys who are shit with women and start to harbor a resentment toward them because of the frustration. The same frustration is why guys get into fights outside bars. The guys who have girls go home at 2am, the frustrated guys who watched carrots dangling in front of them all night feeling teased/used and inadequate are the ones who scrap. If those angry frustrated guys get a drunk chick alone and she decides not to put out when he was banking all his hopes on it and knows this is his one chance in years to get some pussy and there are no witnesses then bam, Frustration Rape! Then you have the Madonna/Whore complex guys who put some girl theyve had a secret crush on for years up on a pedestal as a perfect angel and then find out she’s flirting with other guys or dresses slutty one night or whatever and that conflicts with their mental image of her too much and the conflict spurns them into rage because how dare she not be the angel she’s supposed to be and then bam, Principle Rape! Personally I think it has less to do with how the girl is dressed than how the guy perceives her actions (which may not be how she actually intended them at all). Some chick in a push up bra flirting with guys for drinks and rides home it’s like, ya her intention was to use guys around her, that doesn’t make her being raped right but it’s easy to see she was poking the Rape Bear and then bam, Not-Surprising Rape! But at the same time a girl can just be a normal girl-next-door doing her thing not dressing or acting slutty at all and the guy builds up an imaginary relationship with her in his head and feels all betrayed by her dating some other guy and nobody but the psycho dude views what she’s doing as anything wrong/malicious and bam, Blindsided Rape! I think an interesting thing is that it seems like it’s not the two extremes that tend to be the rapists but the middle ground. The guy who is super super shitty with women who knows he’ll never have a shot with any girl and has resigned to porn being his only sexual release, he’s too scared/intimidated to talk to a girl let alone rape her, or he sees girls as so completely out of his reach that there’s no more reason for him to get angry/jealous over a girl slutty or not than there is for me to get angry/jealous that a wrestler has roided up muscle body. It’s so out of my realm of comprehension that I could have that that I wouldn’t begun to give any thought to it. On the other end of the extremes the guy who girls love and is always getting laid doesn’t have to rape a chick because if this one doesn’t put out, who cares, he has 3 other girls txting him to come over and he’ll meet more the next time he goes out. Women and sex are so abundant that he can’t even comprehend that a girl not putting out would be something to get upset/angry over. He just shrugs and goes “cool.” and doesn’t care. But in the middle you have the guys who think they can get that carrot, they’re just an inch out of it’s reach and the carrot is such a special treat and theyve spent so long chasing this specific carrot (whether its a night of buying her drinks at the bar or years of admiring her from afar and hanging her Facebook pictures on his wall) and the carrot has let other guys nibble on it and he thinks he’s entitled to it and deserves it and then the carrot runs away and he goes “goddamn!!” and bam, Carrot Rape! Unfortunately I’d say a majority of men are in that middle category, so if I was a chick I’d be pretty careful in general. The world is a pretty fucked up place sometimes. No dog in this discussion, just offering up observations as an observer of the human psyche. - TWTTWN ---
**Author:** ![TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519/100 "2011-05-13T06:20:26Z")
uhhh and just as a disclaimer because my shit gets jumped on when I don’t write out a ton of nuances: I’m not saying the above types are the ONLY types of rapists. There’s the power-trip types and the “I don’t understand the rules of society” types and the crazy psycho rampaging killer types and the pedophile rapists and blah blah blah… I’m just explaining a bit of the various nuanced mentalities behind the Frustration Rapist types with relation to slutty-dressed girls to extrapolate on Thudlow’s post because as guy in his 20s who goes to the bars I’m around a lot more of these guys and those girls and their interactions than I’m around the killer or pedophile types (thus I can’t explain THEIR mentality/behavior). - TWTTWN [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dressing-like-a-slut-asking-for-it/581519.md?page=6)