Hey, Peter Hitchens, how about men who are raped? How about you? If you get drunk, do you deserve to get assaulted - or even sexually assaulted - because you did something that caused you to be less quick on your toes, or less able to fend-off attacks?

Rape apologists like this disgust me.

This stuff makes my blood boil. Doesn't Hitchens understand that alcohol is often used as a weapon (as much as GHB or other date rape drugs are)? That assaults goes down in this way because perpetrators structure them that way?

I think that the most interesting work on perpetrator behavior is being done by David Lisak. He found that the rapes committed by college aged perpetrators were almost always premeditated and that the perpetrators almost always committed multiple rapes. (The citation is below.) There is a really chilling video in which an actor re-enacts one of Lisaks' interviews; the guy talks about picking out a victim, inviting her to a party, getting her drunk, isolating her, and then assaulting her, including the violence he would use to subdue "targets" or "prey" (words that the guy actually used).

Lisak, David. “Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists.” Violence and Victims 17.1 (2002): 73 - 84.

I'd like to send a copy to Hitchens, but I doubt he'd read it.

Some people are just so off the mark when they talk about sexual assault that you have to wonder if they're purposely trying to say the rudest, most offensive things they can come up with.

An analogy for Mr. Hitchens:

You fall asleep. A burglar breaks in through an open window and robs you of your most precious belongings. Yes, you should have been more responsible and locked that window. However, I highly doubt that when they catch the burglar, you'd be okay with him keeping your stuff and not going to jail since that unlocked window meant you were asking to be robbed.

And this doesn't even TOUCH any of the harmful stigma that he's perpetuating with this inane and wholly unresearched article.

'Getting drunk is not something that happens to you. It is something you do.'

Well Peter Hitchens, good fucking point about drunk driving and by the way, GETTING RAPED IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOU, AND IS NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU DO!!

'Men who take advantage of women by raping them, drunk or sober, should be severely punished for this wicked, treacherous action, however stupid the victim may have been'

I assume this line was supposed to make him look like less of an asshole, maybe next time Pete you should try leaving out the 'however stupid the victim may have been' part. Asshole! Sorry but this is just irritating. Is it really so stupid for a woman to go out to a bar, get drunk and expect to be able to get home without incident. Or is it stupid for someone to turn around and tell her that she was asking for it. I'm just gonna end my rant here because I'm getting too worked up and I'm at work.

Monday feminist Fuck You to Peter Hitchens!

Agreed on all points, except that I would change the language from "getting raped is something that happens to you" to "getting raped is something that is done to you".

The people who wail about the collapse of sexual morality are failing to grasp a point that ought to be obvious: sexual morals are not vanishing, they are transforming. The standard used to be "reproductive good, non-reproductive bad"; it's changing to "consensual good, non-consensual bad".

Many rapists drink a lot also in the mistaken belief that society will excuse their crimes. Alcohol is a weapon of choice for many rapists. People like Hitchens and that other guy who wrote the article a few days ago, help legitimize rape by putting the onus of preventing rape on the women. Their silence when it comes to condemning rapists speaks volumes...

I guess the only comfort is that it's only in the Daily Fail which is, well, not the most well-respected of periodicals.

More rapists are intoxicated than their victims.

And yet none of us feminists are seriously arguing in favor of "no likker fer the menfolks." Maybe it is because we're not FUCKING STUPID.

This is great timing, I just had a similar discussion with my boyfriend last night. If it isn't too much of a hijack, perhaps someone could share some thoughts on this.

I asked him if an attractive young woman, who chooses to walk home alone late at night while she's drunk, is responsible at all if she is attacked and raped. (I know, way less likely scenario than acquaintance rape, and conventionally attractive women are no more likely to be raped than conventionally unattractive, elderly, or very young women.) He said that yes, she would bear part of the responsibility, just as he would if he went out late at night with his iphone and got mugged. Since he would be taking a risk by going out late at night, drunk, and carrying an obviously expensive item, so too would a woman, going out late at night, drunk, and carrying an obviously attractive...uh, body?

Yeah. So I argued that the burden of responsibility lies with rapists to, y'know, NOT RAPE PEOPLE. He agreed, but said that in the "real world" there are rapists, and minimizing risk (not walking home late at night alone and drunk) is the only way to prevent rape--we can't do anything else about it.

I really disagree with this line of thinking, but I really struggled to put it into words when we were discussing it.

But, if he's going to go down that line of thinking, then wouldn't it make sense that since most rape is not the stranger-in-the-dark-alley type, and in fact the most likely people to commit rape are regular, normal guys that the victim knows, a woman should avoid contact with males of the species to minimize risk? No one-on-one contact, no parties where there are likely to be males, no visiting friends with male relatives, and no dates. That would certainly minimize risk, and for a woman looking to avoid being raped, it would make sense that she should avoid contact with men that she knows, since they are statistically the most likely to rape her.

Personally, I don't think that the victim bears ANY responsibility. I think that I should be able to be lying passed out and naked in a gutter and not be raped. But, I do things to minimize risk, regardless. I don't accept drinks from strangers, I don't go to wild parties, I don't associate with men who don't share my views on women's rights.

So where does this "responsibility" begin and end?

Totally agree Ismone, and also, why are we not hearing cries about how men should also control their drinking? Perhaps they wouldn't get themselves in that situation where a rape might happen...

just turning back the rape apologists' rhetoric on them

The article and the comments on his page depressed the hell out of me. I don't understand why all these guys come out of the woodwork and think that women who report rape are just having "buyers remorse" from the night before and that they really wanted to have sex and now are feeling guilty and are crying rape. Are you fucking insane? who the fuck, in their right mind, would do that? It's not like going to the cops, getting a rape kit done are so easy and everyone there isn't biased against you already because of preconceived notions that all women who are raped are lying. Fucking drives me insane the way this system works. Why is everything focused on the women? What she did/didn't do/drank/wore/went/said etc. Why isn't a man ever scrutinized in such a way? I don't fucking believe in the "mixed messages" line of reason where the man "didn't understand" or some such nonsense. Men feel entitled to do whatever they want and it's fucking wrong and needs to stop!!

This is spot on:

"But, if he's going to go down that line of thinking, then wouldn't it make sense that since most rape is not the stranger-in-the-dark-alley type, and in fact the most likely people to commit rape are regular, normal guys that the victim knows, a woman should avoid contact with males of the species to minimize risk? No one-on-one contact, no parties where there are likely to be males, no visiting friends with male relatives, and no dates. That would certainly minimize risk, and for a woman looking to avoid being raped, it would make sense that she should avoid contact with men that she knows, since they are statistically the most likely to rape her"

That is *exactly* it... Most rapists pick their targets for being unsuspecting, with their guard down.

The article and the comments on his page depressed the hell out of me. I don't understand why all these guys come out of the woodwork and think that women who report rape are just having "buyers remorse" from the night before and that they really wanted to have sex and now are feeling guilty and are crying rape. Are you fucking insane? who the fuck, in their right mind, would do that? It's not like going to the cops, getting a rape kit done are so easy and everyone there isn't biased against you already because of preconceived notions that all women who are raped are lying. Fucking drives me insane the way this system works. Why is everything focused on the women? What she did/didn't do/drank/wore/went/said etc. Why isn't a man ever scrutinized in such a way? I don't fucking believe in the "mixed messages" line of reason where the man "didn't understand" or some such nonsense. Men feel entitled to do whatever they want and it's fucking wrong and needs to stop!!

Unbelievable; this not only makes me feel ashamed to be a man, but also to be British - a double whammy. Peter Hitchens - what a disgraceful waste of people's intellect to even have to respond to such horrifically appalling diatribe. Ugh.

Brothers? Really? Some people seriously shouldn't procreate.

I fucking hate Christopher Hitchens so much. I didn't even know about this other one.

I posted the following on Hitchens' page:

By Peter Hitchens' hare-brained logic, a woman who is raped by her dentist while she's under anesthetic deserves less sympathy, too.

But then, logic isn't exactly his strong suit, now is it?

@Mayfly

"But, if he's going to go down that line of thinking, then wouldn't it make sense that since most rape is not the stranger-in-the-dark-alley type, and in fact the most likely people to commit rape are regular, normal guys that the victim knows, a woman should avoid contact with males of the species to minimize risk? No one-on-one contact, no parties where there are likely to be males, no visiting friends with male relatives, and no dates. That would certainly minimize risk, and for a woman looking to avoid being raped, it would make sense that she should avoid contact with men that she knows, since they are statistically the most likely to rape her."

