The 'Provocative Clothing' Rape Defense

[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.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Who the hell uses it as a defense for rape? There is no defense for rape. As far as I know it goes like this:

Rape is inexcusable and it's a bad thing and it's the rapist's fault and they shouldn't have done it.
In the same way, theft is inexcusable (mostly, let's say for argument's sake it is) and it's a bad thing and it's the thief's fault and they shouldn't have done it.

I am aware that thieves exist and that if I leave my wallet lying on the sidewalk while I go off to do something else, it's likely to get stolen.
Likewise women are aware rapists exist and that wearing provocative clothing, getting drunk etc. can increase their risk of getting raped.

In an ideal world there should be no thieves and I could leave my wallet wherever I please.
In an ideal world women would be able to wear whatever they want with no fear of being raped.

But this isn't an ideal world. The point is not to blame them, the point is that they should, owing to the fact that this is not an ideal world, take reasonable precautions. It's still the rapist's fault, but women should keep in mind that wearing such clothing is a risk, just as I should keep in mind that leaving my wallet on the sidewalk is a risk.

Actually, if you read the thread you'll find that there's no evidence of correlation between provocative clothing and likelihood of rape, and as such, wearing conservative clothing isn't actually a precaution against rape. Also the thread is full of silly analogies like yours. You keeping your wallet in your pocket is likely to prevent it from getting stolen, but whether a women wears provocative clothing or not has no impact on her chances of being a victim of rape.

 

[Banana Cannon]

The provocative clothing excuse is when I take as my cue to laugh at & humiliate the person who said it across every spectrum of their lives.

 

[Proeliator]

I think people have already said this, but I think the clothing thing is meant as per this analogy:

Wearing dark clothing while running on the side of a residential road during a dark rainy night. An impaired driver sees the runner to late and kills them, or maims them for life. Yes, the driver shouldn't have been at the wheel anyway, but the dark clothing didn't help. It makes the unfortunate tragedy even more tragic. The runner has already paid the price with their live/body. Time for the driver to pay his.

If someone tried to defend the driver saying "the runner should have been wearing light clothing, so my client isn't at fault for not seeing and hitting them" shenanigans. Sure the runner should have been in lighter clothing, but the driver was drunk and should do time. I always thought the clothing thing as a suggestion for women to protect themselves in "bad neighborhoods." Maybe cover up until you get to where you're going. Legal defense for a rapist? Not on my watch. If I was on jury, wouldn't buy it for a second.

Moral of the story: Walk naked. Everywhere. Its the only way you'll survive.

 

[SidheKnight]

As far as I'm concerned, a person can walk in front of me, naked, with the words "F*CK ME" written on their buttcheeks, and I still should be legally responsible if I rape them.


P.S: Just a little nitpick: Don't use "the man" and "the woman" when describing the situation, because you make it look like the perpetrator is always male and the victim is always female, which is a widespread misconception.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Ugh, yet another beating of this poor dead horsie (at least in this forum).

No, it's not an excuse, and if somebody claims it he/she has to back it up with evidence. Sofar i havent heard of any causality between the likelihood of rape and the clothes of the victim.
Also the "myriads of false accusations" are somewhere between 2-10% depending on the study, though i'd say if it's closer to the upper limit i would honestly feel uneasy as a man.

Anyway, there's no excuse of the crime, no defense for the criminal and every dumb woman who accuses someone out of spite/revenge/lulz.

So, what's the next topic? Abortion, weapons or religion?

 

[DrOswald]

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.

"Research provides evidence that how a woman dresses may be interpreted as a cue to her character, vulnerability, willingness to have sex, and provocation of a male's behavior and, consequently, affects the likelihood of sexual assault, including date rape."

An Examination of Date Rape, Victim Dress, and Perceiver Variables Within the Context of Attribution Theory
Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, August, 1999 by Jane E. Workman, Elizabeth W. Freeburg

These researchers have come to the opposite conclusion, that clothing does in fact effect the probability of date rape.

And the abstract of the second article you linked:

"Accounts from both offenders and victims of what occurs during a rape suggest that issues of power, anger, and sexuality are important in understanding the rapist's behavior. All three issues seem to operate in every rape, but the proportion varies and one issue seems to dominate in each instance. The authors ranked accounts from 133 offenders and 92 victims for the dominant issue and found that the offenses could be categorized as power rape (sexuality used primarily to express power) or anger rape (use of sexuality to express anger). There were no rapes in which sex was the dominant issue; sexuality was always in the service of other, nonsexual needs."

This states that sexuality is always a factor, even if it is not the dominant factor. This could just as easily be interpreted as vindication of the provocative clothing assumption. After all, the abstract plainly states that sexuality is a factor in every case.

And yet, the first article you linked claims strong evidence against the provocative clothing assumption.

This is why I say there is no substantial evidence either way. Because my research has show that even the seemingly reliable sources disagree.

Even if we were to prove the opposite true (as is suggested in your post and by many sources I have seen) that timid clothing resulted in increased probability of rape wouldn't it be just as bad? "She was too timid. If she had been more assertive, he wouldn't have bothered her. She just let him do it." This is equally bad victim blaming.

In addition, the "likely assumptions" I listed are not necessarily true, they are simply what most people are going to assume because it squares with their experience and knowledge.

Finally, trying to counter the provocative dress assumption with evidence is an ineffective method of dealing with the problem. Even if we could prove without a shadow of a doubt that clothing had absolutely no effect in any rape we will still have not dealt with the core problem of victim blaming.

