Why don't we admit the fault of victims?

[Alceste]

That's fair. I think the difference here is how much a person regards ancillary implements an important factor. You have your people who will say "guns don't kill people, people do," your people who will attribute gun deaths to the guns themselves, and your people who don't see it as an either-or. I'm one of the people who doesn't see it as an either-or, so I would say it is about the drinking and who you're drinking with. Essentially, the increased risk associated with drinking could be mitigated by the factor of who you are drinking with in some (but not all) cases. They're all part of the mathematical tally, if that makes any sense.

What kind of scenario are you picturing where you can still get raped while drinking even if you're not drinking in the company of a rapist?

 

[Alceste]

I have been to many many parties in my day, no one has ever raped a passed out girl or guy.
We have drew stuff on their faces though


When school shootings happen, the police do not retrace all the kids days who got killed, nor ask the parents why they didn't home school them.

When a person gets assaulted on the street, they police do not ask them why they took that route instead of a different route or why they wore what they did that day.
Or why they didnt just stay home and go without what ever they were going to the store for.

If someone breaks into someones house and assaults them in their bed, the police do not ask why the person didn't have bars on their window, or why they moved into a bad neighborhood, or even why would a total stranger to them would choose them over anyone else.

So why are these things relevant to some people?

In my teens I had a party at my house where a friend of mine passed out on the couch. I walked into the living room and a guy was on top of her with his hand down her pants. I told him to get the **** out of my house and take all his friends with him or I would call the police.

They went. Didn't even kick up a fuss about it.

The strangest thing was that my friend "woke up" as soon as they were gone and said something like "Thank God that guy left, he was so disgusting!"

I still don't understand why, if she was conscious through all of that, she didn't try to rip his ******* hand off. Maybe she froze, I don't know.

In retrospect, it's possible she had been abused and learned to dissociate instead of developing healthy boundaries, which is very common.

But it does happen. I became more careful about who gets to come to my parties after that. I didn't know those guys, they just turned up. They looked like trouble but I couldn't think of a polite way to ask them to leave until I decided I didn't NEED a polite way.

 

[Penumbra]

Often qualifiers like "some" makes all the difference. The problem I had with that other thread was words like always and never. Human behavior is just too chaotic for words like that to be accurate in most contexts.

I know a woman who bounced in a guys lap, for most of four hours, hitting him up for drinks. He'd never had such a hot woman pay attention to him before. At closing time he worked up the courage to invite her to his place. She not only went, she drove her own car.
But once they were there she was too tired, drunk, bored or something. He did her anyway. She accused him of rape.

Which he was guilty of committing. She said "no".

Tom

I'm not impressed by this. Presumably he was freely exchanging drinks for her attention at the bar. After all, he found her attractive and he already got to have her company. If he was only doing it in hopes for sexual favors later he should have known that was never going to be a guarantee. Perhaps when they were alone she realized he turned her off after all. Whatever it was, when he 'did her anyway' that is just outright rape and he's a piece of **** for doing that. I have no idea why you'd present this as a fuzzy case or a case where we ought to have sympathy for this guy.

If this is the sort of thinking where having victims 'take responsibility' goes this is seriously problematic. This is not good for anyone.

Why is he the only piece of **** here?
Tom

Why would she be a piece of **** for changing her mind? Perhaps when they were alone he turned her off, for a variety of reasons, in a way he didn't before. How is that not legit? I don't see that she did *anything* wrong in your story. The fact that you don't see that is messed up.

Well that pretty much sums it up.

Men bad
Women good

I'm more convinced than ever...

Tom

Your story would have been much different in your eyes had they gotten back to her place, she did something to turn *him* off, and she ******* him out for leaving. I somehow don't think you'd think he'd done something wrong.

He is bad for raping her. People who rape=bad, yes. I'm a man who has never raped anybody, so I don't see how my analysis would fit me. I would hope most men do not fall under the category of 'rapists'. I would hope most men can be turned down without resorting to rape. Don't call her back because you felt she led you on? Sure. Rape her? wtf...

By the way, why is this a 'man vs woman' issue at all? I never saw it that way and didn't think of it that when you presented the story. This is one person declining a sexual invitation and the other determining that they deserved the sexual favor so decided to take it by force anyway. I can think of a lot of nonsexual analogies to this between whatever genders you want. The fact that this stuff is becoming framed so quickly in terms of some sort of war between genders shouldn't be happening.

Not much point in having a conversation with mind readers.

Prude that I am I think people should treat sex as the powerful force in human life that I think it is. Blaming people because they're male isn't going to help with the problem.

Tom

You seem to be stuck on the male vs female aspect of this which is why I brought that up. Suppose he went to her house, she started going on about venereal disease/how much she wants kids/an ex or current bf,husband, imagine what you want the point is he is turned off such that your friend decides maybe he'd be better off leaving. She in turn is extremely upset that her 'promised sex' isn't happening. Would your friend be a ******** in that case for not providing her with sex? Suppose she then drugged him, exploited him sexually while he was passed out... would he have blame in that happening?

I never blamed him for being male. I blamed him for being a *rapist*. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever he had to do that. Part of being a decent human being is fighting what can be rather powerful instincts, including the desire to mate when aroused, the desire to murder when enraged and so on. There are things you just *can't do* and be a respectable person.

And that doesn't include bouncing in a guys lap, spending his money, and then going home with him?

Sorry, I have more respect for the power of women. And I have seen them use it in ways as disgusting as men often do.

Tom

Columbus, this exchange of posts is disturbing.

Brokensymmetry didn't say anything bad about men, didn't turn it into a women vs men issue. You did. It's clear to see.

