Woman blogs about sexual assault at tech conference

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@even_sven

He can call me a bitch, go punch a wall, post on Facebook that I’m a tease, or do any number of legal things to show is frustration. But he can’t assault me.

“he can’t”? Why not?

Are you surrounded by an invisible force field?

Did you immobilize him with your Spidey webs?

Are you an ethereal projection of an extra-dimensional being?

You’ve done one of two things here: you’ve chosen your words poorly, or you’ve failed to accept reality.

Of course he can assault you. He’s right there in, inside your apartment, unrestrained.

I suspect what you meant is “he shouldn’t” or “he isn’t legally permitted to do so”, both of which are true, but neither of which will stop an assault.

So, if you conduct yourself as tho some part of reality prevents him from assaulting you, when the assault begins you will likely be ill-prepared to deal with it, and will prolly suffer pain and grief.

If you conduct yourself as tho he might assault you, accepting that in reality there is no real external restraint on his actions, maybe you are ready and kick him in the nuts before he can do you serious harm, call the cops, wake the neighbors, etc. There’s no guarantee you’ll come out unscathed, or even win the battle, but at least you’ll be ready and capable of making him pay for his actions. Like I said, most predatory types don’t really like a confrontation; they just like the feeling of power they get with an easy win. Don’t be an easy win.

Interested and perceptive readers will note: what you did there, in laying out the reasoning for your hypothetical response, is exactly what I think may have possibly happened to the blogger in the OP: a failure to accept the reality of her surroundings and/or a poor choice of words at a critical time.

Life is not an easy, happy-go-lucky romp in the park. Well, okay, it sort of is, but there’s always a pack of deranged, hungry jackals chasing you and nipping at your heels, so to speak.

Prepare for the worst; hope the best. If things go wrong, end it now; sort it out later.

[Rachellelogram]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Ok, let’s look at this.

Let’s say you do this: have a few drinks, flirt, maybe make out in the hallway, then go to your place.

You make out during the cab ride, tease him with some boob flash in the elevator, but then, once the door closes to your apartment, you suddenly get cold feet and tell him “I don’t want to do this”.

Will you be surprised if he gets very angry?

Surprised if he gets angry? Perhaps, I suppose it depends on the situation. Anger is not an excuse for sexual assault, I don’t care who the perpetrator is.

Flight of the Conchords has a really great song called “A Kiss is Not a Contract.” Everyone’s body belongs to themselves and they have the right to end sex IN THE MIDDLE OF THINGS if they want to.

Additionally, victim-blaming ensues when you hold a victim in any way responsible for her rapist’s actions (mitigating his responsibility by fabricating excuses = making it hers). Whether it’s 1% or 100%, it’s victim-blaming. You seem to be getting your shorts in a wad because you’re being accused, and rightly so, of victim-blaming, because you aren’t blaming the victim for 100% of the assault. In my non-professional opinion, you’re hovering around 10-20%.

Did you even read the sources I linked?

[Lynn_Bodoni]

The problem with “risk assessment” is that from what women can tell, they’re much more likely to be assaulted or raped by a man than by a woman. And that’s about it. It doesn’t matter if the man is a librarian, or a construction worker, or some random guy on the sidewalk. And it doesn’t really matter what she’s wearing, or what she’s doing, or where she is. She can be walking home from school in baggy sweatpants. She can be dressed in a professional suit at a business conference. The only thing that really makes her a target is the fact that she’s female. And do you men really want the women around you to dress in burqas?

If a woman (or girl) IS harassed or groped or assaulted, and she screams, the assailant is likely to escalate the assault, if he can. And if she screams in a crowded area, a lot of men are going to assume that she somehow provoked her assailant.

From what I can tell, the ONLY real solution would be to give every female a taser upon puberty. And that’s not going to happen. Let’s face it, there are some crazy females who’d love to have an excuse to tase the shit out of people. But most women are not physically able to inflict as much damage on an aggressive male as the male would inflict on them.

Or maybe, just maybe, men could stop making excuses for the few predators, and maybe, just maybe, they could accept the fact that if THIS MANY WOMEN all had the same experiences, that there is a small but significant number of male predators who need to be stopped. Because right now, the predators aren’t getting convicted, if they’re even arrested in the first place.

