Why is it taboo to discuss the responsibility of victims?

[chimpkin]

Chimpkin, I strongly recommend that you study the definitions of negligence and recklessness and the Latin term mens rea, and while your at it, terms such as premeditation and malice aforethought. Then you and I can talk intelligently about responsibility.

This definition clipped from the respective wikipedia entry:

Negligence (Lat. negligentia, from neglegere, to neglect, literally "not to pick up something") is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances

Yes...But how does that make you responsible for someone else's behavior when they make the decision to harm you?
Being dumb is a good way to make yourself the human predator's target...instead of someone else.
Making yourself a more difficult target just means that they will find another victim besides yourself.
If you have not made yourself a difficult enough target, this does not absolve your attacker in any way.

James R:
Rather than blaming the victim for their "complicity" in violent crimes committed against them, isn't it better to focus on the perpetrators? They made the choice to commit the crime. If they didn't pick on you, they would have found another victim sooner or later.

Exactly.
Now another wikipedia definition:

In criminal law, recklessness (also called unchariness) is one of the four possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for "guilty mind"). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both a mens rea and an actus reus, i.e., a person cannot be guilty of the offence for their actions alone.

Again, how does this make you responsible for someone else's actions?

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind".[1] In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty".

So were you suggesting those who behave in unprudent ways and were hurt-by someone else...somehow wanted that hurt?
Too, blaming a woman for her assault because of her actions says that you expect men to be dangerously out of control of themselves. Which is pretty insulting to men.

Pineal:
Have some women engaged in behavior where loved one's will encourage her not to repeat them, sure. But that does not mean she was complicit.

Right, I've never said you should not be cautious.
If you are not, and become a predator's target, it's still the predator's free choice to attack.

Pineal:
What she is not complicit with (in?) is the violence, hatred of women and control urges that are involved in rape - that is entirely the man's responsibility.

Yep.

 

[Syzygys]

I couldn't notice that nobody has been able to come up with a working definition. Let's give it another week.

So forgot rape and let's talk about good old burglary. I lock my doors, I have an alarm system and SILL, I get burglarized. Who is to say I wasn't still complicit? Maybe the paint on the side of the house was too flashy, maybe the car outside too nice, maybe I forgot to bring in the morning paper....

The bottomline is, nobody can tell where the line between old fashioned common sense and recklessness is.

So until someone comes up with a definition, let's put this stupid idea to rest...

 

[chimpkin]

Szygys:
The bottomline is, nobody can tell where the line between old fashioned common sense and recklessness is.

Yes.
Or where prudence ends and paranoia begins.

So until someone comes up with a definition, let's put this stupid idea to rest...

That would be nice, but it's a terrifically pervasive idea in our society, isn't it?

 

[ZAK327]

No one ever expects to be a victim so it's hard to prevent a crime from happening. I see what you mean though and It's a good point, but I think people try to stay safe and protected as much as possible these days. analysis from both angles Is important. Im sure there are ways people can "turn off" a criminal mind. by that, i don't mean putting them to sleep or turning them into a vegetable. I mean, making them completely uninterested In doing the crime. Criminal's are usualy smarter than their victims though. :shrug:

 

[James R]

Criminal's are usualy smarter than their victims though.

I have a theory about criminals: they are uniformly bad problem solvers. They all choose ways to solve their immediate problems that ultimately prove disasterous for them.

Not very smart, if you ask me.

 

[Cifo]

Originally Posted by Cifo
... a woman trying to look sexy ... for who? She may intend for her appearance to attract only the rich and handsome eligible bachelors, but the reality is that it will attract the general public, including the perverts, scumbags and sleazeballs.

So that means it's her fault if she does? Women are not meant to look attractive?

Lets say you dress nicely and some guy rapes you when you go to the toilet. I guess it's your fault you decided to wear those jeans and that shirt?

What about the woman who dresses and is not trying to look sexy? What about the woman in the hijab? Old granny in her nightie in bed at night? What about the girl walking home in her school uniform? The wife sleeping naked next to her husband?

Okay, how can I put this.. When is it not her fault and when is she not complicit in her rape?

to look attractive. This point brings us to another important fact of life. What women thinks looks "pretty" or "attractive" to themselves (or to other women) usually makes them look "sexy" to men. Look at it this way: mature, healthy, and vivacious are probably the three main characteristics of "sexy" in men's eyes. Ask any guy: your father, your husband, your brother, etc. They will probably tell you the same thing — "pretty" to a woman is usually "sexy" to a man. Go figure!