Actually, a number of cultures in this world go by that line of thinking. From what I have heard from a young American woman who lives with her (American) husband and kids in the Middle East, this is common thinking in Saudi Arabia. I believe it is called "purdah", or segregation by sex. The way of thinking rationalizes that no sexual assaults will occur if non-related men and women are not together in a social context. The "opportunity" is not there, so no crimes are committed (in theory--- I'm sure there are instances that are kept under wraps, as in any society) I beleive this is more cultural than religion related- the sexes mixed freely from what I saw during my time in Morocco. Honestly, I do not know what works for Saudis... I'm not about to try a to deconstruct a culture with roots in the ancient times. But I know that none of the "separate but equal" tripe worked here in the United States. Hence, the social and civil revolutions of the 60s.

I want to know why he thinks that it's okay for men to get drunk but it's not okay for women to?

I like drinking, and I want to be able to do it without the fear that I'll be assaulted. However, if I do get assaulted, I don't want the fact that I was engaging in legal activity to be used against me. However, with asshats like Hitchens perpetrating this hogswash, it's more likely that if I am raped, I won't get justice.

And while we're on the subject of partial responsibility, I feel that men like him are "partially responsible" for rape, because they help foster the climate that allow and excuses it.

@exelizabeth
"And while we're on the subject of partial responsibility, I feel that men like him are "partially responsible" for rape, because they help foster the climate that allow and excuses it."

Exactly! I firmly believe that any responsibility foisted upon victims is responsibility being taken away from their aggressors.

@SailorRox
I agree that the "separate but equal" tripe hasn't and won't work here, and from my understanding it isn't working out in countries where it is still a common cultural practice. So what is the solution? Where is that middle ground? Or should it even be a middle ground that we're searching for?

@Dominique
So since we can agree that rapists generally prefer their victims to be unsuspecting, how can we solve the problem of rape? Should we wrap ourselves in bubble wrap and be constantly on guard? Should we avoid situations that allow us to be targeted by rapists? (Drinking alcohol, meeting new people, going on dates, etc.) Should we live our lives however we want without considering the threat of rape? Or is that irresponsible in some way, since in the "real world" rape IS an ever-present threat.

Mayfly, in order to stop male-on-female rape, women would have to completely separate themselves from ALL men, even those to whom we're related (because rape happens within families, too).
But victim-blamers never go THAT far, because they DO want to use us ladies for some things (sammiches and baybees, anyone?).

@Mayfly: I took a great self-defense class with an amazing organization called Home Alive (http://www.homealive.org/), and they are really about empowering their students. Like, they define self defense as what YOU are able and willing to do to make yourself feel as safe as you feel you need to be.

For me, I know there will always be threats to me, as a woman specifically but as a human in general (men are also at risk for violence, both sexual and non-sexual, while they walk down the street). I try to balance being cautious with having fun and living the independent life I want to live. For me, it works to only get drunk with friends I trust, to take cabs when need be, to have a serious bitch-face when I walk down the street, to know my boundaries, to know my limits with drinking, to know some self defense moves. However, what works FOR ME might not work for others. What's important is to know your boundaries and limits and to live your life as freely as you can within those.

Of course you should be aware of threats. However, I don't want fear of those threats to paralyze me. And I think it's irresponsible to promote a culture that tries to immobilize women with guilt and fear when they're just trying to live freely.

And another point, I think what is to be done is to start talking about why men shouldn't rape women. That seems like common sense, and yet as a culture because our commen sense is that rape is this awful thing perpetrated by the sociopathic stranger in the bushes and you'd basically have to be evil to do it. We don't talk about how not to murder people, because it seems like common sense that of course you don't murder people. And yet, our common sense is wrong when it comes to rape. Normal, sane men DO rape, and no one has ever talked to them about NOT raping. Not that this is an excuse at all, but it's a conversation that needs to start happening.

I thought this was a really great postabout this: http://jezebel.com/5034850/5-ways-to-prevent-your-son-from-turning-into-a-date-rapey-alcoholic-douchebag

[a drunk victim of rape] is culpable, just as she would be if she crashed a car... while drunk.

If getting raped is equivalent to driving a car into a tree, then the air through which Peter Hitchens travels is filled with disembodied penises. Wherever he goes, he evades non-sentient erections flying towards his genitals, which requires continuous attention and quick reflexes to avoid sudden accidental penetration. I'm kinda glad I don't live in the world Peter Hitchens seems to inhabit.

There are two problems here. The comments thus far have been focused on the obvious and important one: the penises are not disembodied, consensual sex requires more than just "not saying no", and the problem is the rapist, not their victims. But this is not the issue Hitchens is raising.

He, like "mayfly"'s boyfriend, are falling victim to another, more subtle fallacy which muddies the water. These conversations, and Hitchens comments in particular, conflate two very different types of responsibility: responsibility to assess risk, and responsibility for doing harm.

At some level, all of us are responsible for assessing risk. Awareness of risk is a basic and valuable survival skill, touching almost every aspect of our lives, from publishing personal information on the internet to choosing employment to picking a restaurant to deciding when to make a left hand turn at a busy intersection. And, indeed, deciding what to wear and the environment in which to wear it. If I wear expensive clothes in an impoverished neighborhood and wander around looking frightened and lost, my risk of being a victim are increased. I do have some responsibility to try to avoid putting myself in harm's way.

But misjudging risk is not causing harm; misjudging risk does not make me responsible for the actions of others. Even if the consequence of my miscalculation is to suffer harm by another, I am not responsible for the harm that person does to me.

We don't tend to blame the elderly victims of confidence men. We don't blame the victims of deceptive lending practices. We don't blame the victims of pickpockets. We don't blame the victims of house theft. We may and often do question whether they did enough to prevent the crime; sometimes we are troubled by their naivete, at other times we are surprised to discover more evidence that we cannot entirely eliminate risk from our world.

But we do not blame the victims. In each of these cases, we expect the legal system to track and (depending on your ethics) penalize or rehabilitate the perpetrators. It is no different with rape; regardless of how it happened, regardless of our opinion of whether the risk the victim has taken is "responsible" or "irresponsible," the perpetrator is the criminal and the perpetrator is solely responsible for the harm they have caused.

Did anyone read the article?

The other part comparison--
"...or stepped out into the traffic while drunk and was run over."

Maybe I'M missing something if a boyfriend, friend, acquaintance, or strangers rapes a woman (or MAN) be s/he drunk, sober, scantily dressed, or drugged by a roofie, he bears full LEGAL culpability for being a fucking predator.

I was under the impression that article was discussing financial compensation and liability. Can you distinguish the two (conviction of a rapist, and financial payment to the victim)?

(I realize the dangerous territory I'm getting into--if a person drinks to the point that s/he can no longer make decisions or even ATTEMPT to maintain control of a situation, are they responsible for dressing a certain way?

Do they even victim comp in the U.S.?

The perpetrator is responsible for rape and we could yell till we're blue in the face demanding that parents, the marketplaces, peers of would-be rapists, and individual men SHOULD change a rape culture. Until then--I don't think it's bad to stress short-term factors that may affect a potential victims' ATTEMPTS to prevent sexual assault, partial ATTEMPTS for victims to stay in control. The rapist is to blame for attempted or successful rape, but if we're talking about would-be victims, I think that for a few, having your wits about you (even around acquaintances) may help a person get away, scream for help, etc.

P.S. I am aware that if someone physically overpowers you or drags you into a corner to rape you, "attempts at control" means shit.

I acknowledge that most rape occurs at home, and the rapist is someone known. I acknowledge that there is no way that your clothing will prevent you from getting raped. Rape is not your fault. You can't prevent your husband from raping you.

But if you're out walking at night, this goes for anyone:

A great way to prevent anything bad happening to you on the street is to not look like a victim. Victims can look wealthy, impaired, smaller, less powerful. It's not your fault for being a victim of any crime. Obviously the problem is with society; a society that makes men think that women are there for them, and that they want to be raped. The problem with theft is a classist and selfish society, one where there are people who feel they are important enough to steal from others.

So what are factors that rapists have in common? I would expect that they would have been raised in families with very strict gender roles. Maybe the father was abusive to the mother, and it carried down the line to the rapist-child, who learned that women were disposable minions. Maybe then he grew up in a culture where women were prized for their beauty. Where porn stars were disposable masturbatory aids, where sex workers were primarily female.
Where raunch culture made it socially acceptable for women to feel empowered by their own self-promoted objectification.

