Use your aggressive feelings, Let the wank flow through you...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Because this forum has been entirely too peaceful in the last few days I feel like posing a loaded question...

Two days ago faire_weather posted an entry titled Planning Ahead for Rape. It produced a predictable amount of outrage.

And yet, I must confess that I do not understand it.

As I have stated in prior entries I tend to view day-to-day life as a series of contingencies and/or threats to be planned for and countered. I "plan ahead" for car accidents by wearing a seat belt, just as I "plan ahead" for earthquakes by maintaning a small stockpile of food, water, and medical supplies.

Back in May I had the opportunity to see a sneak preview of Take Shelter. While I enjoyed it on a purely psychological/cinemagraphic level there was one thing that I found jarring. Specifically that a man who lives in tornado alley is arbitrarily labled as irrational for building a tornado shelter. To me this would seem to be a prudent course of action.

To me the suggestion that I should "plan ahead for rape" (or any other violent encounter) is no-more offensive than the suggestion that I should tie my shoes to avoid tripping over the laces.

The question I pose is this, what's so horrifying about planning ahead?

Or have I simply spent so-much time in ERs that paranioa has become normal?

Comments

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Dude just when I have to go to bed, and can't monitor (and enjoy the drama) you post this....why do you hate me?

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

Heh...here for the next 6 and a half hours and settling in for a long, fun night.

[new-wave-witch.livejournal.com]

I tend to view day-to-day life as a series of contingencies and/or threats to be planned for and countered.

That's... kind of sad, to be in a constant state of worry like that.

The anger and objection comes less from a suggestion of preparedness and more from a weak attempt to devalue the availability of abortion services to women in such situations. It is suggested that such preparedness would neutralize that need.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I recall a post here in TP not that long ago, that linked to research that indicated that right-wing voters tend to be basically paranoid (justiably or not) and constantly expected bad things to happen to them.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

It remains an asinine declaration by the official who made it and if you can't understand why people in general and women in specific would be offended by a bland declaration comparing carrying insurance to being a victim of violent crime then well, you're a little out of touch.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Do you plan ahead to be violently assaulted at some point in your life? Because I'd like to know the precautions you've taken for that. You know, so I can judge whether they are sufficient or not and then when it happens anyway regardless of your precautions I can tell you that you should have done something differently.

and this:
"plan ahead for rape" (or any other violent encounter) is no-more offensive than the suggestion that I should tie my shoes to avoid tripping over the laces.

is a highly offensive, dismissive and upsetting statement.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I think the phrasing and the tone of the original quote was appallingly ill conceived. Nevertheless, I am with you. Semper paratus.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

This was a bit more than just a suggestion to plan ahead, it was an attempt to remove abortion from most health insurance policies and require a separate insurance policy.

If this was just a case of a congressman from Kansas telling women that they should take precautions against rape, I doubt there would be much outrage. I'm sure that those women who until now were clueless that they needed to make concessions in their lives to avoid sexual assault would thank the congressman for his valuable insights.

Women already pay a price in their daily life due to the actions of a few men. Trying to make them pay an additional and very visible price is moving things in the wrong way. Having a man explain the necessity to take such precautions is bound to come across as condescending... best not to go there.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Fair enough but if we take the abortion issue off the table, whats the big deal?

Based on some of the comments both here and in the orginal thread, there seems to be a signifigant subset of the population that views preperation with contempt and/or outwright horror which I am at a loss to explain.

Both sides are concerned with the welfare of women

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Not really. The side you're not a part of but nonetheless constantly defend is working to remove abortion coverage from health care insurance, in addition to a longer term goal of making abortion outright illegal.

Or let me paraphrase: There are evil parts of society, we will try to stop them, blah blah blah but if you happen to be raped, we will ensure that no government funding exists for an abortion because we don't want you to have that choice. Also, hope you can pay for the child because we've also gutted social services. Have a delightful unexpected forced pregnancy!

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

what's so horrifying about planning ahead?

The 'horror' is Americans having a sense of entitlement they believe protects them from thinking of such things.

