Worst Rape Apologist Editorial Ever

[OrangeCatz]

I suppose if I dress up with the intent on picking up women, and a homosexual man sees me dressed up, I've just given him consent to rape me?

 

[Pacal]

The column certainly could have been written more sensitively, as I think the author himself implies in his followup column (here). However, I think maybe the point of the article is valid and has been lost amid the justifiable outrage at the tone.

Is there a logical fallacy based on the failure to recognize that things have multiple causes? Because I'm seeing that mistake over and over again, and this is one such case. Saying that the way a woman dresses is a contributing cause of rape in no way condones the rape or shifts the blame or implies that there are also other (and possibly more significant) contributing causes to rape.

It's just an evident fact, which I'm sure could easily be supported by statistics if anyone bothered to do a study, that women who dress provocatively are more likely than others to provoke a rape. That's no different than saying that men who conspicuously carry huge wads of cash in rough neighbourhoods are more likely than others to get mugged. It's not a matter of blaming the victim, it's just good advice on how to avoid being a victim. Whether you choose to take the advice, or take the risk, is up to you.

Just how does dressing "provacatively" cause or make anyone rape? Just how does dressing a certain way make anyone do anything? Just how does dressing "provacatively" "provoke" someone to rape? And your analogy; how does caring around great amounts of money "provoke" anyone to rob? The person doing the raping or robbing is solely responsible for their acts they were not provoked in the slightest. Oh and I've never read any where that someone wearing an expensive suit, diamonds etc, provoked someone to rob them because they were wearing such things or carrying huge amounts of cash in a rough neighbourhood.

Sorry, dressing "provacatively" or carrying huge amounts of cash etc., is not the equivalent of attacking someone with a knife or punching them in the nose, i.e., a provocation.

 

[Information Analyst]

Nat Geo did a study on women's rights in the Stone Age lands of today.
They had a photo of an Afghani police woman arresting a husband (with blood on his clothes) for stabbing his wife who dissed him.. She's in a burqa, with blood all over it.
The Taliban murdered the police woman!

No, it was not the police officer (Malalai Kakar) in the blood-stained burqa, but rather the grandmother of the wife. See image/caption at http://socjus.tumblr.com/

 

[JJM 777]

Some other gems from his article:

Quote:
For example: Don’t trust your male friends. Don’t go to a man’s home at night unless you’re prepared to have sex with him.

Quote:
the male animal craves drama as much as food, shelter and clothing. Conquering an unwilling sex partner is about as much drama as a man can find without shooting a gun.

Actually those are gems. If not in a philosophical ideal reality that we soberly define here at JREF forum, quite much in the real de-facto world, especially when some alcohol is around.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Excellent posts, Hans.



Another point - aside from the fact Lara wasn't even wearing that dress when she was raped...


Mr Rottenberg states that upon seeing her in that dress, "most men" will interperet that as an invitation for sex.


This wasn't a woman on a first date. This was a well known, married woman at an awards show (presumably with her husband) wearing a dress typical of award shows.


And Mr. Rottenberg believes that "most men" will interpret this as meaning she wants to have sex with them, personally.


Deluded doesn't even begin to cover it. Does this guy honestly watch the Oscars and, seeing Angelina Jolie in a flimsy gown with Brad Pitt, think that "most men" will think this means Angelina Jolie wants to have sex with them?

 

[Taarkin]

And Mr. Rottenberg believes that "most men" will interpret this as meaning she wants to have sex with them, personally.


Deluded doesn't even begin to cover it. Does this guy honestly watch the Oscars and, seeing Angelina Jolie in a flimsy gown with Brad Pitt, think that "most men" will think this means Angelina Jolie wants to have sex with them?

He sounds like one of those schizophrenics who think people on TV are sending them secret messages.

 

[Morrigan]

However, I think maybe the point of the article is valid and has been lost amid the justifiable outrage at the tone.

Not only he does not remotely have a valid point, but he engages in countless fallacies too.

It's just an evident fact, which I'm sure could easily be supported by statistics if anyone bothered to do a study, that women who dress provocatively are more likely than others to provoke a rape.

Funnily enough, there HAVE been people who "bothered" to do a study (someone linked to one such study earlier in this thread), and it has shown that... what women wear has zero impact on the rape statistics. Huh. How about that. Something that appears to be "obvious", really isn't after all.

That's no different than saying that men who conspicuously carry huge wads of cash in rough neighbourhoods are more likely than others to get mugged.

This analogy never fails to make me laugh in its sheer absurdity. But seriously, has anyone ever heard of a man "carrying huge wads of cash in a rough neighbourhood", like, ever?

 

[MatildaGage]

the male animal craves drama as much as food, shelter and clothing. Conquering an unwilling sex partner is about as much drama as a man can find without shooting a gun.

He's managed to insult men too.

I was in a Xian cult as a child with lots of Middle Ages viewpoints on women. I actually believed, due to being taught, that all men will rape a woman if they have the opportunity. Took me a while to figure out that wasn't true.

