I don't agree this is victim blaming

[TeeJay1970]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-45232993

I know what victim blaming is so there is no need to define it for me.

Surely this is just good advice?

The police have had to apologise for encouraging

"friends to look after each other on a night out to prevent someone becoming vulnerable or separated from the group"

Isn't that what good friends do?

Have you ever read about an alleged rape and wondered if it was rape or not? I think rape is straight forward.

Yes I have... there can be blurred lines when people are drunk. If it is so straightforward why don’t rape trials last 15 minutes? You have very simplistic attitudes to this serious subject.

Now you're blaming a rapist's friends? @Bertrand and someone else blame parents (vaguely).

Do you understand the difference between someone being the product of the environment they were brought up in, and 'blame'?

Most murderers did not have wonderful fluffy idiyllic upbringing. Fred and Rose West, for example, both had completely fucked up childhoods which almost definitely had an impact on their behaviour as adults. You can acknowledge this without diminishing their responsibility for their crimes.

It’s about minimising unnecessary risk not removing it entirely

So you agree that actually there is no way to remove all the risk unless you don't go out at all. That there is nothing we can do. That whatever we do questions will be asked because of sone desperate need to try and convince 've ourselves that we could have prevented it so if we prevent it it won't happen to us.

You forget one thing though.

Not going out means they are home. They are home with their husbands . They are home with their teenage step sons. They are home for the dinner part with uncle Phil. They are home to go and help their elderly neighbours sons carry an old fridge to the van to take to the tip...

I think.ill take.my chances being drunk thanks. Far rarer that I'll be attacked walking home than any of the other scenarios

"You have very simplistic attitudes to this serious subject."

Because I think something is simplistic doesn't mean I'm being flippant or believe it isn't worthy of serious thought.

I have what could be described as quite simplistic thoughts about racism and genocide. It doesn't mean I'm lacking in intelligence.

I'm surprised by your "blurred lines" comment. Not sure why but it wasn;t what I was expecting.

Not going out means they are home. They are home with their husbands . They are home with their teenage step sons. They are home for the dinner part with uncle Phil. They are home to go and help their elderly neighbours sons carry an old fridge to the van to take to the tip...

Yes. Statistically a woman is in more danger at home going about her daily business that she is out on the lash. But that is an uncomfortable truth that people don't want to face. Because it turns the rapists, the murderers, the men who would do you harm from the shadowy figure who is tailing a young short skirted high heeled drunken woman at night, into the nice normal men that you see and interact with day in, day out.

You can avoid being the short skirted high heeled drunken woman at night. You can't avoid being the woman who is going about her daily life at home.

hanging
I said pretty much the same thing a few pages back.

I also think if you look over the whole of MN you can see bit by bit in all honesty how we got here.

Drastard

So in summary across your posts your position is that only a tiny number of men rape and they are solely culpable? So there is nothing any of us can do to influence rapists so it doesn't matter if we teach children about active consent because its entirely the rapists responsibility? Even if they are taught that women's consent is secondary to their desires?

Or at least that is the impression coming across.

The focus on drink and drug driving having consequences for innocent victims is, I believe, what enabled change. This doesn't apply to rape.

Because the victims can be "guilty"? victims are victims - the distinction between innocence and guilt in victims is a large component of why crimes by men against women are taken less seriously than crimes against property.

The "tiny minority" is at odds with the number of women who describe sexual assault and coercion.

Rapists are not some weird group of "not us" they could be any of the men in our lives who move too far along the spectrum of entitlement which society as a whole gives them.

I agree with the OP. Offering advice doesn't seem like victim blaming to me, it seems like suggesting ways to mitigate the effects of some men being potential rapists. Of course the world would be much better if there weren't predatory men around but there are and it's good to look after our friends and reduce the risk on a night out. To me, that's all it's saying.

What advice do people give their teenage sons before a night out?

People should be free to make their own decisions.

I get that people should be able to walk wherever they like, in whatever state they like. Leave their houses & cars unlocked. Leave their wallets & phones on the table when they go to the loo. Leave a handbag hanging on the back of the chair when they're on the dance floor.

You should be able to do all of them but, due to a criminal minority, you take a risk when you do. As a grown up it's your decision to take that risk.

There are some streets in London I wouldn't drive through in a fucking tank, but if you're happy to use them as a shortcut on your way home pissed & alone, that's your decision.

Personally I'd rather take the long way round than be morally right & attacked/robbed/raped.

And yes, the only person who's fault it is is the perpetrator.

Small consolation though....

bloody careless going out with an unlocked vagina

Now you're just being stupid, Bertrand. And you know it.

These reductio ad absurdum arguments do posters no credit.

It's careless to go out and drink so much that you make reckless decisions and put yourself in situations where you are more likely to come to harm than when you are sober enough to think straight. Bad things are more likely to happen to you on your own than with friends.

And I'd say the same to my sons as well as my daughter. Men may not get raped, tho' sometimes do, by other men. But they get mugged, beaten up, fall off balconies and into canals or stagger into the road and get run over.

