Okay, yes, go to a hospital. I was going for “Accept no substitute for the real authorities”.
As well as HIV post-exposure treatment. It’s surprising how few people are aware this exists. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than hoping.
It’s pretty clear that you are not female. Women don’t learn about danger from being “drilled” or “well educated.” Women learn about bad guys from the simple act of existing in public while female. The catcalls, cars slowing down to preposition you, etc. start well before puberty, and reach a fevered pitch by your early teens. In high school, you get the fun of being around hormonal teenage boys who haven’t learned to meaning of “sexual harassment suit,” and you get everything from overheard remarks to groups of guys trying to tackle you behind the locker room. Every day in high school can be like the fabled “walk across the dark parking lot.” And then there are the adults. Work, school, strangers, dates, family friends, neighbors, etc. can expose you to a lot of creeps. Not to mention, with some enormous number of women getting raped, you are hearing your friend’s stories of being pressured in to sex, assaulted, and raped. None of this is a mystery.
But what you may not have learned is that you have a right not to be assaulted or harassed, that you have legal recourse if it does happen, and that there are things you have to do to protect your ability to prosecute as well as to protect your health. This is useful information.
The information I suggested is useful was useful because it gives you a clear picture of what the riskiest situations are. The reality is every women (who leaves the house) is in something that could be construed in hindsight as a “risky situation” every darn day. Everyday life-- working, dating, running errands, etc.-- puts you in situations that are risky. If you combed over my day today, you could probably find 20 “stupid” things I did just going to work and back. Avoiding all risky situations is not helpful.
But it was helpful that they told us that in 7/10 cases of sexual assault in the last year, the assault was perpetrated by a supervisor. It was useful to know that there were five assaults associated with a particular nightclub. It was useful to know that there had been several attacks by cab drivers… It was useful to hear stories from people who had managed to avoid attacks, and to learn their successful strategies for getting out of dangerous situations. Above all, it was useful to know that everyone acknowledges that this shit happens, it’s not okay, and we are all going to talk about it in very real terms rather than dancing around the subject.
Someone showed me a very nice poster about avoiding sexual assault that had tips like “Carry a whistle, and if you think you may assault a woman, give it to her first, so that she can blow it and attract attention and help.” What I liked about it was that it shocked and mocked me and others because we automatically assumed it was the woman’s job to prevent the assault, and assumed the poster had advice for her on how to take responsibility for men’s decisions.
Sadly, this nice poster probably didn’t help do anything but make this point. The biggest issues are that it shouldn’t be the woman’s job, and that if she wants to avoid assault it kind of winds up being her job.
They know. There may be some heavy-duty internal rationalizations going on but these men know what they are doing.
I think that rapists and perpetrators of sexual assault know what they are doing, but often genuinely believe it’s not or should not be that big of a deal. They may figure things like “She’s easy anyway, so how can she complain about one more raindrop in a storm,” or “In the end it’s just bad sex, what’s the big deal about some bad sex?”
Yes and these would be the “internal rationalizations”. It’s the things they tell themselves in order to quell the other voice telling them that what they are doing is wrong.
Those are tips to reduce a potential attacker’s opportunity. Now how about tips to reduce their desire? You can follow all those rules but if you keep wearing provocative clothes and carrying yourself in a manner that seems to say, “Fuck me,” you’ll have at least one guy creative enough to “skirt” all your precautions.
:rolleyes:
This is a parody to prove a point, isn’t it? Because that’s some pure comedy gold right there!
Best to be viewed as a parody, since women seem to want more rights to wear less and at the same time stricter laws on sexual assault.
Look, a woman can be dancing naked in the middle of the dance floor, that is still not OK for you to grope her unless she specifically tells you she wants to. And no, just being naked is not the signal you should look for.
Similarly, a student can go naked to class every day, that is still not an excuse for the professor to say “Do X sexual act or you don’t pass class”.
What that sentence did was rationalize the enforcement of burqas and other head-to-toe coverings for women. Otherwise, showing skin is inviting sexual advances from men, whether they want to or not.
I’d just like to point out that a naked woman in public in most places is guilty of sexual assault. Women don’t get a free pass because they are women and men apparently like looking at us more than we like looking at naked men. (Its an argument to absurdity I can’t stand because it isn’t OK for women to violate law in terms of public nudity any more than its ok for men to do so).
