Female TV reporter seeks criminal charges against man who slapped her backside on camera
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Right? I mean, how DARE SHE exist in the world and have an ass? THAT SLUTTY MC SLUTTERSONS. spits
I can see how she was tempting that dude wearing her . . . [looks down] . . .sweatshirt and reflective vest.
Honestly, this is the quote that bothered me, from the local police:
They are apparently letting her decide how she’d like to move forward. Aren’t they the cops? Don’t they have the evidence on camera? “Letting the victim decide” is often presented as a benevolent act, because you want to save a poor woman the shame of a public trial, but the reality is that it more often means “we are pressuring her to drop the whole thing”–and part of that pressure is often blame (why were you/why didn’t you/can’t you see it from his point of view . . . ")
Thanks.
I can’t see anything more than the abstract, and one graph, as I haven’t got a subscription there.
The one graph I can see shows the bulk of assaults to be, not on women between ages 15 and 24, but on girls and women between the ages of 10 and 20. The abstract says “the modal age of victims was 15 years, regardless of the age of the offender, the gender of the offender, or the gender of the victim”; so presumably a graph for assaults upon boys and men would be similar.
I am surprised by the sharp dropoff from a peak at age 15-17. But I suspect that what’s being targeted is to a large extent vulnerability, not sexual attractiveness. It seems unlikely to me that 10 - 14 year olds are generally perceived as drastically more sexually attractive than 21 - 29 year olds, although the graph shows far more rapes committed against the first group; but quite possible that they’re perceived as being less able to fight back.
Still an interesting bit of information, though hard to judge its context or accuracy without the full paper.
That is massively limiting and restricting advice.
FWIW, I’ve violated it far more times than I could possibly count, starting in my freshman year in college – no, come to think of it, starting in my childhood. I have not been raped. I’ve been harassed, but on the public street or at work and once in the car of an older man who I knew (and both of us were sober), not because I went into men’s rooms or houses. This is only slightly more than one data point and not a study (I say slightly more than one because most of my friends behaved in the same fashion, and the ones who I know were raped were also not raped in those circumstances); but I’d need to see a study showing that the behavior’s actually significantly risky – and risky enough to make it worth limiting one’s life to such an extent that one never visits male friends at home, never visits at home potential lovers who one doesn’t intend to have sex with at that moment, never shares houses or apartments with men one isn’t willing to have sex with at any moment, never goes into a neighbor’s house or apartment, never goes into a man’s room at work conferences for any reason, etcetera.
Coming back in here to say that I actually do have a couple of pieces of advice, besides for-all-sorts-of-reasons don’t get shitfaced drunk; though like that piece I think they should be addressed to people of any gender, and they’re relevant for reasons in addition to the possibility of rape:
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Watch out for the person who doesn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer. Not just about sex, and not just about whether you’re going to have another drink: watch out also for the person who really really wants you to order the chicken when you wanted the eggplant, or really wants you to see the movie you don’t much want to watch, or on pretty much any subject pushes you to do what they tell you. It’s not a guarantee of evil intent – maybe they just really love the chicken and have trouble imagining that you don’t. But it’s a warning sign; especially if there’s a pattern. They may be looking for somebody with a weak no. They may be looking for somebody who will do what they’re told.
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is an old line but a good one: the person who’s nice to you but mean to the waiter is not a good person. Stay away from mean people, even if it isn’t you they’re being mean to at the moment. Even if they’ve got a great reputation, everybody seems to respect them, they’re In with the In Group; even if everybody seems to think those jokes are funny except maybe the one they’re aimed at – watch out for mean people.
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is, have your friends’ backs. Whatever gender they are, and whatever gender you are. The easy version of this is, if you see three strangers moving your drunk friend away from the party, do something. The hard one is if one person you’ve been thinking is your friend is being mean to – maybe even raping – another of your friends.
That is probably the single most important sentence I’ve ever read on the subject.