A lot of men feel this sense of entitlement to our bodies, but what are we as feminists doing to undermine the culture that gives them that sense of entitlement? We can't just sit around and say 'poo poo' to every misogynist who comes along - We need to stop this reactionary behavior. They tell us women are passive - we say we're not, but what are we doing? Blogging in reaction to the same old stuff? What are WE doing to systematically get rid of the culture that systematically degrades us and values us only for our appearance?

I'm not blaming the victim. I'm blaming the rape culture which is very old and walks hand in hand with patriarchy. I'm blaming the raunch culture, which in its consumerist form is brand new.
But both men and women can perpetuate a culture. So we're all at fault. When you, as a woman, decide that you're going care more about your appearance than about your performance at work or school, you're buying into sexism.
When you buy make-up, you are voting for that same industry you feel morally repulsed by.
When feminist men don't call bullshit, they're perpetuating sexism through their silence.
When we only feel sexy when we wear the latest fashion and have our legs and armpits shaved, we're playing right into their hands. This is how the culture wants us to feel.

Men are so used to our reacting to what they do to us. When are we going to step up and take this shit seriously enough to boycott raunch culture's image of sexy? When are we going to care enough to make men react to our actions?

You can be sexy wearing over-alls and a helmet.
You can be sexy in comfortable clothing that doesn't change with fashions.

I believe that the first step to getting rid of this stupid woman hating culture is to stop equating sexy with what you've been told is sexy by people who profit from it. Every culture, every society has a different 'sexy'. Let's make our own. Let's reject this narrow definition of sexy and self-define it. Let's make it non-commercial, open-source and functional, free to everyone, man or woman.

Let's start creating a culture of androgyny, where being a man or a woman is tertiary to your appearance. Our appearances should be dictated by what's comfortable and by what we do every day and not by our secondary sexual characteristics. Cute, sexy, posh, hot, sweet, raunchy, preppy, you name it - all words used to describe styles of clothing AND women. Let's stop it. I'm not clothing. I want to be indefinable. When I walk into a room, the last thing I want someone to think about is my personal appearance. When I open my mouth, I want you to listen to my words, not look at the color of my lips. When I leave the room, please remember the words that I said, and not how I wore my hair. The way I am going to accomplish this is by wearing clothes and hairstyles that are climate-appropriate, comfortable, and help me accomplish what I want to do that day.

Anyway that's my rant.

Ug. Dumb. That's all I have to say on this watered down piece of crap that erodes away at journalism by calling itself an article.

I'm actually surprised at the people who don't get "drunk woman does not mean more at fault." I had a lengthy argument with my aunt and uncle in laws about the Oregon rape case that happened a few months back. They're usually as far left as you can go and feminists. It was astoundingly frustrating because if I can't turn his view, the neo-right is beyond reach.

@Mayfly:

I think there is a solution, albeit a long and multi-stepped solution which will not see immediate results. I think we can all agree that in order to change a certain practice we do not like (for example, the high prevalance of sex-related violence and society's blase attitude toward this), we need to change the culture behind it. It has worked before- I have never seen a "white's only" drinking fountain in my lifetime except in a museum. So some suggections:

1. From a very early age, begin stamping it into little kids' heads that rape is not acceptable. Use age-appropriate lessons. Begin with, "Don't let anyone touch your bathing suit area." Then move on from there. Part of the reason why almost everyone in our society condemns murder is because from an early age we have been taught that it is bad to kill people (religion school, mom/dad/kid discussions, whathaveyou). The disconnect comes when no one is there for Junior to explain to him that TV and real life are not the same thing.

2. Echoing Exelizabeth, teach young people to defend themselves. When I underwent "stay away from strangers" training as a kid, I was taught to run away screaming in the opposite direction. There my training stopped. What's wrong with telling a kid to kick the person in the shin, and then explaining to the child that this is only for emergencies? Again, more parental or guardian responsibilty to teach Junior to stand up for him or herself but to be aware that hauling off and punching just anyone is not OK.

3. About attacking the culture behind a problem- I see that most people vehemnently defend their rights to drink. That's fine. But again, we need to ingrain into kids heads from a very young age that alcohol has certain effects on the human body. Maybe begin with a young child by saying that, "When Mommy (or Daddy) drinks alcohol, it makes her feel differently than she normally does." Then when the child learns more about the human body, explain more. It really bothers me that people my age believe that to have a good social outing, they must get drunk. I admit I have a bias (I grew up with an abusive alcoholic relative). I think this Higgins jerk is talking about the type of drunk where woung people become so intoxicated they pass out or fall down. Doesn't anyone see the problems with this type of drinking? Physical, psychological... This type of drinking obviously makes it easier for an attacker to single a victim.
No one needs to be that intoxicated to have a good time.
But I assume as the independent ladies and gentlemen you are here on this forum, you drink responsibly... one, or two, or until you feel a buzz. That's fine. And no one should be demonized for enjoying a legal passtime.

4. Get the word out, to both kids and adults, that rape, just like murder, is unacceptable and the aggresors are responsible, not the victims. Use billboards, radio ads, TV ads, protests, everthing. Make people feel uncomfortable- some people may moan that they don't want to explain to their kid what rape is on the way to school. I say stand and be on of the many who let everyone know that rape culture would not be so prevalent if more people would saddle up and confront it.

5. Listen to Cosmo (shock, gag!) I actually read a good article in their once about the "Number one way to avoid Rape." The artcle said that if you go to socialize, bring your friends. If you are like me and like solitude once in a while, let people know where you are going and tell them to check up on you.

About segregation not working it other cultures. I believe that the natural state of Man is the intermingling of sexes. I mean, from a biological standpoint, this is how we find mates. From a social standpoint, most people like variety and change and want to move outside their core group of similar friends every once and a while to find people whose personalities complement theirs. We can already see that segregation does not work... there are many pioneering feminists who work, even under pain of incarceration or death, in places like Saudi Arabia. And we can see that the "old way" of doing things has fallen - for example Morocco is radically different from Saudi Arabia even though people of both countires come from a common culture and origin.

So these steps are not the only steps and the change will not be easy. But we live for this shit, right gals!?

He made my blood boil so I left him a rant on the comment section of his blog page [has to be approved before its shown]. It reads as follows:

RE: Compensation cuts for 'drunken' rape victims.

As an 18 year old girl reading your article I am utterly shocked and disgusted that you could defend the cutting of compensation for rape victims purely on the basis of them having consumed alcohol.

According to your reckoning, if I were to go out for a drink with friends and was so unfortunate as to be sexually assaulted or raped, some of the blame would be placed upon me for having the audacity to partake in an activity that is deemed acceptable - if not encouraged - in my male peers.

I should have the right to go out, have a drink or ten and still not expect another human being to violate me sexually. Of course I am not so niave and as a young woman am accustomed to taking preccautions to ensure this doesn't happen but I digress.

The fact of the matter is that young woman should be able to drink alcohol without fear that they will be blamed if they should be sexually attacked (and cutting compensation sends out a clear signal that the state thinks they are partially culpable for what happened to them). The focus should be on protecting women, not chastising or judging them because no matter how inebriated they were, without consent it's ALWAYS rape.

Let me leave you with this scenario, if it was a male who was raped by another male, would the state dream of cutting the victims compensation based on alcohol consumption?

There's something to be said about rape that most people debating rape issues continue forgetting. On top of using the "victim-blaming" phrase to the point to where its become a cliche.

A very important (but faulty) assumption is made about rape, which is that its done by a caped stranger in the night abducting a woman.

The truth is vast majority of rape cases happen from someone close to the victim. The number of rape cases by a stranger go in the single digits.

So using metaphors such as "defending herself from the abduction", immediatelly fly off the debate.

By law, (for example) in car crashes, even if you're not the one at fault and had absolutely done nothing wrong, but were the one hit, if you were drunk at the point of impact, your victim status is lowered.

If you are to a write an agreement under the influence, it would also be taken less seriously.

Black and white solutions never help anyone.

Example of b&w thinking:

Either: "The rapist is a monster of unseen proportions that needs to be friend in an electric chair"
Or: "Its the victims fault and he shouldn't even be charged".

TRUTH is, the real world never fits B&W scenarios, and the problem is when someone who likes the first one (he's a monster, and she's a 100% accidental victim), sees anything less as a direct support of the second one (its ok).

There is such a thing is "Victim-responsibility" as opposed to "victim-blaming".

There are tribes in the world where they consider it disrespect to wear red and they will kill you for it. Assume jack visited them wearing a red shirt.

Victim blaming: Screw him, who cares, why did he go there wearing a red shirt, f him. He got what he deserved.

Victim responsibility: I think those people should be reformed, and we should put the leader in jail. Jake should have taken the warnings from the brochure more seriously as well, but lets do a better job of informing tourists in the future.

