Asking for it?

[leo9]

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/judge-told-rape-victim-she-was-inviting/

Once again a rapist has been given a soft sentence because the woman was seductively dressed. This doesn't seem to stop.

The problem seems to be more than just going easy on men because they were "led along." There seems to be also an idea that rape can't have been so bad if she liked the guy a bit and was feeling sexy. Which is fine in the sort of stories I and many others here like to write and read, but it's a fictional convention to make fantasies work better, like the idea that a blow on the head is a safe anaesthetic with no after effects. Maybe what judges need is an explanation that rape is always horrible and damaging, regardless of how good you felt up to the moment when it went dreadfully wrong.

But speaking as someone who came very close to forcing himself on a woman once in my youth, and can see how it happens even if my own controls are better adjusted than that, at least some men are victims too in this. There are plenty of predatory men who intentionally go out to commit the social equivalent of robbery with violence. But there are also many who are raised in a culture where men are expected to be forceful and women to be passive, and who honestly don't know for sure how much force is too much. They are still criminals, but one can have some pity for them too: like someone who thought they could safely knock someone out, because it always works on TV, and then finds they've committed murder.

I've said this before, and I know it's whistling in the dark because people are never going to be that rational, but sex education for vanillas should also include safewords. It wouldn't just protect women: it would also protect men who honestly can't tell when "No" meaning "Push me" switches to "No" meaning "Stop right there."

[thir]

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/judge-told-rape-victim-she-was-inviting/
I've said this before, and I know it's whistling in the dark because people are never going to be that rational, but sex education for vanillas should also include safewords. It wouldn't just protect women: it would also protect men who honestly can't tell when "No" meaning "Push me" switches to "No" meaning "Stop right there."

From the article:
"The victim wore a tube top, no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup on the night she was raped."

" Justice Robert Dewar believed that rapist Kenneth Rhodes was nothing more than a "clumsy Don Juan" and wasn't really all that bad, because the victim looked so "inviting." "

So, my first questions would be:
If women dress sexy, are they asking for it?
If yes, what should they wear?

Further from the article:
"Using this logic, then breaking and entering into a well-cared-for house in an affluent neighbourhood is not that bad, because it's obvious the house has lots of expensive things in it that are just begging to be stolen.

Using this logic, stealing a BMW that someone had previously given you a ride in is no big deal, because you'd already been invited to sit in the passenger seat."

Does this argument hold?

Next: In DK many males from what is called another ethnical background look at Danish women as whores, by their own statements. It starts at school, where girls in class is
routinely called 'whores'. This has to do with clothes, but also cultural differences.

Last question: whose freedom should be weighed the heaviest: that of religious/cultural norms who says something about how women should be dressed, and who are scandalised at the way women dress, or the right of women to dress as they please?

[Ozme52]

Realizing that herein, you're preaching to the the choir. I doubt anyone would suggest that clothing obviates the right to say no.

The statement about teaching safewords to vanillas would be an asset save that sex education, when it's allowed, rarely (ever?) includes anything more than an anatomy lesson. How are we helping anyone understand their urges, motivations, and consideration of others with anatomy lessons? Does "No means no" even appear in the curriculum? ...or is it merely a billboard motto. I doubt it, (realizing it's been a long time since I was in a sex-ed class.)

[thir]

Realizing that herein, you're preaching to the the choir. I doubt anyone would suggest that clothing obviates the right to say no.
[quote]

You do no think so? But there is something here about this, for instance if you are on a street after dark you are asking for it.

[quote]
The statement about teaching safewords to vanillas would be an asset save that sex education, when it's allowed, rarely (ever?) includes anything more than an anatomy lesson. How are we helping anyone understand their urges, motivations, and consideration of others with anatomy lessons? Does "No means no" even appear in the curriculum? ...or is it merely a billboard motto. I doubt it, (realizing it's been a long time since I was in a sex-ed class.)

I do think that if 'no' is not accepted, then no safeword is.

[Thorne]

for instance if you are on a street after dark you are asking for it.
If you cross the street in the middle of the block you are asking to get run over. That doesn't make it okay for drivers to target jaywalkers.

In an ideal world, a woman should be able to walk the streets at night naked and not fear for her safety. It's not an ideal world, of course, so dressing provocatively is liable to attract unwanted attention. That still does not make it the woman's fault that a man can't control himself. No means no, whether on the street or in the marital bed. Anything else is rape. And deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law.

[DuncanONeil]

I also got close once. Clothing had nothing to do with it.
Especially since I mostly saw her in fatigues! And I was drunk.

[IAN 2411]

I don’t get this clothing idea, if what the judge is suggesting that the girl was dressed in inappropriate and provocative clothes and asking for sex. Then it proves that the judge was not up to the job he was in command of, being narrow minded and obviously has the same problem as the rapist. He is classing any woman that dresses in the same clothes as this poor woman as nothing less than whores. Does he not realise that I would think 60% of most 16 year olds in the summer dress that way in England, and it might be more.

I think rape in any form is the most degrading thing that can happen to either sex, and it changes the attitude of that person for the rest of their life. It might go away but it will never disappear, it basically tarnishes the act of love. Rape is rape unless seen through rose tinted glasses by people that have never been raped.

Be well IAN 2411