I am going to assume the person who left this comment on my post Don’t get raped is a man:
When it comes to any kind of crime, I think it is important to make a distinction between blame and responsibility. In all cases all of the blame belongs to the perpetrators. However, in some cases, some of the responsibility can also be put on the victim.
If a man goes alone through an area of the city at night and gets mugged, I would give him none of the blame, but some of the responsibility (He’s not at fault for doing what he did, but it was at least somewhat irresponsible of him to do so).
If a girl gets so completely drunk that she can not take care of herself and she ends up being raped, I would give her none of the blame, but still some of the responsibility (She’s not at fault for doing what she did, but it was at least somewhat irresponsible of her to do so).
Everybody knows the world is not perfect, and that there are situations we should avoid getting ourselves into. And writing that the situation in question could have been avoided if she had been drinking less could help remind people to be careful not to get too drunk. Perhaps it can even help avert a few situations like this in the future?
I am going to assume that you’re a man and that you’re basically a good person but that you just doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue what it is like to be a woman. So get this..
Imagine we meet in a bar and you make eyes at me. Imagine I smile back at you. We get talking and you buy me a few drinks. We drink and we flirt. I introduce you to the friends I came with and you make them all laugh with some of your jokes. You start to feel pretty good about yourself. Then you find out we’re all planning to go back to my place for a few more drinks and you’re damn pleased when I invite you back too. You think you might get lucky here. And you’re right. We go to my bedroom and close the door leaving my friends smirking behind us. But when we’re done and you’re lying back with your head spinning from the alcohol and the smokey room and the exertion who should slip into the room but my boyfriend. Now he just heard us having sex and he saw you picking me up at the bar and he assumes from all that that you’re the kind of guy who is up for anything. So now he rolls you over and holds you down. Why shouldn’t he? You’re drunk and you’re naked and if you were up for sex with me then why not with my friends too? Maybe you’re such a guy that you think you’d manage to fight him off somehow – throw a few punches, kick free in this situation. Maybe you think you could convince him to be reasonable, that you’re not into this kind of stuff. But then four or five of his mates enter the room; you can’t tell for sure how many because you’re lying on your stomach and feeling pretty sick right now. They all think they’ll have a shot at you. You might still think you could fight them off but I wonder how you’d go with that. What if they’re filming you on their mobile phones and laughing while they touch you? What if you know this video could end up anywhere and you’ll never, never live this moment down? What if they ridicule you because you might even have started crying in frustration by then and perhaps you wet yourself, being so drunk and struggling to get free, and what if they tell you that you should really keep yourself in better shape? (The possibilities are endless here for just how degraded and violated you could feel in such a situation. Defeated too. In fact the next time you’re reading a newspaper report on a rape try changing the gender of the victim and seeing how it feels). So maybe then you size it all up and think you’re better off not getting beaten to a pulp by five or six men and that you should just stay as still as you can until it is all over. Maybe the alcohol has really hit you by now and you’re starting to black out anyway.
Now as a man* the assumption is that you don’t generally want to be fucked by other men, especially not like that. So you know that if shit like that went down we would recognise the crime for what it was – rape. How could getting drunk or laughing with some new people you met or even having sex with someone possibly mean that you automatically wanted to have sex with five or six other people not of your choosing? But for women it is not like that. For us the assumption is that we were somehow asking for it unless we met some kind of endless test of resistance. Were we sober enough, dressed appropriately, virginal enough, not too flirtatious, did we say no loudly enough, did we explicitly say that we are not into gangbanging, because if we weren’t entirely specific about that point well then how were they to know – they couldn’t possibly tell by the way we just froze up in fear?
You say why don’t we put some responsibility on women for ‘getting raped’ but the problem is that we already put too much responsibility on women. That’s the fucking problem. And ultimately she can’t ever completely safeguard herself against rape because rapists exploit situations where they can seize power over someone else, which was pretty much the whole point of my previous post. And believe me if it is one thing women don’t need more reminding of it is that we could get raped. We already got that memo, loud and clear. The only thing women need reminding of is that it isn’t our fault. And if we are going to use court reporting to send out public warnings to try and “help avert a few situations like this in the future” then shouldn’t we be sending the message of responsibility to the men who actually rape and not their victims?
It is not a perfect world, as you say, but while we’re wondering why 17 year old girls can’t be a little more cautious let’s also wonder why men can’t be a lot more decent. Rape stops when rapists stop raping.
*Unless you are gay or trans in which case you’re probably seen as asking for such brutality too, just like women.
WARNING: the same person who left the comment to which this post responds has also entered the comment thread below. He continued to attempt to argue that women bore some responsibility for rape. Many others have argued against him and I will be moderating any further comments of his, but I have left his existing comments untouched as I think there is some useful discussion happening in response to them. This thread might be upsetting to you, please let me know if this is the case and if you think I would be better to remove his comments altogether.
Also, because I wasn’t around to moderate this thread a lot at the time it got away from me in parts and some stuff went down in here, like abusive insults that I don’t normally tolerate on my blog. However there is an argument to be made that men who enter feminist forums like this and who cop an earful/pile-on might get an enlightening experience – they might get to say huh! this is what my male privelege has allowed me to escape until now, I have never had to confront how ugly my rape culture ideas are because my views get to dominate all the other spaces I participate in but now I am in a space where everyone doesn’t tolerate rape culture and that feels new to me, I could learn from this experience.
Years ago when I was still hitting the club scene, I had a “wake up” experience once dancing with a very nice guy who had the moves, the looks and some jokes. As we were grinding on the dance floor, I saw a bunch of his friends surround us, watching. Leering. I was pretty drunk, but alarm bells went off and I ended the dance right there. I didn’t mind dancing with a good looking stranger and having fun. I had a definite problem putting on a show for his friends.
Whoever left that comment needs a wake up call. Women have this thing. This unfortunate reality that when we walk through a parking lot, our minds race for a split second. What if I’m jumped? Exotic dancers wonder this when they’re alone in the dressing room about to perform. Female construction workers wonder the same thing when changing in the male dressing room. Getting in our car. Unlocking our front door at night. Walking the dog. Calling in the cat. Going to class. Taking the subway. I don’t need to continue here. It should have been plain enough with your original post.
It’s unfortunate that we think this way. We do because men rape. And they’re going to do it if the opportunity presents itself or not. Irrespective of alcohol, aloneness, orientation, age. It’s just blood EASIER when the “opportunity” is there. Easier to do it. Easier to then blame the victim. Easier to get away with it and have people say, “oh well. She should have taken more care and responsibility not to be in that situation.”
What we should be able to do is live life freely without that fear. To continue dancing because it’s fun. Not have it ruined by a bunch of fools.
Your assumption that I’m a man is correct. Though I don’t think that adds or subtracts any weight to my argument. Though if you think otherwise, I guess I can also add that I’m heterosexual, white, tall, blue-eyed, well-educated and was never excluded from any popular clique in school unless I chose to…
I’m also basically a good person and I’ll freely admit that my understanding of what it’s like to be a woman is necessarily limited. Though communication is a good way to gain understanding, so let’s see…
I’ll ignore nitpicking at some of the details in your scenario and secede to your point: Getting [gang]raped would be terrible, of course. But my previous point still stands: In such a situation my attackers would have 100% of the blame and a majority of the responsibility, but it was irresponsible of me to get that drunk!
For the record: I’ve never been so drunk that I couldn’t handle myself or defend myself in a one-on-one situation. Not only would that be stupidly irresponsible, but it would also be a bit hazzardous to my regular health!
And the assumption that girls want sex unless they declare loudly and clearly that they absolutely don’t want sex, is not an assumption that is shared by everyone. It is true that guys regularily need to press on through token resistance by girls, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop if the girl really doesn’t want to. I’ve had to stop a few times, and it’s not an impossibility. There’s even a chance that things start up again after a little while.
To bring on a personal annecdote:
I’ve gone home with a girl that turned out to be so drunk she more or less blacked out as we were starting to have sex. When that happened I got dressed (was a bit cold in her apparment), got her water a few times during the night and just slept besides her until the morning (Luckily she got better during the morning so we could pick up where we left off).
If I had proceeded to have sex while she was more or less unconscious it would most probably have been rape (I doubt she would have concented after the fact) and if so, I would have been a 100% to blame. Not her. However, I will still argue that it was irresponsible of her to get that drunk. Not only because she wasn’t able to protect herself if I would have tried to rape her, but she even had problems handling herself on the way home (She repeatedly tried to cross on red lights and I still feel sorry for the guy in the kiosk who had to clean up after she bumped into and overturned some of the shelves with chocolate).
Just as an insurance company put some responsibility on their customers with some basic guidelines to follow to act responsible enough to get their insurance paid out, it is equally valid to put some responsibility on people to try and avoid certain situations.
Yes, rapist or other attackers can attack during many different situations, but that doesn’t mean that girls (and men too of course) shouldn’t take some precautions, like not getting wasted or walking alone through generally unsafe neighbourhoods. Men who are found guilty of rape are already told that they are responsible and to blame for the rape occuring, and punished (Granted, the sentences for rape is generally to low, at least in my country).
Finally, 17 year old girls (and their parents) should be more than a little more cautious, and most men are a lot more decent than the men who choose to rape.
Which of the multitude of rules to “not get raped” are we supposed to follow, then? Is it only drunkenness, or being out alone? Or wearing the wrong clothes? Or flirting? Or talking to a stranger? Or just being in possession of a female body in general, is that what we’re supposed to take responsibility for?
Because one thing that Blue Milk hasn’t mentioned is that the majority of rapes are committed by men who KNOW the victim. For example, the person who tried to rape me (thank god he didn’t succeed, though it is still traumatizing in a myriad of ways) was supposedly a very good friend of mine. I was at a party with people that were all my friends. You know, the people that I am supposed to feel safe with. Because I would never get so drunk that I couldn’t handle something if I was at a bar, but these were my goddamned FRIENDS. I was supposed to be safe there. But instead, one of them decided he was going to have sex with me whether I wanted to or not. And whether I was drunk or not had nothing to do with it, either, because he was twice my size and pinned me down. Should I then take responsibility for not being muscular enough to fight him off?
And the funny thing about the whole thing is that I had been drunk many times before that and have been many times since. I have done many other supposedly high risk things as well, including walking through the city late at night by myself. Yet the only factor that was different that one particular day and almost lead to me being raped was that SOMEONE HAD DECIDED HE WAS GOING TO RAPE ME. Interesting how everyone before and since has managed to not do that, to take enough RESPONSIBILITY for their own actions to avoid violating my body, no matter what state I was in.
I’m not arguing for any set of “hard” rules. All I’m saying is that any individual should take some responsibility for oneself and take precautions for each situation one is in.
A victim can’t take responsibility for a crime! The blame and the responsibility for the crime belongs to the assailant. However, a victim can also take some responsibility and care not to become a victim!
Of course, not all situations can be avoided or planed for even if one does try to take responsibility!
In the situation where you almost became a rape victim I can’t see anything that you did that was irresponsible. You were among lots of friends that you trusted, and you shouldn’t have to keep a guard up around them.
Out of curiosity, could I ask what happened so that you didn’t get raped?
Why? So that you can use that as a reason to judge other women for “getting raped”? No, it’s none of your goddamn business.
“It is true that guys regularily need to press on through token resistance by girls”
You pathetic piece of garbage. You need to press on through token resistance?
Piece
of
shit.
Guys like you make me ashamed to be a man. Bastard. I have a two year old boy. How am I going to explain your kind to him? How am I going to explain you to my seven year old daughter? Because your kind abides. You are always around, smirking, and taking advantage, and then thinking you are doing right, and having the gall to explain why you are right, when you are so clearly wrong.
Fucking garbage.
Thank you. For being one of the guys who sees it all.
So basically you’re confessing to date rape here? You made a move on a girl who was so drunk she was on the verge of conciousness? You must’ve known it was wrong otherwise you wouldn’t have stopped.
You belong in jail. She wasn’t safe with you. Do you really think she wouldve consented sober?
The other thing you’re not taking into account is that ‘covering up’ and not being drunk does not necessarily guarantee you won’t get raped, or even decrease the chances. Rape is not about sex-it’s about power. A friend of mine was attacked when she was walking through a low-risk area, stone-cold sober, wearing a jacket, scarf and jeans. The only reason her assailant didn’t succeed was that she possesses an impressively large vocal capacity and screamed as loudly as she could-despite the fact that her attacker was threatening to kill her if she didn’t stop screaming-so that people a block away came to her aid. I suppose she has to take some responsibility for not walking with a male chaperone now?
wow, you just are not willing to look at anyone else’s experience. also, sometimes people can accidentally drink too much. maybe you, in all of your perfection, are great at drinking the perfect amount of alcohol but sometimes drinks are poured heavy and sometimes people are given roofies. regardless, where a person is, what time it is, how much they’ve drank, what they are wearing, they are not responsible for a rape. at all. no, it doesn’t matter. bodies are not up for raping just because of an “irresponsible” decision made. check your privilege and stop it with the lack of compassion.
That’s a disgusting story. Why did you stay in her apartment? Sounds like she woke up feeling like shit and thought, “How the hell am I going to get rid of this guy?” Obviously, the only way you would leave is if you got what you wanted. How is it her parents fault? Were they there as well?
@woodturtle:
The experience you talk about sounds very creepy. Who the hell stands around ogling while their friend dances with a girl??
That my friend’s chances of getting lucky is greater than zero doesn’t matter to me! Sure, I would probably throw a few glances your way out of curiosity, and maybe a few more out of jealously, but I (and most men) would generally leave it at that.
The “what if I’m jumped?” thing isn’t solely a women’s thing, but I think it occurs more frequently the physically weaker one is. I thought more about such things as a kid than I do now (For a caricatured view on this, look here http://xkcd.com/337/
).
Furthermore, I’ll argue that most men don’t rape. Even if the opportunity is obvious. I’ve never blamed the victim, and I would like the rapist to be punished and, if the victim had acted irresponsible, hope that she will be less irresponsible in the future.
If we could al live without fear it would be great. But again, the world is not perfect, and everyone need to take precautions. If you want to continue to dance, then how about having a few trusted friends nearby for instance.
“Guys regularly need to press on through token resistance from girls”???
WTF? Token resistance? No clearly doesn’t always mean no in your book Darsh.
Remind me never to get myself in a situation where I’m alone with you. I imagine that might be very irresponsible of me indeed.
@Gappy:
The word ‘No’ clearly means no in my book. So does several types of body movement and non-initiative.
Turning away a little with a smile when I’m trying to kiss, or interrupting the make-out session for a while, etc., is not ‘no’ in my book.
I can’t speak for Gappy but that’s not ‘token resistance’ in my book.
Ah, sorry. Would you mind giving me your definition of “token resistance”?
No such fucking thing as ‘token resistance’. It’s either resistance or not. The smile as I turn away? Attempting to be appeasing so as not to launch recriminations about why I won’t just put out. The break in making out? To give myself a breather so I hopefully don’t end up overwhelmed.
Take responsibility for your own actions – the need for this so called ‘token’ resistance is a direct response to YOUR actions. Stop pressuring for more and there is no need for the resistance.
Wow. I am a man with a very similar background to your’s and I hear from many of your responses here that you are super insensitive to people in your life and online — everywhere.
There’s a really simple solution to your problems with “token
resistence.” It’s called enthusiastic consent. When escalating with a new partner ask, “would you like this?”, “do you like this?”, “is this okay?” … Communication always enhances first times.
Bedding a too-drunk-to-walk stranger and then stopping just short of whatever you were planning is nothing to be proud of. I hope a couple years have helped you mellow your need to dominate others with logic online and dominate partners with insecure pushiness in sex.
Turning away a little with a smile when I’m trying to kiss, or interrupting the make-out session for a while, etc., is not ‘no’ in my book.
That’s strange. It’s always a “no” in my book.
Darsh, my experience has nothing to do with how you would act.
It’s nice that you thought about these things as a kid. But I don’t think that helps you understand what women may think or feel on (potentially) a daily basis.
And thank you for your kind advice on how I should take the appropriate precautions when clubbing in the future. Because I need you to tell me.
I’m just trying to point out that most men are not rapists.
And of course you don’t particularly need my advice on how to live your life, I was just arguing that one always needs to take precautions.
Ok Im not going take my own advice.
Yes, you are. All men are rapists.
Because of thinking like your own- the idea of ‘token resistance’ for one- all contribute to rape not really being *rape*, to victim blaming and all the rest. You are just as complict.
Unfortunate! But there you go.
I hope this comment goes to the correct location…
@violent_rabbit:
I have never raped anyone. If I’m going to simply accept your arguments then I am at most an accomplice to rape, not an actual rapist.
Perhaps my use of the term “token resistance” is not the correct one? In my experience most girls either are/act shy or believe that they should act shy, and then put up what I would call a “token resistance” to a guy’s advances. Such a resistance can be distinguished from actual resistance.
And I’ve never blamed the victim! I’ve repeatedly stated that ALL the blame belongs to the assailant, but in some cases, some of the responsibility for avoiding the situation can also be put on the victim.
@blue milk- I liked this post, very visceral. I enjoy this blog on the wole to tell the truth, I am slack with feedback/commenting though.
@everyone elseI wouldnt bother with this concern troll. Same old story, seeing if they can stir people up while willfully strawmanning everything they can get their hands on.
@Darsh… Oh… you know, I rarely, almost never, talk about this, but I can’t keep quiet here.
I was 17. A friend drove me home in his car, so that I wouldn’t need to walk through a dark neighbourhood. He dropped me off in front of our building (locked front door) and all I had to do was to walk 4 floors up to our apartment. I wasn’t drunk. I was dressed in an ankle-long dress. It wasn’t even past midnight.
I won’t go into further detail, let’s just say I didn’t make it to the 4th floor unraped.
So, where is MY responsibility for what happened?
And how can I guarantee it won’t happen again? Quit leaving the house altogether?
@blue milk, I can’t thank you enough for those posts…
Sorry to hear about what happened to you.
To me it sounds like you took all the proper precautions – even got a friend to drive you home. I’ll say that you had none of the responsibility in what happened to you.
Unfortunately, even when taking precautions, it is not always avoidable. And I’m afraid it can’t be guaranteed not to happen again.
Yes, because MEN RAPE WOMEN. Far more often than you might think. What happened to me IS JUST AS WRONG as it would have been if I had been drunk, or wearing a mini, or walking home in the dark. There is no differentiation to be made.
With rape, like murder, it’s all black and white. The victim is the victim. The offender is to be blamed and bears all responsibility. End of story.
@ Darsh
“that one ALWAYS needs to take precautions”… because if you happen to be a woman, you can ALWAYS run into a rapist… although, of course, most men are not… Jeez. See what we mean?
Ok, let me backtrack here a little. Seems like I’m making people think I’m a troll and that I always think a rape victim could have avoided it.
Let me try to restate the point I tried to make in my initial post:
1. A rapist deserves 100% of the blame and at least a majority of the responsibility.
2. In some cases the victim bears a little of the responsibility too, for not taking proper precautions.
3. In other cases, no extra precautions could have helped avoiding it, and there isn’t any further responsibility to put on the victim.
LOL “avoid”
GO HOME
3. “bears…responsibility”
GO HOME AND NEVER COME OUT AGAIN
It’s just PLAIN WRONG to talk about the responsibility of the victim. But I guess you won’t get that, because you are not at risk by just being inherently/physically weaker.
I don’t agree that it is wrong to talk about the responsibility of the victim.
And though my risk of being raped is minuscule since I’m not a woman, my argument extends perfectly well to other types of victimhood as well:
- Banks demand that their customers act responsible with their cards if they are to cover a customer’s losses after a scam.
- All people are sometimes recommended to avoid certain parts of a city at certain times to avoid getting mugged or killed.
- An insurance company may demands precautions such as smoke detectors be installed in a house before insuring it, as one of the responsibilities of a would-be victim may have.
In some cases a victim puts oneself in a situation that could have been avoided if the victim had been more responsible.
In other cases nothing the victim could have done would have helped.
LOL at conflating credit card fraud with rape
GO HOME FOREVER NEVER COME AGAIN
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html
You seem to think rape just happens, like sunlight? Instead of it being the end result of a conscious decision made consciously using a brain.
Um, rape isnt like sleep walking! Proper precautions? IT ISNT LIKE GETTING CAUGHT OUT IN THE RAIN Y’KNOW
No, rape is a crime that the assailant decides to commit. Just like someone deciding to steal a car, or to rob a house, or murder someone.
And everyone agrees that it is a good idea to take proper precautions to avoid being robbed or murdered. Though it isn’t always avoidable. But the responsible thing is still to take some precautions if possible.
In the same way, it’s a good idea to take some precautions if possible, to avoid being raped. Even though sometimes no kind of precaution would have helped.
Like not leading him on? By dressing sexy, making eye contact, walking home from work at night? Right!
