Rape - Whose Fault Is It?
 

Today in the news, I read an article that some Egyptian politicians say it's womens own fault for getting raped if they join in the current demonstrations. That made me wonder how people in general feel about this controversial topic.

So, in western society, raping someone is illegal and a rapist may have to take responsibility for that. But do you ever think the victim of a rape has to take responsibility for getting victimized in the first place? Is a rape the fault of the rapist, the victim or a bit of both?

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Victim blaming is not something I believe in when it comes to rape. I don't think a victim can ever be blamed for rape, under any circumstances. In my opinion, if it is a legitimate rape case, the onus is 100% on the rapist. I think it's utterly absurd that in today's society, people are using the actions of rape victims to shield the rapist and defend their crimes and try to abolish the rape shield law.

To those people who will likely comment to tore's question with things like "Oh but if she's dressed like that she's basically asking for it." Unless the words come out of his/her mouth saying that they consent to the sexual action, they are not asking for it.

Agree 100%. What sort of strange society do we live in if we have to take blame for other people's criminal behaviour against us? The idea that the victim should take any part of the blame for getting raped seems completely bizarre to me and seeing people front that sort of attitude both saddens and angers me.

If someone walks around drunk and naked, they may have to take responsibility for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct, but not for getting victimized.

I tend to see or hear the attire and drunken arguments, whenever I encounter this particular topic.

While being completely, leglessly drunk may arguably make it easier for someone to take advantage, it still in no way justifies rape.

I agree with Lateralus. The onus is completely on the rapist. I'd really struggle to imagine a scenario where I would say anything the victim could be accused of equates to a green light, and justifies rape. I don't consider rape something that can be justified.

Exactly. I agree, tore. There was a recent, awful rape/murder case in Melbourne, Australia recently involving a 29 year old Irish woman living here, Jill Meagher. She was walking home, alone, from a pub in the wee hours of the morning when she was dragged into an alleyway, raped and murdered.

As always, when there is a rape case, there were a variety of comments floating around about how it was her fault that she had decided to walk home alone, that it was her fault because she was probably intoxicated and not thinking straight, I remember even hearing that it was her fault because she was wearing high heels and makeup or something (what the?). I agree that it probably wasn't the best idea to walk home alone at night while intoxicated. However, that does NOT under any circumstances mean that she holds any bit of fault to being raped and murdered. She was not "asking for it."

I think some people have strange ideas regarding accountability which they should probably sort out for themselves.

If I was a young woman, I would be worried about getting raped if I joined in the mass demonstrations that are currently taking place in Egypt because a lot of women are getting raped there. But just because it seems a good idea not to place yourself in a potentially dangerous situation does not mean that you are in any way to be held accountable when people commit crimes against you.

If you open a store, you risk getting robbed. But you're not the one who should be held accountable if it happens!

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Exactly. The way some people talk about rape victims is sickening. :mad:

this is easy, it's never the victims fault contrary to the belief of those that tend to victim blame

The only way it can be the 'victims' fault I'd say would be in some individual cases where you have a 16ish year old having consensual sex with someone a few years older since that is technically rape. I am sure this topic will be filled with the same type of comments. I dont think hardly anyone in the western, civilized world would blame a rape victim for 'asking for it' because of the clothes they wear or whatever.

There's probably a good amount of drunk sex that goes on that gets reported as rape which i think is bull****.

I'm not sure legally of how rape is defined, but I do remember years ago in a college course a professor explaining the different meanings of rape. I believe if someone says 'no' at any point in the evening and sex occurs later it could be rape. Like a women saying no then changing her mind with her husband or something. Maybe that was an extreme example he was tying to make at the time.

Not to go too off-topic but there is definitely a big problem with the legality (or maybe it's common courtesy) of publishing names of victims and accusers. It has always been surprising to me that everyone would like the victim's name protected, yet I see accused rapists names all over the paper although they haven't been convicted of anything. I feel like false reports should carry a heavy sentence as well.

I can't seem to find it right now but that recent Ohio case had a shit load of people on twitter doing just exactly that.

There is like a tumblr feed or just a website that has a collection of awful tweets like that collected.