Frankly, it’s difficult and frustrating to properly convey a message of “I agree with the consensus about most things, but disagree about one minor point”, because everyone one of your posts ends up being a disagreement with the consensus, and thus it’s extremely easy to come off as actually having wide disagreements. And I also recognize that maybe I should just cut my losses and stop posting in this thread, because all I’m doing is linking my name with abhorrent and obsolete opinions in the minds of many posters. But… I do find the one specific issue (and a few related things) genuinely interesting, and at least a few of the responses I’ve read have really made me think, so…
I’m not really sure that “wearing different clothing can reduce a woman’s risk of rape” either says that sexism is irrelevant or that I’m indifferent to sexism. If anything, it’s an acknowledgment that men are sexist pigs.
One thing that I think is worth bringing up from the male perspective is the flip side of all the body-image-in-pop-culture stuff that is so often discussed in the context of young women having eating disorders, etc., because movies and TV present such a warped image of what female beauty should look like. Thing is, men see that too. The message that young slim women are more valuable than old or non-slim women is just as firmly (if unfortunately) received by men as it is by women. I wish that weren’t the case, but I recognize that it is. It’s a bit hard to express how powerful and pervasive that message is. And regardless of whether rape is about sex or control (or some of each), I find it hard to imagine that rapists choose their victims 100% ignoring such an overwhelmingly powerful societal signal.
Note I’m not saying it’s impossible for me to believe that. Various good arguments have been made in this thread which have certainly weakened my assessment of the strength of my claim… but that isn’t the same as believing that it has been totally disproved.
Well, like I said, I don’t have much desire to just go through point by point raised in this thread and offer a “hell yeah” or a “damn that’s messed up” or whatever. And frankly, a lot of these points are somewhat irrelevant to the very precise sub-issue I’m trying to debate. margin, for instance, keeps bringing up examples of horrific rapes that would not have been prevented by that victim wearing different clothing, as if that proves anything. If I was arguing that people in cars should wear their seatbelts, anyone arguing against me could come up with tens of thousands of examples of people who wore their seatbelts and still died, and that would be irrelevant to the argument I’m making.
It’s also worth pointing out that I do recognize the, shall we say, ookiness, of me as a man casually and perhaps slightly irrelevantly debating fine points of a topic that is VASTLY more real and immediate and emotional for women than it ever will be for me… and debating with women at that. It certainly reeks of mansplaining. That said… I’m genuinely open to having my mind changed, and I genuinely find the discussion interesting, and I find the idea that certain topics can’t be discussed at all by entire groups of people to be pretty abhorrent.
To be clear, I don’t have any evidence for that position. But I also haven’t seen any actual statistical evidence directly disproving it either, and I feel like people are treating it as proven-to-be-totally-false with unjustified certainty. If someone posts a link to an exhaustive study tomorrow in which sufficiently clever data manipulation over a sufficiently large data set proves that how women dress has literally zero (or next to zero) impact on their chance of being raped, well, there we go, then we’ll know.
That said, I also think that there’s a truly fascinating conversation about how it would be appropriate to approach things if it was inarguably and clearly true that wearing different clothes had a small-but-real impact on one’s risk of being raped. (Although I recognize that proposing hypotheticals is a step further down the I’m-treating-this-emotionally-wrought-topic-as-a-debate-topic-for-my-male-amusement path…)
I just don’t see that. Someone who leaves the house intending to walk to work, happens to pass by a store and notice that the front window is broken, and then steals a TV, is precisely as guilty of theft as someone who comes up with an entire plan for breaking into the store and stealing a TV and puts it into action.
And frankly, if you think I’m trying to pursue this line of argument to make men look better or something, I think it very clearly does exactly the opposite. What reflects better on my gender… (numbers made up) for 1% of men to be monstrous serial rapists and everyone else is decent, or for 0.1% of men to be monstrous serial rapists, and 20% of men are sufficiently lacking in ethics that they will commit a rape if the circumstances all align.
To be clear, the latter position may be totally incorrect (and someone in this thread, maybe Manda JO, offered up the very interesting insight that it’s easy for a man like me to assume it’s the latter because if I try to envision a confluence of insights that would lead me to commit a rape, I end up in the latter case, not the former), but it’s also not clear to me why that proposal is met with such virulent hostility… unless people assume that I’m staking out that second position as part of a nefarious scheme where I’m trying to get people to accept it, and then I’ll do some debating-jiu-jitsu and end up proving that, hey, it’s all women’s fault after all, yay men; or something like that.
