The 'Provocative Clothing' Rape Defense

[Froggy Slayer]

the man is still entirely at fault for, you know, having such little self-control that he has to fuck a woman the second that he gets a boner.

Not to be overly PC about things, but men can be rape victims also. This seems to imply otherwise.

I know that, but this 'excuse' is only ever used when a man rapes a woman.

 

[Smeatza]

The opportunity for rape is presented by the woman simply being there, not by how much clothing she is wearing. You can argue that not walking in sketchy places alone can lower your chances of being raped, however the idea that clothing she happens to be wearing has anything to do with is is just ridiculous.

You'll note in a previous post I wrote that not being there was preferential to managing your appearance.
By their very definition an opportunistic rapist will not be out explicitly looking for people to rape, they see an opportunity, and they take it.
People who dress in a provocative manner are more conspicuous than those who don't.
It's why I've made sure to include "don't dress in fancy dress and don't have clothes that light up" with my examples.
Wearing provocative clothing will not get you raped, but the extra attention it affords you might.
Please note (like I said before) that I would advise somebody (male or female) who is looking to reduce their chances of being mugged to not wear provocative clothing.

The only thing that matters is whether or not you're going to get noticed by rapists. Again, if you want to provide evidence that shows wearing "provocative clothing" means an increased chance of rape, please go ahead. Otherwise, stop stating it like it's fact.

You hit the nail on the head with the part in bold
Being conspicuous makes you more likely to be a victim of crime, that is a fact. Wearing provocative clothing is conspicuous in some situations/areas.
Like I said in previous posts, that is usually only when you are alone and in a high crime area.

By telling people that dressing a certain way will reduce their chances of rape, you are telling lies. Well-intentioned lies, but lies nonetheless, and lies which help perpetuate the idea that only certain types of girls get raped.

I'm not lying, I'm not even exaggerating, and I'm certainly not perpetuating that "only certain types of girls get raped." I am saying that being conspicuous, when you are on your own, and in a high crime area, will make you more likely to be the victim of crime (which obviously includes rape) than otherwise. It applies to men and women, in many different ways, one of which is dressing provocatively.
And yeah, it's only a very small chance, but I personally wouldn't take it.

Until you present evidence that it is possible to dress so that one would not be noticed, and that skimpy clothing causes someone to be noticed, and that this is a larger factor in someone's likelihood of being raped then circumstances (where they are, if they are alone or with a group, etc) then your argument is pure fantasy.

Whoa whoa whoa? Who said it was a larger factor than where they are and if they are alone? It doesn't even come into play until you're in a situation where you have to go out alone in a high crime area. I touched on that in my previous post.

Sorry, I'm not wrapped up in feminist dogma. I'm wrapped up in facts as presented by crime-prevention organizations that have studied rapes. Try again, and this time don't waste my time with assumptions about which tribe you think I'm in, please.

You could have fooled me.

 

[DrOswald]

My exact words in my first post: "The advice that you should wear less revealing clothing to avoid being raped is stupid."

Now that we have that out of the way, now that you understand that I am on your side on this, please pay attention.

You are making the exact error I was talking about.

My entire post was about how the anti rape movement is full of reactionaries that blow the smallest comment out of proportion, viciously attacking people who are on our side over a comment that is taken out of context. Like you just did.

These vicious attacks prevent actual discussion of actual useful rape prevention. Especially among those with the ability to significantly sway public opinion.

Your exact words also include that it's completely reasonable to say that wearing provocative clothing is a risk-increasing factor.

And it is. In the absence of any evidence either way, it is reasonable to take a position backed up by logic. By better understanding why someone might take a certain position we can better address the problem.

There's absolutely nothing reasonable about making statements like that that when you yourself admit you haven't got any evidence at all to back it up.

There's nothing blown out of proportion. You make comments that only reinforce the idea that victims weren't acting completely reasonable and you get called out for them. That's all there is.

