Women 'blamed' for being raped

[monkeytrousers]

here

We really need to reeducate ourselves about this I think. Only a few days ago a poster on another thread was trying to say that acquaintance rape wasn't as bad as stranger rape. It's this kind of ignorance we really need to challenge.

Do people ask mugging victims 'have you ever given money away in the past'?

If it wasn't so f*cking dangerous this idea would be monty pythonesque

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oh justthinking so sorry. i'm sure there are good parts of the police force like you say, i just think there may be a general institutional problem. Also i don't blame jordan and titmuss. If it wasn't them it would be someone else. they're just making money from a demand. The demand and the people who set it up are the problem.

lots of support to you justthinking.

FFS NO means NO regardles of wether it is a stranger, a friend/acquaintance or your Husband/Partner, wether you are drunk or sober and regardless of what you are wearing. There are a lot of false allegations bought into the media which means that it is perpetuating this false picture that women either lie about the event or ask for it. The media are as much to blame as the legal system for these very daft views.

I have dealings with police officers in the course of my work, including rape cases, and actually I have always been impressed by the sensitivity and professionalism they've shown.

In a couple of cases that I was involved with the police had evidence (can't say too much more) that rape had taken place despite the fact that the women concerned had not made a complaint, and the police were prosecuting the cases with great determination. And in two of those cases the woman was clearly completely and unconsciously blind drunk. At no point was there any suggestion that the officers considered that a mitigating circumstance.

I'm horrified too on your behalf, justthinking. Really.

Did anyone here in the news yesterday of the rape case being dismissed as the woman in question was drunk.

I think there is an issue about women keeping themselves safe but there's also an issue on young women and drinking as a rite of passage for the youth of both sexes. We live in a capitalist society and growth in the alcohol industry means opening up the market to more women (and to even younger ones, though they'd never admit it). This is just an insane contradiction if the judiciary think women are slatterns for having more than a wine and soda when they go out. Young women are encouraged to drink more, as men are.

Are we going to see cases when men are assaulted when drunk thrown out in the same way? I doubt it.

There was an excellent article in the INdependent on Tuesday. Pointed out that if a young man had a few beers and walked home and got savagely beaten, would ANYONE think it was his own fault and that his attacker shouldn't be punished?
Or if a man was unconscious because of drink, it would be OK for another man to anally rape him?
Also the appalling way women's behaviour is judged. All the newspaper coverage of the extension of drinking hours. The police and public are terrified of increased violent crime as a result of it. And who would be responsible for that - overwhelmingly, young men. What images are used to convey the problems of longer drinking hours? Young women tottering down the street. These women are FAR more likely to become victims of crime than perpetrators.

monkeytrousers agree with a lot of what you say but that 'genes' nonsense is just that. the whole theory of a genetic male predisposition to control women's fertility is utter bollocks imo. you only have to look at some of the very successful examples of matriarchal societies (for eg some of the pacific islands until westernised) to see that it isn't genetic but entirely cultural. i find the argument that all this crap about controlling fertility went into overdrive with the advent of the industrial revolution and capitalism more compelling but even that is flawed. but calling it genetic you're agreeing with those that say that men can't help it ffs.

Rapists know that if a woman has had a drink her evidence is considered worthless, and they use that. Ian Huntley would dance with a girl at a nightclub, pretend to be a perfect gentleman, offer to walk her home to 'protect' her, and then rape her. Women were brave enuoght to complain to the police but he was never ever convicted. He may never even have been prosecuted. He certainly was never flagged up as a sex offendor, which would have stopped him getting his job at the school. In this case the failure of the system to see rapists punished also led to the killing of two little girls.

I can't imagine them blaming a straight man for being beaten up or raped if he was drunk, but I wonder if a gay man would be treated as culpable if he were raped in similar circumstances to this woman? Have there been any cases, does anyone know?

Yeah, well gay men are practically women when it comes to the justice system.
When straight men beat women to death the defence is ALWAYS - 'she was having an affair and insultingly taunted me about my sexual prowess' - result 'Oh you poor bloke! Go home and have a cup of tea!'

When straight men beat gay men to death the defence is ALWAYS: 'He tried to come on to me and so insulted me sexually' - result: 'Oh you poor bloke! Go home and have a cup of tea!'

I see what you're saying Soph, but I think you're misunderstanding me too. I'm not excusing men for raping women by saying it's genetic. I'm not even saying it is solely genetic, of course culture and environments have influence on us.

I won't go on about it cause it's too easy for people to make a basic category error in debates like this. Suffice to say, to try and understand the biological causes or contributions to the phenomena of rape isn't to dismiss the moral and cultural responsibilities we all have as moral human beings, male or female. It is too complicated to get into here though.

If I may make a crass analogy, we all have a biological need to eat, but we don't all steal food to sate those 'natural' appetites.