Joanna Lumley says don't go out and get drunk...

[JustAHolyFool]

...to avoid being raped.

Daily Mail link, but it's all over twitter too.

link

Don't read the comments unless you fancy some RAAAAAGE.

H

Hope you are ok Joyful - see you later.

JoyfulPuddleJumper - hope you are ok.

I think the point she was trying to make is that women make themselves more vulnerable by being insensible after a night out. A woman who is sober is much less likely to make a bad decision or put herself in a dangerous situation than one who's faculties have been muddled by drink. I doubt she's saying 'It's your fault', but it's hardly rocket science to urge young women to take better care of themselves in order to protect themselves from the predators that are, unfortunately, out there.

If I hadn't been so drunk, I wouldn't have put myself in a position to be sexually abused by two men. They thought I was 'easy'. They had sex with me, I did not consent, I never reported it. I can't call it rape, rape it something different in my mind. Like so many others say; it has nothing to do with the victim...

It wont stop rapists raping, but it might stop women falling out of pubs with no clue who could 'take them home'.

Wooden peg, I am sorry that happened to you.

If you are too drunk to consent then you did not consent, those men did not have your consent and it would fall into the definition of rape.

I've never talked about it. Ever.

oh god.

Woodenpeg - I am so sorry for what happened to you. That was rape.

I think sometimes (often) people get consent the wrong way round. Women don't exist in a perpetual state of consent unless they say no. It is a man's responsibility to ensure that he has active consent before sex. Rape apologists try to scaremonger this by making jokes about getting it in writing. That is all a smokescreen. And it makes victims feel that they weren't raped. That somehow it is their fault.

It isn't hard.

If there's no consent it's rape.
If you're too drunk to give consent it's rape
If you're unconscious, it's rape.

TheJoyfulPuddlejumper Yes, I had missed that. The only consolation is that News of his comments quickly spread on social media, prompting anger, disgust and calls for Daming's candidature for the Supreme Court to be shot down and good job, too. I'm sorry your friend at the time was a rapist.

We need more of the don't be that guy adverts I think.

LRD oh, the anti-abortionist twat. Sorry, I suppose I meant the majority of people who aren't complete idiots.

LRD I didn't replace "rape" with "take advantage of" -- the latter phrase is in both Lumley's quote and my paraphrase of it. I replaced "rape" with "pick a fight" and I did that with the intention that the replacement would be observed and convey my feeling that men and women should be advised equally about crime and that women shouldn't be advised about it less than men just because one of the relevant crimes is rape. What I mean is, it is not the case that advice in relation to rape constitutes rape apology/victim blaming if precisely the same advice about, e.g. non-sexual violent assault (picking a fight") doesn't constitute victim-blaming. I know there is much victim blaming out there in relation specifically to the rape of women, and I abhor it of course; I just don't like the way that some constructive advice is misdescribed as rape apology. Apart from anything else it is terribly terribly offensive. I don't for a moment think that Lumley is a rape apologist and if I were her I would find these sorts of accusations crushing. There is a problem that young men are advised about crime way less frequently than young women, but it is a leap from that to saying that a particular piece of advice is rape apology.

Sorry to come back to something so sterile as picking over words when the convo has moved on but you have misread what I said and obviously have something in mind about my use of words that you find offensive.

I'm sorry, I did misread.

I'm afraid I still think my point stands.

I get that you don't, but I don't think this is 'constructive' advice.

You seem to think people pick up on rape myths for kicks, or out of some sense of pedantry, and I really don't think that is true at all.

onemore - no worries, I try to blank him out of my mind too. And his cronies.

As an aside, Marks and Spencer must be going absolutely bonkers as they had booked Lumley to talk about donating old clothes to charity whenever you buy new ones. Worthy cause totally ignored because Lumley is a rape apologist.

I'm very scared all of a sudden.

In my situation; it wouldn't of happened if I hadn't got so drunk - would it? I am so ashamed...

Oh god. I feel sick. But that's the truth isn't it? My actions have to be accountable no? I'm not to be excused am I?? Where these men always rapists?

Perhaps for another thread. Sorry.

Woodenpeg You are not to blame. You did nothing wrong.