You can keep on saying that your statement 1, that provocative clothing is a risk-increasing factor, attaches no blame but that doesn't make it true. It makes the utterly retarded assumption that the victim's clothing was a choice she could have picked better. That there was something, anything, she could have done to prevent the whole thing if only she hadn't worn that skirt. That's attaching blame. Not much blame. But it is attaching blame, regardless of you stressing that it doesn't.

Stop making stupid statements like that and you'll stop getting attacked by people you believe on your side (hint: those actually on this side don't say your statement 1 is reasonable).

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to take the position backed up by the strongest logic.

This is why so many people have taken the stance that revealing clothing might make you more likely to be targeted in certain types of rapes. It is the most logical position.

Once again, it is a reasonable, logical statement. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT IS TRUE. And it certainly does not mean we should act on the statement. Logic is not evidence and reasonable does not mean true or right. In fact, many logical and reasonable things are abhorrent.

For example, it would be logical to harvest the organs of societal undesirables and give them to "more deserving" citizens. After all, the organs of one undesirable could save many lives. And yet anyone in their right mind would find such a thing abhorrent. Not because it is illogical, not because the reasoning is poor, but because on the level of emotion and morality we know it is wrong. The ban on organ harvesting is emotionally driven and counter to logic. But that does not make it wrong.

It is vital that we understand the reasoning and logic that causes problems so we can quickly and effectively correct the error of thinking and them move on to the more important issue. All your ranting about longer skirts and burqa means nothing because you are failing to address the actual core concern. You are endeavoring to counter logic with logic, but logic is not on your side for this one. You have no evidence and your position is counter to logic. You should approach this on a level of morality and ethics. All the other stuff, all your efforts to prove that clothing has nothing to do with it simply lessens the strength of the actual message you should be talking about. In fact, your hostile words cause people to shutdown and ignore everything you have to say. The only thing you accomplish is in driving someone away from the anti rape movement.

This is a matter of ethics and morality. The principle we need to teach is that just because additional risk management was possible does not mean there was fault in the victim. Because there will be cases when a woman failed in risk management. And it is still not their fault.

I personally knew a woman who was raped by a stranger. She accepted a drink, it was drugged, and she was raped. The fact is that the rape could have been prevented if she had acted differently.

Statement: "A woman is more likely to be raped if she accepts drinks from strangers."

However, despite the failure in risk management, she is not to blame. This is the truth that actually matters. This is what we need everyone to understand. Because once everyone accepts this idea then we will be able to effectively teach risk management, victim blaming will occur less and less, and we will have made significant strides against rape culture.

 

[Hagi]

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to take the position backed up by the strongest logic.

No.

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to do some fucking reading and research to find some evidence.

As for the rest of your post, I don't think you really know what logic is. Logic is just a set of rules of reasoning. It's incapable of functioning on it's own because it does not incorporate a starting point.

Your 'conclusion' that harvesting organs from society's undesirables isn't purely logical. It's based on the starting point that the lives of undesirables are of minimal value compared to those of others. There's nothing logical about that starting point, nor is there anything logical about any other starting point. It simply is. From that starting point onward the logic starts and you end up at the conclusion of harvesting their organs.

It's no more or less logical than saying "If it's black and white then it's a penguin. A panda is black and white. Thus a panda is a penguin." Because the starting point, "If it's black and white then it's a penguin.", isn't correct the entire thing that follows logically isn't correct either.

You don't have to have an opinion on everything. If you don't have any evidence, meaning a solid starting point, then it's completely acceptable and fine to just say you don't know.

You don't have to start from a point you haven't the faintest clue about whether or not it's actually true and start applying logic in the delusional belief that that alone is more than enough to come up with truth.

If you don't have any evidence then the reasonable thing is to simply say you don't know. Until you do some research and reading to come up with a solid starting point to start reasoning from.

It's okay to not know. You don't have to mindlessly apply logic based on axioms you haven't the faintest clue about.

