The Herald - Scotland's Leading Quality Daily Newspaper

Reading this makes me want to fucking scream.

Is this something that is mirrored in other countries? I'm guesing it's not just a Scottish folk that are uniquely retarded. The city I live in is not exacly huge and there have been dozens of sex attacks in recent months. And apparently people think its because of lapdancing clubs and girls who wear short skirts not the fact that these sick fucks know they can get away with it.

There was something vaguely similar in this country a few months back.

A lot of people feel that someone who publicly behaves like they want sex is partly to blame if they then get it and don't dig it. I can sympathise with the belief, even if I don't particularly agree with it. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it was a widespread view.

Point is, I can easily imagine a journalist asking about that, and then choosing to read it as "we think all rape is always entirely the victim's fault" for the sake of a more interesting story.

"Nearly a third of Scots think women can be partly to blame for being raped, according to a survey.

The poll shows one in 20 Scots think women are mostly or totally responsible if they are raped when drunk or after flirting."

not quite the universal belief your headline claims

some of it may be because there is a view that if you put yourself in danger then you are partly to blame, whether it's mugging or violence or rape. but, importantly, in this view blame shouldn't necessarily be a zero sum game. the victim's negligence doesn't lessen the culpability of the assailant.

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"Partly to blame" is not the same as "to blame."

Realistically, people do foolish things. For example, while suggestively dancing and being drunk is not a direct invitation to get fucked, the thugs of this world will view it that way because it suits them. They might decide that it's as good as an excuse as any to carry their will out on an unfortunate victim. So it's best not to look like a victim, or act like one, because one might then attract predators like rapists. Avoid circumstances like that; don't get drunk in a roomful of strangers (who could be pigs) while wearing the most skin-baring outfit.

I hate to be the one who says it, but it's not just thugs and morons who think that someone who dresses in a sexually provocative way might, you know, fancy some sex. Call me a troglodyte if you want, but knowing the risks of overt sexuality and accepting them isn't the same as just claiming ignorance. I really wonder whether people even understand this, because they seem mystified when dressing provocatively causes people to be... well, provoked!

Of course, a violent rapist isn't going to be deterred by someone dressing like a Trapist monk or whatever. But what I'd call an "opportunist" is much more likely to opt for an easy target that they can justify to themselves as "asking for it" later.

As an analogy, say someone walks down the street with £10,000 in notes hanging out of their back pocket, and they got mugged. Would it be this much of a shock revelation if anyone suggested they were "asking for it"? We may sympathise, but are we actually regarded as bad peopole if we think they're "partly to blame"?

I think the words "blame" and "responsibility" are getting confused a lot in this debate as well. If you say "responsible" instead of "to blame", it's a damn sight less inflammatory.

i was just going to point that out and im glad you said it: the way you dress doesnt even have much to do with a man raping a woman...rapists don't discriminate. men have and will continue to rape women wearing full sweatsuits while jogging in the park, they have and will continue to rape women wearing prison outfits, women wearing business clothes, baggy jeans, work uniforms, punk rock ripped clothes, hooded sweatshirt (mia zapata, anyone??) you don't have to be dressed like a hooker for a man to rape you, because that's his decision. it's his decision to go forward with it. people tend to think that rape is something that happens to women in certain situations, where they've been flirting or drinking....not true, people. it's a lot bigger than that.
In parts of Africa women are raped on average 6 times during their lifetimes and many die from vaginal fistulas. Children too. so what's that about? was it their fault, were they asking for it as well?

the way we talk about rape is problematic; when we say that a woman "got raped" we are putting the blame on her in our language. we need to look at who does the raping, and it is overwhelmingly done by men. 99 percent of rapes are committed by men.

was she askin for it. was she askin nice

That's not entirely what I said. But then, I don't fully agree with the legal definition of rape. People who rape because of psychological issue or a hatred of women won't be persuaded or dissuaded by provocation or lack of.

But this isn't all that the word "rape" covers. At the risk of comparing rape to theft (I know it's not a perfect analogy and people will have a problem with it, but I don't really care), if someone is determined to break into your house or your car, they'll do it, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it, but that doesn't mean there's no point in locking your doors at night. Obviously nobody should just waltz into your house at night and steal your stuff, even if the door is unlocked, but at the same time, how sympathetic am I or your insurance company going to be if it happens?

I don't think anyone's particularly disputing that! And honestly, I don't think that people's attitudes are particularly going to change just because you say someone is a "rape victim" rather than that they "got raped". That's not prejudice, it's just using the word as a verb rather than a noun.