But yes, women in the West do get to wear short skirts, low cut shirts and four inch heels and not be harassed. Its up to men to control their animal instincts and, you know, be human beings and not the neighbors dog who will hump a chicken.
And if you find the urge to grope them when so dressed overpowering, you need to get help or take a job in Dubai. Because that is your problem not theirs.
And this is why we need to spend more time educating our young men instead of putting the responsibility on women.
(Please, get help - seriously. One day, if it hasn’t happened already, your attitude, combined with too much to drink, will result in some woman being the victim of a crime - and, if she is lucky, it will ruin your life too.)
Is it common for those who sexually assault or rape women to mention clothing as a rationalization for their behaviour?
If not, the point is largely moot. Otherwise, it would be deliberately obtuse to ignore entirely the role women might be able to play in keeping themselves safe.
I’m curious as to whether there has been research into the effectiveness of this type of message. If so, has anything been determined as to what specific messages and/or styles of presentation are most effective (in the sense of reducing number and/or likelihood of assaults)?
More to the point, is there any evidence they use it as a method to select their victims? I think a woman is most likely to be targeted for sexual assault based on relative security–for whatever reason, the perpetrator doesn’t think he will be caught/blamed/punished and, for lack of a better word, dehumanization. I think criminals tend to target people they think of as not like them, not really people, based on all sorts of criteria in different times and places.
I mean, after the fact a person might think “She looked so good, I just couldn’t control myself”, but they would have controlled themselves if they had been in public (sure to get caught) or if the girl was their best friend’s sister (too close to victimize). So even what the criminal identifies as a cause might not really be accurate.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Rapists come up with a whole lot of self-serving rationalizations to make what they did seem okay. “She didn’t hit me, so she must have wanted it.” “She’s a slut, so what’s the big deal.” “She was wearing a red dress, so she was asking for it.”
Whether or not these factors actually promoted the rapists behavior is besides the point. Why is it women’s responsibility not to wear red dresses, when there is nothing wrong with wearing red dresses? Should woman pretend to be virgins too, to prevent rape?
Curtailing women’s freedoms in the off chance that doing so will make it harder for men to rationalize rape might not trouble you, but it troubles me. I’m starting to think men really do need a couple of posters or three aimed their way.
In date rape, those rationalizations are very common.
“She was asking for it.”
However, lets say you invite a woman back up to your place for “coffee.” In the morning, you discover that your iPhone is gone, your wallet has been lifted - along with a few hundred in cash. She grabbed the little bit of jewelry you had out, including a really nice watch that had been a gift from your parents. A week or so later, you discover that your identity has been stolen.
Is that your fault for leaving your iPhone, wallet, and watch on the bedstand? Do you need to be told not to do that, because, you know, she might take it? Why did you have that much in cash on you? And who leave their social security card in their wallet nowadays - that’s asking for ID theft! Are you culpable? - after all, you invited this woman into your home, you left your valuables out where she could grab them.
(By the way, something very like that happened to my brother in law.)
That’s a good point. A better question would be “Do we know if the clothing of the victim actually plays any part in motivating sexual assault or rape?”
But that would be harder to answer with certainty, I’d guess.
To some extent, it’s everyone’s responsibility to play a part in keeping themselves safe. To use an analogy I mentioned earlier: if you get murdered or beaten for wearing a sports team shirt or a certain colour of bandana in the wrong place, it goes without saying that the assailant is responsible for their actions and has committed murder or some kind of assault. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to say that you made a poor choice in what you wore, and where. It doesn’t excuse the crime in any way, but if you can say with some certainty that it wouldn’t have happened had you not been there with the clothing or accessories you did, maybe it’s worth considering your choices too.
If it is true that clothing plays a part in motivating sexual assaults or rapes, then certainly the focus should be on changing whatever it is in potential rapists that makes them behave that way. But that doesn’t mean it would be sensible to not make potential victims aware that their choices can make some possibilities more likely. They can do what they want with that information.
Sorry, but this was the equivalent of Vincent shooting Marvin in the face - it made me laugh out loud while feeling guilty about it.