Victim responsibility is about empowering people to know they have the personal power to influence whether they become victims or not, and have control over their destinies.

Posted above me said:

"Let me leave you with this scenario, if it was a male who was raped by another male, would the state dream of cutting the victims compensation based on alcohol consumption?"

There is a current case in Ohio where a small boy was raped by a woman, and she got pregnant when raping him.

She is currently in prison. Her term is 18months (to be cut to 9months), even though if it were a man raping a girl of the same edge, he gets on average 30 years.

Now...

Financially...

Get this. Since she is pregnant, and got pregnant by raping him, he owes her child support.

That's right, this little boy is forced by the state to pay child support to his rapist.

"If getting raped is equivalent to driving a car into a tree, then the air through which Peter Hitchens travels is filled with disembodied penises. Wherever he goes, he evades non-sentient erections flying towards his genitals, which requires continuous attention and quick reflexes to avoid sudden accidental penetration."

That cracked me up, Dondo.

I have a question, just because it came up time and again on the comment page that went along with the article (not the comments from here).

Is it really true that some women will have sex, but be so drunk that they can't remember anything, and then claim rape the next day because of "buyer's remorse"? (NOT my terminology!) Does anyone have any factual data on this?

I ask because it was a common argument, and I want something intelligent to say back to it.

Hitchenses are all assholes, apparently. Which is strange, because even though I'm religiously of the same cloth as the ironically named Christopher, I still think he's a pompous ass.

It makes me wonder about this guy, though. If I were to stake out his home, and wait until he left the place unlocked and robbed him blind, would that be ok by him? I mean, he left it unlocked. Clearly if his property meant something to him, he would've locked up, right? ;)

And the car crash comparison was really shit. When a drunk is driving and crashes into an inanimate object, they are the only acter. Everyone else is being acted upon. If some drunk crashes into another driver's car, then the crash is the drunk's fault, and not the sober person's. The drunken driver scenario is far more apt to talk about a drunken rapist than any woman he might attack. The moral here is more aptly summarized as "even if you're drunk, it's your responsibility to, you know, not rape people." Not a complicated request.

@ Aleksa: As a sex offender against a child, in many states, she wouldn't be allowed to have custody of the kid in the first place. I quite agree, she shouldn't even be allowed, as clearly she's not a safe person for a child to be around. If the boy's family want to take the child, they should have the right to, but if the boy doesn't, then they should be allowed to place that child for adoption regardless of her thoughts on the matter.

"Let me leave you with this scenario, if it was a male who was raped by another male, would the state dream of cutting the victims compensation based on alcohol consumption?"

There is a current case in Ohio where a small boy was raped by a woman, and she got pregnant when raping him.

She is currently in prison. Her term is 18months (to be cut to 9months), even though if it were a man raping a girl of the same edge, he gets on average 30 years.

Now...

Financially...

Get this. Since she is pregnant, and got pregnant by raping him, he owes her child support.

That's right, this little boy is forced by the state to pay child support to his rapist."

I looked up the case of the rapist, Jane Crane (is that who you're talking about).

Forgive me--but the case seems to be one of statutory rape, in that he was a minor, but a consenting one (15 year old kid, 19 year old perpetrator).

Unless she forcibly raped him...given the small disparity in ages, she shouldn't even be in jail, anymore than Genarlow Wilson should be in jail (although he was charged with raping a girl while she was passed out...there was a tape of him dragging her off the bed, but the jury still acquitted...)

But as for the child support thing....enh.Not so sure about that.

I think you need to explain three things to the boyfriend, Mayfly:

1. Since you can do everything you're "supposed" to do and still be raped, the whole "you should do this, you shouldn't do that" business is a game in which, while individual women might come out ahead, women as a whole can only lose. Therefore we have to make sure that the onus is not on women to keep themselves from being raped, but on men not to commit rape.

2. As Dondo stated above, misjudging risk does not make one responsible for the actions of others. If your boyfriend walked into a dark alley with his iPhone prominently displayed, he would be displaying lousy judgment, but that's not the same as causing someone to rob him -- the people of this proposed bad neighbourhood could choose to shake their heads and walk away, planning to tell their friends about the moneyed idiot they saw who's probably going to get rolled. They might even choose to walk up and advise him to "hide that thing". And bear in mind that even if someone did choose to rob him, it might not end with robbery -- would he be just as "responsible" for his own assault? Murder?

3. There is a real problem when judges and jurors (or even potential jurors) think, like Mr. Hitchens, that all this "coulda, woulda, shoulda" stuff should actually matter legally. To use the iPhone robbery example, your boyfriend would probably have been kicking himself if he got robbed, but if it went to court and the jury decided that because he had displayed poor judgment, the thief gets a lesser sentence and is allowed to keep his iPhone... would he think that's fair?

Concerning this last point, it's rather telling that Mr. Hitchens uses the simile of a drunken woman getting run over. As far as I know, when such cases go to court, the outcome is determined by the driver's behaviour. The victim's drunkenness might be used to argue that the accident did not happen under normal circumstances; that the victim stepped into the street in such an unexpected fashion that the driver could not have swerved in time. But the focus is still on the actual driver -- whether they drove away or stayed to render assistance, etc. But no, apparently Mr. Hitchens thinks that even a hit-and-run driver should get a lesser sentence if his victim was drunk. Or perhaps he only thinks this is the case if the victim was a drunk woman?

aleksa, i don't think anyone here is seriously suggesting that it's a bad idea to tell your kids (regardless of gender) or your friends to be careful, to avoid walking around alone after dark in a strange neighborhood, to not get shitfaced in a bar all by yourself, etc.

the problem is that i don't know a single person in my generation or older who hasn't been taught all this. i would venture to say that nearly all women are aware of the danger of being raped at any given point in time and most of them act out of a sense of self-preservation nearly all the time as well. the issue that's conveniently not addressed in the media is the flipside--instead of thinking of 50,000 ways to fight off a rapist (who very likely won't pop up behind you in a dark alley in the first place), we're not thinking about how to prevent people from becoming rapists in the first place. i don't accept it as some kind of foregone conclusion that men are unable to control themselves and that rape is inevitable.

further, all this brouhaha in recent years about binge-drinking and hooking up and anything else the young people are doing strikes me as having a LOT to do with the threat to the patriarchy that young, independent women going out and drinking and conducting their own affairs represent. it's one thing to advise of the dangers of alcohol and all that, but another entirely to expect one half of the population to refrain from what are considered completely normal social activities and say nothing to the other half and then have the nerve to blame the victims when shit goes down.

tappingmommy - i don't have any studies to cite for you, unfortunately, but all i can say is that i call bullshit. i don't know where this town of vindictive jezebels who falsely report rape left and right for....attention? is, but i've known plenty of women who've been sexually assaulted in some way and only a few who've ever reported it to any kind of authorities. i've also never had any guy friends randomly (or otherwise) accused of rape. those numbers just seem like they match up with the common experience--that women are much more likely to be actually raped and not to report it than men are likely to be falsely accused.

frankly just don't see an incentive to falsely report rape in the first place. the conviction rate is pathetically low and the process can be humiliating, especially with the kind of stories that get posted on this blog about rape victims being treated like shit.

If Peter wants to shame drinkers, he should probably start with his brother who is never pictured without a drink in hand. I guess if Christopher is brutally murdered Peter will send back any sympathy cards because he'll understand that his brother had it coming.

By law, (for example) in car crashes, even if you're not the one at fault and had absolutely done nothing wrong, but were the one hit, if you were drunk at the point of impact, your victim status is lowered.

Aleksa, this is because it is illegal to be driving drunk. And your argument that rapists are generally familiar with their victims just makes the whole argument more bullshit. I'm drunk, so I definitely shouldn't trust my boyfriend, friend, or acquaintance to not rape me? What the hell?

Instead of driving, let's use examples of other types of physical violence. If I'm drunk I may be less able to defend myself from an attack, but that doesn't mean anyone has the right to assault me.

I hate the analogy of robbery to rape. The idea that rape is taking something from a woman is just gross and old-fashioned and even perpetuating rape culture to some degree. I much prefer, as I've said elsewhere, the analogy of disease. No one blames a person for getting a disease, even if they go out in the woods without bug repellant and sufficient clothing, and get Lyme Disease. No one blames someone who comes down with Leukemia or Crohn's. Disease is such an awful thing, which can strike anyone at any time for no apparent reason, that no one would ever dream of blaming the person for getting a disease. Also, everyone understands that disease doesn't make a person lesser, that it is a different state (not always fatal) from completely healthy, which I think is a much better parallel to rape than having something taken from you.

