Women's Reactions to Rape

I can't say that I'm particularly interested in a woman's "purity", but it does appear to be the case that rape, more that other violent acts against women, leaves significant trauma after the event.It seems like rape is somehow less "fair" than other crimes; if a woman is mugged, it's because of something she has. If a woman is raped, its because of who she is. (I mean, it's not like you can leave your sex characteristics at home. I don't mean that women "ask for it", of course, but rapists target women because they are women.)

How would that work? Never mind, I don't want to know.I think a large part about being a sexually responsible adult is making your sexual needs clear. It seems rather immature to have to trick someone into fulfilling your needs.

Yes.By incapacitating your attacker with the greatest possible expediency. If you punch them so hard they can't chase you, then you've incapacitated them, by definition. I don't understand what you mean by "most people." You think that there are people who are born with the knowledge to use submission holds effectively?I think it is your "corrections", in fact, that are misleading.

Right. And it is my position that the boy next door would be more inclined to keep his hands to himself if he knew that the odds were every women he encountered was either armed to the teeth or a black-belt martial artist; and either way, wouldn't think twice about putting him down for their safety.If women are more likely to be raped by their male aquaintances, then women need to start viewing their male aquaintances as potential attackers, and be prepared to harm those persons for their own safety. Yeah, that's going to suck for everyone - men and women both. But rape sucks more. What an idiotic thing to say. Because one in three women will be the victim of sexual assault by a man in their lifetime. Clearly, an appreciable fraction of men have a problem controlling their behavior. One in ten? One in twenty? I don't know.All a man can do is not rape women. Clearly, not all men are willing to take that step. In a rape, there's only two people involved who can stop it - the victim and the rapist. Obviously the rapist isn't interested in anything but rape. That leaves the woman, then, as the only person there who can put a stop to it.That's not to say that preventing rape is a woman's responsibility. But there are things women can do to protect themselves, including the use of self-defense techniques or personal firearms.It's far more sexist, though, to tell women that they're too weak to defend themselves and that it's a man's job to do it for them. You know, like you advocate: And, by extension, our property. How disgusting. Men need to do what we can but it's an outrageous act of sexism for you to tell women that they're too weak to protect themselves and that they need a man to do it for them. To the contrary, every time Schraf posts I learn something new about rape, and about women. I welcome her participation in any thread of mine. On the other hand you can take yout sexism somewhere else.

It does.

As I established earlier in this thread, self-defense helps in rape situations. So, yes. The superior solution to what women tend to do now, which is hope it doesn't happen to them, is to prepare for if it does happen to them, and be prepared to resist. By prosecuting the rapists. That's accountability. By convincing women to come forward about rape. That's education.Oh, right. You meant "where's the accountability for all the women who were raped because they were sluts and they were asking for it?" I can't help you with that. As a rule, I don't blame the victims. I didn't say that it was. Men need to stop raping women. Period. But until we can get all men to agree, women need to be prepared for the fact that one in three of them will be raped in her lifetime, probably by a man she thinks she's on friendly terms with. That means self-defense. Look, I already rebutted that nonsense. In the majority of cases where women have resisted their rapists, they felt it improved their situation, not made it worse. Only in a very small number of cases has self-defense or resistance made it worse for the victim.The statistics that prove this are earlier in this thread. I suggest you backtrack and look them up. I agree. Both men and women need to address the problem of rape. Men need to address it by not raping women, or encouraging their peers to do so; women need to do it by resisting rapists and being prepared to defend themselves.But your post suggested - no, flat-out stated - that you don't think women have to do anything but hope it doesn't happen to them. That's sexist, and contrary to your stated belief that both men and women need to face the problem of rape head-on. According to you, all we have to do is make sure that each woman has a big strong man to protect her. Of course, that's the attitude that leaves women critically unprepared to resist violence against their persons in the first place.

Until men have proven themselves worthy of that trust, no, I don't condone it. "Trust" gets one in three women raped in their lifetime. What we need is a whole hell of a lot of distrust of men by women. No, quite the contrary. Everything that you've said so far - that women can't defend themselves, and shouldn't even try; that it's a man's job to protect their women; that women need to just live with the fact that some of them are going to get raped - makes it pretty clear that you believe that the only thing women have to do to prevent rape is to not provoke it, or something.If that's not what you meant, well, you haven't at all explained what you did mean. Accountability? Rapists go to jail when we find them. Who else needs to be held accountable? Fantastic, but aside from not raping women, and telling people you know not to rape women, there's not a damn thing you can do, because you'll never be where a rape is happening; and even if you were, you won't be in a position to render any sort of aid.

Message 135:

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Women should carry guns? Women should learn hand-to-hand combat?

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So ridiculous that, you must be joking.

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I would argue that men should do something about it, afterall: these women represent our wives, our mothers, our daughters, our sisters.

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Apparently, to you, the women who are nobody's sister, daughter, wife, or mother don't deserve any kind of protection. According to the statistics, yes, it does. It's still not clear enough. You're still talking about the education. I understood that part. Who did you believe should be held accountable? That's what I don't understand. Not according to me. According to the statistics.

