Should some women who have been raped take responsibility for the attack?

[AgentZigzag]

A survey carried out by the Haven service for rape victims, found that from the 1000 people asked, 71% of women thought the victim should take some responsibility for the attack if they'd got into bed with someone, compared to only 57% of men.

About 15 odd years ago, I spent the night with a bloke, but made it clear beforehand that I didn't want to have sex, and he was fine with this. But in the morning he said to me that I should be glad he's such a nice bloke because he could have raped me at any time needless to say I didn't have anything to do with him again.

It seems that women are less forgiving of the victim, why would that be? Shouldn't rape be unacceptable under any circumstances? Or are there some situations that fall into grey areas, which I suppose is why we have a judicial system to define those boundaries.

Mabs I'm so sorry.
Dittany - absolutely. Was he on the sex offenders register? I guess not. If he had he those girls would probably be alive today.

Is there any research showing that women who are wearing provocative clothing are likely to be raped. The only piece of research I have seen on this (10 years ago!) was a survey of convicted rapists. The majority said they chose pure looking women who were not dressed in provocative clothes - they targeted the modestly dressed.

Obviously that might just be that modestly dressed women are more likely to see their rapists jailed, and then surveyed.

I do think women are putting themselves at risk by presuming that rape will happen to some other woman - some drunk woman in an alley in a short skirt. We would be better off finding out what characteristics rapists are likely to have, so we can spot him, as those of us who are going to be raped probably already know the rapist.

Whole survey seems to ignore that rape is about power. It is not about sex or attraction.

yes, in one survey, rapists said they chose women with pony tails because they could grab them. hardly provocative.

Women who are 'modestly' dressed or 'decent' (young and virginal, or married SAHMs) maybe report assaults more as they are more likely to be believed and supported than 'sluts' who were drunk and wearing miniskirts...it doesn't mean they are raped more - or less - often.
I must admit that when I got a bloke climb into bed with me and try it on when I had gone to sleep at a party, I managed to shove him off forcefully enough that he stopped, but it took a bit of doing - I didn't make a complaint as I knew it was completely futile to do so given that the incident happened at aswingers party and the general outside perspective would have been that I deserved it and what on earth was I objecting to?

The key to changing attitudes is the criminal 'justice' system. Nothing would be more convincing for all concerned than a high reporting and conviction rate -- it would encourage rape victims to report and possibly force would-be rapists to think again about the nature of their actions.

I would like to see more reports publicised like this fairly scholarly one about undetected rapists, especially the finding that rapists are responsible for a lot more interpersonal violence besides rape than the general population. There is clearly an attitude of entitlement and a predisposition to violence in these men. Note, the men in the studies referred to seem to be college students -- not talking about the great unwashed here, but the sons of middle class America. Which should come as no surprise actually...

I wasn't drunk, I was wearing jeans and a denim jacket with a t-shirt underneath...hardly provocative!!

of course it wan't your fault theladyevenstar.

amber - I wait to be corrected but I think that's 8% of 6% which is 0.08 x 0.06 = 0.0048 so a rape has a 0.05% chance of resulting in a conviction.

As long as there is no interest in finding out what real rapists think about themselves and about women, there will never be any understanding of the nature of rape or why it is done. Focusing on the victims perpetuates the violence. I was astonished that Haven is actually an anti-rape group.

The paper I linked to found:
120 (self-reported) undetected rapists in a college community.
76 of these men identified themselves as repeat rapists (more than one victim or raped the same victim more than once).
These 76 men were responsible for a whopping 439 rapes between them, 5.8 each.
70 of this group of 120 admitted battery, physical or sexual abuse of a child and sexual assault short of rape (penetration?); a total of 1,225 different acts of interpersonal violence.

The paper suggests that acquaintance rape is actually a very carefully thought out M.O. It is done because a rapist calculates that the chance of being reported is low, and the chance of being convicted is also low.

Obviously this kind of research hasn't filtered through to the criminal justice system.

Women should be aware that if they have been raped, the man who raped them has probably done it to many other women before and after them. Rape is nothing to do with the victim herself, except in the fact that it is a terrible injury. It is extremely important to report rape. I know it is extremely hard, and again why should women have to do all the work, but this is the mother and father of all issues that affect women. Literally.

It is sad reading but I doubt the results and how the points were put to the public etc. I did some really silly things when I was young, drank too much, put myself in some dangerous positions. I wasn't overly wild at all and didn't lose my virginity till my 20's. Luckily, the guys were mostly quite nice guys and any lousy ones - I managed to get out of the situation before it turned too nasty but looking back I realise I was lucky. I think young girls/women can actually be much more naive and trusting than they are given credit for. Because it would never occur to them to be voilent or to rape, they honestly don't see many of the dangers. I honestly didn't think being alone with a guy or going to his room or place meant an automatic agreement to sex. I often said this up front (not looking for full sex) and usually was only interested in a kiss and some fondling (again maybe foolish and naive). I can't believe we are heading back to the 'she dresses provocatively, flirted etc' state of mind.

"There have been surveys of men which say something like one in three or even one in two (according to David Cameron) men would rape a woman if they thought they could get away with it. "

longtalljosie, that means that only 1 in every 200 rapists might be prosecuted successfully

sorry amber, it's even worse than that - it's one in every 2000.[maths geek emoticon]

What are the odds of being hit by a car? It sounds as though there's as much chance of the justice system working as there is of the rapist being knocked down on the way home

oh b*m - need new brain - thanks