 

[Lilani]

You'll note in a previous post I wrote that not being there was preferential to managing your appearance.
By their very definition an opportunistic rapist will not be out explicitly looking for people to rape, they see an opportunity, and they take it.
People who dress in a provocative manner are more conspicuous than those who don't.
It's why I've made sure to include "don't dress in fancy dress and don't have clothes that light up" with my examples.
Wearing provocative clothing will not get you raped, but the extra attention it affords you might.
Please note (like I said before) that I would advise somebody (male or female) who is looking to reduce their chances of being mugged to not wear provocative clothing.

Unless there's an official prototype for an invisibility cloak, the very fact that the person is there is going to be "conspicuous" enough.

If what you are suggesting is more along the lines of "women should disguise themselves so the rapists can't tell they are women after dark," I think it should be noted that in most cases if a woman is walking in someplace sketchy after dark, it is very likely she did not set out to find herself there. Something changed in her plans and for some reason or another, she's having to stick it out in that area alone. Most women I know, myself included, don't just have in our belongings at any given moment a set of clothing that can easily hide my gender. So if I happen to find myself alone downtown after dark, which I do try to prevent but sometimes things just don't go as planned, I'm stuck with whatever I'm wearing. And even my baggiest jeans and my shittiest T-shirts are not going to hide my figure or my hair.

Expecting women to bundle up like they're wearing burqas is not only unreasonable and not aligned with how stranger-rape occurs, but it also completely falls to pieces because if even one woman in that area fails to properly disguise herself then that's the one the rapist will go after. Disguising women doesn't prevent rape so much as deflect it to another victim. There will always be women who find themselves in bad places after dark, and there will always be ones among them who can be spotted as women.

I get what you're trying to say here, but that's just not how things work in reality.

 

[RJ Dalton]

People like to say that men have no control over themselves, therefor it's up to women to make sure that they don't tempt men. In the broadest sense, yeah, if you wear provocative clothing, you are going to attract attention and it's likely that sooner or later it's going to be the sort of attention you don't want, but that's basically like saying "If he didn't want me to steal from him, he shouldn't have owned such awesome stuff." It doesn't work as a either a logical or legal defense.

Of course, this is really only applicable in the limited context of casual date-rape. Most incidents of rape are not motivated by sexual lust, but are based in twisted power fantasies. That's why you get dumbass judges offhandedly commenting "Why was she raped? She's not that pretty." Actual lust isn't so much a factor as is the desire to have power over another human being, so in general cases, how you dress or look isn't going to make a difference to the rapist.

 

[Drizzitdude]

I don't get why people still use this as a defense for rape. Why do people try to shift the blame onto the women in a situation where the man is still entirely at fault for, you know, having such little self-control that he has to fuck a woman the second that he gets a boner. This is a defense that's still used, and yet, it's one that already assumes that the man is guilty of rape; it simply tries to shift the blame for the crime onto the victim. How do people still believe in this?

Nobody actually does, it is a pathetic excuse and they know it.

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

Quite a few people I know who've "raped" or been "raped" either were doing it wrong or misinterpreting signals... this is a total of three people I know (women, man man).

 

[Azex]

There is no defense or justification for rape /thread

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Holding other factors constant and assuming the couple was sexually active, seems like a fairly reasonable defense for marital rape, which was something like 40% of most rape.. tho im going off the top of my head without data analysis. If you have sex all the time with the same person, and the woman wears something provocative the man might misinterpret that. Especially if his wife usually only wears provocative clothing for her husband/boyfriends, and especially if they sleep in the same bed.


Anecdote (its like facts, only not at all):
I remember once waking up after an after-work nap once to find my girlfriend in lingerie in bed with me (she didnt want to wake me, but she fell asleep waiting). There was no previous agreement or indication that we were going to have sex so consent was not given in any way. But i thought itd be quite a turn on (for her) to wake her by penetrating her. This was rape, when she woke she said "what a wonderful way to wake up" and everything was happy.
But my attempt at raising her skimpy outfit with surprise wake up sex was still rape. If she'd decided she was raped, she could have brought me to court and i may very well have told the judge her clothing seemed like pretty obvious consent and the judge may very well have understood that my actions came out of a good place (wanting to make my gf happy) and that her clothing was indeed provocative. He would also understand that what i did was still legally rape and he would be obligated to prosecute me, thus making me a rapist who tried to defend himself by saying she was asking for it with that clothing.
Though what actually happened was she did put on provocative clothing specifically because she was asking for it.

