I get naked for a living. It's literally my profession. I'm a professional artist's model. If a student in that class were to hop onto the dais and rape me, would I be held responsible for that?
"In my defense, your honor, I saw her vagina. It was right there. It wasn't my fault."
To compound the idiocy of this, he starts talking about date rape, and then goes on to say that women need to not dress so sexily and go off in the company of men they don't know. His admonitions are talking about stranger rape, which is less "gray area" for a jury, and more likely to result in a conviction. Which has nothing to do with date rape.
What was especially saddening to me in reading those comments was how quickly I could breeze by them, because they are the same old re-hashed crappola.
I was most sickened by all the "congratulations for bringing logic and common sense to the argument" -- right -- common sense this, asshole.
I did like this one though:
You know what? I find David Cox's argument very provocative. It raises my anger levels to the extent that I don't know if I can control myself. By failing to observe what I believe to be a suitably appropriate code of opinion, he has enraged me to the point that I might go and seek him out and batter him around the head with an iron bar.
[...]
And when I am charged I will stand up in court and say 'I'm sorry your honour, but I thought he wanted me to batter him around the head. If he didn't, why did he go out of his way to provoke me so much? It was clearly contributory negligence. Comparing a raped woman to a bit of property - that's clearly an invitation. And I'm a pathetic man, a slave to my testosterone. We all know what men do when they get angry, don't we?'
Also, I've got Bingo!
speaking of the media not calling rape rape, i heard a particularly egregious example this morning on NPR. they were reporting on Warren Jeffs' conviction (for being an accomplice to rape) then referred to the girl's husband/cousin as "forcing her to have intercourse" two weeks after they were married. what?!?!? if warren jeffs was convicted of being an accomplice to rape, then i believe what her husband actually did was RAPE her.
Clicking a couple of the links in this post I found out that that son of a bitch Gregory Heidl and his buddies Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann finally got convicted and sentenced to well-deserved six year jail sentences for their videotaped gang rape of an unconscious 16-year-old woman in Orange County, California in 2002.
I was under the impression that in their rape trial in 2004 they had got acquitted. I was mistaken; the jury was deadlocked, but at least they didn't acquit the bastards, and in the subsequent retrial in 2006 they were found guilty, guilty, guilty!
Heidl's lawyer in the first rape trial, one Joe Cavallo, did not himself end up in jail. He is under indictment in another unrelated case to be tried next month; maybe he and Heidl will be cell mates. Cavallo's technique of defending these clients for a crime the imbeciles actually videotaped, was to fanatically attack the victim to truly monstrous excess. His fees were paid by Don Heidl, the lead rapist's loathsome father, a Republican multi-millionaire and an Orange County Sheriff.
It's a shame that the senior Heidl has not yet been strangled with Cavallo's intestines. But the business about the junior Heidl and his rapst pals getting to grip them bars for the next six years is great news.
"The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist."
That pretty much sums it up. I was a nine year old child myself. I don't recall "asking for it" or dressing particularly provocative that day; but it happened anyway.
It's still difficult to see such arrogance and stupidity being taken so seriously. But we have to keep speaking out. We have to change people one person at a time.
I have 2 sons (and 2 daughters) now. I'm raising them different.
Aaarr. Saw this on Feministing and it just irked me. And looking down at my own "suggestive" be-skirted and booted attire, I also wonder why all the guys are not raping me as we speak. I mean, they're guys, ya know. How could they resist.
Funny they use the 'in plain sight' argument, because that isn't a legal defense for theft.
Argh. If consent is withdrawn, continuing is rape - it doesn't mater if male, female, or whatever. Their lives are not 'destroyed', they did something terrible and live with the consequences
Give them consequences, dammit.
Your post made me sob. I was raped-- in a situation where I had done 'everything wrong.' I was drunk and I wandered outside in a tube top and tight jeans to try to sober up. The rapist found me, and I was unwilling to have sex but also unable to fight him off. I kept it a secret for a long time because I thought it was my fault.
The reason I thought it was my fault was all this bullshit about common sense and implied consent and wanting it. My therapist (a godsend) said that nice men don't rape drunk women they find in parking lots, they help them. No matter what the woman is doing, nice men don't rape. Nice men don't "take advantage of a situation."
