My best guess is that women who acted that way would very slightly decrease their risk of being raped. As has been pointed out several times, most rapes are of varieties which would be unaffected entirely (date rape, most obviously), and for the dragged-into-the-bushes rapes, there are plenty of other presumably-much-stronger factors which would far outweigh changes in appearance, and some rapists for whom it might not matter at all.
I’ve described the scenario I have in mind several times this thread, and will do so again, but I feel like it keeps getting misinterpreted. But briefly, I envision a man who wasn’t consciously intending to commit a rape (ie, didn’t leave home with his rape kit and have his territory all planned out), but was already a violent and misogynistic man, who was in a particularly horny/violent/frustrated/misogynistic mindset, likely somewhat drunk or otherwise impaired, and was walking home (or something similar). Had he not passed any women, or not passed any women who caught his eye, or not passed any women who caught his eye right while she had the misfortune to be passing in front of some bushes or an alleyway or a dark corner or whatever, then maybe he would have just gone home and watched some porn, but the confluence of all those events coming together caused him to commit rape. (And no, me describing it as “caused him to commit rape” doesn’t even REMOTELY mean that I’m trying to excuse him, or lessen his culpability or his ethical responsibility or ANYTHING like that).
It’s about, in the meta, what society expects from women. Make yourselves as unobtrusive as possible. Blend in, don’t stand out. Don’t be pushy, don’t attract too much attention. Make yourself smaller. Diet until you disappear.
And I call bullshit on that. I’m a really attractive woman with a nice figure, I’m proud of it, I work to maintain it and I wear it well. And when I was younger, I was what was widely considered hot. I wanted to look good when I went out. I LIKED being hot. I didn’t want to ugly myself up when I went out so no one would notice me. Plenty of men wanted me to do that, though.
I sometimes go to a local woman’s group where we talk about our feelings and what’s going on in our lives in a structured manner, through a series of verbal exercises. And we do an exercise called brag practice, where you are supposed to brag about 3 different different things. And these beautiful smart and successful women just freeze up. They either brag about another person “my boyfriend is the nicest guy ever”, “I have the greatest friends.” or their achievement” “I won the marathon” or “I got a promotion” .
But I’ve never heard anyone say I’m gorgeous, I’m smart, I’m (god forbid) sexy. Because women aren’t supposed to talk like that. It’s immodest. It’s unseemly.
Getting noticed will only get you in trouble. Because when guys notice you, they think about fucking you. Again, it always comes back to that.
Right, a disclaimer doesn’t work if you go and contradict it. Something like “I’m not blaming you but it’s your fault you were raped” is absolutely victim-blaming. If you say “I’m not blaming you, but” and then go into a tirade against the victim’s behavior, you are almost sure to give the impression that the victim is at fault.
I think a statement is victim-blaming when it culpability is shifted from the perpetrator to the victim, expressly or implicitly. As such a single piece of advice can be both victim-blaming and not victim-blaming, depending on the context in which it was given. We may disagree as to whether individual statements in specific contexts shift the blame, but ultimately it is the recipient* of the advice whose judgement matters. If they feel that you think failing to follow the advice makes them even partially responsible for the perpetrator’s actions, then that advice is victim-blaming.
Let’s be super clear here. I provided cites about when women get raped, I provided rapes cites about the clear indication that alcohol is absolutely a factor for rapists and you ran away from the thread. Max S suddenly popped in to defend you and point out that the thread was not about preventing rape but about victim blaming. And you pop back in and then go directly back to discussing how women dress in the context of rape prevention. You’ve repeatedly said that this is the one topic you want to discuss.* And you’ve ducked every time someone has asked you what specific restrictions and how should that be weighed against women’s freedoms.*
So far your only contributions in this thread have been:
To repeatedly and without proof assert that women’s clothes absolutely play a part in their being raped (however that’s not victim blaming :rolleyes:)
You’ve repeatedly refused to discuss specifically what should/should not be worn or the impact of clothing restrictions on women or the fact that this would become an arms race
3)You’ve stated that only topic in this thread that you want to discuss is that women’s clothing affects their chances of being raped. However you don’t want to discuss anything about the rapist or even specifically what clothing or the impact of clothing restrictions on women.
Changed thorny’s hypothetical “What would you do?” to become under what circumstances you’d rape somebody (and boy, that was incredibly creepy)
4)You’ve repeatedly compared women existing to property crime and wouldn’t stop until a man called you out on it.