 

[HellbirdIV]

People are dumb because sex is a weird thing. It's a topic that makes us, as a culture, as people, get a little stiff

I see what you did there.

Hurr hurr.

Hahahaha awesome. "Misogyny was born as a reaction to radical feminists! Before radical feminists came along there was no sexism!"

Y'know it's probably a bad idea to strawman the people who are on your side of the argument.

 

[MidnightSt]

I don't get why people still use this as a defense for rape. Why do people try to shift the blame onto the women in a situation where the man is still entirely at fault for, you know, having such little self-control that he has to fuck a woman the second that he gets a boner. This is a defense that's still used, and yet, it's one that already assumes that the man is guilty of rape; it simply tries to shift the blame for the crime onto the victim. How do people still believe in this?

i don't get it either, but you know what's worse? that I actually know some WOMEN that also have the view that if a woman was dressed provocatively, or got too drunk, it was ("at least partially", they say) her fault. i want to throw up right in their face every time I hear that bullshit.

 

[George Francis Gaspar]

I think it is a bogus defense that blames women for getting raped and stereotypes men as the other half of the human population who cannot for the life of them control their sexual urges and resorts to heinous acts like sexual assault. It assumes the worst in both genders and does no good for any one of them.

 

[DrOswald]

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to take the position backed up by the strongest logic.

No.

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to do some fucking reading and research to find some evidence.

I did do the research! There is no substantial evidence either way! You keep on insisting that there is, but you never provide any! I looked and looked. I found around 10 long lists all claiming that these studies proved something, but very few of the studies listed offered any evidence supporting a claim one way or the other. Almost every study is actually about the effect of clothing choice on victim blaming. And the few that did actually attempt to answer the question disagree and are often based on terrible methodology. One actually had the audacity to claim they had definitively proven the point because they literally asked men if they, personally, were more likely to rape a woman in revealing clothing and the men said no. The methodology is moronic, the reasoning flawed, and the few studies done well are conflicting in their conclusions. There is no substantial evidence for either conclusion.

As for the rest of your post, I don't think you really know what logic is. Logic is just a set of rules of reasoning. It's incapable of functioning on it's own because it does not incorporate a starting point.

Your 'conclusion' that harvesting organs from society's undesirables isn't purely logical. It's based on the starting point that the lives of undesirables are of minimal value compared to those of others. There's nothing logical about that starting point, nor is there anything logical about any other starting point. It simply is. From that starting point onward the logic starts and you end up at the conclusion of harvesting their organs.

Logic is based on evidence and assumptions. I didn't think I would have to list the obvious assumptions on which this argument is made, but here we go:

1. the life of a societal undesirable is less valuable than the life of a societal desirable.

2. The value of a single life is less than that of multiple lives.

If either of these assumptions holds true then so does the conclusion. So, please, prove these assumptions wrong. In particular I really want to see your purely logical debunking of number 2.

It's no more or less logical than saying "If it's black and white then it's a penguin. A panda is black and white. Thus a panda is a penguin." Because the starting point, "If it's black and white then it's a penguin.", isn't correct the entire thing that follows logically isn't correct either.

The assumption you list above is:

Everything that is black and white is a penguin.

If this does not hold true, then the conclusion is incorrect.

I am currently typing on a keyboard that is black and white. This keyboard does not fit the definition of a penguin. Therefore the assumption does not always hold. I have logically debunked your assumption. Your conclusion is based on incorrect assumptions. Therefore your conclusion is incorrect.

It is not the same. Your assumption is easily struck down by logic alone because there is a huge amount of practical evidence.

You don't have to have an opinion on everything. If you don't have any evidence, meaning a solid starting point, then it's completely acceptable and fine to just say you don't know.