Rapists aren't nice men.
"FRISKY?"
For cryin' out loud, Cox...men who rape, or want to rape...are merely "frisky?"
Way to define devience down, Dumbass.
I could not make it through the comments...Cox revels in his masculine entitlement like a pig in swill, oblivious to his own filthy mentality that compares women to "property."
I need to shower.
Jeff's quote of the excellent sarcasm: and when I am charged I will stand up in court and say 'I'm sorry your honour, but I thought he wanted me to batter him around the head. If he didn't, why did he go out of his way to provoke me so much?
It's funny, because we'd never hear that. Some totally unfunny things we'd never hear these days: Why do the Jews take the world over, forcing us to solve the problem? Why do blacks insist on being uppity, forcing us to teach them a lesson? (I'm not making those up, by the way. Go read some of the screeds written back in the day.)
But, somehow, the Cox's of the world are still showing up in respectable forums. Isn't it strange that the one hate crime people can't seem to see for what it is should be the one against women?
Hate crimes serve a purpose. The implication would be that there's plenty of people still in favor of that particular purpose.
Maybe it's just me, but those "good Germans" appall me as much, although in a different way, as the criminals themselves.
Auugh, I wish I could leave a comment there, but I think it would be better to write to the man himself. Maybe I will do just that, and maybe all of you should, too.
Even people who use the "property" analog should at least realize that even if you leave your plasma screen by an open picture window, the thief is still committing a crime.
Learning how to protect yourself is important, but there's a difference between preparation, preparation for simultaneous attack by bears and zombies (that Cosmo aricle), and paying protection money (inexplicable failure to wear a loose-fitting full-length shapeless tunic).
KT....
I have another idea. Let us indeed affirm the implicit notion that Cox champions... ALLLL men/boys are date-rapists/rapists at heart, and we need to teach our daughters this sad truth.
Boys are "frisky" and date rape is just a manifestation of their "friskiness." Men/boys cannot be trusted to control themselves, let alone respect women...and must be viewed with suspicion in all contexts, and not just the "date" scenario.
We will require our daughters to mistrust and fear ALL men if our daughters have the shameless brass to present themselves in public...and actually dare to interact with males.
Our three sons will no doubt be heartbroken to know that their very "maleness" carries the price of profound mistrust and fear...but it is a small price, no really, if our daughters are to walk as free human beings...(as opposed to the inanimate property Cox apparently considers women to be)
Somehow, I feel certain that Cox would object to this understanding of male-female interaction...
ahunt - to take your idea further - perhaps boys need to be kept indoors, because they are not to be trusted wandering about. It would be a terrible thing if they were unfairly accused of rape, after all, and we must protect them.
KT, I can't seem to login. I tried to reregister, but I have yet to receive my confirmation e-mail.
Why is it always more important to lecture women on what they should be doing to avoid rape than to talk to men about the fact that they do not have the right to women's bodies without express consent?
Preface: I don't believe in blaming the victim, I believe rapists are fully responsible for rape and should be dealt with severely.
If your question wasn't rhetorical, I'd like to offer one male's perspective. The guys doing the raping are probably the same guys who beat me up in high school, and the same guys who threw those annoying drunken parties I didn't go to in college. They didn't like or listen to me then, and they probably wouldn't now. Put me on a jury and I'll convict them, but as far as I know, that's as much control as I have over the situation.
Absolutely, M...men/boys not having any inherent moral sense, and men/boys being "frisky" an' all.
Perhaps the thing to do is to restrict the men/boys? Given their natural inclination to behave badly at the expense of the world at large...perhaps the trick is to cease "enabling."
Time and again I want to throttle men who can't seem to accept what they can't understand. What the fuck does he know about rape?
He doesn't have to live with the constant fear that someone will violate and potentially permanently scar his body against his will, damaging his ability to connect with other people intimately or otherwise, especially of the opposite sex and potentially making him less desirable to potential partners, as well (not to mention assholes like himself blaming him for the rest of his life for being the victim of a monstrous assault on his physical body and sense of self).
