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!!

Thank you @Anarchy99 you have managed to say that so much more clearly and succinctly.

No, I don't think that's the logical extension at all.

Taking precautions doesn’t mean we can control what other people choose to do. We take precautions, but that doesn't mean we're responsible for preventing men from choosing to rape. Things happen despite our plans and care. If someone is raped, it is never their fault, it doesn't matter what they did or didn't do to try to avoid it. The fault lies fully with the rapist who chose to rape them.

Read Fix the System Not the Women by Laura Bates please.

Yes ... and the same advise would apply to them too?

ie - don't put yourself in risky situations because there are bad people out there...

Of course things can happen despite caution. But that isn’t what people are saying.

It feels like the victims are split into two - those poor souls who, despite taking care, are raped. Of course they deserve maximum empathy.

Then there are those silly girls/women who don’t bother to be careful and are raped - they seem to deserve a bit of empathy, tempered with people thinking ‘well you shouldn’t have been on your own with him’.

Deny all you like but I have experienced it myself. I clearly wasn’t careful enough when i was 15 so I am partially to blame.

The title of the thread is "To think some online dating SA victims need to take more responsibility for their choices?" and the OP goes on to say "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."

Surely that is saying that the women were sexually assaulted because they didn't take sufficient care to anticipate and manage the behaviour of their attacker.

Exactly that. I didn’t tell a living soul what happened to me for years because i blamed myself. Turns out I was right not to because here we have a forum of women who seem to think I shouldn’t have been in that position.

I'm sorry for what happened to you @Anarchy99 . I genuinely believe that as long as we continue to say that women are in any way responsible for being attacked or assaulted, we are not fully laying the accountability at the door of the perpetrator of the crime.

Thank you 🙏

I completely agree.

But just because you think you know a man someone well, it doesn't mean that he they won't rape you. A staggeringly high proportion of rapes are commited by people known to the victim.

But why would you want a stranger to know where you live straightaway. Not even to do with SA but in general?

I don't. You are missing the point of my comment.

I'm not going to take any lectures on obtuseness from the guy who thinks raping a woman is like having a pedestrian run into your bonnet on the M25. Get off it.

What you don't understand, and clearly never will with all your false equivalences, is that while it's sensible to take certain precautions, it will still never be your responsibility if someone preys on your vulnerability. You have a right to operate a car within road use rules, you never have a right to attack a woman, or steal from a house (that seems to be an easier concept for you) and if someone made it easy, you still don't have that right and they don't share responsibility for your evil. In fact, if someone did leave their door unlocked and got burgled, people would say they'd been foolish but they absolutely wouldn't be diluting the blame the way you and others are doing now. It wouldn't put a jury off convicting. It's only when women get attacked that you start humming and ha-ing about it not being entirely on the perpetrator. And people literally calling for victims to "take responsibility" while claiming they're not victim blaming.

And then you think you're the voice of reason. I would laugh if it weren't so sinister.

What guy are you referring to here?

And you complain about obtuseness.

Indeed.
However.... I'm not a guy.

I don't believe you, but whether you are or not (you'll certainly be a friend to men who like to think they raped a woman like she suddenly ran into their dick), it's useful to be able to cling on to that so you can ignore everything else.

Sorry but I think you’re being extremely unreasonable. Your argument is basically some women are “asking for it”, victim blaming at its finest. You’re part of the problem.

PMSL.
I really dont give a flying fuck what you think... you're coming across as deranged.

And now the rage, and the accusations of insanity because a woman is arguing with you. Hmm..

Better deranged than someone who likens being raped to charging into legal traffic. I guess you don't know how that comes across.

Are you for real?
You have been aggressive to me all the way through this thread and it appears that's because you think (incorrectly) that I'm a bloke...

I'm being lectured on aggression now, from someone who thinks rape is like colliding with someone who runs into your bonnet.

It's easier to deflect like this than address that point, I guess.

I have lectured nobody - merely given my opinion that we all have to take personal responsibility for situations we put ourselves in.

At no point have I ever blamed anyone for being raped. There's literally no excuse for it, but there are actions we can take which make it less likely to happen.

Its easier to be aggressive and chuck accusations around rather than actually listen to what someone is saying, I guess.

We're rapidly approaching that with the Islamification of society with infant girls as young as 5 or 7 being required to wear a hijab in the UK. Perhaps the Muslim religion is already doing us a favour by recognising that most men can't control themselves and taking as many precautions as possible by covering women and limiting their movements.

It's certainly easier to me-rail, complain and try to deflect the discussion entirely, as you know. To be fair, if I'd said that rape was like colliding with a pedestrian who ran into the road and wasn't capable of seeing why that's wrong (or didn't want to admit I'd been wrong, more likely), I might try it as well. After a statement like that (and to be fair, it's not just you), the only way is up.