Lets say you dress nicely and some guy rapes you. Good example. If I knew that wearing a pink carnation in my lapel buttonhole and dousing myself with lavender cologne would attract homosexual rapists, guess what? If I chose to dress that way, I'd be very careful about where I went and who was around me. That is acting in a reasonably prudent manner.

the unsexy woman. Here we go again with this absolute risk management. You want absolute security, and when you feel it's your responsibility, out comes all these ridiculous security measures.

When is it not her fault and when is she not complicit in her rape? And this is what you cannot comprehend ... it all depends on the situation. I would not say that a woman was "complicit" in her own rape unless she did something very, very wrong. All instances of rape cannot be painted with a broad brush.

complicit. Complicity in criminal law refers to when someone is legally accountable, or liable for a criminal offense, based upon the behavior of another (so think "accomplice" when you think "complicity"). As for the extreme act of legal complicity in one's own rape, the only possible instance I can think of off the top of my head (and I'm still not sure) is when a woman willfully and knowingly throws herself at a guy meaning to take him to bed and to humiliate/embarrass/disparage him at the worst possible moment. They end up in bed in coitus, and as she planned, at the last possible split second before his orgasm, she tells him no and to leave her. The guy, at the peak of his sexual fervor, completes the sexual act, thus raping her. At trial, if she were to honestly admit to her intentions from the beginning, I think even a jury of all women would have trouble finding her completely innocent. Although they would not find her guilty as an accomplice to her own rape, they would probably not find the man guilty of rape or any inclusive crime.

I suppose it could be said that this was "date rape" by what is called the letter of the law, but not by what is called the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law also being what is referred to as the "legislative intent" of the statute — that is, what acts the legislature intended to criminalize with the statute. The legislature probably does not intend to protect the woman who purposely lures a man into bed with the premeditated intention to humiliate/embarrass/disparage him at the last possible split second at the height of his orgasm.

 

[chimpkin]

. As for the extreme act of legal complicity in one's own rape, the only possible instance I can think of off the top of my head (and I'm still not sure) is when a woman willfully and knowingly throws herself at a guy meaning to take him to bed and to humiliate/embarrass/disparage him at the worst possible moment. They end up in bed in coitus, and as she planned, at the last possible split second before his orgasm, she tells him no and to leave her. The guy, at the peak of his sexual fervor, completes the sexual act, thus raping her.

This is a very unrealistic scenario.

 

[Cifo]

Originally Posted by Cifo
Chimpkin, I strongly recommend that you study the definitions of negligence and recklessness and the Latin term mens rea, and while your at it, terms such as premeditation and malice aforethought. Then you and I can talk intelligently about responsibility.

This definition clipped from the respective wikipedia entry:

Negligence (Lat. negligentia, from neglegere, to neglect, literally "not to pick up something") is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances

Yes...But how does that make you responsible for someone else's behavior [?]

Once again, you are not responsible for someone else's behavior; you are only responsible for your own behavior. This is a fundamental principle of law. The criminal is responsible for the criminal act. You are responsible for any "failure [on your part] to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances" (to use your own words).

A typical example. You visit the park one day and sit down on a bench and set your purse down beside you. You then remember the beautiful flower beds in another part of the park, so you take a long walk and spend some time admiring them. In the meantime, someone with criminal inclinations passes by the bench and steals your purse. You eventually return to the bench, and you are dumbstruck when you realize your purse is gone. You call the police, and when they arrive, they tell you, "Lady, what did you expect when you left something of apparent value unattended in a public area? If not for your failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances, your purse would probably not have been stolen."

A very sad example. You work at a retail stall in a public marketplace. One day you bring your 2yo daughter with you, but you choose to pay so much attention to the customers that your daughter wanders off into traffic and is struck down and run over by one vehicle and run over again by another vehicle. Eighteen pedestrians also pass by and notice her severely injured body, but only the 18th one alerts the authorities. Medical staff at the hospital do their best to save her life, but she dies a week later. The legal authorities tell you, "Lady, what did you expect when you left your tiny daughter unattended in a dangerous area? If not for your failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances, your daughter would probably be alive and well today."