[bengangmo]

@Lynn_Bodoni

The problem with “risk assessment” is that from what women can tell, they’re much more likely to be assaulted or raped by a man than by a woman. And that’s about it. It doesn’t matter if the man is a librarian, or a construction worker, or some random guy on the sidewalk. And it doesn’t really matter what she’s wearing, or what she’s doing, or where she is. She can be walking home from school in baggy sweatpants. She can be dressed in a professional suit at a business conference. The only thing that really makes her a target is the fact that she’s female. And do you men really want the women around you to dress in burqas?

If a woman (or girl) IS harassed or groped or assaulted, and she screams, the assailant is likely to escalate the assault, if he can. And if she screams in a crowded area, a lot of men are going to assume that she somehow provoked her assailant.

From what I can tell, the ONLY real solution would be to give every female a taser upon puberty. And that’s not going to happen. Let’s face it, there are some crazy females who’d love to have an excuse to tase the shit out of people. But most women are not physically able to inflict as much damage on an aggressive male as the male would inflict on them.

Or maybe, just maybe, men could stop making excuses for the few predators, and maybe, just maybe, they could accept the fact that if THIS MANY WOMEN all had the same experiences, that there is a small but significant number of male predators who need to be stopped. Because right now, the predators aren’t getting convicted, if they’re even arrested in the first place.

Sorry** Lynn**, I need to call cite on that one.

A woman is just as likely to get raped at a book circle as she is at a drunken party where there are 17 frat boys to every girl and a stripper has just performed?

It doesn’t help to characterise the whole damn world as a rape waiting to happen and every human with a cock as a potential rapist.

I am not all woo woo and “you get what you expect in life”,

but really, if you seriously believe that there is a rapist behind every tree, and a sexual molester round every corner, at what point does that start colouring the perceptions of truely innocent contact into “somebody trying their luck” and then making the guy that makes a marginal and slightly offensive physical swipe into “the dangerous predator that I was lucky to get away from”?

Then it builds into the whole environment where a guy says, hold on take a step back - it can’t be that bad and is screamed down by “you don’t understand, every guy we come across is a danger to us - just look at my experiences (as reported through the veil of my own perceptions and prejudices) and you will understand”.

[Fionn]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Yeah but I haven’t done those things, and I’m still getting called a rape worshipper.

All I’ve done is call into question her account of the event, because she herself wrote that she “may not have been clear”.

Everything after that has been answering hypotheticals, and at no time have I written anything that could be construed as “she was asking for it”. Yet the “rape worshipper” label got applied anyway.

Let me try to break this down:

Rape is a very, very bad thing. You’re going to find very few people who dispute this.

However, you will find many, many people who simultaneously believe that rape is very bad, and yet hold attitudes that enable rape to be swept under the rug. Coincidentally, that’s where rapists want it. That way, they’re able to tell themselves they didn’t do anything wrong and not deal with any of that pesky jail time, job loss, or beatdowns from the victim’s friends or family.

As I said, you’re not going to find many people who will explicitly say “She was wearing a short skirt so it was fine that he dragged her in a back room and raped her.” What you will find, just in this thread:

Did this really happen?

We need to get his side of the story

She was flirting with other people

She was married

She shouldn’t have been drinking

OMG, she was in a hotel room with men

And back to, rape is bad but I don’t believe things happened the way she said

These attitudes enable rapists. They learn excuses for what they’ve done, and they can count on the majority of victims to keep quiet. There is no reason that people couldn’t have spent this entire thread talking about the man’s actions, but that just doesn’t happen.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

A woman is just as likely to get raped at a book circle as she is at a drunken party where there are 17 frat boys to every girl and a stripper has just performed?

Not as likely, but it’s not totally unlikely, either. Rape/sexual assault happens everywhere, even in church. And there’s no way of telling if a man is likely to rape just by looking at him, or just by knowing what he does for a living. Those frat boys might be horrified at the thought of having sex with an unwilling woman, even as they appreciate the stripper’s charms and skills. However, that priest might have been having sex with the kids in the Youth Ministry for decades, and not been called on it.

However, you will find many, many people who simultaneously believe that rape is very bad, and yet hold attitudes that enable rape to be swept under the rug. Coincidentally, that’s where rapists want it. That way, they’re able to tell themselves they didn’t do anything wrong and not deal with any of that pesky jail time, job loss, or beatdowns from the victim’s friends or family.