More importantly, the example you gave is clear rape, and an unintentional example of a cultural sense of entitlement which is a huge problem. Buying a woman (or anyone) drinks does not entitle a man (or anyone) to sex with that person. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason.

I think the most important way to combat rape is to have a culture that promotes gender equality, stresses the importance of consent, avoids victim-blaming, and has no tolerance for rape. People need to be taught from a young age that consent is absolutely critical, and that it can be withdrawn at any time for any reason. Buying someone drinks does not entitle anyone to sex with that person. Driving them home or being driven home by them does not entitle anyone to sex with that person. Being married or in a relationship with someone does not entitle anyone to sex with that person. Legal consent is what entitles someone to have sex with that person.

People need to be taught to take on the responsibility to make absolutely sure that they have their partner's consent. If there's any doubt or confusion or ambiguity that they have consent, then that's not good enough and they don't have consent. We need a lot more emphasis on the importance of that compared to the ubiquitous remarks about how women should dress more modestly or behave themselves flirtatiously.

A few more points:

Why is he the only piece of **** here?

Why would she be? Because she flirted, spent time with him, had drinks bought for her, and didn't offer sex in response? I would advise anyone against getting excessively drunk, or leading anyone on. He, however, raped her. You described the story in such a way that we're supposed to feel sympathy for this man.

And that doesn't include bouncing in a guys lap, spending his money, and then going home with him?

In your story she didn't spend his money, as in theft. He spent his money.

Sorry, I have more respect for the power of women. And I have seen them use it in ways as disgusting as men often do.

And I have more respect for the power of men. I don't view good men as you apparently do, able to be lured by powerful temptresses into raping a woman that says no and withdraws consent. Good men do not have a temptation to rape, do not have that sense of entitlement that since he bought her drinks and went home with her that he's entitled to sex now, consent or otherwise.

That's a notion that needs to be confronted whenever it arises.

 

[Penumbra]

This thread is in many respects an extension of this one, only the intent here is to consider perpetrators and targets of crimes more broadly. In that thread, I'm noticing a worrying tendency for some to to completely absolve targets of crimes of any contribution to the event. Although I suspect some of this is due to choice of words and semantics, it is very concerning to me that people are able to ignore causal variables simply because they are centered on the victim of a crime.

Being a target of a crime does not magically erase the fact that aspects of that person's behavior or personality contributed to the situation. Suggesting so is unscientific, unwise, and potentially downright dangerous. It nullifies our ability to conduct an impartial, objective risk analysis of crime and its causes, and in particular it won't allow us to develop ways that we can protect ourselves from becoming targets. After all, if we can't bother to acknowledge how we, as targets, contributed to the situation, we're going to be blind to how we can change our behavior to reduce our risk. We need to take responsibility for ourselves too, not just engage in rubbish finger-pointing exercises.

Thoughts?

Fundamentally, I think it comes down to peoples' propensity to paint things they find to be highly emotional as black and white. Nothing seems to engender overgeneralization and oversimplification as much as emotionally volatile topics. I understand the urge, I just don't find it to be particularly productive or honest.

In that thread, many people did acknowledge that for some types of rape, there are precautions that can minimize risk of being a victim, just like any other crime. Any reasonable person would acknowledge that. I even linked to RAINN's info on reducing risk of sexual assault in that thread.

There's a world of difference between spreading info on safe practices and encouraging people we know to be safe ahead of time, and the actual worldwide practice of victim blaming in response to rapes. Victim blaming is a whole other beast that goes well beyond reasonable safety tips and is often intertwined with sexist and oppressive rhetoric.

-First off, safety tips come before anything. They can be taught in school, in sex ed class, by parents, encouraged by friends, etc. The worst time to bring them up is after someone was raped. The victim at that point has to heal from a traumatic crime, sometimes full of an irrational level of self-blame in distress anyway, often doesn't want to come out with it for fear of blame and stigma, and the last thing they need is to have people focus more on her actions than on what the rapist did. But that's often exactly what happens.

-Second, criticizing the victim seems to occur with a magnitude around rape that does not occur to nearly that level with other forms of violent crime. In a news story about a woman being raped, you might find tons of comments about how she was asking for it, or what can she expect, or it's because she dressed a certain way, or she shouldn't be drinking, or some other reason, and often as much or more criticism of the victim as the rapist. But in a news story about a guy being murdered in a mugging gone wrong or something like that, you'll rarely see scores of comments about how he should have expected it by wearing a nice watch in that part of town. There are all sorts of examples of politicians, judges, media outlets, and various people in general, blaming women for rape, and this does not really occur to anywhere near this level with other types of violent crime.

-Third, all of that victim blaming distracts from the real causes of it and helps defend a culture that has too much rape tolerance and rape apology. As has been exhaustively pointed out, the majority of rape is different than the stereotypical image that people get in their head about rape, like drunken frat parties and creepers in dark alleyways. Most rape is perpetrated by people that the victim knows, with the most likely person being their own spouse or partner. And although many people will say something like the victim should dress more modestly, the actual research suggests that clothing has little affect on rape risk, except for limited evidence that dressing modestly actually might increase the odds of being raped. Likewise, a common myth is that rape is mostly about the sex and libido, and that men in general are these brutes that may be triggered into rape by a temptress (this was argued by more than one person in that thread and is a common claim), when really, rape is considered by most professionals to be more about power than sex, and again much rape is by spouses, partners, family members, and acquaintances anyway.

Consider huge public examples of victim blaming in practice.

-In some countries, women can be killed in dishonor by their own families if they are raped. Or, they can live on in stigma, being considered spoiled now.

-When a woman was gang-raped to death in India in 2012, and it made worldwide headlines for its particular viciousness, several Indian politicians made public remarks blaming the woman or saying other insensitive things.