Yes, you have to be accountable for your actions. If you get so drunk you lose your wallet, or fall into the canal, there is an element to which you are culpable in what happened.

That is not the same as rape. If you hadn't encountered rapists, you wouldn't have been raped.

Yes, it is true to say that you may not have put yourself in a particular situation if you weren't horribly drunk. But if you had been horribly drunk and put yourself in that situation and you hadn't been in the presence of rapists it would not have happened. It isn't like falling int he canal, someone else had to commit a crime towards you for it to happen.

These can be hard things to think about, but if you have been carrying guilt around for a long time it could be cathartic in the long run. Have you thought about getting some help?

Oh, love. No, of course you are not to blame. Please don't feel that.

You have no reason to be ashamed. Someone else decided to hurt you. That is never going to have been your fault.

Saying 'it might not have happened if I'd not been so drunk' is assuming that your behaviour changes according to circumstances, but other people's doesn't. That just doesn't make sense.

You do not know what would have happened had you not been drunk.

You do not know whether or not some rapist would have targeted you anyway. A huge number of perfectly sober women are raped every year in the UK. You just can't say whether or it would have made a difference.

You can know that the one thing that made this rape happen - for certain - was someone deciding to rape you. Therefore, they are to blame. Not you.

LRD, Amanda - how do I deal with that? It feels like I'm free falling...

The panic is huge.

How to Prevent Rape

If a woman is drunk, don?t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don?t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don?t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don?t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don?t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you?re still hung up on, don?t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don?t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don?t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don?t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don?t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don?t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don?t rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don?t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don?t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don?t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don?t rape her.
If your friend thinks it?s okay to rape someone, tell him it?s not, and that he?s not your friend.
If your ?friend? tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there?s an unconscious woman upstairs and it?s your turn, don?t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he?s a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it?s not okay to rape someone.
Don?t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don?t imply that she could have avoided it if she?d only done/not done x.
Don?t imply that it?s in any way her fault.
Don?t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he ?got some? with the drunk girl.

I don't know, wooden, and I wish I did.

Do you want to talk about it? Because lots of women on here are amazing at talking this stuff through, I've heard them do it.

Woodenpeg, my love, you're not accountable for their actions. They chose to rape.

One of my friends was raped, stone cold sober, at 6.00pm, coming home from lectures, my two close calls were on occasions when the rape apology industry would say I'd done the responsible and sensible thing in getting a man to walk me home (I was sober on both occasions) - in each case, it was the man in a position of trust, the man I thought I knew, not some stranger leaping out of a dark alley, who tried to coerce me into having sex when I didn't want to.

In our culture, going out for a few drinks is perfectly normal behaviour. Sometimes people have the rotten, bad luck to be raped after this perfectly normal behaviour. They also get raped while engaged in other perfectly normal behaviour - walking home from lectures, going out jogging, getting taxis. And even in cultures which severly or totally curtail women's freedom of movement and action (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan), women still get raped. Rape happens because some men think they're entitled to have sex without a woman's consent, because they don't think women are human beings (and by thinking this, as far as I'm concerned, the men concerned have opted out of the human race and should be locked up and the key thrown away). You had the misfortune to encounter two men who had this attitude - and it could have happened to you no matter what you were doing.

I hope finding the enormous courage to talk about it here is part of the healing process for you, and you can start to talk about it in real life, and get the reassurance you need to accept that it wasn't your fault.

We are not doing a good job with educating our young people about this. Because of pornography, lax parenting, social media, peer pressure more young men are going to become rapists.

These young men (and unfortunately I meet loads) think they're 'having sex' as they're both drunk. They do not understand that there is no consent. Obviously the young women I meet are incredibly traumatised by this.

Please note I am not making apologies for rape here nor excusing it. We really need to campaign here for more information to be given to teenagers.

I also don't have a problem with what Joanna Lumley said. I've seen too many teenage women who have been exploited while drunk at parties, where their parents don't know where they are, where some idiot parents have supplied alcohol to 13 year olds. Sure, it's only a small minority compared to the vast amount of rapes in marriages or in committed relationships but its the demographic I work with.

Wooden- I don't know I'm afraid. Your own thread on here might be a start if you feel ready to talk and don't want to talk to friends/family? there are lots of knowledgeable women who could also point you in the direction of real life support.