But you keep saying this without any evidence besides your gut feeling. And you’re completely ignoring the lived experiences of women in this thread. And you’re digging in instead of maybe reconsidering some of your ideas.
Let’s clear this up. This IS mansplaining. You’re coming across as gross, at least to me, because you are treating this as a theoretical debate and also because you don’t seem to be listening. Of course you can tell women that wearing burkas prevents rape and they should do that because it doesn’t affect you. Woman after woman has explained how this limits normal interaction and you, well I don’t really know what you’re doing.
You also haven’t provided any evidence that it does either but somehow we’re supposed to accept this as fact?
Why? Seriously, you’re saying that you could be proven wrong and still would could continue an argument that has real world harm for what reason?Why are you so wedded to this?
I just don’t see that. Someone who leaves the house intending to walk to work, happens to pass by a store and notice that the front window is broken, and then steals a TV, is precisely as guilty of theft as someone who comes up with an entire plan for breaking into the store and stealing a TV and puts it into action.
And frankly, if you think I’m trying to pursue this line of argument to make men look better or something, I think it very clearly does exactly the opposite. What reflects better on my gender… (numbers made up) for 1% of men to be monstrous serial rapists and everyone else is decent, or for 0.1% of men to be monstrous serial rapists, and 20% of men are sufficiently lacking in ethics that they will commit a rape if the circumstances all align.
To be clear, the latter position may be totally incorrect (and someone in this thread, maybe Manda JO, offered up the very interesting insight that it’s easy for a man like me to assume it’s the latter because if I try to envision a confluence of insights that would lead me to commit a rape, I end up in the latter case, not the former), but it’s also not clear to me why that proposal is met with such virulent hostility… unless people assume that I’m staking out that second position as part of a nefarious scheme where I’m trying to get people to accept it, and then I’ll do some debating-jiu-jitsu and end up proving that, hey, it’s all women’s fault after all, yay men; or something like that.
Several woman in this thread have related that they feel that the level of harrassment/catcalls/etc they have experience remains constant despite them wearing different clothing and their levels of attractiveness varying over the years. Which is relevant if not decisive anecdotal evidence And as I said, I think the level of likelihood that I would attach to the position has decreased as I’ve read this thread. But it hasn’t decreased to zero, because anecdotal evidence isn’t proof.
I am reconsidering my ideas. Reconsidering an idea that’s a somewhat amorphous probability/likelihood/intuition to begin with doesn’t necessarily mean immediately agreeing that a difficult-to-quantify position has been proven to some absolute.
Absolutely, and I accept that and agree with it. But “X places an onerous burden on women” is basically 100% orthogonal to “X will in fact reduce the risk of rape”. It’s VERY relevant to “X is something that women should follow” and arguably relevant to “X is advice that should ever be proposed to begin with”.
If I’ve ever said anything in this thread that states that anyone is supposed to accept it as fact, I apologize. If I’ve even implied it, I certainly didn’t consciously intend to.
To take a step back for a second, “wearing less revealing clothes”, as rape-prevention-advice, has some level of efficacy. If a statistically large enough sample of women followed that advice, while another sample did not follow that advice, and we ran enough trials, correcting for all variables, etc., then we can at least imagine some number coming out the other end. Following that advice reduces a woman’s risk of rape by n% per year (where n varies based on bunches of other things, presumably). But n could, in a somewhat handwaving sense, be known. I am not stating with certainty what I think n is. If I made my absolute best guess as to n, it would be lower now than when I started participating in this thread. A fair bit lower, in fact. But I do not think that it would be literally zero. Do you?
Almost the only thing I’m disagreeing with is that several people have (as I read it) stated that they believe n would be literally zero. Which I disagree with both because I don’t think they have sufficient evidence to make that claim, and because it disagrees with my very strong intuitive understanding of how a man’s mind works. (A response to which, which I did not anticipate before coming into this thread, is that “how a man’s mind works” and “how a rapist’s mind works” are far, far more different than I would anticipate. Which is an area that I’m thinking about, discussing, and debating. Like I said, I find that claim intriguing, and in fact it would be quite comforting, if true. But I haven’t yet seen an argument that definitely proves that claim to be generally true.)
