Is rape always rape? Are men always to blame?

B0jangles

SB2013 wrote: »

If you have a daughter will you tell her about the dangers out there and try to protect her? Damn right you will. Does that mean you will blame her if she happens to get attacked?

If you have a son will you talk to him about the importance of seeking consent and how having sex with a drunk/unconscious person is rape?

Will you talk to him about how he should never drink to excess in case he mistakes a quiet no for a loud YES and unintentionally rapes someone?

Will you tell your hypothetical daughter that if she wants to avoid the much commoner circumstance in which rape occurs (perpetrated by a person the victim knows his/her own home), realistically she should be sure to stay in mixed groups of three or more people at all times?

SB2013

B0jangles wrote: »

If you have a son will you talk to him about the importance of seeking consent and how having sex with a drunk/unconscious person is rape?

Will you talk to him about how he should never drink to excess in case he mistakes a quiet no for a loud YES and unintentionally rapes someone?

Yes.

B0jangles wrote: »

Will you tell your hypothetical daughter that if she wants to avoid the much commoner circumstance in which rape occurs (perpetrated by a person the victim knows his/her own home), realistically she should be sure to stay in mixed groups of three or more people at all times?

I'll teach her how to be aware of when she's in a dangerous situation in general.

Awesomeness

leggo wrote: »

I'm absolutely not saying that all men should be treated as potential rapists. I also didn't say that she slept alone in the room with him, she just slept in a room with him there.

In the example mentioned, they're going to bed with men. They're putting themselves in a vulnerable position around people they don't know that well.

It's like leaving your door open at night-time. No, it doesn't mean you deserve to have your stuff stolen. But you're simply making a poor judgement call that criminal-minded people could potentially prey upon.

Again, what is wrong with being cautious? Somebody answer me that.

But all men are potential rapists going by this thinking. You do know that a lot of rapes/sexual assaults are carried out by people the victims know.

You cant take precautions against this other than to never be around men in general. We need tougher sentences against the scum who do carry out this type of attack

bacon n eggs

I have two boys and one girl.. I talk to them. they know the difference between right and wrong. I have told them no means no. I have told them not to leave drinks unattended when out. I have told them never to walk alone at night anywhere. Things can happen, and yes I tell them to be cautious, to think about what they are doing the potential dangers what might happen to them and to others. Since they were babies and not letting them near the fire, they could have gotten burned but didn't. But they still had to know it could have happened to them. Same with rape. It could happen to them, however be wise and try avoid situations you might get into.

Amirani

Frito wrote: »

Really.

The likelihood of me not walking down a certain street is not because I want to avoid being raped. It's unlikely to happen. So it's no use me to avoid a certain activity for a relatively small risk.
If by general safety you mean getting mugged, then yes, that is much more likely to happen to me and I would probably modify my behaviour accordingly.

Exactly, these "precautions" that people should be taking aren't just concerned with avoiding being raped. They're in order to lessen your chance of being subjected to any crime, such as getting mugged. Obviously, the majority of rapes are committed by people whom the victim would've trusted previously and there's limited scope to make preparations to avoid this. When you can take precautions though, to avoid any crime then you probably should. I certainly do.

tritium

B0jangles wrote: »

Will you talk to him about how he should never drink to excess in case he mistakes a quiet no for a loud YES and unintentionally rapes someone?

Drinking to excess is a significant issue for both genders in this debate. I think we're slowly moving away from a place where a woman who drinks is always a victim of unplanned sex and the man who drinks is always the rapist. In reality a hell of a lot of hook ups happen when both parties are too wasted to give an informed consent. I've seen precious few cases where you could argue that the male was clearly much more sober and taking advantage-probably about the same amount as I've sent more sober women hit on hammered guys. Theres an attitude to drink and socialising we need to change, and not just for men

Yellow Lobster

B0jangles wrote: »

If you have a son will you talk to him about the importance of seeking consent and how having sex with a drunk/unconscious person is rape?

Will you talk to him about how he should never drink to excess in case he mistakes a quiet no for a loud YES and unintentionally rapes someone?

Will you tell your hypothetical daughter that if she wants to avoid the much commoner circumstance in which rape occurs (perpetrated by a person the victim knows his/her own home), realistically she should be sure to stay in mixed groups of three or more people at all times?

If I felt any of my offspring were dumb enough to put themselves in stupidly risky situations I'd give advice helping them to avoid such risky situations.

B0jangles

But as has been pointed out over and over and over and over and over again in this thread MOST RAPISTS ARE KNOWN TO THEIR VICTIM AND THE RAPE HAPPENS IN AN APPARENTLY SAFE PLACE.

Endlessly bringing up unlocked car analogies and the dangers of walking down dark alleys does nothing whatsoever to address this reality. It just serves to twist the conversation around to what potential rape victims should be doing to avoid being raped.

And to produce another, possibly laboured analogy, men lecturing adult women on how to avoid being raped with advice like "don't be in a dark alley late at night, don't drink too much etc." is like someone who's just read "Philosophy for Dummies" explaining Wittgenstein to a roomful of philosophy professors.


