Misogyny, Guns, Rape and Culture..

In other words, it is my responsibility to not be raped.

Which is where I find your rape prevention ideology galling.

Instead of putting the onus on my rapist to not break into my home to rape me as I slept, you just literally placed it on me because my "security system failed to alert" me after the moronic remarks about whose responsibility if would have been if he had kidnapped my children instead after bypassing my apparent failed security system. Aren't you the one who also queried why I wasn't sleeping with my phone with me or something and went on about rape prevention of that as well? Or was that another "rape prevention" advocate? It is this kind of drivel that places the responsibility on women to not be raped which is the entire problem on rape prevention ideology today.

My rapist was not a stranger, but one who has known me for a number of years, knew my dog and knew how to bypass everything around my home because he was my former brother-in-law. He knew my children were not going to be there, he knew I was home sick because he had called my former sister-in-law who informed him that I had my ex husband take the children that day because I was so sick with the flu. He knew where to climb over the 6ft+ walls surrounding my house and how to bypass the security door at the side of my property, where my bins were kept so he could climb over with ease and since he knew the dog and the dog knew him, the dog did not bark. Short of living like a hermit and never being in the company of any males, which would have been the best security, how viable do you think this option is?

It wasn't my security system that failed me. It was my rapist who failed me by raping me.

Can you tell the difference? Do you understand the difference?

So by commenting about my home security system and then commenting on what if he had taken my children and the snide remarks about whose responsibility it really was, you aren't telling me how to live my life? You aren't blaming me for having "failed" my responsibility to prevent my own rape? My, your language is almost identical to Troopers. You two match each other so well.

Rape is hardly something to be glib about.

I'm sorry, if you are going to consistently refuse to read what people post, then perhaps you should start a blog and hope people read your posts. If you are going to refuse to even acknowledge what people write without misrepresenting it, then you can take your trolling self elsewhere.

 

And I have never said that men or women should not be taught self defense.

There is a difference between learning self defense and rape prevention.

Rape prevention ideology needs to address the fact that women, and men for that matter, are more likely to be raped by people they know and it does not. It sets up these rules and suggestions of how to prevent being raped and in doing so, lays the responsibility to prevent being raped squarely at the feet of women by commenting on the behaviour of women. And that to me is wrong. Continuing to push women preventing rape as though it is their responsibility to do so means that true rape prevention, that of rapists not raping, takes a back seat. Worst of all, it sets up this false sense that if they follow it to the letter, if they stop living their lives, stop going out, stop living as they were used to living, that they are somehow safe from rape. You aren't. Rape prevention ideology and advice that you find everywhere is always aimed at stranger rape. It doesn't aim to educate women on what to do if their husband rapes them in their own bed at night. But the absolute worst of all is that it does not focus on stopping rape or rapists. It focuses on women's behaviour to stop rape and not the rapist's behaviour.

Instead of focusing on what women are doing, the focus should be on what rapists are doing. It's not the behaviour of women that is the problem. It is the behaviour of rapists that is the problem. Rape prevention needs to focus on potential rapists. And it isn't doing that.

I am all for self defense, education, awareness programs. I think it should be part of school curriculum for both boys and girls. And it also needs to prepare and educate both sexes about the realities of rape and sexual assault. That it is not acceptable or right and what constitutes as rape and/or sexual assault.

However this is not the case.

The majority of the programs are aimed at women to get them to prevent being raped. The absolute minority is aimed at potential rapists themselves. It is rare to see any rape prevention program aimed at potential rapists. Rape prevention just about everywhere, spends more time focusing on how women behave, instead of focusing on the behaviour of the rapist. And to me, that is warped.

The anti-rape posters should be telling potential rapists that 'just because she is drunk and unconscious, does not mean yes', instead of telling women and girls to 'not get drunk if they want to avoid being raped'.

 

I did not "fail" myself in the circumstance that led to my being raped. I was in my home, asleep when someone broke onto my property, entered my home and violently raped me.

I have not failed in anything in that regard.

To suggest that I need to acknowledge the ways in which I failed myself in such a circumstance is placing the blame and responsibility on me. There is no "but" there.