 

[Cifo]

As for the extreme act of legal complicity in one's own rape, the only possible instance I can think of off the top of my head (and I'm still not sure) is when a woman willfully and knowingly throws herself at a guy meaning to take him to bed and to humiliate/embarrass/disparage him at the worst possible moment. They end up in bed in coitus, and as she planned, at the last possible split second before his orgasm, she tells him no and to leave her. The guy, at the peak of his sexual fervor, completes the sexual act, thus raping her.

This is a very unrealistic scenario.

Then it is very unrealistic that a woman would be legally complicit in her own rape.

However, such evil acts (and worse) by some women are not unheard of. The cases of Omaima Aree Nelson and of Katherine Knight are quite profoundly unrealistic, yet those women indeed committed their thoroughly abhorrent and revolting crimes.

 

[chimpkin]

Cifo...the first example, a person who leaves their purse unattended in public...foolish. But not responsible for what the purse-snatcher did.

The second...a small child you take responsibility for...for the next 18 years when you have one. A purse does not sprout legs and walk off under its' own volition like a small child. A small child cannot be expected to control themselves yet. You have to take control for them. A motor vehicle you control, but to some degree you may not be able to stop it if someone or something runs in front of you.
But in the case of the Chinese girl who was killed, the girl was not likely to have been run down intentionally.
Being attacked by a rapist would be more analogous to being intentionally run over:
http://www.wreg.com/wreg-strangers-help-man-intentionally-run-over-by-suv--20111003,0,6102837.story

An adult rapist CAN be fully expected to control themselves, provided they are sane.
They choose to attack, the way the lady in the above story chose to drive over a curb to hit a man on the sidewalk.
Is that the run-over man's fault for being close to the street? For arguing with his girlfriend? Is what she did partly excused because he enraged her?

Edit: I think that you are just going to refuse to see my point, and I'm really tired of trying to convey it to you. -Making yourself an easy target does not absolve a criminal who targets you.
-I would never tell anyone not to take precautions.
-Sometime bad things will happen no matter what precautions you take.

 

[Randwolf]

Harm minimisation is one thing. It's (partly) what wynn seems to be talking about and mostly what Fraggle seems to be talking about. Harm minimisation starts from the premise that there are people with criminal intent out there, so you don't make it easy for them to pick you as a victim rather than somebody else. That's why you lock your house when you go out, why you chain your bicycle up at the supermarket etc. You hope that the criminal types will find an easier target than you.

Failing to minimise harm or to make things difficult for a criminal may mean that you're more likely to become a victim, but it in no way makes you complicit in the crime itself. In other words, you do not share the blame or responsibility for the criminal's choice to commit the crime in the first place. He had the free will to commit or not to commit the crime. You had nothing to do with that.

When it comes to violent crime, there are certain harm minimisation methods you can take. Don't walk down dark alleyways by yourself at night in bad neighbourhoods, because you'll increase your chance of being mugged. But if you are mugged, the fact that it was in a dark alley at night doesn't suddenly lead us to dole out responsibility for the crime any differently: "That guy was crazy walking down that alley. He's surely 40% responsible for his own beating and losing his cash, so the guy we caught for the crime should only get 60% of the usual prison sentence. The victim was complicit in the crime!"

Another important point is that it is unreasonable to expect potential victims (i.e. virtually everybody) to go to extremes to minimise harm or reduce risk. Should everybody be forced to train in martial arts and wear a chain mail shirt whenever they walk down a dark alley at night, just in case they are targetted? Or should all walking down dark alleys at night be forbidden? If you do walk down a dark alley, for whatever reason, then you ought to have known better and you probably had it coming? In fact, you were probably "asking for it" by your actions.

Rather than blaming the victim for their "complicity" in violent crimes committed against them, isn't it better to focus on the perpetrators? They made the choice to commit the crime. If they didn't pick on you, they would have found another victim sooner or later.

Thank you James.

I'm glad you said this because I can't seem to express myself succinctly or meaningfully on this issue.

After some more brooding, I have come up with another analogy for consideration. What say ye all on this?

Who would you advise to act differently in the following circumstances?

