So merely telling someone not to do something is all it takes for them to avoid that behavior? Awesome! So, instead of telling women what to do - not to get drunk, not to let a man they don't know into their house, not to walk where it is dark, not to wear this, not to go there, don't talk to him, don't flirt, don't ride the subway, don't dance sexy, etc. etc. etc. etc - we can merely say to the boys "Do NOT rape." and voila! problem solved.
Normally I respect the opinions you put forward, but this is just a straw man being used as a segue into an irrelevant rant.
Yes, except that these "dumb" things include any behavior that could potentially end in rape. It's a long, long list. Worse, it's not always applicable. A woman is most likely to be raped by a man she knows. So if a woman lets a man she knows walk her home because it is dark and he forces his way into her apartment and rapes her, it is her fault. She didn't know him well enough. If she walks home alone and is followed by someone who rapes her, it is her fault. She shouldn't have been walking alone. If she was dancing like a fool and making kissy faces with her friends and a guy follows her home and rapes her, it's really her fault. And if she gets drunk passes out and gets raped, it is really, really, really her fault.
It gets pretty meaningless after a while.
I'm going to repeat myself here, because it seems necessary.
There are two possibilities:
1a. We know absolutely nothing about how or when rape happens. It strikes out of the blue like Zeus' thunderbolts. Nobody can predict even in the vaguest way when it is likely to happen and when it is unlikely to happen, or in what circumstances. You are just as likely to get raped in broad daylight at the vicar's tea party as you are in a war zone.
1b. Therefore there is nothing you can do to minimise you chances of being raped.
1c. Therefore it is always factually wrong to say to a woman "If you had made different choices, you probably would not have been raped".
Or...
2a. We have scientific data about how and when rape happens. It is not entirely random, although it's not strictly deterministic either.
2b. Therefore there are evidence-based things you can to that will minimise your chance of being raped.
2c. Therefore it is not always factually wrong to say to a woman "If you had made different choices, you probably would not have been raped".
Now it seems to me that what you are doing is going with option 2, then adding a final clause:
2d. But you are not allowed to say this, because it's politically incorrect.
That final clause is where you part ways with rationality. We all agree that women shouldn't have to worry about being raped, or feel like they should avoid some behaviours, drugs, places or people because they are a rape risk. We all agree that anything we can do to make those behaviours, drugs, places and people safer for women is a good thing. Nobody is rationalizing rape no matter how many times anyone asserts otherwise. But the fact remains that from an evidence-based perspective, in the world as it really is with the men that really exist, that those things are a rape risk.
It seems to me that your political stance is one that's going to lead to more women being raped... but on the bright side, hey, at least some people will be less inclined to tell the rape victim that if she had behaved differently she would have been at less risk of rape. I don't think overall that is a win.
Unless you are going with the "thunderbolt from the blue" model of rape etiology, there
are evidence-based things women can do to reduce, even if not eliminate, their risk of being raped. There are also things they can do that will, as a matter of brute fact in this imperfect world, increase their risk of being raped.
That's not how it should be, but it's how it is. I support anything we can do to make the world more like it should be. However until the world
is how it should be, the brute fact remains that women's choices influence their risk of being raped.
It seems to me that what's going on here is that you are really overreacting a straw man (in the sense that nobody here is arguing for it, not the sense that nobody in the world believes it), something like "rape is always a woman's fault". Nobody here is saying that. If someone did say it I'd pile on with the doctrinal feminists and the white knights in biting their head off.
You react against this by saying "No! Totally wrong! A woman's actions
never influence her risk of being raped, never ever, not even the teensiest bit, no matter what!". This is simply factually incorrect, because rape is not a thunderbolt from the blue, it's a human behaviour which has been extensively studied.
The answer to rape myths is rape facts - not feminist doctrine which is in itself a new rape myth.