GO HOME UNTIL YOU’VE GROWN A BRAIN
GO HOME
GO
HOME
2. LOL “Precautions”
GO HOME FOREVER
@Darth
nd I’ve never blamed the victim! I’ve repeatedly stated that ALL the blame belongs to the assailant, but in some cases, some of the responsibility for avoiding the situation can also be put on the victim.
THAT IS VICTIM BLAMING RIGHT THERE
And I doubt that you will read/comprehend any of this but here’s a nifty 101 for youse.
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html
I disagree.
I don’t blame someone who got raped for getting raped. I don’t blame someone for being murdered. But at the same time, I can sometimes point out a thing or two that the victim did that was irresponsible.
I believe there is a difference between “blame” and “responsibility”.
I’ll read through your link tomorrow, it looks like it will take me a bit to much time to read now. And it’s already 1 am here and I need to get up early tomorrow.
Hope to talk to you tomorrow then.
“I believe there is a difference between “blame” and “responsibility”.”
Well that is cute how you make up definitions to words that don’t exist. Well done! Shows a creative brain and complete disconnect from reality.
But seriously, read the link, please try and learn. You seem too willfully stupid to be for real, to be honest.
Here’s part of the reason we all object so much to your (stupid) belief that women need to “take responsibility” for “avoiding rape”: because those of us who have been through it have already blamed ourselves for not “taking responsibility” enough. Because we’ve spent the rest of our lives after the incident telling ourselves, “If only I hadn’t X. If only I’d realized Y.” And we’re f$&%ing sick of it, and we’re not going to put up with it from people like you anymore. Because after all of this examination of our own actions that we have done, after all this beating OURSELVES up that we have done, we have come to the realization that there was NOTHING WE COULD DO. Because it wasn’t OUR conscious decision to BE RAPED; it was HIS conscious decision to RAPE US.
Here’s the other part of the reason we all object so much to your (utterly ridiculous and infinitely insulting) belief that women need to “take responsibility” for “avoiding rape”: http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/pdf/undetected_rapist.pdf Read the whole thing, but especially the last bullet point under “these undetected rapists” on the 3rd page. Here, I’ll even copy it for you just to make sure you see it: “These undetected rapists…use alcohol deliberately to render victims more vulnerable to attack, or completely unconscious.” I would then add that doing so also makes it so that people like YOU will then give them a free pass because you are too busy looking at the woman’s (innocent) actions to consider the idea that these men do this with a specific goal in mind, which is to RAPE, and which the woman cannot avoid because she’s NOT F%^$ING PSYCHIC.
You say that it’s a ‘good idea’ to take ‘precautions’ against crimes such as robbery or murder. And yet there is no victim blame – in robbery or murder the perpetrator is guilty of the crime regardless of any ‘precautions’ and the victim is not told they acted ‘irresponsibly’.
Why then do you insist that a
rape is any different?
Perpetrator: guilty.
Victim: not at fault. Ever.
I think men react in such a way (like @Darsh), because rape (or violence in general) is not something allowing for much shading and rationalization. Rape is an emotional issue, which requires us to take sides. So men are much rather inclined to side with the rapist than the victim, because otherwise they would be required to show some empathy and turn against their own kind. Siding with the victim also requires you to experience and endure a minimum of their pain. It’s much easier to stay away from such feeling by victimizing the victim.
[...] 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment See, there is apparently an assumption that rape victims get to bear responsibility for being raped. That’s called victimization. It’s [...]
This is so interesting. I see so many similarities in this discussion to issues that come up in my 12 Step meetings for friends and family members of addicts. Many people in these meetings are women, many have been abused, many suffer from PTSD.
I know that I felt, early on, that labeling those involved with the addicts as “codependent” was victim blaming, and I was not alone. I saw myself as 100% collateral damage in my husband’s addiction, bearing 0% of the blame and 0% of the responsibility, not just for his addiction, but for winding up with an addict in the first place. It was 100% because he tricked me and lied to me and 0% that I had done anything, ever in my life to bring this on.
I have a much more nuanced view now. I can see that, while I didn’t cause my husband’s addiction and he is responsible for the damage it has done in my life, I was drawn to him because of previous dysfunction in my life.
However, I can still see that there is a fine line between this and victim blaming; it’s clear to me what in my life is mine to clean up and what is the wreckage of my husband’s actions, but it is not clear to those outside of or new to working on the problems of an addictive relationship, who may see things in large swaths of black and white.
I think the problem with trying to discuss a rape or abuse situation in the larger culture is that women have been and are so blamed already, that any attempt at anything other than a very clear right/wrong line plays into a culture that is already set up to denigrate women and contribute to rape.
@Mary (MPJ) ‘I think the problem with trying to discuss a rape or abuse situation in the larger culture is that women have been and are so blamed already, that any attempt at anything other than a very clear right/wrong line plays into a culture that is already set up to denigrate women and contribute to rape.’
This is a good point – until we can establish in the wider discourse that women ARE NOT in ANY WAY to blame for being raped, we cannot move on to any kind of other discussion. But there again is there any other kind of discussion? I think there is – and perhaps it is about how men and women are positioned – it seems in nearly every culture – in unequal positions of power. Considerations of the unequal power relationship are at the heart of the ‘she was asking for it’ debate, but also how men are conditioned to react sexually are at the heart of the debate – women are offered up to the ‘male gaze’ – and we really need to start looking at this in much deeper detail.
It is just Never right to rape any one for any reason.
Naked as a j-bird walking down the street at 4 in the morning or sitting in a dorm room drinking with your friends, doesn’t matter.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Annie@PhDinParenting and EvilSlutClique, Connie Fekete. Connie Fekete said: RT @phdinparenting: Sharing: But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too for the rape? by @bluemilk http://j.mp/ccdtDA #fem2 #p2 [...]
Darsh – I’m going to suggest that you take a step back, stop talking, andlisten to the people who are willing to take the time to tell you what their lived experience is. It sounds like you would like to be an ally and if that’s the case you’ve got a lot of 101 work to do.
Here are a couple of links to get your started.
Schrödinger’s Rapist at Shapely Prose
Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog
Sorry everybody, I wasn’t here for moderating. Will get through these comments and start sorting it out.
Wow. Amazing post. Very articulate and drives the point home. I think I love you.
Sadly I have encountered just as many women with this same ” But if you didn’t do this… you wouldn’t have been in THAT situation.” It’s bullshit, it’s them trying to protect themselves from seeing the truth, how common rape is and how at risk all of us are. If they can find fault with what we did before we got raped then they can NOT do it and they will be safe. It’s easier to blame ( and Darsh that IS what you are doing) the victim then to absorb some of their pain, some of their loss of control, some of their long road of recovery. It took me years to learn a very simple thing ” I didn’t do this, this was done to me.” simple as that, but because of the frame of mind that Darsh and others continue to promote it took me years for me to stand up and say that I am not embarrassed, I don’t have to explain step by step how my rape happened. It happened. That is all that matters.
Word!
Darsh, your views are way out of step with the other women and men who visit this blog. Your ignorance on this subject actually offends people, including me, so the onus is on you now to take some time to go away and read and think and educate yourself.
I would thoroughly recommend that post on rape culture over at Shakesville that violent_rabbit has linked to and those that Carol has mentioned, and I would also personally urge you to read this post over at The Talent Show, giving you a man’s perspective, I Am Not My Cock: http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/06/17/i-am-not-my-cock/
I have been in two minds about whether to delete some of your comments after you kept repeating nonsense about women needing to take responsibility for rape (and for being women, because that’s the risk factor for rape?) .. but I can see that your comments have allowed people here to clarify some very important points about the way rape is misunderstood.. so I have left all of your comments but those are the last of their kind that will be allowed.
Comment again by all means, but no more about women taking responsibility for their rape.
The difference between the credit card fraud, smoke detector examples and rape is that one is a cause and effect, and the other has very little impact on effect.
What I mean is that if you do a b and c with your credit card, there is a VERY high chance that you will avoid fraud. If you install smoke detectors, there is a VERY high chance you will be woken in time.
If you act “responsibly” there is very little chance at all of actually changing someones mind once they have decided to rape you. As many posters above have pointed out, you are just as likely, if not more, to be raped in a situation where you are doing NOTHING that would be classed as “irresponsible” but the original poster.
Absolutely!
You just articulated the reason that was so put off by those comparisons! Thanks for finding the words to explain my emotions!
I suspect that Darsh might be a tad voyeuristic
It’s insulting and patronizing to think that women are not responsible for themselves and therefore need to take responsibility for being attacked. I think a big point was missed from the get go, in both your original post and this follow up, in that simply being female means being aware, at a very early age, of how targeted and objectified females are. How women and girls are seen as potential victims, hated as potential victims, blamed as potential victims. Just the act of walking along the street and having society’s approval to judge all manner of things about you, simply because of being female:object points to a basic difference in world view. The comments seem to indicate an incapacity to understand or empathize even in the face of your post trying to elicit those feelings. Perhaps, with more education and an honest attempt at empathizing, a bit of this can be taken into themselves and allow comprehension of what it is to evaluate every action for safety as a manner of being female in the world. I hope this person takes the other posters up on this opportunity to understand and place themselves in an uncomfortable place. This is the kind of thing that could be a turning point for understanding and compassion.
I’ve never blamed the victim! I’ve repeatedly stated that ALL the blame belongs to the assailant, but in some cases, some of the responsibility for avoiding the situation can also be put on the victim.
Really trying to have it both ways, aren’t we Darsh? The nasty little “rider” in the second clause is the equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back.
I hate to say it, but maybe @Darsh needs to get raped to see the other side of this. It’s obvious there’s no reasoning with him in any other fashion.
When a person is raped, NONE of the responsibility is the victims.
An assailant chooses to rape someone, that is their choice, and they are taking away all of the responsibility for that decision from the victim the SECOND they decide to do it.
It doesn’t matter if a girl or woman flirts with a guy, makes him think he is going to get laid, or if a woman is dressed like a hooker, or if she is drunk, stoned, passed out, etc.
Her body is still her body, and when someone decides to violate her body, no matter how it is dressed, how drunk the person may be, that is still the assailant making that choice.
Granted, it isn’t fair if a woman flirts with a guy to make him think he’s going to be getting laid, then backs out at the last minute, that’s kind of cruel, but in no way does that cause her to shoulder any responsibility if she is raped.
No means no. There is no gray area. NO MEANS NO.
No-one needs to be raped. Not Darsh, not anybody.
I agree redballoon. I gotta say that this thread got away from me – I was away for work while it ran hot – and I didn’t moderate it at all well so there are lots of things going on here that I am not so keen on.
In many ways Darsh comes across as being fairly articulate. In other ways he seems to be arguing a paradox. Which is silly. To take a share of the responsibility means that a share of the blame is to be taken should something go wrong. To look at an insurance scenaro:
A person staggers home drunk, turns on a gas hob without sparking it, goes to the toilet for half an hour, then returns to the kitchen and sparks the gas. The room explodes, the house burns, but luckily that person manages to survive. They have responsibility, they are to blame, and the insurance company does not pay them.
Imagine looking at that scenaro and stating, “the person has some responsibility for what happened, but absolutely no blame at all,”. That would be totally ridiculous. The other follow-on of stating the victim holds some of the responsibility is to say that the rapist is not entirely responsible for their actions. Which is again totally ridiculous. To quote the prior article: “Rapists rape. Rapists raping lead to rape.”
@Darsh – you’re clearly not trying to troll, or offend anyone (unless my judgement is completely off). Yet you are arguing a paradox. I can see why a rape victim might be pissed off after reading your comments.
I’ve been in a situation where I could have been raped (I didn’t realise it at the time) but I wasn’t because all the men around me made a conscious decision not to rape me (which I am eternally grateful for). Then I have read stories about women being asleep, in their own bed, in a locked house, and waking up to find that someone had decided to break into their house and rape them. Or that their boyfriend had decided not to take no for an answer, or that someone they trusted and relied on had decided to rape them. No responsibility, no blame. They are the victim of a man who decided to rape them. Rapists cause rape, not the victims.
Women should be free to get as drunk as they want to, wear what they want to within the bounds of the law obviously, and enjoy themselves as much as they wish to without some arsehole deciding to rape them because they are too drunk to fight back, or because they wore a short skirt or because they laughed a little too loud or too long with their girlfriends and were clearly having fun without a man.
Do you really want to ally yourself with men like that. Men who are so insecure that they find women enjoying themselves threatening? That prey on women who are drunk? We know that a small number of men commit the vast majority of rapes. When you say that the victim bears some of the responsibility those men think that you agree with them. They think you are like them. Some of them may even think that you are one of them. Is that what you really want?
Darsh, this is especially for you. It’s a post written by Kate Harding which has had thousands of links to it, a classic of the genre. Money quote:
Wow. Thanks for posting that quote. That’s just what every man needs to hear and understand.
I’ve worked as a psychologist in a forensic treatment setting. Men who rape and have been caught, have said to me (and it’s in the research too), that the major tactic for committing sexual assault and getting away with it, is to ensure the person being raped believes they are actually the one responsible for what was done to them. If a rapist can do this they are extremely clever, because the chances of them getting caught are slim. They will choose their victims carefully generally those they think are more likely to take responsibility for the rape they are going to commit. They will groom their victims if needed – those they have power over, children, people with intellectual disability and vulnerable others are likely targets. The rapes they commit are well thought out and planned – they don’t just happen.
In working with those who have been raped – the large part of the job is in assiting them to not get invited into self-blame – this can be very difficult. I think the darsh viewpoint, unfortunately pervades social consciousness – supporting self-blame for victims of rape.
Thanks everyone for taking a stand on this and placing the blame 100% at the feet of perpetrators … silence is collusion.
When you tell someone “be safe, but it’s not your fault” you are doing exactly what Dersh was trying to do. You are drawing a mental distinction between blame and responsibility. Nothing more and nothing less.
As a psychologist, you should recognize that most of the reactions to Dersh here in these comments are not reactions to the content of his message.
Just as an aside, I get just as annoyed that the victim is considered to hold some responsibility in a robbery where they haven’t locked their doors or installed window locks or whatever. As well as the already mentioned limitations of the analogy, as far as the analogy holds, I find that I use it to conclude that robbery victims should also not be held responsible because they didn’t turn their home/car/person into a fortress.
Well done.
“You say why don’t we put some responsibility on women for ‘getting raped’ but the problem is that we already put too much responsibility on women. That’s the fucking problem. And ultimately she can’t ever completely safeguard herself against rape because rapists exploit situations where they can seize power over someone else, which was pretty much the whole point of my previous post. And believe me if it is one thing women don’t need more reminding of it is that we could get raped.”
“It is not a perfect world, as you say, but while we’re wondering why 17 year old girls can’t be a little more cautious let’s also wonder why men can’t be a lot more decent. Rape stops when rapists stop raping.”
These two paragraphs really hit home for me. As a rape victim that struggled with self blame for years, using alcohol, drugs and sex to try to deal with it. It is so amazing to hear that people are trying to get the word out to prevent other people from making the same mistakes I did.
I have also joined the battle to try to have my voice heard. Please check out and comment on my blog. More input is always appreciated
It is not a perfect world, as you say, but while we’re wondering why 17 year old girls can’t be a little more cautious let’s also wonder why men can’t be a lot more decent. Rape stops when rapists stop raping.
That’s a great post – you manage to say so much and say it so convincingly. I think the only reason Darsh isn’t convinced is that he’s gotten confused about the concept of responsibility. Sure, we’re responsible for our behaviour and sometimes we act irresponsibly. But we can only be responsible for what we do. And our responsibility for what we do is not in any way connected to our assessment of what somebody else did. So if the rape was a oint action, which clearly it is not, then it would be worth talking of the responsibilities of the person raped. Because a rape is solely the act of the rapist, the only responsibilities that should be taken into account, are those of the rapist. It’s easy to get stuck into a confusion like this one. But I think when you’re dealing with something as serious as rape, it’s also good not to be too stubborn! Didn’t mean to sound patronizing Darsh. Hold on, yes I did!
sorry I am new to blogging, unsure of what is happening, but just click on my name to check out my blog I think. Thank you
Wow. Lots of new comments!
Unfortunately, it seems that time ran out on me today. I really wish to reply as I find it a bit rude to leave in the middle of a discussion, so please forgive me for taking some time in answering. My time is limited, so it may take some time (maybe days) to answer. When I do answer, would you (blue milk) prefer that I post a comment to this post, or that I send you my reply in some other way?
I also notice that I’ve received warnings about my comments. blue milk, I’m thankful that you haven’t deleted any of my comments so far (as hard as it might be for those who disagree with me to believe, I do put time and effort into trying to write good comments). I’m not sure if it is technically possible, but if you feel I write something inappropriate in future comments, could I ask that you please delete/sensor/edit only the offending part and leave the remaining comment be?
I understand that in many discussions there may be statements that can offend people. I do my best to write my comments so that they will be as inoffensive as possible. I try to avoid misspelling, swearing and personal attacks. I also try to avoid hyperbole, irony and sarcasm as they may easily lead to misunderstandings in a heated Internet discussion. If I do present my arguments in a way that is offensive, then please forgive me, it is not by intention.
However, if it is simply my opinion that is found to be offensive, then, even though I have no right to tell blue milk how to run her blog, I hope that she will see the value of an open discussion, and let my comments remain, albeit in an edited version if necessary.
Finally: It is my intention to give proper replies to many of the comments here. There’s been some interesting comments, and the comments by Scott and Ariane especially made me think. I am also going to read the links provided by violent_rabbit, thewhatifgirl, blue milk and Helen.
When I’ve done this, I hope to reply to you all.
I’ll keep this browser tab open so I don’t forget about it if I start drowning in work. Until next time.
I’d like to back Darsh with allowing open discussion to remain.
Clearly there are quite a number of rape victims here. Stories have been shared (which have helped provide insights; thank you to all those who have). It is a hugely sensitive topic. As I mentioned previously I can see ways in which a rape victim could easily be offended through the comments Darsh has left. I admit whilst reading this blog post I felt hugely uncomfortable in the mental scenaro blue milk presented; feeling that helpless could be described as one of my fears. I can not, and will not, claim to know what it is like to be raped – but I do understand it can leave the victim devastated for years if not life. Never to fully recover from the experience.
That said I really don’t believe Darsh is attempting to offend people. I don’t believe he’s trying to troll. I honestly believe he is taking such an interest (as I am) to further his own understanding and to test his own beliefs (please correct me if I am wrong on any of these counts Darsh). The belief that women are in anyway responsible for their rape is unfortunately a common one. Held by both men and women. To counter this belief, to change how people think, to stop the gross injustice of rape trials, to allow women (and men) to speak up more freely about their experiences of rape, open discussion must be allowed to occur.
If comments must be moderated before release to avoid all out offensive view points being pumped out (even by accident) then that is fair enough. Necessary even. Yet I must urge against banning discussion all together.
Thanks for the support regarding allowing an open discussion Scott.
To make my own motives clear in this:
Your understanding of me seems to be essentially correct.
I only partake in discussions when I believe I can learn something from it, or teach something through it. I make a great point to myself to test all my beliefs and keep every opinion and value I hold logical and non-contradictory.
If I find, or am shown, that any of my arguments are illogical or contradictory to other arguments I would make, I am always ready to change my beliefs. I will then attempt to change my beliefs to a new “steady state” where all my opinions are logical and non-contradictory, and backed by plausible arguments. I of course expect the same from my co-debaters, as a discussion where people will not change their minds are mostly pointless.
There was what I believe to be an illogality in the initial post that I commented on, that I felt I should challenge.
With the counter-arguments and information coming in, I am currently processing it and possibly reevaluating my opinions.
In fact, I was just going to read a little on one of those links and I am still up! Not many hours of sleep for me tonight! >_<
Hyperlinking is both the blessing and the curse of the net. There is always one more argument or piece of information to fork into…
Uh, sorry. Not sure what I did to make my comment appear as the fourth last one and not the last one. :-/
I am not going to shut down debate but I urge caution here. Use the same respect you would show entering a forum for soldiers talking about their post-traumatic stress disorder.
And absolutely NO asking people who are talking about their own experiences of rape to give more details or clarify anything for you.
Scott, there are a lot of rape victims everywhere. This is just a rare place where they (we) feel ok to talk about it.
Pretty much any time you are discussing rape there’s someone listening who’s been raped.
“Scott, there are a lot of rape victims everywhere. This is just a rare place where they (we) feel ok to talk about it.
Pretty much any time you are discussing rape there’s someone listening who’s been raped.”
Exactly.
You don’t know, have no way of knowing, if any of the people in your life – at work, online, on the bus, in class, at a barbeque, at a family celebration… have ever been raped. You just don’t. And you can be pretty safe in assuming that a significant percentage of the women you come across have been, such is the world in which we live.
*nods*
Add in the number of women who have been sexually assaulted in general and it is inevitable that at least one of these women will be nearby at any time.