I guess if you can't read, or something. What did you mean by simultaneously suggesting that it was useless for women to try to protect themselves physically and then insisting it was the job of men to do it for them, then? No, I'm trying to un-spin your spin and make sure that the people reading don't get confused about what you really believe. Of course, I think there's a strong possibility that you don't consider your own views sexist, and I'm trying to show you how that's not the case. To the contrary. at least twice I've alluded to message 56 of this thread, where I presented the statistics that laid out my case.So, yes. I've posted the statistics, which you would have known if you'd bothered to aquaint yourself with the discussion before jumping in. All you've posted is the same nonsense about "making it worse" that I rebutted as far back as message 56.But, look, this is all getting away from my basic point - if men were preyed upon by enormous werewolves who lived among us to the extent that men prey on the women that live among them, all men would be highly armed, and we'd live in a martial culture designed to offer men the best chance to resist attacks by fellow humans tranformed into monsters.But when it's men turning into the monsters, and women as the prey, we do nothing except counsel victims after the fact. We do nothing except send herds of women around the city, "taking back the night." We do nothing except "raise awareness of the issue" - an issue that everyone is already aware of. And when I suggest strategies for women to physically resist rapists, strategies with proven statistical effect, I'm roundly ridiculed - most stridently by the women themselves.It's a major double standard; it's a cultural conspiracy that ensures women will be easy prey for rape, and it's a conspiracy that the community of women are, knowingly or not, actively complicit in.I just don't get it.

Not just valid, but obvious, and the solution men would implement if the roles were reversed. The "root problem" is men raping women. There's nobody to be accountable but the rapists, and we already hold them accountable to the greatest degree we're able to, through the apparatus of law. The way the study is structured, that's not a meaningful question. Once you're in a situation where you're called upon to defend yourself, you're already a victim of sexual assault. A rape has already occured, according to the parameters of the study.Did self-defense prevent greater injury? The study clearly states that, in the majority of cases, it did. Self-defense does not give a false sense of security. Self-defense gives situational awareness - the knowledge of when you are secure and when you are not.It is ignorance that gives a false sense of security, and it is your position that stresses ignorance over preparedness. Did it ever occur to you that I might be referring to the other people that have posted in this thread? God, get over yourself for a minute. There were 100 posts in this thread when you jumped in; it didn't start with you.

Well, that's your call. If you place avoiding interpersonal friction over your physical safety, I can't argue with that. Though I don't see that as a reasonable set of priorities.And honestly, living this way isn't that bad. Adolescent males live this way just fine. I get along perfectly well with my male friends, despite the mutual understanding that we're prepared to attack each other in earnest in self-defense or on principle, should it become necessary. Men have lived that way for centuries, in every culture. Men distrust each other as a group. It's honestly not that hard.

That's exactly what arming women does. Men stop thinking of women as physically powerless creatures that they have to protect, and as capable combatants with the power to protect themselves.

I can't say that for sure, but the evidence suggests to me that yes, it would tend to discourage rapes. No, I disagree. If a man starts to rape you, but you manage to chase him off, he's still guilty of a sexual assualt. If he wasn't, we wouldn't be able to prosecute him. Than what actually happened. Yes, but I expand "self-defense" to include things like avoiding poorly-lit areas, avoiding intoxication or impairement in unsafe areas, making your friends aware of where you are, etc. In other words, being aware of our surroundings and making sure that you have options if something bad happens. Actual physical combat prowess is simply one of those options.

Well, I disagree. From the study: No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.vaw.umn.edu/documents/sexoff/sexoff.html#id2635993Almost 20% of victims fought their rapist or succeeded in capturing him. Another 11% were able to scare their rapist off. Unfortunately the study does not go into more detail than that but it's safe to say that weapons or training or both almost certainly came into play for the majority of these incidents.And I don't think "distrust of men" is a self-defense tactic all by itself. It would be idiotic, for instance, to distrust a man but take no other action to prevent a sexual assault from him. It's quite disingeuous of you to misrepresent my position by suggesting that I view "distrust of men" as a solution in itself. Perhaps, but what I'm asking is, why do they stop there? When a reasonable person can see that there are even more things you can do to be prepared?

So change the gradient: Men who you're at the greatest statistical risk of being raped by, men who you're at less of a risk of being raped by, men you can trust not to rape you.I mean, it already sounds like you're on that gradient, you just have different terms for the categories. Yeah. And they me. Does that surprise you?For most of Western civilization, a man was not fully dressed without a sword, even if he lived far from any battlefront or border. Who did you think these men were expecting to fight? Each other. Even their friends. That's how men have lived for hundreds of years - prepared to do battle with each other when the "rules" told them they had to.Now, I'm not sure to the degree that the "rules" influence my behavior, or the behavior of my friends. It was hyperbole on my part to suggest that we would definately fight if the "rules" demanded it. Probably we wouldn't. Obviously, your husband and his friends have rightly relegated these rules to the dustbin of history. But I know that the rules are there; that's just how I was raised. And that's the way it is for my friends, too. We'd certainly feel like we were "supposed" to fight, if, say, my friend called my wife a slut or something. Would we? I hope not. But I'd be prepared to do it.