I'm not suggesting that men are stupid or anything, just that the average woman has pretty much continuously been getting advice on how to not get raped since she was about 14 years old - it's a thing that we are encouraged to think about a lot, believe me. I think it's a thing we think about a lot more than the average man does.

bacon n eggs

Just because most rape victims know their rapists does not mean you should not warn against the dangers of those they don't.

B0jangles

bacon n eggs wrote: »

Just because most rape victims know their rapists does not mean you should not warn against the dangers of those they don't.

Endlessly focussing on the more unlikely scenarios has the effect on making people who have been raped in the commoner situations feel unsure if they have even "really" been raped or more fearful about reporting what happend to them for fear of not being believed or being dismissed as simply regretting sleeping with someone after the fact.

Jelly2

starling wrote: »

There's a girl in America who was featured in the news a bit because she named her rapist publicly. She was raped at college and she has a taped confession from the guy. He also confessed in front of witnesses - mediators from the college - on another occasion. IIRC his exact words were "I was horny, I wanted to f*ck, so I f*cked."

The thing is that he was her boyfriend at the time. They'd been going out a few weeks and they got on really well. She trusted him. They "fooled around" as the yanks say, but they talked about sex, and she said that she wanted to wait. Not for marriage, just wanted to know him better, before they did it. He said he understood and was fine with it.

He got really drunk one night and he was so pissed she felt she should get him into a taxi and take him home before he hurt himself or got into some kind of trouble. They went to her dorm because she thought he was in for a massive hangover and maybe if she fed him and got some aspirin into him he might avoid the worst of it.

He ate some soup I think, had an aspirin and then they went to bed and he raped her.

I was in a similar position with a boyfriend I had in college. I'd stay over at his place on the weekend, and we'd mess around but I told him I needed time before we actually had sex (I was only 17). He told me that he understood and he was fine with that. We both got drunk regularly.

The only difference between me and this American girl is that my boyfriend wasn't a rapist. That's it.

The reason I'm telling this story is that on every website that featured her story, the comments were full of people saying "she shouldn't have gone to bed with him WTF did she expect" and even "she shouldn't have let him in to her dorm room alone that's just common sense."

That is what happens when we focus on "precautions". People end up telling the victim she is responsible for what happened to her because she was alone in her room with her boyfriend.:(

I can't thank this post enough. Full of sense.

Obliq

coolhull wrote: »

What are ''appropriate precautions'' that women should take against being raped?
And why should they have to?

Quite right. The only appropriate precaution necessary is saying NO, at ANY STAGE. Otherwise, it's rape. Simples.

bacon n eggs

Endlessly focussing on the more unlikely scenarios has the effect on making people who have been raped in the commoner situations feel unsure if they have even "really" been raped or more fearful about reporting what happend to them for fear of not being believed or being dismissed as simply regretting sleeping with someone after the fact

You learn a child to cross the road safely tis common sense you tell them what could happen also

B0jangles

bacon n eggs wrote: »

You learn a child to cross the road safely tis common sense you tell them what could happen also

That would only work as a comparison if children were at a significantly higher risk of being intentionally run over by someone they know while they are in thir own home.

It is a terrible analogy.

SB2013

B0jangles wrote: »

Endlessly focussing on the more unlikely scenarios has the effect on making people who have been raped in the commoner situations feel unsure if they have even "really" been raped or more fearful about reporting what happend to them for fear of not being believed or being dismissed as simply regretting sleeping with someone after the fact.

Shouting down and ignoring the less common form of rape is hardly a good method for highlighting the more common form.

Obliq wrote: »

Quite right. The only appropriate precaution necessary is saying NO, at ANY STAGE. Otherwise, it's rape. Simples.

Yeah but what you seem to have difficulty understanding is that some people don't care if you say no and don't want to have sex. So should you not try to avoid situations with people like this for your own sake?

B0jangles

SB2013 wrote: »

Shouting down and ignoring the less common form of rape is hardly a good method for highlighting the more common form.

It's a lot less helpful to continuously ignore the commonest situations rapes occur in in favour of endlessly discussing more unlikely scenarios.

Which is how this discussion inevitably plays out.

bacon n eggs

the commonest situations are going to occur and have been occurring, and it's because people don't think it can be anyone they know so therefore don't watch out or know what to look for the signs that it's happening.

Obliq

SB2013 wrote: »

Yeah but what you seem to have difficulty understanding is that some people don't care if you say no and don't want to have sex. So should you not try to avoid situations with people like this for your own sake?

Y'kno, I have no difficulty understanding that some people don't care if you say no, because rape happened to me too. The situation could have been avoided, yes, IF I WAS A F*CKING MIND READER and I spent the best part of 10 years blaming myself for not being more careful. After years of therapy, it has become EXTREMELY simple now. No means no, whenever, wherever and whether I walked into the situation without being aware of what the man was thinking of doing or not. End of.

I have a difficulty understanding anyone who thinks otherwise.

SB2013

B0jangles wrote: »

It's a lot less helpful to continuously ignore the commonest situations rapes occur in in favour of endlessly discussing more unlikely scenarios.