I'm not big on tweets being used as an indicator of the majority. One of my favorite websites always does screen caps of tweets after major events and there are always racist/homophobic/sexist comments depending on the context. The thought that idiots have social media shouldn't be a surprise to anyone but it's still an incredibly small percentage of people.

I didn't really understand the Steubenville rape case. I guess some football players raped a drunk girl but the controversy was people were defending the football players?? I'm not sure, I just saw a lot of reddit outrage about it.

What is this favorite website? It might be the one I was looking for.

Also you support protecting rapists? who gives a fuck if their name is released

Deadspin.com. They always have screen caps of tweets, I am guessing you could find it there.

And I support protecting accused rapists. The same goes for accused child molesters, or those accused of sexual harassment/assault. Completely stupid to drag someone's name through the mud and try to ruin their careers/family/whatever. It just creates a mob mentality in the community.

The Steubenville case was:

1 - A bunch of football players were given an environment wherein they were allowed to exercise power, and be favoured by the system, for a variety of illegal or just horrible, things.

2 - The football players abused this environment in order to rape an underaged girl.

3 - The girl reported this, yet the people who supported the football players excesses, used their authority and power in order to try and cover up the case, including the local sheriff, and many educational authority figures, who attempted to conspire together to get the rapists off scot-free.

4 - The internet finds out and conducts a campaign (With Anonymous involved), to get these people brought to justice.

5 - While this campaign is going on and the scandal is blowing up, lots of people on twitter end up victim blaming, and trying to claim that the victim "deserved" it, or was "Slutty". I recall many tweets that said words to the effect of "If you don't want to get raped don't go to a party and get drunk underaged".

6 - A slew of newspapers, after some of the rapists were successfully convicted, ran sympathetic stories about how the rapists lives were now ruined, framing them as "Promising young athletes" and trying to downplay how horrible their crime was.

Obviously the above is reprehensible and horrible. This is victim blaming and this is how it comes to light in society.









I am fully with Tore and Lateralus here - The idea that someone can be responsible for their own rape is ridiculous and stupid. The rapist bears full responsibility.

What the hell? Why is this a question?

Is it your fault if someone breaks into your house, kidnaps your children, or fires a gun into your nostril?

Its a question because some reprehensible human beings still believe there are circumstances where the victim is at fault for the actions of the rapist.

Its ridiculous, stupid, and depressing, but you only have to read 3 different newspaper stories about any given rape case, to spot at least one of them trying to play it off as the victim's fault.

Certainly, and I'm familiar with the ways of the world. I suppose what I really meant to ask was:

Why are we debating this?

Anyone who comes out of the woodwork and says "weeeelll maybeee" is just doing it to troll and damn well knows the kind of argument they'd be starting.

Cue HHBH.

I'm guessing that the victim blamers think that victims are deserving of their unfortunate events because it was possible for the victim to prevent the situation. Not going to parties and staying sober are ways to prevent being raped, for example. It's still a ridiculous argument, since it's the same as saying "if you didn't want to get attacked by a shark, you shouldn't have gone swimming at the beach," but I think that's where the mindset comes from. That and general misogyny, preference for the rapists, or some other factor that deludes a moron's manner of thinking, that is.

I was gonna say exactly that. Or maybe the return of Dirty.

Wanna hear a funny story? At Bonnaroo (a festival presumably about music, but really just about getting wasted), drug peddlers would be lined up shouting whatever they were selling. Some industrious hippies had a real zinger of an sales pitch, "ROOFIES AND VIAGRA, BANG-A-ROO!"

Anyways, Frownland, what this thread is actually about is an exercise of Westerner's circle jerking with horror at the realization that "OMG, TANNER, DID YOU KNOW OUR VALUES AREN'T UNIVERSALLY HELD?!??!" It's the sort of casual eurocentrism that dominates any discussion of the other on this board.

Funny stuff.

You're correct, we are discussing conflicting values. Would there be a discussion otherwise? Not to mention that my post was an attempt to understand how people on the other side of the coin see the debate, not a bewildered post at the fact that something like an opinion could be different from my own.

It's not a discussion, it's a circle jerk. You said, "some other factor that deludes a moron's manner of thinking", not because you're actually curious about "understanding how people on the other side of the coin see the debate", but because you're interested in affirming your religiosity.

