To have no idea how to explain to my 9 year old DD what The Rapist Ched Evans did

[Hoppinggreen]

DD has obviously picked up some snippets about this and has asked what happened. She does know about sex but we haven't discussed what rape is and I don't know his to explain why the victim went to the hotel and what went on from there. I don't want to victim blame but I do want to perhaps talk to her about personal safety.
I also want to make the point that what The Rapist and his apologists are doing now is wrong and how Jessica Ennis ( who she worships) has done a great thing by condemning Sheffield utds actions.
Any suggestions?

Well, there's a fair amount iffy with that use of stats too, but since you're bowing out it's probably not worth it.

The girls in Rotherham were children and don't have the same level of personal responsibility as adults. That's why there are laws against grooming.

"Those girls in Rotherham... The stark cold fact is that if they hadn't accepted alcohol or gifts from those men, hadn't met up with them..... they wouldn't have been raped."

That sounds very likely to be true. I've taken out 'let themselves be groomed' because grooming is, by definition, a process that a vulnerable person is unaware of/powerless to stop.

The bit about responsibility I wholly agree with, except that the responsibility lies with those whose care they were in. They should have noticed the gifts. They should have seen that there was something going on. They should have listened when those children asked for help.

Trying to tell young women that drink is not a factor is, quite frankly, irresponsible. (unless you want to argue that it's the music in the clubs that is the key factor here, not the alcohol).

What an idiotic thing to say.

The only factor in a rape is the presence of a rapist.

Last night I had a phone call asking me to pick up my niece and nephew from a house because my BIL had broken down. My SIL couldn't remember the name of the road but described it as 'down X road, new posh houses'. I got a bit lost but found a road that met the description and knocked on the door. But it wasn't that road.

The man who answered the door offered the use of his phone. I declined as I had my mobile, but he warned there may be no signal. I looked and not only was signal low, but my battery was at 8%. I'd forgotten to check it in my haste. It was cold, so the man shut the door. It crossed my mind that :

I was now in the middle of nowhere,
no one knew where I was
I had virtually no battery
I had virtually no signal
I hadn't told DH exactly where I was going (because I didn't know)
I was alone with a complete (male) stranger.

If I had been raped, it would have been his fault, but I was stupid to just go like that and I put myself in (potential) danger.

Lougle - because of your mindset about this, if you had been raped last night, you would have most likely blamed yourself - for being 'stupid.' Like thousands of other rape victims. Is this what you want rape victims to feel? Is this what they should feel- that they were to blame?

Fact is, unforeseen events like that happen to people day in day out- it's not stupid, or irresponsible. It's just life.

It would have been true! It is stupid and foolish to do what I did. I know that.

If I'd got lost and had been left with no choice it would be different. But I had choices. I was less than 10 minds from home. I could have come back for a spare battery. I could have thanked the man at the door and looked again. I was foolish and lucky that he was a decent man.

What would have been true, lougle?

He did something stupid too, didn't he? He answered the door to you. Perhaps he could see you through the spyhole but what if you'd have been a decoy for a gang of large armed men who wanted to rush him and rape him and nick his stuff while they were at it?

It could happen...

People have a responsibility to keep themselves safe in every eventuality.

In fact, he was very lucky that you were a decent woman who had no such evil plan.

This thread has really opened my eyes to the possibility of danger at every turn and our personal responsibility to do everything in our power to dodge it.

So why did the man who answered the door to you last night not consider the possibility that though you may look like a mild-mannered woman who was lost, beneath the surface you have been a feminist vigilante driven into an insane rage at the outrages that some men inflict upon women?

As some posters have pointed out, there are women who believe that all men are rapists, and it might be possible that you weren’t just one of them, but that you might want have wanted to exact twisted revenge on behalf of our sex with a gun or a rusty penknife on a complete stranger.

Who obviously would have been blameless if you’d have attacked him. Perish the thought of victim-blaming. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But he did open the door, didn’t he? And we know what some women are like, don’t we?

Perhaps more men should consider that the next time they order a drink and tell the barmaid: ‘And one for yourself, love,’ while perhaps hoping to get to know her a little better.

I think that would be a reasonable precaution to expect them to take. Don’t you?

Good post, limited.

