Blaming only the Rapist is pointless

[Deleted]

Just wanted to get it out there, feel free to hate me for beeing a "victim blamer", because you did not read the whole text/did not get my point.
So what i want to get at is, that our western society especially feminism is so focused on blaming all men for raping women.
And who ever dares to ask what the girl was wearing or whatever is shamed for trying to imply that it could be the womans fault.
In my example i will adress the general assumption of male=rapist and female=victim, despite the fact, that rape happens vice versa or withing the same gender. Also i am talking about real rape, not the loose feminist definitions like regretted ONS etc.

If you tell a rape victim, that it was not her fault and she could not have done anything to prevent it and that it was 100% the fault of the man, that might be more comfortable at the moment (and we know everyone prefers the comfortable path to the stony one) but hurt in the long run.
Just imagine you would be in the situation after beeing raped, you feel extremely bad, worthless, used, dehumanised. You question the point of life and become paranoid, a certain smell or sound reminds you constantly of the incident. And your friends, family, doctory, police tell you constantly it was not your fault, you could not have done anything to prevent it and that the authorities will get him.
Thats very comforting at first glance, but what it also does is taking away all your options.
I can only imagine how a victim would feel, but i am very certain you would want to do everything to ensure this does not happen again ever.
But how should you be able to prevent it from happening again if no actions from you have an effect and all the options are tied to the rapist.
I would rather have the discomfort to be asked several uncomfortable questions and admitting to be partial guilty. So i can work on these things to prevent the same incident in the future.
Some of these things are classics we all know in the back of our head, anyway i will list a few keywords
- Alone - Clothing - Intoxicated - Self Defense - Awareness -

And a stupid scenario to paint a picture if you do not already have it in your head. Who is more likely to get raped, A or B?
A - Very drunk girl almost sleeping alone on the bench of a bus stop waiting for the bus she missed partly because she is not very fast wearing a tight skirt with heels and partly because she danced late into the night, even when her friends started to go home.
B - A group of friends who are walking to the bus stop after celebrating the recent black belt honoring at the steakhouse next to the dojo, everyone wears jeans and sneakers.

So to sum it up, the world is dangerous, society can not take care of everything, you have to take a part of the responsibilty.
If you run across the street, you look left and right if there is a car, even if the traffic light is red for cars and green for you.
if you get hit by the car and the car was supposed to have stopped at the red ligth, i assume next time you check if the car has really stopped instead of just expecting it. The driver is wrong because he ignored the red light, but you had the option to look before you cross the street and prevent the incident in the first place.

cheers Eierdotter

Edit:
I assume every sane person knows rape is as wrong as murder and you do not need to tell them. still it happens.
And a TL;DR:
Preventing rape > blaming rapists

[Anevers]

This will not end well.

[Rabblexthree]

It's not about prevention. It is the simple fact of whether consent was given or not. I honestly don't care if someone is walking around nude. If they say no, the answer is no. Get over this bullshit reasoning and get a clue.

[Deleted]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand locked.

[s_bushido]

Acquaintance rape is much more prevalent than stranger rape. In a study published by the Department of Justice, 82% of the victims were raped by someone they knew (acquaintance/friend, intimate, relative) and 18% were raped by a stranger.

http://www.911rape.org/facts-quotes/statistics

[Deleted]

Are you fucking for real??? IT'S NEVER THE VICTIMS FAULT. Just because you think the girl is drunk or dressed slutty doesn't give you the right to sex without consent.

Jesus christ.....

[CptEgo]

It's not about prevention. It is the simple fact of whether consent was given or not. I honestly don't care if someone is walking around nude. If they say no, the answer is no. Get over this bullshit reasoning and get a clue.

What I was going to say..

[Shadowmelded]

It is too early to deal with this shit. Fucking Christ.

Nobody is saying people shouldn't take any precautions. People are saying rape prevention that fixates on the victim, often to the exclusion of dealing with the would be perpetrators in any real way, is not a helpful solution. Playing Captain Hindsight with rape victims, especially in the wake of the incident, is not helpful. Teaching people a more healthy version of consent, and eliminating whatever rapey or borderline rapey views and behavior are still socially acceptable is required. At the end of the day though, the person responsible for the crime is the criminal. You can't deserve to be raped. Even if you're "asking for it" in some people's minds, that doesn't make it your fault that you were raped. Holy fucking shit. Fuck.

Bolded x1000 Why did I think checking gen-ot was a good idea 10 minutes after waking up. Oh and the rest of the post is spot on as usual

[Revi]

It's just difficult to frame it in such a way that it's not misconstrued.

I can blame someone for putting themselves in dangerous situations through carelessness without blaming them for the act of rape itself.
- The act of rape is 100% the fault of the rapist
- Increasing risk factors is 100% the fault of the person who takes those risks.
Those two do not overlap.

The problem is when a rape has actually occurred and you bring up risks taken by the victim, because of how our language works, in that context it's construed as implying the victim is partially at fault for the actual rape.

We should absolutely be vocal about reasonable precautionary measures, but it'll never be received as intended if you do it in the context of a specific rape case.

[ItachiZaku]

Are you fucking for real??? IT'S NEVER THE VICTIMS FAULT. Just because you think the girl is drunk or dressed slutty doesn't give you the right to sex without consent.

Jesus christ.....

I dunno, I can probably come up with a couple of scenarios where the victim is partially at fault. For the most part, they are not.

