Blaming the victim

[Cyberwulf]

And this is not an argument for blaming the victim this is an argument for slapping the victim upside the head, shouting "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING??!?!?" and chewing them out for a solid hour and a half. Yeah the cop was wrong but the victim in that kind of predicament should not get away without being scolded for being a moron.

You're so right, RT. The eleven year old child who was gang-raped by 18 men should be smacked upside the head and chewed out, because that's what rape victims need more than anything else in the world. Support? Counselling? That's for pussies, PUSSIES I TELL YOU. I hope none of your loved ones ever get raped because you'll probably read them the riot act on how stupid they were for getting themselves raped.


Here's what I want to know - where are the information campaigns aimed at young MEN, telling them that it's not okay to fuck drunk people, that it's not okay to ply a woman with drinks (spiked or otherwise) to make her more receptive to their advances, that women don't owe you sex no matter how much they flirted or how they danced with you, that if your frat brother calls you into a bedroom where there's an unconscious woman covered in vomit and invites you to "have a turn" that you should call the cops... Where are they? Why is it we persist in only warning women about The Mysterious Force of Rape? Why do we cling to this ridiculous notion that rapists are Scary Men in Bushes who leap out and brutally assault good Christian girls while they cry for help that never comes?

 

[Cyberwulf]

Rape is a huge problem - no question - but women have to stop using it as an excuse for their poor judgement or a revenge tactic as well before I'll be totally sympathetic.

The percentage of genuine, proven false rape reports is somewhere between 2 and 8 percent - on a par with the rate of false reports for every other crime. MEN NEED TO STOP RAPING.

 

[Snotnarok]

Sounds a lot like the whole "This man saved this woman from a burning car, but broke her arm trying to get her out and she is suing him because she'd rather be dead than unable to use that arm"

That was happening so often I gathered that people would actually avoid helping in anything like that. Though now the 'savior' is protected by law thankfully.

 

[Cyberwulf]

Sounds a lot like the whole "This man saved this woman from a burning car, but broke her arm trying to get her out and she is suing him because she'd rather be dead than unable to use that arm"

That was happening so often I gathered that people would actually avoid helping in anything like that. Though now the 'savior' is protected by law thankfully.

What are you talking about.

 

[Snotnarok]

Sounds a lot like the whole "This man saved this woman from a burning car, but broke her arm trying to get her out and she is suing him because she'd rather be dead than unable to use that arm"

That was happening so often I gathered that people would actually avoid helping in anything like that. Though now the 'savior' is protected by law thankfully.

What are you talking about.

I'm saying it's similar to another thing that's insane. Blaming the victim in a rape is like what was happening when people were being sued for saving someone from an accident. It's just crazy to see something stupid like that happen.

 

[kortin]

I believe that any problem or anything in the world that is bad, has 2 people to blame, at the least. The victim and the attacker.

 

[Hectix777]

The girl dressed sexy and acted provocatively, sure we can all agre that she a 'hoe, but that does not qualify rape. Nothing quaifies or makes rape okay, not even if Christ himself said that. In fact, if Christ did say that rape was okay I'd go ahead and give up Christianity or at least shoot the guy* because I know that's not my Jesus Christ of the Bible. Blaming he victim is retarded, it's like blaming a drive-by victim for standing in the bullets path or a cancer
victim for getting cancer.

*Note: the author of this comment is a devout Lutheran and would never harm the Messiah in his second coming should he be reborn in his lifetime. He is merely stating that the aforementioned act of violence would be committed to a mam who says he is Jesus Christ and begins to say that all we thought is wrong and immoral is really good and okay. He would feel severly insulted, and is assured that he is not the onl one who undergo the same actions should this occur.

 

[Chase Yojimbo]

Blaming the Victem is only what people who support the convict do. Though I support that in the real world, if I were to look at it as an equation that a woman did dress provocatively, it would only be a small piece of the equation, but a piece non the less. They make more appealing targets depending on the rapists tastes and so on so forth, it all adds up to an equation. People may think that "Well why on earth are you supporting the convict by spouting this equation shit", i'm not supporting him, hes a scumbag and frankly deserves to have his nuts nailed to a stump and pushed backwards.