As you both make painfully clear; due to the hugely sensitive nature of rape and sexual assault getting accurate statistics on the two is something of an impossible task. What do statistics even mean in any given situation anyway?
I honestly had no idea that rape is common to the point where there’s a high probability of a rape victim being on every bus, that just walking down the street I can pass numerous victims. Applying the tag of ‘victim’ seems so ugly somehow. The entire thing seems so ugly, disgusting, and quite frankly frightening.
I can only apologize for seeming to marginalise the number of people who have been raped in my comment. I had meant to make the point that of the people commenting here it appeared that the majority had been raped. If that is actually a reflection of society overall, then that is even scarier than has been previously made out.
This is very slippery ground, and I am only human. Correct my ignorance when I do slip, point out when I do offend. I truly do not mean to upset anyone, and simply seek to further my current understanding.
[...] and placing blame on the victim, but completely pointless, blue milk followed up with this piece But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility for the rape? I found the comments to be a harrowing read, but I recommend that you take a look if you can [...]
Scott, that’s exactly how I read you, and I why I mentioned just how incredibly common women who have been raped are. Most people just don’t realise how shockingly common it is.
Also, I share your discomfort with the phrase “rape victim” – on the one hand it makes it clear that we are talking about someone who had something done to them, on the other, it feels a little like it is defining some part of a person’s identity, which I vehemently reject (although that’s not to say that other women haven’t had experiences sufficiently life changing to consider that it is part of their identity).
12 years later, I’m not feeling victim-y anymore, but I still have leftover issues that have not cleared and impact important aspects of my life. So yes, what happened to me definitely became part of my identity, and maybe, just maybe, at some point I’ll be able to let it go…
Scott – It’s not anyone’s job to correct you or educate you. When you expect that your privilege is showing. It’s your job to start looking for places to learn. There are lots of links in this thread that you can make use of.
I’d suggest you also read Derailing for Dummies.
Wrong. We should be GLAD he’s asking for education and give it to him. Going around saying things like what you just said is contributing to the problem.
Diana – I think you’d benefit from reading the Derailing for Dummies link as well. My willingness to tell a privileged dude that his privilege is showing when he demands that others take on the work/responsibility of watching *his* words and then correcting him when he steps in it (because – awwwwwww – he’s human) is absolutely not contributing to the problem.
Whether it’s rape culture, feminism, racism, transgender issues, etc. the trope that the marginalized person has a responsibility to educate the privileged person is just that – a trope.
These bloggers have covered the ground here much better than I ever could. So I’ll encourage you to click through and have a look.
http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2774
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/03/do-marginalized-have-responsibility-to.html
http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/05/02/educate-yourself/
Carol, I disagree wholeheartedly, why not educate and raise awareness while we are here? Why are we even here if someone comes in asking questions and gets turned away?
We have been! If he had bothered to read through the comments, I am sure that most of his questions would of been answered and there is a plenitude of links to be read. If he then still has questions after he has read, digested and comprehended them then he is welcome in a forum such as this.
Cassie, with respect, it’s one of those tropes that come up again and again in blogs written by people who are marginalised in some way – (some) men demanding that women make the time to educate them instead of doing a bit of work to find out for themselves, (some) able bodied people demanding that people with disabilities make the time to educate them instead of doing a bit of work to find out for themselves, (some) white people demanding that people of colour make the time to educate them instead of doing a bit of work to find out for themselves, (some) cis-people (look it up) demanding that transgender people make the time to educate them instead of doing a bit of work to find out for themselves, (some) straight people demanding that LGBTQ people make the time to educate them instead of doing a bit of work to find out for themselves… you get the pattern, I’m sure.
There’s masses of Feminism 101 material available on the web: Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog is a good place to start.
Deborah,
I wholeheartedly agree with you that everyone should do work on their own to attempt to understand any situation they haven’t experienced themselves, especially when trying to get involved in a discussion on such a topic. However, (and I’m not saying this to excuse anyone from doing research; they still should on top of this) a person cannot COMPLETELY understand the situation until they have been through it themselves. No matter how much research a person does, talking to a person with first-hand experience in the situation will always provide some of the best information.
To use a less touchy subject as an example, I am a student, and therefore many of my friends at school are international students, which means they are obviously from other countries with other cultures. I do my best to be knowledgeable about their culture before I ask any questions, especially those that may be obvious or sensitive. Though until I’ve lived in their country, and have their heritage, I will not fully understand their culture, and until I’ve become an international student living in the U.S., I will not understand what they’ve experienced in coming here. Obviously, these are not things I’m capable of doing, so the closest I can come is to educate myself about it, and to talk to those with first-hand experience.
I think that what Scott is trying to say is that he is trying his best to be unoffensive with the knowledge that he has, but without having been raped himself, he may miss something that is offensive to a victim.
For the record, I too am a victim, but I am trying to do my best to listen to all sides of this issue. It’s one of the most frustrating, infuriating and touchy subjects out there, but unfortunately it’s something we have to deal with.
In one case, I was raped, but when I took it to the police, they told me not even to begin the process of pressing charges because it wasn’t “worth it.” Even though there was solid proof of intercourse and solid proof of who the guy was, there WASN’T solid proof that I had said no, even though I had bruising and other damage to my body. I was told that if I did take it to court, the process of the trial could be just as emotionally damaging as the experience itself, with the guy’s lawyer making me out to look like a slut or some other type of “bad” woman, who was “asking for it.” The lawyer would try to find some way to explain away the physical damage, too. Then, depending on the judge, I could potentially face other resistance just for being 16 and female, and having had sex in the past (even though it was with a long-term boyfriend). Basically, I was told it was my word against his, and as much as they (the police) believed me, I would probably lose. It is terrible that this is the case, that a woman cannot even take her case to court, let alone with said case.
In a second scenario, I was nearly raped, but thankfully, he was not successful. In this case, I had been hanging out with a friend, and his friend, and my friend left me with the other guy, saying he was trustworthy. This other guy proceeded to make repeated attempts to get me to “loosen up,” interpreting my disinterest as just being shy. At the time, I had my leg in a brace, and therefore limited mobility, and the guy was able to, at one point, pin me down by sitting on my legs and holding my hands above my head by the wrists with one hand, while he used the other to remove my clothes. As I said, fortunately, I was able to stop this before he got to his ultimate goal. In this scenario, not only did the perpetrator not take me claims (in his case, of disinterest) seriously, and I face the same issue with (some) other men who had heard of the scenario. I get made out to be a shy and loose, but grumpy and bitchy woman. None of these qualities accurately describe me, and I should not be judged by my interest or uninterest in men, and for defending myself.
I tell these stories because I think it is helpful for non-victims to see what really happened. I think people need to realize just how easy it is for rape to happen, and how scary it can become, in almost no time at all. It is not something that is the same in every case, that can be categorized as a random act, done by a stranger walking down the street. It doesn’t happen with strangers, but it also happens with trusted members of your circle of friends. Above all, the experience itself is painful enough on it’s own; the reaction from those around you should not be just as painful or belittle the pain you have already gone through. Obviously, I think that most people should be informed on the subject, and be able to respond appropriately if a victim confides in them or comes to them for help, or even just wants to talk about it. People should do their best to find material to at least form a basic understanding, but I also think it is good to have individual stories out there, so that we can all learn from them, and see that it’s not all the same.
violent_rabbit
Oh yes that is a good point actually haha.
Deborah I disagree with that arguement on the basis pretty much everyone can identify as marginalised if they want (even white middle class males-MRA). I think it is everyones job within a society to educate and raise awareness.
I suppose agree to disagree
I don’t agree to disagree on this one at all, Cassie. Typically, marginalisation happens to groups that have less power. There’s a power dialectic running through marginalisation, and marginalised groups are usually the ones that have less power. Please, do spend a little time over at Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog: there’s masses of great material there. …. cont/
/cont…
With respect to the points you are making, try the post on What’s wrong with saying that things happen to men, too?, and the post on male privilege.
@Deborah,
Thank you! I just found several new articles to bookmark.
Oh dear. I can’t help but feel I’ve been misinterpreted but such is the folly of my inadequate writing skills and an online tablet.
My sole aim is to further improve my understanding without offending anyone. I read blog links; it seems odd to be here and not to. I’ve studied research. I do make an effort. Actually knowing what is offensive to a group however is an area I’ll try my hardest to avoid, and still trip up on.
As of such I’ll return to the sidelines and simply read the comments from now on. Apologies (yet again) for coming off as a pompous twerp.
Scott, I think you’re doing ok here. Everyone makes mistakes as they learn about their privellege and the key is to be as non-defensive as possible so that you can be open to understanding your mistakes.. which I think you’re doing.
No-one owes you the instruction, and I completely understand the exhaustion expressed by Carol in the comment above, it is up to you to learn for yourself and do the work involved, but I think you’re getting there.
Scott,
Returning to the sidelines is the kind of thing we as men need to avoid doing when confronted by the privileges that patriarchy gives us.
Returning to the sidelines is a -privilege- we should not exercise. Women don’t have that privilege. They can’t opt-out of rape culture, of being raped, of being paid less, of objectification, of being excluded from the political process, of being blamed, of being Othered. What they do is fight, write and think against that.
The absolute least we can do is no get in their way by falling back onto, and reinforcing, our privilege when the going gets rough.
“Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it.”
— Cornel West
I tried to comment on this post earlier today, because it made me think about the parallels with how female victims of homicide are accorded some ‘responsibility’ for provoking their male killers (by trying to leave them, for example), while male victims are not (despite having threatened the life of the female perpetrators and subjecting them to years of violent abuse).
However, my comment became ridiculously long and so I decided to make it into a post (which also became ridiculously long). It is over here if you have a spare half-day in which to read it…
http://nopod.blogspot.com/2010/06/taking-responsibility.html
Cristy,
That was an awesome post. And if you and blue milk don’t mind if I respond to some of it here….
“By and large the main action that made them vulnerable to those crimes was the ‘irresponsibility’ of remaining female within our patriarchal culture. ”
This. A thousand times this.
When I was 13 (12?) and already sporting a C cup at the very least, I was a repeated victim of a voyeur. While I agreed – both at the time and still now – that the age of the voyeur in question diminished his responsibility / culpability, the part that was most confusing for me at the time, and most troubling to me now, was the extent to which my simply being “irresponsible” enough to be obviously female – and he being “responsible” enough to be male – wormed it’s way into my parent’s supposed reassurances.
Clearly, he could not help himself. Not just because he was a child. (The one argument I thought had merit.) Not just because he was a boy. (No one ever says “girls will be girls” when it comes to girls being curious or looking for masturbation material.) But he also couldn’t help himself because I was so obviously a girl. The difference between the years before – when we played as friends – and now (er, then) – when he treated me as a thing for his amusement – was not just that he was growing older and therefore changing*, but possibly even more importantly because I had grown to become so unmistakeably female.
I’m still not sure that my parents ever quite understood how much their “explanations” of his behavior translated – to me – to mean that being female meant never really being safe. Even when I was alone, at home, in my own room.
Which is why I often react so violently to the victim responsibility rape apology argument. I didn’t question back then that it was largely my responsibility and not his to make sure that he never again saw me naked. And believing this – or, more importantly, having to live in a world where this assumption was treated as true and just – led to a extremely unhealthy (but often necessary!) paranoia, not to mention a hell of a lot of body hatred.
If a boy that actually (usually) cared how I felt, and didn’t even necessarily have strong hormonal urges to see me naked, could be induced to treat me this way simply because I had grown (large) breasts, then what kind of treatment can I expect of others? If I’m only safe when I’m alone in my own room – and even then only after I’ve checked every curtain – then what other kinds of dangers lay waiting outside? If I have to triple check my windows in order to simply get dressed in privacy, then how much of my body do I need to hide when I go out in public in order to be even remotely safe?**
*maybe. It’s possible he had begun puberty and was getting all the attendant hormones, but he was only 9 or 10 himself, so I actually kinda doubt that played as big of a role as is often assumed.
**I quickly realized that this wasn’t actually possible. Especially as not trying to look pretty/sexy is seen as a flaw too. So you get to choose between being seen as a dork or being culpable in your own victimization. “The only winning move is not to play” But that’s not really a choice in this case, is it?
“Typically, marginalisation happens to groups that have less power. There’s a power dialectic running through marginalisation, and marginalised groups are usually the ones that have less power.”
I wasn’t debating what marginalisation means. So look back at what I said and read what my objection is.
I have read a bit of that blog, can’t say I enjoy it that much.
“That said I really don’t believe Darsh is attempting to offend people.”
Can I just say how much I hate arguments like this?
Even assuming that he’s not deliberately trying to offend people,* so the fuck what? This blog/discussion is not a referendum on whether or not Darsh is a decent person or not. The topic of conversation is not the value of Darsh’s eternal soul, it’s attitudes like the ones he is presenting, and the harm they do. Bringing up that, gee, girls, I don’t think he really means to be an asshole isn’t just beside the point, it’s also engaging in a variation of the “but he’s such a nice boy!” rape apology that happens so depressingly often. In addition to falling in line with common rape myth/apologies, it’s also derailing the most important part of the conversation – the harm that is done and how people experience that harm – in favor of making it once again all about the feelings of the person doing the harm.
“This is very slippery ground, and I am only human. Correct my ignorance when I do slip, point out when I do offend. I truly do not mean to upset anyone, and simply seek to further my current understanding.”
(In the interests of correcting your ignorance….)
Closer, but still rather beside the point. No one accused you of meaning to upset anyone, so why is that the (only) part that you are (sorta) apologizing for? If I hurt someone by accident, I may clarify that it was an accident in addition to apologizing for hurting them, but who the hell simply clarifies that it was a mistake? Generally, people that are only concerned about appearances. People that are genuinely concerned about the harm they do, and are fully aware of it, tend to actually apologize for the harm done. First.
Which, I’ll note, you kinda do later, which is why I’m bothering to respond at all. BUT, I also find the some of the language there troubling. “I’ll return to the sidelines.” Is listening not an active process for you? More importantly, do you consider bothering to listen first to the stories of people who have actually experienced such harm as the equivalent of being benched? Is letting others have a turn a punishment to you? “Coming off as a pompous twerp ” – again, the issue is not what you appear to be, but what you are actually doing. etc.
*Which I’m not entirely convinced of, but as I just said, it’s also not what I’m concerned about.
I agree that no-one owes anyone an explanation, and I also understand the frustration when you hear the same argument over and over (I felt it viscerally last night when the Libs trotted out the “queue jumping” argument regarding asylum seekers on Q&A – apologies to anyone who copped that tweet). It’s utterly unreasonable to expect people to explain how and why they suffer at the hands of more powerful groups – especially to members of that more powerful group.
On the other hand, I also understand that it’s easier and more effective to learn from dialogue than monologue. I’ve always enjoyed engaging with someone who wants to debate with honesty, and I could happily discuss Darsh’s argument with him for some time. I also find that 101-type posts don’t always address a line of reasoning that I have, or at least that I can’t see how it does and would appreciate the chance to argue it through with someone else.
I feel the tension of respecting the position Deborah describes but also wanting to engage, just because I love an argument, and more importantly, find it energising not exhausting. If I do engage, it feels like I’m dis’ing those who (justifiably) don’t want to be asked to engage (again and again and again). At the same time, I think that engaging may sometimes reach someone that the 101 stuff won’t. I also don’t know how to resolve the tension, and so flip flop between engaging and not engaging.
Personally, if you feel like explaining it to someone, I see no problem with that. I think telling someone that we aren’t here to educate them is mainly a mechanism for not making victims feel like they are constantly forced to educate people, so that we have an escape valve when the conversation gets a little too heavy for us.
*win said case (From my comment above, which apparently cannot be replied to. I wasn’t going to make the correction, but apparently it’s the only way I can have it email me all comments and not just replies.)
obviously by ‘taking responsibility’ , a woman is supposed to behave ONLY in ways that don’t place her at risk of attack.
the logical conclusion to that train of thought is that a woman would be safest locked up in her home, with male family members to guard her when she is in public.
What it looks like to me is that this man Darsh is saying that women have to behave in ways HE thinks are appropriate for a woman to behave, otherwise she is somehow complicit if she is attacked by someone. It’s just a backhanded way of policing women’s behaviour.
Raped at university? maybe your rapist thinks women shouldnt have access to higher education. go home! you’ll be safe there! Raped at a party? maybe its because you chose the wrong clothes!
-
raping a woman is NOT a crime against property, because a woman is not a house to be burgled or a wallet to be stolen. she is a human being with the same legal freedoms as everyone else in her community, thanks very much. But she shouldn’t enjoy them in case of rape???
Rape is a CRIME, not a ‘salutary lesson’ about ‘appropriate female behaviour’.
creep.
“the logical conclusion to that train of thought is that a woman would be safest locked up in her home, with male family members to guard her when she is in public.”
you know, except when the molester is actually a male family member. ugh.
“With respect to the points you are making, try the post on What’s wrong with saying that things happen to men, too?, and the post on male privilege.”
I never said “What’s wrong with saying things happen to men too?”
Again I ask you to please actually read what I typed, or at least draw my attention to where you are having issues understanding.
Again I also state, I have read that.
you know, except when the molester is actually a male family member. ugh.
yes, perhaps Darsh would like to tell us what a woman’s responsibility is in THAT situation…
You think he would have picked that one up from the post of mine to which he was originally responding. But alas.
Why are we spending so much time on argueing with/educating this Darsh person? I’m not interested in this, if I were I’d go to a men’s rights site not a feminist one. If Darsh is still uneducated after all the time and information he’s gotten at this web site and links provided (links he has apparently not read because they’re too long), he’s either incredibly dense or doesn’t want to learn. How many hoops are you giong to jump through for him? If you really want to continue “educating”, exchange emails and do it privately.
cj
Celia Jane, as someone who has arrived late to the conversation I feel that I’m learning a lot from reading replies to Darsh. I really appreciate the time people are putting in to write these.
Celia Jane
“I’m not interested in this, if I were I’d go to a men’s rights site not a feminist one.”
You pinpoint my contention with deadly accuracy. Why must we be so seperated? Feminists with women’s issues and MRA with men’s issues. Why not society with society’s issues?
Cassie, You are behaving like a troll with all this “What about the Menz?!”
Is that your intention?
Thanks so much for this post. I was ‘violated’ on Saturday night (I can’t think of a better word for it. Not raped. Not even assualted. Just made to feel very very very awful). It hurts to read all this. But it is good. Because despite being a young woman who has always loudly and proudly reminded women/everyone that the victim should never feel guilty, or is never to blame…The feelings of personal guilt and blame have crept in. I never, ever thought I’d feel that. Which adds another layer to the myriad of emotions. Embarrassment and shame that I am so ‘weak’ to feel guilt.
I have told another person, and while they had the very best intentions (and were mostly upset and supportive) the “you really shouldn’t be walking alone at night” warning crept in.
It makes me mad that any woman can’t be free to be in public at night.
[...] But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too for the rape? « blue milk You say why don’t we put some responsibility on women for ‘getting raped’ but the problem is that we already put too much responsibility on women. That’s the fucking problem. And ultimately she can’t ever completely safeguard herself against rape because rapists exploit situations where they can seize power over someone else, which was pretty much the whole point of my previous post. (tags: sexual.violence women privilege victim-blaming) [...]
“Cassie, You are behaving like a troll with all this “What about the Menz?!” ”
Firstly I never said “what about the menz”. I said what about teaching people? Key word there is people, I don’t see it as something to restrict to men or women (gender equality).
My intention is not to be a troll it is to have an opinion. One I think is valid and no one has provided evidence to state otherwise.
I will desist with my debating once it reaches a conclusion.
@ Cassie “Why must we be so seperated? Feminists with women’s issues and MRA with men’s issues. Why not society with society’s issues?”
We are so separate because of the power differential that is the kyriarchy.
Trying to equate women’s issues and “men’s issues” is a false equivalence on the power differential alone.
Why not society’s problems? Because correcting the ‘women’s issues’ is often the basis for those ‘men’s issues’ as male privilege is challenged and men fight to maintain what they’ve got.
“Trying to equate women’s issues and “men’s issues” is a false equivalence on the power differential alone.”
WRONG. Of course the two are not equal, but we DO need to be aware that rape can happen to men too. Men rape men, women rape women, and yes, sometimes even women can rape men (I know, I know, how dare I say so). Just b/c it happens less doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be mentioned. Obviously our rape should get the lions share b/c it happens the most. But it’s wrong to ignore the other side. And don’t even get me started about how mainstream straight white feminists ignore GLBTQ rape, trans rape, and rape in colored communities. Perhaps some people should look at their own privilege as well. Just b/c you’re not privileged in one area doesn’t mean you don’t have it in others. Oh and before anyone hits with me the whole “you don’t get it” bullshit, I’m a twice rape survivor.
