#2 is fine. #1 is completely untrue.darkfox85 said:My position:
1) The advert of the original poster will ultimately do more harm than good
2) Its never someone?s fault if they get raped. Ever. Not even slightly.
It is never a "harmful" thing to tell someone what they can do to prevent something bad happening to themsevles. Ever. Not even slightly. If I tell a friend, "Hey, when you're walking downtown, keep your hand in your pocket so you don't get your wallet picked!" I'm not telling that person it's his/her "fault" if they get robbed. I'm trying to help them not get robbed in the first place.
Why am I telling them instead of telling the pickpocket not to pick? Because I don't know the pickpocket. But I know my friend, and I can talk to them. We can only go after the pickpocket after the crime -- that is, after my friend has already been robbed. Wouldn't it be better if that didn't happen?
Well, I can't stop the pickpocket from picking pockets, but I can give my friend pointers that might keep them from being in that situation at all.
There are some rules and facts that need to be laid down first. Most have already been made but I feel they deserve reiteration:
Very true. Has no bearing here. This particular ad campaign isn't aiming to prevent every type of rape ever. There's no single way to hit all of them. This campaign focuses on saying, "Hey, bad stuff happens -- why not watch out for each other, especially when you're drunk and more susceptible to all kinds of influence or coercion?" Other campaigns focus on date rape. Others focus on taking self-defense classes or carrying pepper spray.1) The vast majority of rapes are committed by someone the victim knew prior to the assault.
Yes. And an ad campaign like this is focusing on prevention, not prosecution. That's a good idea exactly because so many go unreported. You won't be able to prosecute the rapist if no one steps forward... but if you make people aware of things they can do to help themselves and others avoid rape in the first place there wouldn't be anything to "not report."2) The vast majority of rape crimes go unreported. This is confirmed by support groups whose members confess that they don?t report the violation.
With a lot of reason, too. Don't trivialize the justice system. Too often, when someone is accused of rape, we assume them guilty. There are mistaken accusations, or even false accusations. All people lie, not just the ones we can put Evil Mustaches on.3) The conviction rate is very low
But all that aside: This is yet another brilliant reason to focus on prevention. Trying to fix the problem after the rape occurs doesn't seem to go well, because of unreported crimes and low conviction rates. Clearly that means we should try to catch it sooner.
No, it has nothing to do with accidental/intentional. It has to do with what is useful and what isn't. Which helps you more -- if I tell you what someone else could do to prevent something, or if I tell you what you could do? Obviously the latter. Is it true that the rapist could be told a thing or two also? Sure, but he's not listening.Ads that remind us to wear seatbelts or helmets, or ads that remind us not to drink and drive are not comparable to this rape ad as presented by the OP.
No one disagrees that the rapist is bad (except perhaps the rapist), so putting that on a poster is wasted ink. Talk to the folks that might actually listen, and tell them the things they can do. If all you do is tell someone that it's entirely someone else's responsibility, they learn to be irresponsible. Whether it's "right" or "wrong," it makes them more vulnerable to the crimes if they believe anything preventative is someone "bad."
No, it doesn't. Directing ads at the law-abiding public is the smart thing to do, because the law-breaking public is already obviously not listening. Ads like this don't shift blame or fault. They show potential victims what they could do to reduces their chances of becoming actual victims.Directing anti-rape ads (like the one presented by the OP) at the victim (as opposed to the perpetrator) indirectly suggests the attack is largely the victims fault which is false and unfair. This point is indirectly presented to both potential victims and potential attackers.
No, they don't. They simply suggest that, hey, when you have the choice, it's better not to walk through a high-crime area. Why? Because we can only catch the criminals AFTER they've robbed you. And while that is certainly the "right" thing to do, is that going to be any comfort to you after they've beaten most of your teeth out? No.Other flawed (but admittedly more nuanced) comparisons of cautionary advertisements draw parallels between other crimes. Mugging seems to be a popular choice. These compare a person to walking down a dark street (perhaps in a bad neighbourhood and whilst drunk) and getting mugged and the result of the mugging being to a certain degree the fault of the person being mugged.
There's your problem. If someone disagrees with your assessment, they are "suspiciously overly-defensive." It's not that someone is requesting clarification, is that they are now, in your eyes, a suspected rapist? Or maybe just a "rapist sympathizer?"Many public ideas towards rape are misconceptions that are attempting to be corrected (and meeting with suspiciously overly-defensive hostility.)
And we recognize that rape is a dreadful thing. Some people disagree on things like "If both parties are slammed-drunk, the guy is still at fault if they both consent to sex," but no one is out there defending rape. If someone says, "It was probably a bad idea for her to walk naked through an unsupervised ally full of dangerous criminals," they're not saying, "She asked to get raped." They're saying, "It's awful that this thing happened. Wouldn't it be great if, in the future, we could find a way to keep it from happening at all, rather than having to wait until afterward to punish the guilty? Here is, perhaps, a suggestion."The details of the hypothetical mugging don?t particularly matter since we live in a society where we recognise that mugging is a dreadful thing.
Why don't those people condemn the rapist? Because they don't need to. He's condemned already. No one should have to spell out that he's clearly in the wrong for being a rapist. That part is not in our control or the victim's. So instead, we're focusing our efforts and attention on the things we can control.
Again, it's not, "Because she wore that, it wasn't rape." It's "She was raped, and that's awful." And then as a separate consideration, "Here are some things that possibly could have contributed to the situation that made her susceptible to rape, even though these things did not cause the rape."I feel that this demonstrates that the details and circumstances surrounding the rape (the degree of promiscuity in the victim, the attire of the victim, the degree of drunkenness, etc) shouldn?t be taken into consideration. No one asks to be raped.
