to be utterly shocked at the attitudes to rape expressed on BBC 2 today?

[WriterofDreams]

Today, Jeremy Vine discussed the "slut walk" protests organised by feminist groups in response to the comment made by a Canadian police officer who told a group of lawyers that women should avoid dressing like sluts to help prevent rape. He spoke to the editor of "The F word" who unfortunately didn't give a very good argument IMO and failed to make the point that blaming the victim of any crime is just plain wrong. What really shocked me though were the views expressed by listeners which for the most part centred around the idea that scantily clad women are asking to be raped. One man actually said it was men's biological urge to have sex and women are exciting that by dressing like "sluts" and so they basically deserve what they get.

Frankly the whole thing made me sick. I was abused as a child so I know how much a victim tends to blame themselves for what happened. To tout this point of view is only to increase the suffering of victims IMO and does nothing to actually help decrease rape seeing as rape is very very rarely the "down a dark alley" scenario so beloved by many but is more often committed by friends, relatives and lovers who couldn't give a toss what their victim is wearing.

AIBU to think focusing on what women is wearing is basically blaming women for rape and in fact totally pointless anyway as there is no proof whatsoever that scantily clad women tend to get raped more often?

YANBU. Seeing a woman in tight clothes will not make a man a rapist. If you leave your front door open, the majority of people will walk past and think, 'That was silly, anything could happen', but an open front door will not tempt a good honest person into being a theif.

If a woman walks around wearing very little, the majority of people will think 'She looks silly/cold/attractive/whatever', positive or negative thoughts, but an underdressed woman will not tempt a good, honest man into being a rapist.

So yes, we take precautions because we know there are bad people around. But we also get on with our lives because we cannot live in fear when most people are decent and would never harm another human being.

On the consent issue; there seems to be some confusion. I think the legal situation is the man must have a reasonable belief that the partner consents. So the argument is about 'reasonable'. The onus is on him to show consent.

StewieGriffin - yes you highlighted exactly what areas I would struggle with as a juror. I could well imagine myself 100% believing a woman did not want sex and still having enough doubt that the male defendent genuinely did not know. This of course is exactly the area of uncertainty that defence barristers feed on and why rapists escape justice.

On a slightly diferent tangent, I wanted to ask whether you and others on the thread have sons or daughters and whether this colours your opinions. I have two sons, soon to be teenagers, and have found this thread very informative and helpful in thinking through what I should tell them about how to seek and make sure they get proper consent.

Re. slavewife's very disturbing story, I think it's obvious that her attacker would have focused on her dress/'provocation' in court, it would serve to deflect attention away from his culpability. It was probably a calculated gesture designed to prick any juror's (subconscious?) belief that a woman who dresses a particular way is 'asking for it'. This belief is still astonishingly widespread (google for surveys). Alternatively, even if the defence was not so cynical as to deliberately focus on slavewife's outfit, there was little chance of her attacker telling the truth on the stand, because that would sound something like "I rape because I'm a woman-hating sociopath," and he'd be locked up.

Re. men's urges, I also find it disturbing to contemplate the idea that men look upon a woman in a tight top and short skirt and have in immediate, overwhelming desire to penetrate her. I could understand his reaction to be something like, wow, she's gorgeous, she's got a beautiful body, etc. But I don't understand how it's considered acceptable, even necessary to believe that men are at the mercy of animalistic desires that they have to fight to control. It seems to only the sexual urge and only in men tha viewed this way. To me it seems equivalent to believing that someone who feels very hungry one day could be overtaken by the urge to leap over a fence and storm someone's BBQ. Sorry if that sounds flippant, but do you get my point? It seems as though (men's) sexual instincts are expected to be urgent, overpowering, hard to control etc. I can only imagine being a man but if I was a man, and I found I routinely wanted to penetrate random women I happened upon in everyday, non-intimate contexts, i'd get myself to the nearest psychiatrist.

Morebeta I have a son with a highly misogynistic father. DS is still young but i do envisage a future when we'll be kind of fighting for possession of his soul, IYSWIM.

To illustrate: once I initiated a casual discussion with DS's father about what we'd do if we knew the world was going to end in a few hours.

Him: "I'd go out raping."

Me:

Him: "What? Every man would. They just won't admit it."

IME it is easier for people to blame the victim no matter what they are a victim off. In the immediate aftermath of being a victim the victim is vulnerable while often the perpatrator is high on power making it easier to bad mouth the victim as they are less likely to fight back. This goes from the person on the street to the powers that be. Working on the premise of lets not rock the boat.

Also IME women appear to be more eager to tell a rape victim they deserved it. I have yet to manage to get someone to justify effectively to my face why I deserved it. Even MNers who have said it couldn't find an articulate response when I challenged their assertions.

Saying men can't help themselves is offensive to men especially as the majority of men are relatively decent people.

xstitch - possibly, women are prepared to blame victims because none of us wants to feel that powerless, that there is nothing we can do/not do, wear/not wear that will protect us from sexual violence.