@ Diana – You comment is focused on rape rather than the ‘feminist issues vs men’s issues’ that the quoted text from Cassie or my comment were. Is there a reason for that other than to tell me I’m wrong?
Carol
I do think there are several flaws in your logic
However for the sake of not trolling I will just accept it as the way you think.
Cassie,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the entire reason for topical blog sites is so that people interested in a particular topic can share ideas on that topic.
cj
Celia Jane
Exactly my original point
Cassie
Then stay on topic. We aren’t talking about men’s problems, ideas and opinions.
Society’s problems are dominated by men. We do live in a rape culture. If that’s what you want to talk about you’re in the wrong place. And since this post has been efectively hijacked, I think I’ll go to a better moderated site for now.
cj
Celia Jane, be mindful that we don’t all live in the same time zone – it is the effing internet, people, and I live in Australia and a lot of the comments come in while I am asleep. Also, I am a parent and I work outside the home too, so moderation is going to come in bits and pieces. I will do my best though because I don’t want a toxic environment for feminists developing here.
We also live in a white dominated and straight dominated society. Does that mean that the problems of white people and straight people don’t count either? Of course not. All she did was MENTION it. She’s not saying it’s worse. IT DOES need to be mentioned, so more male survivors can come forward. Something I think some women are threatened by the idea that maybe some males have lived through it too. Especially if (gasp) the perpetrator is a woman!
Celia Jane
I never brought up any men’s issues
I don’t want a toxic environment for feminists either (being one myself)
But with all due respect, I am not always going to agree with what is stated
Am I not entitled to a say?
Also I am Aussie too
Didn’t mean to imply that you could cause a toxic environment for feminists, rather that an unmoderated forum can soon become one. Sorry.
I think this topic is running off the rails. Let’s stop with the side arguments.
sounds good blue milk
So I’m back.
It’s been an interesting read all in all. And lots to read!
Unfortunately, replying individually to every comment would take too much time, so I’ll have to settle for one, big comment that hopefully is adequate. It’s quite long, and I apologise for that. Hopefully it will be readable enough for anyone who wants to read it.
I’ve recently learned about TRIGGER WARNINGS as used on these blogs, so I’ll just warn right here: I am not able to judge when such a warning is appropriate!
Though before I get down to everything I’ll start with a short answer to one specific part of a comment:
jennygadget writes that ‘Even assuming that [Darsh] is not deliberately trying to offend people,* so the fuck what? This blog/discussion is not a referendum on whether or not Darsh is a decent person or not. The topic of conversation is not the value of Darsh’s eternal soul, it’s attitudes like the ones he is presenting, and the harm they do.’
The reason why it matters whether I try to offend or not is that if I do not intentionally attempt to offend, then it may be possible to reason with me and have a decent discussion, assuming that discussions with people who may disagree is desirable of course. That said, I’m glad to hear that this discussion is not about whether I am a decent person or not, but about my arguments/the attitude I present.
I’ve been reading all the links presented to me, and quite a few more, and it has taken me quite a bit more time than I had anticipated. However, even though the links I read were mostly very informative, thought-provoking and educational, I did never feel they actually addressed my point. Perhaps I simply didn’t manage to express myself properly, or that what I’m intending to communicate and what I’m writing is different.
The post about rape culture 101 was very educational (how could it not be, with that amount of linked references), and the examples and references were numerous, varied and informative. Even to such an extent that even I – being a man who haven’t cared to much about feminism et al. – mostly recognized it. However, even by having this list of examples, I do not feel that I have ever been in the thick of this ‘rape culture’. Some of the examples are terrible and I agree that they are terrible, though others seem so far off that they are more like a caricature to me and almost a thing of the past. Perhaps this has to do with where I grew up or something.
Ross Lincoln’s ‘I Am Not My Cock’ was less of a good read as far as I am concerned. Even though he makes many correct observations, I feel he misses a few important points in what I see as his attempt at shooting sparrows with cannons. And finally I really don’t think his use of language helps in communicating with anyone but those who already agrees fully with him.
Starling’s ‘Schrödinger’s Rapist’ on the other hand was a very good read and I think I didn’t see anything I disagreed with there. However, I didn’t find anything that addressed the point I am trying to make either. Oh, and I must admit that I didn’t read _all_ the comments to that post.
The pdf thewhatifgirl linked to what also very informative, and I learned quite a few things from it, but still nothing about what I was trying to argue. Though I will add – again – that I’ve never talked about or ever given any actual or would-be rapist a free pass, or argued for a lighter sentencing, no matter what their victims may or may not have done!
The Feminism 101 Blog is actually how I ended up here. But honestly, I find its organisation rather confusing and its content not very informative. I’ve gained much more knowledge about feminism by reading several posts in the other blogs I’ve been linked to from here.
As I don’t think these links gave much input to what I tried to argue, I’ll try to elaborate on my point and hopefully make it more clear:
Firstly, there were several people who stated their disagreement with equating or addressing rape as a form of property theft. I’ll try to explain how I (and others) feel it is proper to do this comparison:
I will argue that the most important piece of property any of us own is our own life. It is the thing that has the most value to us (*). The second and third most valuable properties are our minds and bodies. Probably on a shared second place for most people. Any other material, legal or intangible property, asset or right then follows at fourth place.
(*) For the vast majority of people I believe there is also a parallel list of other people that we value greatly – some even more than our own lives. I left them out of the first list on the grounds that they are their own individuals and thus can’t be anyones “property”.
Now, the more valuable an asset is to us, the more it hurts when it is misused, damaged or taken away from us. By comparing a car and a house, I believe most people would be more troubled by someone breaking into their house than their car, as the house is a place where we spend more time and where we naturally feel we should be safe(r).
In the same way, I will argue that one can look at rape as a form of “property theft”, that is, someone else is unlawfully accessing, entering or making use of ones body – the body being one of the most valuable assets of the victim. I do not think this demeans the value of a person’s body, or the seriousness of rape. In fact, by doing this we are able to compare different crimes and I think it clearly shows why rape is such a serious offense! In many ways, second only to murder!
Secondly, after reading my comments several people have also wondered what I think people, who were raped/assaulted by people they should have been able to trust, should have done to avoid it, or how I am able to blame them/make them responsible.
I am not. My comments have never been targeted at those cases. When being assaulted by people one is supposed to be able to trust, there nothing one could have done (short of being omniscient) to prevent it. I want to note that in such cases I personally feel the punishment to the assailant should be even harsher, as in addition to the crime itself it is also a violation of trust between close people (In fact, it smells a bit of what many would label ‘treason’ to me).
Thirdly, violent_rabbit, Helen, Scott, Sandrine, Kathy (on Spilt Milk’s blog) and others pointed out that my distinction between responsibility and blame is impossible. At first I thought perhaps my translations of the terms were faulty. But looking up the words – and the original ones in my language – I found that, indeed, I am arguing an inconsistency. I’m really sorry about that. Usually I have a fairly accurate understanding of the languages I’m using.
Even more, Mindy pointed out that even talking about a girl having some of the responsibility for being raped, a (potential) rapist may take this as a supportive comment. And Scott also commented that putting some blame on the victim means taking some blame off the assailant. Helen linked to a very thought-provoking article by Kate Harding that argues that how one behaves and talk can actually provide support for rapists. I can not claim that I will completely shy away from sometimes saying such things, but I doubt I’ll forget the arguments she presented.
So while it can be argued how much support a (potential) rapist may get out of my arguments, I do not wish to appear supportive to a (potential) rapist. Nor do I want my descriptions of the situations to lead to lighter sentences for rapists, even though a good justice system should avoid being influenced to lighten a rape sentence based on possible irresponsibility of the victim. Pointing out any irresponsibility is only to help avoid future rape in an imperfect world, not to work as defense of a rapist!
Alas, it is an imperfect world, and the justice system must necessarily reflect that. Cristy’s post clearly showed how in a horrific way, the justice system is not functioning well enough. Though it is good to hear it is getting better.
In light of all this I must retract all my statements that the assailant holds all the guilt and most of the blame, and instead say that the assailant holds all the guilt, and thus, all the responsibility for a rape.
However, I also feel that it is wrong to completely abandon what I previously tried to confer: that people are actually responsible for their own actions. So how should I then combine these two views?
I have to disagree with Sim when (s)he states that ‘[...] you are just as likely, if not more, to be raped in a situation where you are doing NOTHING that would be classed as “irresponsible” [...].’
This sounds absolutely illogical to me. Even if doing nothing irresponsible would not lessen the chance of rape, it seems completely contrafactual that actually doing something irresponsible may in any way _lessen_ the chance of rape!
Furthermore, as far as I am able to see the world, the more irresponsible things one does the more likely one is to have something bad happen.
If I’m not getting drunk and do have friends around me, there is a much lesser chance that I might get in a fight or be beaten up by a stranger. If a girl is not getting drunk and do have friends around her, there is a much lesser chance that she might get raped by a stranger.
Lily contends that there is no victim blaming in robbery or murder (and other similar cases I presume) and Ariane thinks that there shouldn’t be. I completely disagree. When my friends have been unfortunate enough to be the victims of a robbery, I will – and have – berated them for taking stupid and irresponsible decisions leading up to the robbery. I have of course supported them in getting over it, but there has never been any point in overlooking stupid things that they did. A friend of mine never locked the door in his dorm room – as nobody ever stole anything from him anyway. I of course told him that I thought it was irresponsible and stupid, though it’s his choice what to do. It is not required to turn ones property into a fortress, as Ariane put it, but to take proper precautions is the sensible thing to do.
One time an acquaintance of me and my friends (I was not as affected as others, as I hadn’t really met or talked with the guy very much), drunkenly got home, started to smoke a cigarette and fell asleep on some rugs in the hallway. A fire broke out and he died as the house burned down. When we heard about this we were all greatly saddened. It was quite unreal, as it always is, that someone we knew suddenly weren’t around anymore. However, I will confess that the general understanding was that this was terrible, that we felt so bad for his family, that people were going to (and did) this and that to help out afterwards, that there was no way in the world that he deserved what happened, but that nobody denied that it was stupid of him to be drunk, smoke and fall asleep like he had done.
I hold that it is right to judge people, whether they’re male or female, and whether anything does or does not happen to them, that if they act irresponsible, it is proper and necessary to point that out.
As such, I will point out two actions that I find irresponsible and that I have and will continue to advice my friends not to do:
1. Getting heavily drunk or drugged by one’s own free will, without having any friends to watch out for oneself.
2. Being in a what is generally regarded as an unsafe location, without having any friends together with oneself.
Combining these two is, of course, even worse.
If two or more guys get into a fight while out drinking, and I hear about it, you can be damn well sure that I will wonder how much of the blame should be put on each of them.
A rape is not like a fight in many ways. One important distinction, especially for this discussion, is that in a rape the assailant can disengage at any time without problems (preferably before (s)he actually starts!). I’ll agree that all the blame should be put on the assailant, and, as I had to concede, all of the responsibility. And I wish to point out – yet again, that I in no way argue that a rapist should receive a lighter sentence, whether the victim was irresponsible or not!
However, there is still no reason not to point out that certain actions taken by the rape victim was stupid and irresponsible. If for nothing else, to take a lesson from it to try and avoid a rape in the future (both for the victim and any further potential victims).
Luckily, I have never had any friend who has been raped, so I have never needed to choose whether or not to point out such things directly to them and risk hurting my friend. I do hope that I will be able to do so, if it should ever happen.
Though as you all say, I may have already.
Mutherfucking hell what a wall of mansplaining text. No one cares for your bullshit little opinion! Just read, educate yourself and SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THINGS YOU
STILL
DO NOT UNDERSTAND
@Darsh:
And that, right there, is the problem with your argument. Women that are raped in an intoxicated state are frequently raped by friends and acquaintances they trusted to watch out for them. Women are raped in what should be safe locations, such as the hallway of their building, or their own bed. Women are raped in unsafe locations by, once again, the friends they trusted to look out for them.
On the other hand, women routinely get drunk in public and come home safe. I lived in inner-city Baltimore for two years, took public transport, walked around at night past gangs all by my self, in whatever I happened to be wearing at the time, and I was never raped. Where was I raped? In the basement rec room of a teenage boyfriend’s home, by people I trusted, with someone’s mom home upstairs. I was wearing carpenter jeans and a hoodie, and extremely boring underwear. How much responsibility do I bear, in your calculus of blame?
Stranger rape is not exactly a myth, but it is not nearly the norm. Most women are raped in what they consider to be a safe environment, by people they know and trust. There is little correlation between the conditions you claim women should “take responsibility” for and the conditions under which rape actually tends to occur.
Women are raped because men rape them. There is no other blame that needs to be assigned, and no other responsibility to be had.
As a twice rape survivor I find people like you really really upsetting. People like you are part of the problem. You just want an excuse to hate anyone who is male. While I don’t agree with everything Dash says, he’s tried very hard to be nice despite you saying things like “All men are rapists”. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you realize women like you only give the misogynistic “men’s rights groups” fodder? Would you like me to say “all straight people are homophobes?” Or “all white people are racist?” Obviously not, b/c neither is true. What about all thin women hate fat women? Cause let me tell you, I’ve seen some pretty bad anti-big woman bigotry. And it’s a lot worse from women then men. I’m willing to bet you’re either straight or white, if not both, and you take your privilege for granted. Just b/c you’re disadvantaged in one area doesn’t mean you’re not advantaged in another. Guess what-I’m bi (you can start the slut comments now) and I’ve experienced quite a bit of bigotry from so called “straight feminists”. So have my lesbian friends, as well as my African American ones. And if you’re trans, forget it-if you get raped it doesn’t count, b/c you’re a “shemale”. And I can tell that many people on here would like to pretend that there are no male survivors.
Getting raped doesn’t give you an excuse to hate all males-just the sexist ones. That those encompass way too many of them I agree. But I admit I have a blinding hatred for women who go around saying things like “all men blah blah”. YOU CANNOT JUDGE AN ENTIRE GROUP UNLESS YOU’VE MET EVERYONE OF THEM. That’s no better than someone saying all women are bitches b/c they meet a mean woman.
Darsh,
You absolutely are immersed in rape culture just like the rest of us. The difference? Your privilege allows you not to think about it unless you choose to.
Secondly, You absolutely do know someone who’s been raped. They simply haven’t shared that information with you.
Harriet J at Fugitivus explains some of the possible reasons on her blog.
Hi Darsh,
Thanks for a thoughtful response. In response to my comment I want to explain more fully, as i did not express myself properly originally.
What i was trying to get across is that you are more likely to be raped by someone you know in a position of trust, ie, in a position where you are not acting “irresponsibly”. So in many cases, how you act will make no difference whatsoever to whether or not you are raped.
Does that make more sense than my clumsily worded original?
hmm, reading back over that it is also rather clumsy, can anyone explain what I’m saying more clearly?
No, I think I do understand what you are saying. It’s just that I believe you are using a fact to disregard a sensible policy.
I’ll try to explain what I believe your are trying to say, and why I took a bit of an issue with it. Hopefully you can correct me if I am wrong:
As has been shown, a victim is most likely to be raped by someone they know and trust. The actual number escapes me now, but for the sake of argument, let’s just say this is 90% of all rapes.
Then, 10% of rape victims are attacked by a stranger.
My only argument is that the less responsible one is, the higher the likelihood of being attacked and/or raped by a stranger.
So being responsible could lessen the 10% number somewhat, though it will do nothing about the 90% number. As such, it is not in any way a complete solution or _the_ solution to a many-faceted problem with complex indirect causes, but it can still worth mentioning.
“So being responsible could lessen the 10% number somewhat”
Christ you haven’t listened to a word anyone has said to you have you? FUCK OFF FOREVER
If policies are contradicted by facts, they are not sensible, they are nonsensical. You can’t avoid a stranger rape either, by following your little rules.
The problem with this is that it’s once again up to the (in the majority of cases) women to Be More Responsible! I’m going to state three of the problems I have with this:
1. It is once again up to the women to watch what the wear, watch what they drink, be careful of who they look at, etc. The men? What about them? Do they need to be careful where they look, what they drink, who they look at? As with so many other things in life, if it is going to cause you a problem (in this case, possibly a… I don’t even know what to call it… a desire to rape?), then DON’T LOOK! It’s really not that hard.
2. This still supports a very misogynistic point of view, because even though you are saying that anyone (male or female) could get mugged and so they should be careful, in this case it is mostly directed at women not wearing or doing something that men pretty much have free range to do. Don’t get too drunk, or you could be raped. But that guy wasted at the bar? He may be acting like an idiot, but he’s not irresponsible simply for the fact that he got completely drunk. AND he doesn’t HAVE to worry about getting raped just because he’s drunk.
3. Finally, by placing any responsibility of the victim for what YOU consider “irresponsible” starts down a very slippery slope. You say being in an unsafe location, but someone else might think that any location outside a home is unsafe, so it can turn into “don’t go outside your home.” And for some women, that’s the most unsafe place of all. Therefore arguing against acting “irresponsibly” for oneself is not only STILL blaming the victim, it is using YOUR definition of what is irresponsible. Which again, is different from what is irresponsible for a man. And if people live by your definition, why wouldn’t they have to live by other people’s more ridged definition in case they get blamed for being rapped? And if every person had to live according to the limits of every other person thought was responsible/irresponsible, where would lines be drawn?
So even though you retracted what you said about rape victims having any of responsibility, you are still arguing for each and every woman to be “responsible” for themselves. When really? The RAPIST should be responsible for NOT RAPING. Period. End of story.
And by the way? Women are already extremely aware of how careful we need to be. All. The. Time. But every now and again, maybe a women wants to cut lose a little (like a man would without thinking to much about it) and not get raped! Is that not allowed? To ever let our guard down? To ever kick back and dance freely and drink until we are wasted? To enjoy those types of privileges that men so freely get?
I’d like to point out something in the case of the 10% number.
In the case of rape victims attacked by a stranger, that rapist intends to rape, and then picks his victim. So if he chooses, for example, “The one with the shortest skirt,” if every women wears a longer skirt, one of them will still have the shortest. Likewise, if he picks “the drunkest girl,” as long as even one person has a sip of alcohol there will be a drunkest girl.
So, really, by having women make safer choices, all you’re doing is changing who the victims are, not the total number of victims.
There is nothing that the pool of potential victims can do to lessen this number.
I’d also like to insert here some general information about the statistics, here you go. http://www2.binghamton.edu/counseling/documents/RAPE_FACT_SHEET1.pdf
Darsh, you’re still desperately clinging on to your little wedge of judgementalism in spite of all you’ve had to confront and let go of… there must be a serious puritanical streak running through you that you think you deserve so much punishment for ever daring to get drunk/stoned/drop your guard for a moment. Try some compassion sometime. You’re allowed to get drunk and pick up a woman in a bar, to relax and feel good, you wouldn’t deserve to be raped by six men for that.
I was curious to see what impact the links and some time would have on you but that’s as far as I will humour your victim-blaming comments. You’re done now.
@Darsh
I am all for for freedom of speech, and I will defend your right to speak here or anywhere for that matter, but you have crossed a line.
“Firstly, there were several people who stated their disagreement with equating or addressing rape as a form of property theft.”
Did you know that rape was considered property theft? The property of the man was taken when his wife (or daughter) was raped. The man suffered not the woman. These statements on a blog filled with feminists and rape victims is offensive and ignorant. Your statement is offensive and ignorant anywhere in fact.
What a nice ASSHOLE. I can’t add any more to what the others have already said. I see you’re still going strong Bluemilk. Lovely.
Alright.
Sorry for bothering you.
Oh what a shame, Darsh still doesn’t get it!! I’d hate to be his friend or partner – if anything goes wrong in my life – I’d be getting some degree of the blame from him. Yuk!!
[...] I read this piece on rape culture today, that really made me shake my head. I found the original posting of it here, tonight. I know I’ve read this before, but it’s worth posting again: Sexual Assault Prevention Tips. Amazing that until I was sexually harassed at work, I didn’t even know what rape culture was. It took Cortejo explaining it to me, with loads of links about rape culture, blog posts, articles and such for me to know. I remember reading this really long blog post on it one day and going “Oh my God, that’s what he did to me! That’s part of rape culture!” It’s incredible how ingrained it is in our society and in our way of thinking. Rape Culture 101, if you’re interested. It would be nice to see a part of a high school sex ed curriculum to teach about it, but I think hell might freeze over first. People cringe at the R word but have no problem victim blaming when someone gets raped. ”She asked for it.” No one asks for it. No one. There’s a follow up to Bluemilk’s piece that I read, after someone commented that maybe the girl should take some responsibility for getting raped. You can read it here. [...]
I came to this blog hoping to read about pregnancy and parenthood and this string is the first that I have read. I sit here with my mouth agape. Chilling fear creeps through me. I am unsure if I want to read more.
