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10 comments

1 Dark_Falcon  Sat, Oct 26, 2013 6:16:43am

Todd Akin did not develop in a vaccum: Lots of people don’t really understand rape or just plain don’t care. I do hope the police officer in this footage is identified and then assigned to a desk job. If he cannot accept the realities of his job then he should not be doing it.

2 kerFuFFler  Sat, Oct 26, 2013 10:07:15am

re: #1 Dark_Falcon

I think it is great that people will intervene to help protect vulnerable women! But apparently, as those two horrid cops showed, women cannot count on the kindness of strangers. I agree that the two cops deserve a demotion if not an outright dismissal.

However, encouraging women to be cautious is also a good thing. Yes, the rapist is the criminal in these situations, but denying that there are criminals about in the world or demanding that there be none is ineffective. Would it make sense for someone to forgo wearing their seat-belt arguing that people who drive in a criminally reckless manner are the ones responsible for accidents ? Would we take seriously the demand that robbers stop robbing because it is not fair that they impose the burden of locking doors on potential innocent victims?

So yes, it would be a great thing if attitudes towards rape in our society changed and we must all work on that. But there will always be some criminals out there and we should encourage women to be aware of the risks involved in binge drinking, especially if they are not surrounded by people they can trust.

3 Dark_Falcon  Sat, Oct 26, 2013 2:40:32pm

re: #2 kerFuFFler

Just so you know, only one of those guys was a cop. The article made a mistake and later posted a correction. GGT posted her Page before the correction was made.

4 Absalom, Absalom, Obdicut  Sun, Oct 27, 2013 12:52:26pm

re: #2 kerFuFFler

However, encouraging women to be cautious is also a good thing. Yes, the rapist is the criminal in these situations, but denying that there are criminals about in the world or demanding that there be none is ineffective.

Nobody denies there are criminals in the world, so this is just a strawman. You shouldn’t say it.

Would it make sense for someone to forgo wearing their seat-belt arguing that people who drive in a criminally reckless manner are the ones responsible for accidents ?

Never use this analogy again. Seriously. You can , obviously, get into an accident on your own. You can’t rape yourself. For fuck’s sake.

Would we take seriously the demand that robbers stop robbing because it is not fair that they impose the burden of locking doors on potential innocent victims?

Another tortured and horrible analogy. If we had a culture that nodded and winked at young men robbing other people, where whether or not you robbed something only came down to he-said/she-said most of the time, then the crimes would be comparable. They’re not. Rape is not like other crimes. Analogies involving other situations and crimes cannot do anything but confuse the issue: don’t use them. Treat rape as what it is.

So yes, it would be a great thing if attitudes towards rape in our society changed and we must all work on that. But there will always be some criminals out there and we should encourage women to be aware of the risks involved in binge drinking, especially if they are not surrounded by people they can trust.

A woman who doesn’t realize “If I binge-drink, I may make bad decisions” isn’t going to understand your explanation. Fortunately, such women are incredibly rare, because it is a totally easy concept. Do you seriously think women don’t know that binge-drinking can go awry? Women know it can, they also know that they can get date-raped by seemingly nice guys, too, which happens all the time, too. Women get raped by people they think they can trust.

So what are you teaching them, exactly? What do you propose to teach women that they don’t know, and how do you balance the good of that teaching with the obvious message of “If you got drunk, you intentionally raised the risk of getting raped”?

5 kerFuFFler  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 8:33:12am

re: #4 Absalom, Absalom, Obdicut

Nobody denies there are criminals in the world, so this is just a strawman. You shouldn’t say it.

You left out the important part of the sentence in your argument. “…but denying that there are criminals about in the world or demanding that there be none is ineffective.”

What if … men … (stay with me) … didn’t … (stay with me) … rape?

This is the sort of statement that comes across as a demand that men stop raping. So much for the strawman defense….

A woman who doesn’t realize “If I binge-drink, I may make bad decisions” isn’t going to understand your explanation. Fortunately, such women are incredibly rare, because it is a totally easy concept.