Women, you can't just go and believe that you can dress any way you want and get away with it. For example, if I looked at a gorgeous woman who just happened to be dressed provocatively, I would be refered to as a pervert. Does that make me the pervert or her the idiot for dressing as such? Frankly it is all just a logical fallacy that has been created called "Free Will", which was instituted by Walt Disney when he created Happy Endings for Fairy Tales which never existed until he came along (As you can tell, I blame him for many of the worlds problems).

When humans instituted that they had free will, it of course was a good thing, but it had repercussions. These consequences are the choices of the common individual. If we continue with the rape topic and the equations, I will add to them the recent inquiry of Free Will. People believe that nothing bad will happen because they no longer were trained to expect horrible things in life (I thank the frozen bastard Walt Disney for this), because of this, they no longer instituted their own safeguards to protect themselves in times of trouble. This Free Will they generated also forced them to create an illusion of "Happy Endings", that everything might work out in the end no matter what (yes, thats right, optimism can be bad if used incorrectly). No it won't, for gods sake Sleeping Beauty was raped, had children, and never woke up, there was no happy ending. The Little Mermaid commited suicide, because she wanted her "true love" to survive with his new bride, no happy ending there either.

So to simply blame the victem is both too general and wrong, there is too many variables as to why the victem was chosen, but we know why the victem was chosen and that is why we must support them, not point at them! to blame the convict is precise and correct, but is part of a larger picture, I still support the stump nailing however (so watch yourself rapists!). We cannot by any means look at a simple situation and believe that it is just one thing, for gods sake I found a link between Rape and Walt Disney, imagine the possibilities of truely finding THE larger picture, the true reason why it all happens.

Keep your minds open, be yourself, and protect not only yourself, but others as well.

 

[Jodah]

Theres a difference between blaming the victim afterwards and giving advice as to ways of avoiding it. Nobody should ever be raped but it will happen. To me the officer is just giving tips on how to minimize the risk. Whether those tips are the best or not is a different area of discussion.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I fail to see how you can blame scandalous clothing for rape. It's ridiculous. I remember seeing something that rape is more about power than sexual arousal anyway.

Now, sneaking a peak at some cleavage could be partially pinned on the girl with it all hanging out. But sneaking a peak is a bit different than raping the gal.

 

[SilentCom]

It's not the victim's fault for being raped. The only problem about a rape victim having dressed provocatively is that they probably could have seen it coming, especially if they go through bad neighborhoods (or abandoned mobile home parks).

It's sort of comparable to walking through a bad neighborhood dressed with nice clothing and your expensive tech items out. It's not their fault if they get mugged, but they make themselves into a target and should have had reason enough not to do so from the beginning.

 

[Lawyer105]

The percentage of genuine, proven false rape reports is somewhere between 2 and 8 percent - on a par with the rate of false reports for every other crime. MEN NEED TO STOP RAPING.

Firstly - At no point did I ever suggest that rape is in any way legitimate. Get over yourself.

Secondly - It's not the proven false ones I'm worried about... it's the number of ones where an innocent dude is found guilty incorrectly that concerns me...

Thirdly - An accusation of rape (even if subsequently proved false) can ruin a dudes life forever. And we don't see anybody leaping up and down screaming about how unfair that is, do we? So I'm not as sympathetic as I could be for this.

Finally - Link, or 92% of people won't believe your statistics.

 

[kortin]

I believe that any problem or anything in the world that is bad, has 2 people to blame, at the least. The victim and the attacker.

That's BS. Man X walks to work, Man Y comes up and mugs him. Well duh, it's Man X's fault for walking to work! He should have totally known better.

If he wasn't there, it wouldn't have happened, not to him at least. Its probably going to be unavoidable seeing as its probably a random crime and anyone could have been the victim. If no one was there at all, it wouldn't have happened. So, I believe that the fault lies in both of them.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Oh how very 'black and white'.

A person who would rape is probably a bad person anyway.
The last thing they need is to be provoked.
If you covored yourself in bacon, then got mauled by an animal, then alot of the blame does rest with you.

See this is why we can't have nice things ...

A person who commits rape, deciding that their sexual lusts should overwhelm any respect for the human being, isn't probably a bad person .... they are a bad person.

