Flirty women responsible for rape?

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What would you do if men were like women and women were like men?

that's a good question, dragons. i'm sure if men were expected to behave like monks or take responsibility if they are attacked they wouldn't be very happy about it!

We do:

Society constrains our actions and freedoms, too; but in slightly different ways.

I'd probably celebrate

Oh sorry, maybe I didn't word that quite right. I'm not saying that women don't have any responsibility of course, I guess I was just saying that they tend to get *ALL* the responsibility and all the blame by society (note I'm not blaming men here, society includes men and women alike), and sweeping generalizations tend to be made when each case is unique. In terms of getting pregnant, I did say it was a fifty fifty deal in terms of responsibility as it takes two to make a baby. It's just that women tend to get all the blame for it. Sure, we can get pregnant, but not by ourselves, you know (well, not usually anyway). And the choice thing is complicated-some women who become prostitutes don't really have too much of a choice in the matter. Oh yes, and BTW, prostitutes are usually attacked by sociopaths, I believe (they are a common target for serial killers, in fact). And even if they aren't, blaming them detracts from an important issue which is the issue of how anyone could put a price on a human being like that as if they are an item, and then stigmatize them for it and give them so little regard as human beings that it doesn't even cause much of a stir when they are raped? That's the real problem, IMHO. And there is great social pressure on young people to drink and even to get drunk, and to go to parties. And yeah, someone can choose to do those things, of course, but when it comes right down to it, they don't choose to get raped. I doubt anyone enters into it with good faith either-sociopaths certainly don't, and anyone who would take advantage of someone who is not in their right state of mind probably doesn't either. Seeing a woman as a body that one has a right to have sex with at one's whim is not good faith, in my opinion. I think in a lot of cases, it's a result of the objectification of women, which can and should be changed. Society's views on women have as much to blame here as anything else.



I see your point, but this is a little more complex than that. First of all, putting partial blame on women who had a choice to be in a vulnerable position hurts women who did not, or weren't even in a vulnerable position-perhaps they were attacked in their home, or by someone they trusted. Take the example of lung cancer; many people blame smokers for it, when not everyone who gets lung cancer was a smoker. As a result, lung cancer, even though it is the most common of all cancers, is somewhat stigmitized and not as publicized as other types of cancer, and probably not even as widely researched, which is a tragedy for smokers and non-smokers alike. This is similar; it hurts all women by causing people to make generalizations, and perpetuates misconceptions about rape. It makes people forget that we must teach respect for women, and that some rapists are sociopaths, and that sociopathic behavior can probably be prevented.

In addition, society's views on women are a very strong factor in the equation. Look at Saudi Arabia for instance-women are viewed as not much more than property. Women do not drink there, and they pretty much cover themselves completely up, and STILL get raped. How do you explain that? While Western views on women aren't as bad as that, it is still bad in terms of sexuality-we're still viewed, to varying degrees, as objects. I think that has a lot more to do with non-sociopathic types of rape than anything else.


Also, again going back to the lung cancer example, rape, like cancer, is such a horrible thing that I think you just have to move beyond assigning blame and have some empathy/sympathy for the victim. No matter what your lifestyle choice, no one, and I mean no one, should ever have to go through either. I would never, ever, go up to a person suffering from lung cancer and tell them something like, "well, it's your fault", or, "I told you so". Should we refuse to treat lung cancer patients who were once smokers because they made the choice to smoke? Should we have no sympathy for them?

And you know something, I just have a feeling that if a white male walked through a dangerous neighborhood and was attacked, we'd be hearing about it to no end. It'd probably be viewed as an outrage. Just an inkling.

Also, expecting women to only dress a certain way and never ever get drunk when there are other people around is more restrictive than not walking in certain neighborhoods that one would probably have no reason to walk around in any way. Especially since there is social pressure on women to dress the way they do and on young people to drink.




Attractiveness does fit in to the equation in this case, however, it's not necessarily the kind of attractiveness that a person has control over-it could be the kind they were born with. And even if it's not, what are they supposed to do about it?

Ok im gonna put my 2cents in on this and then wonder off....

RAPE is NEVER NEVER EVER the fault of the woman.

NO means NO. Peroid. No grey areas.

A woman is a person, not a thing that can be owned, abused, mistreated, or what ever.

An intoxicated person is like a person with limited mental capacities. They do not have the ability while in that state of being to make informed and responsible decisions. Therefore, taking advantage of an intoxicated person is like taking advantage of a mentally challanged individual, in principle at least.

If a woman wants to dress like a hooker, it is her choice. I like to dress conservtively, but on occasion I like to show a little skin. just a little.

RAPE is about power.

Saying RAPE is about sex is like hitting you in the head with a skillet and calling that cooking.

