My evidence for what claim? That filmore’s analogy was a poor one?
Because my claim, to the extent that there is one, is something like “I find it likely that there is, perhaps very very small, between attractiveness and likelihood of being raped”? I have no concrete evidence for that claim. But no one has concrete evidence against it, either. There have been some strong arguments made that the correlation is likely very small, and I have found them persuasive. But it’s nearly impossible to imagine what concrete evidence there could be without some really ridiculously comprehensive study which really settled things once and for all.
Where’s YOUR evidence for the claim “there is zero correlation between level of attractiveness and likelihood of being raped”?
Even if some rapists target women they find attractive, then being less attractive would lessen the chance of being a victim. The only way it would not is it there were no rapists who were motivated by attraction. Given the dearth of actual data it would seem premature to presume that there are no rapists like that.
An OK Cupid study found that attractiveness peaks at age 21 and only half the men are interested in dating a 35 year old woman, half those who are interested in dating an 18 year old.
It would seem premature to presume that there are no rapists who target “less attractive” women as well. After all, tons of categories of women generally considered “less attractive” are at a much higher risk of being attacked – the homeless, mentally ill, drug addicts, etc.
I have no idea. I think it’s a tremendously difficult question… and one I think each woman needs to decide for herself, with “I will not modify my dress or actions at all” being a completely reasonable choice; and one that absolutely positively does not mean that women “deserves it” or “is asking for it” or anything. The only point I would even come close to holding firm on is that to the extent that there is actual factual data (which there probably rarely is), it’s good to give woman that data and let them decide for themselves. If doing X reduces your risk of rape by 1%, well, women should know that. You personally might decide that X is not worth doing because of the imposition it places on your life. Another woman might decide to never do X. Another might choose to do X only on certain occasions, and only while taking other precautions. All absolutely reasonable, and none of those choices ought to be used to judge or scold before, or CERTAINLY after, the fact.
As for why I find this topic interesting, I think there are two main things that have drawn me to this thread:
(1) Initially, and this has sadly gotten lost in the shuffle, the topic that this thread was originally about, which is where you draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate advice, before and after the fact, prompted or asked for, etc., is a big and interesting and complicated one. If a friend tells me that she is going to a party in a neighborhood that I know is sketchy, should I warn her that the neighborhood is sketchy? Is it condescending to assume she doesn’t already know that? But people aren’t born knowing things, she might not. Should I tell her she can call me if she needs a ride home, so she doesn’t have to ride home? Or is it patriarchal and/or creepy for me, a man, to even make that offer? Do any of these answers change if she’s tipsy? Or flat out drunk? A complicated issue, made more complicated by the fact that the answers usually adopted by men for so long have been so truly awful.
(2) General stubbornness. Claims and arguments have spiraled, as they do on the internet, and I find it hard to let a logically poor response go by unremarked.
And, in any case, I’m going to say a lot more men like the idea of an 18 year old (with the connotations of youth and virility our society has for "guys who date 18 year olds) than actually want to you know, date an 18 year old. Hollywood prefers to cast women (and men) in their early 20s for teen roles, because women (and men) in their early 20s are more attractive.
I made 3 points addressing your claim. You didn’t respond to these two:
This doesn’t mean that as you grow more attractive, your potential to be raped grows in proportion–that’s quite a leap
If you think women are stupid to make themselves more attractive, do you think they are also stupid not disfigure themselves more than nature intended?
For the situation you present of her along the street, I would think she was attacked or injured and would get help. But instead if I consider the situation of finding her in a remote bedroom when I’m at a house party, then I’m not so sure. When I think about this, my answer of how I would react depends on my age. If I’m 16, then I’m pretty sure I’d be tempted in some way. It would be like finding a stack of money and thinking I could steal it. I’m not 100% certain what I would actually do. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t do anything, but I don’t feel 100% positive about that. My moral foundation around that time was more “caught or not” versus “right or wrong”. By the time I’m early 20’s, I’m much more certain that I wouldn’t be tempted and I’m absolutely certain I wouldn’t do anything. This hypothetical the only situation I can ever imagine even remotely being tempted to do something, and that’s just when I’m a teenager. By the time I’m 25 or so, I absolutely trust my moral foundation and am 100% certain I would act in a pious manner.
I can’t point at anything to say why I might have been tempted at that time and why that kind of temptation went away as I got older. It’s not like anyone taught me one way or the other. I can imagine that if I had a different group of friends or influences, my actions in that situation could vary widely. For some reason, I didn’t feel the same moral absolute boundary around that hypothetical at 16 that I did around for things like murder or forceful rape. My moral weakness around this kind of situation is one reason I worry that other boys at that age would have the same temptations.
Yeah, I even said that upthread somewhere. My comparison wasn’t meant to imply that finding her was like finding money. It was that even people with firm morals can find themselves in a situation where they may be tempted to act in an immoral way. Some other people won’t even have the temptation at all in that situation.
I would 100% do the right thing and call the cops, and then stand by her until they got there, covering up with a jacket/sweatshirt if I had one. (I’m reading this as “she is passed out drunk” not “she is stumbling around incoherent”.)