I was not the one who was inadequate in failing to acknowledge or recognise how I could have or should have prevented my own rape.

The only person who is fully and absolutely responsible for raping me is my rapist.

In no way have I failed, was inadequate in any way, shape or form. At all.

And your suggestion that I bore responsibility, that I failed myself in "these circumstances" or that I failed to address my so called inadequacies as opposed to the man who raped me is exactly the reason why I find rape prevention advocates such as yourself to border on rape apologist. To say that I have more power to address my inadequacies in the circumstances around my own rape than my rapist or society does, is, to be perfectly honest, obscene. To claim that I should start with myself and my so called failure to prevent my own rape, when someone decided to break into my home to rape me while I slept and to then say that I have more power to address my inadequacies than the rapist being able to address his inadequacies places the blame and responsibility on me to have prevented my rape while making excuses for my rapist.

Perhaps you should start with yourself and some introspection about your belief that rape victims failed or were inadequate and try to educate yourself on how your words is tantamount to victim blaming and victim shaming.

I need to ask. At what point are you going to stop making excuses for the man who raped me and at what point are you going to stop blaming me and trying to shame me for failing to prevent my own rape as I slept in my own home?

Are you aware that you are the perfect example of a rape apologist and that what you are doing is victim shaming and blaming the victim and placing the responsibility on the victim instead of on the rapist?

Let me reiterate something for you..

I have absolutely no responsibility or blame in my rape. I was not inadequate in preventing my rape. Nor did I fail myself.

The only person responsible and who is 100% to blame for what happened to me is my rapist. My home security is not to blame, nor am I to blame in any way, shape or form, nor was I inadequate or failed or erred in any form of risk prevention. The only "fail" is my rapist.

I believe it is you who needs to get a clue.

 

Definitely.

There was an excellent article about the prevalence of male rape earlier this year in Slate. And it focused on how as a society, people tended to shy away from the subject, finding it distasteful or calling it something else. When the figures came in about just how prevalent it was and just how under-reported it was, many feminists took note and compared it to how rape is perceived in society and most importantly, in the justice system and even how rape is recorded and how those figures are collated. And it is abhorrent at how male rape victims were literally left off the charts because of how the legal system defined "rape". And what is even more disturbing is the fact that prison rape victims (where males and boys are raped in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers) are not even counted or factored in to those figures. The result of this is the lack of support and even legal recourse for so many male rape victims. If you think it's bad for women, where as RAINN notes that it is only 5% of rapists end up in prison, the figure is most definitely lower if the victim is male.

The article: http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl..._reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html

I would strongly recommend everyone to read it.

Rape culture is not just about female victims. It encompasses all victims of sexual assault because it deals directly with how little society even considers rape to be a problem and often makes excuses for rapists. If you want a good example of that, just consider how people view the very thought of prison rape and the criminal being raped in prison. Or how many do not even think that a woman forcefully performing fellatio on a man against his wishes is a bad thing.

 

A variety of things.

From entitlement culture, where people believe they are entitled to have what they want, when they want it and their victims are not worthy of consideration in the equation, to the trivialising of rape and the shaming of victims (consider how many times you have seen or heard prison rape comments or jokes), to the belief that it is up to the victim to prevent being raped or are responsible for their own rape because they believe it is their behaviour which caused them to be raped, to ownership culture (this is especially the case for female victims), to the denial of rape or denial that rape is even a problem or refusal to accept what is or isn't rape (some still cannot accept that marital rape is "rape" and consider the fact that it was only until very recently that male rape was even recognised legally or classified as "rape") and a variety of other reasons.

But I think one of the biggest root cause of rape culture is the acceptance of rape as an aspect of life and society. The acceptance that if you go to jail, you will more than likely be raped and the belief in society that this is acceptable and expected and desired for a portion of the population, to the belief and acceptance that if a woman dresses a certain way or drinks or behaves a certain way, then she was asking for it to the acceptance that if a guy is raped by a woman, it cannot really be rape because all men want sex.

I could go on, but you get my drift.