It's really, really sick to think like that. Men don't deserve to be regarded as violent gorillas.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

My nephew was robbed on his way home from the mall, he didn't have cash to flash and I don't think he even was able to buy anything to carry home. The robber saw that he was paying less attention to his surroundings than others and decided to see what he had on him.

 

[Visual Purple]

On the question of whether "provocative" dress is a risk factor for rape, I think I've seen things that suggest that it may actually be conservative dress that is a risk factor. (I'll try to come back with some documentation, but I'm having some modem problems, so I may not be able to do the needed research.) Anyway, it seems to be well documented that rape is an opportunistic crime. In the case of stranger rape, the typical perpetrator usually has decided to commit the crime before he spots any particular victim. The typical selection criterion is also opportunistic: the perpetrator is looking for an easy victim. This is why pregnant women are at increased risk. So far, this is pretty noncontroversial.

What I'm hoping to track down is a claim I've seen that women in everyday sexy clothing are perceived as more confident than those in more conservative clothing, and so as less easy victims. If the clothing were so elaborate as to be a major physical hindrance, I expect that the result would be different.

I'm not an expert in the subject, but I have read a number of law enforcement interviews with sex offenders and this claim strikes me as consistent with the mentality.

I'm fairly sure that I've read that nuns have some excess stranger rape risk. This strikes me as consistent with both the vulnerability factor and another aspect of the personalities of some sex offenders. A few of them are outright sexual sadists. For them clothing that marks a woman or girl as sexually conservative may actually be an attraction on the idea that the rape will cause such a person more distress.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

On the question of whether "provocative" dress is a risk factor for rape, I think I've seen things that suggest that it may actually be conservative dress that is a risk factor. (I'll try to come back with some documentation, but I'm having some modem problems, so I may not be able to do the needed research.) Anyway, it seems to be well documented that rape is an opportunistic crime. In the case of stranger rape, the typical perpetrator usually has decided to commit the crime before he spots any particular victim. The typical selection criterion is also opportunistic: the perpetrator is looking for an easy victim. This is why pregnant women are at increased risk. So far, this is pretty noncontroversial.

What I'm hoping to track down is a claim I've seen that women in everyday sexy clothing are perceived as more confident than those in more conservative clothing, and so as less easy victims. If the clothing were so elaborate as to be a major physical hindrance, I expect that the result would be different.

I'm not an expert in the subject, but I have read a number of law enforcement interviews with sex offenders and this claim strikes me as consistent with the mentality.

I'm fairly sure that I've read that nuns have some excess stranger rape risk. This strikes me as consistent with both the vulnerability factor and another aspect of the personalities of some sex offenders. A few of them are outright sexual sadists. For them clothing that marks a woman or girl as sexually conservative may actually be an attraction on the idea that the rape will cause such a person more distress.

Fairstein (1993, pp. 132-133) noted, "most sexual assaults occur when there is a combination of two critical conditions: opportunity and vulnerability. The rapist needs the opportunity to commit the crime, and he succeeds when a victim is vulnerable at the moment of his opportunity." Richards, Rollerson, and Phillips (1991) hypothesized that nonverbal, as well as verbal, cues may affect perceptions of a woman's submissiveness and, subsequently, a potential assaulter's judgment of vulnerability. They found that dominant and submissive college women displayed visually different appearances (e.g., submissive women wore body-concealing clothing). College men's perceptions of dominant and submissive women were based primarily on dress as impressions were not influenced by body movements or presence/absence of sound. Richards et al. (1991) concluded that there was evidence to support the proposition that college men selected submissive women for exploitation.

http://business.highbeam.com/435388...ate-rape-victim-dress-and-perceiver-variables

 

[Scott Haley]

This guy could start a club with Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist.

 

[Visual Purple]

Thanks, Professor Yaffle, That looks like what I remember.

Another factor that may come into play is a mentality by which rape is somehow a proper "punishment" for almost any kind of sexual nonconformity in women. Thus, "corrective" rapes of lesbians and transsexuals. I wonder whether this may not come into play both for women whose clothing is "too sexual" or "too anti-sexual." Anyone know if women identifiable as Muslim are at increased risk in countries where anti-Muslim sentiment is common? This wouldn't surprise me at all, but I'm now completely speculating.

 

[Scott Haley]

They have another one.

The same magazine has an article by a woman who says that the way some women dress promotes the attitude that rape is O.K..

http://www.broadstreetreview.com/index.php/main/article/sex_abuse_how_to_respond_to_dan_rottenberg/

Her idea is that when women wear clothes that restrict their mobility, like high heeled shoes, it sends a pro-rape signal. I can't follow that reasoning at all.

People who advocate the arts say that they make you better or wiser. Some say plays help you understand the human condition. Here are two theater critics, people who've seen hundreds of plays, and they still write like this.

 

[lemurien]

What about this article is not our domain?