But suppose we adjust every slider that’s affecting my behavior in the worst possible way:
-this happens when I’m 17, at peak horniness but far from peak impulse control
-I had just gotten harshly and publicly rejected by several women I had crushes on and was feeling aggrieved towards women in general
-I had just gotten somewhat sucked in to incel chatrooms and my mind was full of hateful misogynistic bullshit (this never happened, btw, just proposing it as part of the hypothetical)
-I was drunk
Put all of those together and I would end up in a situation where lust/rage was tugging me one way, and ethics/morality/decency was tugging me the other. And as best as I can imagine, the more attractive the unconscious woman was, the stronger the tug of lust and rage would be.
But, prior to reading this thread, that would have struck me as entirely obvious and noncontroversial. So I’m not sure where you’re going.
And I argue that the moral line one has to cross to commit a crime of opportunity like found money as compared to sexual violence is so different to be a useless (and hurtful) comparison.
And there we have it, friends. Congratulations, dude, you’re a rapist. As, indeed, a majority of men are because when you ask men if they’d commit rape most of them are all “Oh holy shit no way no how!” but ask them again about committing rape but don’t CALL it rape and give them scenarios and stick in some “extenuating circumstances” that really only make sense to men raised in a patriarchy and you hit a threshold where the majority of men admit that yeah, they would commit rape–just don’t call it that, so icky.
Now do you understand what we walk around with in the real world? The sure and certain knowledge that basically every man we know and care for has a threshold and my gods do we hope that threshold is really high–but we never know until it happens and by then it’s way too late. So which of the rape rules do we follow to make sure the men around us don’t hit their thresholds? How do we twist ourselves enough into pretzels and Moebius strips to control the behavior of the men we’re surrounded by? IT’S NOT POSSIBLE, WE CAN’T DO THIS. Nobody can. Nobody can control everyone around them to make sure nothing bad ever happens to us. So FFS stop telling these lies to women that there are rules they can follow that will protect them from rapists because it’s BULLSHIT.
And while you’re at it, stop telling these comforting lies to yourself and other men that there are these extenuating circumstances that exist to let men off the hook for raping women and that there’s fault to be placed on the victims who really SHOULD HAVE KNOWN how to follow the rules better so’s not to create extenuating circumstances that excuse their rapists. Because that too is BULLSHIT.
That’s some serious Orwellian thoughtcrime-level bullshit.
So, to review: if I was presented with the “best” possible circumstances to commit a rape (unconscious attractive victim, no one around), I absolutely would not.
But if:
-I was 17 (I’m not)
-I was drunk (I don’t drink)
-I got sucked into incel chatrooms (I never have)
-And I was angry because I had just gotten rejected (which has been true for maybe 0.01% of my life)
Then I can imagine that maybe I might commit a rape.
By this sort of logic, everyone is everything. We’re all rapists, all of us, men and women. And we’re all child pornographers. And racists. And drunk drivers. And pedophiles.
You gave us a scenario under which you could see stepping into the rapist’s shoes–access, anger, victim blaming, approval from other men. You have your mitigation all lined up–young and drunk. Funny how young and drunk excuses men but indicts women, strange how that works out innit? What you’re saying is that this concatenation of factors hasn’t happened for you. But it could–and the only thing that would stop you becoming a rapist for real would be your own volition.
Women exist in a perpetual state of being a rape victim whose concatenation hasn’t coalesced yet. This is our reality, the environment we operate under 24/7 for our entire lives. When the factors coalesce, the only thing that stops us from becoming rape victims is the volition of the rapist. We don’t have the agency, that belongs to someone else.
And see how these things work? There you are just JAQing along being all dispassionate and detached and postulating circumstances and making your points when suddenly someone else makes you into something you don’t want against your will by telling you YOU’RE a rapist. Does that make you uncomfortable? Does it suck to be forced into a fundamental change against your will? Welcome to the reality of being a rape victim who hasn’t yet found the spot marked X with her name on it.
Don’t like it? Then work to make the world a place where it’s unthinkable for rapes to occur. Until that happens, you’re culpable too. If you can imagine a scenario under which you’d commit rape then yeah, you’re a rapist. Just like I’m a rape victim. I didn’t ask for that, but it wasn’t my choice. Sucks, don’t it?
MaxTheVool, do you see how it makes a lot more sense to identify the risk factors for rapists than the risk factors of rape victims?
Do you understand why we’re saying it doesn’t make sense to give more advice to young women than young men with respect to rape? If you had a son who was exhibiting the risk factors you laid out, wouldn’t you be talking to him a whole lot more than your daughter–regardless of her risk profile?
I think your answer to this question could help folks see exactly how much you’ve absorbed for this conversation.
We should definitely positively do everything we can to keep young men from growing up to be rapists (short of ludicrous extremes like chemically castrating them all).
But that has no bearing on the question of what advice we should give to young women to help protect them without interfering with their ability to lead full lives. How to equip them to deal with the sexism in society without implicitly normalizing and accepting that sexism. How best to do that is a difficult and thorny question.
Well, if you’ll go look at my first post in this thread, #32, you’ll see I’m saying basically the same thing there as I am here. Whether that means I have learned literally nothing, or that I’ve done a comically poor job of communicating my position, is unclear.