You don't have to start from a point you haven't the faintest clue about whether or not it's actually true and start applying logic in the delusional belief that that alone is more than enough to come up with truth.

If you don't have any evidence then the reasonable thing is to simply say you don't know. Until you do some research and reading to come up with a solid starting point to start reasoning from.

It's okay to not know. You don't have to mindlessly apply logic based on axioms you haven't the faintest clue about.

Except often a determination must be made without sufficient evidence and an exhaustive search is impossible or impractical. When this happens, we use what is called a heuristic tool to make a determination. These tools do not guarantee accuracy but they often produce better results than completely random determination.

Scientists use heuristic tools to determine the next hypothesis to test. Computer programmers program heuristic tools into their software in order to speed up calculations. Educated guesses, Occam's razor, common sense and rules of thumb are all heuristic tools. Heuristic tools are the most reasonable method of determination when a determination must be made and the exhaustive search is impractical or impossible.

In the case of rape we have an extremely urgent problem. We can't just wait around for all the evidence before making any determinations. We need to make certain determinations as accurately as possible as soon as possible so we can act in a way that will best address the problem. Thus, many people are led to make the best possible determination on this particular issue they can.

Now, before I go on I want to repeat my entire point of even bringing this up, quoting from my last post: "It is vital that we understand the reasoning and logic that causes problems so we can quickly and effectively correct the error of thinking."

So, let us examine the logic and reasoning that leads to the problem so we can understand how to effectively correct the error of thinking.

The goal: To reduce incidents of rape.

The question: In the case of the stranger rape scenario, does clothing have an effect on choice of target by the rapist?

or, in more specific terms:

In the case of stranger rape, does sexy clothing increase the probability of being targeted?

Because there is a lack of evidence, the heuristic tool applied is the educated guess to create likely assumptions.

Likely assumption 1: The relationship between the rapist and the victim in the stranger rape scenario is accurately modeled as a predator-prey relationship.

From this we can draw some logical conclusions (though the conclusions are based on an unproven assumption.)

A predator chooses prey by opportunity, difficulty/danger of hunting the prey, and desirability/visibility of the prey.

A predator will only attack when it perceives an opportunity and that the difficulty and danger of the hunt is justified by the desirability of the prey. A predator will consider highly visible prey first.

The next question we ask then is do sexy clothes have any effect on any of these factors?

Likely assumption 2: Sexy clothes increase the desirability or visibility of a woman as prey. (Seen as likely because sexy clothes are designed to increase the desirability and visibility of a woman.)

OR

Likely assumption 2a: Sexy clothes decrease the perceived difficulty or danger of hunting the prey. (a very complex assumption but many are likely to support this assumption.)

From these assumptions and the stated logic, a determination (or a conclusion) is made:

Wearing sexy clothing increases the chance of being targeted for rape.

If either assumption 2 or 2a are true and assumption 1 is also true, then the conclusion holds.

The conclusion is reasonable. It is based on logic and the best applicable tools of determination.

But that does not necessarily mean it is a correct conclusion or that the effect is not negligible.

More importantly, it does not justify victim blaming based on this conclusion, nor would it if it were 100% proven to be true.

(The conclusion itself is not victim blaming. Presenting the possibility of risk mitigation is not victim blaming. It becomes victim blaming when an attempt is made to transfer guilt from the rapist to the victim.)

 

[MoltenSilver]

To me, the idea behind the thought (and victim blaming in general) is trying to apply (seemingly, but often not really) 'rational', 'logical' (and therefore controllable and predictable, which again they truly are not) variables to the event; It's a lot more comforting to think ' was raped because they did this and this and this, so therefore it will never happen to me', instead of accepting the truth that in the stranger-attacker cases is all up to chance

 

[sethisjimmy]

Except often a determination must be made without sufficient evidence and an exhaustive search is impossible or impractical. When this happens, we use what is called a heuristic tool to make a determination. These tools do not guarantee accuracy but they often produce better results than completely random determination.

