I wasn’t a victim of rape, just repeated violations of privacy that definitely went well past harrassment, but I very much agree with this. I had a hard time to going to my parents in part because I was confused about what was going on, what my “rights” were, how “normal” (or not) it was for boys to do this, and because, after having gone to them once and not seeing lasting results, nor being given any information about what they were doing to deal with it, I didn’t really see the point.

“It would be like her pleading guilty.”

Or a confession (confessions don’t always result in a guilty plea), which is why people are bringing it up with regard to there being reasonable doubt of her guilt. There is also the point that part of not recanting means that even if there are inconsistencies between the stories, hers has remained consistent over time.

“My advice is the very rape prevention you’re bemoaning the lack of efforts toward….I’m entirely unclear on how this makes me “have it all backwards””

A) Individual assessment of risk is not the same as rape prevention. It’s more like rape avoidance on an individual level – there is no reason to think that it does more than keep the least vulnerable women safe – sometimes.

B) The language used for most rape “prevention” advice (irregardless of all the disclaimers) sets up the dichotomy that one is either stupid or a victim, one cannot be both. Or, at the very least, that one is less of a victim if one did not assess risk properly.

“see that they know there are bad people out there,”

You are supposing not only that it’s possible to recognize the bad people before you are put into a vulnerable position, you are also suggesting that bad acts mean that the person is cartoonishly a “bad person” – an attitude that actually makes it more difficult for girls and women to accurately judge when they are vulnerable. I had no reason to believe that the boy who was responsible for harming me would have done so, and he most certainly was not a “bad person” neither then nor now, just a person with faults whose actions were in certain ways condoned by society. The idea that only “bad people” do bad things was part of what kept me from going to an adult.

“It’s a dangerous world, and vulnerable people will get hurt in it.”

Someone will always be more vulnerable – we can’t leave it up to potential victims to protect themslves, especially when definitions of “vulnerable” vary from not knowing one’s rights to dressing a certain way or going to certain places.

“As a practical matter, teaching your child how to cope with being a victim is a poor substitute for teaching them how to avoid being a victim.”

This supposes that force and knowledge alone can prevent one from being a victim. It doesn’t do jack shit to protect one from molestation on a crowded subway or sexual harrassment – it just sometimes keeps it from escalating into something worse.

Society is completely backwards, with rape victims getting very little sympathy, very little effort put towards rape prevention and women told that they have to suck it up and live like prisoners if they want to avoid rape.

Amanda, that is precisely the frame of mind that I’ve recognized as a big part of the problem and am advising against in my post at #29. My advice is the very rape prevention you’re bemoaning the lack of efforts toward.

I’m entirely unclear on how this makes me “have it all backwards”.

But it shouldn’t be lost on you that rape is an almost entirely unbalanced crime; the victim of a rape is almost universally a woman and the agressor is almost universally male. And there’s no consistent “rapist” demographic; it appears that almost any man can become a rapist with no warning or provocation. As far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough for us all to be under suspicion.

If rape were simply a matter of a few bad apples it wouldn’t be as common as it is. I’m sorry you found my comments “nasty” but since sexual assault is something almost one in four women have to deal with, the least you can do is suck it up when a comment is a little too general for your ego to handle. I’m sorry it rankles you to be considered a potential rapist. It doesn’t sit well with me, either. But that’s not the fault of the women who’ve been victimized by men, it’s the fault of men failing women.

Rape wouldn’t be as prevalent as it is, and wouldn’t go as unpunished as it usually does, without the tacit aid of a significant portion of the community of men.

So complaints about “overly broad generalizations” don’t really carry any weight. The generalizations, honestly, don’t seem to be that broad.

So talking about “men” as a general term isn’t “that broad” when when it comes to victimizing women. We all do it, or at least a significant portion of us do it or that is what you are implying. If I made such broad generalizations about all women, blacks, asians, etc I’d be a bigot (and even I would agree if that were the case) but because it is about men, it is okay.

When I started writing this I was angry and wanted to write something nasty in response to your nastyness but now I just feel sad that you feel this way. It must be hard hating half the population of the planet. And very lonely.

So complaints about “overly broad generalizations” don’t really carry any weight. The generalizations, honestly, don’t seem to be that broad.

Anyanka Says: this goes right to the core of our patriarchal puritanical society. men are socialized to believe that they are not responsible for their actions because the women made them do it. It’s Eve and the apple, baby. they wouldn’t beat us if we didn’t make them so jealous. they wouldn’t rape us if we didn’t look so sexy. they wouldn’t cheat on us if those other sluts hadn’t thrown themselves at them. you know, men wouldn’t even have lustful thoughts if women would just stay out of sight.

‘Cause you know that all men are just looking to beat, rape and kill women because we are “socialized” to do it. No offence intended to all the other feminist(e)s present but this kind of overly broad and silly statement is exactly why so many people male and female are unsupportive of the “cause”.

So I was able to have an open, wide-ranging discussion with both her and her 12yo brother about all forms of child abuse, then specifically sex abuse, and that often sex predators like to pretend to be kids’ friends for a long time just so that one day they can be sexual with the kids, and that sometimes that’s even true of daddies, mummies, grandparents, uncles, church fellows, teachers etc etc. Even thought most people are decent and kind, there are always some people who think of others as things rather than people, and you can’t tell from the outside who’s who.

I told them that should tell me, Daddy or some else they trusted if anybody molested them. I was able to tell them straight out that even if Daddy touched them sexually, that if I found out that he had been pretending all these years, I would believe them and protect them. (I then reassured them that I really truly believed that their lovely father was a kind and loving man who was not not NOT a predator, and that trust in his decency and kindness was one very big reason why I had married him ).

Then I talked more generally about abuse and how the abusers try to tell kids that it’s the kids’ fault, that nobody will ever believe them, that they will kill the kid or the kids’ family if they tell, and how the kid should tell anyway so that they and their family can be protected, and how it’s never ever the kid’s fault.

As my daughter is already my height and starting to shed the puppy fat, I will have to have more pointed discussions with her about rape sooner than I would in some ways like. But this has been a fairly good ground to build on, I think.

Thanks to all for this discussion. It meant I had the words right there when I needed them.

I’ll agree that this thread has digressed into a topic that isn’t pertinent, mainly because, as somone mentioned, most of these cases are domestic in origin. Very few forms of self-defense will work if we’re assaulted by someone we care about and/or trust.

But I’ll keep it for another forum and say no more.