He insults men as unable to act civilized and blames women for whatever men do to them. So far as I'm aware, most of us are in one of those two offended domains.

No.
That is not at all what he is writing.
You are making a fire of a strawman.

 

[Visual Purple]

Scott,

The argument that restrictive clothing has a bad message is at least interesting. I can see intellectually that some restrictive clothing, such as high heels and tight skirts, may be seen as sexy not because they are restrictive, but because they exaggerate sexual characteristics, such as a hip-swaying walk. But I don't think that that's the whole of it.

Personally, I hate being physically restricted that way, so when I see restrictive clothing, I mostly see only hobbles--similar to the bound feet of old China. I'm going to guess that the hobbling could be part of the appeal and may send its own sexual message. Actually two different messages that I can think of. First, it can send a message that the woman needs the protection of a stronger man. That message may be a bit on the anti-feminist side, but it's not obviously rape-promoting. Second, it may be read as saying "here I am, I'm open to attack." It's that message that's the problem. When that message is sort of intended, I'd guess that it's meant only as mildly kinky public role-playing. Still, that kind of role-playing rather susceptible to misinterpretation by someone who is too literal-mined.

It strikes me that the writer of the article you've linked to conflates revealing clothing and restrictive clothing. That misses the submissiveness issue. Athletic clothing is often revealing, and it seems clear that some men find it attractive, but the submission factor isn't there. It's all surely even more complicated than that, and I'm not doing a particularly good job of explaining it. Doesn't the stereotypical dominatrix wear stilettos? Does that mean that really spiky heals read as a weapon rather than a hobble?

Whatever the case, I do think that clothing that makes a person look easier to subdue may be problematic.

ETA: One reason this isn't as clear as I'd like is that the idea of submission is doing double duty here. In a couple of places, it relates to the kink, in others, it relates to, well, real-world submissiveness. The two have only a distant relationship; I hope that, with the possible equivocation pointed out, people can tell which I mean.

 

[fuelair]

Amazingly if you extended the argument, since we all are born naked, it means we are all naive and are getting what we should have expected, decades later (that woman gettting raped in her 73 years ? She was on a nude beach in 1953). And if we wore jewels or anything expansive at some time, that means we should have expected to be robbed or murdered at another.

And chewbacca is a wokie on endor. it does not make sense , don't you see it ?

(that guy is either a troll , an idiot, and I will not commit a false dichotomy here he could also be both).

We certainly have had a number of persons who easily could have fallen under both categories in the forum - or, at least, left such an impression.

 

[Skeptic]

That's the number one excuse used by people who have a pretty misogynist mindset. Even though that's not the point. Rape is rape. No woman, even if she were to be as so bold as to walk the streets naked, deserves to be raped. Dressing provocatively does not give anyone the right to her body. That's "blaming the victim" definitely.

Advising women to take reasonable precautions in their dress -- like in crossing the street -- is not "blaiming the victim". It's blaming the vicim when the "reasonable precautions" turn out to be "any woman who dresses less modesty than I approve of".

 

[Rasmus]

Advising women to take reasonable precautions in their dress -- like in crossing the street -- is not "blaiming the victim". It's blaming the vicim when the "reasonable precautions" turn out to be "any woman who dresses less modesty than I approve of".

It is blaming the victim if there is no indication that dressing one way or another would actually influence your risk of being raped at all.

 

[PhantomWolf]

It is blaming the victim if there is no indication that dressing one way or another would actually influence your risk of being raped at all.

And there are far better ways to take precautions than how you dress, for instance, when you go out, staying as part of a group who watch each other's backs, watching how much you drink, keeping an eye on your drink, and not going home with a random stranger. When exercising, do it as a group, don't wear headphones, and changing your daily exercise route if you run or walk in public. At home, keep the front door and windows locked, have chain on the door, and a lock on your bedroom door. Keep a cell phone in the bedroom close to the bed so you can reach it and use it fast if you suspect an intruder, and do use it, better to have a false alarm than to not call for help when you actually need it. Self-Defence lessons are always handy too.

Yes it's sad that women need to do this sort of thing to stay safe, and in a perfect world they wouldn't need too, but we need to be realistic about, there are predators out there that will take any advantage they can get to steal and violate anyone they can get hold of.

One of the things he said was good advice, not disrobing in front of a masseur. Not only is that common sense for helping to avoid the perverts, but also it's just common decency not to do it in front of the non-perverts IMO and I'd hope that the majority of woman wouldn't do it anyway.

The best precaution is to always remain aware of your surroundings, keep an eye on what is happening around you, and trust your instincts. If you think things don't feel right, get the heck out of Dodge and/or find a group of people to make things a little more public.

As much as it is horrid to say, as long as there are creeps that watch for women who are alone and vulnerable to prey on, remaining alert, ready, and with friends is the best precaution against them, ar least until all of those creeps have beenm caught and had the bits that make them a threat removed.