"Women needs to face facts about the link between rape and drinking"

YFlyer

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Rape isnt a special case.

Getting popcorn.

El_Duderino 09

YFlyer wrote:

Getting popcorn.

To clarify, rape isn't a special case where informing people of the dangers then transfers the responsibility to them if they are victimised.

Of course you should tell people how to protect themselves and reduce the likelihood of being attacked. That goes for all walks of life and rape is no different.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

To clarify, rape isn't a special case where informing people of the dangers then transfers the responsibility to them if they are victimised.

Of course you should tell people how to protect themselves and reduce the likelihood of being attacked. That goes for all walks of life and rape is no different.

But that's exactly what happens in rape cases. Generally it doesn't in other cases.
Jesus, just read the thread about the woman getting attacked in clondalkin, it's all about the victim putting herself at risk.

El_Duderino 09

bubblypop wrote:

But that's exactly what happens in rape cases. Generally it doesn't in other cases. Jesus, just read the thread about the woman getting attacked in clondalkin, it's all about the victim putting herself at risk.

I'm not suggesting that should happen

blue note

bubblypop wrote: »

Telling children to be wary of strangers is not the same thing as linking rape and drink.
Rapes happen, children are assaulted. Neither victim are in anyway responsible.

In both cases we're advising people of ways to lessen their chances of being (potentially) raped. It's not the same thing, but they're fairly similar.

Samaris

bubblypop wrote: »

But that's exactly what happens in rape cases. Generally it doesn't in other cases.
Jesus, just read the thread about the woman getting attacked in clondalkin, it's all about the victim putting herself at risk.

Yeah, -that's- why this sort of thing gets people's hackles up, even when no such thing is intended. Because when something DOES happen, there's always one self-righteous little so-and-so that has to start trying to find reasons why rapes only happen to other people because they're careless/drunk/somewhere they shouldn't be/are wearing something they shouldn't...

To an extent, I think it's to do with an inability to accept that sometimes horrible things happen to innocent people, and thus, it could even happen to "you". It's easier to try analyse where the other person "went wrong" because "you" know better than that and thus you'd never be raped. Obviously that is a general "you", the person doing the justifying.

At the same time, we all know that there are certain things we can do to make ourselves a bit safer, whether it be mugging, rape or assault. There is absolutely no harm in ensuring that we all know what they are. If you are drunk, you (female or male) are more vulnerable to any sort of attack, or indeed an accident like walking out in front of a car. That's just how it is, because alcohol is a drug that affects the brain, and due to our smaller size, women tend to be more susceptible to it at relatively lower concentrations. There is absolutely no harm in saying this.

The only time it becomes harmful is if you're talking to or about a rape victim or a victim of assault and saying that they were drunk and should have been more careful. That's downright dickish.

Winterlong

Samaris wrote: »

The only time it becomes harmful is if you're talking to or about a rape victim or a victim of assault and saying that they were drunk and should have been more careful. That's downright dickish.

And that is part of the issue. There are people who have been victims of assault or rape reading this. There are people who know loved ones who have been victims and are reading this.

And there are people who love these troll magnet threads to get a rile out of others.

The arguments here have been going round and round since page 1, just getting more and more heated.

El_Duderino 09

Samaris wrote:

To an extent, I think it's to do with an inability to accept that sometimes horrible things happen to innocent people, and thus, it could even happen to "you". It's easier to try analyse where the other person "went wrong" because "you" know better than that and thus you'd never be raped. Obviously that is a general "you", the person doing the justifying.

Completely agree. In cases like this the urge to find reasons why this terrible tragedy couldn't possibly happen to me, leafs to victim blaming. In a broader sense, it leads to conspiracy theories as people scramble to assign control to events (even if the control lies with someone you got like).

In both cases it provides a rationale for the tragedy and takes away the sense of randomness.

Eg 'I couldn't have been raped because I would never be that drunk/cycle alone at night'.

'9/11 has to be a conspiracy perpetrated by the US government because the enemy wouldn't be able to do something so destructive'.

Both lines are complete bullsquirt and both persist because they take control away from the Scarry enemy.

YFlyer

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

To clarify, rape isn't a special case where informing people of the dangers then transfers the responsibility to them if they are victimised.

Of course you should tell people how to protect themselves and reduce the likelihood of being attacked. That goes for all walks of life and rape is no different.

I agree with you.

