Blame Rapists for Rape, Not Women
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Last Tuesday, in the debut of Double X, Linda Hirshman said that the bloggers at Jezebel need to accept that they may be raped if they’re going to insist on being such public sluts. (I'm paraphrasing here, but not as much as I wish I were.) Latoya Peterson responded by rightly pointing out that screeds like Hirshman's give feminism a bad name. The Internets erupted. And now, just what we needed, the Observer has swooped in to Explain It All to Us, clucking their editorial tongue about the whole "infighting" mess.
Missing from this entire kerfuffle is one crucial point. Women aren't raped because they're being sexual in public or private, and they're not raped because they're drunk. Women are raped because they're women.
Statistics vary, but we know that the vast majority of rapists aren't the men we randomly meet in bars one night—they're the ones we already know. The idea that women are more likely to be raped while they're being "bad" is a nasty myth created to keep women in our places. Rape has never been an act of sexual incontinence committed because we’re just too darn available and tempting, and being “smart” or “good” isn’t going to keep us safe.
Sure, men rape women in drunken party atmospheres. They also rape women on quiet nights in, but we get no warnings about the dangers of playing Trivial Pursuit in mixed company. Yes, rape risk increases when alcohol is involved, but if someone is drunk during a rape, it's more likely to have been the attacker than the victim. And yet where is the public service message warning men against the dangers of drinking and raping?
I'm not a big Jezebel defender on this subject, precisely because of the type of posts that Hirshman and the Observer point out. They excuse rapists' behavior and perpetuate the myth that if a woman was drinking or being sexual, she is in some way responsible for another person assaulting her. But Hirshman's complaints about Jezebel fall into the exact same—very dangerous—trap. If it's possible for women who are raped to deserve it as a "consequence of their own acts," as Hirshman says, then you can hardly blame the rapist for that act, now, can you?
This controversy isn't about "choice feminism"—dressing in skimpy clothing, drinking, and having casual sex aren't inherently feminist choices any more than wearing billowy skirts and Birkenstocks, drinking herbal tea, and being celibate are. But our approach to rape prevention is a feminist choice. We need to face the fact that focusing on the consequences of women’s actions instead of on the actions of rapists has done precious little to reduce the incidence of rape.
You know what else is a feminist choice? Refusing to do the work of the patriarchy. So if refusing to police my own sexuality and blaming rapists for rape in all circumstances makes me a slut, then I wear the name proudly.
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an analogy
By: p.bateman | Tue, 07/28/2009 - 06:04
consider this analogy. i walk through a dark alley at night infested by gangs and robbers, unarmed, carrying valuables, and i get mugged.
who is to be blamed for the MUGGING? ofcourse the gangsters
the fact that i was stupid and made a bad decision or was unaware, DOES NOT reduce the wrong, the sin of the muggers.
they should be punished and blamed equally had they mugged a person, driving on a main road in down town in broad day light !
the fact that i made a poor decision in the former case, does not reduce the wrong of the muggers.
how do you deal with the situation now.. how do you improve the situation now? on one hand, you crack down on gangsters, you arrest them and punish them for deterrent effect.
on the other hand you educate the people to make good decisions and protect themselves.... this doesnt mean we are blaming the people for getting mugged. we are merely telling them to take care of their own interests.
the rapists have to be blamed for the rape and punished equally whether they rape a drunk naked girl at a frat party or a moslim woman in a burka. but why cant you also encourage women to make better decisions in their own interests...that wont reduce the wrong of the rapists.
why is it so TABOO to educate women on these issues? ill tell you..because it immediately comes off as "blaming the victim". why is it so difficult to educate young women on CONSENT issues. you tell men "NO means NO" and its good that you do so, but whats wrong with telling women aat the same time 'how to be assertive about consent and how to say no and mean it physically and mentally and never be wishy washy on a date with a guy whose trying to get you laid"
why not encourage girls to avoid the degrading, sleazy, sex crazed FRAT PARTY culture, when you are so opposed to it and it leads to rapes. this wont reduce the wrong of the frat boys who commit rape but just like i was advised by people not to walk through a dark alley infested with gangsters, unarmed and carrying valuables, why cant you also encourage/convince/advice girls to avoid the frat party culture?
afterall, even when girls are not getting raped, the other 95% of the time they are involved in consensual degrading, demeaning sex acts like letting 5 drunk jocks run a train on her or something.
but i understand your dilemma. you cannot even advice or encourage women to make better choices because that will be so "suppressing womens sexuality and not letting them make choices"
Too bad a show that takes on
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Too bad a show that takes on male sexuality looks to be little more than a protracted dick joke. In recent years, Mad Men, The Sopranos, and even Entourage have taken on the subject of what it really means to be a man. This time around, I guess the joke's on men.
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Can't Help It
By: sstauf | Sun, 05/24/2009 - 21:30
I agree completely that the blame should not be put on the victim. Rape is a seriously damaging and violent crime that very often gets no more than a slap on the wrist. I sometimes hear it called a “crime of passion” or categorized as “temporary insanity.” These phrases are so often used in response to a rape to make it sound less horrific than the truth, but it doesn't stop there. People make excuses for the criminal and in turn (since the criminal isn't to blame) they focus on the victim. Why is it acceptable to accuse a rape victim of having “deserved” it? How is it possible that our system focuses on what the girl was wearing and how intoxicated she was? Do we blame a kid for being attacked by a pedophile? How can we see these different types of rape as being so completely different?
I can understand the idea that women should be smart, and careful. I can understand how putting yourself in a bad situation can impact what happens to you. What I can't understand is blaming the victim of a rape for the act itself. Doesn't this seem insane to anyone else? No one forces a rapist to rape. No one forces a murderer to kill. This is not something that is required because a girl dresses provocatively. Is it possible for a rapist to stand up in court and say “she forced me to rape her ... I had no choice in the matter.” If this was the case any girl who went to a bar and dressed provocatively should expect to be raped by every man there, and every man on the way there, and every man on the way home because they “just couldn't help themselves.” How moronic do you have to be to believe the crap that is being put out there to justify these horrific and terrifying crimes?
I am a man who was a victim
By: Foobs | Fri, 05/22/2009 - 14:16
I am a man who was a victim of female on male sexual violence. I am dating a woman who was a victim of male on female sexual violence.
No one deserves to be victimized, and no one should feel guilty about having been victimized. However, if someone who has been through what she and I have been through should have learned anything, it is that the world is not a safe place. If there are predators (and there are) then people who don't want to be victimized need to live in light of that. It isn't about being afraid or guilty, it's about being smart.