Do you understand that you’re not coming across as someone interested in dialog? Do you understand that you are encouraging victim blaming?
I’ve spent much of my life listening to men make paternalistic arguments as why I should “tone it down” for my own good. And they usually had their own self-serving motives.
So I really don’t like it when someone suggests that my attractiveness makes me less safe. Because I don’t believe it does. Not even a just a little bit. No, not even just a teeny tiny bit. No not at all. It’s all vulnerability. Everything you have put forth as evidence for attractiveness as a factor can be explained by vulnerability. And this doesn’t defy common sense. If a rapist is is a bedroom with a passed out women, he’s not going to take pass on raping her because he thinks her thighs are chunky. THAT’S what defies common sense.
To build on Amara’s excellent list, I want to point something out: being vague doesn’t mean you are blaming the victim less, but rather more. Vague “women should use their best judgment, and take reasonable precautions about how they dress and where they go alone” leave literally the whole range of human behavior as potentially unwise, and creates a culture where if anything happened to you, it means you had bad judgment.
Maybe I’m missing what you’re saying here, but if a woman asks me “hey, how should I act to minimize my risk of rape” and I say “I have no idea, I don’t feel qualified to comment on that, exercise your best judgment”, then that’s somehow preemptive victim blaming, because if something bad happens to her, well, clearly she exercised poor judgement? That seems to be a bit damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t.
(That said, if someone in this thread asks me “put up or shut up, what advice would you actually give to a woman to reduce her risk of rape” and my response is “I have no idea, here are some vague comments and mumblings”, that doesn’t mean that if an actual woman out in the real world actually asked me for advice, for some reason, I wouldn’t come up with at least something like “let’s look for a good up-to-date website with some discussions of that question, hopefully not ones written by men forty years ago”. I currently have a ten-month-old daughter, so I’ll presumably have to address this at some point in the future, although my intention is certainly to let my wife take the lead… but until then, it’s extremely unlikely to actually come up.)
I agree with all of this as well. Especially when attractiveness includes behavior.
Further, it allows most men to focus on stranger rape which is the rarest type of rape. That’s how Kearsen can post about how he is telling his son that date rape isn’t really rape and still pat himself on the back that he’s doing the right thing. It puts all of the focus on the actions of the victim and not the rapist.
That does sound like women are irrational and ignorant doesn’t it? It’s a great strawman and please do let us know if that ever happens to you. Oddly though, that’s not what you said over multiple posts and pages. Nobody asked you that question and your thread responses have been a whole lot more than “I don’t feel qualified to comment”.You’ve repeatedly and consistently volunteered advice that women’s dress affects their chance of being raped.
As an aside, this whole shtick where you change the question to one that you prefer to answer may be more comfortable for you but it comes across as disingenuous.
Then why are you in here? Is it normal for you to jump into discussions where you don’t know current advice or facts and then continually refuse to address them or update your thinking? Why haven’t you done any research before continuing to spout ideas that are actively harmful to women and then refusing to acknowledge or address anything more current?
Edit: I’m probably out for the rest of this thread - too many work/family commitments at this time of year.
In what fantasy would a woman ever be asking you that? This strikes me as likely as a random man asking me what he could do to minimize his risk of getting mugged. Which is never.
I’ve never asked my father or mother what I could do to protect myself, because they are not experts in this area. If your daughter is like most women, she’s not going to ask you or your wife this either. If you want to protect your daughter, raise her to be confident and assertive and strong. Just as you would a son.
Despite the growing body of evidence showing that there isn’t that much light between stranger rape and date rape, and that they are frequently committed by the same people. Who frequently have histories involving both property crimes and other violent crimes. It’s opportunity. Some times the rapist will create opportunities by luring a woman he knows to a private location on the pretext of a date, and sometimes he see a woman he doesn’t know, in a vulnerable situation, and attack her.
And here’s the thing about your car theft analogies and why they fail. If a joyriding car thief steals Porsche instead of the Toyota, he’s gets to drive a Porsche for a little while. In all it’s full glory. That car performs pretty much the same no matter whose behind the wheel. The Porsche doesn’t care whose driving it.
Whereas the experience of raping a beautiful woman is absolutely positively NOTHING like the the experience of making love to a beautiful woman. Because the victim is probably going to be passed out cold, unresponsive and drooling or else she’ll be kicking and screaming and crying - in which case her looks cease to matter. Do you think Brock Turner assessed his victim’s attractiveness before he attacked her? Do you think he would’ve stopped if she had pimples or bad hair?