Foxtrol

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

No, no we're not constantly advised. All PSA's in Ireland are about harm we do to ourselves or potential harm to others (smoking, binge drinking, drink driving). I'm not aware of one that's aimed at preventing being a victim of crime. Maybe because they are not actually effective and just serve to shame victims.

Sorry, you’re simply wrong here. The Gardai constantly release advisements on how to avoid being victims of a crime, the department of foreign affairs constantly release specific advisements on how to avoid being victims of crime when travelling, and the department of education constantly run campaigns on how kids can try to stay safe from people who may do them harm.

In all these cases are they shaming victims too?

I ask again, why is rape the only crime that gets such an over the top, kneejerk, defensive response when advice to lower the risk is provided?

Because as we've seen on the other thread, the conversation then revolves around what people think the victim did wrong in not avoiding getting themselves raped.

From there we get the 'contributary negligence' type mindset, complete with 'what do you expect' type commentary, and headlines like this one:
https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/755867885910851584

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

I was sexually assaulted when I was 17 years old. I've posted this many times but I was 17, I was out with friends from college and ended up in a nightclub. I was drunk but not anywhere near being paralethic. I met this lad and we went back to my friends. We left and he walked me back to my apartment block and he lived in the block next to me. He was so nice, held my hand on the way back and talked to me about his love for classic cars and how he had an old BMW. I was sober enough to remember that, ten years later.

We got to the apartments and he wanted to come into my apartment. I shared with a girl who didn't drink and didn't want to wake her up making noise so I refused. He then asked me to go in with him. He had beer, or at least so he said.

So off we went. There was no beer. I kissed him, I let him go so far, but I had never had sex before and I didn't know him well enough. I didn't want to have sex. I told him no, but he wasn't going to stop. He kept telling me shush, it'll be ok, it's ok, that he'd be gentle. I said no over and over and over, and he didn't stop. He did what he wanted to do and eventually left me to get up and to get dressed again.

I made many mistakes that night. I was underage in a club. I was drinking. I went into his bedroom. I kissed him or led him on. But no means no.

I spent years thinking it was my own fault for leading him on and bringing it on myself, but I said no and he didn't listen. That wasn't my fault. And I didn't do anything that I'm willing to bet most people have done.

It's alright to sit on your high horse and judge everyone else when in the past you've walked away from situations unscathed

LexieOnRale

LexieOnRale wrote: »

I was sexually assaulted when I was 17 years old. I've posted this many times but I was 17, I was out with friends from college and ended up in a nightclub. I was drunk but not anywhere near being paralethic. I met this lad and we went back to my friends. We left and he walked me back to my apartment block and he lived in the block next to me. He was so nice, held my hand on the way back and talked to me about his love for classic cars and how he had an old BMW. I was sober enough to remember that, ten years later.

We got to the apartments and he wanted to come into my apartment. I shared with a girl who didn't drink and didn't want to wake her up making noise so I refused. He then asked me to go in with him. He had beer, or at least so he said.

So off we went. There was no beer. I kissed him, I let him go so far, but I had never had sex before and I didn't know him well enough. I didn't want to have sex. I told him no, but he wasn't going to stop. He kept telling me shush, it'll be ok, it's ok, that he'd be gentle. I said no over and over and over, and he didn't stop. He did what he wanted to do and eventually left me to get up and to get dressed again.

I made many mistakes that night. I was underage in a club. I was drinking. I went into his bedroom. I kissed him or led him on. But no means no.

I spent years thinking it was my own fault for leading him on and bringing it on myself, but I said no and he didn't listen. That wasn't my fault. And I didn't do anything that I'm willing to bet most people have done.

It's alright to sit on your high horse and judge everyone else when in the past you've walked away from situations unscathed

That's awful.
What a bastard, had only one thing on his mind.

racso1975

Candie wrote: »

Because as we've seen on the other thread, the conversation then revolves around what people think the victim did wrong in not avoiding getting themselves raped.

From there we get the 'contributary negligence' type mindset, complete with 'what do you expect' type commentary, and headlines like this one:
https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/755867885910851584

OK firstly it's the Sun. Secondly it's the Sun the only thing that paper reports properly is the date on the top. Anybody who gives credence to a ****rag like that are not worth arguing with.

It's not an ideal world we live in.

Foxtrol

Candie wrote: »

Because as we've seen on the other thread, the conversation then revolves around what people think the victim did wrong in not avoiding getting themselves raped.