Rape victims already blame themselfs enough and that kind of reasoning only makes it worse. It's the criminals that should be blamed and expected to change, not the victims.

yes. When i reported a rape to the police (the head of the sex crime dept.)- the officer asked if i had a business transaction going at the time, with the rapist.
and was i wearing a mini skirt ? ( i had a short dress on at the police station, it was 100 degrees outside).
the quetions were like, "what were you doing in a bad neighbourhood after dark?" I can't afford a better apartment - I live in this "bad" neighbourhood, & it's dark at 5pm in winter.
I had so much more to tell about this rapist, the cop either didn't believe me or didn't want to investigate it. i told him that this rapist tells me about how he's a teacher, and was looking for another girl as soon as he was done with me.
I was so frustrated, I told them, he has a bright red sportscar, i don't know what kind, but pretty expensive - i thought someone would leap into action.
Now I really feel guilty, i should have checked it out myself, where the rapist works. and I prolly could have gotten help, but ppl tend to think it's my fault - i had a fight w/a guy & now i accuse him of this esp. hienious crime.

Here's an analogy not yet used that I saw: If someone asks someone else for their number so they can call and set up a time to get together for a date/sex, is it not reasonable to assume that person #1 wants to date/have sex with person #2? How 'bout if the number request comes after kissing, fondling, and repeated sayins of 'wow, you're so hot.' I can just vaguely remember from that long-ago time when I was single, that this kind of thing happens, with a male as person #1, and a female as person #2, somewhat very extremely frequently. Is there any possibility that if there were to be a sexual assault after an such an incident that anyone would say it was the male's fault, just because he told the woman he wanted to have sex with her?

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"somewhat very extremely frequent" could be the most tautological string of words I've ever seen.

If I'm reading you rightly, you're basically saying that adopting mannerisms and behaviour that is widely interpretted within your culture as indicating sexual desire is akin to saying that you want sex?

edit: If on-line discussion has made anything obvious, it's that one analogy can't cover everything we call rape. In some cases, I do wonder sometimes why some people seem so determined to leave others in doubt about whether they're interested in sex or not.

You're not really, although that's not necessarily your fault - I'm posting while busy at work, so I probably shouldn't. What I meant was something very simple - and it actually does seem obvious to me even with the odd wording - guys can actually tell a woman they want to have sex with her, then not do it, and I can't imagine that anyone would ever say he shouldn't have done that if he didn't want to be sexually assaulted.

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Perhaps, although if a woman initiates sex with a man without waiting for consent, I don't know many people who would take it as a serious sexual assault, or even one at all.

EDIT: I had a feeling I'd probably misread you. I meant my "response" though.

That was kind of too complicated to get into, it really deserves its own seperate discussion. But, my point was men can promise sex and not deliver, and no one ever looks at it as them unfairly backing out, or 'owing' anyone anything. It's just the way it goes.

But, somehow the act of wearing revealing clothes - which, at this point in fashion could honestly mean nothing more that 'I didn't have the requisite spare time to search every store in a 100-mile radius to find a casual outfit that doesn't look like stripperwear' - not only means that you are promising sex, it means that you are promising it to any man who may happen to see you. Nowhere in the many, many times you have posted about this have you ever mentioned the possibility that a woman might dress sexy for a particular man, but not wish to fuck every man she walks by on the way to meet that particular man, or even, god forbid, reject one who comes on to her even if she is looking for sex in general, because she doesn't happen to be into that guy.

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To be honest, I've never heard of that happening. But while there's a subtle difference between sexes, I don't think anyone would take a man seriously if he was "raped" under those circumstances, even less so than in any other circumstance.

I don't know if it even needs saying that the sexes are different, biologically, psychologically and (crucially) culturally.

I don't personally believe that "dressing sexy" on its own is enough to communicate that you're interested in having sex (and I can tell you from experience that it's not just a girl thing; the gay scene is pretty much the same). But there's a big grey area.

I think the reason I misread your analogy is partly because some girls do go out dressed in revealing clothing, acting in a way which I think most people would interpret as at the very least "sexually provocative", and will do things that I just consider insane, like seeing how many guys' numbers they can get in a night. I really don't see how anyone can be chastised for misreading that, really. If someone does everything that is normally understood to mean "I want some sex please" apart from actually saying it, knowing that, in our culture, it is likely to be interpreted as such... I dunno, I'm not sure I can accurately describe what that means, because pretty much any language one can describe it with would be considered inflammatory.

With most crimes I'm aware of, provocation is considered a factor. If you punch me because I call you a cunt, or if a woman snaps and kills her husband after years of domestic abuse, these crimes are viewed in a different light. While I'm aware that the law doesn't reflect this, a lot of the rhetoric you hear in rape debates assumes that there is no such thing as provocation, that no-one is ever "asking for it" in the way that an abusive husband is "asking" for his wife to turn on him, and really, that would make rape fairly unique as a crime.

Well, University Hall bull sessions aren't actually the real world, nor is KR - everyone you know could say this, and it still wouldn't mean that it is what happens in actual prosecutions of rape. As far as I can tell, it's a pretty common defense strategy.

Also, I'm ignorant of the law or the history in the UK, but in the US, up until some point in the 70s, information about the victim's prior sexual history - events having nothing to do with the alleged rape, having occured possibly years before - was considered valid, relevant evidence in rape trials. A lot of effort had to go into changing that. And it is still in wide use as a discrediti