Make the right choices and be safe.

[Heartless Angel]

There is only one person you blame when it comes to rape, and that's the person committing the offence. You could walk out of your house wearing nothing, and you still don't deserve to be raped, and you're still not asking for someone to have their way with you. That's not giving consent - no means no. You don't have to be a feminist or anti-feminist (or neither, whatevs) to understand that.

Nobody here is trying to place blame. The video the OP responded to was not trying to place blame. NOBODY is trying to place blame. The issue is not, and has not been blame, it has been safety. I'm not sure how much more clearly this can be stated.

Why should anyone minimise the risk of getting raped? Why should anyone have to? There shouldn't even be a chance of it happening, whether it's a stranger or someone you actually know. Your own partner could rape you. Your parents could. Your dentist could. Your neighbour could. Why should women (and/or men - they can be raped too) live in fear and be forced to "minimise" the risk of being raped, when it shouldn't even happen in the first place?

Because the reality is, you and I don't live in paradise. In reality, there are bad people, and there's not one damned thing any one person can do about it. Every claim made here has been normative, 'should' 'shouldn't'. Factual conclusions can not be derived from normative premises. The reality is not concerned with what should or should not be. The fact of the matter is, the world is not an ethical place. It is not a safe place. In an unsafe place, taking precautions is just good practice. I should be able to go out at 2 in the morning to the bad part of Detroit, right around where all the gangbangers hang out, and drive around in a replica of the General Lee, confederate anthem horn and all while wearing my white bedsheets. I still don't deserve to be shot! None of those things are illegal! Well that sounds lovely, what are the odds that I'm going to get shot doing that? About 1 in 1. While it's true that someone I know, my neighbors my family, anyone really could shoot me. Would anybody think anything OTHER than that I had a psychotic death wish if I went driving around in the General Lee wearing bedsheets in Detroit? It's still not my fault, and it couldn't have happened without somebody willing to pull the trigger, but I was quite obviously increasing the odds that something was going to happen to me. If instead of going to Detroit in bedsheets driving a General Lee replica I elect to spend tonight in my basement alone, suddenly the odds of me being murdered plummets. If it happens anyways, it isn't my fault, but variables over which I have direct control GREATLY affect the probability of unfavorable outcomes. In the case of rape, the control is to a much lesser extent, but an individual does to an extent have control over variable which can influence the situation and affect the probability. That is the ONLY thing being proposed by the video in question, and anybody here siding with it.

THAT is the issue that needs to be tackled. Not "women shouldn't wear hotpants after nightfall" or "women shouldn't wear such revealing tops". If ANYTHING, people wearing revealing clothes should understand and accept that there are people who'll judge, or leer or perv. But rape? Try and understand and accept that.

That is an issue which is not easily tackled. Avoiding high risk behavior is not nearly so difficult. It's something you can do right now, without anyone else's help. No, you aren't obligated to, but why would you go out of your way NOT to just because you shouldn't HAVE to? What is gained by engaging in high risk behavior just because you have the right? Is what is gained worth the increase in probability that something bad is going to happen? If the answer is no, why the **** would you NOT take the kind of advice being given here? Once again, this is NOT. I repeat NOT anyone's idea of solving the problem. This is a simple action that can be taken by an individual that can have positive impacts on their life. If modifying the probability is not worth that action to you, don't take it. It's not your fault either way. Nobody here has claimed otherwise.

I think what people are misunderstanding is the intention behind this movement to stop saying things like "don't wear that" and instead saying, "don't rape." It's not so much that we think we can convince a rapist of anything. It's changing the culture that makes women and men afraid to report their rapists because authorities/friends/family won't believe them or will ask questions about what they did to deserve it. So many rapes are never reported, because the survivor thinks, "What's the point?" And who could blame them? When a country laments over the tarnished reputations of rapists rather than the well being of the survivor, what are we supposed to think?

Recent example
Steubenville High School rape case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During the course of the delinquent verdict on March 17, 2013, CNN's Poppy Harlow stated that it was "Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart...when that sentence came down, [Ma'lik] collapsed in the arms of his attorney...He said to him, 'My life is over. No one is going to want me now.'"
Nevermind the young woman who went through sexual assault, had it filmed, was humiliated, and is now BLAMED for her rapists being convicted of rape.