From there we get the 'contributary negligence' type mindset, complete with 'what do you expect' type commentary, and headlines like this one:
https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/755867885910851584

But the exact same discussion is had when other crimes occur, from burglary, to assault, child molestation, or murder, yet we don’t see the defensive reaction and calls of victim blaming/shaming when advice is given to reduce the risk of being a victim of those crimes.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Foxtrol wrote: »

But the exact same discussion is had when other crimes occur, from burglary, to assault, child molestation, or murder, yet we don’t see the defensive reaction and calls of victim blaming/shaming when advice is given to reduce the risk of being a victim of those crimes.

Unfortunaly there will always be predators and it's never the victim's fault. However it's important to teach people how to reduce risks to their safety. Simple guidelines like being aware of your surroundings and company.

DEFTLEFTHAND

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Unfortunaly there will always be predators and it's never the victim's fault. However it's important to teach people how to reduce risks to their safety. Simple guidelines like being aware of your surroundings and company.

Yes, but that headline does something not too far removed from 'teaching' women to reduce their risks.

It doesn't focus on the crime committed against her. It doesn't focus on the perpetrator.

It focused on what she did 'wrong'.

Women don't need to be taught risk avoidance on one hand, and told the number of people who would do them harm is infinitesimal on the other. Or that you can't tar all men as potential rapists on one had, but live your life as if they are on the other.

Foxtrol

Foxtrol wrote: »

But the exact same discussion is had when other crimes occur, from burglary, to assault, child molestation, or murder, yet we don’t see the defensive reaction and calls of victim blaming/shaming when advice is given to reduce the risk of being a victim of those crimes.

But we don't though.
Take tiger kidnappings for example, is there ever a discussion afterwards about what the victims did wrong?
Do we say, they shouldn't have lived in a big fancy house, shouldn't have worked somewhere with access to huge amounts of money.
When old people living alone in the countryside are burgled, do we all decide that they took those risks, so they knew what could happen?

Foxtrol

Candie wrote: »

Yes, but that headline does something not too far removed from 'teaching' women to reduce their risks.

But read back through this thread, there are clearly many who have their head in the sand on, or at least publicly disagree, alcohol consumption and the increased risk of being a victim of this crime.

If there was a sizeable, or at least vocal, portion of men who disputed a connection between alcohol consumption and their risk of being a victim of street assaults I would also believe they needed some ‘teaching’.

It doesn't focus on the crime committed against her. It doesn't focus on the perpetrator.

It focused on what she did 'wrong'.

Women don't need to be taught risk avoidance on one hand, and told the number of people who would do them harm is infinitesimal on the other. Or that you can't tar all men as potential rapists on one had, but live your life as if they are on the other.

No advice on lowering your risk to any crime focuses on the perpetrator, it would make zero sense. Would you advise your kids to avoid being kidnapped by telling them that people shouldn’t kidnap? No, you’d tell them not to get in a car with a stranger etc, information that would lowers their risk. That doesn’t mean society is giving kidnappers a free ride, you do both.

Similarly you don’t teach kids that every adult is a kidnapper, there’s a balance. You can warn someone about a risk and ways to lower that risk without having to fear the world.

Gbear

For all intents and purposes, in the context of this kind of risk scenario involving a predatory form of rape, the rapist is a force of nature.
Rape has decreased through history and will continue to do so, both by default and through conscious actions of government and society, but at the very least there will be a psycopathic element that can't be taught or reasoned with.

There will be incidences of these assaults and there is only so much you can do to reason with and change the behaviour of someone who proves with their actions that they're completely unreasonable.

But we can take actions to make ourselves safer.

As far as blame goes, it's about reasonable expectations and not absolute safety.
I.e, if you're standing on a mountaintop in wet copper armour screaming all gods are bastards during a thunderstorm (Pratchett), then you probably deserve to get struck by lightning. That's not a reasonable thing to do.

Expecting to be able to walk down the street in a developed country without getting assaulted in any way is a reasonable expectation. It's both something we should aspire to create and something that is actually pretty safe in reality.
As such, you can and should take precautions but that doesn't make you culpable.

There are parallels with the current terrorism issues as well. Western society is generally quite safe and that's the way it should be, but there are some people who can, without there being a whole lot we can do about it, attack us in public anywhere or any time.
That's their fault. We could stop having public gatherings, sports events, music gigs or whatever, but that'd be daft.

There are, however, going to be certain common sense things we're going to discover or may already know that will make us less likely to be vicitims in these attacks.
Whether it was flash flooding or lunatics, we can't control them but we can do something to make ourselves safer.

All I can see the alternative being is cutting our noses off to spite our face because of a fear of in any way besmirching the sanctity of perfect victimhood that is afforded victims of rape.