-This year at Cairo University, a female student was walking around in long-sleeve pink shirt, long black pants, and flats, and this was considered immodest attire and was surrounded and harassed by a pack of male students that began to touch and mock her. The president of the university publicly said that all though there is no formal dress code, she should have been wearing a cloak, and that she might be expelled along with the harassers for being at fault. According to surveys, 96% of women in Egypt have reported being sexually harassed by touch, and 91% are wary to go out in the streets in fear of it.

-This year, a Texas judge sentenced an 18-year-old rapist of a 14-year-old girl to probation and only 45 days of jail time, and criticized the victim. Although the rapist admitted that the girl said, "stop" and "no" while he took off her clothes and raped her in the music room of a school, the judge claimed that the girl had previous sex partners and "wasn't the victim she claimed to be".

-In 2013, a Montana judge sentenced a 47 year old teacher that raped a 14 year old girl (who then killed herself), to only one month in jail, which was later overturned by the state supreme court and after protests. It was statutory rape, not forced rape, and the judge said that the victim was very much in control and older than her chronological age.

In 2011, an 11 year old girl was gang-raped in Texas by several juvenile and adult boys and men, ranging from early teens to late twenties. Apparently statutory, not forced, but that's questionable and legally irrelevant because she was so young anyway. The defense attorney blamed the victim and said it was like a spider and flies, her luring them into her web. Fortunately the jury saw through such nonsense.

It happens all the time, from the masses up to professionals and judges and politicians. Whether it's statutory rape of a minor, forced rape of a minor or adult, or sexual assault of women, there is often victim-blaming to a degree that does not occur in other crimes. Depending on the country it can range from the woman being killed by her family in dishonor, to being stigmatized, to being held partially to blame for what she was wearing or doing even if violently raped, or having light sentences handed down on violent rapists or on people that commit statutory rape of minors.

And this thread suggests that there isn't enough focus on the fault of the victim? We need more of it? We need to put more attention on what the victim did wrong or how she or he contributed to being raped? That there's a "worrying tendency" to absolve the targets of crime?

I think this is all very misguided.

 

[Penumbra]

Why don't we admit the fault of victims?

I also said that I don't like using words like "fault" or "responsible" because the baggage those words carry generally fail to accurately represent my view.

I don't follow this logic.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

In that thread, many people did acknowledge that for some types of rape, there are precautions that can minimize risk of being a victim, just like any other crime. Any reasonable person would acknowledge that. I even linked to RAINN's info on reducing risk of sexual assault in that thread.

There's a world of difference between spreading info on safe practices and encouraging people we know to be safe ahead of time, and the actual worldwide practice of victim blaming in response to rapes. Victim blaming is a whole other beast that goes well beyond reasonable safety tips and is often intertwined with sexist and oppressive rhetoric.

-First off, safety tips come before anything. They can be taught in school, in sex ed class, by parents, encouraged by friends, etc. The worst time to bring them up is after someone was raped. The victim at that point has to heal from a traumatic crime, sometimes full of an irrational level of self-blame in distress anyway, often doesn't want to come out with it for fear of blame and stigma, and the last thing they need is to have people focus more on her actions than on what the rapist did. But that's often exactly what happens.

-Second, criticizing the victim seems to occur with a magnitude around rape that does not occur to nearly that level with other forms of violent crime. In a news story about a woman being raped, you might find tons of comments about how she was asking for it, or what can she expect, or it's because she dressed a certain way, or she shouldn't be drinking, or some other reason, and often as much or more criticism of the victim as the rapist. But in a news story about a guy being murdered in a mugging gone wrong or something like that, you'll rarely see scores of comments about how he should have expected it by wearing a nice watch in that part of town. There are all sorts of examples of politicians, judges, media outlets, and various people in general, blaming women for rape, and this does not really occur to anywhere near this level with other types of violent crime.

-Third, all of that victim blaming distracts from the real causes of it and helps defend a culture that has too much rape tolerance and rape apology. As has been exhaustively pointed out, the majority of rape is different than the stereotypical image that people get in their head about rape, like drunken frat parties and creepers in dark alleyways. Most rape is perpetrated by people that the victim knows, with the most likely person being their own spouse or partner. And although many people will say something like the victim should dress more modestly, the actual research suggests that clothing has little affect on rape risk, except for limited evidence that dressing modestly actually might increase the odds of being raped. Likewise, a common myth is that rape is mostly about the sex and libido, and that men in general are these brutes that may be triggered into rape by a temptress (this was argued by more than one person in that thread and is a common claim), when really, rape is considered by most professionals to be more about power than sex, and again much rape is by spouses, partners, family members, and acquaintances anyway.

Consider huge public examples of victim blaming in practice.

-In some countries, women can be killed in dishonor by their own families if they are raped. Or, they can live on in stigma, being considered spoiled now.

-When a woman was gang-raped to death in India in 2012, and it made worldwide headlines for its particular viciousness, several Indian politicians made public remarks blaming the woman or saying other insensitive things.

-This year at Cairo University, a female student was walking around in long-sleeve pink shirt, long black pants, and flats, and this was considered immodest attire and was surrounded and harassed by a pack of male students that began to touch and mock her. The president of the university publicly said that all though there is no formal dress code, she should have been wearing a cloak, and that she might be expelled along with the harassers for being at fault. According to surveys, 96% of women in Egypt have reported being sexually harassed by touch, and 91% are wary to go out in the streets in fear of it.

-This year, a Texas judge sentenced an 18-year-old rapist of a 14-year-old girl to probation and only 45 days of jail time, and criticized the victim. Although the rapist admitted that the girl said, "stop" and "no" while he took off her clothes and raped her in the music room of a school, the judge claimed that the girl had previous sex partners and "wasn't the victim she claimed to be".