QFT. Until those who rape or commit sexual assault get called on it, every damned time, they’ll keep on doing it. Maybe they get shoved away, but they stick their hands down their target’s pants anyway. And maybe they get lucky. Either way, they don’t have a downside, and they might get rewarded for their behavior. They need to get punished, not rewarded, for their behavior.

Now, if she’s making all this shit up, then yeah, SHE needs to be punished. There have been some memorable instances of someone falsely accusing someone else of rape. But the REASON that they’re memorable is because they are rare.

[you_with_the_face]

@Snowboarder_Bo

No, I doubt you’ll ever understand anything I meant, judging by that post. I also doubt you’ll ever take any real responsibility for yourself or your situation. It’ll always be someone else’s fault, to you.

I’m going to be real simple for you right now.

You patronizingly lecture me on how to appraise risk appropriately, as if you are some expert in this area, as if me and other posters in this thread weren’t taught how to do this minute we were first allowed to go outside by ourselves.

But ironically, in this same lecture, you admonish me–a woman with arms the width of toothpicks–for not trying to beat up a strange man on a train who has already shown himself to be morally/mentally suspect and who could easily pound her face into hamburger meat if he wanted to. Because I failed to do this, you tsk-tsk me for not “taking control of the situation”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in a physical contest between me and an average man, I will lose 99.9% of the time. This is a risk assessment so basic a congenitally retarded kindergartner could do it, and yet it seems to elude you in your haste to fault me somehow.

Let me ask you this, Bo. You are skeptical about this blogger’s story, as is your perrogative. You invite all of us to be skeptical, because for some reason you think that’s the preferred default. Given that, would you come to the assistance of a woman on a train who was physically attacking the man she claimed had just groped her? Keep in mind all you would have is her word against his; you didn’t see the groping occur. If you’re skeptical in this thread, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be skeptical in this real world scenario. I don’t believe you’d help her, based on what you’ve said here. Which renders everything you’ve said here about what women should do as meaningless BS.

If a woman screams that she’s being sexually assualted, either online or on a train, it’s quite likely that she’ll be dismissed or disbelieved. Your posts in this thread only confirm that.

[Broomstick]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Then you need to pay more attention. I can identify people pretty quickly, with a fair degree of accuracy, without more than a few seconds look at them. At the very least, knowing who might be dangerous to you is a basic survival trait, and if you don’t have it, you may not survive. Predatory types carry themselves differently, look at others differently, speak differently, etc. Most of them aren’t that difficult to identify.

Bullshit.

Do you get your information from TV and movies? Most of the bad guys look just like everyone else until they see an opportunity to make a move. Some of the worst offenders work hard at looking harmless. For the extreme, Ted Bundy used to feign injury in order to look harmless, which is how he lured at least 35 women to their death. Of course, most assholes jamming their hands into women’s panties at a drunken party aren’t killers, but they don’t have fangs and glowing red eyes, either. It’s because they aren’t “predatory”, they’re just clueless, selfish, and inconsiderate of other peoples’ feelings.

It’s like the way con artists are so glib and appear so trustworthy - if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be successful con artists.

Really, sexual assault isn’t comparable to mugging - it’s comparable to someone being taken in by a con. You know - the victim MUST have done something wrong, or must be stupid, because everyone else is too smart to be taken in… except for all the other victims, who must have done something wrong, or must be stupid. In any case, the person blaming the victim is FAR too intelligent to fall for a con, no matter how well engineered. Or like identify theft - it couldn’t possibly be that someone hacked a database somewhere and gathered confidential information, the victim MUST have given out social number and date of birth and a dozen other identifiers and thus they somehow deserve to be taken in, robbed, their identity dragged through the mud.

[Broomstick]

@bengangmo

Am I being sensitive or are you calling me a sexual predator in waiting?

I think what you and Snoboarder Bo don’t get is that the guys groping at parties aren’t the sexual predators. They’re pretty normal, average guys who either have less than average self control, or never quite learned… what was the term?.. sexual boundaries.

Look, I get it - men want sex. They think about sex, want sex, pursue sex the majority of the time. That’s totally OK. It’s totally OK for them to look at women, desire women, talk to women, and attempt to woo them. It is not OK for them to TAKE from a woman against her will. I think we all agree on that, it’s the details tripping us up.

