My husband and rape

[pregnantpause]

My dh and I have just had a huge argument about rape. He thinks that girls can do things to protect themselves. I think that blaming victims is ridiculous, and men who rape do so for power and control and because they feel entitled to the objects they think women are. Dh thinks we can dress less provocatively, stay in groups, don't get drunk, and make ourselves safer. I think this is victim blaming and rather sickening . I appreciate if you get drunk and can't look after yourself you have made yourself more vulnerable , but I don't accept that we should teach our dds his ethos. In fact I'm appalled. Should I be ? I'm genuinely reconsidering him as a person,I'm so shocked By this. What would you think? Do?

"Until there are no rapists left in the world, then what do we say to our DDs to try to keep them safe?"

That they have the right to be impolite. If a man makes them feel in any way uncomfortable, or they just don't want to interact with him, they owe him no small talk or uneasy laughs.

Sadly, I'm with Japanesemargaret on this.

I have to be realistic with my DDs. I don't think this equates to victim blaming.

I think it's been explained very well on this thread, give your daughters the same advice you would sons about keeping themselves safe, ie stay with friends, don't get so drunk they leave themselves vulnerable to accident or assault etc.

But don't tell them that dressing modestly is a magical talisman against rape.

There will never be an end to rape until men stand up and tackle rapists and rapist attitudes. As long as it's just women complaining, it's just background noise, nothing to do with men, etc. We are so easy to ignore and dismiss. If men are not actively trying to stop rape and sexism in general then they are part of the problem.

JapaneseMargaret, what I have told my DDs is that they should stick together with friends, not get drunk, look out for their friends, always have enough cash on them for a taxi, always have a charged phone. After that, stay alert. I tell DS the same thing, and I have shared with him the stricture that 'No' always means NO and unless he hears a clear YES he should always assume NO is the default. In addition, the DDs all did self defence. But they know they would be no match for a determined individual who had a stone of weight and a foot of height on them.

But the rapist lurking in bushes isn't the most likely scenario when it comes to rape. It is far more likely to be someone they know as a friend or partner.

There was a recent thread about an older man following a woman round at the gym after she gave him brief answers about a class and didn't engage in chat with him. He was outraged that she didn't talk to him and people on the thread were saying "well, you could have been a bit nicer"

That's the sort of thing I mean. Not saying that man was a rapist but normalising men's "right" to talk to women who don't want to talk to them is all part of eroding women's right to consent.

Thanks, I'm as much looking for responses to give when other men people come up with this argument than anything else, and this thread has helped.

It's about giving DC of both genders the same warning and tips on how to be safe and watch out for one another.

I'm also fully aware that the greatest risk to women comes not from opportunistic strangers, but from people they know.

Hopefully, one day, it won't just be feminists beating this drum. Hopefully the prevailing message will be to men telling them not to rape, instead of to women, telling them how to avoid getting raped.

It needs to be this message, consistently and unrelentingly being put across, for there to be any real change in attitude. And the message needs to come from everyone - men and women. No means no. No is the default. You are not entitled. Do not take advantage.

Slight side track, but do lawyers still question rape victims in court about their dress, sexual history and behaviour? If they are still allowed to do this, what happens if the victim refuses to answer?

It is reasonable to teach caution. But the reality is most women who are raped are raped by friends, male partners or Husbands. So what do we say then? Never get into bed with a man or be alone with a man?

CB - not without special permission, I believe (eg if a victim claimed she didn't know the defendant but the defendant claimed they had a past ONS, it would be reasonable to get permission to question that aspect of her sexual history)

JM - Yy. We tell our kids not to lie, steal, hit or cheat. We don't spend as long telling them how to not be victims of theft, assault or fraud, on the whole.

How you teach somebody to avoid assault should be based on two things:

a. Will this reduce greatly the likelihood of an assault?
b. Does it cause a lot of inconvenience to the person's life?

Having a charged mobile phone is good safety advice and causes little inconvenience. Telling someone they shouldn't be away from home after dark will slightly reduce risk (depending on who you live with) but places a massive restriction on the person's life. I can't even imagine what it does to you psychologically to have been brought up believing this was how you were going to live your life, or indeed having parents that would not let you go places alone after dark from secondary school age - home from school, to the nearest shop, home from a club etc.

Grennie, I think what we say to people is to look at the behaviour of the people you know, are they sexist, do they disrespect boundaries, are they manipulative or dishonest, are they controlling, do they expect you to indulge them regardless of your own wishes or needs? They are people to keep your distance from, for a whole range of reasons including sexual assault.

I think we need to try and teach our DD's how to recognise a potential rapist and teach our DS's not to be potential rapists.

And yeah, men need to take responsibility for stopping rape.

Good advice there Almondcakes. Entitlement is such a huge part of it.

I know this has been said before, but wouldn't it make more sense, if you wanted to prevent rape, to lock up all men after dark, rather than expecting women to dress conservatively and stay indoors? Not that either of these options are exactly practical.

On the plus side, I do think there has been a significant shift in the way we think about rape in just the last generation.