-In 2013, a Montana judge sentenced a 47 year old teacher that raped a 14 year old girl (who then killed herself), to only one month in jail, which was later overturned by the state supreme court and after protests. It was statutory rape, not forced rape, and the judge said that the victim was very much in control and older than her chronological age.

In 2011, an 11 year old girl was gang-raped in Texas by several juvenile and adult boys and men, ranging from early teens to late twenties. Apparently statutory, not forced, but that's questionable and legally irrelevant because she was so young anyway. The defense attorney blamed the victim and said it was like a spider and flies, her luring them into her web. Fortunately the jury saw through such nonsense.

It happens all the time, from the masses up to professionals and judges and politicians. Whether it's statutory rape of a minor, forced rape of a minor or adult, or sexual assault of women, there is often victim-blaming to a degree that does not occur in other crimes. Depending on the country it can range from the woman being killed by her family in dishonor, to being stigmatized, to being held partially to blame for what she was wearing or doing even if violently raped, or having light sentences handed down on violent rapists or on people that commit statutory rape of minors.

And this thread suggests that there isn't enough focus on the fault of the victim? We need more of it? We need to put more attention on what the victim did wrong or how she or he contributed to being raped? That there's a "worrying tendency" to absolve the targets of crime?

I think this is all very misguided.

:bow: :bow: Excellent post! :bow: :bow:

You ever come to my part of the country, Lyn, I'm throwing a parade for you.

 

[Bunyip]

You do a risk analysis. You look at potential factors, and figure out which factors have the greatest association with the problem. You'd probably target those first, but it would depend on the factor and whether or not it's truly feasible to do anything about it. Often times, there may not be. But that we've done the honest investigation in the first place instead of ignoring things for the sake of emotional or political correctness I'd regard as a good thing.

Could not agree more. It would also be very empowering.

 

[Bunyip]

Actually, being "tough" (in the sense of confident, assertive, firm about your boundaries and willing to use force to defend them) is a genuinely effective risk reduction technique for any kind of trouble with predatory people.


http://m.psychologytoday.com/articles/200812/marked-mayhem

Sure, I agree completely. A woman who is confident, assertive and situationally aware is at far less risk.

As you say - predatory people are looking for victims, we can raise our kids not to be victims.

 

[kashmir]

In my teens I had a party at my house where a friend of mine passed out on the couch. I walked into the living room and a guy was on top of her with his hand down her pants. I told him to get the **** out of my house and take all his friends with him or I would call the police.

They went. Didn't even kick up a fuss about it.

The strangest thing was that my friend "woke up" as soon as they were gone and said something like "Thank God that guy left, he was so disgusting!"

I still don't understand why, if she was conscious through all of that, she didn't try to rip his ******* hand off. Maybe she froze, I don't know.

In retrospect, it's possible she had been abused and learned to dissociate instead of developing healthy boundaries, which is very common.

But it does happen. I became more careful about who gets to come to my parties after that. I didn't know those guys, they just turned up. They looked like trouble but I couldn't think of a polite way to ask them to leave until I decided I didn't NEED a polite way.

Great that you walked in on them.
You know, you bring up a point.
Was the guy popular in school?
I seen a doc about this and they say some girls don't even realize they were raped because its sort of a molestation thing where she don't want to say no because of the guy being popular and she wants to be popular too, or something like that.

 

[Quintessence]

I don't follow this logic.

Two reasons for using that thread title:

1) To suck people into the thread with a cliché
2) Because titling it "Why don't we admit the causal/contributing factors/variables of targets of crimes" is way too long-winded and obtuse for a thread title, even for my tastes.

XD

I'm regretting that now. Oh well.

 

[kashmir]

In that thread, many people did acknowledge that for some types of rape, there are precautions that can minimize risk of being a victim, just like any other crime. Any reasonable person would acknowledge that. I even linked to RAINN's info on reducing risk of sexual assault in that thread.

There's a world of difference between spreading info on safe practices and encouraging people we know to be safe ahead of time, and the actual worldwide practice of victim blaming in response to rapes. Victim blaming is a whole other beast that goes well beyond reasonable safety tips and is often intertwined with sexist and oppressive rhetoric.

-First off, safety tips come before anything. They can be taught in school, in sex ed class, by parents, encouraged by friends, etc. The worst time to bring them up is after someone was raped. The victim at that point has to heal from a traumatic crime, sometimes full of an irrational level of self-blame in distress anyway, often doesn't want to come out with it for fear of blame and stigma, and the last thing they need is to have people focus more on her actions than on what the rapist did. But that's often exactly what happens.

-Second, criticizing the victim seems to occur with a magnitude around rape that does not occur to nearly that level with other forms of violent crime. In a news story about a woman being raped, you might find tons of comments about how she was asking for it, or what can she expect, or it's because she dressed a certain way, or she shouldn't be drinking, or some other reason, and often as much or more criticism of the victim as the rapist. But in a news story about a guy being murdered in a mugging gone wrong or something like that, you'll rarely see scores of comments about how he should have expected it by wearing a nice watch in that part of town. There are all sorts of examples of politicians, judges, media outlets, and various people in general, blaming women for rape, and this does not really occur to anywhere near this level with other types of violent crime.

-Third, all of that victim blaming distracts from the real causes of it and helps defend a culture that has too much rape tolerance and rape apology. As has been exhaustively pointed out, the majority of rape is different than the stereotypical image that people get in their head about rape, like drunken frat parties and creepers in dark alleyways. Most rape is perpetrated by people that the victim knows, with the most likely person being their own spouse or partner. And although many people will say something like the victim should dress more modestly, the actual research suggests that clothing has little affect on rape risk, except for limited evidence that dressing modestly actually might increase the odds of being raped. Likewise, a common myth is that rape is mostly about the sex and libido, and that men in general are these brutes that may be triggered into rape by a temptress (this was argued by more than one person in that thread and is a common claim), when really, rape is considered by most professionals to be more about power than sex, and again much rape is by spouses, partners, family members, and acquaintances anyway.