As far as the accurate claims of how many women are raped a year and all that, well I can say that many women are too scaret to report it because of the negitive connitations that are put with it. They are afraid. Afraid what others will think, afraid of what might happen, afraid of things that the accuisation will cause. Fear is a powerful thing, and it can motivate a person to tell or not. Most women are raped by people that they know. Imagine being 18 and having your boyfriend that attends church with you sexually assault you because he "wants some".... How would that girl's family take it? How would his? What would he do to "get her back" for telling? Would he try to make her out to be a lier? Would people think she made it up? What about the trial? They would drag her name through the mud and people in her community would remember her as "that girl that said so-in-so raped her". Those things are thoughts enough to make any one afraid. couple that with physical abuse, or emotional abuse, and she'll never tell anyone. Wonder how many of those there are, how many go unreported because of FEAR!

Date Rape and Rape within the bounds of marrage are rape. NO means NO. Would you take a mans wallet if he told you no when you asked for a dollar? Nope, because thats theft.

All most every single serial killer documented, at some point raped one or more people. (all of them were serial arsonists too, but thats a different arguement all together). Its about power... Its about control.

Saying that "men are supposed to impregnate women" and that its natural for them to try to get some at every chance isnt a valid argument for raping a person. Nature may make a man more agressive in seeking it out, but that never excuses a person for taking action on that desire if the woman says NO!! !!

Many women like sex asmuch, maybe more, then men. To use that aginst a woman in court is absurd. The double standard that women are supposed to be virgins until they are married and men are suppose to screw till they are married is stupid. Birth Control methods should have erradicated that, but, alas, they havent.

Women are thinking, breathing, feeling creatures. We DESERVE respect and deserve to have a say in things, sex not withstanding. My body is MY BODY. I deserve to beable to say what I will and wont do with it! Feminist movements have both hurt and helped that. Making false accuasations is an offence punishible by law, not to meantion detestable.

Ok off my soap box....

there's also the point which i made in my post on page 1 (which disappeared into the ether... ). if we're saying that provocative dressing incites such violent behaviour against women, then aren't we saying that men are no better than their hormones? yes, i'm sticking up for men, as this sort of thing degrades men too.

the extremist feminist cry of "all men are rapists!" is rubbish. the difference is that most men are turned on by physical appearance, and want to have sex, but they do not act on it. saying women shouldn't dress provocatively suggests that men are incapable of controlling themselves, and we all know this is rubbish. of course they are capable. most men have the self control not to act on their biological imperative impulses, as suggested a few pages back. most people don't go round murdering other people.

whilst i will fight for the right to walk about whenever i want, dressed how i want , until i die, there's the matter of being practical. yes, i have a responsibility not to wander around dodgy areas, pissed as a fart and with my body on display - that's just taking care of myself and working with what is - being realistic and pragmatic. but i should be able to if i wanted to.

i wonder how many people here have actually been raped or sexually assaulted? the feeling of violation never goes away. someone else did horrific violence to you, and you had no say in it - they were going totally and utterly against your wishes. it's about control and power - the victim has neither.

whilst this sort of argument continues, women are presented as nothing but cock-teasers, and men are presented as dicks on legs, with no self control or higher mental functioning. how preposterous.

and "no" means "no". not maybe. consent is only possible if someone can make an informed decision about consequences, and know what they are really being assked to consent to. this is why paedophilia and bestiality are wrong - children and animals cannot be expected to give informed consent. by extrapolation, this extends to anyone with diminished responsibility - people with mental illness or impairment. yes, women have a responsibility to look after themselves. but a drunk women is not inevitably an invitation for sex.

in a nutshell, men and women both have responsibility for their behaviour. and rape is the responsibility of whoever is wielding the power - there's a big difference between being mistaken about signals cos a woman is drunk, and taking advantage of the fact.

Great points, ladysmokeater and vetivert. It makes me realize something I've been thinking about and regretting ever since I wrote it; I said that when both parties are drunk it's more of a grey area, since I believe people are responsible for their actions while intoxicated, but I didn't take into account that this goes for the man too. How awful of me, since I always get upset over the way women are blamed for everything. I guess it really isn't a grey area at all then-informed consent means informed consent, no means no, just as you have said. I also agree with vetivert that this degrades men too. I do not believe most men are capable of rape at all, as I stressed in my first post. Society's views on women and related issues such as rape hurt everyone, IMHO. Oh, by the way, I really hope I didn't look like a man-hater or anything in previous posts, I'm really not (I'm getting married in February ) I know I talk a lot about how women tend to be objectified to varying degrees by society and I believe this is true; however, I think this hurts men too, and I blame society in general, not a particular gender, that would be a very sweeping generalization. And I do believe it is a factor for rape at parties on college campuses, where I have heard many disrespectful things said about women and they are sometimes even given the name "cum dumpsters"-it became easy for me to see why it is so common there; in fact:

"Although most men are not rapists, many posses attitudes about women and sexual activity that desensitizes them to sexual violence and foster a social climate that tolerates it" (Miller, Trivedi, Frenske, 1996).

Edit:
I just found something pretty frightening, and also something that will help clear any confusion that if the woman is intoxicated it is not rape (in bold):

-One out of every four college women have experienced rape or attempted rape. (Miller, Trivedi, Frenske, 1996).

