I suppose we can look forward to people whining that women must take up the slack and protect themselves, as they themselves do indeed tell their sons to not commit rape, that they can do no more, when----oh, I don’t know, here’s a wild and crazy idea-----one could not make excuses for rapists by—in effect---- blaming rape on slutty clothes. Such an excuse—as I mentioned—ignores reality, in which many obviously non-sluttily-dressed girls and women get raped, including babies and old women. In effect, one is saying that a skirt committed the rape and the man was practically an unwilling participant. The idea that rape is provoked out of men carries with it a hint of the man being unwilling till unreasonably aroused and excited by…a skirt. I guess one can now understand why people fall in love with cars, vacuum cleaners, and according to one article I read, the Berlin Wall. If men are indeed aroused by short skirts, then they should avail themselves of such items on their own time and with their own money and spare women the horror of a violent, invasive attack.
So the question that we should be asking—if indeed we wish to learn about rape-----is why people invent strawwomen like sluts, who exert a force on a man equivalent to that of a pointed weapon. Confronted with a woman in a mini skirt, men apparently are ensnared in some kind of tractor beam, which they are helpless to resist, and which arouses them and makes them commit a kind of rape which is not the most common form. Yet it is the one which many people want to discuss.
"Slut" is a derogatory term, indicating a woman who is free with her favors. This is based, of course, on a viewpoint of women as having value only if they're chaste. The more sexual partners a woman has, therefore, the less she is worth. Such a belief is incompatible with protestations of a desire for womens' safety and well being, as the first level of wellbeing is to promote the truth about women. By focusing obsessively on 'sluts' one is demonstrating outmoded beliefs which need to be changed.
One would think, in fact, that men would approve of such women, because if they do have sex with many men, they might be lucky enough to be one of them. Yet there seems to be an offshoot of the original ‘slut’ belief that one should only pursue women of high sexual status, because they are worth more points if they put up more resistance and have had fewer partners, thus making one a member of a select few. This does not recognize that women are human beings and are fully entitled to enjoy sex under whatever terms they enjoy.
The belief that men are uncontrollable sexual beasts, if true, should result in increased incarceration and supervision. It has not. Furthermore, it has been proven over and over again that rapists target the vulnerable. A rapist therefore will pass on a woman who is in fact dressed sluttily because she might very well look and project power, pride, and strength in favor of a woman covered to the ankles, wrists and throat because she looks vulnerable, distracted, ill, small-sized, etc., etc.
If one wishes to study bank robbery, one does not take out a dollar bill and study it. One studies bank robbers. Rape remains a unique crime in that some people feel---based on the belief that the woman (as noted above) has little value, and that is not a worthy reason to disrupt a man's life with an accusation or even a trial. There is also the belief that rape victims lie to protect their virtue, again based on the belief that that is their only value to society. If this belief were aggressively targeted---say, by people who claim to wish to fight ignorance---and the double standard were also aggressively attacked, such lies (in whatever number they occur) would be reduced because the need to pose as a virginal figure would disappear, as women would be judged---like men----on the content of their character and not on the length of the hem.
The sexual uncontrollably male myth does men no favors because it appears to make rape more likely in general, not just in the type of case that is the subject of this thread. It tends to argue the men do in fact commit many rapes, that rape victims are telling the truth, and that men should be subjected to much more supervision and skepticism. This notion is usually opposed by people who claim it is unjust to regard men with suspicion, even though this myth is often promoted by men themselves. Yet it is manifestly more unjust to tell women that they must live in fear, adjust their lives down to the most intimate particular so that men can freely rape women----and then blame it on hemlines. As men represent a greater proportion of those in power in just about every field, they are in a prime position to change these unjust customs and conditions, and doing so would result in fewer rapes, fewer false rape accusations, and more sex for anyone. Yet it would also liberate women from fear, so one has to wonder why this has not been on anyone’s agenda. Also, it would free men from unrealistic and excessively demanding sexual standards, as well as gender stereotypes. Again, this is to everyone’s benefit.