Consider huge public examples of victim blaming in practice.

-In some countries, women can be killed in dishonor by their own families if they are raped. Or, they can live on in stigma, being considered spoiled now.

-When a woman was gang-raped to death in India in 2012, and it made worldwide headlines for its particular viciousness, several Indian politicians made public remarks blaming the woman or saying other insensitive things.

-This year at Cairo University, a female student was walking around in long-sleeve pink shirt, long black pants, and flats, and this was considered immodest attire and was surrounded and harassed by a pack of male students that began to touch and mock her. The president of the university publicly said that all though there is no formal dress code, she should have been wearing a cloak, and that she might be expelled along with the harassers for being at fault. According to surveys, 96% of women in Egypt have reported being sexually harassed by touch, and 91% are wary to go out in the streets in fear of it.

-This year, a Texas judge sentenced an 18-year-old rapist of a 14-year-old girl to probation and only 45 days of jail time, and criticized the victim. Although the rapist admitted that the girl said, "stop" and "no" while he took off her clothes and raped her in the music room of a school, the judge claimed that the girl had previous sex partners and "wasn't the victim she claimed to be".

-In 2013, a Montana judge sentenced a 47 year old teacher that raped a 14 year old girl (who then killed herself), to only one month in jail, which was later overturned by the state supreme court and after protests. It was statutory rape, not forced rape, and the judge said that the victim was very much in control and older than her chronological age.

In 2011, an 11 year old girl was gang-raped in Texas by several juvenile and adult boys and men, ranging from early teens to late twenties. Apparently statutory, not forced, but that's questionable and legally irrelevant because she was so young anyway. The defense attorney blamed the victim and said it was like a spider and flies, her luring them into her web. Fortunately the jury saw through such nonsense.

It happens all the time, from the masses up to professionals and judges and politicians. Whether it's statutory rape of a minor, forced rape of a minor or adult, or sexual assault of women, there is often victim-blaming to a degree that does not occur in other crimes. Depending on the country it can range from the woman being killed by her family in dishonor, to being stigmatized, to being held partially to blame for what she was wearing or doing even if violently raped, or having light sentences handed down on violent rapists or on people that commit statutory rape of minors.

And this thread suggests that there isn't enough focus on the fault of the victim? We need more of it? We need to put more attention on what the victim did wrong or how she or he contributed to being raped? That there's a "worrying tendency" to absolve the targets of crime?

I think this is all very misguided.

This stuff is horrible acts of judgements
Its bad enough that lawyers try to blame the victim and I feel so bad for a girl that was raped was treated like the criminal, even by the judge, f that.

But to do what is done in other countries to women that are raped all because of the religious faith they claim to follow?
I read that a raped woman, can be killed or put in prison for adultery for not having sex with her husband.
wtf?

 

[McBell]

As I've mentioned throughout this thread, I don't play the blame/fault game, I look at factors that contributed to the situation, and I won't ignore a factor merely because it happens to be centered on targets of crimes. We know for a fact that alcohol is involved in many rape cases because it impairs/alters our judgement. If we choose to take substances that inhibit our ability to provide informed consent, that's in our ballpark, not in the perpetrator's. Of course, it's not that simple; webs of causation never are. For example, drinking behavior is mediated by social factors; the target might have been subjected to significant cultural or peer pressure to drink. Therefore, cultural norms and peer groups are an important factor. A person arguably has at least some control over the company they keep, so a fraction of that social factor can come back on the target. It's also possible the perpetrator spiked the drink to facilitate their crime, placing another causal factor on their end. Poor communication or poor communication skills - which can occur or exist on both sides - is yet another consideration.

Point is, risk factors can (and do) come from anywhere, and I refuse to ignore a factor simply because it can fall within the target's court. There's no sense in that to me. I'm too much a scientist by training to deliberately ignore something for the sake of emotional sensitivity or political correctness; that would compromise my objectivity and impartiality. Identify possible factors, gather data, analyze and determine the fractional contribution of each. Observe everything, test everything, consider everything.

so the title of your thread is a bait and switch?

I mean, you have the word "fault" in the title....

 

[Quintessence]

There's a world of difference between spreading info on safe practices and encouraging people we know to be safe ahead of time, and the actual worldwide practice of victim blaming in response to rapes. Victim blaming is a whole other beast that goes well beyond reasonable safety tips and is often intertwined with sexist and oppressive rhetoric.

I don't disagree. I'm trying to make it clear that this isn't what I'm suggesting, but apparently this isn't getting across. I don't care what the crime is, who the people are involved, or any of that. Honestly, I don't even care that we're talking about crimes here; this same philosophy applies to any and all investigations or pursuits of knowledge. When we want to know the causes of something, or the factors that might be contributing to a situation or status, it makes sense to consider anything that might be a factor when constructing hypotheses for investigation. You don't ignore something simply because it's unpopular, taboo, or whatever. That makes for bad science, and certainly bad risk analysis. The idea is to make an empirical assessment of what's going on to inform decision-making and the risk analysis process, not misuse investigative processes to shore up your personal prejudices or bigotries.

-First off, safety tips come before anything. They can be taught in school, in sex ed class, by parents, encouraged by friends, etc. The worst time to bring them up is after someone was raped. The victim at that point has to heal from a traumatic crime, sometimes full of an irrational level of self-blame in distress anyway, often doesn't want to come out with it for fear of blame and stigma, and the last thing they need is to have people focus more on her actions than on what the rapist did. But that's often exactly what happens.