“If I binge-drink, I may make bad decisions,” is not the idea I think girls and women should contemplate, but rather that when they binge-drink they make themselves more vulnerable to criminals of all stripes——-muggers, rapists and serial killers. People are not born knowing this; at some point it must be communicated to young girls before they are in situations where alcohol is available to them. There are simply too many cases of young teenage girls who end up victimized because they were not truly made to understand the dangers. They also need to learn to be on the lookout for someone slipping drugs into their drinks, even non-alcoholic beverages!

I agree that a huge part of the problem is that too many girls trust people who don’t deserve that trust. That is another point that girls should be made aware of. The point of teaching these things is not to blame victims but to prevent future ones. I think it is infantilizing to women to suggest that they have no role to play in keeping themselves safer by adopting practices that improve their chances of remaining unscathed.

You disapprove of all analogies to rape because rape is different from other crimes somehow. All crimes are different from one another ultimately but the point of analogies is to find commonalities. Is rape different from other crimes in every single aspect? People try to protect themselves from being the targets of criminals in lots of ways, locking up bikes, shredding old mail, installing alarms, avoiding going into dark alleys alone. But whenever it is mentioned that girls should be cautioned about going someplace isolated with someone they don’t know well, or that they should keep careful track of their beverages to make sure they are not tampered with, or that binge-drinking is very risky, tempers flare and people start chanting, “blaming the victim”. Are parents to refuse to caution their daughters because former victims’ feelings get hurt hearing that certain choices are risky?

I once made a very stupid choice. I accepted a ride from a stranger. I was lucky. I did not get raped, just propositioned, but it scared the dickens out of me. But I realize that what I did was stupid, and I would caution anyone, girl or boy, man or woman from doing such a thing. If I had gotten raped, I would not expect people to stop teaching their kids not to accept rides from strangers out of a misguided deference to my feelings.

I think the winking acceptance of rape is disgusting, especially how it manifests itself in certain athletic circles. Our society needs to address that, and we need rape prosecutions that are less harmful to the victims and better at meting out justice and deterring rapists. But even if we accomplished all that there would still be rapists and women are well advised to be careful. It is not good enough to say that women don’t need this advice because it is obvious. Sometimes harping on something is effective. Did you floss today?

6 AntonSirius  Tue, Oct 29, 2013 4:36:58am

re: #5 kerFuFFler

“…but denying that there are criminals about in the world or demanding that there be none is ineffective.”

What if … men … (stay with me) … didn’t … (stay with me) … rape?

That comes across to me as demanding that men be held responsible for their own actions.

Guys like the one in the scenario here don’t even consider themselves to be criminals, so analogies to serial killers are ludicrous.

7 kerFuFFler  Tue, Oct 29, 2013 7:21:02am

re: #6 AntonSirius

That comes across to me as demanding that men be held responsible for their own actions.

It just so happens I agree that men should be responsible for their actions. But just saying, “What if men didn’t rape?” seems like dangerous wishful thinking rather than an actual plan to hold men responsible by revising education and making the rape prosecution process fairer to victims. Changing society’s attitudes takes work.

It is awful that so many guys don’t take sexual responsibility seriously and I don’t think we can rely entirely on parents teaching their sons restraint and respect for women. Is this an issue that gets discussed in sex-ed generally? If it is, they should spend more time on that subject.

I don’t think that women who got raped while they were drunk deserved it or are to blame for it or are responsible for it. It sickens me that people on juries often seem to cut rapists slack if the woman was drunk. In a court of law, it seems to me that the drunkenness of the victim is further proof of lack of consent so it should help to convict the perpetrators.

But that does not mean that we should give up on trying to prevent such crimes by teaching girls to be careful. It burns me up that people interpret such advice as tacitly blaming victims.

Guys like the one in the scenario here don’t even consider themselves to be criminals, so analogies to serial killers are ludicrous.

I made no analogy to serial killers unless acknowledging that muggers, rapists and serial killers are all criminals is an analogy.