MOST men in the US also get it - they know how to keep their hands to themselves unless clearly invited to do otherwise, they know what “no” means, they navigate the hazards of socializing. Sure, sometimes they get frustrated, angry, and so on… but they restrain any impulses to act in improper ways.

But if a guy misconstrues a woman’s actions, or has a small lapse, that does NOT make him a “sexual predator”. A single inappropriate kiss should not land a man on a sexual offender list. Or, back to the OP - jamming his hands down her panties makes him an asshole, but I question if it makes him a criminal - if he had continued to jam his hands under her clothes, or didn’t let her go, or continued to force his attentions on her THAT would be a much more serious matter.

So let’s get past the either/or binary thing of men either being “good guys” who never ever ever touch a woman without written consent on her part or he’s a slavering rapist/predator, because that’s not the real world. In the real world, otherwise decent men occasionally make mistakes - often after consuming alcohol.

If it was ME - what I’d really want from the guy is a sincere apology and a promise on his part to think twice next time before going panty-diving. I’d want that much more than I’d want to haul him into court and charge him with a crime, because a sincere apology means he’s actually considered his actions and realized he was being an asshole. Accusing him of a crime just makes him defensive, which means he’ll be seeking to justify his actions instead of realizing he didn’t do the right thing that night.

[bengangmo]

@Fionn

Let me try to break this down:

Did this really happen?

IF someone was alleging a crime with no physical evidence, wouldn’t we ask the same thing?

If I came and said that Lynn had threatened me with a shotgun last night wouldn’t you want to know - hey, did it really happen? Does Lynn even own a shotgun?

@Fionn

We need to get his side of the story

Well we should, shouldn’t we? If I said that Bo had physically assaulted me, wouldn’t you want his side of the story?

@Fionn

She was flirting with other people

She was married

Not exactly relevant, and not something that matters when it comes to sexual assault. But let me ask you this.

If I came here and said “Bo assaulted me”
And then it turned out that I had challenged 11 other people to fisticuffs earlier in the night, would it make a difference or put his actions in a different light?

No it wouldn’t make his actions any more legal, nor excuse them. But it would give us a better understanding of what happened and why. A search for why does not diminish the crime.

@Fionn

She shouldn’t have been drinking

This one is a bit more delicate.

The fact that she was drinking cannot do anything but make her a less reliable witness.

It makes her perceptions and recollections less accurate.

So it does not change the legality of what was done, but it might change how much reliance we place onto her account of it.

@Fionn

OMG, she was in a hotel room with men

Yeah, not exactly relevant.
Yes, “Rape is a very very bad thing” but that does not mean that we should examine an allegation of sexual assault any less rigoursly or with any less skepticism than we would any other crime of violence.

[bengangmo]

@Broomstick

I think what you and Snoboarder Bo don’t get is that the guys groping at parties aren’t the sexual predators. They’re pretty normal, average guys who either have less than average self control, or never quite learned… what was the term?.. sexual boundaries.

Look, I get it - men want sex. They think about sex, want sex, pursue sex the majority of the time. That’s totally OK. It’s totally OK for them to look at women, desire women, talk to women, and attempt to woo them. It is not OK for them to TAKE from a woman against her will. I think we all agree on that, it’s the details tripping us up.

MOST men in the US also get it - they know how to keep their hands to themselves unless clearly invited to do otherwise, they know what “no” means, they navigate the hazards of socializing. Sure, sometimes they get frustrated, angry, and so on… but they restrain any impulses to act in improper ways.

But if a guy misconstrues a woman’s actions, or has a small lapse, that does NOT make him a “sexual predator”. A single inappropriate kiss should not land a man on a sexual offender list. Or, back to the OP - jamming his hands down her panties makes him an asshole, but I question if it makes him a criminal - if he had continued to jam his hands under her clothes, or didn’t let her go, or continued to force his attentions on her THAT would be a much more serious matter.

So let’s get past the either/or binary thing of men either being “good guys” who never ever ever touch a woman without written consent on her part or he’s a slavering rapist/predator, because that’s not the real world. In the real world, otherwise decent men occasionally make mistakes - often after consuming alcohol.