I don't disagree here either. Obviously, when dealing directly with human beings who are in a post-traumatic situation of any kind, you want to be politically correct and sensitive to that. What I mean to address here is how we go about an objective and impartial risk analysis for crimes in general. Fixating on perpetrators and underplaying factors like the target's behavior, cultural factors, or environmental ones doesn't strike me as wise for the purposes of that process.

-Second, criticizing the victim seems to occur with a magnitude around rape that does not occur to nearly that level with other forms of violent crime. In a news story about a woman being raped, you might find tons of comments about how she was asking for it, or what can she expect, or it's because she dressed a certain way, or she shouldn't be drinking, or some other reason, and often as much or more criticism of the victim as the rapist. But in a news story about a guy being murdered in a mugging gone wrong or something like that, you'll rarely see scores of comments about how he should have expected it by wearing a nice watch in that part of town. There are all sorts of examples of politicians, judges, media outlets, and various people in general, blaming women for rape, and this does not really occur to anywhere near this level with other types of violent crime.

Again, no disagreements. I didn't make this thread to talk about rape, specifically. As I said above, I don't care what the crime is, or even that what we're discussing happens to be a crime. Any and all things we investigate should be approached with a broad lens - impartial and objective - not with blinders on or a prejudiced agenda.

-Third, all of that victim blaming distracts from the real causes of it and helps defend a culture that has too much rape tolerance and rape apology. As has been exhaustively pointed out, the majority of rape is different than the stereotypical image that people get in their head about rape, like drunken frat parties and creepers in dark alleyways. Most rape is perpetrated by people that the victim knows, with the most likely person being their own spouse or partner. And although many people will say something like the victim should dress more modestly, the actual research suggests that clothing has little affect on rape risk, except for limited evidence that dressing modestly actually might increase the odds of being raped. Likewise, a common myth is that rape is mostly about the sex and libido, and that men in general are these brutes that may be triggered into rape by a temptress (this was argued by more than one person in that thread and is a common claim), when really, rape is considered by most professionals to be more about power than sex, and again much rape is by spouses, partners, family members, and acquaintances anyway.

Still no disagreements. The only thing I have to add is when determining "real causes" that we don't forget to gather data on things that don't involve the perpetrator. You seem to be doing some of that already by mentioning cultural factors, which are part of that "real causes" equation.

And this thread suggests that there isn't enough focus on the fault of the victim? We need more of it? We need to put more attention on what the victim did wrong or how she or he contributed to being raped? That there's a "worrying tendency" to absolve the targets of crime?

I'd just like to remind you that this thread isn't about rape, it's about crime in general. What I want to suggest here is sound methods of investigation. That means you are not selectively blind to investigating options because it happens to be taboo, icky, politically incorrect, or whatever. That's what good investigators do. As far as focus, your focus is governed by the hypothesis you're testing at that time. Once you have a decent amount of data in your risk analysis, the primary focus in the risk management phase would be whatever factors are have the strongest correlation, mediated by which factors are reasonably able to be regulated or modified.

so the title of your thread is a bait and switch?

I mean, you have the word "fault" in the title....

I'm just going to point you here. Nowhere in the OP did I use such terms, and I've repeatedly said to the point of nausea that this isn't the angle I'm taking in probably half a dozen posts by now. I'm quite certain you know better than to judge the entirety of the intent of a thread by it's title, but if you want to interpret it this way, I can't exactly stop you.

 

[kashmir]

Nowhere in the OP did I use such terms, and I've repeatedly said to the point of nausea that this isn't the angle I'm taking in probably half a dozen posts by now. I'm quite certain you know better than to judge the entirety of the intent of a thread by it's title, but if you want to interpret it this way, I can't exactly stop you.

I know exactly what you are saying, but I just do not understand the point, because we cant predict the future.
Such as with school shootings, no way to know what kids show have been home schooled.
We cant live in a bubble, right?

 

[Quintessence]

I know exactly what you are saying, but I just do not understand the point, because we cant predict the future.
Such as with school shootings, no way to know what kids show have been home schooled.
We cant live in a bubble, right?

Of course. It occurs to me that I really haven't gone into what risk analysis is, and I probably should have considering it is not at all common knowledge. It's true that we can't predict the future with 100% certainty. We can, however, make predictions or probabilistic evaluations. That's what risk analysis does: it assesses the probability of harm given an exposure to a given factor. Authorities like the EPA and FDA use risk analyses to guide policy-making for the safety of foods, drugs, and chemicals of all sorts. The risk analysis framework can also be used for more complex systems to inform us on issues like climate change. In all cases, we can generally think of risk analysis as an iterative process composed of three stages:

1. Problem formulation. This is where we identify the problem and develop a preliminary understanding of the factors that contribute to the risk of the problem manifesting.
2. Risk assessment. This is where we use scientific methods and investigation to quantify the statistical probabilities of harm given a particular level of exposure to the harmful agent. This is the most "pure science" phase of the analysis process.
3. Risk management. This is where we implement the findings of risk assessment data to make policies or recommendations. Many non-science elements come into play here, such as the realities of politics, ethics, or values.

As an iterative process, each stage informs the other to some extent. Relating this back to your comment above, there are potential lines of investigative inquiry that won't be useful when it comes to the risk management phase. Depending on how the investigation is being structured, you may not spend the resources or time investigating these factors at all, but if you wanted to be thorough, you might do so anyway. Sometimes you have to be stupidly thorough because regulation requires it, or because it would be a political faux pas to ignore that factor. It's kind of complicated, but I hope this layout of some of the basics is marginally informative. Risk analysis is something I find fascinating.