Augh. Dude who commented about beating the man around the head with an iron bar expressed it better than I could...
Emily, I am sending good thoughts to you and your therapist. You're exactly right. A nice, decent man would have called a cab for you and waited with you until it arrived, and made sure you got home safely. He'd have done it because he's capable of empathy, and he'd have wanted someone to help him out if he were in a similar circumstance: vulnerable, at far less than 100% capacity, away from home.
He'd have done it hoping that by contributing to the amorphous Bank of Decent Behavior, it might be more likely that his own sister or mom or daughter would be similarly assisted in a time of need. And he wouldn't have had to spend long minutes sorting out the rationale, either, nor would he have found it necessary to determine whether you were "blameless" (i.e., having a gorram stroke instead being inebriated) before caring about your safety.
Your attacker failed at being human. Again, I am grateful to your therapist, and please hold on to that insight, because plenty of people will continue to try to make you bear the blame. They're just wrong; pathetically, annoyingly, hypocritically wrong. And I think they are depraved as well. Predation like that isn't normal. They want you to believe it is, hence the burden placed on you. But normal people feel empathy. Normal people recognize that what is hateful unto them, they must not do unto others. Leaving someone helpless, preying on someone vulnerable...pretty damn hateful.
I suggest that the three videotape date rapists be castrated.
I don't suggest that out of some idea of poetic justice.
I suggest that because three yahoos stupid enough to videotape themselves committing a felony should not be allowed to breed. 
Oh, and despite being one of those frisky men, I have somehow managed to avoid raping anyone, and I don't think I have any ultrahuman self-control.
Well, the answer is "It isn't", but his disastrous attempt to prove a 'fallacy' (his words) with a fallacy is remarkably insightful. Like the same way a train wreck might give clues how NOT to build a railway. He may as well have written an article titled "My Right To Rape".
So here I go
While I firmly believe in the premise of Shakes post - that rapists do the raping and the burden of responsibility rests solely and completely with said rapists (and Cox really is trying to build a perverse justification for violence against women - he's a dumbass, yes, but a dangerous one), it would be pure negligence on my part if I didn't teach my child street-sense and self defense. And the best defense is not getting into danger in the first place.
Earnestly - I'd like to know what does a serious conversation about rape prevention entail if not, ya know, starting with taking preventative action? I understand teaching women to avoid rape is dealing with a symptom. What men could/should/need/ to learn is vital as it's about treating the Cause. Unfortunately what alot of them have already learned, and are dedicated to maintaining, is that they are virtuous be being aggressive/violent, and women are just playthings. Side note; ironically, there are plenty of women/role models willing to reinforce the stereotype of vapid plaything, which is a tangential, but legit concern, IOW there's no way I'm buyin Bratz dolls, but that doesn't stop lil SuzyQ from wanting the goddamn things.
I, for one, have no intention of not someday teaching my daughter that it is not okay, that it is inappropriate to dress or act certain ways specifically because it puts her at risk - and that while there are some good men out there, there are many who are predators. Not simply the 'jump you in the alley' kind, but the sweet talking deviant, 'he seemed nice' kind. What's the better alternative? Teach her to think she should be able to dress anyway she wants and go anywhere she pleases without limits or consequences? Oh hell-no. For a Boy or Girl, this would be naive.
I want my girl to be empowered, to trust and befriend men, and not move thru this world in constant fear - but still know how to shatter an adams apple/testicle when necessary.
*sigh*
I guess it HAD to happen, that someone HAD to turn up in a thread about combating victim blaming and ask about talking about techniques potential victims can use.
Look, yes, maybe there is a place, somewhere, to have that discussion, MAYBE. But this ISN'T THE FUCKING PLACE!
*sigh*
I love your title. I LOVE THAT TITLE AND THE WHOLE POST!
That said, I personally wouldn't have bothered with this twat. He's the typical dude who has no talent, no insight into anything, who has nothing new to say BUT who wants to get rich and famous because he thinks he "deserves" it. He's taking the easy road of "say what everyone else is saying but LOUDER" which, as we all know, guarantees you instant fandom.
And on top of that, he's so FAR gone he will never EVER get it. Worse for him.