Seriously, dude, just drop the whole “attractiveness” angle–at least until you dare to tackle what it is about babies and toddlers and 85 year old nuns that fits your whole “attractiveness matters to rapists” angle. Really, I want to hear your rationale of how baby rapers are picking on only the very best looking babies, the ones who wear those slutty revealing diapers and onesies. Go ahead, make me understand how that works.
I think you are ignoring or oblivious to the damage this sort of “advice” has done to women, on the theory that it might be true, so just in case, I need to do/not do these things. And you can’t just separate out the “dress in revealing clothes” or “be attractive” issues from the “don’t go out after dark alone” and “don’t travel alone” kinds of advice–they well up from the same logic and they are part of this whole package of advice women get, starting practically at birth. It’s the sum total off all that advice that creates a culture of victim-blaming and that limits women.
This whole package of advice does tremendous practical damage, in the sense that that women turn down career opportunities, they have more complex logistics to negotiate, live more limited lives in very real way. It does damage to our sense of self, because we are afraid all the time and because we get the message that we are less worthy of having our freedoms protected by the institutions of society than men are. It perpetuates rape culture, because it discourages women from reporting when they know they have done “something stupid”, like walk to the corner store after dark, or go to a college party.
So it’s troubling that you think the onus is on us to prove that the rape rules package is 100% not effective before you’ll even talk about the damage it does, or what makes it problematic. For one thing, that’s not possible. But more importantly, because as women we know damn well that any chance that these rules are effective is all it takes for society to blame us for our own assaults and to expect us to follow these rules. We get told “it’s probably safe, but just in case. . .” more times than you can imagine. And in the context of the ways these rules are used and abused to limit and control women, “for the sake of argument, is it possible . . .” or “whatever the evidence, it seems like there’s probably some non-zero effect” is problematic. Because vague advice that “it might have an effect, but you have to decide for yourself what you are comfortable with” is utterly useless and passive aggressive. It can’t be applied, because you can’t do any sort of risk analysis. If it’s negligible, it needs to be said that way, not left as nebulous. To do otherwise is to have real consequences.
Velocity, can you please come back and respond to this? I feel like you accused me (and others) of intellectual dishonesty–that we “won’t acknowledge” a self-evident truth that we know is true. That bugs me, because it’s not true and there’s nothing more frustrating in a debate than being told “I know that deep down inside, you know I am right, you just won’t admit it”.
MaxTheVool, say a researcher does find that attractiveness is a factor. They find that rapists who exclusively rape women they are dating tend to target women who score between 5 and 10 on the Trump Attractiveness Scale, while back alley-and-break-into-houses rapists don’t have any preferences.
What do you think women should extract from this information?
If you think it would be reasonable for them to extract the message that they should uglify themselves before they go out on a date if they don’t want to be raped, then I don’t know what to say about your ability to reason.
The research is pretty solid that rapists are pretty non-picky about who they attack. But even if they are picky, SO THE FUCK WHAT? I don’t want to live in a society where women feel they have to uglify themselves to protect themselves. Because that’s a society where the women who decide to not uglify themselves get victim-blamed for their own victimization.
“Karen, come on now. You’re a solid 7. Why did you go out on a date looking so cute? What were you thinking, girl?!”
That’s where I fall on the “attractiveness” issue. It’s not that I think it’s impossible that rapists do some visual winnowing of targets. It’s that I don’t see the practical, non-sexist utility of this line of inquiry. “Don’t look attractive if you want to stay safe, ladies” is just not good advice. It’s oppressive, hateful advice. It’s up there with “Don’t go to places where men are” and “Don’t date men you don’t know” in its ridiculousness. This is why whenever you bring up “attractiveness”, I can’t keep my eyes from rolling.
