Your Sexual History, Alcohol Consumption, Clothing and Location: Reasons Why You’re to Blame for Being Raped
Well this is definitely sad.
The Irish Examiner has recently taken a national poll on society and rape victims, finding that an astounding number of people in Ireland feel that rape victims are to blame, or at least partially to blame for their attack.
- - More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly.
- - 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.
- - 37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.
- - One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.
- - 38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.
Of course, not just Ireland tends to feel this way, as there are also other studies I have found online where alcohol consumption was also a deciding factor in blaming rape victims for their attacks, but that’s old news in the realm of putting the blame on women.
These studies not only reveal how society feels about sexual assault, but also why so many victims of sexual assault do not report their cases. It’s bad enough to be a victim of sexual assault, but to be blamed for it and re-victimized by society and the court systems is sometimes too much to take for most people; especially since justice is not served for many cases regarding sexual assault.
Apparently the people of Ireland believe that only women are victims of sexual assault, but I suppose men are too hard to blame for their abuse, so it’s easier to put an even thicker layer of silence around men victims. They also believe that women fail to say no clearly enough. Do they also believe men are missing a few braincells and don’t know what no means? Are women going to have to start wearing sandwich boards with the word “no” written on it in dark, red letters? Society will then start blaming women for their assault due to the fact their attacker couldn’t read.
Determining the level of blame to put on a raped woman by her sexual history makes absolutely no sense to me. Are we now saying that rape isn’t that big of a deal because the woman was not a virgin, so nothing was really taken away? That is pure bullshit. And what, exactly, is the number of sexual partners a woman is allowed to have before getting blamed for rape? 2? 4? Frankly, what is the number of sexual partners a woman can have before she is labeled as a slut? Most likely 2, especially if one is not her current husband.
As for wearing revealing clothing, rape is not about sex, it is about control and having control over another person, therefore making it ridiculous to say that women who wear short skirts or low-cut tops are “asking to be raped.” Rape is not a “woman’s issue” and both genders need to eliminate sex crimes together and the first order of business should obviously be education. Stop re-victimizing women, by doing so, we are making excuses for these crimes and doing nothing to stop them.
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Wow powerful article.
Hey there. This is a nice blog. Keep up the good job!
I don’t think a woman is ever to blame for being raped as men have the capacity to listen and control their own actions regardless of how a women behaves or dresses. Women do need to be careful who they associate with though. A friend of mine’s girlfriend was raped 4 times before the age of 30 by men she knew. In this day in age, you just have to be really careful who you trust. Sad, but true.
You know what’s even more appaling? That this poll is not just the opinion of men, but also of women who obviously never had to have this horrible experience. How can you let your own gender down like that? Rape is a violation wether you’re a virgin or a prostitute. It’s not right
Asking if a woman is ‘to blame’ is not clear enough - ordinary people are likely to interpret this as simply meaning that she has placed herself at greater risk. Almost anything could change the degree of risk, so this interpretation is obviously useless but then it’s hard to see how a woman could ever be considered to be at fault for being a victim.
I think it is very unfair to make a generalised statement such as this;
“Apparently the people of Ireland believe that only women are victims of sexual assault, but I suppose men are too hard to blame for their abuse, so it’s easier to put an even thicker layer of silence around men victims.”
You are basing your argument on the media interpretation of one survey. A media interpretation that chose to focus exclusively on female victims. Of course ‘the people of Ireland’ are aware that men can also be victims of sexual assault, but unfortunately sensationalist journalism does not always cover the stories that involve such minority demographics. Irish society or ‘the people of Ireland’ are in fact very aware of male sexual assault victims if the recent church sex scandals are anything to go by.
In reality, it is not the ‘people of Ireland’ but ‘the women of Ireland’ who are most likely to “blame” women for ‘getting themselves raped’. No female dominated jury has convicted a man of rape in the central criminal courts in the last 6 years in Ireland. This FACT, not opinion, reveals something I - a young Irish woman - feel is a much more interesting and indeed, a much more worrying topic of discussion. For that, is definitely sad.
Rape is violation and is a very serious case.Why should women to be blame while they are victims?This is quite insane..However,nice content,keep it up!
nice post again…good blog you have here and the information in it is valuble..
I think it is very unfair to make a generalised statement such as this.
I am now 5% more stupid after reading this…..why would anyone ever think this in anyway….yes girls may wear revealing clothing and yes sometimes they may be pretty stupid in their actions, but that does not give ANYONE the right to violate them under any circumstance.
So, someone broke into your home, ransacked it, and then stole your vehicle from the driveway. Did it occur to you that you might have invited the theft? You displayed your vehicle in the driveway for all to ogle and you hoped someone would make you feel so important by stealing your vehicle and its contents?
You didn’t bother to lock away your underwear drawers in your home so that no one would take anything including your sex toys on display inside the drawers? What were you thinking? Did you desperately want someone to break into your home and find the toys?
Don’t you understand that you need to keep your children hidden so no one will molest them? You know you are inviting predators to molest them if you allow them to play in the park!
What idiocy was going through your head when you decided to display the type of merchandise your shop sells in the window? Did you secretly hope a customer would smash your front window and loot your inventory? Come on! How many customers have you had before? What were you wearing when they came into the store?
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Though these are crude examples, I think they are parallel enough to the situation of rape. Rape is a break and enter of the body and the psyche. If you are awake when it happens, you are afraid for your life and experience violation like nothing else. If you were not awake, the discovery afterward will make you feel so utterly violated with the mystery of how it happened, the pain in your body, the ache it leaves behind and knowing you could have been killed in the process.
I think this is a bit sexist. Although Alcohol consumption does lead to a lot of people losing their inhabitions and regretting their actions later.