I am a birth / labor doula (soon to be an abortion doula too) and received training how to support victims of sexual abuse. People simply don’t realize how detrimental or far-reaching it can be for them to act on their (negative) impulses. Scars may fade but they exist on and can darken even beautiful, sunny days.
Say a wish/prayer that protects women who are being victimized as you read this. Say a prayer for the perp who needs the help of humankind. It might make a difference.
I cover a wide range of topics here Cynthya, in fact so much so that I was worrying about all the new readers here since this post wanting to see more feminist rants on blue milk and finding soppy baby photo blogging instead.. but I forgot about the other side of that coin.
Welcome.
Here’s a question for Darsh, and anyone else who agrees with his points. It is mostly men who rape women. Why, then, is it that instead of trying to stop men who rape, finding out why men rape, and making it harder for men to rape, are we telling women that it is they who must be careful *all the time*, never getting drunk, never flirting, never dressing “provocatively”, never doing this or that, getting a personal alarm or taking self-defence classes or doing this or that? WHY should the responsibility be on the women who are raped, rather than the men who rape? Especially since, from what I understand, in the vast majority of rape cases there wasn’t a single goddamn thing the woman could have done anyway.
[...] – jennygadget, here [...]
Since I am unable to be nearly as elegant and wonderful, here’s a rebuttal for people like Darsh from the wonderful Harriet J. at Fugitivus:
If you have ever said, out loud, within earshot of ANYBODY, that women deserve some degree of responsibility for their rape, or that women who go to court are lying money-grubbers, or that it wasn’t a real rape, or any amount of apologism, you bear some responsibility for the reasons women do not want to see their rapists come to justice. It’s because you have told her that she will have to go through you first, and she has decided that that might feel worse than just living with the fact that she can be legally raped. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
[...] would you believe?) and while we’re talking about rape, Blue Milk also answers the question Why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too? At In a Garden Somewhere we had a great analysis of “responsibiliy” and the law in [...]
[...] 4, 2010 by blue milk So, come for the angry feminist rants at blue milk and stay for the cutesy children’s artwork blogging. After our recent love [...]
[...] to be raped, no one. Comments like this are just victim-blaming. I find blue milk’s post “But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too for the rape?” relevant [...]
I haven’t read all the comments on this post, and perhaps someone else brought it up, but gangbanging aside – what if the rapist is a woman’s partner who just decided that on this particular occasion he wants to have sex with her whether she wants to or not? Is she still being irresponsible for being in a relationship with this person?
The logical conclusion to the victim taking some responsibility argument surely would be that we should never leave our houses, because really, anything can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time….
[...] up in this discussion with a man about rape and responsibility and it was very much like this and this so I won’t go into the specifics of our tedious conversation but I will say something about [...]
I hate to hide behind an alias but perhaps when you have read this you’ll understand why. I am a man – I don’t know what it is like to be a woman – but I am married and have a wonderful daughter and want to her to grow up happy and strong and free from fear.
This is such an important subject – but most men (like me) never really realise how important until we read a blog like this (and the heartbreaking responses). Some of us like to think we understand – but we dance round the edges. This blog confronts us head on with our deepest, ingrained and barely recognised assumptions which colour our whole understanding of the subject. And even then we still struggle to really comprehend what it means to live with the threat of rape or to be a rape victim.
In someways, Darsh has been the most helpful poster because, as a man, it is easier for me to relate to his starting position – and then to see, by his repeated attempts to defend that position how wrong I have been in my own (unacknowledged) assumptions. How wholly inadequate my attempts at empathy and understanding have been.
Sadly, some of that ingrained ‘male’ view was in fact put there as much by my mother as by my father. I remember, whenever the subject came up on the news, how she would purse her lips and say something like “Well, she can’t be wholly innocent” or “Well if you dress like that, what can you expect” or “She obviously did not say no clearly enough” – or any one of hundreds of similar trite blame shifting statements.
But I also remember growing up with images of men in films forcing themselves on reluctant women who finally ‘melt’ ‘happily’ into their arms – effectively playing out the men’s fantasies of what they think of as their power of seduction when in fact it these are fantasies of rape. I think that is where Darsh might have got the idea for the “slight barrier of resistance”. An idea I remember boys repeating at school – “oh they all play hard to get” – “oh they like to flirt” “prick teasers want it the most” and on and on – increasingly offensive (both in the sense of offending and attacking).
Like most men – I don’t know whether I know any rape victims – as one of the replies put it – I almost certainly do but they just haven’t told me – not least because I am a man and I can at least understand that once you have been raped (particularly if by someone you know, trust or even love) there is no way you are going to trust another man again.
I still don’t know if I understand any better – maybe the best I can say is that I have a slightly better idea of how little I really understand. My once concern now is how do I raise a daughter who has the confidence to be herself – and the knowledge that she is never responsible for the actions of others. Thank you all for at least opening my eyes to my own ignorance.
@Dumb man: Thoughtful comments. Your daughter is lucky to have you.
Yes, thank you for your comment.
Yes, what Matarij said!
One of the things that became clearer to me – I think I perceived it kind-of dimly but reading feminist writers in the blogosphere articulated it for me – is that patriarchy is a system, and doesn’t mean “men”. It follows that there are a lot of women who have invested a lot of their life and energy into making a life in the patriarchy, and are just as much involved in its perpetuation as men are. Think of the older women who perform FGM on little girls. As a feminist it doesn’t surprise me a bit to see women perpetuating victim-blaming. They’re all part of a patriarchal society, after all.
Thank you Matarij, Blue Milk and Helen – scared of putting my big foot in my equally big mouth – so treading carefully.
It pains me to say it but I can well imagine both my parents, in another life, being part of a system that perpetuates such ‘accepted’ cultural abuses as FGM – not because they are bad people but because they are arch-traditionalists – and if they grew up in such a culture they would be the last to challenge it and the among the first to defend it – as Helen says, they are instinctively patriarchal (and authoritarian – very much in the tradition of the abrahamic faiths).
(I actually heard my mother congratulate my brother on having a “proper baby” when his wife gave birth to a son.)
It struck me, after posting my previous comment, that part of the problem lies in our language (not just in our attitude) – again I think Darsh touched on this when he said he would tell friends if he thought they were acting irresponsibly. The particular phrase I have in mind is one used to justify man-on-man violence: “He was asking for it.” Now, I am pretty certain than some men do go out and deliberately pick fights – I have met a few. But plenty of victims had no such intention. Yet their assailants often feel justified in their assault by some vague, unspecified signal that the victim apparently gave.
Years ago I lived in London – and after working late would go to the West End to catch a late film and stop in at Ed’s diner for a burger and beer. I invariably went alone – and friends used to remonstrate with me saying: “You are asking for trouble walking around London at that time of night.” Well I can assure you I wasn’t – in fact their warnings only served to make me more determined to exert my right to walk in my capital city whenever I pleased. I was only asking to be left alone.
Yet this “asking for it” phrase is used time and time again to force men and woman to curtail their freedom of action not out of respect but out of fear of reprisals – it is a form of self-censorship that impoverishes us all.
Sorry if that seems slightly off topic – my point is that to change attitudes we not only have to make a moral argument for that change but we also need to change the way we use language to describe behaviour – only that way can we hope to change minds.
Meant to add – if you haven’t come across The Pixel Project then you should probably take a look at their campaign to stop violence against women:
http://www.thepixelproject.net/
(And, for those of you of a cynical nature, no, I don’t work for them, I did not join this discussion just to promote them – I just thought you might be interested.)
Oh and if you haven’t yet seen this shocking report on the New York Times I guarantee it will make your blood boil – it just shows you how deep rooted “rape culture” (the notion that women are part of the problem rather than straightforward victimes) is in this world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/health/14glob.html?_r=2
So angry my spelling starts going haywire – meant victims!
Dumb man
I am shamed that you feel the need to put yourself down in order to speak here. Have some pride, don’t feel bad because you aren’t a woman.
Well, considering a lot of the comments and the general tone here…. I wouldn’t think a man WAS welcome, unless he literally became a woman. And I AM a woman….
Not sure why you would feel so. I have always felt welcome in these forums. Occasionally I say stupid things. Sometimes I slip up on awareness of the impact of my language. But I’ve found my comments are often well-received.
I’d hope more men come to places like this. I love being a man, and I love being involved in issues like this.
Yeah, I’m not quite sure what your comment means either. For the record, I’m not thrilled about the moderation I did in this thread. It got away from me because I wasn’t able to be around all the time to moderate it – between work and sleeping. There are some things going down here that I don’t like and wouldn’t normally tolerate – abusive insults, for one. But then a guy came here and was making an arse of himself in the thread and it was on a post about rape, so he would have known how volatile such a topic can be and he chose to do that anyway here, which was not exactly respectful, and a bunch of people jumped all over him for his views and there is an argument to be made that by experiencing that he could think huh! this is what male privelege has given me, I’ve been able to avoid having my rape culture views opposed before now, and this is what it feels like not to get dominate the conversation, or he could have thought huh! my views really rile some people up, I need to step back and think about why that is so.
Thanks Cassie – I don’t feel bad because I am a man and not a woman – I have no problem with that.
The ‘Dumb Man’ tag reflects the fact that I am a person who doesn’t fully understand how pretty much half the planet feel about certain issues and therefore am ill-qualified to speak on this subject.
It also reflects the fact that like so many I have been too quiet for too long in the face of incontrovertible evidence that women are treated appallingly in much of the world.
The fact that like too many men, I have been too accepting of the man’s view – of society’s view – of my parent’s view that somehow this is partially (wholly?) the fault of the women (as Blue Milk put it so furiously and elegantly in her previous posting that led to this discussion).
I think the circumstances call for a touch of humility and that the tag is well justified.
Best wishes to you all.
dumb man
I have to disagree with you. There is a difference between being humble and insulting yourself purposefully. I think you can have a valid opinion without degrading yourself in such a manner. It disturbs me really.
Cassie – This is dumb man’s call and I don’t see his tag as particularly degrading. I think he is just trying to come to terms with a little bit of male privelege and frankly, that is a great thing.
Hadn’t planned to rejoin this discussion – but please Cassie – while I appreciate your concern, don’t take the tag too much to heart (it’s not that degrading – and being quite arrogant I don’t think of myself like that all the time, only in this context – also, I have been called far worse).
Blue Milk is right – and there are more important subjects (like the reason for this blog and the campaign to Stop VAM) to worry about and debate -so please let’s not lose sight of that bigger picture (sorry – I had not wanted the tag to be such a distraction – I have said enough now). Take care.
PS: UK papers have recently reported on a sexual assault case that collapsed because the woman mentioned that the accused had been in prison. Therefor, IMHO:
Since the courts allow the defence to use the state of the alleged victim’s dress, mental state, or level of intoxication as a form of character-assassination – they should allow the prosecution to mention the alleged assailant’s previous convictions (after all it reflects on their character just as much as their behaviour at the time).
Hi
Just in case you aren’t aware of the Pixel Project to stop VAM – you can follow them on twitter @PixelProject and now on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2051906&trk=anet_ug_grppro .
Thanks Man, I covered them a little while ago on here…
http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/combine-your-activism-with-your-crush/
I was more addressing the tone of your messages too.
It is one thing to be aware of gender privelage and quite another to take it to extremes. I think all people should be encouraged to be secure in who they are and to accept new information as a person not a male or a female or a heterosexual or a homosexual. You are to me a demonstration of what feminism is supposed to be against. Feminism shouldn’t be about saying to men they have no idea what it is like, we are all people, we all suffer. it is about putting aside gender in order to have equality. That is all I shall say on the matter now.
Regards, Cassie
That is interesting that you bring up a tone argument, here of all places.
It is lovely that you are idealistic enough to ‘want to put aside’. However this is unworkable in the real world. Gender is inextricable from identity and Women and Men face different challenges and different intersecting privileges. Men often do not know what it is like because our society is set up for them never to be challenged, for their privilege to be the norm. And someone unfairly privileged will fight to their very last breath to try and prove that they are not benefiting from someone else’s inequality.
The tone argument is invalid. It is a means of silencing any critique rather than a response. There has historically and currently many many many different nicely put, polite and non confrontational means of expressing gender inequality and still those that are privileged will fight and ignore and fight.
So please. As a “feminist open to criticism” leave the silencing tactics at home and maybe read some of the many 101 link left on this post, as well as elsewhere.
Leave the silencing tactivs at home? You try to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with you “violent”. “And someone unfairly privileged will fight to their very last breath to try and prove that they are not benefiting from someone else’s inequality.” Well then, I guess I’ll go tell all the whites who fought for civil rights, all the straight allies, and all the fine folks at http://www.mencanstoprape.org that they’re really just fighting to keep their privilege. For someone who wants to talk about inequality, you’re one of the most judgmental people I’ve ever seen.
I am not saying men and women aren’t different.
I am not trying to silence anything
I have read all of that
Your position on this is illogical. It doesn’t follow that because men are different that they should insult themselves. I was also not bringing up a “tone argument” whatever that means. Merely saying that it wasn’t just a title it was a trend (of insulting himself) throughout his writing as well.
Regards, Cassie
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument
You dont seem to be understanding. Here you go.
Oh I see whats happened. Cassie sweetheart, you have to hit ‘reply’ which is just at the top of the little icon next to the posters’ name to reply to that person only, rather than the whole post.
I didnt say anything about tone of argument.
You seem determined to insult anyone who disagrees with you. Maybe consider a different perspective.
Regards, Cassie
Hi Cassie, don’t bother with “Violent Rabbit” (I wonder if she’s proud of her name?) Women like her are part of the problem and only give men and other women more reason to hate us. Anyone on here who tries to say men are human is hated by her and told they are stupid. Yet I’m sure she’d probably have a fit if someone challenged an area of privilege she has. Just ignore her the way you would any bigot, b/c that’s what she’s turned herself into, unfortunately.
Sorry, I got around to reading the link you sent me, I was relunctant to do so because it is wiki.
I can address your argument now if you desire. I think it is irrelevant, I wasn’t telling a feminist to be less aggressive.
I will be leaving and not returning now, I don’t feel like this is a very helpful place to be.
Thank you.
Regards, Cassie
[...] post was inspired by this post and this one over at blue [...]
[...] I’m just wondering whether, as a study of binge drinking, this play is going to reflect the new call for male responsibility (and refusal to treat men/boys as animals who can’t control their primal urges), or whether it’ll be just more of the same exhortations to women not to get themselves raped. [...]
There is no sure way to avoid an random encounter with an rapist.
However getting raped, tortured, beaten up, killed, humiliated ect.
Is a concequence of losing or being betrayed.
But can we blame an human for trusting another human?
And being capable to defend yourself is a priviledge that is not granted to all.
Some are naturally too weak, only some states provide free combat training, some don’t have the time or recources for training, clothes and other equipment that won’t compromise your agility and actually provide some protection are not exactly cheap, laws of certain states are more restrictive reducing your possibilities to defend yourself ( Or at least make it illegal. ), and I won’t even start about weapons.
Also there is the paradox of the defender.
You may have to keep up an defence for no apparent reason but for your enemy its can be enough that you drop your defences for ten seconds.
I used to be bullied by neo- nazis while I was still an weak child but after I underwent physical and mental combat training and became an adult I don’t have to restrict my actions or movement anymore.
I am still completely aware of the threat just not afraid anymore, I will deal with the situation when it arises.
So the only thing you can overcome for sure is your own fear.
To sum up there is no way to surely avoid being raped but I think that taking some universal countermeasures that won’t restrict your life is reasonable.
And now I mean reasonable countermeasures like how much cleavage you have doesn’t make any difference unless your clothes are made of Kevlar fabric.
I hope you don’t mind, but I posted a link to this blog on my facebook in light of the recent news on the “No Taxpayer Money for Abortions” law, which will not allow Medicaid to pay for abortions in pregnancies that are the result of what they call “non-forcible rape.” Apparently, if you’re drugged, intoxicated, or mentally disabled, and you’re raped, it’s not the same as “forced” rape. Amazing. Thanks for such a well-written post!
Don’t mind at all. Thanks for the lovely comment.
Your response, bluemilk, to this idiot is possibly one of the best responses i have ever read. Fucking brilliant!
I don’t agree with everything Dash said, but as a twice raped queer liberal feminist, I do have some thoughts about it.
For starters, saying victims bare some of the responsibility is wrong. However, it is TRUE that sometimes we can at least try to stack the odds more in our favor. For example, let’s say we all knew that in a certain alley at night, walking alone there will get you robbed. Would you purposely go and walk there alone? NO. Same type of thing.
For so called “friend rapes”, yes, there’s not much you can do unfortunately. That I totally agree with on that one. But for the occasional times stranger rapes do happen, perhaps we can try and stack the odds in our favor-i.e. don’t walk certain places alone at night, especially not dressed a certain way, carry pepper spray (I do), be careful going to your car if you are alone, go out in groups as there is strength in numbers, keep your car doors locked when you drive etc. Even men do this in some areas do avoid getting mugged. Also don’t get so drunk you’re falling down when you are out alone. I agree you should be able to do it around your friends.
None of that is blame. That is just plain common sense. I know some people are going to say “but we should be able to go where we want, when we want, dress however we want”. Of course we should! And guess what-GLBTQ people shouldn’t have to suffer homophobia, there should be no racism, fat people shouldn’t be mistreated-the list goes on and on (see my posts above for all the problems that I feel the straight white feminist movement doesn’t seem to see with its own privilege, and how some such people treat queer people, people of color, and others). But the point is, ALL of that does exist and does happen. Yes, in a perfect world, we should be able to do whatever we want. But guess what, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where we need to use common sense. It may not make a hug difference, but it may make some.
Case in point: I remember my friend telling me about a path at her college that people called “The Rape Trail” b/c it was known that a woman walking there alone at night was very likely to get raped. They supposedly were trying to put more security on it, but you know how that goes. They talked all about it at orientation. Everyone was warned.
One of the girls who lived on my friend’s floor decided to go jogging down that path at 3am-IN THE RAIN. Naturally, she got raped. Did she deserve it? NO. Does the school need to do something about that path (close it down so no one can go there would be a good start)-YES. Does the rapist deserve to be in jail-HELL YES. But I’m sorry it was not prudent, risky, and some might even say stupid for her to run down that path. It was called the rape trail for a reason. You don’t deliberately walk into that. When my friend asked her why she went, her answer was the classic “I didn’t think it would happen to me”. Well it can happen to ANYONE, and IF you happen to hear of something that can make it more likely to happen, you should try to minimize your odds. If someone tried to sell you a car that you could see was falling apart, would you buy it and drive it? NO. So why go jogging down a “rape trail?” Should she be able to? OF COURSE! But we don’t live in an ideal world. That is not “blame”. That is REALITY, and some people need to wake up.
What we need to do is try and work toward such a world without rape, at the governmental as well as social level, while in the meantime exercising as much caution and prudence as possible. And being conscious of our own privilege. As bad as it is in “western countries”, it’s A LOT worse in third world countries (that includes places like the former soviet union). If you go read about life for women in some non western countries, many are getting raped almost everyday, or being mutilated (usually by other women). So let’s also be grateful for what we DO have, and the fact that we can even have a blog like this without being jailed or killed.
Let me reiterate, I am NOT talking about friend rape. I’m talking about stranger rape, which I know is not the majority, but it is at least 30%. These things are just plain common sense. And no, that doesn’t mean we all have to stay home. These stupid extreme answers that some of you gave are just ridiculous.
I’m sure people like miss “Violent” will have many insults to throw my way for daring to say that any of us should use common sense, pointing out privilege or saying that (gasp)! all men are not rapists and are human beings. But I hope at least some of you will grasp what I’m trying to say. It’s obvious that anyone who tries to be more moderate here, male or female is not welcome, so don’t worry I won’t be coming back. If you want to educate people like Dash, then do it, instead of insulting him.
And for the record, I don’t believe Dash is a “rapist”. He stated he got a girl water when she was drunk. Hmm, that’s not rape behavior. He didn’t phrase things best, he didn’t seem to realize how his phrasing sounded. How could he? And the most amazing thing is he managed to stay polite after the bigoted ravings of people like “violent” (sometimes we are our own worst enemies). I think he just used the wrong kind of language.
We do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the common sense bit of this. Do we all think we are so stupid and so helpless that we can’t do that? Men take precautions to avoid being mugged. That doesn’t mean it’s their fault if they do it get it, but sometimes they can do some things that may lessen the odds in some circumstances. We can do the same. Until we do live in a more ideal world, rape is going to be a part of our lives. If we want men to educate themselves, we have to do the same, and we also have to treat them like human beings and not assume they’re all rapists, even if we disagree with them. Otherwise we’re hypocrites.
Diana, I am very sorry to hear of the rapes you have had to survive.
However, please DON’T try and push the argument that survivors are in any way responsible for the behaviour of rapists here. Perhaps you need to read some of the links provided by readers both here and in the post proceeding this one, and for that matter the actual post itself, that led to this one here, because victim-blaming and rape culture were the entire point:
http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/dont-get-raped/
There is a place in a college campus nicknamed “The Rape Trail” and you think the bit that is wrong is that some poor woman jogged down it and was raped??
