slutwalk

[success21]

wow. This is another interesting news. whats your opinion about this?

Don?t dress like a slut: Toronto cop | Excalibur Publications

[Just One More]

While I don't like the language (I think it says a lot about how you view women) and wish he wasn't right, he is.

I'd really love to know what people are taking offense to, though.

[Andrew Gubb]

it'd be nice to now how true it is. i have no idea, because i don't really know what goes through the head of a guy who does sexual assault. maybe they just like the thrill of power, in which case maybe the clothes don't matter at all?

some kind of study or statistics would clear things up. but, as we can see, people wouldn't want to listen to such a study if it said something against women wearing revealing clothes...

[rawxstasy]

Just One More - I hope that most men don't think like that. I am appalled.

I was sexually assaulted and I was at the ER had to describe what happened. The police officer was turned on. It was disgusting.

sexual assault is an act of violence by the perpetrator, and not ever something inspired, occasioned or asked for by the victim – no matter what she or he is wearing, or how she behaves

The view from a broad: do the SlutWalk | Life and style | The Guardian

[elucidate]

I got invited to this.

I like the idea that it makes the statement that being sexually assaulted has nothing to do with how much or how little a woman is wearing, and we can wear whatever we want, and how the word itself can be reclaimed in an empowering way...I'm just not sure the message will get across to the males who do this to women. It will probably be a "pervfest" for some guys?

[Brutha]

Just One More - I hope that most men don't think like that.

Your post actually increases the chances that men who read it will think that the claim is true.

Changing the topic from a question of whether who dress more slutty are more likely to be raped to whether woman ask for it you showing:
a) You find the claim objectionable enough to say something.
b) You still don't have any arguments to present that the claim is wrong.

[BillyTheAdult]

When I first read about this it was in the rape thread one thought occurred to me immediately. Rape is about about power and not sex. One thing I also hear is that it has nothing to do the way woman dresses, as a rapist will rape an elderly woman. It seems that most socially conscious women and indeed many men know this. So why is there a need to have this walk proclaiming a womans right to dress however they want, when by all accounts that has nothing to do with sexual assault. It's all being done because of the comments of one police officer, who said something dumb.

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by BillyTheAdult

When I first read about this it was in the rape thread one thought occurred to me immediately. Rape is about about power and not sex. One thing I also hear is that it has nothing to do the way woman dresses, as a rapist will rape an elderly woman. It seems that most socially conscious women and indeed many men know this. So why is there a need to have this walk proclaiming a womans right to dress however they want, when by all accounts that has nothing to do with sexual assault. It's all being done because of the comments of one police officer, who said something dumb.

Well, I kinda agree that it's reactionary. I guess they felt that if a police officer thinks this way then maybe they need to do something big to really drive the message into the subconscious of all the many men out there who are distorted still in their thinking?

[WarrenG]

elu,

It will probably be a "pervefest" for some guys?

I wouldn't go out of my way to perve, but if I was in the area at the time, I'm pretty sure I would stand and perve for a while (but only for the articles).

Originally Posted by rawxstasy

I was sexually assaulted and I was at the ER had to describe what happened. The police officer was turned on. It was disgusting.

Woah. That's ****ed up in so many ways.

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by WarrenG

I wouldn't go out of my way to perve, but if I was in the area at the time, I'm pretty sure I would stand and perve for a while (but only for the articles).

And why wouldn't you, right?

Woah. That's ****ed up in so many ways.

I agree, and these are the people we count on to 'protect' us? I know they're not all bad, but some of them are just plain idiotic.

[beast]

Originally Posted by Just One More

While I don't like the language (I think it says a lot about how you view women) and wish he wasn't right, he is.

I'd really love to know what people are taking offense to, though.

You don't get why people take offense to the idea that women who are dressing provocatively are asking to be raped? Come on!

