On 1/5/2014 2:39 AM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> A campus is not the rest of the world, and the statistics "do" differ
>> between there and other places. That tends to happen, when you cram a
>> lot of people, in a specific age group, many of which seem to presume
>> that one purpose of college is to party and get laid, in one place. And,
>> I never said "all", advice was bad advice. What I objected to was most
>> of the stuff you came up with as "advice".
>
> Firstly, if such a study shows that actions can be taken to reduce the
> risk of rape in one community, and that they have a significant effect,
> then it's not unreasonable to deduce that actions can be taken in other
> communities as well. Or do you have actual credible sources that say
> otherwise?
>
And.. if this was true in all cases, there would, I presume, be a) other 
studies, and/or b) it wouldn't contradict prior facts?

You are correct that I don't have a study I can quote. The problem is 
that one study, by itself, may as well be annecdotal, for all its worth 
until properly replicated, there are at least some psychologist who are 
putting such studies under fire **precisely** because so much of them 
tend to be done on campuses, in the same environment, and often using 
subjects who "volunteer", which they can't say for certain isn't already 
a biased group, and finally, you can't explain away decades of 
statistics, which suggest that some behaviors seem to have no impact, at 
all, on such cases, based on one study, of things in one specialized 
environment.

> Secondly, I didn't say "they should do this or that". What I said was
> that it's a good thing to try to figure out what could be done to reduce
> the risks, and listed some things that could be studied to see if there
> is some correlation.
>
> What really irks me is when someone comes up and calls the act of actually
> trying to do something with names like "slut shaming".  Trying to *help*
> prevent rapes is not victim blaming. Insulting people who do so is
> disgusting.
>
Using the same arguments for what they "should have done", or "didn't 
do", or how, "next time you can be more careful by doing these things, 
so is partly your fault it happened", however **is**, and that is 
precisely what you see, in every news report, every blog post, every 
discussion by arm chair experts on what someone did wrong, even if they 
don't have the facts, and for all they know, did every single thing on 
the list. Its not about what ***you*** intended, or tried to do, its 
about how the that "advice" get missed used, the moment someone actually 
becomes victim, and how, maybe, some of it isn't a sound as one study 
might imply.

I don't think that is wrong to try to help. I wasn't calling the attempt 
slut shaming, or victim blaming, things like clothing choice, and the 
like ***are*** used for both, all the damn time, which makes binging 
them up, as part of a list of options, problematic, even if, in some 
specific cases, and/or ways, they may be meaningful. The problem being 
precisely that a) they are not specific, b) they may differ, greatly, 
depending on the community and its own standards, and c) may not be 
meaningful at all, in other contexts.

Basic logic would imply, to use "clothing choice" as the best example of 
this problem, that if dressing "provocatively" was the issue, not the 
perception, locally to the rape case, of what the hell that even means, 
then the prevalence of bikinis and European nude beaches would "both" 
show some sort of drastic increases, due to the "provocative" nature of 
the dress, or lack there of, compared to "normal" clothing. You might 
even find a "statistical connection", by doing your "study" at a bunch 
of beaches during Spring Break. After all, its where you can find a huge 
number of people in both states, even in the US, and.. well, the 
specific conditions, context and environment can't possibly be a factor, 
right?

That is precisely why, that specific "advice" is itself possibly way 
less useful that it seems. Its purely arbitrary to the local conditions. 
Provocative, in Iran, vs. 50 years ago in the US, vs. 99% of the beaches 
today, vs. a nudist colony, are **all different**. Are campuses, never 
mind communities, supposed to post big signs everyplace, which say, 
"This will keep you safe from the nuts, while this other picture will 
get you attacked"? Are they supposed to just "know", or do you set some 
arbitrary standard of "safe", and tell them all to stick to that, while 
calling all the ones that get raped anyway, "anomalous statistics".

That is the problem with some of the "advice". Its only meaningful, if 
at all, in context, and even then, no one has a damn clue what the 
context is in any given place. Even when the context is, "Women can only 
be protected by wearing a sack, which doesn't even let you see their 
eyes.", it happens anyway, too often, and, if anything, the excuses for 
why they did something wrong, and the men didn't, just get worse and 
worse, the closer you get to that.

It also doesn't help when you have polar opposite statistics - like the 
one person posting on one of those blogs, or maybe someplace else where 
the subject came up, who stated that they had been to many parties, 
gotten drunk enough to pass out at a few of them, but never been raped, 
**ever** despite horrible choices, over drinking, and doing every single 
thing wrong, but she knew a guy who had been raped (the definition here 
being without consent, or even, in his case, awareness), several times, 
by woman, at some of the same parties, because *he* passed out on the couch.

No, what gives women the idea that they are helpless victims is doing 
everything "right" according to these lists, not being believed, having 
people try to claim that they made it up, having the cops treat them 
like shit, then their friends, and other people around them, then, if 
they do get to court, going through it all over again, and, all the 
time, being asked, "Did you say no?", "Who where you with?", "What did 
you do?", "How long was your dress?", "What else where you wearing?", 
and on, and on.

By all means, give advice. But, make sure its advice that actually means 
something. As am sure I said in the prior post, your "intent" isn't as 
important as whether or not it was good advice. And.. there are 
thousands of victims, decades of statistics, whole websites dedicated to 
the facts, and myths, or rape and what, if anything, increases, and 
decreases the risks, and you have... one study, done on a campus, a 
practice even psychologists are questioning the value of, as something 
you can extrapolate real data, about any other environment, from.

If I somehow unintentionally implied that you where either slut shaming, 
or victim blaming.. then, I definitely apologize for the former, but.. 
the latter can be done "accidentally" by simply failing to recognize 
that what is "advice" to someone trying to "help", is victim blaming to 
people who are only hearing, "Well, here goes the usual list 'advice' 
everyone gives, after the fact.", or even an attempt at making excuses 
for the perpetrator, if its, in fact, given in the context of someone 
who "has" had it happen to them.

Given that this is precisely how it gets used.. out of the context of 
saying, "Such and such study says...", and still risking getting ripped 
to shreds by women who have heard it all before, and have good reason to 
think its bull, isn't it just "possibly" detrimental to give advice that 
the victims themselves are likely to turn around and say, "Great, yet 
another one that has no clue what they are talking about!"?

I really suggest you actually read the accounts of the people that have 
gone through it, what they got told, what they did, or didn't do, what 
advice did, or didn't work, and what they, not some study, think the 
problem(s) really are. That would be a good way to do something useful. 
Using one single study, whose advice is practically a bumper sticker for 
everything people say anyway, and never helps... *that*, I tend to 
suspect, is way less helpful that you hope.

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