Also, please take care of generalisations like “western countries” and “bad third world countries” – use specific places and stats and we can avoid falling into crappy racist stereotypes.
Finally, please fuck off with the “Men take precautions to avoid being mugged” and so therefore ‘women should be taking precautions to avoid being raped’ argument. That is incredibly offensive. Mugging is nothing like rape, avoiding mugging is nothing like avoiding rape, women do not owe the world precautions, it is rapists who owe the world peace from their heartless and unnecessary behaviour.
Here I will make it easy for you!
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html
It is interesting on a post such as this with all of your tragic history you go and victim blame right in the first paragraph. Maybe it a way of regaining control for yourself, maybe you are just ignorant. But please, read all the links and the post and the preceding post and maybe things will clear up for you.
P.S. My name no more ‘glorifies violence’ than yours makes your some sort of virginal, princess-goddess of the hunt.
(EDIT: TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS COMMENT).
I hate this conversation. Whenever it comes up I try to avoid it, it is simply too emotional for most people to rationally talk about.
I think a lot of people with the best of intentions and thoughts get slightly misconstrued when having to resort to specific word to describe complex situations. Words, although shared by many, are unique to each person in exactly what images and feelings they invoke/portray. Specifically here, the word RESPONSIBILITY brings about many problems when trying to discuss rape, especially in terms of a situations AVOID-ABILITY.
Quickly, let us jump over any mention of scantily dressed women and arguments that really have more to do with gross malignancy than ignorance. The whole “she was wearing a skirt and has had many boyfriends” BS is a bit ridiculous this day and age. first off, in my past dealing with this topic, I have taken a stance very similar to the scrutinized commenter, and still did after reading the article. In my mind it went something like -
“those girls who get sloppily drunk with a man they’ve obviously been flirting with all night, and (more or less, if you want to mention alcohol and decision making) consensually go back home with him. They do whatever, some kissing begins, MAYBE even the girl said earlier she didn’t want to have sex that night! but now its on the floor and your saying no but your pants come off, more kissing, and underwear is coming down and she says “no stop..” but then he penetrates and the girl “goes numb” and just tries to wait till its all over. then the next day or a few days along they say they were raped- some of that is their fault. They could have done so much to avoid the situation. What happened is not right but they are slightly responsible for what happened”
And the extra quotes and the main gist of that situation are actually from a real rape story I read yesterday. I should clearly state now, no woman, and certainly not this^ one, is RESPONSIBLE for her rape. I may say otherwise if it wasn’t for the fact that no man woman or child would be RESPONSIBLE for their mugging. It does not matter when and where you walk at night, those kinds of things shouldn’t be happening. you can’t be responsible for something that unplanned and unnatural. the problem is that there is a certain amount of avoid-ability for every situation and although that does not transfer to being RESPONSIBLE for what happens, people need to recognize how certain actions can put yourself more at risk to be in a particular situation, rape or mugging. Rape often occurs around partying, alcohol, people who aren’t flat out strangers but not in your bubble- as mugging occurs often late at night and in sketchy places. BUT EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO SAFELY EXPERIENCE PARTIES ALCOHOL NIGHT TIME AND SKETCHY PLACES.
I’m further developing my opinion as I write. I want to further what i was trying to say by bringing up “gray rape” in general. why does this happen? similar to my hypothetical situation- this happens SO MUCH. I have read over a hundred publicized storied where women question whether they were raped, “maybe i didn’t say no loud enough”, I didn’t fight back to get it over with quickly. And I only speak for the more non violent type college rape situations we so so often now. whyy do some women say no once?? WHY WOULD YOU EVER QUESTION YOUR OWN INDESIRE TO BE SEXUALLY INTIMATE WITH A MAN?
THEN IT HIT ME!
I switched up everything. I’ve been drinking with this cutie. We’ve been talking, we kiss while dancing. a couple hours pass were enjoying each other. I’m a total light weight, have a middle school tolerance for alcohol since i hardly touch it, so if I’m not drunker than her we are even. She invites me back to her place and I oblige. We drunk it up in her place for a bit then start making out wherever we are, couch, bed. She puts her hand down my pants, I pull it back up say not tonight. But she keeps trying and im saying no but my pants get off anyway because were making out like I want and its not like shes going to stab me i just keep saying no and moving her hands and going back to tongue wrestling, life is sweet. but she gets me out of my undies and “next thing I know” she has sat back and we are locked, I break off the make out and quickly say ” no i dont want to have sex”, but shes on top of me, keeps riding away, (maybe i wasnt loud enough) and I ” go numb” as they sometimes say.
TOTALLY THE SAME. and do not bullshit me about man woman strength stuff here. you cant have your gender empower then dispower you when you want, this situation is totally realistic.
except for one thing I omitted. while “going numb” ide probably notice, although conflicted because I DONT WANT THIS. I cant help but feel it, and its not bad. maybe very violating, but PHYSICALLY- my brain picks up all the nerve action. im not focusing on the sex, im not into it. but its not painful, it is sex still.
WOMEN- so many rape cases (and i may be wrong but i believe this “gray rape” has been perhaps the most common situation when depicting modern rape) start out with mutual flirtation and all that- i believe many even have considerate amounts of consensual kissing, deep kissing, touching one another or being in sexual positions (making out on top of eachother), fully clothed AND even in underwear and such- that in no way condones rape or guarantees future sex. BUT, and this is a big but- these women, a lot of them say themselves ” i dont know if it was rape”, I didnt say it loud enough, I waited for it to get over then left when he fell asleep and called my best friend and cried.
! I liked her, I just didnt want to go there yet, or maybe at all (only knew the girl one night in my hypothetical scenario). But shes not evil, she wasnt malicious
PLEASE dont try and kill me for saying this, I really am a wonderfully good person. I devote my life to nothing but helping all of earths people.
But these girls, they like these men. They do. They kiss them. they go home with them. I KNOW they don’t want sex. neither did I
she just wanted to bone.
and even though i didn’t, in these gray rapes, where these girls are doing things with these guys before being foerced (haha) into sex- IS IT POSSIBLE
that you give in?
that you let it happen?
not that you went numb, but that you gave into the sex. heck, at one point, you may have noticed the sexual parts of it and felt that heat in our crotch, after bouncing between the violation confusion and whatever else you wanna say.
WERENT YOU AROUSED? no? really?? because you guys have been flirting all night and i get it- you DID NOT want to bone. but you wanted to make out and hang out, there was probably a mature socially unconstrained part of you realizing the potential for sex later on- or do you just make out with guys who your never, never going to fuck. ever. after all that drunken passionate makout, and the confusing moment that girls omit where no force seems to be used and you are magically penetrated, maybe, JUST MAYBE, you go along with it. and it feels pretty okay till you fell like a whore after. or whatever runs through you ladies minds.
and i dont even know what that means. sounds about 50/50 consensual non-consensual. I just hate this gray undefined rape BULLSHIT.
if you dont want it when he pulls his dick out get the fuck up. say no. push that fucker. then when he grabs you, thows you down and has his way with you, you will KNOW
“i got raped”
instead of floating around whatever world you like to float the fuck around in, where a person can actually ask themselves “did i just get raped”?
such a question is almost comical.
I wasn’t intending to comment (sorry, blue milk!), and I’m not even going to get into the meat of this thread, but that last comment just couldn’t be allowed to stand.
There is no. such. thing. as “grey rape”. If any party involved in an activity says “no”, only to be ignored by the other, this is obviously a nonconsensual activity. What do we call nonconsensual sex, everyone? Rape.
Please do not confuse your own experience with others’, J.
So say I’m in the home of someone I don’t know very well (or even someone I do), out of reach of help, with someone who isn’t taking seriously my repeated “no”s, almost certainly with someone who can physically overpower my petite self – I’m supposed to expose myself to the risk of his anger by fighting back, which could turn “rape” into “rape and aggravated assault” or “rape and murder”?? I’m supposed to trust that someone – who has already made it clear that he has no respect for my ownership of my body – is hopefully “just” a rapist, but not that bad, really. That bird don’t fly, honey. Sorry.
And, yes, like J’s lovely anecdote, there is a marginal chance that the person you are forcing sex on isn’t *really* NOT wanting to have sex with you, but is just unsure. But why the hell would you, as a human being, want to take even the slightest, infinitesimal chance that you are RAPING SOMEONE??
And you know what might contribute to women being unsure if they have been raped? Victim blaming BS like the comment above. “Well, she started moving in a sexual direction” “Her ‘no’ wasn’t clear enough” “She *did* go home with him” – all reasons cited as to why “it wasn’t really rape”. So is it any surprise that, when any of these conditions are met, a woman might doubt whether what happened to her counts as rape?
Great response to that comment, thank you. Am in the process of writing a post in reply to J’s comment but have been so slow in doing so.
Bluemilk, I for one found J’s comment incredibly triggering. On the one hand, I am really appreciating the comment thread in general, there is a lot of interesting conversation going on and even the problematic or outright offensive comments have provoked excellent discussion. But I have to wonder if *this one* from J is not so much producing valuable discussion as just contributing to the pain and suffering of those of us – myself included – who have struggled long and hard to accept that what happened to us was rape and not “grey rape” or “giving in” or the inevitable outcome of some personal failing of our own.
M-ra – thanks for the feedback on J’s comment. Will add a trigger warning to his comment but reluctant to delete it altogether given that it sparked an entire post in response – the grey rape one. Hope that is oke with you.
There are some genuine ambiguous cases (for the sake of keeping the pronouns clear lets keep the victim ‘she’ and the possible rapist ‘he’):
* what if she DOESN’T say “no”, what if she says “yes” even, but only because she’s too drunk? (rape? regrettable sex? rape if she says nothing but regrettable sex if she says yes?)
* what if she says “yes” but said “no” earlier in the night before she was drunk? (rape? regrettable sex?)
* what if she even initiates it, but only because he deliberately got her drunk knowing what the outcome would be, and knowing she’d never go for him sober? (rape? regrettable sex?)
* what if she initiates it while drunk, after getting herself drunk, but he’s totally sober and he knows she’d never do it sober? (just regrettable sex? still rape? rape if he’s sober, but regrettable sex if he’s also at least a little bit drunk?)
* what if she’s hating it so much that she’s crying over his shoulder, and he asks if he should stop but she actually says “don’t stop”? (cruel, but can you deem him a rapist if she technically consented?)
Bee, your comment probably belongs on this thread instead – http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/all-the-way-gray-rape-and-third-base/
Does that post address any of your questions better?
Sorry, i read that first. I found this thread because you linked it there so i read it to see what you were responding to.
I’ll move the comment?
But, no, it doesn’t really answer the question? It doesn’t cover the case of she said “yes” because she was drunk?
Oh. My. Fucking. Goodness. I’ve read all of this post and the comments, and managed to keep my temper. Until now. Until this comment. J, who the fuck are you? Really. Who. The. Fuck?
How dare you. How dare you tell me that because I didn’t shout no at a man in my house, raping me in my bed, because I didn’t push him off and yell in in his face, how dare you tell me that means I deserved to be raped.
Did you ever consider that maybe I, and many other women who have been in this situation with a guy they liked but did not want to have sex with, was too SCARED to push him off? too FRIGHTENED to assert myself? Too TERRIFIED to do anything but lie there crying?
Because if this guy, who I liked, knew, and had been dating, could go so against my wishes like this by coming into my room in the middle of the night and forcing himself upon me, then what else might he be capable of? Might he hurt me? Might he kill me?
How the fuck am I supposed to know, J? How? So what do I do? Because, if I shout no, if I fight him off, what happens when he stabs me? Or strangles me? Or beats me with my own bedside lamp? Is THAT my fault too? Do I have to take some responsibility for that? Because, fucking hell, I only went and completely misjudged everything again!
J, you are a complete cock. I was not to blame in any way for what that man did to me. He decided prior to that night’s date that he was going to rape me. He chose to drink too much so he couldn’t safely or legally drive home, and he chose to insist he would drive eecause he knew that I wouldn’t let him do that, and because he knew I couldn’t actually force him to take a taxi or train, and he knew that because I knew him, and trusted him, that I’d say he could sleep in my spare room. And even as he was agreeing as I told him I was not going to have sex with him that night (and maybe not any night), he KNEW he was going to rape me.
So what, exactly, was I supposed to do about that? Don’t answer. I really do not want to know your response.
I am not usually a vicious person, but you make me sick. I weep for my daughter growing up in a world that still thinks women are to blame for the wrong men do them. I weep that she lives in a world where you do, too. I weep, J, I weep – and YOU are to blame for that.
[...] This stream of consciousness comment has been bothering me for a while but I haven’t quite had the energy to tackle it until now when I was shamed into doing so because some poor bugger has come and read the post, found the comment, and probably wondered (rightfully) why that comment wasn’t taken to task by me already – I mean, especially given this whole post is written in response to troubling comments received by another man on another part of my blog. [...]
Finally got to read this after reading and commenting on your more recent post that links to this.
The idea that victims have to shoulder some of the responsibility can only ever be true if you accept that it is right and normal for violent behaviour to exist.
In the case of the mugged man, if he walks down a place known to be dangerous and is mugged, he can only be considered partly responsible if you accept that mugging is normal and natural.
An idea of victims being responsible can only ever be true if views from a fundamentally flawed mindset.
Because any other viewpoint leads one naturally to the point of saying people who are marginalised by society must bear some responsibility for being who they are. It is a necessary conclusion to the argument. And one that ultimately destroys the very fabric of society.
One thing slightly OT that I’d like to add – a comment I made on another blog but can’t remember where, sorry. If we accept that we cannot talk about the offender’s past because it might prejudice the defence, so we should not be able to talk about the victim’s past on the grounds it might prejudice the prosecution.
[...] either. The only person who is responsible is the person who CHOOSES to rape. Blue Milk has an outstanding post about this issue, but it’s the comments that truly create awareness and enlighten. The next time you think, [...]
WOW.
The earlier post was brilliant, this post even more so. Thank you for your clear and well-reasoned arguments.
Victim blaming is abhorrent, voices like yours are invaluable.
Thank you!
I havent read all the comments left but I felt the need to comment.
I have been raped most of which according to the male poster I would be to blame.. I feel the need to share my story. Im not ashamed of what has happened to me.
1st time, aged 14 was at a guys house. A friend of his (aged 22) came into a room where I was sleeping started kissing me, took my clothes off.. I told him I was scared and didnt want to cause I was a virgin. He just told me to be quiet and he will be gentle. He was so rough and I was crying all the way through. But I wasin a dangerous situation so thats my fault…
2nd time aged 14.. Was pissed at a mates house and 2 doors down lived a bunch of uni students. They came over to say hello, convinced me to come back to their house where I was “shared” between them. They were aged 20-22. But again I was quite drunk, so my fault??
3rd time, aged 15 NYE on the beach making out with a guy. He pulled my skirt up and before I knew it he was having sex with me. Told him to stop and few mins later he came.
4th time, aged 16 I went to visit my boyfriend who lived a while away. We got drunk, made out, but then I cried to him how I wasnt ready for sex as I was dealing with all this rape (and other things) and didnt want to.. I went to bed and passed out. I awoke in the night to him having sex with me. In the morning he told me that was my job and not to talk about it. Again I did get quite drunk!
So to the man who thinks I am to blame – fuck you. These guys have got away it and I doubt they stay up crying at night for what they have done. Your argument is just as lame as the “she was asking for it” arguement.
I’m a woman who considers herself a feminist but I doubt that will get me any credit here. Rape is awful and one of the most traumatic experiences ANYONE can go though, no arguments.
Rape only stops when rapists stop. No arguments.
It is not women’s fault that we are vulnerable in a violent world. No arguments.
The message should be sent to men that it is NEVER NEVER OK to rape. No arguments.
However, I still believe that every adult (man or woman) should take some responsibility for their own safety. It is not nice that this should be true. It is wrong that we should have to protect ourselves. It is in NO WAY EVER a woman’s fault that a man rapes them. However, there are some precautions we can take to look after ourselves – like not getting comatose drunk. A small precaution like this cannot possibly stop every rape, or even affect statistics on the whole but if it can save you from an experience that could shape your entire life, it seems like a fairly good idea to me.
I also think it’s unfair that Darsh has been attacked in this way. As a newcomer, this seems like a fair site visited by educated and well meaning people – but now we’re dragging feminism into a man-bashing arena. Not something I want to be a part of.
I’m going to respond to you in a seperate post shortly.
[...] To “A woman who agrees with the man”: [...]
Gravey Dice: I’ve always understood that men are naturally violent. So violence and rape are a natural consequence of letting men roam freely- especially when they’re young.
Nice ‘spin’ on the traditional line that young women shouldn’t roam freely in public space in case something happens to them.
By young, I mean 15-30.
So wait, women who have been raped by their husbands should avoid being married in order to reduce the risk of being raped? Or as a woman, is merely a possession to be used at the whim of the owner/husband and has no right to say no?
Blue Milk: I’m all in favor of letting women roam freely- but I think it’d only be a good idea if the men were kept at home, or not allowed to form packs. An individual man might be a good man, but once he’s with his friends/ frat brothers/ teammates, he’s just another predator. (By extension, I’m prepared to argue that there are no good people in a crowd, just a vast amorphous hive-mind capable of anything.)
I can’t tell how tongue in cheek you are being… we’re feminist mothers here and few of us could entertain a notion like seperatism even if desired – we’re raising (and loving) young men. And folding rapists into maleness really disturbs me – it lets the rapists off the hook. In reality the world is filled with many wonderful men and they need not be lumped in with rapists. And likewise, we have the right to expect more of men than that they be rapists.
I don’t think seperatism is a practical idea, but I think not putting young men into situations where they’d fall into that state of mind is a good way to start. Like I said, it’s pack behavior- if a young man takes up sports, goes into the army, or joins a fraternity, he will likely be in contact with mlen who rape, and he’ll quickly start thinking that rape is okay, because he values his friends more than his mother, his sisters, or his girlfriends. So, obviously, one should discourage men from joining those instituitions or going around in groups.
That’s a pretty huge If-then you’ve proposed, and since I can think of half a dozen counter examples to your claim without any effort, I’m also sure it’s a false one. This is a problem that isn’t confined to any particular demographic, it runs right across society, and so it needs to be addressed at all levels of society, not just in places where men congregate.
It’s reasonable to target groups like football clubs, but those efforts will be unlikely to do much if we keep blaming victims in the wider world. As long as there’s the option of someone saying “rape is bad, of course, but in this case it was just as much her fault”, all the targetting and education in the world won’t change anything.
I don’t agree with your logic. In fact it’s incredibly flawed. And it’s really quite insulting. The hivemind mentality is not exclusive to men and male dominated groups. (Or rape)
As someone who has been involved with the military for 14 years I can quite assuredly tell you that there are MORE men in the armed forces who DON’T rape women than there are who do and that goes for all demographics of male dominated groups.
As Bluemilk already said, creating this allusion that rape is something to do with maleness and large groups of it, tells men that if they’re in a male dominated group then it’s in their nature to become rapists which absolves them of wrong doing. And that is not okay.
After reading all the posts, I have to say it’s a great conversation to keep going. I especially love it when men join in and struggle to understand, then at least we all struggle together.
The point I’d like to make is that while awareness and precaution can sometimes prevent crimes (or anything) from happening, just as many times, it can’t. It depends on so many things if a criminal succeeds or even has an opportunity. As illustrated here, plenty of people have done all “the right things” and were still raped. I have been raped and have avoided being raped. However, the common denominator was that men were trying to rape me and either succeeded or did not. So whether I did “the right things” to prevent it or whether they failed was somewhat arbitrary.
Two examples from my life of this would be: just outside the window where my parents were on a summer evening I had my first kiss from my “boyfriend” of a year when I was 12 – then he raped me; the other example, I was locked in a room with a trusted martial arts teacher and he tried to rape me and I vomited on him … and that time I got away. So vomiting must be the magic trick, ah ha!
It’s a bit like dancing for rain … as in, if I do this certain action, then this other event will or will not happen. (It’s called “magical thinking.”) However, rain happens or it doesn’t. Rapists rape; however, this is not a natural state but rather a symptom of deep-seated dysfunction in our society. Living in a culture that treats rape as a natural occurrence, distateful but biologically driven, has condoned the behavior of rapists as being like the rain. So maybe if we just learn the “right” dance steps, we can prevent it? Of course not, but there’s this undercurrent of myth that plays like a nursery rhyme in the background every night and day: do this or that and you’ll get raped or avoid rape. The moral of our harsh reality is that rape happens because rapists rape and not because of anything we did or did not do.
