in the minority of the decent

[psiradish]

After McLaughlin Group this morning was a show running a story about U.S. soldiers in the military raping other U.S. soldiers. After some initial statistics that were woefully unsurprising and some first-hand accounts, came a particular story of a soldier assaulted by a man she had probably called a friend. After all, they played sports together

Comments

Re: "warning"? what's that supposed to mean?

[psiradish]

Both these ways of thinking are only supported - if not partly created - by a prevailing attitude that a woman expecting until provided evidence to the contrary (and not considering possession of a penis alone to be evidence) that any individual person will possess a sufficiently basic notion of personal accountability and consideration for others not to casually subject another human being to prolonged suffering just for their own sexual gratification, is herself, in whole or in part, at fault if someone takes advantage of that reasonable expectation in an attempt to do exactly that to her. Certainly a man who's chosen to commit rape will be comforted - if not convinced to do the crime in the first place - by a little devil on his shoulder echoing, "She should have been more careful." Possibly followed by its own addition of, "Stupid bitch."

Victim-blaming helps perpetuate rape. It is a virus that persists in spite of reason, clung to by one chowderhead after another even as their last argument has been expended, and no amount of argumentative courtesy requires I allow it to infect my journal. Just as I am not required to entertain the opinions of Holocaust deniers, or racial supremacists, or the Westboro Baptist Church on my journal. Under a magnifying glass victim-blaming may not be equally as vile as these other things (or them to each other), but they are all still more than vile enough. It is only due to my faith that you, specifically, are not a chowderhead that I bother with it now.

If I'm not a reasonable person to deem what's "appropriately careful" then who are you?
Someone who realizes "appropriately careful" is not a valid input into the function to determine due sympathy for a victim. Someone who realizes the difference between the instinctual understanding that someone who's crossed a certain moral line in the past is much more likely to do it again in the future, and the learned acquiescence to fear all male humans as potential rapists.

Doubtlessly, there are many situations where a woman might not have been victimized if she'd only known to be more careful. Doubtlessly, there are many situations where the same would be true if she only had an extra 20lbs. of muscle mass and always carried a machete with her wherever she went. Doubtlessly, there are many situations where the same would be true if she habitually wore a second pair of underwear on her head, making most guys want to "stay away from the freak". But how the hell would she know to wear underwear on her head? How the hell would the nearly-raped soldier know her football buddy was capable of committing rape? How the hell would she know this regardless of where she grew up, how she was raised, by whom, and what life experiences she has or hasn't had? The banter, was that it? Do all women have an instinctual fear of banter that she clearly just chose to ignore?