If I'm drunk in an ally full of strangers, and they rape me, they caused the rape. However, for my future reference, I could wisely store the information that me being drunk in an ally is probably a contributing factor as to how they got the opportunity. It's not me accepting the blame, it's recognizing that the situation could have been avoided entirely by making some of my own choices differently.
Why is that important? Because, as I've repeatedly said, it is better not to get raped than it is to catch and severely punish the person that raped me.
False. First of all, you're misusing the word "evidence" -- a mistake that no court is going to make without the prosecution moving for a mistrial. Second, you're confusing support with evidence.The circumstances that surround the rape that I mentioned are commonly used by defence lawyers to cast doubt on both the testimony and fault (to blame) of the victim, and are presented to gullible juries as ?evidence.?
You're speaking about cases in which the defense is claiming the alleged victim did give consent, and is now claiming they did not for whatever reason. The claim here is that the defendant had consent at the time. Now, at this point, "character witnesses" may be provided to support the claim, but their support is not evidence in and of itself. How many of these claims are true or false? It doesn't matter, because justice isn't about "odds," it's about the truth of each individual situation.
But I defy you to find a single case in which a rapist was released because the jury said, "Well, she was totally dressed like a slut, so he was okay to take that alone as consent." By conflating several legal concepts (and misusing several others) you're building a case on false premises, and that undermines what truth your case has.
Be very careful. If you start to use alleged biological/sociological differences as a measure by which we are allowed to pre-judge people of a certain gender, that can (and rightfully should, if we are fair) be applied right back to the other gender.But in looking at the natural nature of rape, we also need to take an honest look at normal male sexuality. Yes, NORMAL MALE sexuality. Now I don?t believe that males (gay or straight ? by ?normal? I did not mean sexual orientation) are naturally more horny that female: I think this is an illusion brought on by societal pressures, but males are much less selective about who to chose as a viable mate for reproduction as opposed to females who can only bore one child per nine months.
Like this, for instance. Poor form, no excuse for it. You're insinuating that, for one, anyone who disagrees with you is a "masculinist." Actually probably you're insinuating they must be male. And that anyone who reminds you that rape can occur to either gender is, what, secretly hoping to get raped? Isn't that exactly the mental process you've gone to extremely verbose lengths to decry?I sorry if I hurt the feelings of ?masculinists? (if you will) who are so very quick to remind everyone that women can rape (before wetting their lips)
Conjecture based on several gender prejudices you hold.Be honest gentleman, how many of you fear rape on a day-to-day basis? How many women do you think fear it on a day-to-day basis? They?re hardcore and don?t take this threat lightly.
And I shouldn't "need" to lock my door. But I do, because it prevents bad things done by bad people, who probably don't listen to public service posters telling them not to commit crimes. The reason we can't properly educate people on what they can do to prevent rape is because people like you insist we're "blaming the victim."The potential victim shouldn?t need to hold a red light to stop a rape, but instead to consistently hold a green light to indicate acceptable intercourse. Anything apart from this proverbial ?green light? must be interpreted as a ?red light.? This is the ?education? that I, and many other who have posted in this thread, feel should be on anti-rape warnings rather than blaming the victim.
So, instead, you're telling us to focus our efforts only on the prosecution of rapists, which you yourself told us doesn't work very often -- one, because many aren't reported, and two, because it can sometimes be hard to convict.
You also want us to focus our attention on reminding would-be rapists that what they're doing is bad, when you yourself told us that only a very, very few incidents are a result of the rapist being ignorant of that -- in other words, they already know it's wrong and do not care. Any such appeal would fall on deaf ears, and it would be futile, no matter how "right" it may be.
No, it's directed at women who engage in risky behaviors with men they "don't know very well." The focus is on acquaintance rape, of which date rape is a subset. You're insisting that most such rapes are committed by someone the victim has known for a very, very long time... but that may not be the case most of the time. But again, this ad campaign is focusing on a particular kind of rape, and what of it?The precautionary measures as outlined by the ad in question should be directed at avoiding the small minority of the psychopathic variant of rapists who knows full well that what they?re doing is utterly evil (the advice on the OP?s ad needs to be much more specific.) This is the rapist the general public imagines. The prowler in the dark city.
Would you also complain that the March of Dimes is backwards or evil because they only support kids, rather than the elderly? Or that the American Cancer Society only puts out notices on preventing cancer and not meningitis?
Unless that person also takes the same preventative measures. In which case the rapist has no one to rape. But they'll always find someone, right? Okay, maybe. You can't stop that--but maybe you can stop it from being you, at least. I think that's a more worthwhile goal than, "Eh, let's just wait until they rape someone, and then start doing stuff." No comfort to the victim there, and by your own evidence it doesn't work.These sub-humans will be with us forever and can only be deterred by more extreme measures. Stronger penalties, better security etc, but these creatures will always exist. The precautions you take as outlined in that ad will only shift the dreadful consequence to someone else.
Of course it's not their fault. But you're telling me that no one should tell that person, "Oh and for future reference -- don't do that. It didn't cause the rape, but it certainly didn't help you, now did it?" Hey, string up the rapist, that's fine and no one will fault you one bit, but someone should tell that person that a few adjustments to their behavior couldn't hurt. Taking control of what you can control doesn't mean taking the blame for what you can't, and this false dichotomy you're preaching is horribly destructive.But what if someone doesn?t take these precautionary measures and falls afoul? Is it their fault? No. Even if naked and smeared with a succulent juice whilst screaming and dancing down the most vicious street of the most lawless nation at the darkest hour of night in mating season.
Sounds like a plan.Let?s not be hypocrites. Let?s not be delusional. Let?s not oversimplify things.