1. A person prepares to cross a street at an intersection at night.
2. A "legally" drunk driver is approaching, unbeknownst to the pedestrian. (Another wonderfully emotional topic)
3. The pedestrian crossing the road failed to raise their head from whatever was occupying them and thus failed to look left and right before stepping off the curb.
4. The pedestrian is struck by a car and mortally wounded.

Questions:
A. Should the pedestrian have taken the time to check the traffic before attempting to cross?
B. Why or why not?
C. Have you ever told anyone to check both ways before crossing the road?
D. Who? Your wife? Your son? Your children? Do you look both ways? Does this even matter? (Who you have told, just to be clear)

I understand that some wish not to allow any sort of analogies, whatsoever, into this argument because it undermines an other wise airtight position, but what about this one?

It has all the elements, right? Two people involved - who's "complicit"? Perhaps "complicit" is the wrong word?

Is it not more generally the case to ask to what degree someone is able to avoid a given unpleasant outcome, in any situation? In other words "risk management"? I would ask why. Why is this particular topic so immune from common sense?

My understanding from counselors, law enforcement, etc. is that it is empowering to instill the idea that people are not helpless over their lives.

You are all so inspirational and informative on nearly every topic - but many of the heavyweights here have for some inexplicable reason determined that this subject is anathema. Why?

I've been brooding on this for many years - where am I wrong? Remove every aspect of gender from the question - does this change anything? Apparently not - I have tried very hard in the past to do this - to no avail.

Why is it wrong to advise someone to look both ways before crossing the street? Why is it wrong to advise someone not to walk down an alley at night nude? No boundaries? Of course not. If your three year old ran down said alley 30 seconds ago, of course you're (make that "I'm") going to chase him down. Otherwise, I choose not to go down the dark alley at night. Is this really that unreasonable?

By the way - the pedestrian was not killed by the evil drunk driver - s/he was killed by a car coming from the opposite direction - the drunk driver slowed and stopped for the light... Does that change anything? Another question - would you advise your loved ones not to drive drunk? Why / not?

Please, please play ethics 101 with me on my scenario(s).

I just don't get why I'm so fuckin' stupid on this particular issue...

 

[Bells]

When is it not her fault and when is she not complicit in her rape? And this is what you cannot comprehend ... it all depends on the situation. I would not say that a woman was "complicit" in her own rape unless she did something very, very wrong. All instances of rape cannot be painted with a broad brush.

It all depends on the situation?

So you think there could be some instances where it is her fault that she is raped?

See, this is the part that you cannot comprehend.

Rape is rape. There is no 'situation' where it is the victim's fault.

Understand the concept of 'no means no' and you will begin to grasp the very nature of rape. Rape entails lack of consent, and being the legal mind you are portraying yourself as being, you should be aware that lack of consent means it is rape. At no time is that "situational" at law.

to look attractive. This point brings us to another important fact of life. What women thinks looks "pretty" or "attractive" to themselves (or to other women) usually makes them look "sexy" to men. Look at it this way: mature, healthy, and vivacious are probably the three main characteristics of "sexy" in men's eyes. Ask any guy: your father, your husband, your brother, etc. They will probably tell you the same thing — "pretty" to a woman is usually "sexy" to a man. Go figure!

So in your opinion, if a woman is attractive, she is sexy in the eyes of men and therefore, she is kind of responsible? Is this a "situational" thing as well for you?

Maybe you can explain why 90 year olds are being raped in their homes, or why Muslim women who are covered from head to toe and you cannot see what they look like are being raped.

In this, you are still placing the onus on the woman to not be raped.

The onus is on the rapist to not rape. Ever. It is never her responsibility to act or dress in a manner that will prevent her being raped by some random individual who may or may not be there.

Lets say you dress nicely and some guy rapes you. Good example. If I knew that wearing a pink carnation in my lapel buttonhole and dousing myself with lavender cologne would attract homosexual rapists, guess what? If I chose to dress that way, I'd be very careful about where I went and who was around me. That is acting in a reasonably prudent manner.

And that's the thing, isn't it? We cannot know.