Scientists use heuristic tools to determine the next hypothesis to test. Computer programmers program heuristic tools into their software in order to speed up calculations. Educated guesses, Occam's razor, common sense and rules of thumb are all heuristic tools. Heuristic tools are the most reasonable method of determination when a determination must be made and the exhaustive search is impractical or impossible.

In the case of rape we have an extremely urgent problem. We can't just wait around for all the evidence before making any determinations. We need to make certain determinations as accurately as possible as soon as possible so we can act in a way that will best address the problem. Thus, many people are led to make the best possible determination on this particular issue they can.

Now, before I go on I want to repeat my entire point of even bringing this up, quoting from my last post: "It is vital that we understand the reasoning and logic that causes problems so we can quickly and effectively correct the error of thinking."

So, let us examine the logic and reasoning that leads to the problem so we can understand how to effectively correct the error of thinking.

The goal: To reduce incidents of rape.

The question: In the case of the stranger rape scenario, does clothing have an effect on choice of target by the rapist?

or, in more specific terms:

In the case of stranger rape, does sexy clothing increase the probability of being targeted?

Because there is a lack of evidence, the heuristic tool applied is the educated guess to create likely assumptions.

Likely assumption 1: The relationship between the rapist and the victim in the stranger rape scenario is accurately modeled as a predator-prey relationship.

From this we can draw some logical conclusions (though the conclusions are based on an unproven assumption.)

A predator chooses prey by opportunity, difficulty/danger of hunting the prey, and desirability/visibility of the prey.

A predator will only attack when it perceives an opportunity and that the difficulty and danger of the hunt is justified by the desirability of the prey. A predator will consider highly visible prey first.

The next question we ask then is do sexy clothes have any effect on any of these factors?

Likely assumption 2: Sexy clothes increase the desirability or visibility of a woman as prey. (Seen as likely because sexy clothes are designed to increase the desirability and visibility of a woman.)

OR

Likely assumption 2a: Sexy clothes decrease the perceived difficulty or danger of hunting the prey. (a very complex assumption but many are likely to support this assumption.)

From these assumptions and the stated logic, a determination (or a conclusion) is made:

Wearing sexy clothing increases the chance of being targeted for rape.

If either assumption 2 or 2a are true and assumption 1 is also true, then the conclusion holds.

The conclusion is reasonable. It is based on logic and the best applicable tools of determination.

But that does not necessarily mean it is a correct conclusion or that the effect is not negligible.

More importantly, it does not justify victim blaming based on this conclusion, nor would it if it were 100% proven to be true.

(The conclusion itself is not victim blaming. Presenting the possibility of risk mitigation is not victim blaming. It becomes victim blaming when an attempt is made to transfer guilt from the rapist to the victim.)

Those "likely assumptions" aren't very likely at all. In fact The Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy finds that provocative clothing is not at all an indicator of prey, but may actually be an indicator of confidence and assertiveness, where concealing clothing is a better indicator of viable, insecure prey.

Also rape is shown to have very little to do with "desirability of prey" and all to do with opportunity and power (according at least to the American Journal of Psychiatry).

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=djglp
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=155978

It isn't logical to analogize an individual situation to another situation just because they seem vaguely similar, and these "assumptions" are less educated guesses and more logic leaps with no base.

I get where you're coming from and I know you don't support victim blaming but I still feel the evidence points elsewhere.

 

[Hagi]

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to take the position backed up by the strongest logic.

No.

In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to do some fucking reading and research to find some evidence.

I did do the research! There is no substantial evidence either way! You keep on insisting that there is, but you never provide any! I looked and looked. I found around 10 long lists all claiming that these studies proved something, but very few of the studies listed offered any evidence supporting a claim one way or the other. Almost every study is actually about the effect of clothing choice on victim blaming. And the few that did actually attempt to answer the question disagree and are often based on terrible methodology. One actually had the audacity to claim they had definitively proven the point because they literally asked men if they, personally, were more likely to rape a woman in revealing clothing and the men said no. The methodology is moronic, the reasoning flawed, and the few studies done well are conflicting in their conclusions. There is no substantial evidence for either conclusion.

