To think some online dating SA victims need to take more responsibility for their choices?

[Iatethelastbiscuit]

Last night I watched a bbc documentary about the high number of sexual assaults that occur on dates from app dating sites like Tinder. It’s horrific obviously and I’m not victim blaming here but some of these young women will chat to a guy for a few days then invite him over to their house or go to his house for a date. In the doc there was a lot of talk about how apps can keep women safe (annoyingly they kept saying “keep people safe” when we all know it’s women who are at risk), suggesting the apps do stuff like age verification and run background checks on every member. Never once was it mentioned that it might be a good idea if women took a bit of responsibility for their own safety. Eg. Some basic safety tips like meet in a public place, don’t invite a total stranger over to your house etc. The fact that all the women who were sexually assaulted in this doc had done this was quietly ignored. Are people so paranoid of looking like they’re victim-blaming these days that they’re ignoring the most basic safety rules?! No it’s not a woman’s fault if she’s assaulted but young women need to be learning how to stay safe. There will always be predators out there, that’s not going to magically change if an app brings in background checks (which won’t make a difference for most anyway). Women need to learn how to stay safe and the bbc needs to not be so woke that they’re too afraid to give women safety tips for fear of looking like they’re victim blaming!!

@Iatethelastbiscuit so many of us have tried to explain the difference between advising people about how to do their risk analysis without shifting the blame for criminal or abusive behaviour onto a victim.

You say "I’d much rather teach my daughter not to invite strangers round to her house than be too afraid to mention it for fear of victim blaming, then she gets assaulted. But it’s ok cos at least I didn’t “victim blame”!"

So, if your daughter had a few too many drinks out with friends one night and her risk analysis and common sense was compromised and she invited the funny, flirty, sexy chap back to hers that she'd been chatting to all evening in the bar - would you then think that she had somehow failed because he raped or sexually assaulted her in her own home? Or what if she walked home one night on her perfectly normal route and was attacked? Did she fail in her risk analysis?

The programme you watched was about criminals. Men who rape, abuse and assault women for no reason other than that they can. Surely you can see that if the programme started suggesting that the women who had crimes committed against them, should have made better judgements, then they would be holding them in some way responsible?

Life has risks and we assess them all the time. At 5.30 there would be more people about so for me I'd assess if that balances out the darkness and narrowness of the path. It has nothing to do with not prosecuting criminals.

I lock my doors as I don't want my house to be burgled but I know a determined burglar can still get in but I'm not going to make it easier for him and either way if he's caught he should be prosecuted.

Me taking the narrow dark path means I turn left 20 yards from my house instead of turning right and being on a well lit road with traffic passing. For me the right turn is worth it, I'm not going to take the more dangerous left turn to make a point. I'm in my 70s and my bones break more easily than they used to so just pushing me over can cause serious damage. If you are young, strong, fit your risk assessment might be different.

I made it quite clear in my post above that I wouldn't judge them.

As I said, ultimately the blame lies with the perpetrator, always. But obviously it's important to teach your children to keep themselves safe from violence (both physical and sexual) and unsafe situations. They won't always (be able to) do so, but hopefully it might help reduce risk somewhat.

@MargoLivebetter Yes! No one should invite a man back to their flat they have just met!!! It’s a clear NO! Plus I hope my DDs don’t take risky actions if they have had a drink! It’s utterly stupid and unnecessary! Take their phone no and WhatsApp when appropriate. We need to educate women!

Never said I was blaming her. Jesus. Did you read the post?! I would never blame a woman for being raped, no matter the circumstances. It is never her fault. In hindsight the title of my thread is misleading, but I think I say what I mean in the post - I was surprised at the amount of young women who’d invited a man they’d met on a dating app over to their house. It made me think that maybe these young women are not being taught some basic rules to stay safe because woke society these days is so paranoid about looking like they’re victim-blaming that they refuse to say things like ‘don’t invite strangers to your house’ to women, in case it looks like they’re putting the blame on her. Although other posters make a good point by saying that we all know this and don’t need to be told. Maybe it’s assumed all women know this…

What if they don’t do that for whatever reason? People make bad choices sometimes. People get shitfaced. Will you tell them that it was partly their fault?

You risk them feeling they couldn’t tell you if something did happen. And trying to navigate it alone is horrible, knowing that you would be partly blamed.

I am educated and have plenty of common sense. Yet it happened to me.

There are two types of victim, according to some. Those who did everything they could to avoid it and those who were just asking for trouble.