…but rather that when they binge-drink they make themselves more vulnerable to criminals of all stripes——-muggers, rapists and serial killers.

I fail to see what is ludicrous about this.

8 FemNaziBitch  Tue, Oct 29, 2013 1:38:19pm

re: #7 kerFuFFler

It is awful that so many guys don’t take sexual responsibility seriously and I don’t think we can rely entirely on parents teaching their sons restraint and respect for women. Is this an issue that gets discussed in sex-ed generally? If it is, they should spend more time on that subject.

First, Rape is not a “sexual” crime, per se. It is VIOLENT CRIME. It is a crime of power and control, not sexual gratification.

Why this concept is so difficult to get thru people’s heads is beyond me.

“It’s so awful that so many guys don’t take their sexual responsibility seriously”

Yeah, it is awful. In the case of rape, it is a CRIME.

Really, can we look at this situation in reverse? If it were a man in that bar binge-drinking and obviously not able to give legal consent? If a stranger were seen to be attempting to kidnap him or otherwise take advantage, whose responsibility would it be, who would you blame.

the victim, the criminal or the bystanders?

9 kerFuFFler  Wed, Oct 30, 2013 8:55:31am

re: #8 FemNaziBitch

It is awful that so many guys don’t take sexual responsibility seriously and I don’t think we can rely entirely on parents teaching their sons restraint and respect for women. Is this an issue that gets discussed in sex-ed generally? If it is, they should spend more time on that subject.

First, Rape is not a “sexual” crime, per se. It is VIOLENT CRIME. It is a crime of power and control, not sexual gratification.

Why this concept is so difficult to get thru people’s heads is beyond me.

Fine, rape is a violent crime though it is easy to understand why in common parlance it is referred to as a sex crime as well. Acting like everyone who uses slightly different language is “on the other side” or dumb as a sack of hammers does not further rational discussion which I think this important topic deserves. Calling it a sex crime does not mean that the person does not also see it as a violent crime. No need to make it seem like there is a disagreement where there is none!

My point is that society needs to address the issue in more concrete ways than just vilifying rapists——which they deserve! Somehow you ignore my suggestions that we need to make sure that sexual restraint and respect for women is included in sex-ed and my recommendation that the legal system make the prosecutions of rape more victim friendly.

Really, can we look at this situation in reverse? If it were a man in that bar binge-drinking and obviously not able to give legal consent? If a stranger were seen to be attempting to kidnap him or otherwise take advantage, whose responsibility would it be, who would you blame.

the victim, the criminal or the bystanders?

I am not sure why you feel you have to ask me this, but here I go again…..I would blame the criminal but I would hope that bystanders would try to intervene. I feel like you keep trying to put words in my mouth just because I also think that likely targets of any particular type of crime are well advised to be careful. Yes it would be fantastic if we lived in a world where guys did not slip date-rape drugs into womens’ beverages. I think anyone who does that deserves jail time and lots of it. But since we know that we have not jailed enough of these criminals, women are well advised to be careful. But, please note that I don’t think the entire answer to the crime of rape is for women to be careful. We need to educate our young men better and all of potential jury members that women who are drinking are not asking for it, intoxicated people cannot consent and that rape is a terrible, violent crime.

10 klys  Wed, Oct 30, 2013 12:23:30pm

I guess my issue with some of the points that have been raised in the discussion is that it pretends that women aren’t already taught that certain behaviors are risky and that there are precautions that we need to take, like that gives any guarantee that if you follow these rules you won’t be raped.

Fortunately people are beginning to recognize that the entire burden should not be on the woman to avoid rape and that maybe some education might be needed such that people are more willing to intervene, convictions are more likely to be obtained, and people can actually recognize their actions for what they are - I can think of studies where if you ask men if they have raped someone, they answer in the negative, but when you describe a situation where the woman was unable to consent and ask if they had had sex in those circumstances, they answered in the positive.

So when discussing the changes that need to be made, maybe instead of focusing on what women already do, we can focus on things like educating men to recognize their own actions and all folks so that they’re willing to step up and intervene.


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