It’s entirely possible for some rapists to target only 90 year olds (without caring how conventionally attractive they are) and some to target only babies, and some to target only, say, women wearing toe shoes… while enough choose their victims based on more conventional ideas of female attractiveness that a correlation still exists.
Again, I don’t claim I have proof that it exists, but the existence of (even very many) counterexamples doesn’t disprove it any more than the fact that people wearing seatbelts still die in car accidents disproves that it’s a good idea to wear your seatbelt.
My friends used to try to do that for me, but I was really good at slipping the leash. If they got me home safe I’d sometimes go back to the bar or party as soon as they left. Because I was self-destructive. Still, I never met up with a rapist.
Rape is a crime based on invasion, not attraction. Frankly, I can see the rapist gravitating towards the more modestly dressed woman because the protectiveness conveyed by modest dress might be a turn on. The balancing factor might be that the modestly dressed woman may be generally more cautious and therefore less vulnerable.
And, honestly, some other rapist might target a woman they think is dressed inappropriately because they think that means she’s a whore and it’s okay. It’s hard to predict.
Honestly, I don’t think rapists have the luxury of choice if they don’t want to get caught. I think, as in all other crime, rapists pick targets based on perceived opportunity to get away with it. Within those parameters, I think they often take what they can get.
And I still don’t understand why this–the degree to which attractiveness correlates to victimization by rapists–is even an interesting question. It’s like trying to find a correlation between BMI and being bullied. Can I say with 100% certainty, that there is 0 correlation? Of course not. But I can say it’s not a dramatic correlation and I can see, very clearly, that any message warning kids that if they get fat, they may be bullied, is going to be so much more damaging than helpful. Even presenting the possibility of their being a correlation as an important or relevant question is damaging to children who hear it–both to the bullied and the bullies. Given that, it doesn’t seem like a very fruitful or interesting avenue of research.
Yeah dude, stop digging. You keep handwaving items away so that you can keep witnessing and you’re not addressing any of the substantive points raised while still not bringing any facts to the table. There’s cognitive dissonance in accepting a median victim age of 15 (!) and arguing that attractiveness is important. The seatbelt example doesn’t even make sense but it’s whack-a-mole with you.
On a hijack, I’d like to point out this thread is a perfect example of what is right and what is wrong with this message.
A year ago, I don’t believe this thread would have existed in this fashion. There would be too many men who would repeatedly post overt victim-blaming, sexist attitudes and would have derailed the thread onto false accusations.
I’m honestly (and positively!) surprised that this thread has been so polite and I believe it’due to three things:
- Many of the posters who would be toxic in this thread have either been banned or are aware that their behavior isn’t as tolerated anymore. Kudos to the mod team!
2)This thread wouldn’t be as valuable or thought-provoking without the lived experiences and practical discussion of consequences from all the women in this thread. However so many women have left or won’t post on here due to the above-mentioned toxic behavior and prior mod-sanctioned misogyny. That’s a huge disservice to the board and I wonder how many other threads we’ve lost because of this.
3)There are posters participating who are actually listening and responding to arguments instead of “Bitches be crazy”.
However there are still posters who aren’t providing a positive contribution and are simply witnessing and continuing to spread sexist ideas. There’s no attempt to debate or engage with facts. And I bet that some of them will pop up in new threads repeating the exact same items. That’s toxic and disheartening.
All of the above could also be replaced with racism except I think the situation there is significantly worse and this board has simply chased away many PoC from the boards or from threads involving race.
Yeah, it might be like how a car thief decides which car in the parking lot to steal. The thief is enamored with the $100k Porsche just like I am, but he may end up stealing a 10-year-old Toyota because it’s in the dark corner of the lot, is easy to break into, and there is a robust market for used parts from that model of car. But because I find the Porsche so compelling, I’m mistakenly assuming he’ll steal that one.
I think it’s very valuable to discuss these kinds of issues in a forum like the SDMB. It’s almost impossible to have these kinds of meaningful discussions in person since they so often create bad feelings and can damage the relationships. But here in the SDMB, I see this as more like a scientific environment where we work through concepts and ideas to get a better understanding. If we just shut down the discussion, then people leave with their assumptions intact, whatever they are.