Who exactly is this Cox idiot and who thought this crap was worth publishing? Christ.
And the best defense is not getting into danger in the first place.
Wow--you're totally right. Brilliant advice. I really should have stayed "out of danger" in my own fucking home. Then I never would have been raped!
Teach her to think she should be able to dress anyway she wants and go anywhere she pleases without limits or consequences?
Yeah, that's exactly what my post said.
In American culture, there is a widespread belief that consent may be implied by non-verbal signals. This is why the "she was asking for it" defenses get played out and why you get hung juries in obvious instances of rape. Good for you for problematizing this aspect of the culture. It has got to be frustrating as hell, so I admire you for keeping up the fight.
I love your response, it's excellent. I've linked to it on my blog. It makes me so angry, this is what you expect from the Daily Mail, not the Guardian.
Teach her to think she should be able to dress anyway she wants and go anywhere she pleases without limits or consequences
And why the fuck not? You should see how young (and not so young.) women dress around here. You couldn't wipe the counter top with what most of them have on. But funny thing. They don't get raped either.
That you live in a land of fucking barbarians is the real problem. Anybody you don't like or agree with DROP BOMBS ON 'EM! Woman on her own. RAPE HER, SHE'S ASKING FOR IT!
Human beings are NOT property, male or female and the day the Americans figure this out will be a great day for humanity.
Articulate post and appropriately angry. Thanks.
I have to say regarding the above comment about America, in the UK it's no better. Rape convictions here are less than 5% also.
And I'm sure in many countries it's much worse, especially those where rape isn't even seen as a crime.
yeah, I'm the bad guy. F'n A.
All my life, nearly every single female friend, or family member has got a story about an assault or close call. The stories range from terrible, to horrific. Most didn't want to talk about it, some brushed it off as 'bad luck'. A a former gal friend of mine was raped at knife point by a guy she knew, at age fifteen. She taught me never to use the 'victim' word. She was, in her own words, a 'survivor'. Preventing it was unpredictable. Fighting back wasn't an option, but living was, and the fallout was years of distress and distrust. A supervisor I worked for was attacked in her own home by a neighbor. She tried to shrug it off and came to work the next day - but her post traumatic stress made it impossible for her to handle work, and made the rest of our staff's work-lives miserable till I finally quit. She didn't want to talk, it was work, and I was a subordinate who knew better than to ask. But I fucking cared because she was/is a really great person and had been very supportive of me, and I saw that person disintegrate. I was nearly molested by a juvenile male, a few years older and easily a 100 pounds heavier, in the school locker. Grabbed me by my neck, suffocating me, shove me up against a wall while trying to jam his dick in my ass, cuz I had told him to fuck off. Was I raped? Not exactly. Was I terrified? Hell yes. Did a coach walk by and casually say "knock it off" as if everything were hunkydory? yeah.
So, I'm no victim, but I'm fairly aware that men can be violent, and that it's probably not going to be much different for my kid.
I really want to understand - what/when/where is it acceptable to address prevention/defense?? I'm not tryin to cast blame, suggest rape is predictable. Rape awareness seems (to me) to lead naturally to self defense and identifying risk factors. If I'm wrong, clue me, but spare me the snide shit, I didn't come to patronize you, I was civil, and happily apologize if my comments were construed otherwise.
Again, How am I to become part of a 'conversation' and procure knowledge if I'm dismissed out of hand? My original answer to your (i should have recognized as rhetorical) question - "It isn't" was meant as; It isn't ever more important to lecture women about avoiding rape. The author of that article is perpetuating the myth that victims provoke it - essentially justifying it and therefore maintaining a hostile environment. What I am asking - what then can I teach my girl to keep her safe - that this hostile environment exists? I don't recall seeing a shortage of Women's Self Defense classes at the local Uni, but is that the best answer? Is the onus upon me to teach men how not to rape? I wish that I could, alas I lead by example (and ironically don't have a lot of male friends)
And perhaps Sarah is correct in her admonishment for my crack about self defense, but I honestly didn't come around to be the fall guy for Cox's stupidity. blah.
spare me the snide shit, I didn't come to patronize you
I didn't think you had--but ignoring that I publicly revealed having been raped in my own home, and further ignoring the very important thrust of my post that "not getting into danger in the first place" is both victim-blaming and counterintuitive to the point I'm desperately trying to make that the presence of a rapist is the only constant variable among all rapes, is nonethless sort of patronizing, even if unintentionally, don't you think?