Also, the thing that so many of these people seem to miss is that a woman can go out and get drunk thousands of times without a rape every occurring. This backwards calculation of "women raped while drunk=drunkenness gets women raped" is so absurd when you take this into account. Would women really go out and drink in large numbers if they were raped every time, or even a large amount of the time? No, because we're not stupid and we do usually make great efforts to make sure we don't get raped. I used to go out drinking all the time; I was always with friends, always made sure my drink could not possibly be tampered with, never went home with strangers or walked home alone drunk. And in spite of all of this, I was almost raped by a friend in the middle of a busy party. The fact that I was drunk had very little to do with it; if I had been in the same situation and NOT drunk, he would still have been able to try it because I thought I was safe and I thought he was my friend. I thought I was safe BECAUSE I thought he was my friend. Is Hitchens now going to tell me that if I don't want to be raped, I shouldn't have friends?

wax ghost, seriously. analogizing rape to a property crime is just, so incredibly inapt and demeaning.

and yeah, if there was some huge odds of getting raped every time i went out drinking, i wouldn't do it. women aren't stupid--everything involves a risk calculation from having some drinks to talking to a stranger to driving a car. the difference is that because we live in a totally fucked up society, what is seen as a reasonable risk calculation for a man to make in going out with a few friends and knocking back some shots is just dangerous for a woman. people need to seriously face the fact that a woman's blood alcohol content isn't why she's raped--her EXISTENCE is why. rapists prey on easy victims, but if there aren't any, it's not like they'll just say "oh, i guess i won't force myself on anyone tonight. i'll go home and play scrabble instead." if it worked like this, as has been said, women in cultures that sequestered them wouldn't get raped.

Looking at the photo in reference to this article just makes me really sad.

Profoundly so.

I understand your point about the robbery analogy, Waxghost, but I'm willing to defend it. The problem with the disease analogy is that with most diseases, nobody goes out of their way to infect you, and part of what we're trying to stress is that rape isn't just some chance act of nature, but a deliberate act of harm against another.

Some other points in favour of the robbery analogy: people who are robbed or have their houses broken into (especially if assault or vandalism is also involved) do report feelings of violation; also, you could say that a rapist has taken something from his victim: her sense of safety and well-being.

Every analogy we use is going to be problematic in some way, but I think robbery is still a pretty good one because there is a perpetrator who should be prosecuted, and there are some emotional similarities.

Noah,

sometimes I don't need to say anything because it's already been articulated. And you did that for me:

*********

"The article and the comments on his page depressed the hell out of me. I don't understand why all these guys come out of the woodwork and think that women who report rape are just having 'buyers remorse' from the night before and that they really wanted to have sex and now are feeling guilty and are crying rape. Are you fucking insane? who the fuck, in their right mind, would do that? It's not like going to the cops, getting a rape kit done are so easy and everyone there isn't biased against you already because of preconceived notions that all women who are raped are lying. Fucking drives me insane the way this system works. Why is everything focused on the women? What she did/didn't do/drank/wore/went/said etc. Why isn't a man ever scrutinized in such a way? I don't fucking believe in the 'mixed messages' line of reason where the man 'didn't understand' or some such nonsense. Men feel entitled to do whatever they want and it's fucking wrong and needs to stop!!"
************************************
Thanks.

Personally, I’m not sure where all this ‘compensation’ came from. It used to be grudgingly paid out. Now it flows in tens of millions (£200million last year) from the taxpayers’ pockets into the hands of the wronged.

I suspect it is the result of the almost total failure of the criminal justice system to prevent crime, catch culprits or punish them when caught. Instead of offering justice, the state provides a cheque.

So I suppose we must resign ourselves to the fact that a growing slice of our taxes will be handed over to victims of unsolved rapes, while rape itself increases – the inevitable result of the collapse of sexual morality."

Is the article obnoxious? Yes. Is that part about "sexual morality" bullshit? Yes. Is it gender-biased? Yes (just like rape, and the reporting of rape--probably more men raped than come forward).

Both Hitchens may be assholes, but I don't put his (obnoxiously put) complaint about victim's compensation (doesn't specify how to prove a man/woman got so drunk they lost all self-control, did he?) 100% in the same bag as "Women who drink too much are to blame for making themselves vulnerable to predators" (the predators presumably being non-acquaintances....where is that line, anyway?)

Or is the victim's compensation sum symbolic of "legal culpability/blame for risk" here?

The originating topic for this debate is criminal compensation and risk assessment and all three articles seem to miss the truth in the situation being discussed.

For the compensation culture to work the circumstantial risk of an individual needs to be accounted for; some crimes obviously have far worse consequences for their victims than others and these should be duly compensated for.

How one deals affectively with this risk assessment situation is the cause of the debate. If alcohol raises the circumstantial risk of a crime (i.e. random standard assault in a bar) occurring then the compensation should be lowered, in this instance the victim's compensation is lowered. Whether this decision is correct or not is debatable - however for the crime of rape the compensation is not lowered.

So the real issue is why alcohol lowers the compensation given to victims of other crimes, but not in the case under discussion.

Hitchens is just another misogynist, he did that article in Vanity Fair about how women are incapable of humour. It seems like he's incapable of compassion.

==============Shiftercat said:
"I have a question, just because it came up time and again on the comment page that went along with the article (not the comments from here).

Is it really true that some women will have sex, but be so drunk that they can't remember anything, and then claim rape the next day because of "buyer's remorse"? (NOT my terminology!) Does anyone have any factual data on this?

I ask because it was a common argument, and I want something intelligent to say back to it.
===============

What i find extremely fascinating about feminism and feminism sites (this one included), is just how often the dating/mating/courtship sphere is avoided.

Feminism invests so much effort into solving the perverted extreme side-effects of dating/mating/courtship, yet so rarely talks about the actual thing itself.

The reason I am reminded to this by your question is that the biggest fear that normal (non-psychopathic) men have is what you said. Most men that are single (90+%) of the single guys have an actual *phobia* of meeting new women sexually. The main reason?

The reason? They fear the above scenario: the woman waking up the next morning, changing her mind and accusing them of sexual harassment (if they made out), or rape if they had sex.

*Note*: I'm not saying this is realistic. I'm saying this is the fear that men have. Single, normal men.

If you ever wonder why you mostly meet jerks, assholes, players and psychopaths. Its because they're the only ones (generalizations, but overall true)... they're mostly the only ones without this fear.

In fact, this fear is just as big as rape is for women. Women fear walking down the streets alone lat at night(generalization), even though realistically, the odds of a caped stranger grabbing her are less than being hit by a swerving car. Men fear false accusations (to the point of a phobia).

Therefore we're left with a world where the only men who are confident to be direct and upfront with courting women are misogynists, psychopaths and players.

At the same time, women are taught by society (patriarchy?), to act aloof and run away from men who aren't "smooth" or completely secure about sexuality, and at the same time they are made to feel guilty if they act themselves. Society will bemean any woman who is proactive in her dating life (ask men out, propose first, flirt first, etc...).

I'm really surprised why feminism isn't doing much work in that sphere, when that sphere is probably the one where women are the most opresses out of all the major ones. In fact, the dating sphere is the one where women are almost as repressed by society as they were in the 19th century.

Aleksa, you're being offensive. There is practically no chance that any given man will ever be falsely accused of rape in his lifetime. It is a completely irrational fear (so the term "phobia" is really very apt). To say that men's fear of false rape charges = women's fear of rape is so off-base I don't even know what to say.

==================
Aleksa, this is because it is illegal to be driving drunk. And your argument that rapists are generally familiar with their victims just makes the whole argument more bullshit. I'm drunk, so I definitely shouldn't trust my boyfriend, friend, or acquaintance to not rape me? What the hell?

Instead of driving, let's use examples of other types of physical violence. If I'm drunk I may be less able to defend myself from an attack, but that doesn't mean anyone has the right to assault me.
==================

Please refer to the black&white chart. Its about gradations. When someone talks about "victim-responsibility", they are not *blaming* the victim or saying their perpertrator had a right to do it. Its the vagueness of the situation. A boyfriend example is an awesome example by law standards, because its extremely hard to determine what happened.

Your Example, Other Types Of Violence... Lets assume someone is attacked in a party, there is a shouting match between the two (both drunk). And then the one person starts getting beat up.

One person is covered in scars and injuries, and the other is not. The one that's all in scars and injuries (the victim), applies to court. Both of them are best friends.