They feel the world should conform to a pre-conceived notion which says they should have the option of choosing to do whatever they want, whenever they want and not have to worry about things like rape, economic troubles, and the deficit..

America is entitled not to think about details that only 'uncool' and 'loserish' foreign countries need concern themselves with. We're above such petty and 3rd country'ish things!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Except it's not just America where women hear these things, it's all over the world, it does not matter in the slightest what the countries economic status is. What was said could be considered an offensive statement to ALL women, not just American women.

You want an effective rape deterrent?

[404.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata

'Nuff said.

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

You're right. My Mom used to say : "Don't forget your kalashnikov before going outside !"

Mary Tyler Moore

[telemann.livejournal.com]

This post needs Mary Tyler Moore! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iso1cTVXh5M)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iso1cTVXh5M)

[stephanieruth.livejournal.com]

I don't see anything wrong with planning ahead... People take self-defense classes all the time to prevent things like rape.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

When emergancy arises and every second counts, the cops arrive in mere minutes.

In other words, the authorities will not be there to save you. One has to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for yourself. Do whatever preparations necessary. Carry mace, learn Kung-Fu, travel in groups, etc. Being overprepared and never require need to use is not a bad thing.

Or take no responsibility, blame shift, state the obvious that "MEN shouldn't rape!" and murder is wrong, liars shouldn't lie and more obvious rules of life.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I hate repeating myself:

I wish to tread gently as you seem sincere and are already getting an earful.

Let me stipulate a point: all people could probably benefit from some level of threat awareness and self defense training, even if just on the passive level.

But the diminishing return on that is fairly rapid. What if a woman DOES everything that is commonly prescribed to "reduce" the chance of her being raped? Apart from the fact that she might very well be raped anyway since most rape is not stranger rape, a rapist is not going to not rape -- at best, he doesn't rape her.

And to be frank, a lot of what people call taking "sensible precautions" sounds a lot like "living terrified". It comes at the expense of being able to live life, enjoy oneself and go about work and fun under the very reasonable expectation that other people are NOT rapists. Very quickly into the process a lot of well-meaning "advisors" for women seem to be advising them to live in a virtual prison.

That ain't right. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1037401.html?thread=82239833#t82239833)

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Facile statements on an important subject are often greeted with scorn.

Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 30.9% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 26.6% in the victims' homes and 10.1% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7.2% occur at parties, 7.2% in vehicles, 3.6% outdoors and 2.2% in bars. - wikipedia

How does a twelve year old plan ahead for rape by a step-father? By calling child services before the fact?

How does an adult woman plan ahead for rape by a trusted boyfriend? By not trusting any man?

If I stated, "Every time you go anywhere, you should prepare for getting beaten with a baseball bat," how would you prepare for it? How would you feel if, having balanced your need to socialize with your protection from blunt objects, you still get beaten and the response from someone was, "Well you should have been more prepared?"

Part 1 of 3.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

It might, actually, have a lot to do with the history of rape as a crime. When the United States incorporated English common law rape doctrine into their statutory codes, they added the additional requirement of proving "force." As the case excerpt explains below, rape victims were essentially put on trial. Instead of focusing the case on the culpable actions and mental state of the defendant, rape trials were a circus. The focus of the trial was on the victim, the victim's actions, and the victim's mental state. Rape laws were unique, in that they were the only assaultive offense where a woman had to prove that she didn't want the contact. If someone punches you in the face, you don't typically have to prove that you didn't want to be punched in the face. If someone rapes you, you had to demonstrate, by resisting, that you did not want to be raped. This, of course, often led to increased violence during rape.

And, this mentality was the status quo, throughout the country, until the rape reform movement that occurred in the 1970s. To this day, some states still have laws, on the books, that stipulate that rape cannot occur within a marital relationship. 21 Okl.St.Ann. § 1111.

Re: Part 2 of 3.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Under traditional rape law, in order to prove that a rape had occurred, the state had to show both that force had been used and that the penetration had been against the woman's will. Force was identified and determined not as an independent factor but in relation to the response of the victim, which in turn implicated the victim's own state of mind. “Thus, the perpetrator's use of force became criminal only if the victim's state of mind met the statutory requirement. The perpetrator could use all the force imaginable and no crime would be committed if the state could not prove additionally that the victim did not consent.”