The judgement of other women is horrible

Agreed. As the days get shorter, I start changing my behaviour to match the risk. In summer I will walk the dog all over the place and well into the evening. I am now going out earlier and limiting my routes to well lit, built up places. Obviously things still happen in such places but I am trying to mitigate risk. So I like it? No, I’d much rather feel I had freedom to do what I want, and I see how my husband doesn’t give a dog walk in the dark a second thought, but I’m not prepared to take the risk as some sort of moral stance against millennia of violence against women.

I was told about strange men etc. Then it happened. I couldn’t tell anyone because I felt it was my fault and didn’t want anyone judging me.

My parents don’t know to this day what happened.

Fantastic post @dreamingofgoodhair

And every time someone says ‘of course it’s the man’s fault’ there is always a ‘but she shouldn’t gone back to his house’ or whatever.

At least have the bollocks to admit that you think it’s our fault for not being careful enough instead of claiming you don’t victim blame. At least if people admitted they think I was stupid and therefore asking for it, it would be honest.

I don't think anyone, certainly not everyone, would blame you. If you were my daughter I'd blame him, I'd wish you hadn't gone with him but then you probably wish that too.

I used to work in police admin, back in the day we had a series of very serious sexual assaults against prostitutes, I worked in the vice area. Those assaults were investigated like any other, the men were caught and went to prison. I heard one young officer make a flippant remark and the DCI went mad and shouted at him in front of everyone. No judgements were made about what those women were wearing, what they were doing getting into strange men's cars. I hope any victim would be treated with the respect those women were. A year or so later a prostitute was murdered. Again the perpetrator was caught and went to prison. Remembering the two little children talking about mummy and where she was haunts me now, I could cry remembering it. The murderer was the guilty one but I do wish that mummy had been safe and her little ones didn't have to go into care. They will be adults now, I still think of them and hope they did ok.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner you are of course free to do your own risk analysis as to what may or may not be "stupid" and "unneccessary" behaviour. Does that include all contact sports, ski-ing, using knives in the kitchen, using a step-ladder, ever getting in a car? My rather facetious point here being where do you draw the line?

I have had experiences of sexual abuse on a tube train during the day - where does that fall in your risk analysis. Was my journey stupid and unnecessary because sexual assault took place? No, of course not. The sexual assault took place because of a criminal and all the responsibility is on them.

And that's very sad for you, but that's your situation (also you might find that most people - of course - wouldn't blame you, if you did tell people. Some might, as I experienced, but most wouldn't dream of it).

I think perhaps you might be letting your personal experiences blind you to the fact that it is possible to teach people about safety and risk reduction, while also making it clear that it's not their fault if they are ever hurt by someone else - whether that's to do with muggings, drink spiking, rape, or being scammed.

Exactly this.

It’s one thing explaining how to be sensible, it’s another thing to imply that if you aren’t sensible then you are contributing to it.

I can almost guarantee that anyone who has been told not to do whatever so that they can stay safe will not admit to an incident which happened, for example, when they were shitfaced.

There is a wider question of why we continue teaching women "how to be safe" instead of teaching men not to rape.

This 100%

Girls are taught, both explicitly & implicitly, about safety from a very early age.

Are boys EVER taught - absolutely explicitly - about consent, and how not to rape? I don't think so ...

So if the default is not working why not teach women to be safe?

we lock doors and store away valuables as people steal, your insurance always asks if the car door was locked, the keys were out of sight etc, so is personal safety not more important?

I find some women insane when it comes to this issue, I will take my safety as my responsibility before I start relying on a man to know not to attack me.

As with all things there are times when you do all the right things but harm will come your way, but better than throwing caution to the wind and relying on educating men.

why go to a strangers house after a few chats online, that’s insanity. I read about a woman who invited a stranger she met on a night out to hers, he raped her and her daughter, I place full blame on the woman.

We live in a real world as women we do need to take responsibility for our own safety.

I was raped 30 years ago by a man I vaguely knew who climbed through my bedroom window in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.

He was 100% responsible for that.

I was raped 28 years ago by a friend's brother when I dropped by, discovered she was out and he invited me in to wait for her.

He was 100% responsible for that.

I stopped the night at a male friend's house. He didn't rape me.

He was 100% responsible for that.

In fact, I've visited many male friends/stayed overnight/been on countless dates and not been raped or sexually assualted by those men.

They were 100% responsible for that.

If a woman goes to a man's house on a first date, or whatever, and he rapes/sexually assaults her, he is 100% responsible for committing that rape/sexual assault.