The court reviews the case, and sees the victim was reported drunk and acting foolishly around town just before the accident. The violence inflicted (scars, injuries), show the person to be the attacked one, but the court was not there.

It can make an educated *estimation* as to who is at fault. And almost surely it will make the injured one the victim, but when vague factors come in such as alcohol, its the victim's word against the attacker's word.

We don't know if the attacked one didn't in their drunkeness insult and attack the other person.

Therefore the court makes an educated estimation to the favor of the injured one, but to a lesser degree than if the injured one hadn't been drunk or if they weren't best friends.

===================

On boyfriends and husbands. Again it comes down to the distinction between victim blame and victim responsibility.

Victim blame: "She married an idiot, who cares, its her fault, she had it coming"

Victim responsibility: "That was really sad, the idiot needs to be put in jail!! He raped his own wife! She, too needs to make better choices of men, she was warned by all her friends that he has a history of violence.

The problem is thought that when someone is attached to the "victim-blame" concept, they hear the second one, and *assume* its victim blaming in disguise.

Responsibility is about empowerment. It empowers women to know they are not helpless victims abducted into the night and needing state-protection. It empowers them to know they fact fight back.

GoodFriend: Maybe you should take up martial classes?
FemaleFriend: Oh so you're saying men have a right to RAPE ME!?!?!

GoodFriend: Maybe you should consider dating less jerks? The vast majority of non-violent men are passive, so you'd have to flirt with them first.
FemaleFriend: Oh so you're saying men have a right to RAPE ME just because they courted me first!?!?!

What worries me is the following. The 5% of men on this planet who are violent, abusive and psychopathic, get 95% of the dates. And yes there were several researches on this, where the more the "dark factors" were present in a man, the more partners and relationships he would have in life. And no, this doesn't mean women "like jerks"... Its just that we have a situation currently, where the jerks are the only ones out there playing the field. For every 1 jerk that will court you, there are 10 good men who hesitated in fear of offending you or being too forward.

Sarah, i am offended that you didn't read what I said and twisted it to an alternate meaning :)

I said that men have an irrational fear of being falsely accused. A phobia is (look into the dictionary), an **irrational** fear that doesn't have any realistic merit of coming true.

The odds of a man being falsely accused are smaller than being hit by an asteroid. But so are the odds of a woman being abducted out of nowhere on a dark street.

Yet both have this fear instilled into them by the media and society.

Forgive me, Aleksa.

Sarah: I have an apology to make. I speedread through your post and actually missed that you said "the use of phobia is APT", but if i can make an excuse for myself, english isn't my first language :)

I am disgusted. This is the most disrespectful and unresearched piece I have ever read. I especially love this part:

"Our society is based on self-restraint. We can be provoked and still behave ourselves. We do not need to compel women to dress like bats, as many Muslim countries do, so as to curb the unchained passions of hot-blooded menfolk."

Thank GOD we live in a society based on the self-restraint of men. How lucky we are- otherwise we too would have to wear a burkha (er- "bat-wear")so as not to be so desirable to men. Oh wait, so that is why they wear them? For their own protection from these hot-blooded heathen-men? Ha.

Aleksa, you're actually wrong. The study demonstrated that men with "dark factors" have more sexual partners but that their relationships with said partners are shorter. It also made the mistake of taking men who are *admitted* to be lying, self-aggrandizing narcissists at their word for how many partners they have. So if the study were even true, it would say that women will give one date to an asshole but then will dump his ass once they know he's an asshole; and it's highly suspect because their data for how many partners these men had is, they asked the guys. Men who lie to make themselves look better will lie on your survey to make themselves look better. it makes the data highly suspect.

The thing that drives me insane about all this shit is that, in fact, men *always* get into trouble when they are drinking. Men end up getting robbed, getting hit as pedestrians, getting beaten up, getting into car accidents as passengers, and even getting killed because they got drunk and showed poor judgement. *no* one ever tells men "Well, you shouldn't have been drinking!" when something bad happens *to* them that they did not cause but that they were more vulnerable to as the result of drinking.

We assume men have the right to drink in places like bars and friends' houses, and if a man is robbed, beaten or raped because he got drunk and passed out at a bar or a friend's house, *no* one is going to tell him "Well, you should have known that might happen, because you got drunk." These things *do* happen to men (not the rapes so much, although it can happen, but beatings and robbery are pretty common), but we don't act as if men deserved them for getting drunk.

Now, when men get drunk and take actions, such as *driving* a car, we blame them. Certainly. And if a woman raped a man while drunk, it would absolutely be her fault. But in the vastly more common case that she was raped *by* a man while she was drunk, it is not *her* actions we should be analyzing; it is the actions of the rapist!

we do not waste our time blaming men for being vulnerable in public when they are hurt or attacked. Why do we spend so much time blaming women?

I've just viewed the film "The Knack...and How to Get It" which in one section makes a variety of rape-related jokes that today's audience would find insulting. In a kind of blackly comedic way, it takes into account the power a woman has in the public eye if she even hints at making an accusation of rape towards any male. The film paints that as the ultimate trump card a woman can lord over a man.

For every story that advances that same tired old view that women somehow "ask" to be raped by putting themselves in vulnerable positions or dressing scantily, rarely do we read about the opposite extreme---the people who use loaded and explosive issues to foster controversy for controversy's sake and for purely exploitative ends.

========
Aleksa, you're actually wrong. The study demonstrated that men with "dark factors" have more sexual partners but that their relationships with said partners are shorter. It also made the mistake of taking men who are *admitted* to be lying, self-aggrandizing narcissists at their word for how many partners they have. So if the study were even true, it would say that women will give one date to an asshole but then will dump his ass once they know he's an asshole;
===========

Actually, they were the ones dumping the women, not getting dumped. That's what playas do, go to a girl, get the sex, and move on.

==========
and it's highly suspect because their data for how many partners these men had is, they asked the guys. Men who lie to make themselves look better will lie on your survey to make themselves look better. it makes the data highly suspect.
===========

All similiar studies found the same results when the women were asked as well. Of the men they had relations with, how many were "dark men".

I've been involved with men's sexuality for a while, and the point doesn't change. The more psychopathic men are, the more at ease they feel with courting women. That's the actual point.

In other words, the "good men" aren't taken, they've been scared to passivity in a worry of not offending women. Its ironic, the only men who wouldn't offend women by courting them, are the ones who are deadly afraid of it, by hearing all these jerk-stories.

But it all comes back to the main point. Why is feminism ignoring opression in dating?

Before women's lib, the main areas where women were opressed were:

Education (not allowed to have it)
Career (not allowed to have it)
HomeChores (forced to do them in unequal ratio)
Looks (forced to pay attention to it to an unequal ratio)
Dating (forced to not initiate it and wait passivelly)

==Education, women are not only showing they can be as good in education, but they're *surpassing* men
=Career, a lot more women in a lot more professions, excellent job so far
=Looks, feminism is really working hard on educating society that women shouldn't be obssesed with their looks or follow superficial media standards
=HomeChores, roughly correlated to advancements in career

Now dating... In the year 2008, way over in excess of 99% of all dating, mating, courtship, kisses and sex is initiated by the men. And feminism is ignoring this.

Aleksa, according to you, I'm the only woman in the world who asks men out on dates. Interesting.

Also, feminism isn't "ignoring" anything. On a large scale, it's usually trying to deal with the worst shit first, because that's what you do when you're trying to fix something. You're making the usual mistake of assuming that we can't possibly do more than one thing at once but guess what, we can chew gum and walk at the same time! We can decry rape and alter our own relationship patterns at the same time. And you are just displaying your own ignorance saying that.

No one blames someone who comes down with Leukemia or Crohn's.

Sadly ... well ...

I have UC and used to belong to a UC/Crohn's support forum. It was all hunky-dory until one day a member of the forum declared that our diseases were punishment from God for the wrong deeds we had done in our lives.

As you might imagine, many were pretty pissed off. I have no idea how common this disease-as-punishment idea is, but the notion that I did something SO HORRIBLE in the 12 years before I first became symptomatic to deserve the hell I've been through ... well ... there you go. It's pretty insane and out there, but there are people who think that way. (My mom blames me for my illnesses, but it's less god and more that I should have done something to prevent being sick.)

I have been raped, and I was sober but didn't do anything out of absolute fear. I wasn't sexually active before and haven't been since then. (I even made it clear to him earlier that I wasn't interested in him.) But because I "put myself" in that situation (alone in a bedroom with a guy, assuming that we were there for the purposes of sleep because we'd missed our last trains), I've been told by the very very few people I've mentioned it to ... that it was my fault and I was crying rape after the fact.

