The Myths About Women Who "Cry Rape"

[DontCallMePeanut]

From The Telegraph

Sorry, my head's not in the right place to provide any critique of this at the moment, but thought this would interest the members of the feminist section. Will attempt to comment when I have a clearer head.

don't rape victims have some responsibility to protect future potential victims?

no

or do they?

Mary Sue, it may mean a rapist goes free. Or it may make no difference, particularly if she isn't the 'perfect victim' who's likely to have her story believed.

No, I don't believe victims bear responsibility. We know where the responsibility lies. It would be noble and ideal but I don't believe they should be obliged to sacrifice their MH and recovery for others' benefit.

Lenin, isn't that a bit progressive? I mean... We're suggesting men might be able to control their bodies... I don't buy that...

Harrumph. You starry eyed kid Lenin. Life'll learn ya

if I didn't know better I might think 'here is an opportunity to help the authorities put a Bad Man in prison and protect the public' but I do know better - which is, it is a far worse thing to go through (even if you are lucky and they enter a guilty plea so avoiding worst horrors of trial) than just keeping it mostly to yourself AND they will be out within a year or so and will do it to someone else anyway

and of course mostly they won't plead guilty, mostly they won't have to enter a plea at all because you could go through the whole my-minge-is-a-crime-scene thing and making statement (think that is the worst bit) and it not even get to court. That must be awful.

Haven't you heard? Once a woman wears any item of clothing at all, men come over all animal like and can't control themselves.

MI, that must be very damaging for someone to go through. :(

I assume, Sinical, you've heard of the teenager who commit suicide after she took her rapist(s) to court? I guess that's a good example of how traumatising the whole system is.

The circular nature of this argument is this, MarySue:

It has been repeatedly demonstrated on this thread with the use of ample evidence that ?rape myths? exist. We have even had an appearance by Moonferret as a first hand example of someone who believes and peddles them. You response has been to deny this ?while at the same time coming out with rape myths (and I paraphrase ?a victim can be partially responsible for suffering a crime? on Fri 08-Jul-11 20:10:52 or ?rape accusations often come down to he says she says? on Thu 07-Jul-11 17:05:26). This is why I said the argument was going round in circles.

That you don?t believe rape myths exists is the evidence that you don?t share the basic starting point of feminism, which does. Simple really.

Deleted a long post by accident. (yay!). So I'll say I don't agree with your summary of my position, posts or the thread Catitainahatita, but maybe it is becoming a circular trifle trifle circular. The important thing is not that I 'don't believe rape myths exists' but that many 'rape myths' come from the supposed pro-victim's side - and can be seen as counter-productive and dangerous. So be careful and think on a bit.

My last example - People excuse men/rapists/same thing eh because 'they can't help themselves'. People just do not excuse rape on that basis. But if that's a rape myth you think you need to keep busting, I clearly can't stop anyone from wasting their time.

It's all right, I'm not back at uni til September... I'm not wasting any time. But thank you for being so considerate!

I have NO idea...

I also think we've been accused of scare mongering...

they don't say 'they can't help themselves' full stop. but it's funny how there is so often circumstances in this particular case which make it unreasonable for this particular man on this particular occasion to stop.

Surely you've heard :
Well, she was all over him all night
She threw herself at him - she was well up for it
She started something she couldn't finish
Well what did she expect when she let him walk her home/buy her dinner/got into bed with him
What did she think he was after
Once you go so far, you have to go all the way. You can't just get a guy all worked up and then just deny him.

Get me? There's often a very good reason why this guy, here and now, couldn't possibly be expected to 'help himself'

SinicalSal, yes I see what you mean. But I can imagine people saying those things and then being much more likely to add 'but rape is rape and there's no excuse' rather than' so in my opinion she deserved to get raped' or 'so I don't think he could help himself really. Totally not responsible for raping her.'

You can try and stop people from saying those type of things... anyone who is waiting for my permission on how to spend their time, that's fine, ask those people if they think that excuses rape and see what they say, and go from there.

I can imagine lots of people saying these things about a certain person they hate or are jealous of, or could never get, but wouldn't say it if it was their friend or relative of course - so not always about rape myths, sometimes it depends who the victim is, and some people couldn't give a monkeys about saying the right thing if they hate the subject.

Soooo... Only people who hate the victim blame the victim? Really?

No I think the people who say those things are more likely to finish with 'It's sex gone wrong it happens. It wasn't proper rape'

No that's not what I said DCMP... but that might explain some. The same people wouldn't say those things if their friend had got raped would they?

Goodness me Mary Sue. Is that the best you've got?

"My last example - People excuse men/rapists/same thing eh because 'they can't help themselves'. People just do not excuse rape on that basis."

1. Accusing us of the old chesnut: that we are saying all men are rapists. It has been pretty clear from this thread that no one thinks that.

1. Arguing against something that you have already admitted to be true: viz

You have already agreed that the statistics published by Amnesty show that:

"30% of respondents thought that being drunk makes a woman in some way responsible for being raped, with 4% stating this makes them ?totally? responsible, while over a quarter (26%) viewed this as making the woman ?partially? responsible."

If the 4% of people think that being drunk makes a women responsible for being raped; who do you think they are saying is not responsible? Why is the man not responsable for something he did? The only explanation appears to be that he couldn't control himself.

If the 26% of people who think it makes her partially responsible; who do you think they are saying is also "partially responsible"? Again, why is the man not fully responsable for something he did? The only explanation appears to be that he couldn't control himself.

SinicalSal, lets say we are talking about a 'date rape' then. All of that happened, she was keen and flirty, she got drunk, she went back to his, they had a kiss, then she said she had to go and before she could call a cab, he raped her. How many people presented with that situation would say 'that's not rape, she gave him all the signals, you can't blame him really it's not proper rape, it's sex gone wrong?'

You think lots? I think very very few.

I know lots MarySue.
And 'date rape' is rape.

You'd be suprised, MarySue...

"Well, why would she go back if she weren't going to put out"... for example...