No, we understand that's the idea, a lot of us just find that idea absurd, because as has been stated many times, saying "don't rape" doesn't accomplish anything. At all. What they're doing is already illegal. It is widely considered immoral. It is known to bring unfavorable consequences. Do you honestly think that people saying 'you shouldn't do that' in addition to these other things is going to matter in the slightest? People who commit rape are either desperate, deluded, or indifferent to the rules of society. None of these types of people are affected by society's views on something. The reason that people who report rapes are given such a runaround with the law is because rape is bar none the single most falsely reported crime on the face of the planet (upwards of 8 percent sometimes, which is huge for something like that). And people's lives are ruined even by false accusations of rape. Furthermore, the obvious defense against a claim that consent was not given, is that consent was given. Almost literally every case of rape can be reduced to his words vs. hers. It's not like the cops can just say thank you for the report we'll send in a forensics team to find evidence. The only thing they can do to substantiate the claim in most cases, is to question the victim. The accused is generally not going to be very helpful, because whether they did it or not, they're going to say pretty much the exact same thing. Furthermore, in a case of his word vs hers, the burden of proof belongs to the accuser. Is it an uncomfortable burden to bear? Probably. But that's how the legal system works, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. It isn't the world's attitude towards the crime that complicates matters, it's the nature of proving guilt when the only criteria by which it can be judged to be a crime, is something intangible like consent. And it isn't just rape that society is indifferent to based on who's accused of it. Society turns a blind eye to any wrongdoings for just about ANYBODY who 'has a promising future'. Celebrities get away with shit all the time. They can get away with murder for ****'s sake.

If a survivor doesn't do everything exactly right, according to society's standards for a proper rape victim, she (or he) has very little hope of getting any kind of conviction for her attacker(s), and very little hope of being taken seriously. Has she had sex before? Bad news. Has she had a one night stand that she consented to before? Well OBVIOUSLY she'll consent to ALL sex so CAN she EVEN be raped? Does she go out drinking with her friends? Does she go out drinking with MEN? MUST MEAN SHE WANTS TO GET ****ED I GUESS. Does she wear something that makes her feel sexy? Because it makes her feel like she looks good as hell, and she has a right to feel that way without thereby consenting to any and all sexual encounters with whoever wants a piece? WHAT A SLUT. Did she dare to walk somewhere (even just to her car) alone at night, like any other goddamned adult might like to be able to do? TEMPTING FATE, REALLY. Is she overweight? WHO WOULD RAPE HER? Is he a man? HE SHOULD FEEL LUCKY HE GOT LAID BECAUSE MEN LOVE ALL SEX RIGHT?

Again, this is not because society doesn't take rape seriously, but because a rape case all comes down to whether or not the accuser is telling the truth. And more importantly, whether or not we can tell she is. There is literally no other evidence to examine. It can't be proven one way or the other, it's purely a matter of whether or not your character and past actions seem to correlate with somebody who would give consent to the accused. It all comes back to innocent until PROVEN guilty. With nothing but a past history to go off for evidence, you're not going to be able to PROVE your case unless your past history tells a jury that there is no way in Hell or high water that consent was given. It's just a matter of the nature of the crime in relation to the burden of proof. Society's attitude is irrelevant.

A survivor of sexual assault has been through enough. They don't need to hear all the ways THEY could have stopped it from happening. They are ashamed and humiliated in the worst possible way, completely vulnerable, and the response to that should never be "well what were you wearing and were you drunk or flirting with him?" It should be "He/she was wrong to rape you, and it is not your fault."

Once again, the video in question, and everybody posting in this thread would agree with that. NOBODY is placing blame. Blame is not the issue. Nobody is faulting the victim for the occurrence of the crime here. Anybody who does is ****ing stupid. Period.

I'm in the camp of requiring "enthusiastic consent." You should know without a doubt that the person you're having sex with wants to be having sex with you. None of this "well you didn't explicitly say 'NO.'" People are awkward and scared, and not always as strong or powerful in a dangerous situation as we'd like them to be. Or sometimes they're blackout drunk. Or drugged. Or handicapped. Or children.

Again, it all comes back to the burden of proof. It's just as easy for a rapist to see "She said yes." as it is to say "She didn't say no", the only thing you'd be changing is the requirements for the lies to work. If you want to make it easier to get somebody penalized when somebody accuses them of rape, the problem that needs to be solved is this. How do we sort out the liars? The roadblock isn't society's views on rape, it's the burden of proof in a society in which a person is innocent until proven otherwise.

I was trying to avoid jumping into this, but I felt like I needed to share that distinction. It's a society that lets rapists get away with impunity because we interrogate the victim first. It's one that can have a group of young men standing around saying things like "Look how drunk she is, I'm gonna give it to her so good" without one of those young men saying, "Yo, man, that's ****ed up. She's a person." It's one that can stomach casual conversations about how much of a "****ing slut" someone is just because of what she's wearing. There's so much hate going around toward women and men who are just trying to be themselves like everyone else. We hate so hard on these people and then feel sorry for the rapists who get caught. I mean unless they're the crazy ****nuts who lock people in their basements, but GOD FORBID it's a handsome college student. Because the idea of telling that handsome student not to rape is SO RIDICULOUS, it must have been something the victim did to tease him and tempt him.

I hope I haven't wasted my time.

I'd like to think that no discussion about a serious issue is ever a waste of time.