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AIBU?

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Original poster

I don't agree this is victim blaming

441 replies

TeeJay1970 · 19/08/2018 15:29

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?

OP posts:
YeTalkShiteHen · 19/08/2018 18:26

I’m now wondering if I’ve misunderstood too, if so I’m sorry.

Thanks iam

YeTalkShiteHen · 19/08/2018 18:26

Absolutely agree Silver.

I’m off to get mine bathed and into bed.

Hangingaroundtheportal · 19/08/2018 18:35

No not every man is a potential rapist, that’s fucking ludicrous.

I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by 'potential' here. Surely to women, every man is a potential rapist, otherwise every woman would know exactly who were the rapists and who weren't and could therefore avoid being raped by avoiding the rapists.

If we were able to do this, then the advice to women to avoid rape would just be 'identify the rapists and avoid them'. Women can't tell which men will rape them and which won't.

If a woman walks down a dark alley and passes a man and doesn't get raped, that's because she didn't encounter a rapist. If she walks down a dark alley passes a man and does get raped that's because she did encounter a rapist. She wouldn't know whether either of those men were rapists until after one of them had raped her, so to her they are both potentially rapists. Therefore the advice is not to walk down a dark alley. To avoid the potential rapists. Even though the first guy could be a really decent bloke who wouldn't hurt a fly.

That doesn't mean that every man has the 'potential' to rape, or is a danger.

Hangingaroundtheportal · 19/08/2018 18:37

Sorry I took so long to type that about the 'potential rapist' thing that I cross posted with SilverDoe who said it much more succinctly than I did!

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 19/08/2018 18:42

Haven't RTWT but the tweet seems to imply that rape is some kind of accident waiting to happen to anyone. It talks about the barman, her friends, her, but the rapist hasn't even been mentioned.

You wouldn't even know it was about rape if it weren't for the hashtag.

And I agree with PP that potential rapists would benefit from education as they often don't believe they're doing anything wrong.

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 19/08/2018 18:48

God that PANTS thing is depressing. Depressing in that this kind of stuff needs to be said.

BarnabyBungle · 19/08/2018 18:50

If my daughter decided to visit the most violent war-zone in Syria and parade around in a bikini, would I be victim-blaming if I urge her to go?... and send a few tweets telling ‘Men of Syria, stop killing!’ Instead??

glintandglide · 19/08/2018 18:53

What a weird thing to say Barnaby

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2018 18:57

OK. I am sure we all give our teen girls and boys the safety talk before they go out- the looking out for each other, keeping together talk? Yes? I live near the sea, so I add the bit going more than ankle deep in the dark or if you've had. Drink.

How many of us remind our boys that consent means enthusiastic consent? That drunk people can't consent? And crucially how many of us remind our boys to keep an eye on the behaviour of their friends and to step in if they think a friend is pushing it when it comes to consent?

SilverDoe · 19/08/2018 18:59

Hanging you said explained it way better than I did :)

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2018 18:59

Do we tell our boys to step in if they see a friend encouraging a girl to have one more drink?

Bwcause for a lot of men that's still just the "game"-with a shag as the prize.

OutPinked · 19/08/2018 19:00

It’s not victim blaming, it’s common sense. I would say the same to my son as I would my daughter, boys are equally at risk not just from rape but from assault.

You are undeniably safer in a pack than you would be drunk and alone walking the streets.

Gileswithachainsaw · 19/08/2018 19:03

You are undeniably safer in a pack than you would be drunk and alone walking the streets

How does the last person get home ?

Gileswithachainsaw · 19/08/2018 19:08

Do they take it in turns to be the last one left and take one for the team?

We just pretend it haven't just served to push the problem onto somone else?

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2018 19:11

"I would say the same to my son as I would my daughter, boys are equally at risk not just from rape but from assault."

What do you say to your boys about the way they behave to girls and how they "police" each orher's behaviour?

ShotsFired · 19/08/2018 19:24

Well the police have now apologised for victim blaming, so I guess they realised what it was....

"Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council have apologised after tweeting that people should "step in" to prevent women becoming vulnerable to sex assaults on a night out.

Social media users criticised the post, shared on Friday, for "victim-blaming".

Jo Wood, from Merseyside Rape and Sexual Abuse centre (RASA), said the tweet should have put the "focus of blame on the rapist".