What I love here is that people are saying clearly: Women do not cause rape nor do they own the burden of preventing it. Education and ending the silence can prevent it. It may take us a long time, but it’s an uphill battle that’s worth every step. Can we protect ourselves? Yes, we can and we do; however, it’s not a question of responsibility but rather a crime that occurs or doesn’t. Though perhaps learning to projectile vomit at the threat of rape would be a neat trick before leaving the house or trying to sleep in peace.
Love your way of explaining these important points, thank you Anna.
@ Darsh.
As a man, I feel a need to stand up for us against some of your comments. First of all I will argue that you are well entitled to your opinions, and that I have no problem with you sharing those opinions to the world. However, coming onto a feminist website the prime subject on which is rape, read by women (many of whom I think we can safely assume have been sexually assaulted) and arguing that they have responsibility for some of it is somewhat tactless.
The real issue here is which actions a person has responsibility for. If a women gets incredibly drunk, wears little clothing, and acts flirtatiously through the night, she is responsible for those actions, as they are her own. If she gets a hangover from drinking, it is her responsibility. If she gets cold in her little clothing, it is her responsibility. If she gets hassled at uni the next day for giving three different boys bedroom eyes, it is her responsibility. These are all expected consequences of her own actions. Getting raped should not be the expected consequence of anything.
If a man goes out and gets super drunk, it is his responsibility. If a man goes out and rapes, it is his responsibility. End of story. It is his action.
Yes, we do tell people to be careful of things. However, many of your analogies are very misguided. You say an insurance company can require you use smoke alarms. Yes, you are correct. However, fires are generally accidents, something that just happens. Rape is a deliberate action. If I didnt have a smoke alarm and someone came and set fire to my house intentionally, are you telling me I have responsibility for that? I have responsibility for my own actions (not owning a smoke alarm), but I am in no way responsible for the actions of the arsonist.
The other issue with your argument is that a lack of smoke alarms doesn’t make a fire more likely to happen. Nor does it mean you are asking for a fire (accidental or otherwise)
You cannot be responsible for the actions of another person, even if your actions possibly make the actions of others more likely, or if they make them easier for them to do so. If that were the case, then anyone who left their door unlocked, or who had property invisible from the street, or who simply chose to buy nice things would have no legal standing when they were robbed. Their actions had made the robbing just so easy and enticing, how could the poor criminal say no?
So please, even if the next time you see a story on the news about someone being raped, and you casually forget that means there’s been another thousand that are not on the news, feel free to think to yourself, ‘well, i’m sure they bore some of the responsibility’, but for the sake of tact and humanity, please don’t go saying it to any girls, because one in three (more or less) of them will be much more offended than you can even understand.
@ Violent Rabbit
You also are free to have your own opinions, but a word of advice: If you go around saying things like ‘all men are rapists’, you are going to scare or offend people away from your cause, not towards it. It does you a disservice, and as someone who takes rape incredibly seriously, it is very very offensive.
Simple. Rapists rape. Rape victims get raped. Done.
Great arguments, thank you Benji.
[...] either. The only person who is responsible is the person who CHOOSES to rape. Blue Milk has an outstanding post about this issue, but it’s the comments that truly create awareness and enlighten. The next time you think, [...]
An extra point to add to this… There are people who say that if a woman gets incredibly drunk then she is partially at fault for getting raped – completley ignoring the fact that (in the UK at least) we live in such a booze culture that getting this drunk is considered completley normal activity for a large proportion of society. For many, going out is focused around alcohol and the amount a person can consume is seen as a badge of honour. This is the culture we live in, and what many people consider normal. And yet it’s the individual woman’s responsibility not to get caught up in this? The same goes for when people say a woman had it coming because she was dressed “slutty”. We live in a culture that encorages women to do this and then blame them for it when they get attacked.
If these people truly think that these things are responsible for rape why aren’t they fighting against the booze/raunch culture that permiates our society rather than blaming individual women?
My guess Kris is because blaming individual women is easy; changing society,especially when so many see no problem with it, is hard.
You know what cracks me up? When a woman gets raped, the guy calls her irresponsible. Oh yeah? How irresponsible did you think I was while you were raping me?
A distinction needs to be made here. Blaming the victim is neither logical nor helpful to anyone. A crime and an act of violence is not justified by the motive or the opportunity – or the naivete of the victim. That some judge others’ acts as foolish or lacking discretion is a reality, but making it someone’s fault for being preyed upon makes zero sense. Secondly, that survivor doesn’t learn the lesson intended by the accuser but rather internalizes that it’s okay for criminals to inflict their worst as long as someone can point the finger at the “mistake” made by the victim.
Please, for the sake of all those survivors – including children who couldn’t have gotten out of the way of perpetrators, stop blaming the victim.
[...] would you believe?) and while we’re talking about rape, Blue Milk also answers the question Why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too? At In a Garden Somewhere we had a great analysis of “responsibiliy” and the law in [...]
[...] up in this discussion with a man about rape and responsibility and it was very much like this and this so I won’t go into the specifics of our tedious conversation but I will say something about [...]
I am actually disgusted by the notion of the victim ‘taking responsibility’ for a rape attack. You make me want to be sick. I will dress how I like, dance how I like and walk WHERE I like no matter how late at night or how much I’ve had to drink. I shouldn’t have to consider the fact that I might be ‘provoking a rapist’ into my wardrobe choices or social behavior.
There is never an excuse for rape!
Please DO NOT try and find a way to justify it!!!
No need to assume he’s a man, i am a woman and i agree with him!
I think it’s not unreasonable to suggest to women that they should avoid dangerous situations which they can feasibly avoid (unlike being disabled or having a stepfather) and which have no benefit (unlike jogging).
I do not mean they are “asking for it” if they choose to disregard this advice, and taking advantage of a vulnerable woman is no more excusable than overpowering a less vulnerable woman.
But a much higher than usual risk of sexual assault is just one of MANY reasons why drinking till you are barely conscious is a very bad idea. It’s not unreasonable to suggest women (and men) should avoid drinking like his.
Candy and anyone else thinking of leaving a stupid comment like this one – please see http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/re-post-to-the-woman-unconvinced/ – it’s just for you!
You are a very poorly informed woman then Candy. If rapists didn’t rape then it wouldn’t matter if women got drunk, went jogging, or just generally had a fucking life. How hard is that to understand?
How hard is it to understand that the majority of women who are raped are raped by someone they know and used to trust? Not some stranger because they got drunk, but their boyfriend, their boyfriend’s friend, their brother’s friend, their sister’s boyfriend, their father’s friend, their father, their brother, their husband, their boss any number of fuckwits who they\se women felt that they should have been able to trust until that man showed them that they were wrong. I hope you are never that woman. But she is out there, she is a lot of us and we deserve your understanding not your bullshit based on myth and uninformed opinions.
[...] Candy, who just left the comment on my post, “But why shouldn’t she take some re…- this is being re-posted just for you, and all the other people standing with you on your slippery slope of blame. [...]
This isn’t a case of “myth”, the original post titled “Don’t get raped” was a situation where if the woman had not been so drunk, the rape may have been prevented. Just because we can’t prevent ALL rapes by taking some sort of reasonable precaution doesn’t mean we should feel totally helpless to prevent ANY rapes. I guess my bias is that i just dont’ like feeling totally helpless.
Women shouldn’t feel obliged to not have “a f*cking life” as you put it. I myself often walk home after midnight, i know i’m taking a bit of a risk, but the risk of stranger rape is lower than the risk of skin cancer if i walked at midday. Also the risk is small enough that it’s a risk i’m willing to take for the freedom to walk when and where i want.
Stranger rape IS rare, i know this, that’s why i feel quite safe walking alone at night. That doesn’t mean drinking one’s self unconscious is a good idea, it means it’s always a bad idea, even around people you should be able to trust. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to get drunk around strangers, it means it’s a bad idea to get drunk around your boyfriend, stepfather, brother’s friends, your work colleagues etc. Even if you are around people you really can trust – like your girlfriend or your husband of 10 years – there is a risk that a stranger, your partner’s brother, or who knows who else, could show up. There’s no situation where it’s sensible to drink that much, because a safe situation can change into an unsafe one.
Rapists don’t want to prevent rape, that’s kind of the nature of the crime. If only they can prevent rape: we can’t ever prevent rape, or even reduce the risk of it, which is kind of depressing.
When can educate men who don’t want to be rapists about the nature of consent, but we can’t feasibly totally stop people from doing selfish evil things, so it’s reasonable to do things which reduce our risk of becoming their victims.
Being able to do things which reduce the risk doesn’t at all mean that not doing those things excuses the selfish evil actions of the aggressor. That is a separate issue, reacting to every suggestion of ways to reduce the risk with “don’t blame the victim” just confuses this issue and makes the “victim blaming” problem worse not better.
Except I don’t believe all the people who commit rapes are evil criminals. Actually, I think some of the people who commit rapes don’t even think what they’re doing is rape. When I say only rapists can prevent rape, I mean the only way to prevent rape is to change our culture so that kids don’t grow up believing boys should want sex at any cost and do anything to get it. As long as having sex is described as “scoring”, as long as women are seen as the gatekeepers of virginity that all men want to “take”, even men who think they are good people are going to commit rape, because that’s what they’re raised to do. Not to mug strange women while they’re walking home at night, but to see a really drunk girl at a bar and think of her as an opportunity for an easy lay, or to cajole their girlfriends to put out, or to conspire with their friends to get girls drunk so they can sleep with them, or to hear about a college kegger and think this is the perfect opportunity to find girls gone wild. Our current understanding of sexual interaction between men and women – and even though some of it is hormonal and innate, a LOT of it is socially constructed – makes men predators, and makes women prey. It’s not about women drinking, because some of the time they are drinking because men who want to fuck them are pouring shots down their throats or spiking their drinks. It’s about the way we train people to think about sex. So no, it isn’t only rapists who can prevent rape. It’s parents, and friends, and teachers, and people who make movies and songs and write books. But it is not ever, ever rape victims. Because when even the sweet boy who loves you thinks your virginity is a prize for him to win, and that a few drinks are just what you need to relax you and get you past your “nervousness” about sleeping with him, what the hell does it matter whether you wear the right clothes and behave appropriately in public and only have one beer at the club like a good girl? If every man in the room, good and bad and just plain criminal, thinks that his job in relationships with women is to convince her to sleep with him, then you’re fighting a losing battle. The fact is, there’s nothing you can do to guarantee you will never be raped. Nothing.
Of course there is nothing to guarantee rape won’t happen, but that doesn’t mean reducing the risk is wrong. Seat-belts can’t prevent all deaths on the road, but we still wear them.
And yes, you’re very right “some of the people who commit rapes don’t even think what they’re doing is rape” that’s what i meant by “We can educate men who don’t want to be rapists about the nature of consent” and – like you say – there are other attitudes which can also be changed. This is getting a bit too close to the “grey rape” can of worms though, and i don’t want to open that one.
Except we *can’t* reduce the risk of being raped. It’s not like wearing a seatbelt *at all*. Car accident deaths don’t happen because other drivers treat your body like public property, they happen because cars are fucking dangerous. Are you really comfortable suggesting that men are inherently, incurably, unavoidably dangerous in the way that a huge, heavy, fast-moving machine is? I’m not. I’m also pretty uncomfortable with equating losing control of a car to raping someone. Rape is caused by a rapist’s decision to act, you can’t rape someone by accident.
Of course it’s not exactly like the seat belt analogy, i was trying to use something more serious example because the examples of crimes such as property theft seems so offensive, and i can kind of see why the property theft analogies are offensive. No example is perfect of course, only the situation itself is perfectly analogous, but it’s such an emotive situation that people seem to lose all sense of rationality when discussing it, hence the attempt at examples.
I refuse to believe i can do absolutely nothing to even reduce the risk, that is just too depressing to contemplate. It also seems rather implausible.
Of course changing aggressor attitudes to be less aggressive is the ideal solution, but i doubt it will ever be 100% effective. Even if it could be 100% effective we aren’t there yet, there are currently still people out there with bad attitudes to sex and women. Unfortunately we don’t live in a rape-free utopia yet. I really don’t think i should be vilified for being cautious.
Like i said in the other thread i – rather stubbornly – don’t even take any precautions which interfere excessively with my lifestyle or don’t have other benefits.
Thank you Sarah. Your patience and perseverence are hugely appreciated. I have re-opened this argument at a re-post, which I wrote specifically in relation to the argument that some victims of rape are wholly or partly responsible for being raped: http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/re-post-to-the-woman-unconvinced/
All future comments on this thread persisting with the very tired argument that women and men and children raped by rapists are to some degree to blame for being raped will be DELETED.
Bluemilk and Sarah, I agree with all you have written and appreciate very much Sarah taking the time to respond. My only question is whether suggesting that women can take precautions to prevent rape and holding women responsible/blaming them for rape are really the same things? I can think of many examples from my teenage-hood where I was really reckless and it scares me shitless now to think what could have happened to me. I will definitely be advising my daughter to be careful that doesn’t happen to her and that she and her friends take care of each other when out. But does that mean I am somehow victim blaming? I don’t think so.
I am raising this as a query because I am interested to see if you really think they are the same thing? And if you do, why.
I don’t want to be set upon (this means you, Mindy).
Jen, I understand what you’re saying. On the one hand, telling women to change their behaviour to avoid rape is, by definition, saying that if they don’t change their behaviour they have contributed to the rape and is therefore victim blaming. On the other hand, we have the fact that because of the culture we now live in, some behaviours are more likely to put you in harm’s way and it seems logical, for a woman’s safety to suggest she avoid those risky behaviours.
The problem is, that the latter is pretty much the only thing mainstream society has been doing to reduce rape for, …well forever. So by publicly suggesting women should change their behaviour, one is continuing the long tradition of victim blaming. Added to this, is the fact that how much riskier those behaviours are is highly arguable.
But the main argument against privately telling your daughter not to get herself into risky situations, is that if she is raped, especially if she is raped because she forgot to/decided not to restrict her behaviours for the sake of avoiding rapists, but even if it’s got nothing to with it, she’s very likely to blame herself, and not the rapist. As a person who was raped whilst engaging in risky behaviour (getting very drunk), I can tell you it’s very hard to shake off the shame for “having been so stupid”. But I wasn’t stupid (except for causing myself a hangover), I was drunk. My rapist was entirely responsible. If your daughter gets drunk, or takes the shortcut home and some arsehole decides to rape her, do you want her to blame herself?
Thanks for the reply, Ariane. I really appreciate it. I was thinking of an incident that happened to me when I got really really drunk, was vomiting all down myself in the nightclub, managed to get in a cab, and passed out in the cab. I woke up the next morning outside my front door with my key in my hand and money from my wallet missing. There was vomit all down the steps of our apartment. I vaguely remember the taxi driver telling me to get out of his cab but nothing else. I often think back to how lucky I was that my taxi driver was not a rapist.
When I think about warning my daughter it would be that she should look out for her friends and that they should look out for her. I still can’t believe my friends let me get into a cab in that state all alone.
I get your point about women being responsible being the only message we seem to hear but I still want to be able to warn my daughter about taking care. Is the idea that I should put it as a general warning – about personal safety more generally – rather than rape as such?
My story was pretty similar to yours, only with less vomit and more rapist taxi drivers. I don’t blame the people I was with for letting me get in a taxi on my own – it should have been the safe and sensible way to get home. The driver is the reason it wasn’t, not my friends, not the alcohol. You weren’t “lucky” your taxi driver wasn’t a rapist, you were simply experiencing the world the way it should be. The taxi driver doesn’t get a cookie for not being a rapist.
Looking out for one another’s wardobes (because getting vomit out of clothes can be tricky sometimes) and making sure your friend will be able to operate keys to get in their front door so they don’t spend the night sleeping next to the letter box (that one’s not my story), is a good idea. Making it about somehow preventing other people from committing crimes is creating an implicit belief that we are all responsible for stopping other people’s criminal acts, and that’s pretty horrible, on both a personal and social level.
Thanks for sharing your story, Ariane. And thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. I think I have a better understanding now. x
ok, i give up, please delete everything
Sorry, I won’t be deleting your comments, you can’t start a big argument like this one, get everyone involved and then want it all to be for nought. I know it’s hard to feel exposed on a comment thread but I showed patience with you pursuing your line of argument here even though I found it offensive and you will need to be strong enough now to let it all stand.
You know what Jen, just fuck off then. I don’t have to play nice when someone says it is my fault I was raped because I wasn’t careful enough. I wasn’t even fucking drunk, I was too young to drink. If I’m not allowed to be angry at my rapist and about a society that says it’s my fault for not being careful then when can I be fucking angry?
Please tell me I’d like to know.
OMG. I was referring to the fact that you seem to be bluemilk’s comment police and on so many threads on this blog I see you getting angry at people’s comments. Sometimes I fear commenting because you are going to slam me. You are one of the reasons I stopped visiting here for a while. And wow, telling me to fuck off and has shown it again.
You seem to have some real issues where you think that you are have monopoly on suffering and oppression. And somehow commentators just keep giving you reasons to get at angry them. Maybe you should examine why you use the internet to vent so much of your angry at the world?
It doesn’t feel nice to be told to fuck off, and I’m not big on personal abuse on my blog, but when someone feels as angry and hurt as Mindy does on a comment thread like this one, and when she has taken the time and shown the courage to tell everyone why she finds the direction of this thread so horrifying, and when you know how gob-smackingly revolting much of the world is about this topic and how beaten down survivors get by that ignorance that they find all the fucking time, everywhere, can I suggest that you take a big breath and cop it on the chin?
You don’t have to take me up on the suggestion, of course, you can choose to stop following this blog, but that’s what I would like to think I would do in your position.
But you aren’t being angry at your rapist. You are being angry at someone on the other side of the world who innocently asks a question on the internet. And then gets on the internet at 6am (the only time I have to myself all day) and sees she is being told to fuck off. And this isn’t the first time I have felt terrible because of how you have spoken to me on this blog. I am so sick of it. You have the ability to make this space toxic sometimes.
Bear in mind, I get bombarded with shitty comments here – from misogynists and anti-child bigots and trolls – and Mindy has had my back, over and over again.
And before you come back and say ‘but I didn’t say that’ I was talking about Candy throwing up old crap like ‘ a woman can do something to make herself safer’ which is complete crap.
Your “I don’t want to be set upon (this means you, Mindy).” means that you don’t actually read my comments or understand that when people say crap about rape that it can be triggering. Or that when the same bullshit is repeated over and over again on whatever topic that it is okay to get upset because you have heard it for the umpteenth fucking time.
You don’t get to decide that on my behalf and you don’t get to fucking tell me what I can and can’t do, unless you want to bring down upon yourself the very thing you didn’t want. I wasn’t at all concerned by your comments until you made it personal. Fuck you.
I wasn’t referring to your comments to Candy. I was referring to the fact that so often when I make points on this blog I end up being the subject of your aggression. I am so sick of it. See you later bluemilk.
Jen if you hadn’t singled me out I wouldn’t have thought twice about your comment. Don’t put your issues with your advice to your daughter on me please. That said I’m sorry I over reacted. If you wish to comment here I won’t comment on your comments again.
@bluemilk and others – sorry I got carried away.
@ candy you said: “Of course changing aggressor attitudes to be less aggressive is the ideal solution, but i doubt it will ever be 100% effective. Even if it could be 100% effective we aren’t there yet, there are currently still people out there with bad attitudes to sex and women. Unfortunately we don’t live in a rape-free utopia yet. I really don’t think i should be vilified for being cautious.”
This passage show you aren’t reading what people are saying. What people are saying is that a) we do not live in a rape free utopia and b) advice to women to be cautious is offensive and props up the culture that allows rapists to go largely unpunished. No-one is vilifying you for being cautious, we are criticising you for perpetuating the myth that if you are a careful good girl you will be safe. Cause that is simply not true.
And, sorry if feeling like you have no control over this is scary. I understand where you’re coming from. But, surely it’s better to focus your energies on things you can control rather than things you can’t? I dunno, like trying to change rape culture by sending a message that we need to change it, rather than women’s behaviour?
Not totally safe, but more safe.
“surely it’s better to focus your energies on things you can control rather than things you can’t? I dunno, like trying to change rape culture by sending a message that we need to change it, rather than women’s behaviour?”
I said that myself!
Watching my own drinking habit seems like a far MORE achievable goal than changing a whole culture.
But…and I know I keep saying this, but…watching your own drinking habit *doesn’t change anything*. It might be a good idea for a person for various reasons. It might be better for my health. It might make me feel more confident and in control when I am out, and make me feel safer or whatever. But if someone decides to rape me, whether or not I watch my drinking habit won’t make a difference, and whether or not I watch my drinking habit doesn’t change how likely someone is to decide to rape me. I can try to reduce the chances someone might decide to rape me – or anyone else – by working at changing the culture I live in. Yes, it is a HUGE goal, it’s a lot of work, there will not be a rape-free world in my lifetime. But social change happens, and it’s worth striving for even if it doesn’t seem possible. I doubt the first suffragettes ever thought women would actually become politicians in their lifetime, but look at us now.