As BTA said, rape isn't just about sex. Otherwise the dude can relieve himself or find a paid professional to help him out. Rape is about power and domination, and it doesn't discriminate. This is why you hear of infants, young children, and elderly women being raped.

Mostly, I take offense at this sort of rhetoric because it absolves the rapist from blame. The focus gets shifted towards the woman, who was asking for it - and the man couldn't help himself! It's a dangerous view to hold, especially for an officer, who has a duty to protect.

So, in short - when we purport that women cause rape, we're:

a. implying that there is nothing that men can do to stop rape
b. shifting the blame away from where it belongs
c. shaming women for rape, and contributing to the abysmally low report rates

[Andrew Gubb]

Well, I think I've come to a new opinion here. It does make sense that men who talk about women dressing provocatively are trying to pass on the blame to them.

It's a common pattern for an attacker to pass the blame onto his victim. they want to relieve their conscience, and also, protect themselves and allow the abusive pattern to continue. the victim often takes the blame onto themselves and the attacker goes unapprehended.

i see the violence of rape to be pretty similar to other sorts of violence. i haven't been raped but i have experienced abuse and i know that pattern.

[Brutha]

You don't get why people take offense to the idea that women who are dressing provocatively are asking to be raped? Come on!

He didn't made that statement.

You can say that a person increase the risk of X happening by doing Y without wanting X to happen even when she does Y.

[machoman]

In my opinion telling women not to dress as sluts because they might get raped is pure BS. People get raped even in Arab countries..

I hope Police might have at least suspended that person who made those comments.

[James81]

I think this whole "blame the victim" arguement is actually a victim mentality.

It's once again a matter of perspective (like it usually is) and there's more than one issue getting conflated with this (like it usually does).

First of all, the idea of suggesting that dressing provacatively is NOT meant to suggest that a woman is a slut. Y'all add that meaning all by yourselves. And it's women who throw that word slut around as an insult. So, please talk to the women you know and tell them to stop using that as an insult. (Newsflash: We guys LOVE IT when you are easy, why would we insult you for it?)

Secondly, to suggest that perhaps some rapes are a matter of a guy noticing a woman and getting turned on by the way she is dressed does not suggest that it's her fault that she was raped. That's some gremlin ****, and anybody who feels that way needs to take a look at why they are so ready to pull blame on themselves for that.

What it does suggest is that men, as a whole, are visually stimulated creatures. And that most rapists are men. So it stands to reason that at least to *some* degree, a rapist is attacking you because he is sexually attracted to you visually. And yes, there's the element of power there (although I would think that for someone to brutally assault a woman like that, they'd have to be operating from a frame of powerLESSNESS).

To suggest that these men aren't visually stimulated by you is kinda naive, though. Perhaps some of them are not, but I'd bet money that a lot of them very much are. Even to the grandmas and the young 'ens that get forced. You may not *understand* how someone could be attracted to a granny, but if you go type "granny porn" into google, you'll REALLY blow your mind. There are LOTS OF MEN attracted to those women, and the evidence is right there in google.

At the end of the day, I think it's tough to tell a rape victim that the "sum of all your choices have brought you to this point" because the crime of rape is such a horrible thing for her. So, to even suggest that she played such a small teeny tinty SMALL (did I say SMALL? better yet did you HEAR that word SMALL) role in it is grounds to get an angry mob with torches after you.

But the cold, hard truth of the matter is, we are all where we are because of our choices. It's the same personal responsibility mantra we preach here day in and day out. It doesn't somehow change just because something bad happens TO you.

But, as it has been mentioned, responsibility is not blame.

[Just One More]

I have seen girls dressing provocatively getting harassed for doing exactly that! Maybe the drunks here are just particularly bad. This is just a surface level observation, that is all. Perhaps all the media beatup of "dressing like a slut" is actually what's causing them to be a target. Maybe it's a big consipracy to get women to dress less provocatively by actively associating it with terrible things. I was agreeing with the truth of the statement as I believed it was intended, as a safety tip; a way to reduce risk. I don't like the way things are but that's beside the point (well, not to some of you).