 

[Alceste]

I don't disagree. I'm trying to make it clear that this isn't what I'm suggesting, but apparently this isn't getting across. I don't care what the crime is, who the people are involved, or any of that. Honestly, I don't even care that we're talking about crimes here; this same philosophy applies to any and all investigations or pursuits of knowledge. When we want to know the causes of something, or the factors that might be contributing to a situation or status, it makes sense to consider anything that might be a factor when constructing hypotheses for investigation. You don't ignore something simply because it's unpopular, taboo, or whatever. That makes for bad science, and certainly bad risk analysis. The idea is to make an empirical assessment of what's going on to inform decision-making and the risk analysis process, not misuse investigative processes to shore up your personal prejudices or bigotries.



I don't disagree here either. Obviously, when dealing directly with human beings who are in a post-traumatic situation of any kind, you want to be politically correct and sensitive to that. What I mean to address here is how we go about an objective and impartial risk analysis for crimes in general. Fixating on perpetrators and underplaying factors like the target's behavior, cultural factors, or environmental ones doesn't strike me as wise for the purposes of that process.



Again, no disagreements. I didn't make this thread to talk about rape, specifically. As I said above, I don't care what the crime is, or even that what we're discussing happens to be a crime. Any and all things we investigate should be approached with a broad lens - impartial and objective - not with blinders on or a prejudiced agenda.



Still no disagreements. The only thing I have to add is when determining "real causes" that we don't forget to gather data on things that don't involve the perpetrator. You seem to be doing some of that already by mentioning cultural factors, which are part of that "real causes" equation.



I'd just like to remind you that this thread isn't about rape, it's about crime in general. What I want to suggest here is sound methods of investigation. That means you are not selectively blind to investigating options because it happens to be taboo, icky, politically incorrect, or whatever. That's what good investigators do. As far as focus, your focus is governed by the hypothesis you're testing at that time. Once you have a decent amount of data in your risk analysis, the primary focus in the risk management phase would be whatever factors are have the strongest correlation, mediated by which factors are reasonably able to be regulated or modified.




I'm just going to point you here. Nowhere in the OP did I use such terms, and I've repeatedly said to the point of nausea that this isn't the angle I'm taking in probably half a dozen posts by now. I'm quite certain you know better than to judge the entirety of the intent of a thread by it's title, but if you want to interpret it this way, I can't exactly stop you.

I just want to pitch in that nobody here is rejecting rape myths (i.e. wearing sexy clothes increases your risk of rape) because they're "icky" or "taboo".

We've rejecting those myths because they are factually incorrect and destructive. We've even provided supporting empirical evidence that the true impact of wearing modest clothing (for example) is a possible INCREASE in the likelihood of being targeted by a sexual predator.

Meanwhile, the opposing side of the debate has provided no supporting evidence that I can recall (except Kilgore, bless him, whose evidence actually agrees with us that rapists generally have a quite a few character traits in common) So you may want to rethink who is being scientific about the issue and who is being biased, emotional and / or reactionary.

These are the sorts of facts one might easily miss if they fail to realize the importance of studying the psychology of sex offenders in favour of scrutinizing the dress and behavior of their victims.

 

[Alceste]

Of course. It occurs to me that I really haven't gone into what risk analysis is, and I probably should have considering it is not at all common knowledge. It's true that we can't predict the future with 100% certainty. We can, however, make predictions or probabilistic evaluations. That's what risk analysis does: it assesses the probability of harm given an exposure to a given factor. Authorities like the EPA and FDA use risk analyses to guide policy-making for the safety of foods, drugs, and chemicals of all sorts. The risk analysis framework can also be used for more complex systems to inform us on issues like climate change. In all cases, we can generally think of risk analysis as an iterative process composed of three stages:

1. Problem formulation. This is where we identify the problem and develop a preliminary understanding of the factors that contribute to the risk of the problem manifesting.
2. Risk assessment. This is where we use scientific methods and investigation to quantify the statistical probabilities of harm given a particular level of exposure to the harmful agent. This is the most "pure science" phase of the analysis process.
3. Risk management. This is where we implement the findings of risk assessment data to make policies or recommendations. Many non-science elements come into play here, such as the realities of politics, ethics, or values.

As an iterative process, each stage informs the other to some extent. Relating this back to your comment above, there are potential lines of investigative inquiry that won't be useful when it comes to the risk management phase. Depending on how the investigation is being structured, you may not spend the resources or time investigating these factors at all, but if you wanted to be thorough, you might do so anyway. Sometimes you have to be stupidly thorough because regulation requires it, or because it would be a political faux pas to ignore that factor. It's kind of complicated, but I hope this layout of some of the basics is marginally informative. Risk analysis is something I find fascinating.

Why would you assume we don't know what risk analysis is? I used to do it for a living.

 

[Penumbra]

I don't disagree. I'm trying to make it clear that this isn't what I'm suggesting, but apparently this isn't getting across. I don't care what the crime is, who the people are involved, or any of that. Honestly, I don't even care that we're talking about crimes here; this same philosophy applies to any and all investigations or pursuits of knowledge. When we want to know the causes of something, or the factors that might be contributing to a situation or status, it makes sense to consider anything that might be a factor when constructing hypotheses for investigation. You don't ignore something simply because it's unpopular, taboo, or whatever. That makes for bad science, and certainly bad risk analysis. The idea is to make an empirical assessment of what's going on to inform decision-making and the risk analysis process, not misuse investigative processes to shore up your personal prejudices or bigotries.

I don't disagree here either. Obviously, when dealing directly with human beings who are in a post-traumatic situation of any kind, you want to be politically correct and sensitive to that. What I mean to address here is how we go about an objective and impartial risk analysis for crimes in general. Fixating on perpetrators and underplaying factors like the target's behavior, cultural factors, or environmental ones doesn't strike me as wise for the purposes of that process.

