Regulating Behaviour, Total Freedom, and Blame

A question was asked on a Facebook link to a blog about conservatives pushing the idea of dressing modestly and so on to reduce the risk of rape. The friend who posted it asked, "Somebody please explain why women should change how they dress and live and men can't stop committing rape?" So I tried to answer that with the following. ______________________________________________________________________________ Why do we presume to speak for rapists? And to what extreme should people be encouraged to live "dangerously" ? Should you feel free to leave your drink unattended? Should you neglect to bring friends to a club to watch each other? If I ever have a daughter I'll be advising she practice defensive driving because there are idiots and half-asleep and texting people on the road. That might make me square or controlling to some. You could argue that if you change your dress or party ways the proverbial "terrorists win." And that may be true. Clubbers are in another world from me, lousy music and too much volume for a useful conversation. People feel sexual liberation is paramount, but that's where it gets into informed choice. If you want to live in a log cabin where bears roam, then maybe keep a gun. If you want to stroll Detroit at midnight alone in a bikini that still has cash tucked into it from the strip club, because you are so sure of the humanity of all men, hopefully the police will find you before anything happens. An lone rapist is likely too cowardly to approach a confident woman, and may prefer to home-invade an old lady, but gangs or swarmings happen and people still play "knock-out" and even if you have the "right" to cross a street on green it's still wise to look both ways before stepping off the curb because bikes and cars can lose control. I can sit here with my Princess Leia Yavin battle map desktop and say rape is 100% unacceptable and the victim is not at fault, and my opinion won't matter. But if I am working a security detail and someone wants to enjoy the extreme sport of swimming in a shark tank, I'm going to say no and reason with the person capable of reason rather than lecture a shark after the attack. _________ After being challenged on the above points __________________________________________________ You did ask, whether with irony or not. Any guy going off to prison thinks there is a chance he will be over-powered and raped. Someone from Now magazine wrote that off as "homophobia," but he would have to start clearing out his desk if he referred to a woman's fear of rape as "heterophobia." The "big bad wolf" speech as you call it is at least not CRYING wolf. I recall one day years ago clicking through channels Geraldo and Oprah both had a rapist on. Geraldo's approach was to say to the live satellite feed screen the rapist was on, "You disgust me, sir !" to a round of cheap applause. Oprah was seated beside her guest-rapist and asked information about his process - that he watched for patterns of behavior; one victim habitually left her back door open while taking garbage out to the curb, so he used that as the moment to slip in so when she locked up he was already inside with her. So rapists telling "their side" actually has been done. It's the difference between banging one's head against the wall in willful ignorance or being aware. Brian DePalma made two movies about the same premise, Casualties of War and Redacted - the one guy in the unit who does not participate in a rape. We can't help asking what would I do? Is there a solution? How often does that happen? If I were a ranking officer, would I pep talk the troops with my personal view? It would be: See these movies and know this. If you rape, you are the enemy, not a soldier on my side. No friend of mine is a rapist either, so the loyalty card won't play. Anyone complicit in it would also face court Marshall. I guess RoboCop had the ideal answer to rape, as Ellen page in Hard Candy. But a true rapist watching the latter may conclude only, "don't let your would-be victim pour the drinks." PEER PRESSURE, however, will not play out like a PSA where the guys ask why the wife has a black eye and admonish an abuser with "that's not cool, man." It's clearly hard enough to persuade sane, civic-minded people with reason ("Now we have freedom AND responsibility, baby, yeah!" to quote Austen Powers) without believing that reason and logic will reach a rapist. Maybe one who has remorse, like the Oprah guest, will say something useful. But it is pure folly to count on control from those defined by loss of control or a psychological compulsion to exert temporary dominance over someone else. There IS a shark out there, Mayor Vaughn. Close the beaches.