Ever.

complicit. Complicity in criminal law refers to when someone is legally accountable, or liable for a criminal offense, based upon the behavior of another (so think "accomplice" when you think "complicity"). As for the extreme act of legal complicity in one's own rape, the only possible instance I can think of off the top of my head (and I'm still not sure) is when a woman willfully and knowingly throws herself at a guy meaning to take him to bed and to humiliate/embarrass/disparage him at the worst possible moment. They end up in bed in coitus, and as she planned, at the last possible split second before his orgasm, she tells him no and to leave her. The guy, at the peak of his sexual fervor, completes the sexual act, thus raping her. At trial, if she were to honestly admit to her intentions from the beginning, I think even a jury of all women would have trouble finding her completely innocent. Although they would not find her guilty as an accomplice to her own rape, they would probably not find the man guilty of rape or any inclusive crime.

And I can assure you, the guy could be thrusting his penis into her and the moment she says no and he does not pull out and stop, it is rape. The victim's complicity does not apply in rape cases Cifo. As someone who is apparently published in law, you should know this.

If she invites him to bed and passes out or falls asleep and he has sex with her, it is rape. She is not complicit.

If she invites him to bed and half way through the act she says 'no', she is not complicit at law and he is fully at fault because consent has been withdrawn.

I could go on, but I would recommend you open up a criminal law book and have a look at the meaning of consent.

At trial, she admits that she said no while he was inside her, while he was "at the peak of his sexual fervour", it would still be rape. Because the very moment she says "no" or says "stop" or gives any indication that consent is withdrawn, it becomes rape. That is the law.

 

[chimpkin]

I just don't get why I'm so fuckin' stupid on this particular issue...

Emotional involvement.
That's why I keep pounding on Cifo, too.

Questions:
A. Should the pedestrian have taken the time to check the traffic before attempting to cross?
B. Why or why not?
C. Have you ever told anyone to check both ways before crossing the road?
D. Who? Your wife? Your son? Your children? Do you look both ways? Does this even matter? (Who you have told, just to be clear)

A. of course.
B. because it's smart to do so
C. yes, various small children over the years.
D. I always look both ways when going into a street, even if I'm pulling my car onto a one-way street...because twice now I've seen drunks going the wrong way on a freeway.

In my state, the law says you always yield the right-of-way to pedestrians. No matter what damnfool thing they just did, if you whack into them your insurance pays. Even if they jumped in front of you-this actually happened to my brother, with witnesses that, yeah, dumbass jumped in front of his car. The guy went to the ER to get bandaged up on my brother's insurance.
If you fail to stop and render assistance to someone you hurt with your car, you are charged with failure to stop and render assistance, and I believe that's a felony.

What I am trying to say, Szygys said succinctly:

Everyone has the right to be stupid.

Someone's case of the stupids does not excuse their predator. Period.

Still not advising anybody to go be stupid.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

All I wanted was a lousy little definition (so we would know we are talking about the same thing) and all I got is a shitty T-shirt. Bottomline is, if you can't explain it in 1-2 sentence what we are talking about, chances are it doesn't exist.

You want me to condense an entire career specialty into a bumper sticker??? It takes considerable study to work in this field, there is a mountain of published information about it, and somewhere in America right now people are probably arriving and registering for a risk management conference that will start tomorrow (Monday) morning. One of the reasons it requires study and apprenticeship is that it is not intuitive. Common sense is only moderately useful in analyzing risks and choosing strategies for managing them. Instinct and emotion are much worse, and often lead people in exactly the wrong direction, as in the example I posted previously of America destroying its own economy and those of several other countries in a quixotic attempt to eradicate terrorism--a threat of almost negligible consequence--while blithely tolerating the almost two-orders-of-magnitude greater death toll from drunk driving, which could be eradicated cheaply and without turning the country into a police state.

I have written many plans, letters, templates, presentations, course materials and other documents to introduce Americans to the principles of risk analysis and management. After all that practice, I still could not possibly condense a summary into two sentences.

You are a textbook example of why America is so bad at dealing with risks. You expect it to be easy, and it just ain't!

I have a theory about criminals: they are uniformly bad problem solvers. They all choose ways to solve their immediate problems that ultimately prove disastrous for them. Not very smart, if you ask me.