Okay, I’m going to stop being flippant here, even though I really want to carry on because I find some of the posts on this thread if not gagging for it, at the very least sending out the wrong signals, as they say…

A popular trope in the newspapers whose stock-in-trade is terrifying people about unlikely risk is home invasion by armed robbers.

Thankfully, much like stranger rape, it doesn’t happen that much in the UK. But sometimes it does. And sometimes, someone, usually the man of the house, gets into an altercation with the intruder and injures or kills him.

Usually in those cases the CPS decides there is no case to answer. But occasionally the home owner is put on trial for assault, manslaughter or murder.

This is reported as enthusiastically as a woman falsely ‘crying rape’. I have no idea of the stats pertaining to the relative popularity of those two particular types of story.

But maybe one of the keen statisticians on this thread could assist me. Perhaps using all other types of crime involving false allegation by the complainant as a control.

Anyway, generally the homeowner is acquitted, but sometimes they are not.

Whatever the outcome, such stories generate an enormous debate.

But in all that debate I’ve never noticed anyone saying: ‘Men! Don’t open your front door! He might look like the postman. But he could be someone who wants to kill your labrador, beat you up and then make you watch while he rapes your wife.’

I don't generally fear rape. I only thought about the situation at all because of this thread. I don't have any reason to fear rape and in fact it's people on this thread who, instead of accepting that some women are more at risk of being raped because of the lifestyle they lead, the people they associate with and the choices they make, perpetuate the myth that any one of us could be raped at any moment by any man no matter how long we've known them.

IMO your perception of risk is not accurate lougle.

But that's okay if makes you happy on a strictly personal basis. It's nothing to do with me.

However, you are using your perception of risk to pass judgement on the behaviour of others - both women and men, as it happens.

That makes me very unhappy and is everything to do with me.

"Would he have continued to have sex with her if she had objected? I think yes, because he is a rapist. That is what rapists do."

I'm a bit late to this, so apologies if someone has made this point;

But actually, no. I think he would have stopped if she'd said no. Up until that point he could kid himself that she was willing and able to consent.

I think the most troubling feature of this case is that neither Ched Evans-nor his apologists- actually see what he did as rape.

We need to get past this idea of rape being something that only happens when you force a woman to have sex. Anything other than an enthusiastic yes given in mental capacity is rape.

IMO my perception of risk is accurate. I don't think it is passing judgement to say that some situations are riskier than others.

lougle didn't you think it was risky of the man to open the door to a strange woman and invite her in to use his phone?

They might have had been caught up in the rapture of the moment and indulged in consensual sex.

Then she might have regretted it and cried rape in the morning.

Apparently this happens a lot and I think men should be warned to take precautions to prevent it. Like not having sex with strange women.

Obviously you wouldn't have done that. I'm just thinking of a hypothetical female doorstep caller who might cry rape in this situation at an imagined slight. Like having the door closed on her because it was cold and he wanted shot of her.

Because we're always told this kind of allegation occurs to spurned and regretful women and I for one think that's it's disgraceful that more isn't being done to warn innocent men to be constantly on their guard about this risk.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we spent half as much time telling men to avoid the allegation of being a rapist as we spent telling women to avoid it?

It is also no longer acceptable in polite society to tell a man with black or brown skin who was assaulted that he was asking for it if he ventured into a white area or transgressed the mores of white society. That is as it should be. But it once was.

Maybe that will one day be the way for women. It would be nice if all women supported that idea too; because I don’t recall black or brown people around the world shitting on their fellows.

A pound to a penny, if the rapist Ched Evans had been convicted of a racially-aggravated assault against a man there’d have been no coming back.

Actually, I think he did take a fairly big risk by letting me step through his door and I think he would have been better served by keeping the door open, truth be told. He didn't want the heat to escape, but he was in a vulnerable position because I could have claimed anything.

"Maybe that will one day be the way for women. It would be nice if all women supported that idea too; because I don’t recall black or brown people around the world shitting on their fellows."

Oh I'm sorry.... did women fight for the right that women could think for themselves, or did they fight for the right for a set of women to tell the rest of the women how to think???

Lougle - can you please explain to me what you meant when you posted "It would have been true!" ?

I'm not sure I understand - do you mean you think it would have been your fault if he'd raped you?