-Young women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four are four times as likely to be sexually assaulted than all other women (Miller, Trivedi, Frenske, 1996).

-One in seven college women will be raped before they graduate, and 90% will know their attacker (Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, 1992).

-One out of twelve college men in a 1988 study admitted that they committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, but only 1% of them consider the behavior criminal in nature (Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, 1992).

"Rape is defined in reform state statutes and in federal rape law as nonconsensual sexual penetration of an adolescent or adult obtained by physical force, by threat of bodily harm, or when the victim in incapable of giving consent by virtue of mental illness, mental retardation, or intoxication" (Miller, Trivedi, Frenske, 1996). Rape is unlike other crimes such as robbery because rape is a crime against women based on the fact that they are women. "Even though women who are not victims are affected much as travelers are affected by terrorist activities; all live with the fear of an attack, and the restriction in freedom such fear brings. Their fear is justified, considering that over the past decade, the rape rate has risen four times as fast as the total crime rate (Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, 1992).

There are three different types of rape: date rape, acquaintance rape and stranger rape. Acquaintance and date rape refer to rapes when the victim knows the rapist. These types of rapes constitute 85% of all reported rapes (Dobkin, Sippy1995). Stranger rape refers to rape by an unknown assailant, and accounts for about 15% of reported rapes. These statistics may be frightening to many of us. Generally, when one thinks of rape, one may imagine a big man jumping out of the bushes, but this is not the case. The vast majority of rapists are people that the victim knows. One study of college rape victims revealed that 10.6% were raped by strangers, 24.9% by non-romantic acquaintances, 21% by casual dates, 30% by steady dates and 8.9% by family members (Congressional Congress for Women’s Issues, 1992).

Er, unless it's the woman who is the one doing the raping, of course.

OK, I've read through this whole thread and first want to state my opinion:

Rape is never the fault of the victim.

Now, two questions have been raised which are ethically and practially different.

1. How intoxicated is "too intoxicated for consent?" My guess is that it's the legal limit of BAC to be considered legally "drunk" in a given place, however, I may be wrong and at any rate, what is the other person gonna do, say, "Yes, I'll have sex after the urinalysis?" The PRACTICAL solution, outisde of morals, is to consider whether the person in question would have sex with them SOBER. If the answer is no, you may have a court case on your hands. if the answer is yes, it's less risky. Again, this is the PRACTICAL solution, and I do not disacknowledge marital or date rape, but rather say that this would be a good "step" on the part of the person who is wondering if the intoxicated person would consider themselves to have been raped.

2. Do women "invite" rape? NO!! !! ! ((Whether or not they "invite" sexual harassment/getting hit on is a less touchy issue that was brought up on the first page, and I tend to be more lenient with that- if a guy makes a stupid comment when you're wearing a see-though shirt and a miniskirt, I think it's kind of expectable, but this is entirely seperate from rape.)) Here's the thing, though: There's a practical side to this as well. Going back to the outfit I described which would likely provoke sexual harassment, it might actually be a risk to wear said outfit in certain situations. While a woman could be streaking in a bad neighborhood at 2 a.m. and if she said "no" it would eb rape, it would NOT be a good idea to fo this! So I do actually agree that there are some times where, though the woman's consent or lack thereof is any less valid, it is just not a safe or good idea to dress provocatively or be alone or anything else like that. There have been a few rapes on ym college campus and whenever I can, if I have to walk to my car after dark, I try to go with somone. No, I should not have to do this, no, if I walked alone and got raped I wasn't "asking for it," but it's still a good idea to try and keep myself safe. ((I hope the distinction of the two issues is clear: The moral issue and the practical issue. I think the dinstinctions blurred and pissed some people off without offensiveness having been intended.))

a society shaped and governed by men!

*Baptist preacher mode* Say it! Say it! Say it like it is! Why don't you testify! Can we get an "amen". Wellll!

There is certainly historical precedent for remarks like that, but is that really as much the case in democratic societies? "Shaped by" I'll grant you, but "governed by?" Women form a majority of the electorate. If men are more common in government, it's because women are voting for them.

Jeremy

I guess I'm not a man then.

Are you taking the piss, sir?

I would like to make a comment against the rampant feminist views apparent in this thread. Women are not always the object of blame and guilt. In the Western world, despite the 'innocent until proven guilty' motto of the law, in cases of rape, the male is commonly assumed guilty based on the say-so of the female.
Regarding the dress of women who are scantily clad. Can you honestly tell me that it is comfortable clothing? A lot about sexuality is about power, including and not limited to just rape. That said, it isn't entirely about power, either. Going about scantily clad, is just another such way of achieving power and a sense of control. That's not to say the women are to blame when males lose their own control. But they do contribute to the man's downfall. That's something you just have to accept.
Women aren't to blame for the rape; in the end that lies with the man. But scantily clad women are partly to blame for the man's loss of control. They contribute to it by trying to gain the power and control over the man.