Shouldn't have been in that hotel room.

Shouldn't have been drinking.

Shouldn't have been wearing that dress.

Shouldn't have been at the party alone.

Shouldn't have been wearing a tight shirt.

Shouldn't have been out late.

Shouldn't have had a sexual history.

Shouldn't have been in public while female.

How about ... men just shouldn't rape. Isn't that easier than changing the rules based on whatever a woman's situation is? And why is it that I can trust my lesbian friends to not rape me in hotel rooms, but male friends can't figure out how not to touch me? Riddle me that, Batman.

What this *ahem* gentleman fails to understand is that rape is about POWER. The rapist uses sex to get power. Now, of course, many rapists will target young girls, the elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped, intoxicated women and women who are otherwise not paying attention or don't take many precautionary measures. The reason is because these women are easier targets. So it's easy for the rapist to overpower his victim and feel like he proved that he is strong and viral.

BUT- many rapists choose to target women who are the exact opposite. They stalk women who are powerful, smart, and seem to have everything together. Then he sits and waits for one slip up. And that's when he attacks. In this way he can feel like he REALLY proved his virility. Not only that, he "brought her down a peg" and "put her in her place" and all that.

So....is a successful, brilliant, strong, SOBER, professional woman who gets attacked by some narcissistic power rapist to blame for being a success? Surely if she were under-confident, perhaps under-employed, etc, she would have not been a target. Or at least not targeted by the same man.

I like what someone else said, that being raped while drunk is no less a tragedy than someone forgetting to lock their window and getting robbed. Perhaps they may have NOT gotten robbed if they took every precaution. But if that robber really wanted in, s/he would have found a way in. And yes, the tenant/homeowner would feel like an idiot and blame him/herself- but everyone would still give appropriate sympathy. Because no one deserves to get robbed! And no one deserves to get raped! EVER! It would be great if we could say 'just do these things and nothing bad will happen to you' but the world doesn't work that way.

=============
Aleksa, according to you, I'm the only woman in the world who asks men out on dates. Interesting.
=============

I find it offensive that you distort what I said, but all's fair :)

That's not what I said.

I said more than 99% of courtship is initiated by men. If the female population in the world was a 100 people, than the above would be true.

However, 1% out of 3.5 billion people is 35 million women. I doubt you are a collection of 35 million women :)

===========
You're making the usual mistake of assuming that we can't possibly do more than one thing at once but guess what, we can chew gum and walk at the same time! We can decry rape and alter our own relationship patterns at the same time. And you are just displaying your own ignorance saying that
===========

Actually you are making the assumption that this is the assumption I make. I did thorough research on feminist projects, studies, blogs, websites, books... and way less than 1 in a 1000 posts/studies/projects/initiatives is concerning actual dating equality.

==========
On a large scale, it's usually trying to deal with the worst shit first, because that's what you do when you're trying to fix something.
===========

That's what my whole hypothesis revolves around. I believe that feminism is busy tackling the symptoms instead of the disease. It's missing the forest for the individual trees.

It tackles issues such as rape and sexual harrassment which I believe are the symptoms, and not the disease.

I have been working with men's sexuality for years, which is why i have also been studying feminism for over a decade. I only belive you can understand men if you also understand women.

However I find alot of feminists don't do that. On a large scale, it's usually trying to deal with the worst shit first, because that's what you do when you're trying to fix something.They go for simplistic explanations that fail to take into account that men are human too, people with their own faults, emotions and feelings. Choosing to simplify things to black&white explanations.

Here's an example.

1) Sexual harassment: I have read over a thousand feminist discussions on sexual harassment, and not one took into account the male perspective.

By **DEFINITION**, sexual harassment is "the act of "unwanted" sexual attention".

Here's the piece of the jigsaw that all these discussions missed, yet is clear to most men.

Due to the way that women are opressed in dating, the vast majority of them, are taught not to display clear *verbal* signals of interest or disinterest before a man has taken the risk first.

That leaves for men to find out by attempting. The only way left for men to find out if a woman is interested is by showing sexual interest or "making a move"

The trouble is, that if the woman was not interested, she will consider that sexual harassment.

*Studies showed* that 97% of men are completely blind to non-verbal courtship signals by women. That means, that 97% of the time when a woman showed clear interest in a man (to the point where she believed she was upfront and almost pushy), 97% of men didn't see it. AT ALL. Same goes for non-verbal signs of disinterest.

===Typical Situation 1===
Men flirts with woman
Woman is polite, but non-verbally shows disinterest
Men flirts again
Woman is polite, but non-verbally shows disinterest
Man tries to kiss her
Woman freaks out and calls him a pervert
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===Typical Situation 2===
Men flirts with woman
Woman is polite, but non-verbally shows interest
Men flirts again
Woman is polite, but non-verbally shows interest
Man tries to kiss her
Woman is pleased and
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From the men's perspective, both of these situations are the same. So they make the *faulty* conclusion that "women are weird". Its "all a numbers game". "You have to try until she rejects you harshly by calling you a pig or kisses you back".

The above is of course a faulty conclusion, but it still exists, and its rarely take into account.

That leaves most normal men never trying past their first severe rejection. That leaves us with a world where only psychopaths feel comfortable courting women, since they don't fear offending women. They don't care when women call them pigs or give them the middle finger.

If the disease (women's opression in dating) were cured and women weren't ostricized for communicating interest clearly, that would eradicate most of the symptoms (such as sexual harassment).

2) Rape: The disease here is i believe teaching our sons and daughters that the man is the chaser, and the woman is the prey.

Feminism only tackles one part of the issue, which is trying to teach men that no, they're not a "chaser" or "predator". But they forget the women themselves.

Women are still oppressed by patriarchy to view themselves as the "catch" or "prize". So, teaching men that women aren't... only leaves them confused.

They are taught to treat women as equals, but they go out into the real world, engage women as equals, and the women don't reciprocicate.

*This is ofcourse only true if the man doesn't happen to be lucky enough to run into a feminist, like I have with my girlfriend. In which case she will reciprocate and act as an equal.

If we actually solved the problem on *both* sides, we'd remove the symptoms. The problem is patriarchy teaching women to view themselves as a "prize" to be conquered.

Rape is a symptom of that disease. A symptom that appears in those men who have the belief/upbringing that when you're trying to conquer something, be it career, women, money, cars... everything is allowed, including violence, stealing and cheating.

So the issue is much bigger than rape. Because no rapist is a "sweetheart". There is no rapist for whom rape is his only bad deed. These are men who have no limits in any other area of life (not just mating).

And feminism ignores that, it ignores the **overall** problem. Kinda like medicine, they keep trying to remove the symptom, without tackling the overall disease.

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What this *ahem* gentleman fails to understand is that rape is about POWER. The rapist uses sex to get power. Now, of course, many rapists will target young girls, the elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped, intoxicated women and women who are otherwise not paying attention or don't take many precautionary measures. The reason is because these women are easier targets. So it's easy for the rapist to overpower his victim and feel like he proved that he is strong and viral.
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Out of the 100 largest feminist theories, i agree with about 90 of them. The "power" one is the one i disagree with the most simply because it has completely reversed the causality.

I agree with the following statements:

Men want power = true
Men are obssesed with getting power = true

The problem arises when we are looking at why men want power. The truth is that "power" is a means, not a goal.

Men acquire power to get sex, not the other way round.

Take this simple hypothesis. Its the best way to isolate the causality.

If a man could choose to be locked up forever on an island with a 100 of the women he finds most attractive, which of these two extremes would he choose.

a) He could command and dominate and empower and enslave these women any way he wished, and they would obey whatever he said, BUT he could never EVER have sex with any of them for eternity.

b) He could have sex with any of them, all the time, but he would be their slave, and he would be totally dominated, never being able to undertake a single autonomous action, being literally a slave, for eternity.

Which of the two would a man choose? That isolates the factors of sex and power most clearly.

I'm sure you realize its b, and hence meaning that men are ultimately after sex, not power. They would trade power for sex any day.

Yes, rapists overpower women during rape - this is true.

But they do so to get the penetration. The power is a means, not a goal

**Studies show**

There were studies where they literally hooked up sex offenders with electrodes measuring galvanic response and arousement. They were shown images/depictions of forceful and consensual intercourse.

Guess what?

They were far more aroused by consensual intercourse and almost not at all by forced intercourse.

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And why is it that I can trust my lesbian friends to not rape me in hotel rooms, but male friends can't figure out how not to touch me?
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Because a 100% of lesbians can read non-verbal signals and only 3% of men can. This is of course relating only to "touching", and other pre-sex attempts.