Obviously it's an intensely traumatic crime and being nice to rape victims is hardly unreasonable, but particularly in an open forum or in a debate designed to steer policy that will do what we all want in the end - to reduce these attacks, emotion driving arguments won't do anyone any good.

Outlaw Pete

Just because there are professional burglars so adept at what they do that they can easily bypass alarms and cut through glass, doesn't therefore mean that it's pointless to give homeowners advice not to leave their keys under plant pots or their windows open, but yet that is the logic of some of the arguments being made. Burglary risk reduction measures reduce overall incidences of burglaries no matter how many expert burglars there are out there who'll burgle homes even when they have state of the art security systems.

All this taking offence here will ultimately do is result in those that specialize in advising girls, about how to reduce their risk factors of being assaulted, deciding to keep quiet instead and who could blame them if all that will happen is that they get accused of victim blaming. If anything this politically correct Guardianesque reaction (and that is what this crap is) could, if it continues, very likely lead to an increase in sexual assaults, if that is, it hasn't happened already.

Foxtrol

bubblypop wrote: »

But we don't though.
Take tiger kidnappings for example, is there ever a discussion afterwards about what the victims did wrong?
Do we say, they shouldn't have lived in a big fancy house, shouldn't have worked somewhere with access to huge amounts of money.
When old people living alone in the countryside are burgled, do we all decide that they took those risks, so they knew what could happen?

I'm sorry it's human nature, in many situations we do.

When someone’s car is robbed we ask where they parked it, when some is assaulted we ask where it happened. If the responses are somewhere ‘risky’ or that ‘they should have known better’ then people will talk about it or use it as an example to warn others.

Take this example, if someone started a thread about this crime you’d be sure posters would question the risk he made by bringing a total stranger to his hotel room with such valuables.

SVJKarate

Samaris wrote: »

I see no issue with bringing up that alcohol makes you more vulnerable to attack. .
. . . (post shortened, but it's worth reading again if you haven't already read it)

This sums it all up very reasonably. Sadly it seems that discussions on this topic keep getting side-tracked by the mean-minded who are intent on equating 'vulnerability' to 'blame', and by the deniers who, despite expert opinion and researched evidence still cannot see the link between excessive drinking and vulnerability, or between precaution and risk.

desertcircus

"Jesus, what a pointlessly mean headline. Why would anyone- oh, it's Niamh Horan, professional awful person. Now it makes sense."

rjpf1980

I read somewhere that something like 8 out of 10 rape and sexual assault cases involve alcohol.

The most vulnerable women are those who are drunk and are most likely to get attacked. A woman goes out with friends goes from pub to pub and gets drunk. An opportunistic guy takes her home or to a hotel room and while she is passed out has sex with her.

Sober women are less likely to be attacked. The case last week in which a woman was apparently raped by a trio of young men in broad daylight is the exception.

Let's get this clear right now. No woman is to blame for rape full stop.

A man who has sex with a woman against her will and without her consent is a rapist. He deserves what is coming to him. Full stop.

However getting sh*tfaced obviously doesn't help.

Anyone who points this out is screamed at by hysterical types for victim blaming and excusing rape preventing a discussion about the obvious link between sexual violence and alcohol.

Thoughts?

mordeith

It's bull. Getting blind drink isn't a good idea for anyone but doesn't mean you are to blame for someone else's actions.

Aint Eazy Being Cheezy

rjpf1980 wrote: »

Anyone who points this out is screamed at by hysterical types for victim blaming

Rightly so. Nobody is to blame for the actions of others. Just because somebody is drunk doesn't mean you can do whatever you like to them.

Canis Lupus

You're on a contentious thread topic roll! Can I get a sneak peak of tomorrows thread? Should marijuana be legalised?

techdiver

I think the point is there are always going to be disgusting individuals who rape. It an unfortunate reality of life. No one is victim blaming. The responsibility 100% lies with the rapist, of that there is no question, but if I was the father of a daughter I would make sure she knew that getting blind drunk will put her at risk.

Shouting people down for making this point does nothing to protect women.

Maximus Alexander

So... The solution to rape is for women to become Pioneers? We could always go the whole hog and keep them in towers wearing chastity belts.

Getting sh*tfaced is a bad idea for lots of reasons. Personally I think people should avoid it, in general. You might walk in front of a car. You might pass out and choke on your own vomit. But it's telling that it keeps coming up specifically in relation to rape lately, almost like there's a bit of an attempt to shift blame going on.