If it was ME - what I’d really want from the guy is a sincere apology and a promise on his part to think twice next time before going panty-diving. I’d want that much more than I’d want to haul him into court and charge him with a crime, because a sincere apology means he’s actually considered his actions and realized he was being an asshole. Accusing him of a crime just makes him defensive, which means he’ll be seeking to justify his actions instead of realizing he didn’t do the right thing that night.

Thank you.

I think you’ve just captured what I have spent the last two days floundering around trying to say

[Martiju]

@Broomstick

But if a guy misconstrues a woman’s actions, or has a small lapse, that does NOT make him a “sexual predator”. A single inappropriate kiss should not land a man on a sexual offender list. Or, back to the OP - jamming his hands down her panties makes him an asshole, but I question if it makes him a criminal - if he had continued to jam his hands under her clothes, or didn’t let her go, or continued to force his attentions on her THAT would be a much more serious matter.

So let’s get past the either/or binary thing of men either being “good guys” who never ever ever touch a woman without written consent on her part or he’s a slavering rapist/predator, because that’s not the real world. In the real world, otherwise decent men occasionally make mistakes - often after consuming alcohol.

If it was ME - what I’d really want from the guy is a sincere apology and a promise on his part to think twice next time before going panty-diving. I’d want that much more than I’d want to haul him into court and charge him with a crime, because a sincere apology means he’s actually considered his actions and realized he was being an asshole. Accusing him of a crime just makes him defensive, which means he’ll be seeking to justify his actions instead of realizing he didn’t do the right thing that night.

A typically sensible post from Broomstick, in comparison to the broader than broad brushes others are using in this thread. Surely the whole point of the OP rests on this: is blogging about an incident, using someone’s name in a venue that is, by definition, spreading the word worldwide, really the right way to go about the apology, repentance, etc.?!

Perhaps the reason so many in this thread have got so up in arms is because that guy could have been us or someone we knew well, who misconstrued some ‘signs’ and rather than just being humiliated on that realisation only realised that they’d misconstrued after the sexual action began? And that’s not to excuse any action, but to highlight that it just might not be as cut and dried as some are making out - and public humiliation through the web certainly isn’t the way to make the situation clearer or to seek resolution for anyone.

As **Broomstick **says, sometimes decent men (and women!) make mistakes, and whilst few of us would condone the alleged action, does anyone really think that this approach is going to change the world?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@you_with_the_face

Let me ask you this, Bo. You are skeptical about this blogger’s story, as is your perrogative. You invite all of us to be skeptical, because for some reason you think that’s the preferred default. Given that, would you come to the assistance of a woman on a train who was physically attacking the man she claimed had just groped her? Keep in mind all you would have is her word against his; you didn’t see the groping occur. If you’re skeptical in this thread, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be skeptical in this real world scenario. I don’t believe you’d help her, based on what you’ve said here. Which renders everything you’ve said here about what women should do as meaningless BS.

If a woman screams that she’s being sexually assualted, either online or on a train, it’s quite likely that she’ll be dismissed or disbelieved. Your posts in this thread only confirm that.

Apparently you can’t read or you don’t understand what you’ve read very well.

No, I wouldn’t come to her aid. What I would do is actively seek to end the bad situation. As I said earlier, when I see a fight break out, I move as quickly as I can to clobber the first person I can get to. If that was the lady in your scenario, then I’d move to end her involvement. If it was the guy, I’d move to end his involvement. Once the bad situation is over, we can sort out what begat the bad situation and proceed from there.

The rest of your post is whining. You whine because I make suggestions that, if acted upon, would remove you from the status of “victim”. You seem to like that status, as it absolves you of blame, guilt and responsibility for what happens to you. Good luck with that world view.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Fionn

Let me try to break this down:

Rape is a very, very bad thing. You’re going to find very few people who dispute this.

However, you will find many, many people who simultaneously believe that rape is very bad, and yet hold attitudes that enable rape to be swept under the rug. Coincidentally, that’s where rapists want it. That way, they’re able to tell themselves they didn’t do anything wrong and not deal with any of that pesky jail time, job loss, or beatdowns from the victim’s friends or family.

As I said, you’re not going to find many people who will explicitly say “She was wearing a short skirt so it was fine that he dragged her in a back room and raped her.” What you will find, just in this thread:

Did this really happen?

