Howler63
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2012
- Messages
- 1,899
- Reaction score
- 553
- Location
- Just this side of senility.
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
This is not about 'victim shaming' but rather about responsibility for one's own safety. Are you responsible to keep yourself OUT of such situations?
Women are responsible for their situational decisions. If one has chosen to get blackout drunk...and, unless one is DRUGGED, it IS a decision, they have engaged in EXTREMELY risky behavior. Although the perpetrator is 100% responsible, society, in general, is going to lay blame on the victim for their stupidity.
This is not about 'victim shaming' but rather about responsibility for one's own safety. Are you responsible to keep yourself OUT of such situations?
There are two things at play:
The opportunity to be a victim
The right not to be a victim
Getting drunk and passing out at a Hell's Angles party is one thing.
Doing the same thing at a frat party is another.
Legally they are the same, but one might expect some level of assault protection at a frat party.
Normal people do not have sex with women who are "easy" because they are unconscious or close to it.
This is not about 'victim shaming' but rather about responsibility for one's own safety. Are you responsible to keep yourself OUT of such situations?
Should everyone, men and women alike, do all they can to avoid dangerous situations? Yes, of course. That doesn't change the fact that a rape victim, man or woman, is NEVER to blame for being raped, regardless of the circumstances in which it happened. I don't even know why this is constantly being rehashed. No matter how you phrase the question, the implication is "Well, girlie, I'm sorry you got raped, but it's kinda your fault too....". We should know better than to ever make rape victims feel even worse than they already feel.
This is not about 'victim shaming' but rather about responsibility for one's own safety. Are you responsible to keep yourself OUT of such situations?
I don't believe this for a second. Rapists are evil. But getting that drunk at a party is stupidity on a stellar level. If I get drunk and go to take a swim in the ocean..do I share the responsibility if I drown? Of course I do.
No - unlike civil law, where one can be found partially liable, that does not exist in criminal law. Is a passed out (or very diminished capacity) individual also to blame if they are robbed or murdered? The fact that only one person decided that she was asking for it and that mere passers by decided that she was not should be a clue. If the rapist can use the excuse that they were under the influence of drugs (including alcohol) as a mitigating factor then why is that same factor an aggravating factor when applied to their selected victim?
Obviously it is not a good idea to become so drug addled that you are incapable of even a modest amount of self defense yet the fact that you are easier prey does not, in any way, lessen the responsibility of others not to attack, or otherwise take advantage of, you. Is it easier to rob or rape a drunk person? Yes, but that does not excuse or even lessen the criminal offense.
This is not about 'victim shaming' but rather about responsibility for one's own safety. Are you responsible to keep yourself OUT of such situations?
The problem with your analogy is that the ocean isn't a sentient being, and did not drown you intentionally and with malice of forethought. The person that took advantage of an unconscious person is a sentient being, that intentionally and with malice of forethought, raped another person. The actor, the rapist, has the ability to stop the rape before it happens. The ocean does not have the ability to stop you from going under the surface where you cannot breathe.
Young women, especially, NEED to be aware of the dangers of a lack of self control in such an environment.
There is a similar discussion going on in another forum just now. There seems to have been a general understanding that everything is causal and that putting yourself in a situation of higher risk brings responsibility for the effected action with it. That at least the perception of a person by others is affected in the way one naturally expects seems to be underpinned in the following experiment.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...ahoo.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED
The question would be, whether there are factors that increase the probability of rape. It seems intuitively plausible that there be such. Alcohol, dress etc come to mind.
I only did a quickie, but the search revealed very little literature of substance. Here is an abstract of one of the papers that does indicate that there are correlations that support the hypothesis that the behavior of the victim influences the level of risk. It is not large enough to be robust and is based only on a sample without control group. But it is something:
"Antecedents of sexual victimization: factors discriminating victims from nonvictims.
Synovitz LB1, Byrne TJ.
Author information
Abstract
A sexual victimization survey was used to assess the factors that would discriminate between victims and nonvictims of sexual assault. The sample consisted of 241 female college students at a large midwestern university. Victimization status was ascertained from the 13-question Sexual Experiences Survey developed by Koss and Gidycz and Koss and Oros. Data eliciting information about possible associated factors (demographics, dating history, sexual history, personality characteristics and traits) and victimization status were obtained by adapting several scales and instruments into a single Dating and Relationship Survey. Of the 241 women, 102 reported they had been victimized. Discriminant function analysis was used to develop a set of variables that significantly identified victimization status. The variables found to be related to women's being sexually victimized were (a) number of different lifetime sexual partners, (b) provocative dress, and (c) alcohol use."
**** no the victim is not responsible. The only thing they are responsible for is getting drunk. They are not responsible for someone else's actions.
That is a very uninformed opinion in that generalizing statement. We have many cases in our legal system that attach responsibility to the victim. The only question is how much responsibility the parties have and whether our customs allow it to be attributed in this case.
This reinforces my point. I'm not 'blaming' the young women, per se, I'm merely pointing out that they need to be aware of what they do and where they go.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?