Well, you have the right to your opinion, but don't make up your own facts. I was interested in the opposite side, I just couldn't find any reasoning that seemed logical in any sense to me. If you have more convincing reasons (I'm sure you can conjure up some that you find appealing), I'm all ears.

That's bloody awful. We have that happen a lot more often than is necessary (including Auzzie). Our top Rugby stars often end up forcing women who are interested in them to have sex with a group of them (while they are date raped/intoxicated) and then the girl wakes up the next day realising she had no interest in getting raped by 10 men and merely wanted attention from just one player. I've noticed the reaction when this happens in Australia is people often blame the victim and say because she went back to their hotel she was "asking for it". Luckily over here the Ruby Associations usually say that they will discipline and investigate the players involved. The media here usually sides with the victim because they love a shocking story to sell more papers. Sad but true.

Anyway, I'm am of the opinion that it's definitely not the victim's fault, whether they were raped by their own partner, a Rugby player, a politician or John Doe from down the the road.

From the sounds of it you are disagreeing with our opinions that are "circle jerking"?

A 16 year old apparently "consenting" to sex with someone a few years older than them is actually considered pedophilia in many instances...

The point is that in many cases 16 year old children are not old enough to make appropriate and safe decisions for themselves, and that someone older than them may take advantage of this. That is why the laws are there to protect these children. Anyone older than 18 should be aware of this and be smart enough to not have sex with anyone 16 and under even if they say they consent to the sexual act.

If a 10 year old consented to having sex with someone older would that be considered rape? Or consensual? Where do you draw the line? If a 16 year old can make decisions for themselves, why can't a 10 year old?

It's very important to point out that the man who raped her, Adrian Ernest Bayley, was out on bail and parole and had a number of rape convictions to his name. In this case she was certainly not to blame no matter what state she was in and how she was dressed as this was a man who was a menace to women and who should not have been out roaming the streets in the first place.

Exactly, yet there are some really screwed-up victim-blaming people out there who still believe that rape victims will always hold a little bit of accountability, despite the circumstances. It makes me sick.

I thought this said: Rope - Whose fault is it?
Who are the weirdos who voted yes?

:-/

I can get back to you with what I've felt are some of the more compelling reasons, but most of them use rape as a general critique of the Liberal (Capitalist/Democratic) Paradigm.

Paedophilia refers to sex with prepubescent individuals.

My bad, for some reason I thought the laws extended to 16 in certain cases, but I just looked it up and I am wrong :)

Regardless, I still think that a 16 year old in many cases is unable to make safe decisions for themselves which is why the law exists regarding someone 2+ years old than them having sex as counted as rape, or whatever that law is.

When I was 16 I slept w/ a 41 yr old then when I was 17 I slept w/ a 60 yr old. I did these things bc I was angry.

I think we need to take consideration that the ideas and traditions in a lot of Middle eastern cultures is that women are still classed as second best, and to serve the male needs. Tendencies are to blame the women for any sexual provocation. Dressing is an example. So it's really a sexist situation for the most part over there.

Just because you felt like it was your decision doesn't mean you weren't raped. It's still statutory.

Exactly.

Statutory rape actually, not pedophilia.

I was wondering the same thing myself. Kind of makes me wish this was a public poll. It's never the victim's fault. Nobody ASKS to be raped FFS.

Yeah, I know, I already corrected myself in a previous post :) For some reason I thought it extended to 16 in some pedophilia cases but I was wrong!

That's what I thought...
My ex raped me during the restraining order and I never reported it bc I could get in trouble for inviting him over. This was 8 yrs ago. I have no interest in pursuing the matter bc I never want to see him again. He stalked me for years, but he is long gone now.

What kind of a senseless, inconsiderate bastard of a question is this? Of course it's the victim's fault.

Same here, I'd love to know who is saying its the victims fault!

I had sex when I was 15 with an 18 year old, but I was the one that initiated it so I don't believe it was rape in my case.

Doesn't matter still rape. He could have said no and turned you down. Lucky for him no one found out or he would be branded as a sex offender

imagine if we blamed people who looked rich for getting mugged