"You're not like a rape victim"

Nothing BlackOut. Nothing a child does or doesn't do will influence someone who is planning to abuse them. Predators who attack children usually groom them and are often either the child's parent, or someone the parent knows so the child grows up in an environment that encourages and condones abuse. All that can be done is to teach children about bodily autonomy and sex from a young age so that they can recognise when inappropriate things are happening and hopefully tell someone safe like a teacher or doctor. Even then, it's quite a long shot as children naturally trust the adults around them and are very slow to question their actions.

We teach the boys and the men - why not? And we make it easier to report rape and get a the rapist put in prison.

The best protection against a rapist is that he doesn't exist in the first place, or he's locked up.

If women knew that, if they were raped, everyone would believe them and their rapist would very likely be caught, stigmatized by society, and put in prison, they'd feel much safer.

But what can we teach young girls to 'keep safe'?

All the ideas I've heard before all control womens behavours

Much and all as we live in sex-soaked society and are supposed to be so open minded and liberal, when it comes down to it, people are still very squeamish about sex. By saying you're a rape survivor you're saying you had a forced, possibly violent, sex and in our society that's akin to standing up and saying you love bondage and describing a few of your good moves. There is still a sense that as an abusive survivor by talking about it you are talking about something nasty and inappropriate, in a way that talking about a terrible car crash isn't. It's a totally taboo subject.

Not pity, but anger then, lurking? It is appalling that these people are around - and absolutely agree that it is shocking we have 'stranger danger' coming out of our ears but not that message about attacks from people we know.

Thanks Lurking, seeing as wine is off the agenda for you for a few hours, have some

Well frankly it's disgusting we're not teaching young girls how to keep them safe because we'd rather put on rose coloured glasses. How very 'modern' of Western society..

Cailin I'd gush over how sorry I am but I know how frustrating that can be, so assuming you're not Australian like me and it's not too early to drink: xx

I was abused by a two family friends BTW.

Because people like to pretend that sort of abuse doesn't exist Lurking.

Please don't pity me, I'm well over the bastards! (Well..Getting there. )

To your question as to how common it is, for me it was actually incest followed by a group of my father's friends when I was a very young child. I'd rather not go further into it but sadly I think family sexual abuse is faaaaaar more common than the disastrous 'stranger danger' bull I was taught at school.

I wonder why it isn't taught in schools that girls are significantly more likely to be attacked by people they know (aka the bus driver) than the whole 'paedophile in a white van' stuff?

To be fair I think it's that a lot of men, and women too, have attitudes that they've never been forced to examine. Those attitudes slip out when they're talking about rape and abuse and once you challenge them on it a lot of them are really shocked at what their attitudes really mean, if that makes sense?

Bog standard in my experience Basil.

People see sexual abuse of a child as destruction of their "innocence" and "purity." It's a horrible way to look at it because it implies that someone who has been abused is somehow permanently damaged, and set apart from their peers, by the fact they have access to knowledge that is taboo for their age group. It's one aspect of attitudes towards abuse that causes victims huge amounts of shame and forces them to be secretive about what happened.

lurking that is awful.

What horrible men - very glad to hear these were 'partners' in the past and not now.

I think there's absolutely a Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

There's a description of the (literal) Madonna narrative pointing out that it is a story about a very young girl whose home is broken into and who is terrified and left pregnant. It is obviously not a parallel that stands up to pushing but it is a really powerful demonstration of how much the patriarchy's spin on events is held to matter much more than the woman's actual experience.

All of those attitudes are linked to our fucked up relationship with sex I think Lurking. The idea that children should be kept "innocent" (ie ignorant) by denying them basic knowledge of sex subtly puts out the idea that a child who does know about sex, particularly through abuse, is "guilty" or "dirty." The pure white vase thing is the other side of the same coin - there is no way they could see you as a normal woman with normal sexual feelings because that would suggest that you were a sexual being and that doesn't fit with the idea of an "innocent" child who suffered abuse.

BasilBabyEater

"Am wondering if there is a Madonna / Whore dichotomy in rape victims."

If I'm misunderstanding this comment, I sincerely apologise. But I completely agree. I've had too many boyfriends (and sadly, even girlfriends) who view me as this pure white vase that has been shattered and they simply MUST pick up the pieces because I am a walking tragedy..Yet somehow 'above' other women? Oh so delicate.
I've also had the exact opposite..Partners who assumed I was a whore because I was unfortunate enough to suffer extreme childhood sexual abuse followed by two attacks in my teens. For whatever reason this made me a whore.

I agree that a lot of people, men and women alike, have a mental image of "clear cut" rape, and that includes a victim who is distraught, beaten down, someone who can't deal with life any more. A person who is able to say "I was raped" without bursting into floods of tears is looked on as a faker I think.

I'm guessing with the rape myths is that Jill Seward was the 'good' girl and the Ched Evans victim, well she was drunk what did she expect sort of thing...

Makes me

What a disgusting comment.

I'd look back to the attitudes towards female 'chastity' and 'honour' having to do with being a virgin (or in a monogamous marriage where you belong to your husband). In that society, a woman who is raped is supposed to be ashamed of it. I think that attitude is actually what's ultimately behind comments like this one - he thought you were too 'nice' to be a rape victim, or he thought it was somehow a compliment to say you didn't seem like one of those shamed women ... as if you would somehow be pleased to find yourself dissociated from that group.

I also really dislike the attitude some people have, when they say you don't seem like a victim (of rape or DV, and DV is the context in which I've heard it but it could underlie this comment you got about rape too): some people seem to think that they are being complimentary by saying you don't seem like a victim. As if the norm is to be weak in some way, or part of a disadvantaged class. That is really nasty because it completely ignores the fact that women are a disadvantaged class. Women are vulnerable to these things.

Basically I think these comments are so appalling because it shows that person's first thought was you, the victim, and how you measure up to his picture of victims. And the first thought shouldn't be about victims at all, it should be about the person who did it.