asking for it?

[antoinettechigur]

Just been thinking about this turn of phrase and wondering what it really can mean.

Follows on from lots of lunchtable discussion at work of a current rather high profile case in which some men are being accused of raping one of a group of women who were at their house after nightclubbing (just keeping it a tiny bit vague as trial not over yet. Most of my colleagues were analysing the woman's reported behaviour and discussing whether she had "asked for it" by getting into a vulnerable situation. When I asked "what, she wanted to be raped?" the responses were along the lines of "Oh of course not, but you know...". Nothing very specific. Another colleague joined me in the suggestion of questioning why these discussions/reports always focus on the woman's behaviour, not the man/men's in the situation.

So what does it all mean? What do people mean when they say a woman was "asking for it"?

Well, thought I better start a thread as I always turn up late to the interesting discussions these days

I read in the Guardian that one third of rape victims are under 16, and in London half are under 18. I wonder if we have a different attitude to paedophilia than to rape.

In terms of public attitudes to the victims, I suppose if a child is raped, the parents are held responsible (if they are not the perpetrator) for letting the child out alone or leaving the child with someone else. When it comes to adult women, other adults around her will often treat her as a child if she attempts to be independent, by insisting that she cannot walk home alone, go into a pub alone, and so on.

In terms of the rapist, I think society only views them as wholly responsible if the child is very young. Otherwise how can anyone say that rape victims are asking for it, when so many of them are still of school age?

I do actually think that if men knew that there was a 95% chance of being sent to jail for a very long time if they raped someone, quite a few of them would think twice.

Not the total psychopaths, but the chancers, maybe.

At the moment men know that they can rape as many women as they want and the chance of going to prison for it is pretty much zero. In fact they probably won't even be questioned by the police or anything. At the moment it's a non-event, crime-wise. There is no deterrent at all.

"I know Rape is a crime, but it being a crime is never going to take away a mans ability to CHOSE to Rape a woman or not, no amount of education is going to take that ability away."

Perhaps rape can never be completely eradicated, no. But the fact is, we live in a society where hardly any rapes reported to the police end in a conviction, where the majority of rapes are never reported, and where who knows how many rapes are not even recognised as such by the victims themselves because ideas about what counts as rape and who is responsible for rape are so confused. Going back to TheFallenMadonna's post at the beginning of the thread, girls are being taught rape myths in school (I don't know if TFM's experience was an anomaly: I do hope it was). Porn depicting rape is easier to get hold of than ever before. Factors like these must have an effect - a significant effect, imho - on the prevalence of rape. It's called 'rape culture' and it's not inevitable.

What about my 'free will'?

What about my 'freedom of choice'?

I take it that's something else, I, as a woman, will be deprived of if a man exercises his 'free will' to rape me.

That's license, not freedom.

"So....in that most rapists are men, and most child abusers are men, and the amount of threads on MN about lazy/abusive/substandard husbands and boyfriends, the only answer really is to be a lesbian.
Simples."

Or single...

Yes, Gay40, often thought the same thing myself, but being a lesbian still wouldn't protect you from rape. In fact, as no doubt you're aware, some men think rape is a 'cure'.

"Rapists target people who won't be believed and who will be blamed."

Yeah, women.

"In terms of the rapist, I think society only views them as wholly responsible if the child is very young..."

If only that were true, MillyR - I remember the case of a nine year old who'd been attacked by her (male) baby sitter, the judge commented she was 'no angel'.

"The comment had apparently been provoked by a social services report of the girl having previously been the object of an older boy's sexual interest."

FFS!

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/no-angel-sex-abuse-case-man-jailed-court-of-appeal-criticises-judge-fo r-his-unacceptable-comment-about-girl-nine-1487937.html

That one was just horrible. I think that people in positions of power who make comments like that should be sanctioned in some way because that is the sort of thing that makes rapists aware that they can rape with impunity, as clearly even judges feel that its just fine even to rape young damaged children.

The trouble is that there are really no safety tips we can give our daughters that will really reliably work. The other day it was reported that some poor woman was raped by her brother (although the headline was incest I noted) who she had apparently a totally normal and quite close relationship with.

Personally I think that he rape myth is rather like the "Stranger Danger" myth that has curtailed all our children's freedoms. These campaigns have a negligible impact on the real danger but a very serious impact on peoples lives and feeling of general safety (and trust in other people too).

Soapboxqueen:

You said earlier that 'some situations are more dangerous than others'. Do you mean 'walking alone at night' is more dangerous than being at home, or don't you? I'm up to the fourth fifth time of asking this,now.

Is there a reason it's difficult to answer me?

ScreamingEagle, do you really think that rapists can't be deterred by effective criminal justice? So they exist in a sphere outside normal criminality, then? Unlike murderers, robbers, etc., you think they are totally oblivious to punishment? So there's not much point in legislating against rape at all, in your view? We should just legalise it and free up the court's time?