At which point you decided that, lacking evidence you'd just dismiss the entire idea of a null hypothesis and go with your own 'logic' that clothing is indeed a risk increasing factor?

I can't provide you with research. Most of it isn't freely available online. It's stored away on paper in scientific journals or online where it's purely available for university students and subscribers.

You're either going to have to take the word of me and many others in this thread that there's no causal relation involved or you're going to have to go with the null hypothesis when there's no evidence either way which ends up in the same conclusion anyway.

There is no link until proven otherwise. You yourself should've found that whilst there are public studies showing that there is a link (shaky as they might be) there certainly aren't any studies proving that in fact there is one.

As for the rest of your post, I don't think you really know what logic is. Logic is just a set of rules of reasoning. It's incapable of functioning on it's own because it does not incorporate a starting point.

Your 'conclusion' that harvesting organs from society's undesirables isn't purely logical. It's based on the starting point that the lives of undesirables are of minimal value compared to those of others. There's nothing logical about that starting point, nor is there anything logical about any other starting point. It simply is. From that starting point onward the logic starts and you end up at the conclusion of harvesting their organs.

Logic is based on evidence and assumptions. I didn't think I would have to list the obvious assumptions on which this argument is made, but here we go:

1. the life of a societal undesirable is less valuable than the life of a societal desirable.

2. The value of a single life is less than that of multiple lives.

If either of these assumptions holds true then so does the conclusion. So, please, prove these assumptions wrong. In particular I really want to see your purely logical debunking of number 2.

You're missing out on a lot of factors.

1. Organ transplantations have a cost. For your conclusion to be reached the undesirable has to be worth less than a desirable plus the cost of transplanting, storing and transporting said organs.
2. There's a severely limited number of organs to be harvested, most of them not even usable. A socially undesirable is much more likely to take excessive drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc. There's no way his organs are going to save multiple lives.
3. There's a significant risk and cost post-operation in the form of organ rejection and the medicines involved. That cost and risk also have to be added on to the value of the life of the undesirable in this equation.
4. Even if you did go through with the plan there'd be a significant cost involved in hunting down, capturing and murdering said undesirables. Hell, there'd be a significant cost involved simply keeping track of who exactly is undesirable and who isn't.
5. If, somehow, you're still convinced the desirable is still worth more than the life of the undesirable plus all the above factors you're then going to have to implement severe measures on the desirables themselves to prevent any form of resistance against your plans.

You can't just rip out a heart of an unwilling person, jam it into the chest of another likely unwilling person and expect it to work. Human biology and psychology is a tad more complicated.

It's no more or less logical than saying "If it's black and white then it's a penguin. A panda is black and white. Thus a panda is a penguin." Because the starting point, "If it's black and white then it's a penguin.", isn't correct the entire thing that follows logically isn't correct either.

The assumption you list above is:

Everything that is black and white is a penguin.

If this does not hold true, then the conclusion is incorrect.

I am currently typing on a keyboard that is black and white. This keyboard does not fit the definition of a penguin. Therefore the assumption does not always hold. I have logically debunked your assumption. Your conclusion is based on incorrect assumptions. Therefore your conclusion is incorrect.

It is not the same. Your assumption is easily struck down by logic alone because there is a huge amount of practical evidence.

Logic doesn't know the real world. All of that are axioms. You just added the axiom of the definition of a penguin. Which does indeed turn my conclusion incorrect. Not through logic, but through adding new axioms to the system.

Logic is purely and only the rules of reasoning. That's it. Any definition, any assumption, any meaning is not part of it. Basic predicate logic requires the assumption, the axiom, that something is either true or false. That's not something that's logically reached through any means. It's an axiom. Nothing can be struck down by logic alone. Every logical statement requires axioms in order to determine it's validity. That's how logic works.

You don't have to have an opinion on everything. If you don't have any evidence, meaning a solid starting point, then it's completely acceptable and fine to just say you don't know.

You don't have to start from a point you haven't the faintest clue about whether or not it's actually true and start applying logic in the delusional belief that that alone is more than enough to come up with truth.