Again, no disagreements. I didn't make this thread to talk about rape, specifically. As I said above, I don't care what the crime is, or even that what we're discussing happens to be a crime. Any and all things we investigate should be approached with a broad lens - impartial and objective - not with blinders on or a prejudiced agenda.

Still no disagreements. The only thing I have to add is when determining "real causes" that we don't forget to gather data on things that don't involve the perpetrator. You seem to be doing some of that already by mentioning cultural factors, which are part of that "real causes" equation.

I'd just like to remind you that this thread isn't about rape, it's about crime in general. What I want to suggest here is sound methods of investigation. That means you are not selectively blind to investigating options because it happens to be taboo, icky, politically incorrect, or whatever. That's what good investigators do. As far as focus, your focus is governed by the hypothesis you're testing at that time. Once you have a decent amount of data in your risk analysis, the primary focus in the risk management phase would be whatever factors are have the strongest correlation, mediated by which factors are reasonably able to be regulated or modified.

I know the thread is about all crime rather than rape, but you referenced the rape thread and that is what I view as the biggest source of victim blaming by far.

I'm familiar with risk mitigation techniques. I have taken master's level risk analysis and mitigation courses, and apply them at work for risk management of millions of dollars of engineering procurement as well as schedule deadlines and other things.

This isn't a matter of impartial and objective vs emotional and fixated. As Alceste pointed out, it's a matter of people in here pointing out that much of the common victim blaming, particularly about rape which is where a lot of victim blaming occurs, is about ineffective methods of rape prevention as supported by studies, such as how immodest dress leads to rape, and how there is an oversized focus on the 15% of victims that get raped by strangers compared to the remaining larger group that get raped by spouses and other people that they know. Much of the victim blaming in practice is intertwined with sexism and oppression and focuses on the demonstrably wrong things, is used to justify oppressive things, and occurs in response to a rape happening (which is very much a separate concept of making sure that one's kids and other loved ones practice safe behavior in general ahead of time). So I think pointing to the thread about rape and talking about a worrying tendency to absolve victims, very much misses the mark about what that thread was about.

I'd also point out that as one blames the victim, one reduces the likelihood that the victim will come forward. Why would she come forward about her rape to the courts (and by extension to the media) if she can expect public blame, long-term stigma that she's damaged goods now and that she was partly responsible, and/or a light sentence for the rapist due to sympathy for him?

So not only do I think that this desire to focus more on what the victim did misses the far more important factors of the rapist and why we tolerate them to the degree we do and why we fail to teach about consent as strongly as we should, but I also think that it's directly harmful for the consequences it has. If the approach is all about cause and effect, then be aware of the negative effects on the victim due to promoting victim blaming (regardless of the word choice used) when we already have quite a bit of it, particularly around rape.

 

[kashmir]

Of course. It occurs to me that I really haven't gone into what risk analysis is, and I probably should have considering it is not at all common knowledge. It's true that we can't predict the future with 100% certainty. We can, however, make predictions or probabilistic evaluations. That's what risk analysis does: it assesses the probability of harm given an exposure to a given factor. Authorities like the EPA and FDA use risk analyses to guide policy-making for the safety of foods, drugs, and chemicals of all sorts. The risk analysis framework can also be used for more complex systems to inform us on issues like climate change. In all cases, we can generally think of risk analysis as an iterative process composed of three stages:

1. Problem formulation. This is where we identify the problem and develop a preliminary understanding of the factors that contribute to the risk of the problem manifesting.
2. Risk assessment. This is where we use scientific methods and investigation to quantify the statistical probabilities of harm given a particular level of exposure to the harmful agent. This is the most "pure science" phase of the analysis process.
3. Risk management. This is where we implement the findings of risk assessment data to make policies or recommendations. Many non-science elements come into play here, such as the realities of politics, ethics, or values.

As an iterative process, each stage informs the other to some extent. Relating this back to your comment above, there are potential lines of investigative inquiry that won't be useful when it comes to the risk management phase. Depending on how the investigation is being structured, you may not spend the resources or time investigating these factors at all, but if you wanted to be thorough, you might do so anyway. Sometimes you have to be stupidly thorough because regulation requires it, or because it would be a political faux pas to ignore that factor. It's kind of complicated, but I hope this layout of some of the basics is marginally informative. Risk analysis is something I find fascinating.

Now you are completely wrong, the medical people does not care about our health.
They allow drugs on the market that are not safe.
Every day, there is lawyer commercials one after another, talking about drugs that were deemed safe and now realize the huge health risks, some even deadly, meds that we didnt have to take to begin with.
"here, take this for a ear ache..but ten years from now, you will be bleeding constantly from both eyes"


back on topic.
Almost everyone worries about the little things, we cant ponder, what if a kid shoots up a school today, what if my car blows up, what if a drug dealer runs over my kid while trying to escape the cops, what if some sicko breaks in and rapes my goldfish while talking dirty to the cat..just adding humor, sorry.

But yah, I do not understand your point, we cant predict the further to know these things.
we cant live in a bubble.
A person would make themselves sick trying to ponder all the what ifs, just to go check the mailbox.

 

[McBell]

I'm just going to point you here. Nowhere in the OP did I use such terms, and I've repeatedly said to the point of nausea that this isn't the angle I'm taking in probably half a dozen posts by now. I'm quite certain you know better than to judge the entirety of the intent of a thread by it's title, but if you want to interpret it this way, I can't exactly stop you.

So you are merely trying to justify your justifying blaming the victim?

Cause try as you might to butter it up with all the "science", that is all you are doing.

Now since you seem to be in denial, I will let you be.