Both the police force and council have apologised and deleted the posts."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-45232993

YeTalkShiteHen · 19/08/2018 19:25

I can’t answer from the perspective of having adult or even teenage sons, but I do talk to DS1 (puberty age) about what is and isn’t acceptable, how to treat women as he grows up, and also to choose his friends carefully and that if someone is disrespectful of women they’re not someone he should want to be around.

Because he’s autistic and because of that often has no filter, I’ve done courses on explaining body changes/urges/desires in a way that is appropriate to him but also helps him to understand.

I’d like to think that DP and I have shown him what healthy relationship with respect and trust looks like, but also want to be explicitly clear (because he struggles with what is and isn’t socially acceptable sometimes) because it’s important. When DS2 is old enough I’ll do the same.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 19/08/2018 19:30

I agree with pretty much everything silverdoe has said on the thread

The 'potential rapist ' bit is exactly as she explains it

My lovely husband who wouldnt hurt a fly escorts me out of the nightclub while im a bit tiddly. No problem

The same man whom you have never met? You have no idea if he is a rapist or not. The odds may well be in your favour...but you dont know for definite

Flooffloof · 19/08/2018 19:40

It certainly looks a lot like victim blaming.
In the same vein, this stuff isn't working. As a pp has pointed out, someone has to be the last lonely one on the way home. (Short straws?)
How's about instead of getting women to protect ourselves, we seem to be doing a spectacularly bad job of that, we get men to police themselves, however they deem best.
Sexual offences including rape has been increasing since 2005 >ONS
So the same old telling women what to do to be safe is clearly wrong.
Let's change that up, let's tell men what to do. Give it a decade, see if that works better.

Bit of a ramble sorry, but this stuff pisses me off. It's like giving the green light to men cos, here's all the excuses you need in one sweet advert. She was abandoned by friends, she was walking alone, she was drunk, she was wearing unsuitable shoes so she couldn't run away. Arrgh

BarnabyBungle · 19/08/2018 19:42

What a weird thing to say Barnaby

Yes, i admit it was weird, but exactly the same principle is used in “telling rapists not to rape” and that equating that advising women to take care of themselves is victim-blaming.

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2018 20:44

Nothing will happen while we still do the "Not my Nigel" thing. We have to accept that our lovely loved boys could end up having non consensual sex and we have to talk to them with that in mind. It really hurts to think it. But we have to.

MyDirtyLittleSecret · 19/08/2018 20:51

Well, I for one, am disappointed with the removal of the tweet and the apology because i don't believe the powers that be 'now agree it's victim blaming'.I believe they have caved to pressure from load, idealistic and unrealistic groups who appear to have a vested interest in women not being proactive about their own safety because they conflate 'shouldn't happen' with 'won't happen if we keep telling them don't.'

Gileswithachainsaw · 19/08/2018 20:57

Nothing will happen while we still do the "Not my Nigel" thing. We have to accept that our lovely loved boys could end up having non consensual sex and we have to talk to them with that in mind. It really hurts to think it. But we have to

I think you are completely right here.

It's the only reason I can think of that there's so much defence of these kind of posters and all these cases in the press where men have been accused of what many view as trivial things..

Because when you think about it, when rape becomes something that isn't commumitted by some dark shadowy figure waiting outside night clubs or in the underpass or the alley between MacDonalds and Greg's it stops being something committed by some rate messed up violent abusive man that none if us know, to being our husbands or friends sons etc people. It's something that when we all think about it, more of us than willing to admit have experienced things that go beyond an accident or misunderstanding and into territory we don't want to admit to.

When we advise women to not get drunk or walk home alome we are merely trying to remind ourselves that it won't happen to us because we don't do that.

That is not and will never be the case.

As hard as that is to admit.

Putyourdamnshoeson · 19/08/2018 21:14

This. This exactly. Rapists aren't monsters. They're people you see all the time and like and are related to and are 'nice'.

It's like when a man kills his wife or his family and people say 'but he was a nice man'. No. No he wasn't.

My rapist is a married dad of 2 and a secondary school teacher. I wasn't the only person he raped. He didnt hold a knife to my throat. He took me home when I was incoherent and wouldn't stop when I woke up with him on top of me and tried to push him off.

Gileswithachainsaw · 19/08/2018 21:18
Flowers