Being drink does not mean you deserve it.

[OhNoMyFanjo]

I have been reading some comments on tge DM site re an interview with a women who was raped. Her rapist has just been convicted. She has had many terrible things said about her in her community due to the rapist being a pillar of tge community.

I wanted to share this comment that someone has made as it sums up what should be obvious to everyone but unfortunately there are some people who don't get it.

You don't get raped because you are drunk - you vomit because you are drunk. You get raped because the rapist standing next to you made the decision to rape you and acted on it. The rapist is the only one accountable for going on to rape a person. End.

I can neither confirm not deny that there have ever been opportunistic rapes where the victim has been drunk Bumbley. It is fairly irrelevant as a point because in order for them to support your point the rapist would have needed to have picked the person because they were drunk. I'm sure across the spectrum of human behaviour there will have been both men and women who may have been raped because opportunistically because they were very drunk but i know that it is so very rare and unusual behaviour for a rapist (less gratifying) that it is irrelevant in informing rape prevention strategies and should apply equally to men and women. In situations where you have been drinking with your rapists they will have been manipulating your level of drunkenness whether you are aware of it or not I believe.

Blackout, we did establish that at the beginning. Do try to keep up dear.

But being near a rapist makes you vulnerable!

Who is wilfully misunderstanding you bumbley? You say that women should protect themselves by not getting drunk, and walking home alone?

Oh gobblers thank you for the link, steam was starting to come out of my ears...

I really think you should read my link bumbley (as well as gobblers')- it's a news story, from Time magazine. What are you afraid of?

I'm trying to keep up love, but i'm still pissing myself laughing at you thinking a rape myth proves your point

Seriously, I wouldn't be on this thread if it was upsetting me. I have dealt very well with all of these things. I don't have terrible feelings about them anymore. I think it is because I still have to deal with xp and one of the others occasionally if I bump into him and have had to make myself strong for the children. Don't feel you need to protect me

I will say this though...time was when this sort of thread would have gone very differently.

Thank you FWR board, thank you I believe You campaign...thank you MN for exploding these myths at every turn.

Cripes that site is fab. Here we go, from www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk/drinking/

The Myth

Alcohol is often involved in cases of rape, and is one of the most commonly cited factors in attempts to explain or excuse it.

However, although alcohol consumption is something in which anyone over 18 is free to indulge, in the public discourse around rape and sexual assault, its significance is something that plays out very differently for women than it does for men.

Alcohol is seen both as something that greatly increases the vulnerability of women not only to rape, but also, perversely, to accusations of blame for that rape. Although it is men who perpetrate rape, it is women who are urged to modify their behaviour by abstaining or drinking less, and thus accommodate the danger posed by predatory men. [

Bumbley, how many people have to point out the errors in your argument before you will even take note of it?

Telling women and girls not to get drunk because it makes them vulnerable to rape is NOT helpful. Many women are drunk when they are raped - and not just in your woefully narrow example of 'walking home alone drunk.'

Ask yourself what it says to rape victims - if they were drunk (and obviously you've told them not to get drunk or it makes them more vulnerable) then you are saying it is somehow partially their fault for being drunk in the first place.

Do you want them to feel that? Especially in view of the fact that the statistics actually don't support your claims.

Do you think that women should never drink or get drunk? Never walk anywhere on their own?

Nomnou, I am not lacking empathy. My point does not take away from the fact that they are victims, that they were attacked, that they were not to blame, that I believe them. If you are reading my posts in the way they are intended you would not interpret them that way.

I think this has just got to the stage of everyone jumping on the bandwagon to attack the one poster who has made a slightly different point about the influence that alcohol can have on your vulnerability. While I'm sure you're all enjoying your adrenaline rush, I'm getting a bit tired of trying to defend myself so I think I'm going to head off to bed.

To all those who have shared their experiences, I am very sorry for what you went though and please understand that I am in no way suggesting that it was ever your fault. Perhaps in the light of day you can reread and try to understand the point I was making without taking offense from it because, believe me, none was ever intended.

great post nutella

Blackout sweetie, you really need to work on your reading. You're not keeping up very well. Good night dearie.

Oh nutella! I am fanning myself in admiration!

Oh here with go...

Bumbley, you CAN'T reduce your risk, even by a fraction. Not a bit. It's not that sort of crime, it's not like locking your bike or hiding valuables out of sight or protecting your online banking details or having burglar alarms or padlocking your shed. People follow the rules by getting into a black cab and they are raped by the driver. People are asleep in their own bed, stone cold sober, and strangers break in and rape them. Children are raped by nursery workers.

Your refusal to acknowledge the harm caused through propagating the notion that 'steps can be taken to reduce the risk of certain sorts of rapes' is sickening. You can reduce the risk of being raped by one kind of rapist as you totter home drunk and increase it by getting, sober, into a taxi driven by someone like Worboys. Your own GP might sexually assault you. Or your dentist. Or someone working in a hospital while you are under sedation, or another patient. It is ridiculous and insulting to suggest that there is anything anyone can do to make themselves safer from rape. Other than by killing themselves or never being born in the first place.

Oh I'm keeping up fine, maybe you should work on your PA

Sweet dream

Yes Bumbley - as I tell my 4 year old - go to your room and think about what you've done.

Perhaps in the light of day, you can reread all of this bumbley and feel some shame, if you are capable of that.

If so many people are reading your posts and are of the same opinion about what you have written then surely any normal person would realise that perhaps the problem lies with them.

I very much doubt that revisiting the worst experiences of some of our lives is an enjoyable adrenalin rush. Your faux apology is rejected as is your insincere attempt at empathy. You are here to shit stir and should be ashamed of yourself if you have any scrap of decency or humanity.

bumbleymummy

Two ways of looking at it, either everyone is jumping on a bandwagon to attack you, coz y'know, that's how we get our kicks round here of a Friday night.

Or maybe, just fucking maybe,

It's because you are talking shit and totally refusing to see it.

Either way I refer you to and I am going to bed.

Bumbley - I don't think you are trying to say you blame me. I think the things you say are internalised by rapists and provide justification for their behaviour. They are also the reasons why women don't report rapes. They are damaging on a societal level rather than a personal one.

Its the fact that she seems to think that if she sticks to the 'rules' then it will never happen to her. That she is somehow 'safe' but it just doesn't work like that and for some reason its not sinking in.

I hope it was worth it bumbley.

Blackout - dunno what she thinks really. I think she just doesn't get that rape is about the power and to the rapist the process of engineering the vulnerability they need to do it is part of that power-seeking.