I would like you to think through your formulation of the above.
Please.
You keep coming back to a circumstance where women essentially need to avoid interacting with men, or men simply need to be locked away.
There
are reasonable precautions
anyone can take against "crime" in general. But the inability of rape prevention theory advocates to establish an idea of reasonable precautions is more than a little disconcerting.
Under this open-ended theory of rape prevention, the greatest number of rapes could be prevented if women simply follow some common-sense rules according to statistical outcomes:
• Don't marry a man.
— If she marries a man, she should never consummate the marriage, lest she accidentally imply that her husband has the right to use her body for sexual gratification despite her lack of consent.
• Do not accept a date from a man, for fear of accidentally implying that he can expect sexual congress.
• Do not acknowledge when a man speaks to her, as that might encourage the man to think she's interested in him.
• Do not answer the door if the delivery agent is a male; after all, he's a stranger.
— Even if the delivery man is well-known, she shouldn't answer the door, as the most part of rapes are committed by perpetrators known to the victim. Being friendly, or even answering the door, might encourage him to think she wants him for sexual intercourse.
• In fact, it's better if women live alone and never leave the house, since some men prefer frumpy attire and "granny panties" over short skirts and g-strings. That is to say, there is no women's attire guaranteed to not excite a man's sexual impulses.
Is this the sort of society you want?
But even running with the misconception that the greatest dangers to women are walking alone at night, or going to the bar and drinking, it's still problematic.
• When I belly up to a bar, my habit is to nod, smile, and say hello to the people beside me. If one of those people is a woman, should she feel threatened? Maybe she should pack some heat, so she can point her gun at me for threatening her by saying hello. After all, I'm not going to rape her, but she doesn't know that. And saying, "Hi, how's it going? Oh, by the way, I'm not going to rape you," doesn't work, because as far as she knows I could be lying.
• Should women never use public transportation for their work commute? You know, in case they have to wait at a somewhat vacant train station, or walk from a quiet bus stop?
• Of course, I think of a friend whose story I used as a general basis for my
"Jane" example. She probably shouldn't drive to work, either, since she might be endangering herself by walking through a parking lot in the evening. (Though it's true, I
did embellish the story; I'm not certain how fun Bob actually is to have a beer and watch the game with.)
At what point does this get ridiculous?
Actually, I'll tell you two stories from my own experience.
• I used to have a partner that I didn't get along with. One day, I tried to end the relationship, as it was obvious neither of us were happy. She didn't like me, didn't like being around me, and didn't like having sex with me. Seemed pretty obvious that this wasn't a successful relationship. At least, that's how I saw it. But she wept and told me none of it was true. She liked me. I was more than a trophy when we went out. And sex? Well, she was tired. Or drunk. "Just have sex with me, anyway," she said. And, indeed, I did try that a few times. And she said no, so I stopped. And the point came up repeatedly: "Why didn't you just fuck me, anyway?" The one time she didn't say no, she waited until I was finished and said, in a tone I will never forget, "You ... fucking ... bastard!" Wow. Lesson learned, but in truth I shouldn't have needed to learn it. I should have known. To this day, she has never accused me of rape, and we're still quite good friends, and she does not feel unsafe in my presence. But that doesn't mean I wasn't a complete idiot; rather, I'm just lucky as hell. And no, I don't get to pretend she was playing out some rape fantasy. Unless she ever explicitly tells me that's what was up, it's not a consideration.
• There was an occasion once when I probably could have gotten away with a "rape". I put the word in quotes in order to acknowledge the apparent confusion males claim in these situations. The first time I met her, we were in a bar. She and a friend invited me to leave with them. We went to another bar, and then to an all-night party. We ran into each other at the bar several times, and one night she was essentially cornered by police in the context of facing a DUI after she vomited behind a bar. "Don't any of you drive," the cop said. "No problem," I told him. "I walked. I live right over there." She asked if she could crash at my place. Of course I said yes. We wandered back to my place; she had some pot to smoke. We even did kiss-hits together. She asked if I had anything more comfortable she could wear, and then changed in front of me. True, I'm not a fan of frilly g-strings, but the pink satin was tempting. I offered her the spare bedroom, but she asked if she could share the bed with me. Well, duh. Yes. When she climbed into bed, she spooned up against me. And as is my habit in such postures, I had my hand on her hip, and of course it started drifting. "Please don't do that," she said. "Sorry," I replied, rolled over, and fell asleep. I ran into her at the bar again a few days later, and while her boyfriend was distracted playing pool, I said, "I'm really sorry about the other night." And she looked at me with genuine puzzlement and said, "For what?" And, yes, that rattled me. I really did have the thoughts running through my mind: Should I have pressed? Did she want me to press? And you know, I don't think there will ever be a time in my life when I come to regret not having tested the situation.
I should never feel
proud for having given a friend a safe place to crash for the night. That would be kind of like getting an award for simply doing my job.
Yet, strangely, had I raped her, look at all the things she did that people would pick on in my defense, and yes, it could have been enough to win acquittal or even see the charges dropped.
She said, "Please don't do that." None of those other things matter. After she said that, there was never any question, regardless the number of prevention theory "failures" one might suggest about her conduct.
This is not difficult. So she got drunk. So she went home with a guy. So she gave him open mouth kisses. So she changed clothes in front of him, letting him see her lingerie and know that her pubic hair was neatly trimmed to be aesthetic. So she climbed into bed next to him. So she spooned up against him.
But she said no.
It's not difficult at all. This isn't a matter of putting the onus of her protection on a perpetrator. Quite simply, it's a matter of not being a perpetrator necessitating her protection. It is not a matter of protecting her at the expense of her protecting herself. It's a matter of her not needing to protect herself.
There are realistic threats in the world, but we come back to de Beauvoir: When women try to act like human beings, they are accused of wanting to be like men.
I've crashed with men, and they've crashed with me. And sure enough, they were drinking, having fun, being crazy, and never for a moment did they need to fear that someone was about to rape them. (You would be erroneous to presume that lack of fear should come from any idea that I won't be with another man.)
However, prevention theory suggests that women shouldn't have that security. If a woman trusts a man, and he rapes her, society has a nasty habit of telling her why it's her fault.
Without some reasonable boundary on prevention theory—that is, without some expectation that men behave themselves appropriately—a woman should never trust
any man, because if he exploits that trust and hurts her, it somehow becomes her fault.
This isn't difficult. Or, at least, it shouldn't be.