And before you say you’re not claiming nobody should try to change or challenge rape culture, I will remind you that those of us objecting to your comments here believe that claiming there is a way for women to reduce their risk of being raped supports rape culture and undermines the fight against it by returning the focus of anti-rape measures to the behaviour of rape victims.
sorry, just got back to this. Nope, just saying good girls are more safe over and over just doesn’t make it true.
you can control your own drinking but it won’t change your chances of getting raped. End of story.
thanks Sarah for chipping in.
sorry, should have said “maybe you can control your own drinking”, cause plenty of people on the internet have explained why it’s not always possible.
sorry if i said anything offensive/triggering please delete anything you find objectionable, or preferably just delete all of it, this conversation is just pointless, i want to un-happen it!
The bit where you said “this conversation is just pointless” is exactly the point where I decided that I would not be deleting your comments… you really think this is pointless? You think everyone generously engaging in your discussion at such length is pointless?
Finally, I am open to feedback on my moderating skills, though I won’t always please everyone nor share everyone’s views. This isn’t the thread for that feedback, please email me instead.
[...] at Blue Milk, the author points out that there is a double standard in the case of rape and the women that are [...]
My lay response to this is based on differences in hard wiring and many biological factors that drive us. Any attempt to dominate another sexually, psychologically, physically against their will is truly terrible but the bottom line is that men can and will rape- at a base level their designed to capture, fuck then go. Outwith their animal instincts men should reason, hold themselves back and empathise but it is a lottery as to what stresses, conditions are driving his animal responses over and above reason. Unfortunately I don’t think their will be equality in sexual crimes and I do think that women do have to stay in control of a tiny portion of their brain while having a fucking good boozy night. If you aren’t able to sense a man’s subtle or overt motivation and he is driven to exert power and force over you and sees you as an open target then you run a significant risk.
Understanding human dominance through my own personal experirnce-
When I’m under extreme stress my nasty animal, hormone driven side wins out frequently and with great rage- in psychodynamic terms I displace my tenion on to my husband because I have to get it out of me- I know that I have bullied and been psychologically heinous to him but under stress I repeat the same behaviour often.
That’s a choice you make Elizabeth, just as a rapist makes the choice to rape. That’s why we can leave the house at all, because the majority of men make the choice to control their urges. Men are not animals, treating them as such demeans then.
Reblogged this on infinitetimemusic and commented:
This is a fantastic discussion and thoroughly de-constructs the ” victim blaming ‘logic’ ” , as completely out of touch with most victims’ experience of the crime of rape.
I’ve just read this entire conversation which has took up about 2 hours and i feel i want to comment now.
Something that happened to me has bubbled to the surface that i had completley suppressed. About 7 years ago i was drinking shots of this ridiculous 80% russian vodka with a bunch of guys. I remember doing about two shots then nothing. The next morning i woke up very ill in a wet bed (i know, how embarrassing). During the course of my day a girl i kind of knew told me that everyone in the block had a naked picture of me. I confronted one of the guys i was drinking with and he proudly showed me a picture of me unconcious and naked in his bed. 2 other guys had pictures too took from different angles so i think there must have been about 3 at least who were present. Noone said anything but it was implyed that i’d had sex with someone. Later that day a person i didn’t know told me i’d knocked on their door at 3am crying and saying i’d been raped.
So with all this evidence i think i was probably raped by at least one person, maybe 3. I’m only telling you this story because i feel right now that it was my fault. I had previously slept with this guy, i was so drunk i have NO memory of anything that happened (and it still hasn’t come back to me) and i may even have consented but i don’t know. I was utterly foolish. Obviously i didn’t deserve that to happen to me but if i hadn’t have been trying to be clever proving i could do shots like one of the men it wouldn’t have happened.
I’m glad i don’t remember though. If they thought it was okay to take pictures of me then they obviously were capable of anything.
I’m quite upset now. I’ve told myself for years that i wasn’t raped but all evidence suggests i was and its hard to finally tell someone what happened.
But just to add something else….. i’ve seen some terrible remarks about how men are all rapists on here and i don’t think thats fair. Men can be victims too but its difficult for them to express it.
A male friend once told me that he had had a one night stand with a girl he met in a club. In the morning he woke up to her having sex with him. He said he felt, in his words, “annoyed” because she had took advantage of his uncontrollable “morning boner”. He then laughed it off saying “i guess that means i was raped” and moved the conversation on. It is projected as some sort of male fantasy that guys like to be woken up to unconsented sex and maybe it is in some people but its sad that he has to just laugh it off. If he were female and that happened people would agree it was rape but for him it was just something “sexy” that she did that he should just enjoy.
Anyway i just wanted to give you a different perspective there =)
I am so sorry – I really feel for you. That is the shittiest story ever. You have nothing to be ashamed of, or feel responsible for. A friend said to me once, when discussing rape: rapists rape. It changed my entire perspective. I’d been subconsciously thinking ‘how to behave to avoid rape’ i.e. it’s my responsibility what other people do. What other people do is not your responsibility, particularly when you are incapable of consent. And rapists rape. That’s their responsibility, their shame, and their guilt. Not yours.
@giraffe85 – I am sorry for your experience. Those men had no right to take advantage of you no matter how drunk you were. I think boys should be raised to be the type of man who would take a drunk woman home – either to her place or his, somewhere safe where she could sleep it off – and then after ensuring she was safe – leave her be. This is the minimum standard we should be expecting.
Men have every right to expect that they will be treated the same. Your friend was right to be upset. Feminism says the same. The partriarchy may say that all men should be happy with sex all the time, but feminism doesn’t.
MASSIVE thank you to Bluemilk for this fascinating post & thread. The fact it’s still continuing after two years just shows what a high-quality discussion it is. I came across the blog today and have ending up reading all the way through the thread…
I work with survivors of sexual violence at Rape Crisis (England) and also have been reading widely online recently, especially after Ched Evans’ recent conviction and the utterly malicious and sickening stuff on Twitter etc against the rape survivor.
All these comments have really helped me figure out how to articulate the argument against blaming the rape survivor and challenging ‘rape culture’ in general.
ESPECIALLY liked Benji’s point:
“The real issue here is which actions a person has responsibility for. If a women gets incredibly drunk, wears little clothing, and acts flirtatiously through the night, she is responsible for those actions, as they are her own. If she gets a hangover from drinking, it is her responsibility. If she gets cold in her little clothing, it is her responsibility. If she gets hassled at uni the next day for giving three different boys bedroom eyes, it is her responsibility. These are all expected consequences of her own actions. Getting raped should not be the expected consequence of anything.”
Right, now I’m off to read the original Bluemilk blog post, (Don’t get raped) and the one after this one (All the way – gray rape and third base)…!
Cards on the table – I’m male. I’ve just spent a couple of days reading this thread after following a link from the “I Believe Her” facebook page. In February 2010 I was arguing exactly as Darsh was above, on of all places, a thread on a cycling forum. At that time, there were 4 or 5 women (at least two of whom are survivors) valiantly trying to educate 3 or 4 men. I could point you to the one or two posts made that finally opened my eyes to the concepts that have been discussed above (Rape culture, the irrelevance of precautions, and the harm of proposing them) I’ve probably still got a way to go – one of the reasons I am reading here.
I’m thinking twice of making this comment – but I’ll go ahead anyway because it is important. I don’t think it should, but apologies in advance if this causes hurt.
My point is, I can still remember how baffled I was by the arguments. It seemed incomprehensible to me that the women involved didn’t want/couldn’t see a reason why “reasonable” precautions should be taken. Of course I was baffled – I’ve spent 50 years living in a rape culture. Those things that we (as part of that culture) “hold to be self evident” take a lot of seeing round/past.
And here is (I think) where I risk antagonising people. If we are going to break down that culture we need to engage with people. In particular, but not exclusively, we need to engage with men. No amount of reading 101′s was going to give me the understanding that a couple of well worded posts from people I know and like were able to do. Darsh read the 101′s and came back, still not understanding – I would have do so too.
Some of the comments above have been pretty vitriolic. I recognise that I will probably (hopefully) never be in the position to understand the hurt that lies behind that. However, we cannot have a dialogue if people who are trying to find out/learn what they need to know are made to be so unwelcome. If I’d received that response from the cycling forum, I would still be unaware, and a much bigger part of rape culture than I currently am.
Perhaps this is the wrong place – if it is then we need to find a forum where this can be discussed with people *even while they do not understand*
I agree with you Tony, but there’s a fine line between recognising how hard it is to get past what you’ve grown up with and placing expectations on survivors and other people to do the helping. Adding to Mindy’s points, you may be better placed than many people to be the one doing the explaining. You remember how you got from there to here, and that’s a massive advantage when explaining things to people.
I’d also like to note that there is a difference between people who continue to engage with a genuine intention to learn and those who just want to look like they’re listening, but actually aren’t. As you say, perpetuating rape culture is a hard habit to break, and it requires some thinking, without knee jerk responses. I can see that a dialogue can be much more helpful than reading stories when someone is genuinely trying to grapple with the concepts, but when the dialogue stops being constructive, it’s time for the learner to go away and think for a while before expecting anyone to continue to engage with them.
It’s tricky ground – I prefer to debate a point in order to understand and I know I’ve been the one continuing to push my own point longer than I should have on any number of occasions. I’ve also learned far more from the debates than from the 101s, so I know where you’re coming from. However, no-one owes me that debate, and expecting it is unreasonable at best, and downright damaging at worst. I agree that a 101 forum, rather than resource, would be a very useful thing. I’m not sure if you’d ever find enough people prepared to engage in that debate (although when I have enough time, I would be – I love a debate from the teaching side as much as from the learning side) to make it viable. Perhaps this is something you could kick off?
Tony – I don’t know if you have kids, or have dealt with kids – but if you do or have you will be familiar with telling them the same thing over and over again and getting really frustrated? Yes? That is what it is like for survivors of rape, and for people like bluemilk and me trying to get people to understand. Some of them never do and we all, quite rightfully, get sick to death of that shit. We are not the world’s teachers. There are pages and pages of stories on the internet explaining how it doesn’t matter what you do, what you wear, who you are, where you are if a rapist decides to rape you there is pretty much stuff all you can do about it.
I will teach my children that rape is wrong, it is up to adults to adult up and teach themselves instead of expecting someone to take each person in hand gently and explain it to them over and over and over again. .
When I was 15, I got thrown out of a nightclub (by a female bouncer) for being drunk. I had no way of getting home because the club was in the middle of an industrial estate, 20 miles from home. A friend of my friend’s boyfriend followed me outside and we kissed for a while, before he took things further than I wanted to. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, so I didn’t have the presence of mind to say no or get away – I just knew that I didn’t want to do what he was doing.
I honestly don’t know if it was rape or not, and to be honest, to add a name to the situation actually means nothing to me – it was just a shit thing to happen and I feel sick whenever I see him, which is thankfully rare nowadays, although I had to block him on Facebook to stop him coming up as a friend suggestion again and again.
The takeaway from it is not that I blame myself, but I do feel that it could have been avoided if I had shown myself more respect and not been so drunk, and therefore separated from my friends. We cannot control whether we will be raped in our lifetime, but we can control whether we will be so smashed that we can’t scream, or run, or say no – or even be completely alone with a potential rapist. If I’d been less drunk, I wouldn’t have been thrown out and I wouldn’t have wandered off into an industrial estate. Even if I’d have been outside, say getting air, I would’ve flirted with him rather than going off with him, maybe gone back into the club and danced, swapped numbers, even dated perhaps – weird to think about. After all, most rapists are perfectly charming when they’re not raping someone. Instead, I did something stupid and he did something horrible.
I will have to tell my children this story. I will tell my son not to get so smashed that he does not notice that the girl he’s with is out of control. I will tell any daughters I might be blessed with to not get so smashed that they are out of control, and to always know where each and every one of their friends are.
The number one thing that we *all* want is for rape not to happen at all. Until we can identify how to stop rapists being created (or whatever word you consider appropriate), it only seems logical to look for ways to avoid being raped, without losing quality of life.
@Becca – teach your son to take his drunk girlfriend home or somewhere safe without raping her. Tell his friends to do the same. Tell your daughters to go with their drunk friends, if they can do so without endangering themselves, or if they can’t to call you to come and pick them all up. Make sure they have phones with credit so they can always call.
You got drunk. If you friend’s boyfriend hadn’t decided to rape you, you would have ended up with a hangover, or vomit on your shoes. It was his decision, not your fualt.
I get that we all have regrets and that it feels horrible to carry a memory like that around and to feel drunk and out of control and stupid. But you know, you were 15 years old, you’re allowed to make mistakes and drink too much and not know when to stop drinking.. you were a kid, for crying out loud. And actually, women of all ages are going to sometimes drink too much, that happens, we’re people, we make mistakes, we do silly things, we let go sometimes… that is still never an excuse to rape us.
Thank you both for your kind words. I just feel that it’s important that we don’t get so bogged down in the “responsibility” debate that we lose sight of what matters – reducing instances of rape. Recognising ways to protect ourselves better is not saying that we are to blame when we make mistakes and put ourselves in danger.
I think that the analogy of walking down a dark street in a dodgy area with your Rolex and iPhone clearly displayed works perfectly. There are really, really awful people out there, and we cannot work on the basis of what others should and shouldn’t do, because we simply cannot control that. Until we find a way to get through to would-be rapists and stop that, all we can do is protect ourselves – not drinking too much, not becoming separated from our friends, not going to hotel rooms with large groups of men we don’t know.
But someone can steal your Rolex and I-phone without raping you. Losing your Rolex and I-phone isn’t quite the same as being raped.
Of course. But just because one thing is significantly worse than another doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t encourage people to take precautions against it. If anything, it’s the opposite. I’d be inclined to say “risk the phone and watch if you like, but if you can do anything to reduce your chances of being raped, I’d do it.”
Let’s talk crimes on a similar level then. The McCanns. Do you think that they rightly feel some responsibility for the abduction of their daughter because they left her unattended? Obviously it was only the abductor who was to blame for such an awful thing to happen, but surely the takeaway is “keep your children close to you at all times and minimise the chance of them being taken” rather than “well, people just shouldn’t abduct children, should they?”
But you aren’t comparing the same things. My vagina isn’t something I can leave unattended which is why comparisons to wallets, watches, phones or even kidnapped children aren’t relevant. Also, most rapes don’t occur in dark alley ways with strangers. Most occur in the home or in someone else’s home where you would expect to be safe. Most rapes are carried out by people known to the person raped. How can you make yourself safer in your own locked house? Yet people are raped in their own houses all the time, often by someone who they should be able to trust, like an intimate partner. Statistically you are safer outside your home in the company of strangers. There is no way to make yourself safer. The only way to be safer is for society to stop teaching men that they should expect women to have sex with them just because they want them to.
I think it’s directly analogous to the McCanns, but draw the opposite conclusion. They were crucified in the media for leaving their child comfortably in bed – the message was that they were partly to blame for the abduction of their daughter. I reject that, exactly as I reject that you or I contributed in any way to our rapes. The problem is that while at some level, there is a risk reduction argument that theoretically doesn’t reduce the responsibility of the offender, in practice, that’s not how it works. Taking precautions to stop illegal activity doesn’t reduce illegal activity, it just gives the offenders an excuse.
What your son will take away from this, Becca, is “don’t get so smashed that you don’t notice the girl you’re with is out of control, but (nudge, nudge, wink) if she’s out of control, you are entitled to sex with her, and if she doesn’t really consent it’s her fault then.”
Wow. Just wow. I actually meant that I would teach him that not getting smashed was a precaution against making really poor decisions. I can assure you that I would like to teach him respect for others as a base for everything. Furthermore, I would like to teach him that sex is an activity of shared enjoyment, not something that one person can “take” from another. I’m sorry – I thought as we are all moderately decent people who agree that rape is wrong, the “rape is wrong” message was a given.
Look, Darsh, it’s quite simple. If I choose to drink so much I pass out, that is entirely my responsibility. If a rapist chooses to take advantage of my inebriation, that is entirely his responsibility. I am responsible for my actions, he is responsible for his. I bear full responsibility for my actions and no responsibility for his actions. If you think that by getting so drunk I bear some responsibility for the rape, then you believe that rape is a natural consequence of being very drunk rather than a wilful deliberate criminal act. As hundreds of thousands of women around the world get very drunk every year and are not raped, it is obvious that rape is not a natural consequence of drunkenness, and it is in fact a deliberate wilful criminal act. Therefore no matter how drunk a woman is, no matter where she is, no matter what she’s doing, no matter what she’s wearing, she bears no responsibility at all if a rapist rapes her.
(Nested comments don’t seem enabled now – probably my browser, or something)
Oh, that’s what society says. Rape culture is more subtle than that. “Well, it wasn’t really rape, was it? What was she expecting going back to his apartment – a cup of milo?” “Oh, my boy can’t possibly have raped anyone. He’s a nice boy. The girl’s lying, or slutty.” And so on and so forth.
First, a potential trigger warning. I’ve only come across triggers as a concept in the last few days, and really don’t know what might be a trigger – so please read on with that in mind.
Following my post above, I received the following tweet from Sophia Maria @sophiamaria_
I checked with Andie if she was OK with it, and also checked with the people on the cycling forum who will be quoted, and all were supportive. So here goes.
For background: I’m just about on the right side of 50, I come from a middle class background – whatever that means – and for most of my life have thought very little about rape issues or feminism. Before the thread on the cycling forum I’d never heard of rape culture, and had no idea how common rape is. My perception of rape was that it is mainly perpetrated by strangers preying on women in dark lonely places – you know, how you see it in all the films.
….Two days later – I’ve discovered I am not a writer. This started out as a whole series of quoted posts and replies, and was completely unreadable. This is the short form – and even this is too long – sorry.
There were 4 people posting the stuff that changed my viewpoint – I’ll call them C, F J, and K. The thread was started by K in response to this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8515592.stm (Reporting a survey which suggested more than half of women thought there are some circumstances where rape victims should take some responsibility for the attack)
My opening post in the thread clearly stated my starting pov that victims are not to be blamed/held responsible for any attack – so at least I started on the right side of the page regarding victim blaming. However following a series of posts from another man, that it was reasonable to expect people to take responsibility for their own actions, and to take “sensible precautions” to reduce the risk of being raped, I jumped in and backed him up. The thread went through the whole gamut of justifications – and I did learn some stuff, such as the offence caused when rape is equated to other crimes like muggings and theft. I was forced to take a step back and think, when F posted, making it clear that she had been a victim of rape. However I still could not get my head around the resistance to a point that seemed so obvious to me.
Sometime during all this, C posted a link to “Shakesville Rape Culture 101” My answer:
K made a post where she pointed out that the majority of rapes were perpetrated by people known by the victim – thus rendering precautions irrelevant. My next to last post makes it clear that I failed to grasp the significance:
K made 2 more posts again stressing the point that most rapes are not in the stranger/dark alley, and the last one finally began to get through – I also recognised that the difference of opinion was causing a certain amount of ill feeling. . Notice the “if” though; I still didn’t really get it.
The apology was genuine. These are people I know (if only online) and like, and causing any sort of distress was definitely not what I wanted. This was at page 5 of the thread, which went on to 19 pages in 10 days. I did stop posting at this point, but continued to read. The first two posts which really opened my eyes were in reply to my last post above written by K, and in reply to my last but one above, written by C.
From K:
And from C:
This was finally the point at which I began to understand what C, F, J and K were explaining. I am embarrassed now at how long that took – but as stated in my first message to this blog, I’ve lived with those self evident “truths” for so long that they take a long time to break down. I continued to read the thread to the end, and there was plenty more discussion, most of which helped me get my head around this new paradigm.
To sum up, there were two lessons I needed to learn: First that the vast majority of rapes are not of the stranger danger variety, but are committed where the victim should be able to feel safe. Secondly, that of the remaining few that are committed by strangers, even the majority of them are not committed in circumstances that can reasonably be avoided. The main problem was that I needed to do more than learn those points, I needed to understand them, grasp them, get my stupid head around them. And that is what the passion of C, F, J and K helped me to do. Thanks guys!
Violence against women doesn’t just happen. Violence against anyone doesn’t just happen. Attackers don’t just happen to attack, although they may just happen to attack you.
[...] and The Internet’s Favourite blue milk Rants, namely Don’t get raped and her response post But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too for the rape? This was posted 2 years ago, so clearly I’m ahead of the [...]
[...] But why shouldn’t she take some responsibility too for the rape? [...]
[...] to a great posting about how to not get raped. There is also a follow-up posting where the author responds to “why shouldn’t she take some responsibility?” by trying to get the male commenter to look at the situation as if it had happened to him. It [...]
One of the best ever posts on rape culture and placing the blame on women I have ever read. Well put.