The article doesn't mention the word rape, by the way.

[ZephyrusX]

Originally Posted by James81

But the cold, hard truth of the matter is, we are all where we are because of our choices. It's the same personal responsibility mantra we preach here day in and day out. It doesn't somehow change just because something bad happens TO you.

And if I have a choice in the matter, I'm not choosing to marginalize my life in order to avert the attentions of a rapist. I'm not going to stop dressing in the way that makes me feel sexy and powerful. I'm not going to stop walking out side at night alone. To tell me to do otherwise is only to perpetuate the marginalization of women, which I believe is the point of this 'slutwalk'. It would be the equalivalent of telling some rich dude that he shoudn't be out in public with his nice car and clothing because it is inviting thugs. Yeah, thugs probably can target you based on your goods. But that doesn't mean you should stop living your life. If you do, that is when you truly become a victim of patriarchy in my mind; when you are too afraid to dress the way you want to or too afraid to go outside on your own.

We are taking responsibility in our lives by throwing the focus of the issue back onto the sexual assaulter where it belongs.

[James81]

Originally Posted by ZephyrusX

And if I have a choice in the matter, I'm not choosing to marginalize my life in order to avert the attentions of a rapist. I'm not going to stop dressing in the way that makes me feel sexy and powerful. I'm not going to stop walking out side at night alone. To tell me to do otherwise is only to perpetuate the marginalization of women, which I believe is the point of this 'slutwalk'. It would be the equalivalent of telling some rich dude that he shoudn't be out in public with his nice car and clothing because it is inviting thugs. Yeah, thugs probably can target you based on your goods. But that doesn't mean you should stop living your life. If you do, that is when you truly become a victim of patriarchy in my mind; when you are too afraid to dress the way you want to or too afraid to go outside on your own.

Exactly. And I agree that you shouldn't marginalize your life just to protect yourself. You understand that walking outside at night alone is a risk for you as a woman, and you choose to take it. You understand that you might catch unwanted attention from the way you dress (and that's not just rape/assault btw), and you choose to take it. You don't have to NOT choose the things you want to do to protect yourself. You just understand that sometimes bad things happen that might have been prevented if you had made other choices (for example, taking a cab rather than walking home).

That's not assigning "blame" to you as a woman. You are reading the word blame in there. But that's common for peeps to associate blame with personal responsibility.

Originally Posted by ZephyrusX

We are taking responsibility in our lives by throwing the focus of the issue back onto the sexual assaulter where it belongs.

If I were a woman, I don't think I'd care where the focus of the issue was here. I'd care about my own personal choices and the choices that I could make to keep myself and my family safe without over-sacrificing my life just to *be* safe. (i.e. striking a balance between taking measures of being safe, but still enjoying and having fun in life)

I think it's very dangerous for you, as a woman, to absolve yourself of all responsibility in the matter. Because there *are* things you could do to make your odds of being raped go down.

[elucidate]

Bad things happen in cabs as well, and on buses.

I was with a girlfriend when we were teens out late, and we were the last two on the last bus home, and I got off at my stop and she was the last person on the bus...turns out the bus driver offered to drive her home if she stayed with him to the station, so she'd "be safe", and he ended up raping her at his own house and then dropped her home (he had kids asleep in the house apparently.)

It doesn't really matter whether we are in our homes or out walking at night, rape can happen anywhere, anytime. I've heard of young girls getting raped at knife point waiting at bus stops in broad daylight in my hometown.

[beast]

Originally Posted by Brutha

He didn't made that statement.

You can say that a person increase the risk of X happening by doing Y without wanting X to happen even when she does Y.

I have never seen evidence that dressing provocatively increases your chance of being raped. Can you show me some?

