On 1/3/2014 2:32 AM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>> I'm almost tempted to call you a nasty name.
>>>
>> Sigh... Seriously? The problem here isn't that someone should take "no"
>> precautions. The problem is taking "imaginary" ones, which do nothing
>> but promote the excuses used to both get criminal off the hook, and
>> shame women into thinking, "I should have done something different.",
>> even when it was impossible to have done anything different. Slut
>> shaming is ***NOT*** acceptable, but its exactly what happens, every
>> single damn time a rape happens, and some idiots starts rattling off a
>> list of things they "might have" done differently, while having no F-ing
>> clue what the hell they did, or didn't, do, or based on a laundry list
>> of myths and stupid assumptions.
>
> Ok, I'm so tempted that I can't resist it anymore: You are fucking moron.
>
> Someone trying to be helpful is not "slut shaming". Go fuck yourself.
>
But, you are not being helpful to give bad advice.

See, the problem here is that some of the advice is bloody useless. You 
rattled off a list of "common" suggestions, of which maybe 1 of them 
wasn't useless. A year ago I would have done the exact same thing, 
then.. I listened to victims of rape, I read their accounts, and found 
out what is and isn't true about the subject. Now.. I get a bit pissed 
when I see the same nonsense trotted out.

Here is the thing - A few months back someone put up a post about 
"their" experience and why they don't trust either cops, or the courts, 
to do what is right when it comes to rape cases. This was the script 
that got followed, both times she actually reported it:

1. The cops initially don't believe it.

2. They spend hours going over not what the rapist did, but every nit 
picky little idiocy possible, from what she was wearing to what she 
said, how hard she fought back, if at all (never mind the guy is usually 
stronger, and resistance could get you killed in some cases). In other 
words, about 5 minutes of, "Who was it, and we did he do?", and 1:55 
minutes of them making someone who had been abused, beaten, and raped, 
feel even more like shit, by trying to come up with some bloody stupid 
ass excuse for why it was, at least in part, her fault, and therefor, 
the cops wouldn't have to arrest someone.

3. Harassment from various people, including acquaintances, some of them 
the friends of the rapist themselves, the press, and other media, etc. 
Many of them didn't want it to be true, insisting she must have, on some 
level wanted, it, or asking them "what did you do wrong".

4. When months later, it came to court, she had to sit on the witness 
stand and go through the whole damned experience, all over again, 
including an all new interrogation, just like the 2 hours she spent with 
the cops, to start with, only to have the bloody jury believe the 
rapist's excuses, and let him off.

Guess how many **women** posted on to that article who claimed that this 
sort of thing wasn't "common", that the list of "concerns" where valid, 
that any of the advice about what they wore, or not, and other similar 
things **ever** protected them either, or that they had a different 
experience when going to the cops, or in court, when it finally came to 
a trial? But, there where dozens of men showing up, to offer advice, all 
of it in the same vein of, "Well, if only you had done this instead.", 
or, "What where you wearing at the time?"

Maybe I shouldn't have jumped all over you like I did, but.. no matter 
how much you might have intended to help, pretty much every rape victim 
in the world, on reading your advice, would be cursing you for being a 
fool. Your intent doesn't matter. Its whether or not your advice isn't 
something every single damn one of them heard before it happened 
already, but proved, when it did happen, to be meaningless, and then, 
heard again, over and over again, from people who either wanted to, 
"help them avoid it next time", or, "should have done, but didn't".

To put it in simplest terms - men get raped too, but only the women ever 
get useless advice about what they are wearing, or where they where 
walking, etc. And, to paraphrase the author of that, and several other 
blog posts on the subject, "The problem isn't what the women are doing, 
its the assumption that those things should matter, combined with men 
who haven't learned to truly respect women, instead of seeing them as 
objects to be pursued, and, for some, taken." That, and.. what ever the 
"intent", thinking that its "helpful" to give out advice about their 
lipstick, or clothing, or anything else, while presuming that men, for 
some reason, don't need to worry about this the same way, proved the point.

Rape isn't "natural", its not someone men "must do", or are "force by" 
their biology to commit. It happens because men are told to assume that 
women dressing a certain way "want it", that coercion is a valid way to 
get women into bed, that "no" doesn't **always** mean no, that somehow 
they "deserve" something for the effort, and.. that all of these stupid 
assumptions, but the men that do commit rapes, can somehow be avoided by 
dressing the right way, staying in lit places, hanging out with the 
right friends, and a long list of other bad advice. The women are not 
the ones that need to be fixed, and most of the ways people trot out, 
all with the best intentions, to, "reduce the risk", don't, because they 
have nothing ***at all*** to do with why, where, how, and when rape happens.

But, if you really feel so strongly that I am being unfair, take it up 
with the people that woke me up to how bloody stupid this advice usually 
is, and made me agree enough about it to jump at someone so strongly for 
giving it:

http://skepchick.org/2013/08/when-i-didnt-consent-why-i-reported-why-i-didnt/

Or, the reaction some of those previous victims have to some similar 
"advice/product" intended to "protect" people (two women, who I like to 
think are badly confused have come up with "underwear", which is 
inconvenient, stupid, and silly, based on the faulty assumption that 
someone with a knife is going to be trying to rape the person wearing 
it, out in the scary world, and not "at home", with someone who might 
already have it off, assuming any woman would actually want to wear 
these things in their own home, or anyplace else they feel safe, in the 
first place, by the time they cross a line and get told to piss off and 
go away):

http://skepchick.org/2013/11/scienceburqas/

I doubt they will be any more enthused by your misguided attempt to "help".

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