College Women: Stop Getting Drunk

[FreedomOfTheTess]

I'm afraid to say, this is the exact title of an article on Slate.

College Women: Stop Getting Drunk

Emily Yoffe basically says, in her article, that college women who get drunk become sitting ducks to these sexual predators. (While the article is focusing on the issue of young women in college (university), I take the view an attitude such as Yoffe's can be applied to all women).

She does say, "Lets be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenceless, terrible things can be done to them."

So what Yoffe is really trying to say there is...

I'm not a rape apologist, I do think rapists are bad, but if you stupid drunken girls didn't make it so easy for them do it, well you may not have been raped in the first place*.

• Because of course, sober women don't get raped.

Oh yes, you're not rape apologist Yoffe, not at all.

I'm off to find a brick wall to bang my head against.

I can't help thinking of the police advice to lock your house when you go out so you don't get broken into.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't need locks and keys and extra security. We'd be able to leave our bikes on our doorsteps and nip down the road for a few minutes for a chat with a neighbour, not worrying that we've left the front door open. But the world isn't like that. If I were to go out and leave the front door unlocked, or a window open, it would be much easier to get burgled and have my stuff stolen and/or damaged. This doesn't mean I'm ever to blame for the burglary. People who break in and steal stuff are entirely to blame for the act, and their actions are criminal, whereas if I left my front door open I would be merely careless. What's more, I could still get burgled if my house was like Fort Knox, and the burglar was sufficiently determined and well-equipped.

The 'don't get drunk' advice to women follows the same logic. Keeping a sober head may not stop you being raped, but if you get blind drunk you lose your boundaries and sense of danger, and might make yourself more vulnerable to the dangerous minority of sexual predators. That sounds fairly reasonable to me, in a very non-ideal world. Not the same thing at all as deserving to be raped, which nobody does, ever.

Yes, of course these precaution are needed. I always remember to lock up my vagina whenever I leave the house. Of course, the times I was blooming well raped was in my own bed by my own boyfriend. Darn it.

The 'don't get drunk' advice to women follows the same logic.

Thank goodness that there are people around ready to explain the more complex points of this thread to me.

KarenIngalaSmith - thank you for posting on this thread. I really appreciate and respect your work on this.

(seems somehow not enough, but there you go)

wol1968, the logic only works if you believe that women can leave their vaginas at home when they go out, or lock them safely up. And that if you believe that a man deciding to put his penis in a woman's body when she hasn't invited him to, is the same sort of behaviour as going into someone's house and running out with their iPod. Opportunist burgling as a result of unlocked doors, isn't quite the same as a deliberate violation of someone's physical boundaries. I'm sure that lots of burglars are the opportunist type - they would run a mile if they thought the householder was anywhere near or would wake up and challenge them - they have no intention of using violence to get what they want. Rapists otoh have every intention of putting their penis into someone else's body without that person's consent, so they don't really belong in the same category as an opportunist thief.

And that's why of course, the sentence is much longer. Because even the misogynists who set up our laws, recognised that violating someone's physical boundaries, is different from just stealing things from them.