It revolves around the discounted value of a future cost, compared to the full value of an immediate benefit. Any reasonably intelligent member of a modern economy who is not extremely wealthy would, without hesitation, accept an offer of $10,000 payable immediately, over a promise of $11,000 to be paid in twenty years. Even ignoring interest rate fluctuations, he has to weigh the possiblity that he might die before the payoff date, that inflation may make the money worth far less than it would be today, that the person or organization making the offer may go bankrupt and not have the money any more, etc. But moreover, most of us value current comfort and pleasure more highly than future comfort and pleasure, although we don't all use the same ratio.

Using the identical "emotional algebra," we all would agree to promising a "negative payoff," e.g., paying a bill, suffering punishment, etc., in the future in order to avoid making an immediate payoff of considerably smaller size or value, and for the same reason. We might be dead, the other guy might be dead, civilization might collapse, etc. But by the same token as the above line of reasoning, we simply regard current discomfort or displeasure as more onerous than future discomfort or displeasure.

We live in the present and discount the future.

But the discount rate varies dramatically from one person to another. And that's the secret to analyzing the problem-solving skills of criminals that at first glance appear "bad, disastrous," and "not very smart" to you. These are simply people with a very high discount rate.

• They live high-risk lives. To them, the probability of not being alive by the time the cops catch up with them for their crimes is not just an interesting exercise, it is a realistic expectation.
• They tend to be in extreme emotional pain, so having a van full of somebody else's tchotchkes to play with until they get tired of them (or break them or let somebody else steal them) will give them a few days of comfort and pleasure.
• They have an inflated self-image. (And no, I'm not referring to people who always think they're overweight ) They are convinced that they're smarter than we are, stronger than we are, braver than we are and luckier than we are, so to them the probability of being apprehended appears much lower than it really is.
• If you look at the statistics of solved crimes, it suggests that we upright citizens estimate the probability of being apprehended as greater than it really is. Does that make us also "bad problem solvers? Are we fools for not committing crimes that we'd probably get away with? The criminals certainly think so!

So, working within the logic, priorities and assumptions that inform the world view of criminals, they are really not such bad problem solvers. They are willing to accept the probability of being punished for a crime as the cost of the pleasure, money or other benefit that accrues from committing it. They are simply less patient than we are, and less certain of a long life.

This is a very unrealistic scenario.

This is a pretty big planet. Are you really sure that no woman anywhere has ever done that? This scenario is not unrealistic so much as extremely rare. That is a huge difference, at least in the discipline of risk analysis and management.

We deal with extremely rare risk realizations all the time. Every risk is assessed a cost of realization and a probability of realization. If the probability is extremely low (say an earthquake), but the cost is extremely high (say losing all of the company's account information and going bankrupt), we still have to develop a contingency plan for addressing it (maintaining an off-site backup a thousand miles away will usually take care of this one).

But unrealistic risks? No, we don't deal with that. We send you back to do a better job of analyzing it and to come back with a more realistic description and analysis.

 

[Randwolf]

Emotional involvement.
That's why I keep pounding on Cifo, too.

Aye. That does not negate the logic, now does it?

A. of course.
B. because it's smart to do so
C. yes, various small children over the years.
D. I always look both ways when going into a street, even if I'm pulling my car onto a one-way street...because twice now I've seen drunks going the wrong way on a freeway.

In my state, the law says you always yield the right-of-way to pedestrians. No matter what damnfool thing they just did, if you whack into them your insurance pays. Even if they jumped in front of you-this actually happened to my brother, with witnesses that, yeah, dumbass jumped in front of his car. The guy went to the ER to get bandaged up on my brother's insurance.
If you fail to stop and render assistance to someone you hurt with your car, you are charged with failure to stop and render assistance, and I believe that's a felony.

Now - the obvious. One question you failed to answer - why does this strategy not extend to precautions against other felonies? Such as, I don't know, maybe rape?

I'm not now, nor ever have, advocated locking women, or boys, or 300 pound men, nor trans, bi, homo or any other sexuals away from civilization. I'm not telling anyone what to wear or whom to talk with. I merely assert "be careful" - and 7 kinds of hell descend on me. WTF, I wonder???

So I get all carried away, old wounds surface, I quit, life goes on, same topic comes up, some old players / some new players, same result.

I feel like I am doing wrong for saying "be careful", broken down a little more explicitly as day to day life goes on. No one will specifically engage and answer all questions asked - it's a pick and choose game.