Btw, many of the answers to the questions posed in your comment are answered in great detail at the plethora of links provided in the thread, particularly in the associated comments threads.
Thanks for the reply.
No. I don't think I was being patronizing. Quite the opposite. I was tryin double dog hard to make sure I came across clearly, as unpatronizingly as possible cuz I know doing so doesn't produce favorable results. I'll also happily admit I don't really 'get things' quickly. But Shakes - didja ever have anyone else point out yer one combative, shoot first and let Shiva separate 'em later kinda blogger? Or am I the first? :-P
I was passingly aware that you had been raped - didn't know the details until you're first response, but I'm not a regular lurker round these parts - didn't know that Shakes 101 was a pre-req to post a comment (ok, that's me being snarky/kinda patronizing). Look, I mean no harm. I hope at the very least that comes across.
The questions I have I reckon I'll save for family and friends - I can't say it's a conversation I want to have with my Mom over Thanksgiving dinner, but my other mom (aka Sis') is lot more tolerant of my naivety.
(casts off into Okefenokee upon H.M.S. Z.Suzzanne, fishin pole already bobbin fer lunkers)
didn't know that Shakes 101 was a pre-req to post a comment (ok, that's me being snarky/kinda patronizing).No, shit, Sherlock. No Shakes 101 is required, just reading the actual post you're responding to is all. I'll even emphasise the crucial part Liss is referring to:
I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article), I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no.
Meaning no harm is a good start, but it's not a blanket defence. This is a blog where close reading pays off. Lack of rigor in reading the actual post is pretty insulting, really, when you're taking issue with the arguments in it.
Okay, I have waded through enough of the comments to "The Cox Opinion" to say with certainty that we must begin teaching our daughters that all men are rapists at heart. All men.
We must teach them to fear and mistrust all men because men cannot be held responsible for their sexual conduct. Men cannot be held to standards of decency and restraint. Men will always put their own sexual desires before the wellbeing of women and community, and if we want our daughters to walk as free individuals in "Coxland," we'd better teach them them that men are the enemy.
Men can't have it both ways. They cannot justify inexcusable rapist conduct as natural masculine "frisky behavior" while simultaneously whining that "rape culture" is a figment of feminist imagination
Melissa, I did not know, and I am so sorry, and so angry on your behalf. I pray you found justice.
Okay, I have waded through enough of the comments to "The Cox Opinion" to say with certainty that we must begin teaching our daughters that all men are rapists at heart. All men.
Perhaps it's only me, but I get the impression that many of them do internalize this idea. Rapes are, after all, a popular element in television dramas and a suitably "exotic" one will make the news. Women know that fathers rape daughters, teachers rape students, bosses rape employees, boyfriends rape girlfriends, friends rape friends, teammates rape teammates, doctors rape patients, husbands rape wives, preachers rape parishioners, strangers rape all kinds of people, and the list goes on and on and on. I don't know if it's possible to exist as a woman in this culture and not fear all men on some level, however buried.
I was passingly aware that you had been raped - didn't know the details until you're first response
Meaning what? That you didn't bother even reading this post, in which I talk about it and its detailed circumstances?
To repeat TigTog: "Lack of rigor in reading the actual post is pretty insulting, really, when you're taking issue with the arguments in it."
The woman in the Naperville case who refused to watch the videotape of her rape recently won a 6-figure settlement in a civil suit against the parents of one of the perps who were home at the time this occurred. One of the suspects is still at large in East Europe.
What always gets me about the rape prevention attitude is that, well, if you follow the statistics on rape, the best situation for a woman to be in, in terms of the likelihood of a rape occurring, is to be in a public place by herself. The most dangerous place is to be at home with a man that she knows, and, often, trusts.