Your 'metaphor' is batshit insanity. For starters,

A; Sexual lusts are subjective.
B: That the provocation of passions is somehow wrong
C: The crimes (largely perpetrated by men... if you can call them human at all) are somehow intune with some natural force of the human psyche... when it is clearly aberrant.

A victim is a victim ... it's not a case of human looks tasty, bear is hungry, eats human ... it'sa case of human looks trendy, human tickles other human's passions, they decide to assail and rape the human.

A rapist ... a person that ambushes and assails another human to satisfy a twisted sense of lust and dominance over another... is a fucking monster.

Monsters deserve no sympathies and they certainly are beyond your pathetic justifications.

 

[kortin]

I believe that any problem or anything in the world that is bad, has 2 people to blame, at the least. The victim and the attacker.

That's BS. Man X walks to work, Man Y comes up and mugs him. Well duh, it's Man X's fault for walking to work! He should have totally known better.

If he wasn't there, it wouldn't have happened, not to him at least. Its probably going to be unavoidable seeing as its probably a random crime and anyone could have been the victim. If no one was there at all, it wouldn't have happened. So, I believe that the fault lies in both of them.

That does not make it his fault. He had no real reason not to do it. It's like saying a complete accident is someone's fault. It utterly ignores what fault is about.

Of course its not entirely on both of the people equally. The attacker is obviously the most at fault, but to put the blame entirely on him would be foolish. Every crime that has victims, will always have 2 people at fault.

 

[Agayek]

If he wasn't there, it wouldn't have happened, not to him at least. Its probably going to be unavoidable seeing as its probably a random crime and anyone could have been the victim. If no one was there at all, it wouldn't have happened. So, I believe that the fault lies in both of them.

That's somewhat fallacious reasoning, truth be told. "Someone was going to be mugged, therefore it's the fault of the guy who was mugged." There's no logical relation between the two.

Besides, you can live your entire life perfectly, but still happen to have your home selected for a robbery and then be shot. That's clearly no one's fault but the attacker.

I'm not saying the victim is never a contributor to their misfortunes, but most of the time it's just bad luck/timing.

 

[Damien Granz]

So there's been a fair amount of talk in the news lately about the issue of blaming the victim, especially in regards to rape cases. Some of this is due to the case of the 11 year old from Texas: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20042118-504083.html

Another thing that stoked the fires was the recent comment of a cop in Toronto saying "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized."

http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/04/slutwalk_toronto_takes_its_message_to_the_street_/
http://www.the33tv.com/news/kdaf-slut-walk-hits-dallas-streets-story,0,2823196.story

Personally I think that there is no reason EVER that someone should be sexually assaulted or raped. Because you find their clothing arousing or provocative, or they are very flirty due to over intoxication is not an excuse to ignore their rights as a human being, and this goes for both genders and every sexuality. Everyone should be able to dress how they feel comfortable without fear of personal harm.

So fellow Escapists, what are your thoughts on this whole issue? Do you think that there is too much victim blaming going on or that it really is the fault of women for wearing short-shorts or miniskirts?

Considering that pretty much all experts in the field have concluded that rape is not a crime of sex, it's a violent crime that uses sex as an attack vector, and it doesn't matter if the victim is male, female, gay, straight, young, old, etc. Rape is a violent crime of power and dominance so blaming the victim for wearing a miniskirt makes about as much sense as blaming a stabbing victim for not being unstabable.

Also, the idea that we should all dress in burkas and never see the light of day to appease a criminal is sickening.

Like if only we'd just give up on trying to lead honest lives, crime would just go away! That's pretty stupid to me.

 

[Laser Priest]

The victim may have influenced the attacker, but it certainly doesn't change the fact that the attacker failed at any semblance of restraint and took an idiotic action. The victim may be very, very slightly responsible, but it does nothing to subtract from the attacker's guilt.

 

[Arizona Kyle]

Trying to pin rape or sexual assault situations on the victim is fucking disgusting anyway you look at it. I don't care what you are wearing, it has no relevance to getting raped.

