Or is this victim blaming?

This - completely disingenuous attempt to derail the thread with a straw man

Its rather after the fact to ask why did that woman do that. Like duh no shit sherlock.

I guess sometimes people have already been abused and had boundaries broken, have a naively trusting personality, perhaps sometimes a situation is just misjudged, or probably more often they are lulled into a sense of security.

And bear in mind the widespread availability of and marketing of low cost alcopops at young people in the 90s and 00s, which was cracked down on.

Agreed! Women and girls should be able to enjoy the same ordinary freedoms as men and boys without having to accept a disproportionate responsibility for managing the risk of male violence.

ONS figures November 2025:
For rape or assault by penetration (including attempts):

• 44.5% of female victims identified a partner or ex-partner as the perpetrator.
• Only 15% of female victims identified a stranger as the perpetrator.
• 37.8% of victims overall identified someone known to them other than a partner or family member.
• Source: ONS, Nature of sexual assault by rape or penetration, England and Wales, year ending March 2025.

I’ve always been very cautious about walking alone at night, and I’d always try to make sure another woman didn’t have to do so if I could help it. I make sure friends text me when they get home. All that stuff, which is the same for pretty much every woman I know.

But there’s a difference between that, and your first question when something does happen being ‘why was she walking alone?!’ Taking sensible precautions to try to protect yourself and others as best you can is not victim blaming. But asking why someone didn’t take those precautions when something does happen, that IS victim blaming.

Bollox. We just happen to live in stable societies.

These are hypothetical surveys, not factual.

You say,,,The issue isn't what women do or wear or where they go it's that men grow up in a world which teaches them that women aren't proper humans so our no, our resistance don't matter.

The majority of men I have known throughout my life, the son I have brought up, my adult grandsons don't live in that world. They respect women and treat them as equals....the younger ones more so.

I'm so sorry you had the experience you did, and I do believe our own experiences colour the way we see the world.

Women in burqa get raped.

When literal babies in nappies get raped by depraved males, we know full well it is nothing to do with clothing.

Women should not be judging or blaming rape victims in any way. It minimises ,and to an extent, actually excuses rape.

The only people who think clothing , being alone, or just existing ,is in anyway "risky"...are rapists and rape apologists.

I was on an adults only weekend when I was about 20. It was the end of the night, inhad been drinking all day and walking back to my aprtment block with my friends and a group of men who were also on their way back to their apartment. Those weekends are packed so there are grouos of people everywhere. While chatting to some of the men, laughing about something random, I turned into their apartment and was standing in their living room where another group of men where. I quickly realised that my friends weren't there and said "oh im in the wrong place, im going, bye". Just as I said that, a man who was already in the apartment grabbed me and told me "no" and the atmosphere just changed. I remember thing oh fuck! It had gine from everyone being drunk, laughing in fancy dress to serious in seconds.

Luckily, all the men i had accidently walked in with, plus the other men who were already in the apartment got the man off me, asked him wtf he was doing and I got out of there. It must have only been seconds because my friends were still outside when I went back out onto the path.

That night could have gone so wrong. I was pissed, yes I walked in there accidently but it would have got twisted if something bad had happened to imply that I was somehow asking for it.

I've had a few near miss incidents with strangers knocking my door. (I lived alone as a 17 year old and was vulnerable to creepy men) but that one time in Butlins was the time that I had put myself in a vulnerable position.

I'm so grateful to the men who acted as soon as one of their friends became creepy. 🙏

Out of curiosity, was I in the wrong here?

Girls weekend, all in our mid 20's. One woman gets very very drunk, gets upset, takes half her clothes off and walks off by herself in the dark. Staggeringly (in a literal sense), light open jacket with nothing underneath etc.

Me and some of the other women went and took her back to our flat and looked after her. We were concerned that being that drunk and in a state of undress put her in a vulnerable position.

Should I have just let her walk into town or wherever, because she was at no additional risk at all? I mean technically we assaulted her by taking her by the arms and marching her back... She was grateful the next day though.

Sometimes I think the reason I don’t cut through the alley in the dark is not because I could get attacked (the odds are low) but if I did then people would question my lack of judgement.

Aren't you rude?...and wrong too.

No.
But if you and your friends had then assaulted her you would have been in the wrong. Her putting herself in the position where you had power over her as her friends by inadvertently getting too drunk didn't lessen her rights over her body. However because you were all female taking it in turns to violate your drunk friend. probably didn't occur (it wouldn't to a lot of men either). Unfortunately sometimes women (and men) think men are their friends and those men turn out to be very bad men. At that point it isn't really relevant to question with wide eyed innocence why the woman/man put themselves in that position. You know the answer in your friends case. She was out with you and got drunk. People get drunk sometimes, people have to feir drinks spiked, people can have unexpected epileptic attacks.

I have looked after male friends who got too drunk. I put them in the recovery position and gave them a sick bowl. I didn't text all my male friends there was "free asshole" if they wanted. That would be psychotic. I also "know why" they were asleep on my sofa. They were drunk, vulnerable and trusted me as another human being not to be a psycho.

They absolutely do.

You misunderstand.

By taking her by the arm taking her back to her room, that constitutes a physical assault in itself technically.

Should I have left her walking to town semi naked on the grounds that she is was no more at risk by herself at night semi naked and drunk, than at any other point in life? After all, if it is completely irrelevant, we should have let her go surely?

You know the answer to this. You do.

I get you.

No, we know the behavior shes currently engaged in makes her very vulnerable. So we make sure she's safe.

What we do not say is... 'You have the right to behave like this ( although we know she does ) and if anything should happen to you it wouldn't be your fault in any case, so go right ahead.'

We don't call this protective behavior victim blaming. We call it responsibility. I think a lot of people on this thread are having problems differentiating responsibility and blame.

We never, ever take blame, but we should always always take responsibility on ourselves. Because some men will rape.