That's the problem with the "rape prevention" argument: it purports to offer a solution to the problem of rape by telling women to do things that do not reduce their statistical risk, to do things that are statistically risky, and then goes on to act as if prevention is entirely in the hands of the victim.
Here's the grim truth, for all you prevention advocates out there: the only way for a woman to protect herself from rape is to become a paranoid obsessive with lethal skills in hand-to-hand combat, who fears and is suspicious of all men, including those she ought to be able to love and trust, and who never, ever lets down her guard.
Is this really what we want for our daughters, mothers, sisters, et al.? Wouldn't it be easier to teach our sons, fathers, brothers, et al. to be decent human beings?
That is what real rape prevention would look like.
---
And as for the property equivalence argument, here's the real equivalent: a man gets a broomstick shoved up his ass "just because" he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts on the way home from the gym, or after he had a beer with his friends. It sounds ludicrous, right? Well, the fact that raping a woman who happened to have a drink at the bar with her friends and happened to wear a tank top and skirt does not says TONS about how we view rape - and women - in this culture.
Right on, Rana. Sing it, sister.
Ugh, David Cox gets even MORE vile in the comments on the thread.
"I haven't been raped (yet). However, lots of men are. Male rape is a surprisingly, common crime. Nonetheless, it seems to get virtually no publicity, except sometimes as a cause for mirth. Yet, rape is in some ways even more distressing for male than for female victims, since men often feel their gender identity has been ravaged, as well as their bodies. Still, male rape doesn't fuel any highly-charged political conflicts, so it will probably continue to go unremarked."
Because, you know, female rape is comparatively trivial.
I also hate, hate, hate the number of people who said smugly that we'll never get rid of rape, just like we'll never get rid of burglary. Why is it so okay to frame rape as no big deal, as not even worth questioning, as an Eternal Constant? A little social stigma would go a long way toward minimizing date rape. Sure, there might always be some rapes, but there's a huge percentage of rapes that would be eliminated if it WEREN'T "no big deal."
He is disgusting.
Mellissa, I apologize for my obsession with this thread...but we have three sons, two married with toddler daughters, and the notion that our grandbabies will be fighting this same battle 10 years from now just puts me over the edge.
What struck me, when I put the Cox commentary up for some family email discussion...was the fatalistic view that little can be done about the behavior of men/boys, and it is hopeless to try to impress upon men/boys their obigations to family and community the "boys" honestly don't care.
#2 son, The Lanky One...typically laconic, simply wrote..."Outside of lifetime incarceration, there are few definite and lasting consequences for men who violate women."
His point was that men who abuse others will always find a working peer group where such behavior is applauded...justified...excused.
I cannot let this one go...we have granddaughters, and men like Cox perpetuate the vile patriarchal doctrine that our graddaughters are to be held responsible for the behavior of men.
Apologies for the typos and absent words.
This one has kicked my ass, and I'm disgusted, and profoundly angry... and at a loss as to what I can do about it.
Earnestly - I'd like to know what does a serious conversation about rape prevention entail if not, ya know, starting with taking preventative action? - skunqesh
Perhaps it should start with realising that women are always going to be way ahead of men on that subject, and there's nothing we can teach them about it.
What struck me ...was the fatalistic view that little can be done about the behavior of men/boys, and it is hopeless to try to impress upon men/boys their obigations to family and community - ahunt
And it's a nonsense view. Not raping people is EASY. I do it all the time. A woman walks into the room, I just keep doing what I was doing, and moments later I've not raped her. And I can keep doing it indefinitely.
More flippant than such a painful subject deserves perhaps, but I don't feel like giving the slightest respect to the "Us poor menz can't control our sex drive" meme.
And if anyone reading this is still fuzzy on the distinction between body and property, then let me exerpt something else I wrote on Cox's article:
"...let me acknowledge that castration is a horrible thing to do to a man, and I wouldn't want to diminish the responsibility of the individual doing the cutting. But when our property is vandalised, we take steps to protect it - we lock it away, we fit it with alarms - is it so outrageous to suggest comparable behaviour in the field of castration? To suggest to men that going to a woman's home (where she keeps her knives) might be dangerous, or advise men that getting themselves into a drunken stupor in the company of a moody female could carry risks?"
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