[Darkis]

A - Very drunk girl almost sleeping alone on the bench of a bus stop waiting for the bus she missed partly because she is not very fast wearing a tight skirt with heels and partly because she danced late into the night, even when her friends started to go home.

Because when a rational, stable man sees such a picture, his first rational order of business is to unzip.

B - A group of friends who are walking to the bus stop after celebrating the recent black belt honoring at the steakhouse next to the dojo, everyone wears jeans and sneakers.

With Chuck Norris, Power Rangers and the whole board of NRA.

[Deleted]

I understand the OP to some extend.

Yes, women can reduce the chance of being raped by not having an obvious "easy rape victim here" sign on their forehead.
No, women can't get blamed for being raped entirely, because dressing slutty doesnt mean someone has a free rape pass.

When u decide to show ur knees in Saudi Arabia ur likely to get murdered. Murder isnt right, but u know the possible consequences of your actions.
Walking into a dark alley at night in the bad part of town, and getting mugged, yeah u couldve prevented that.

[nacixems]

100% never , never ok to take advantage of anyone, anytime. i dont care if she is naked and laying there, its Wrong!

guys need to grow up, be men and respect others. A rapist is 100% self fullfiling and an ass and is wrong.

Now for the other side to be modest and not flaunt it...... thats a whole new conversation, but Rape.. IT'S NEVER THE VICTIMS FAULT. move on to a new topic.

[Friendlyimmolation]

*looks at thread, decides to leave thread and take a shower instead* Wow

[StayTuned]

Everyone can reduce everything by doing something

Ergo, pointless discussion. Rape is still solely the fault of the rapist

[Kalis]

I live by the seaside so I see plenty of women in bikinis, if I decide to rape one of them then it is entirely my fault, it has nothing to do with her choice of clothing.

I like that women get to wear bikinis, it's one of my favourite things, so I'd rather we didn't start telling them to cover up because some people are sick fucks and claim it's partly their fault if those sick fucks act on whatever drives them.

[Revi]

Because when a rational, stable man sees such a picture, his first rational order of business is to unzip.

But we know that not all men are stable and reasonable, and should act accordingly. If you do things that are obviously unreasonably risky, you are putting yourself as risk. Putting yourself at unreasonable risk is stupid.

A drunk girl in a short skirt sleeping alone on a bus stop in a dangerous neighborhood is being stupid.

[Deleted]

Obviously you can take precautions, but there are four issues here.

Firstly, a lack of precautions doesn't mean you are to blame. You can always take more precautions, and it's impossible to say what a "reasonable" level of precaution is since it's different for every person in every situation. If you don't lock your front door, you have not taken a precaution against being burgled. If someone opens your door and takes all your stuff, it's still not your fault though. In some places, not locking your door is commonplace, in other areas, not looking your door is unheard of. But suppose you live in the scariest most crime ridden area in the country and you get robbed, but your door IS locked. Well, what did you lock it with? Just a single lock? Not taking proper precautions if you didn't have steel bars on the inside to prevent access should the lock fail. Not taking proper precautions if you didn't lock all your vaulables in a safe when you were out or asleep. Not taking proper precautions if you even bought a house in that neighbourhood knowing what the crime rate is anyway! At what point does it stop being partially your fault? Things that might be common sense in, say, detroit would be totally alien in the alaskan wilderness or in tibet or something. Not taking precautions may mean you are naieve, painting a target on your back, or whatever, but it doesn't ever transfer and of the guilt for the crime onto the victim.

Secondly, the whole conversation is frustrating and pointless because people (speaking in a general, group sense here, not on an individual level) should be wanting to prevent the crime from occuring at all. If you are going to rape someone, you're going to rape someone. If you're going to rob a house, you're going to rob a house. Suppose you have a street with 20 houses on and someone is driving up and down looking for somewhere to rob. If your house has like steel bars over the window and gun turrets and cameras and security, they're not going to rob YOUR house, but they're still going to rob SOMEONE's house. If someone is in a bar with some date rape drugs which is the kind of scenario you are discussing in the op, if one girl isn't drinking and always has a buddy with her and so on, you might not rape her, but you're probably going to use them on SOMEONE.

Thirdly, most rapes are not done by strangers in bars following you home after drugging you and seeing you wander out down a dark alley on your own, so most of the "precautions" you list are worthless for the vast majority of rapes.

Fourth and finally, there are always precautions you can take. If you don't want to get raped by a dude, never be in a room with a man, even a family member since a lot of rape is done by family members. That's really kind of unfair on men though and is treating everyone as a potential rapist.

[Terridon]

Read your post. Your opinions are yours to have, but they're retarded none the less.
It's not about how they should think about if they could be raped because they look good, what they wear, or having fun on town and chatting with a random person.
At the end of the day it's still all about if they wanted it or not, as much as you want to put the blame on the victim.

Edit:
Your logic is that a guy dressed in a habit, that get shot by a homeless, is a fault too, for dressing too proper.
A guy getting mugged, because he looks poor enough to have cash

[Zephire]

I must admit that I were very skeptical to this post in the beginning but you turned it around nicely, Eierdotter. However, I don't agree with blaming the victim. I do think you have a point that being a victim and being told there's nothing I can do about it would not be the best.

In a perfect world people would not rape, even if someone very attractive who really gets you going walks beside you in their birthday suite. We're not there, and we might never be. I agree with your point but I think "blaming the victim"-attitude might have been a poor choice