[secrets0stolen]

Originally Posted by James81

If I were a woman, I don't think I'd care where the focus of the issue was here. I'd care about my own personal choices and the choices that I could make to keep myself and my family safe without over-sacrificing my life just to *be* safe. (i.e. striking a balance between taking measures of being safe, but still enjoying and having fun in life)

I think it's very dangerous for you, as a woman, to absolve yourself of all responsibility in the matter. Because there *are* things you could do to make your odds of being raped go down.

I've never heard one policy or campaign or somesuch being implemented to reduce the number of rapists, or the likelyhood that people will rape (besides rape being illegal in the first place); but you better believe I've been told from the time I was 4 years old where too walk, how to dress, what to scream, and where to hit to prevent *being* raped.

The point of throwing the focus back on the rapists is so that women don't have to put as much energy into avoid having a crime *done to them*. There's no other crime that puts so much more focus on prevention at the level of those at risk than on increased or better enforcement and societal causes. It's not that women somehow don't want to make risk/reward assessments for what precautions to take. Hopefully that's what you mean by taking responsibilty, and it's ingrained in women from a very young age. If anything, we're told that the risks always outwiegh the rewards (ie, be paranoid). You're not telling anyone anything new by suggesting women make choices to lower they're chance of being assaulted.

What makes you so uncomfortable about the focus being thrown somewhere besides the individuals it happens to?

[beast]

Originally Posted by James81

First of all, the idea of suggesting that dressing provacatively is NOT meant to suggest that a woman is a slut. Y'all add that meaning all by yourselves. And it's women who throw that word slut around as an insult. So, please talk to the women you know and tell them to stop using that as an insult. (Newsflash: We guys LOVE IT when you are easy, why would we insult you for it?)

Actually, it was the male cop who was throwing that word around, and I've heard both men and women using the term disparagingly.

Secondly, to suggest that perhaps some rapes are a matter of a guy noticing a woman and getting turned on by the way she is dressed does not suggest that it's her fault that she was raped. That's some gremlin ****, and anybody who feels that way needs to take a look at why they are so ready to pull blame on themselves for that.

Are you not familiar with the rigmarole that women often go through during rape trials? They are lambasted with questions about their virginity, their underwear preferences, and loads of other irrelevant - and private - issues. It's no wonder that they feel like society is blaming them for getting raped.

What it does suggest is that men, as a whole, are visually stimulated creatures. And that most rapists are men. So it stands to reason that at least to *some* degree, a rapist is attacking you because he is sexually attracted to you visually. And yes, there's the element of power there (although I would think that for someone to brutally assault a woman like that, they'd have to be operating from a frame of powerLESSNESS).

How do you explain rapes of elderly paraplegic women and young children, using this framework? How do you explain men who have never shown a penchant for other dudes raping their fellow inmates in prison? I am genuinely curious, I don't mean that to be snarky.

And, given that elderly women and small children have often been sexually assaulted, why do we even focus on what the woman was wearing in the first place? Clearly, wearing a burlap sack cannot ensure protection against rape.

To suggest that these men aren't visually stimulated by you is kinda naive, though. Perhaps some of them are not, but I'd bet money that a lot of them very much are. Even to the grandmas and the young 'ens that get forced. You may not *understand* how someone could be attracted to a granny, but if you go type "granny porn" into google, you'll REALLY blow your mind. There are LOTS OF MEN attracted to those women, and the evidence is right there in google.

I didn't mean to suggest that, if you're speaking to me. Of course men are visually stimulated - but you're sort of suggesting here that men can be visually stimulated by just about anyone or anything, so dressing like a nun isn't going to protect a woman from being raped, right? Shouldn't we shift the focus away from women's clothing, then?

[beast]

secrets - yes! We grow up learning so much about what girls can do to supposedly prevent us from being raped, yet so little effort is made to prevent boys from growing up to become rapists. For shame!