I'm 40 and I remember at school doing mock court cases and being told when debating a rape case, the mods operandi was to discredit the victim, and make them out to be at fault. And I went to an all girls' school that was pretty forward-thinking. And this was only 20 years ago.

That's just how it's always been, until very, very recently. Men couldn't be blamed for rape; it was inevitably the woman's fault for being too damned tempting. I mean, it's so incredibly insulting to men as much as anything, but so many men don't seem to see the insult.

People are ceasing to think like this. We're not there yet obviously, not by a long way. But I do think the tide is changing, and although it will probably take another generation or two for the current thinking to really sink in, at least we're on the right road.

If I drink and drive, and crash into another car, is it the other driver's fault for not staying at home?

No, but if you dress in black and cycle at night with no lights on you're not maximising your protection. If someone smashes into you & ruins the rest of your life, you may have the satisfaction of knowing it was their fault -but surely doing as much as you can to minimise the chance of it happening in the first place is just sensible.

I wouldn't walk alone down a dark street in a rough part of town whether sober or drunk, same as I don't carry my wallet in a back pocket when on the tube. I certainly don't get so drunk that I have no idea where I am, who I'm with etc. as that's just asking for trouble. (I don't like it, but it's a fact of life).

If you accept that there are violent people, thieves, muggers, rapists, mentally unwell people etc. in society then I don't class taking precautions as "victim blaming" - it's just common sense surely?

So how do you propose women minimise the risk of having a vagina LtColGrinch? Because that's what we are talking about.

If you accept that there are violent people, thieves, muggers, rapists, mentally unwell people etc. in society then I don't class taking precautions as "victim blaming" - it's just common sense surely?

It depends how it's couched really. Taking precautions is one thing, asking women if they took precautions someone else deems reasonable when she has been raped and then, in effect, dismissing her because she didn't take ALL of them is quite another.

A woman is raped. Random people then feel perfectly ok in asking:

What was she wearing?
Where was she at the time?
Had she been drinking?
Did she go back to the rapist's house?/ Did she invite the rapist into her house?
Had she taken drugs?
Did she leave her friends?
Did her 'spidey sense' not tingle when her rapist was building up to raping her?
Did she fight?
Did she scream?

All of these questions have been asked by people who probably mean well, but, what they fail to understand is that there is so much guilt interwoven with rape, that these questions just pile more on, iyswim? Even if the raped woman can say no to all but one of the above, the one she didn't say no to will be 'the reason' she was raped. It takes the responsibility for the rape away from the rapist and places it firmly on the raped woman.

Also LtColGrinch you could argue that living or socialising with a man, is the equivalent of going cycling in the dark without lights and hi-viz jacket, because most rapists know their victims and many of them either live with them at the time of the rape or have lived with them at some time.

Is it fair to tell women that they are irresponsible and not minimising their risks if they are not lesbians? Is it proportionate to tell women never to socialise with men in case one of them turns out to be a rapist?

The whole thing about taking precautions is a denial of the reality that rape is most likely to be committed by someone known to the victim, and in a setting where the victim feels safe and comfortable and in control.

What that denial does is enable men to assert that rape is a crime committed by outlaw types, and not ordinary blokes.

...in control up to the minute the rapist starts to rape that is..

It depends how it's couched really. Taking precautions is one thing, asking women if they took precautions someone else deems reasonable when she has been raped and then, in effect, dismissing her because she didn't take ALL of them is quite another.

Totally agree. Precautions are precautions & only any use against strangers. Everyone has a right not to be assaulted.

mathanxiety I don't see how taking precautions to reduce the risk of stranger rape is a "denial of the reality that rape is most likely to be committed by someone known to the victim" - to me it was fairly obvious that I wasn't referring to the domestic scenario.

AskBasil - Up to you - if that's how you feel you could minimise your risks then so be it, seems a tad extreme.

Now that we've got our righteous indignation over the suggestion that it's not a good idea for anyone to be pissed & in a dodgy area alone at night - can anyone hand on heart tell me that what I posted was unreasonable & made no sense?

It was a straight reply to the flawed driving analogy, and not a dig at victims at all.

to me it was fairly obvious that I wasn't referring to the domestic scenario

The problem is society doesn't see it that way. When rape is talked about normally it is pretty much the "stranger rape" angle that is focussed on. When in reallity the vast (90%+, someone else I'm sure knows the figures) majority of cases are between partners/family members. It's focussing on the small problem, rather than tackling the massive elephant that nearly everyone wants to ignore... ....most rapists are normal men., not trench coated, shady looking mini-cab/lorry drivers hanging around in dark alleyways.

If you accept that there are violent people, thieves, muggers, rapists, mentally unwell people etc. in society then I don't class taking precautions as "victim blaming" - it's just common sense surely?

I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. By accepting that there are these people in society and limitiing our freedom to avoid contact with these people we - the victim, are being forced into taking actions possibly against our wills, in order to avoid being a victim to these people. That is victim blaming, or potential victim blaming at least.

It's common enough to think along the lines of avoiding these areas, not getting too pissed etc. but it's tackling the symptom, not the cause. It is victim blaming, and it's not snesible (at a societal level) but society has accepted it and renamed it to make it more palatable.