If you don't have any evidence then the reasonable thing is to simply say you don't know. Until you do some research and reading to come up with a solid starting point to start reasoning from.

It's okay to not know. You don't have to mindlessly apply logic based on axioms you haven't the faintest clue about.

Except often a determination must be made without sufficient evidence and an exhaustive search is impossible or impractical. When this happens, we use what is called a heuristic tool to make a determination. These tools do not guarantee accuracy but they often produce better results than completely random determination.

Scientists use heuristic tools to determine the next hypothesis to test. Computer programmers program heuristic tools into their software in order to speed up calculations. Educated guesses, Occam's razor, common sense and rules of thumb are all heuristic tools. Heuristic tools are the most reasonable method of determination when a determination must be made and the exhaustive search is impractical or impossible.

In the case of rape we have an extremely urgent problem. We can't just wait around for all the evidence before making any determinations. We need to make certain determinations as accurately as possible as soon as possible so we can act in a way that will best address the problem. Thus, many people are led to make the best possible determination on this particular issue they can.

Now, before I go on I want to repeat my entire point of even bringing this up, quoting from my last post: "It is vital that we understand the reasoning and logic that causes problems so we can quickly and effectively correct the error of thinking."

So, let us examine the logic and reasoning that leads to the problem so we can understand how to effectively correct the error of thinking.

The goal: To reduce incidents of rape.

The question: In the case of the stranger rape scenario, does clothing have an effect on choice of target by the rapist?

or, in more specific terms:

In the case of stranger rape, does sexy clothing increase the probability of being targeted?

Because there is a lack of evidence, the heuristic tool applied is the educated guess to create likely assumptions.

Likely assumption 1: The relationship between the rapist and the victim in the stranger rape scenario is accurately modeled as a predator-prey relationship.

From this we can draw some logical conclusions (though the conclusions are based on an unproven assumption.)

A predator chooses prey by opportunity, difficulty/danger of hunting the prey, and desirability/visibility of the prey.

A predator will only attack when it perceives an opportunity and that the difficulty and danger of the hunt is justified by the desirability of the prey. A predator will consider highly visible prey first.

The next question we ask then is do sexy clothes have any effect on any of these factors?

Likely assumption 2: Sexy clothes increase the desirability or visibility of a woman as prey. (Seen as likely because sexy clothes are designed to increase the desirability and visibility of a woman.)

OR

Likely assumption 2a: Sexy clothes decrease the perceived difficulty or danger of hunting the prey. (a very complex assumption but many are likely to support this assumption.)

From these assumptions and the stated logic, a determination (or a conclusion) is made:

Wearing sexy clothing increases the chance of being targeted for rape.

If either assumption 2 or 2a are true and assumption 1 is also true, then the conclusion holds.

The conclusion is reasonable. It is based on logic and the best applicable tools of determination.

But that does not necessarily mean it is a correct conclusion or that the effect is not negligible.

More importantly, it does not justify victim blaming based on this conclusion, nor would it if it were 100% proven to be true.

(The conclusion itself is not victim blaming. Presenting the possibility of risk mitigation is not victim blaming. It becomes victim blaming when an attempt is made to transfer guilt from the rapist to the victim.)

The conclusion is reasonable and reasonable alone if your axioms, your likely assumptions, hold. Yet you provide absolutely no arguments for why they should.

Heuristic tools are based on actual evidence. They don't just randomly grab statements deemed as likely. They go by rules of thumb. They don't know the causality but they do know correlation. That's what they're based on, strong correlation.

Where's your correlation that rapists and victims have a predator-prey relationship? Where's your proof that although you haven't been able to establish a causal relationship you have established a correlation?

Where's your correlation that sexy clothing increases the desirability or visibility of a woman as prey? Do you have any proof that there's a correlation between wearing sexy clothing and being desirable and visible explicitly as prey?

You're just randomly grabbing statements that you randomly label as likely. There's absolutely zero empiricism behind it. That's simply not how you end up with reasonable conclusions.