[secrets0stolen]

Originally Posted by James81

Exactly. And I agree that you shouldn't marginalize your life just to protect yourself. You understand that walking outside at night alone is a risk for you as a woman, and you choose to take it. You understand that you might catch unwanted attention from the way you dress (and that's not just rape/assault btw), and you choose to take it. You don't have to NOT choose the things you want to do to protect yourself. You just understand that sometimes bad things happen that might have been prevented if you had made other choices (for example, taking a cab rather than walking home).

I'm genuinely curious whether you think this is something...not obvious? I honestly don't mean that to be snarky, it's just that doing risk reward assessments to avoid putting oneself in danger is one of the our most basic skills as human beings and one of our earliest formed habits. To me, what you just wrote would never occur to me to write, because it would be like pointing out to someone that 1+1=2, in order to make a point (and I'm one of those people who has a rep for pointing out obvious things).

What you said above describes some reasonable thought processes that might go on in our world. And, what some people would really like to do is reduce the necessity of them.

[beast]

I don't get it either - James is saying that we are responsible for our own choices (I agree, for the record) but that plenty of people are attracted to grannies and small children. So if dressing modestly won't protect us, what's a girl to do?!

I like the advice given in The Gift of Fear, which tells us how to trust our instincts and listen to our gut, but beyond that, I really think the focus should shift towards preventing men from becoming rapists.

[sorter]

If you leave your purse/wallet on a park bench and it's disappears, are you to blame?
Technically no, but you don't do it if you can help it.

Wearing sexy clothes increases the risk of assault. Pure and simple.
Men are aroused by clothes that accentuate T&A.
That could mean a woman who isn't wearing anything particularly sexy
gets assaulted because she's in a vulnerable place.
She's assaulted because the perp was aroused by other women.

Although, I'm talking about a minority of men who have violent tendencies
in the first place. Probably less of a percentage of people that would take your
purse/wallet from a park bench.
.

[ssandra]

If anything, dressing like a "slut" and owning it will decrease the chance of getting raped by a stranger, because I would look powerful, confident and capable. Not like a victim, insecure and prey.

I wouldn't know how that would change with regards to date rape, because that seems to be less about power over (although there is an element) and more about entitlement. And dressing in a way that suggest that you'll have sex and then holding out might provoke that more often....?

[James81]

Originally Posted by beast

I really think the focus should shift towards preventing men from becoming rapists.

I absolutely agree.

The trouble is that we don't know who the rapists are until it's too late. And you can put up "warning signs of a potential rapist," but that is also a dangerous road to go down (it has "guilty until proven innocent" written all over it).

So, essentially, in order to prevent men from becoming rapists, you have to fix the elements of society that involve shame, powerlessness, bullying, etc....all those elements that might drive a man to repress his sexuality and his emotion in such a way that he explodes.

That's not an easy fix.

[sorter]

Originally Posted by James81

So, essentially, in order to prevent men from becoming rapists, you have to fix the elements of society that involve shame, powerlessness, bullying, etc....all those elements that might drive a man to repress his sexuality and his emotion in such a way that he explodes.

?
A man must repress his sexuality. He can't possibly have sex whenever and wherever he wants, in this or any society I know of.
Unless you're a bonobo monkey:
Animal sexual behaviour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Two examples of systems in primates are promiscuous mating chimpanzees and bonobos. These species live in social groups consisting of several males and several females. Each female copulates with many males, and vice versa. In bonobos, the amount of promiscuity is particularly striking because bonobos use sex to alleviate social conflict as well as to reproduce."

[James81]

Originally Posted by sorter

?
A man must repress his sexuality. He can't possibly have sex whenever and wherever he wants, in this or any society I know of.
Unless you're a bonobo monkey:
Animal sexual behaviour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Two examples of systems in primates are promiscuous mating chimpanzees and bonobos. These species live in social groups consisting of several males and several females. Each female copulates with many males, and vice versa. In bonobos, the amount of promiscuity is particularly striking because bonobos use sex to alleviate social conflict as well as to reproduce."

Ok, now that you read the "repress his sexuality" part, go back to my post and finish the sentence.