All my posts in this thread have had exactly 3 points:


1. The suggestion of risk management is not victim blaming and to treat it as such is irresponsible.

2. Rather than trying to prove the unprovable (or at least extremely difficult to prove) we should approach the problem on a level of morality and emotion. If we can instill the principle that victim blaming is wrong we solve the problem at the root and gain an ally. Our objective should not be to defeat but to convert.

3. That we should treat those who are not yet on our side with respect, winning them over by being reasonable and amiable. The quickest way to drive someone away from your message is to act and speak with hostility, and yet that is the default mode of the anti rape movement.

 

[Cheesus Crust]

A woman wearing provocative clothing is only more likely to get raped if there was a rapist who was motivated by such things I guess. I mean like most posters have said before me, the motivations behind rape are many.

Can someone please clarify things for me since we're on the topic of provocative clothing. There used to be a time in my old university that there wasn't any dress code. Female students could wear any kind of clothing that they wished. Regarding this issue I remember one of my professors making an off hand comment that in the United States its actually okay for men to call women out on some sort of sexual harassment if they wear clothing that's too revealing, at least in the workplace. Is this a real thing or is this some sort of BS that the professor said in order to deliver a cautionary tail of things working both ways and that the female students should stop wearing clothes that are too revealing?

 

[ishist]

I just love these threads. (All the following is my opinion. If you don't like my opinion, quit reading mine and go form your own.)

Pretty much EVERYONE knows that rape is wrong. They don't need to be taught. There doesn't need to be campaigns of awareness. People who rape other people don't do it out of ignorance. The endless blathering on about how we need to make people aware of this problem is just....ignorant. Go into a public place and say the word "rape" in a slightly raised tone of voice and every head within hearing distance will turn.

As for the subject of women wearing revealing clothes/slutty clothes/just enough clothes pasted to themselves to avoid being arrested, they are almost certainly not asking to be raped. On the other hand, they are begging to be leered at, jeered at, propositioned, hit upon, judged, and possibly harassed. Those who say they aren't are delusional. As a humorously exaggerated example, someone who walks around in public wearing a neon sign saying "Look At Me!" should not claim that they don't want people staring at them.

That is all, carry on.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Rape is wrong.

There is no other argument about this. Say what you will about women being stupid for wearing provocative clothing or not (I honestly don't care either way), but rape is wrong.

Rape is ALWAYS wrong.

 

[The Material Sheep]

People still try to excuse rape with clothing choice? Aside from the occasional talking head saying something asinine I mean. Just seem so antiquated.

 

[Abomination]

From a meta perspective it would be best if women took more care with their choice of clothing.

This very dicussion alone encourages it due to the number of times the clothing excuse has been attempted by accused rapists.

It might or might not be a CAUSE for rape but it certainly seems to be a clutching at straws justification rapists use. If a woman is not dressed in such a manner then that's one less incentive for the rapist. It might not prevent every single rape but it might prevent a few. Call it a 5% less chance to be considered a target. Since everyone agrees that rape is a horrible thing I think a 5% chance to reduce it is well worth embracing.

 

[Abomination]

It might or might not be a CAUSE for rape but it certainly seems to be a clutching at straws justification rapists use.

1) Is it? Do you have evidence that rapists do use the way women dress as justification? After all, most of the objection in this thread has not come from 1st-hand rapist accounts, but second-hand accounts of people on the side-lines trying to prevent rapes despite not knowing much at all about how and why most rapes take place.

2) Does it matter? Is there any evidence whatsoever that gives us reason to believe an opportunistic rapist would ever not rape someone who was seen to be vulnerable simply because of the way the victim was dressed?

1. Considering how often it is used in court as an attempt at defence or excuse BY those accused of rape? Yes. THEY seem to think it is. Of course obtaining evidence of this is difficult going either way to prove it has an effect or to prove it has NO effect on the decision making process of a rapist.

2. If a rapist considers it a possible defence to rape then it does matter. If it's something he can remember about the event then he must have taken it into consideration. It's strange that during the court case he can remember what the victim was wearing before the rape - often with significant specifics.

It might not prevent every single rape but it might prevent a few. Call it a 5% less chance to be considered a target.

No, I'm not going to call it any percent until that percent is justified through rigorous research. Otherwise, we may as well advocate people wear turnips tied into their hair because there's a... let's call it 5% less chance they'll be raped because it just seems too weird.

Without evidence, you're just making things up. And if you care enough about rape to try and stop it, you should care enough to do some research to try and stop it using information that has been shown to be accurate. You should care enough not to just make things up that feel right to you.

I think a turnip would prevent a few rapes, it would certainly give a rapist pause and I haven't heard of a single rape where a victim was wearing a turnip on their head before, during or after the attack. Statistically then turnips on heads prevent rape.

Of course we can't actually prove that because it would require unethical testing by encouraging rape scenarios to be studied.

The evidence is actually quite plain - rapists attempt to use the skimpiness of clothing as a defence for rape. It is often quite publicized that this excuse is employed by rapists. Of course we can not be certain as to the percentage chance of it reducing rape, nobody would be willing to conduct a study of that... you would have to set up rapes to study in order to have scientific findings to remove outside influences and be certain of your results. Demanding evidence of this is essentially demanding unethical scientific trials.

Better to at least employ a precaution that at least has some potential grounds of being effective than? not employing it? Again, the crime of rape seems to be agreed upon as being just as bad if not worse than murder so we should at least employ whatever methods we can to prevent it. Appropriate attire awareness could prevent some rapes.

As difficult as it is to prove that it could have prevent A rape it?s just as difficult to prove that it wouldn?t prevent A rape.