'Men are the people to stop rape'

If you repalced that with rapists I would entirely agree

We do nobody any good by normalising rape as a general male thing- men who rape need to be identified as the class of eprverts that they are

Sorry tortoisonthehaldshell my computer over heated so yes it was difficult.

Yes I feel walking home at night is more dangerous than being at home. I appreciate this is not true for all women but it is for me.

I know that many women are attacked in their own homes and by their partner. Ignoring that a small proportion aren't is not helpful to those people who are. Yes rapists need to not rape but quite honestly I think we are a long way from that.

Yes, all people need to be educated about respecting others. Especially now that young people have such access to porn online which can skew their perspective of what is normal.

But it is not impossible to reduce your risk of crime.

Screamin - but we already do curtail our lives in all sorts of ways in the attempt to protect ourselves, don't we. Women don't need to be told this stuff as if it's something that's never occurred to us. It's the way women live all of the time and if we dare to break any of these rules (rules which in any case don't prevent rape), we're held responsible for the consequences. It's simply unacceptable that half of the population has to live their lives in the knowledge that they are prey.

What we should be looking at is what leads a man to be "of a mind to rape/assault a woman".

If you think it's down to an unavoidable pathology of the rapist's mind, then there's nowt we can do about it.

I don't think that though.

Yes society deems women resposible for the rapists crime in these situations which is wrong. Don't think anyone on this thread has said otherwise. Men and women curtail their actions and not just because of sexual crimes. No one should feel like prey but we all are. Th elderly are prey to certain kinds of crime, children are and so are men.

If we are already curtailing our lives in order to keep ourselves safe then how do we know that these actions are not preventing crime? The only way to know would be for everyone to stop these actions for a period of time to see if crime rates increased.

"personal responsibility" is a pile of crap.

What about the UAE where women have very limited rights about dress and behaviour and there is still a culture of blaming a woman for the rapist's actions.

These rapist are attacking women who are :-

: Forced to cover up in modest clothes
: Not allowed to drink alcohol
: Not allowed to have friendships with male non family members
: Have limits on how and where they can travel, usually limited to travel in a group of women and/or a male family.

These women are behaving in the perfect way, we are told we should, in order to save ourselves....yet they still are attacked.

Restricting women's freedom does not prevent rape. More rape convictions especially ones with jail time might reduce the figures.

Yep, anyone could be a victim of a crime soapbox and I think I'm right in saying that statistically young men are the group most likely to be the victim of a violent crime in a public space (but not rape, which is what we're talking about here), but actually men are not socialised to think of themselves as prey whereas it's woven into women's experience from childhood.

As to your second point, if these curtailments are having a preventative effect, then clearly it's not working well enough because something like 80,000-100,000 women are raped in the UK each year.

ScreaminEagle your POV really surprises me.

Do you really think that educating men out of their sense of entitlement to sexual access to women's bodies with or without their consent, would make no difference at all?

Really? Do you really think education is generally such a waste of time? should we stop educating people about the risks of smoking, the benefits of regular exercise, the desirability of eating a healthy diet, the care needs of a new baby, the need to manage their household incomes, etc.? Is that all a waste of time as well? Or is it just in sexual matters that education is pissing in the wind?

I agree that conviction rates need to improve. I know there have been some programmes in the states where victims are given advocates in court proceedings in order to improve conviction rates.

Taking simple steps can reduce crime. Not erradicate it but reduce it. Rape is a crime. Therefore in some circumstances actions can be taken. Still doesn't mean that anyone deserves to have a crime committed against them.

We've already had the discussion that most women are raped by people they know and at home. Therefore taking preventative measures when out and about would be meaningless but how do you know that the figures wouldn't be much worse?

I agree that society generally thinks that men have a right to sex. Which is obviously wrong but the other campaigns about health etc are not exactly 100% successful are they? Improving conviction rates would help to send the message that rapists do not have this right but sitting people down and telling them it's wrong will only go so far.

I have already stated in this post that men are more likely to be attacked in these circumstance due to the fact they take bigger risks. I think all people should be asked to take steps to protect themselves. The fact that men take these risks and are more likely to be attacked makes the point that some actions put us more at risk.

But they only put as at risk becuase of the choices of other people

We take steps because it is sensible: that does not in any way reduce the repsonsibility of other people not to attack us.

If I get undressed and walk down teh street at 3am after the club kicks out I am clearly ebing very stupid and shouldn't: if soemone decides though to lay a single finger on me that is completely their fault because theya re adults who make their own decisions and have to take responsbility. if theyc annot take the decisions to kepp others safe then they should eb kept safe from otehr people becuase theya re vulnerable and have either SN or MH problems.

There is no mid road.

Taking extra measures to keep ourselves safe is entirely about our own personal responsibility tom ourselves: an attacker has a responsbibility compeltely of their own not to harm people. The two are discrete.