Which is how this discussion inevitably plays out.

No it isn't. Because instead of highlighting the issue you think is more important, you are only succeeding in downplaying the issue you think is less important. So nobody wins.

B0jangles

bacon n eggs wrote: »

the commonest situations are going to occur and have been occurring, and it's because people don't think it can be anyone they know so therefore don't watch out or know what to look for the signs that it's happening.

And this happens because the image of rape/rapists is always emphasised as being the scary guy in the dark alley.

It is a direct result of this line of thinking.

bacon n eggs

It is a direct result of this line of thinking.

I disagree

SB2013

Obliq wrote: »

Y'kno, I have no difficulty understanding that some people don't care if you say no, because rape happened to me too. The situation could have been avoided, yes, IF I WAS A F*CKING MIND READER and I spent the best part of 10 years blaming myself for not being more careful. After years of therapy, it has become EXTREMELY simple now. No means no, whenever, wherever and whether I walked into the situation without being aware of what the man was thinking of doing or not. End of.

I have a difficulty understanding anyone who thinks otherwise.

Nobody has said otherwise. So because your particular case could not be avoided we should just not bother trying to prevent other cases that could be prevented?

B0jangles

bacon n eggs wrote: »

I disagree

That's your prerogative.

Amirani

Obliq wrote: »

Y'kno, I have no difficulty understanding that some people don't care if you say no, because rape happened to me too. The situation could have been avoided, yes, IF I WAS A F*CKING MIND READER and I spent the best part of 10 years blaming myself for not being more careful. After years of therapy, it has become EXTREMELY simple now. No means no, whenever, wherever and whether I walked into the situation without being aware of what the man was thinking of doing or not. End of.

I have a difficulty understanding anyone who thinks otherwise.

You don't have to try understand it because nobody has said otherwise. No does always mean no, without exception.

Nobody here has been blaming the victim (aside from one poster who was promptly banned), and I completely sympathise with victims who feel they were in someway at fault. The victim in such a situation is never at fault.

Obliq

SB2013 wrote: »

Nobody has said otherwise. So because your particular case could not be avoided we should just not bother trying to prevent other cases that could be prevented?

For the most part, women do not walk home alone through dark alleys, although sometimes that can't be avoided. We are also aware that walking home from the pub at the same time as the guy in the corner who was leering at us in a worrisome way is not a good plan. There is only so much "living in fear" that anyone is prepared to do. There is NEVER any precaution against what is in a rapists head - there is no precaution against someone who contemplates and carries out taking control over someone else. It's as if you are saying some responsibility for that appalling act of violence is with the victim not having taken adequate precautions against someone else's act of will. Please correct me if I'm wrong.....

Amirani

Obliq wrote: »

For the most part, women do not walk home alone through dark alleys, although sometimes that can't be avoided. We are also aware that walking home from the pub at the same time as the guy in the corner who was leering at us in a worrisome way is not a good plan. There is only so much "living in fear" that anyone is prepared to do. There is NEVER any precaution against what is in a rapists head - there is no precaution against someone who contemplates and carries out taking control over someone else. It's as if you are saying some responsibility for that appalling act of violence is with the victim not having taken adequate precautions against someone else's act of will. Please correct me if I'm wrong.....

He didn't mention the victim having responsibility at all though? I don't know why certain posters keep assuming this.

Obliq

NiallSparky wrote: »

He didn't mention the victim having responsibility at all though? I don't know why certain posters keep assuming this.

Yeah, fair enough. But what he DID say was this:

SB2013 wrote: »

Yeah but what you seem to have difficulty understanding is that some people don't care if you say no and don't want to have sex. So should you not try to avoid situations with people like this for your own sake?

Not enough to get your back up maybe, but plenty for mine. There's an implication that we don't already take necessary precautions against men who might potentially not care that the word no has been used. How much fear are we meant to live with? It comes across very clearly as if some people not caring about NO is something that I don't understand, and women don't do a good enough job of taking precautions about.

pickarooney

Did anyone at all read what Nick Ross actually wrote or is that completely irrelevant?

SB2013

Obliq wrote: »

For the most part, women do not walk home alone through dark alleys, although sometimes that can't be avoided. We are also aware that walking home from the pub at the same time as the guy in the corner who was leering at us in a worrisome way is not a good plan. There is only so much "living in fear" that anyone is prepared to do. There is NEVER any precaution against what is in a rapists head - there is no precaution against someone who contemplates and carries out taking control over someone else. It's as if you are saying some responsibility for that appalling act of violence is with the victim not having taken adequate precautions against someone else's act of will. Please correct me if I'm wrong.....

I've already made it clear that I don't apportion any blame to a victim. I'm not going to keep clarifying it. Not all rapes can be prevented, but some can. You talk about "we" like you represent all women. Yet every weekend you can see people, not just women, in ridiculously drunk states, to the extent that they don't even know where they are, wandering around on their own. So i have to disagree with you that people are aware of the dangers out there.

bacon n eggs

I think they are aware of dangers but don't think it will be them.