"she should have been more careful"

'Stupid' is a horrible word to use beansmum, it isn't stupid to meet a stranger without telling anyone. It isn't mainly strangers who rape and the women who have been assaulted by strangers are attack victims not anything else.

One way or another we spend our lives meeting strangers. I have met, dated, got drunk with, gone home with, shared beds with, got naked with strange men and haven't in these circumstances been raped or assaulted. It wasn't luck. Normal men don't do this, their behaviour doesn't change when faced with a woman alone, naked or drunk.

I don't believe the attacks that I have suffered were much influenced by luck more by predatory attackers and without them we would all be fine.

Is she blaming the victims though? Thinking someone should not have gone off with a strange man without telling anyone is not the same as thinking it is their fault if they then get raped. I don't know the details of the case, the victims might have told people and met the man in public places and still been raped. The rapist is equally to blame whatever the situation.

Maybe your mum is just pointing out that it is stupid to meet a stranger without taking steps to protect yourself. But, the rapist is still a rapist, and completely to blame, however stupid his victim might be.

Agree

I would certainly not tell my parents anything, and especially after that comment.

"And it makes me really think. Should it ever happen to me, whst would her reaction be?"

this is exactly why i will never tell my parents about any of the abuse/assaults that have happened to me.

my mum would say exactly the same as yours "she shoud have been more careful/silly girl/what did she expect?" it drives me up teh wall when something comes on the news and this is her reaction.

Oh parents.

When I was about 17 a girl was raped near our house and the police came door door.

My mum said "what sort of girl is out at 2am by herself anyway" and my dad and brother nodded and agreed and I said "Well I am, someone like me" and that made them stop and think a bit.

That the initial contact was online is irrelevant, and as we don't know much about the actual circumstances of their meetings, so she has made a sweeping over-generalisation.

But there is an important truth in the regular security advice that you cannot know whether someone is what they seem from how they portray themselves on line, and that you should meet initially in well-frequented public places and you should not go off alone with someone you barely know.

• didn't

I don't actually think she is trying to blame the victim maybe just shocked that someone would be stupid enough to go off in a intimate way with someone they barely know. That doesn't make the rapist any less guilty or the girls any less stupid.

I'm guessing your mother didnt grow up in the internet age. The idea of talking to someone online and then choosing to meet them fills her with shock and horror as it goes against most peoples basic instincts.

I know what you mean. Sometimes, I think this kind of reaction is almost a self-protection mechanism. You kind of trick your mind into thinking that something awful won't happen to you because you are different from the victim. You wouldn't go where they did. They weren't careful, but I would be.

Sometimes it's easier to try and pin part of the blame on someone you don't know than acknowledge that you could be vulnerable.

Just a thought.