What really pisses me off is that I would bet my left nut that every one, every single one of these naysayers advises the people they care for to "be careful" as they leave the house. As they drive home after two beers. After they score a lid. Etc. Etc. Etc. Anyone care to stand up and tell me differently?

If this is true, all that they are doing is practicing informal "risk management" without knowing and / or acknowledging it. Thanks to Fraggle for going through the nuts and bolts of the discipline. I don't have the patience to break a simple everyday admonition to "check your back seat" before you get into the car into formal project management terms - which by nature necessitate incorporation of risk assessment. But, hey, do we need to reduce this to mathematics for someone to understand the basic principles in play?

I still fail to understand why this raises so much ire.

Are you afraid someone is trying to weasel their way from a "be careful" to a "s/he asked for it"? If so, that's sick...

What I am trying to say, Szygys said succinctly

Someone's case of the stupids does not excuse their predator. Period.

Still not advising anybody to go be stupid.

No? What do you advise?

 

[Cifo]

The sub-discussion here among Bells, chimpkin and Cifo (me) has reached a stalemate, and this is my last post in this thread. If anyone wants to believe that I'm quitting, giving up, retreating, caving in, buckling, relinquishing, renouncing, surrendering, and/or abdicating, then that is their privilege, and they are more than welcome to it.

I will end by restating and expanding upon what I have stated over and over and over again ad nauseam.

The rapist and only the rapist is responsible for the violent, horrible and despicable criminal act that he or she perpetrates. The possibility exists that a mature adult victim could be responsible, in some degree, through his or her own negligence or recklessness, for contributing to the situation and/or context in which the rapist committed the rape. It is impossible to absolutely prevent anyone from being raped, and I have never advocated nor encouraged that anyone should seek this kind of absolute risk management, but only to do what a reasonable and prudent person would do to minimize the probability of being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. Anyone who has been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted should call 911 immediately.

Goodbye, best wishes, and be well.

 

[chimpkin]

Randwolf:
Now - the obvious. One question you failed to answer - why does this strategy not extend to precautions against other felonies? Such as, I don't know, maybe rape?

Oh, but it does.
Any violent crime...there are things you should do to make yourself less of a target.
People were not really dogpiling you, Rand, for saying that.

Who we were arguing with (and you just walked out into the middle of a firefight on) are those who think that a woman who is acting foolish deserves to get raped.

Does a woman (or man) acting foolishly deserve to be raped? NO.
Should they take precautions? YES.

Cifo:The rapist and only the rapist is responsible for the violent, horrible and despicable criminal act that he or she perpetrates.

Then why the hell have you been arguing with me for five pages???:facepalm:

...And I've just ran into another suicidal teen rape and incest victim on my social networking site! Let's see if I can get her to get help before she self-destructs, because of course she feels like she's filth for having been a victim!! Gawd this is a weird hobby...

 

[Randwolf]

Who we were arguing with (and you just walked out into the middle of a firefight on) are those who think that a woman who is acting foolish deserves to get raped.

Thanks. Really.

I do have to ask though, just for reference, which post(s) argue "that a woman who is acting foolish deserves to get raped", in your opinion?


Also, in all honesty, I wasn't an innocent bystander that "just walked out into the middle of a firefight". I've been in this theatre before. Same FUBAR situation. My fault for letting myself be drawn back in, but I .can't. .for. .the. .life. .of. .me. understand why this isn't obvious to everyone.

Actually, I think it is obvious to everyone. I just can't seem to communicate effectively on the issue, and that may very well be due to emotional involvement. But I still maintain that there is a difference between taking precautions and being at fault for assault of any kind, including rape.

Does a woman (or man) acting foolishly deserve to be raped? NO.
Should they take precautions? YES.

Emphasis mine.

Great, Perfect. Succinct. My point indeed. Chalk one up for what I'm trying to say, whatever the "proper" label may be...

 

[S.A.M.]

Do men get raped in dark alleys? I see men walking around the streets after dark.

Are men more likely to get raped if they wear less clothing?

When little boys get raped are they considered as complicit if they left off their shirts?

 

[Randwolf]

Do men get raped in dark alleys? I see men walking around the streets after dark.

Hi SAM.

I would guess, just offhand, that it has happened, sometime, somewhere. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Why are you skulking about in dark alleys though? Perhaps you had sufficient reason to do so? Or maybe you carry a fully deterministic POV? Or... What?