Yeah, to any man who gets tempted AGAIN to try to equate rape to whatever property crime suits his fancy, try this–substitute “torturing a small child with pliers and red hot metal and knives for several hours” instead of whatever bloodless, essentially harmless crime you’re imagining. Imagine the blood and the screaming and the smells as the child shits herself, imagine him crying for his mother to come save him. There you go, that’s a whole lot closer to the reality of what a rapist does to his victim. Then see if you can put yourself into those shoes and imagine the situation that would lead to you doing that to a child. Women aren’t cars, or bags of money, or any other type of property and if you can’t see why it’s a huge problem that simply huge swathes of men are able to dissassociate and dehumanize women to the point where they think it’s a fair comparison to equate car theft to rape then, well, see a fucking therapist.
Actually I’m saying pretty much exactly the opposite. My point all along is that most guys aren’t capable of rape and that ALL rapes are committed by a relatively small number of men. Most of these men are or will become repeat offenders. Most of these men commit other property crimes and/or other violent crimes.
My point has been that when you guys try to put yourselves inside the head of a rapist, you can’t. Take it as a compliment. My point has been that no matter how hot I am and no matter how unsafely I behave, no matter how many times I slip away with a strange guy at a bar or party and make out with him and grope him and decide, enough already, I don’t want to do anything more - I’m safe unless the guy is a rapist. And, in my youth, I tested that theory more times than I’d like to admit.
The societal gaslighting that makes people think that rape is something other than a opportunistic and/or violent crime committed by a criminal is what I’m complaining about.
I’m not saying Max and Max And Fillmore are rapists. I’m saying they aren’t and never could be. They might THINK they could be, because they understand sexual frustration and temptation and opportunity. Maybe they’ve even fantasized about rape and domination. But if they are ever placed in that confluence of frustration and temptation and opportunity, they wouldn’t rape anyone. Because they aren’t rapists or even violent criminals.
It’s like the one time a client sent me 50K in error, and due to the particulars of the situation, I realized I could keep it without getting caught. In my imagination, I might have thought there were circumstances where I might have kept it. In reality, when it happened, I didn’t even consider it. I surprised myself by how quickly I picked up the phone. Fantasy and reality or two different things,
I think you’re right that most men aren’t capable or rape no matter the circumstances or their age. Earlier when I discussed a hypothetical where I might consider doing something, that something was far from rape. I think it would be more along the lines of taking advantage of the increased compliance and reduced resistance that inebriation brings, along with less concern about explicit consent. In situations where consent might be foggy, I could see myself assuming positive consent and proceeding rather than negative consent and taking things slower. But I can’t fathom doing something violent or proceeding even though she is explicitly telling me no.
One real example I thought of that ties a lot of this conversation together is women jogging on trails. That is a situation which combines many of the characteristics which are commonly thought of as being higher risk for rape, such as revealing clothing, being alone, wearing headphones, and being in isolated areas. If those factors really made a significant difference, then the jogging trails should have very high incidents of sexual assault and rape. However, that really isn’t the case. Certainly there are those kinds of incidents, but they are relatively rare, and are much more likely to be sexual harassment/assault rather than rape. If we consider the total number of women who run on those trails, the probability of being attacked at all is minuscule. So if a situation where all these risk factors together make hardly any difference, it’s likely not worth making any sort of major lifestyle change. It would seem that just being appropriately aware for the situation is sufficient. I bet that guy who said women were at great risk walking out of the gym has egg on his face now
I think Manda and others were saying we need to consider what the emotional consequences are for always telling women they are going to get raped. If every time a woman went jogging in a sports bra she was told she might get raped, it’s going to have a negative effect on her mental well-being and self-confidence. If the actual risk is negligible, then the negative effects of the message is likely going to greatly outweigh any real-world consequence she may face.
I sincerely appreciate all the participation. This is a difficult topic to discuss even in the best circumstances. I certainly felt the emotional weight at times, and I’m sure it’s even harder for people when it hits closer to home. It’s a rough topic to tackle, but it really helped me see the pieces and how they fit together.
Great summation. When assessing the value of so-called common sense advice, we have to look at costs and benefits. For too long, the benefits have been overestimated while the costs have been completely ignored.