A 100% of men (minus braindamaged diseases, but i digress)... A 100% of men however can read when a woman doesn't want sex. So rape is NEVER EVER justified. And by definition, rape is *always* forced.

Initial touching however is not so clear.

Let me ask you a simple question. Out of the "male friends" who touch you, to how many of them have you verbally told or asked them not to?

aleksa,

seriously? seriously?

i am so fucking not normal according to your definition of normal men. holy. shit.

i'm a psychopath.

at least i'm diagnosable by someone who loves spouting off ridiculous amounts of statistical information with absolutely no citations (99% of courtship is initiated by men?... lol... do you get a funny feeling when you make stuff like this up?)

oh, yeah, and, by the way, feminism is not a dating guide for men. real men, men who respect women as they would their own mothers/ sisters/ daughters/ comrades, don't have a phobia (irrational fear - clinical condition) of being falsely accused of rape.

oh, yeah, and by your own admission (based on studies that may or may not exist), rapists "were far more aroused by consensual intercourse and almost not at all by forced intercourse." if rapists are "almost not [aroused] at all by forced intercourse," what makes you think that their motivation is sexual? that doesn't make any sense - what does make sense is that, if sexual offenders are not turned on by forced intercourse, they must have some other motivation than arousal. perhaps, just perhaps, that motivation has something to do with having power over another individual - perhaps, it even has to do with violence.

just an idea.

another idea is that you should learn more about what feminism is and the various perspectives it encompasses before you deliver your rambling critiques of how it doesn't recognize the responsibility of women for complicity in systems of oppression or whatever you're going on about. you say you did a survey of feminist writings and found that fewer than 1/1000 "posts" (is that how the non-blogging world organizes their texts?) deal with "dating equality"... which is...?

i mean, really, considering that feminism covers ground from economics to politics to self-defense to literature, i'd say 1/1000 talking about DATING is pretty high... mind you, that would be ignoring all of the "posts" about how heteronormativity is part of the problem, too, and dealing with male/female dating patterns is only treating a symptom.

aghhh... whatever.

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. you say you did a survey of feminist writings and found that fewer than 1/1000 "posts" (is that how the non-blogging world organizes their texts?) deal with "dating equality"... which is...?
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I said studies, posts, projects, initiatives. Not just posts. :) Luckuly this blog doesn't have an editing function, so the original comment stands above with proof it was never edited ;)

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i am so fucking not normal according to your definition of normal men. holy. shit.

i'm a psychopath.
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I take in "not normal" as a compliment :) The word "normal" means "average". I am not normal either as I do not have that irrational fear, but I have been studying feminism for a decade, the average man off the street has not.

Einsten was not normal. The guy who cleans your windshields is. Check out the dictionary on "normal".

Its again an issue of reducing things to B&W perspectives. If you're not A, you must be B. There is such a thing as mature, respectful, adult men. Not everyone is either a wuss or a psychopath.

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i mean, really, considering that feminism covers ground from economics to politics to self-defense to literature, i'd say 1/1000 talking about DATING is pretty high...
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I do have an apology to make here due to lack of clarity. I meant a 1 to a 1000 ratio of dating-symptoms vs. dating itself.

There are atleast a 1000 discussions on sexual harassment for every one discussion on sexual opression. And the latter is the cause of the former.

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oh, yeah, and, by the way, feminism is not a dating guide for men. real men, men who respect women as they would their own mothers/ sisters/ daughters/ comrades, don't have a phobia (irrational fear - clinical condition) of being falsely accused of rape.
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Agreed.

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oh, yeah, and by your own admission (based on studies that may or may not exist), rapists "were far more aroused by consensual intercourse and almost not at all by forced intercourse." if rapists are "almost not [aroused] at all by forced intercourse," what makes you think that their motivation is sexual? that doesn't make any sense - what does make sense is that, if sexual offenders are not turned on by forced intercourse, they must have some other motivation than arousal. perhaps, just perhaps, that motivation has something to do with having power over another individual - perhaps, it even has to do with violence.
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Actually they involved the same person. In other words if a rapist could have had the sex consensually, he would have.

(most) Rapists (over 90%) rape because they believe its the only way to get sex with that particular woman at that particular moment, and due to their personal nature, believe that anything is allowed to satisfy physical urges.

p.s.

I love how you say i make up stuff :) If i were emotional i might just take it personally and get offended :)

Some references off the top of my head:

--> On rapist arousal, check out the references on wikipedia under the rape entry

--> On non-verbal signals and related studies, the book "undercover sexual signals" lists several hundreds studies on sexual initiation, non-verbal signalling during mating and gender differences.

--> Findarticles.com for gender difference in mating initiations

--> Highbeamresearch for cultural differences in mating signals

I love it how when someone disagrees with you, the immediate reaction is "you didn't show references, therefore you're making stuff up". I didn't see a single reference mentioned in the claims of any of the people commenting here. That doesn't make them untrue.

Aleksa: I wasn't the one who asked the question about so-called "buyer's remorse".

Also: wow, you and I must move in entirely different circles, because your claims about male behaviour are virtually all contradicted by my own experience.

First of all, what I've seen matches Puckalish's comment: "real men, men who respect women as they would their own mothers/ sisters/ daughters/ comrades, don't have a phobia... of being falsely accused of rape." I've had male friends for most of my life, and I've never had one confess a fear of false accusation; what they fear is rejection. Even then, most of them are able to get over it and ask anyway.

About your claim that scummy guys get "95%" of the dates: first of all, the claim that decent men are too scared to initiate courtship doesn't match my experience, and judging from the reactions, it doesn't match other readers' either.

And no, it isn't necessarily "playas" who dump their girlfriends: as was pointed out in this book, many men are now aware that they'll be viewed as "the bad guy" if they do the dumping, so instead they try to sabotage their relationships.

I knew one guy who did get into a lot of relationships with his charm -- and those girlfriends he didn't tire of and try to provoke into dumping him dumped him on their own once they realized what was under the charm. Whereas the guys who didn't put on such a show tended to have fewer girlfriends, but longer and more satisfying relationships -- and they didn't have to keep looking for new social scenes.

I've also known jerks who kept wondering aloud why women wouldn't go out with them. They don't really fit into your theory, do they?

It's also not true that sexual harassment is purely the result of male cluelessness. A decent guy who is pursuing a woman and is failing to pick up on her disinterest will try a verbal approach such as asking her out, or a "romantic" gesture such as taking her hand; it's only the ones who feel entitled to female attention or sexual favours who will try to grab, grope, corner, or make crude propositions. And that's not getting started on the ones who are clearly trying to put a co-worker "in her place". You cannot reasonably suggest that sending someone an email saying, "Your position in this workplace should be sitting on my dick" is a misguided romantic overture.

As far as rape and power go, how about ignoring the notoriously inconclusive method of electrode testing and focusing instead on what rapists' psychotherapists report them actually saying? The New Yorker had an article some years back on one such therapist. She had asked a roomful of subjects how they felt during and after the rapes they committed. Their answers: "I felt like I was boss." "I felt powerful." "I felt like The Man."

Lastly, it's obvious you're looking in all the wrong places. For a feminist perspective on courtship, here's a good start.

Also: "I didn't see a single reference mentioned in the claims of any of the people commenting here. That doesn't make them untrue."

The wilder the claim, and specifically the more it contradicts what the vast majority in a given area consider true, the more proof must be given. Burden of proof rests with the claimant.

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About your claim that scummy guys get "95%" of the dates: first of all, the claim that decent men are too scared to initiate courtship doesn't match my experience, and judging from the reactions, it doesn't match other readers' either.
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Well Doh! :) Its a feminist blog.

This represents the creme de la creme of women when it comes to independence, intelligence and overall awareness.

The vast majority of my personal circles feature independent, strong, liberated women.

That doesn't make the entire population such.

Let me give you an example: 20% of the world population is illiterate. 50% of people in the world live at under 5$ a day.

Does that fit the circles you go in? Are 50% of the people you know living under 5$ a day? Do 90% of the people you know lack internet access?

***Here's a simple fact**** The book you linked to is out of print. Its a book about women being empowered in dating.

The sexist bestseller "he's just not that into you" was a bestseller that topped the charts for a full year. Its a book that tells women how to best be passive (in fact it assumes the reader is a passive woman who never takes any control of her dating life).

The latter book sold something like a million TIMES more copies?

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My hypothesis is simple.

1) Men and (especially) women in this society are sexually opressed.

2) Sexual harassment is a symptom that comes out of sexual opression and sexual frustration.

We're trying to solve 2, while ignoring nr.1.