However, as we know that some men do rape and sexually assault; women (rightly) claim to not know which men it is and so until its no men, it's potentially any man/all men, it's sensible for women to take responsibility for making decisions that will minimise the risk to themselves.

It's not guaranteed. I knew my friend's brother for years and trusted him, but if the man you have met is a stranger from a dating app and you know nothing about him, then placing your safety in his hands and just 🤞🏻 and trusting that he's one of the ones who won't rape you if you go back to his house, is a risk.

No woman is responsible for a man's behaviour. No woman is responsible for getting raped. (Big shout out to my mum here that women can't 'get themselves raped'.) But we do have a responsibility to take reasonable precautions to keep ourselves safe in all manner of situations.

You're only going to be raped if you encounter a rapist but it makes sense to me that if I don't know whether someone is a rapist or not, I won't put myself in a situation that would make it easy for them to do so.

Thats not letting the men off or removing their accountability but making a decision for myself.

My personal feeling is that we can't accept and repeat on one hand that some/many men are dangerous and then also put the sole responsibility for our safety into the hands of men on the basis that they shouldn't be doing those things in the first place when we know that they do.

@ThisOliveKoala "I read about a woman who invited a stranger she met on a night out to hers, he raped her and her daughter, I place full blame on the woman."

You blame a woman for a man raping her and her daughter. You blame the victim, not the criminal. You would send the woman to prison for her and her daughter's rape and let the criminal walk free to rape other women? I cannot fathom how any woman can find it in herself to blame another woman for being raped. I just cannot. How can you excuse crime this way?

OP I get your point but as always with these conversations people seem to be obtuse on purpose.

Rather be responsible for your own personal safety than rely on a strange man to do the right thing.

Nobody is saying we shouldn’t try to mitigate risk. What we are saying is that when the worst happens, we shouldn’t expect or want victims to take responsibility for it. Or, as the title of this horrible thread states, more responsibility.

Im not quite sure why that’s difficult to understand.

Honestly I thought these vile “she asked for it” attitudes had disappeared. It seems they are still alive and well, just using different words.

Yes I blame the woman who decides to bring a stranger into a her home at night when she has a young child at home, it is diabolical in my book.

maybe it’s normal behaviour where you are from, to me it’s insane.

I would never meet a strange man on a night out and bring him out, now especially with children. I cannot fathom in what world that’s okay, but again you seem to think it is, maybe where you hail from it is. I pray that other women don’t think this is normal behaviour.

But OP, most rapes and sexual assaults aren't caused by women inviting strangers to their homes. 90% of perpetrators of sexual violence are known to their victims prior to the assault. 48% of perpetrators are their victim's intimate partner.

Predators find a way. If they have to have three dates in cafes and restaurants before they get their victims back to their houses, they'll do that. If they have to pretend to be loving, decent, trustworthy men first, they'll do that too. We know this because it's what they already do.

I also want to challenge your assertion that rape is "already an abhorrent crime that is not in any way socially acceptable, even among most men.". That's just not true, is it? In this study, 32% of the men who responded said they would force a woman to have sex with them: Study suggests some men don't know meaning of 'rape' | PBS News. In this one, over 11% of male students surveyed admitted to having committed one or more sexual assaults in the previous two years: Research reveals rapes and assaults admitted to by male UK students | Rape and sexual assault | The Guardian. 798,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year in England and Wales, 86% of women have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives. Rape culture, sexual assault and rape is widespread, the pool of perpetrators is huge. And the pool of men who will laugh uncomfortably when their friend makes a rape joke instead of challenging him on it, who will justify watching the films of Roman Polanski or Woody Allen because they're "geniuses", who will wonder to themselves (even if they don't say it) what a woman was wearing after she is raped, or who will say "what did she expect" when a woman meets a man from tinder in his home and is raped, is even larger.

Perhaps you need to read the very horrible title of your own thread here OP. There is no misinterpreting that. You think that not only do victims of SA need to take responsibility. They need to take more responsibility.

This is so well said!

That is what OP is saying, mitigate risk. The worst can and does happen, you can be safe at home and be raped by your uncle or father, I mean who can mitigate against that.

what OP is saying is about women mitigating risk, not putting yourself in risky situations and expecting the would be rapist/robber/murderer to do the right thing.

most crimes are opportunistic, so why make yourself prey when we have already ascertained some of these men are mad. You can’t eliminate all risk, but we can make sensible decisions about our safety. It is sad we have to, but this is the world we live in.