We need to get his side of the story

She was flirting with other people

She was married

She shouldn’t have been drinking

OMG, she was in a hotel room with men

And back to, rape is bad but I don’t believe things happened the way she said

These attitudes enable rapists. They learn excuses for what they’ve done, and they can count on the majority of victims to keep quiet. There is no reason that people couldn’t have spent this entire thread talking about the man’s actions, but that just doesn’t happen.

Gotcha. In your view, any attempt to hear anything other than the unsupported word of the woman is enabling rapists. :rolleyes:

[bengangmo]

A common sense approach from you also Martiju.

For me also, its not only about the humiliation. I am also absolutely terrified of being labelled as a sexual offender. I would be horrified if a woman thought of me the way that the blogger thinks of this guy and would be offering an unreserved, whole hearted apology if something I had done had caused such a reaction.*
There is one thing about allegations of sexual assualt. They have a habit of hanging around. They can be extremely damaging to the accused beyond all proportion to the original offense if hysteria takes hold.

If I go into a job interview and say “yes I was accused of sexual assault, and found innocent” I very much suspect that I am going to be treated differently to “after an auto accident where someone died I was accused of criminal negligence, but I was found innocent” . In one case there will be a group of people all to willing to believe “where there’s smoke there’s fire” while for the other case, people will have sympathy at the ready.

• disclaimer here, I have never shoved my hands down any woman’s pants, nor groped any woman.

[even_sven]

And now we are back to “Oh, the poor guy just misconstrued what she meant! He must have just been confused, is all.”

And somehow kept misconstruing it through being told to fuck off and shoved away.

Shoving your hands down someone’s pants after being told they are not interested and shoved away is not a “mistake.” A mistake is something you did not intend to do. The man’s actions show some pretty obvious intentionality. This is not a situation of a socially clueless guy misreading mixed signals. This is a situation of a guy who was probably angry that he was rebuffed and figured he’d just take what he was denied.

Now, I happen to agree an sincere apology is probably what actually is warranted here. I don’t think this guy is a huge sex predator, but he does have a pretty big lesson he needs to learn. Too bad he happened to pick the wrong girl to pull this on, and she decided to make that lesson a bit more public.

But it amazes how hard, how desperately, people are searching for some way- any way at all- to say he is somehow not responsible. Next we’ll have people coming up with the Twinkie defense. There has to be some way this guy is completely innocent!

[furt]

@Fionn

Did this really happen?

We need to get his side of the story

And back to, rape is bad but I don’t believe things happened the way she said

These attitudes enable rapists. They learn excuses for what they’ve done, and they can count on the majority of victims to keep quiet. There is no reason that people couldn’t have spent this entire thread talking about the man’s actions, but that just doesn’t happen.

In other words – throw out due process, throw out a dispassionate search for the truth, throw out presumed innocence. Believe whatever is said by anyone with a vagina about anyone with a penis.
You are a bigot.

[Redpill]

even sven, what you are proposing is a total trust in rape victim’s account of what happened (mostly fast forwarded towards the end). The problem arises when the word gets out that all you have to do is cry and point and the guy will be in trouble, and thereafter some crafty women start to game the system as a means to an end.

As long as some women continue to make false rape allegations, there will continue to be reasonable doubt.

[lexi]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Gotcha. In your view, any attempt to hear anything other than the unsupported word of the woman is enabling rapists. :rolleyes:

No - saying that if it did happen that a women’s dress, actions towards others or that she didn’t fight or yell in the way that you think is correct in any way mitigates the man’s actions is enabling rapists.

[lexi]

@furt

In other words – throw out due process, throw out a dispassionate search for the truth, throw out presumed innocence. Believe whatever is said by anyone with a vagina about anyone with a penis.
You are a bigot.

Enough of the posts have framed this as “if” he is guilty - not saying that he is guilty without due process - and enough of the responses have been still criticizing the woman’s actions, and dress and saying that those things affect whether or not the man is guilty.

I’ll repeat it for all you people who are going in circles here. If he shoved his hand down her pants, and she said no - it doesn’t matter if she was drunk, sitting on men’s laps and wearing a short skirt - regardless of those things - IF it happened as she said - that is a sexual assault & her dress & actions are NO excuse for his.