I have a DS and I have always told him if there's even a shadow of a doubt over consent, to stop.

SGM, I agree that the idea that there is a massive grey area of confusion where men and women basically start speaking a whole different language and can't understand each other is baloney and it is basically an enabling device.

Women comfort each other with the idea that only certain women, who behave differently from them, are raped. It gives a false sense of security. It is a very attractive myth. Likewise, the stereotypical rapist in the bushes, the stranger rapist, is given more coverage in the media -- society doesn't want to believe that the rapist is the boy next door. There seems to be a massive amount of resistance to staring the facts about rape in the face.

mummery - i'm not sure how to respond to your post as doesn't quite do it justice.

I don't see anything wrong with mummery's post morebeta, could you explain?

Perhaps you are right alice but imo looking a rape victim in the eye and saying it is your fault, you did really deserve it is pretty low. Or putting it in writing addressed to an individual is bad.

In case anyone was wondering when I was raped I was covered from neck to ankle, my hair needed washed and I had a red nose because I had a stinking cold. I pushed him away said no a few times, progressed to 'bloody well get off me' when he wouldn't listen. I also tried to knee him but it wasn't enough. If I had been significantly physically stronger I would possibly have succeeded so yes I guess it was my fault. Although he was pretty angry so would probably just have knocked me out.

Oops sorry I was looking at mummery's other post. I agree, what he said was really shocking.

mummery that is scary.

Most men don't want to hurt people, surely. Surely?

No of course they don't. IME maybe 0.05% of men are rapey (something like that anyway!). Most men when confronted with an "opportunity" to rape, happily have a cup of tea or another beer or go to sleep or something. Rape is not a normal sexual urge and most men don't do it and wouldn't want to.

mummery reminds me of the Pepsi Max asteroid advert.

Mummery - agree with comments above. Truly shocking - and genuinely surprising. Intend to quiz DP about this when he gets home - as it seems pretty unlikely to me it's a generally held view.

And WoD - Can't stand Jeremy Vine - as it's always full of half wits spouting vile opinions. I may well listen on iplayer though as I can't quite believe there are people who still think the "she had it coming" rubbish.

I've heard the 'walking around Central Park at midnight waving dollar bills and an expensive Rolex' meme a couple of times recently. It's false logic and plain bollocks.

If a lawyer tried to excuse Joe the junkie from robbing Mark the investment banker by insinuating his client wasn't at fault or should receive a lighter sentence due to said circumstances, he would be laughed out of court. And even if a jury member thought privately that to be honest Mark should have been a bit smarter, there's no WAY it would diminish Joe's guilt in their mind or the judge's sentencing.

The analogy of the dollar bills and rolex makes me sick as it implies that there is a direct comparison between expensive goods and a woman's body and that a woman's body can be taken in the same way that goods can be. Stealing someone's watch and money because you're a junky is in no way the same as taking someone's dignity, peace of mind and sense of safety (and also possibly their physical and mental health) and to compare the two, for no matter what reason, is to seriously and falsely diminish the tremendous hurt rape victims experience.

i think that parading around town with the word "slut" painted over your pumped up breasts is likely to attract the wrong sort of attention!

I totally get the sentiment behind the slutwalk protests but I don't agree with them at all - they're over the top and are unlikely to make the point they're hoping to.

Slavewife, if you're still around...? I was listening to the news about poor Milly Dowler today, and they said the man who killed her had 'a thing' about young girls who looked like her. Nobody would say she was responsible for what he did. The same goes for you.

Viz the comments earlier down the thread about how young girls should be taught how to be assertive and say what they want and know it's OK to say no etc., I will as usual post this excellent article which really sums up the problem with that POV. Not that I disagree with that POV, but it is simply impossible to expect women to be assertive in a sexually dangerous situation for them, while we socialise them the way we currently do.

You cannot teach girls and women to suddenly start being assertive in a sexual situation, when you condemn them as being aggressive, unfeminine, mean bitches for being assertive in every other situation in life. Like the article says, you cannot hammer home the message to girls from the day of hteir birth, that asserting what they want straight out is wrong, and then expect them to throw off their lifetime of conditioning at the very moment where they are most vulnerable. It's utterly unreasonable and unrealistic. We need to look at the whole way we raise girls and boys and our attitudes to uppity females and how we are slapped down when we don't conform to gender expectations, because tackling this in a vacuum is doomed to failure.

And just for all the lurkers out there, here's another excellent article about force and rape from the same really brilliant blog. www.fugitivus.net/2009/02/06/another-post-about-force/

I think another reason that rapists try the 'asking for it line' in court is to basically humiliate their victime further. Its an extension of their control of their victim and holding onto some of the power they felt by commititng their act. Unfortunately the system will always support them in this act because their rights will always take presidnce over that of the victim.

Having said that any woman flasely claiming rape should be severely punished.