A 1995 survey of almost 2,000 American teenagers found that: (a) almost half felt that rape was sometimes the victim?s fault and (b) 40% agreed that girls who wear sexy clothes are asking to be raped (American Medical Association. Facts About Sexual Assault. Chicago, IL: American Medical Association, 1997)


There is a strong correlation between wearing revealing clothes and rape cases (Thornhill and Palmer, A Natural History of Rape)


While it is impossible to prove the causal relationship between wearing revealing clothes and rape, there is a strong likelihood that it is one of the contributing factors.

The facts are figures that merely represent the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to conduct your own research and prove me wrong.

The facts pretty much speak for themselves. Even though the factors that contribute to sexual assault vary greatly (society, upbringing, psychological state, socio-biology, etc), there is very little doubt that donning an indecent attire is one of them. While it is virtually impossible to determine exactly why people perpetrate these heinous crimes, we should stop engaging ourselves in the constant denial that sexy clothes do not contribute to the rise of sexual crimes at all.

Surely the point that no woman?s conduct grants a man the right to sexually assault her can be made without encouraging women to overlook the role they themselves may be playing in compromising their safety. This is not to say that provocatively-clothed women should be totally blamed, rather they should share part of the blame for enticing ?high-risk? potential perpetrators, and they should start admitting this fact.

And just because there are elder women and children involved does not mean that we should ignore the much bigger picture. It is like saying that carrying a lot of money on the city streets in plain sight does not at all entice potential criminals to commit robbery, since there are people who keep their money in the bank that are nevertheless robbed. The former can even be committed by an average junkie craving for the next ?fix?, while the latter is usually perpetrated by professional robbers who plan for days on end before executing it. Likewise, there are different types of rapists with different fetishes and target victims. So why confuse the two?

Another fallacy is the notion that being able to wear sexy clothes liberates women from the shackles of gender inequality and the delusions under which they operate. Conservative Islamic societies are often blamed for ?subjugating women? and denying them of their basic human rights. I cannot help but wonder whether the gender equality issues often cited by some parties include the freedom to compromise their safety by putting on an indecent attire and behaving provocatively, and later on absolving themselves completely and unconditionally after they are sexually assaulted?

Does it also include being able to do all the things that men usually do, like playing physically aggressive contact sports, putting on a male attire and sporting a masculine hairstyle? Well then, if they really insist on having ?true gender equality?, why is it that divorced women paying for their ex-husbands?alimony stays a rarity? Why are men still expected to pay thousands of ringgit in dowry on their wedding day, when some wealthy women are more than capable of doing the same thing? Why then do women feel completely fine with men paying for dowry and alimony, and not so fine anymore when other things seem to side with men?

Men and women have different roles to play, and they are both equally vital to the development of a society. God created the gender differences so that we can complement and learn from each other, not to divide us and render one gender superior to the other. We should value and celebrate the differences between us and not create unnecessary and counter-productive issues out of them.

before i'm label as a sexist, please let me explain. i'm not saying guys can't control themselves and that everytime they see some skin that they go "OH MY GOD!!! LET'S RAPE!!! XD

but it is a fact however that seeing sexily dressed women stirs a reaction in them. Come on guys, be frankly honest, just what sort of thoughts enter your mind when u see a really scantily-clad woman? i hardly doubt that your thinking, "oh wow, that SO makes me wanna read a book?"

the difference is, guys like you and me have self control, we don't go act out what we are thinking cause we understand that it's wrong; either that or we haven't got the guts, lol i of course am going with the latter =P

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Theres a difference between blaming the victim afterwards and giving advice as to ways of avoiding it. Nobody should ever be raped but it will happen. To me the officer is just giving tips on how to minimize the risk. Whether those tips are the best or not is a different area of discussion.

Better yet ... why don't we mandate that all people can only wear clothes from an approved booklet? The world would be so much better if all girls dressed like nuns without a single hint of their physical presence ... Christ.

Looking over the forum posts am I the only one who realises the irony that rather than actively fighting the problem bt coming down hard on the perpetrator, freedom of expression must not only 'take one for the team' ... but by it's own capacity be reduced to accomodate more monstrous individuals that do not deserve to be walking around and are probably going to commit sexual abuse anyways?

A police officer's duty is to uphold the law, be a shield for the people, to act in their best conscience and protect them at the cost of self. Not to act like the fucking morality gestapo of the Middle East