What advice do people give their teenage sons before a night out?

Well, me personally -

"Have a good night, don't get too ratarsed & I'd come home via River Road rather than the back alley if I were you"

So you don't talk to your sons about their own sexual behaviour?

drastard Mon 20-Aug-18 10:31:54
"@corythatwas

Now you're blaming a rapist's friends"

I am not. I am saying if the police are laying the responsibility for

"friends to look after each other on a night out to prevent someone becoming vulnerable" (which was an actual quote), then you have to wonder why there is no similar work to be done by groups of men who are out at night to make sure no member of their group hurts anybody vulnerable. Why does all the work always have to be done by women? Why would this be worse than laying the responsibility on the victim's friends?

So you don't talk to your sons about their own sexual behaviour?

I think no later what people say, I really don't think they do. It's certainly clear from multiple other threads that boys are raised in ways which very obviously put their feelings and their safety and their needs above those of girls. Girls are nothing nore than Inconveniences who need to step back and allow men and boys to trample all over them.

So you agree that actually there is no way to remove all the risk unless you don't go out at all. That there is nothing we can do. That whatever we do questions will be asked because of sone desperate need to try and convince 've ourselves that we could have prevented it so if we prevent it it won't happen to us.

There’s risk with everything in life... Nothing wrong in seeking to minimise it. It doesn’t follow that because most rapes occur in the home that you can’t also minimise risk when out. That’s a bit like saying “it’s wrong to be careful when a pedestrian because most accidents take place in the home.”

I absolutely think men should be taught about consent, and recognise rape isn’t just carried out by “bad men lurking in dark corners”, ans unless consent is clear and unambiguous, a man shouldn’t try to have sex. I also absolutely think that what a woman wears on a night out has no relevance whatsoever when ascertaining whether a rape took place. The blame for any rape that takes place is squarely with the rapist, irrespective of what the woman has done. I am no rape apologist!

I was out one Christmas and my friend got staggeringly, slurred speech drunk. To my disgust, there was a man who had clocked the state she was in and was hanging around, trying to 'dance' with her etc. I told him to fuck off, and got my friend home in a cab. She remembers none of this.

It wasn't work. It wasn't emotional labour. It was common bloody decency and if any kid of mine wasn't savvy or bothered enough to do the same for their friends I'd be horrified.

My parents told us to stick together and look out for each other since we were old enough to walk to school on our own.

It isn't victim blaming, not remotely. If anything has happened to my friend only one person would be to blame, and that would be the criminal.

I wonder what some people say to their kids. Yeah, go out late, take drinks off strangers, walk home through the fields because if anyone attacks you it's not your fault and statistically it would be Uncle Peter who harms you anyway so go mad'??

I bet they don't. I bet they issue the same advice that parents always have.

I think the Police have given sensible advice there. It is what friends should do. In my area the coroner gave the same advice to men as there are been a number of men die in the river after a night out drinking. People should be looking out for each other. It isn't saying that it is a woman's fault if they get raped.

But again it's not minimising it though is it.

You can't pretend claim changing your behaviour will minimise something when the greater risk of it happening is not through the behaviour at all.

With regards to pedestrians if most accidents occur bevause people speed, or drink drive, use phones, show off to mates, don't pay attention etc then provided the pedestrian doesn't physically jump in front of a car then really there's not anything they can do is there.

The posters just focus on this because this is something people can feel they can do. It's something to focus on.

In truth there is nothing anyone can do

Giles-so so e on this thread has said that they doNmt talk to their sons about their sexual behaviour becauSe there is no need to.

"In my area the coroner gave the same advice to men as there are been a number of men die in the river after a night out drinking."

Anything about their sexual behaviour and monitoring the sexual behaviour of their friends?

I bet they don't. I bet they issue the same advice that parents always have.

Advice which doesn't mention anything about ensuring that you have consent before you put your penis in a woman.

As soon as my son is old enough I will discuss consent with him. In addition to discussing risks associated with drink, drugs, jumping off roofs and getting pissed near water. I will try to cover as much as I can.

As soon as my son is old enough I will discuss consent with him. In addition to discussing risks associated with drink, drugs, jumping off roofs and getting pissed near water. I will try to cover as much as I can.

Yes, same here. I think if more parents discussed consent and respect for women with their sons then the world might be a safer place for women. I know that some posters disagree with me though and think that 'they will do it anyway'.

bertrand
Don't you find it ironic that when people do try and "minimise the risk" that they are wrong there too.

If parents choose to send their dd to a singke sex school for instance there's a poster who thinks that without the presence of girls boys won't learn how to behave around them and we should encourage appropriate behaviour between them.

When women use single sex changing rooms we should allow boys in because of the danger and posters admit to taking boys as old as 17 into them.

Even when we "reduce the risk" We are wrong.

There would appear to be a fear of removing girls feom the equation because then all there is left to blame is the men.