***

The presence or absence of consent often turned on credibility. To demonstrate that the victim had not consented to the intercourse, and also that sufficient force had been used to accomplish the rape, the state had to prove that the victim had resisted. According to the oft-quoted Lord Hale, to be deemed a credible witness, a woman had to be of good fame, disclose the injury immediately, suffer signs of injury, and cry out for help. 1 Matthew Hale, History of the Pleas of the Crown 633 (1st ed. 1847). Courts and commentators historically distrusted the testimony of victims, “assuming that women lie about their lack of consent for various reasons: to blackmail men, to explain the discovery of a consensual affair, or because of psychological illness.” Offender's Forceful Conduct, supra, 56 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. at 403. Evidence of resistance was viewed as a solution to the credibility problem; it was the “outward manifestation of nonconsent, [a] device for determining whether a woman actually gave consent.” Note, The Resistance Standard in Rape Legislation, 18 Stan.L.Rev. 680, 689 (1966).

The resistance requirement had a profound effect on the kind of conduct that could be deemed criminal and on the type of evidence needed to establish the crime. See, e.g., State v. Brown, 127 Wis. 193, 106 N.W. 536 (1906) (overturning forcible rape conviction based on inadequate resistance by the victim); People v. Dohring, 59 N.Y. 374 (1874). Courts assumed that any woman who was forced to have intercourse against her will necessarily would resist to the extent of her ability.

***

“[A] mere tactical surrender in the face of an assumed superior physical force is not enough. Where the penalty for the defendant may be supreme, so must resistance be unto the uttermost.” Moss v. State, 208 Miss. 531, 45 So.2d 125, 126 (1950). Other states followed a “reasonableness” standard, while some required only sufficient resistance to make non-consent reasonably manifest. Forcible Rape, supra, at 5.

***

Thus, if the defendant forced himself on a woman, it was her responsibility to fight back, because force was measured in relation to the resistance she put forward. Only if she resisted, causing him to use more force than was necessary to achieve penetration, would his conduct be criminalized.See, e.g., Moss v. State, supra, 45 So.2d at 125.

***

To refute the misguided belief that rape was not real unless the victim fought back, reformers emphasized empirical research indicating that women who resisted forcible intercourse often suffered far more serious injury as a result. Menachem Amir, Patterns in Forcible Rape, 164-65, 169-171 (1971); Definition of Forcible Rape, supra, 61 Va.L.Rev. at 1506; Note, Elimination of the Resistance Requirement and Other Rape Law Reforms: The New York Experience, 47 Alb.L.Rev. 871, 872 (1983). That research discredited the assumption that resistance to the utmost or to the best of a woman's ability was the most reasonable or rational response to a rape.

State in the Interest of M.T.S., (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5823109833564671391&q=609+A.2d+1266&hl=en&as_sdt=2,44) 609 A.2d 1266, 1270-74 (1992). (I encourage everyone to read the entire opinion. It provides a very interesting and enlightening history of the criminalization and prosecution of rape in this country.)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

> Use your aggressive feelings, Let the wank flow through you...

Have you been practicing Jedi-fu again??

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

because women shouldn't have to walk around in fear.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Your comment seems to assume that awareness and/or preparation requires fear.

[zeitgeistic.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, I'm famous.

You may plan ahead for car accidents with insurance because they are things that do happen sometimes (and auto insurance is required now). Generally, car accidents are not caused by one person deciding to assault another person with their car; they are unintentional.

Rape isn't an accident, and feeding women (and men) the idea that we should NEED to prepare for it only makes the act more acceptable and tolerable. It isn't. It desensitizes us.

That doesn't mean I don't lock my doors; it just means I shouldn't have to put in a Rape-aXe (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-20/world/south.africa.female.condom_1_female-condoms-ehlers-south-africa?_s=PM:WORLD) when I leave the house.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This is already being discussed in other comment threads but I would say that the biggest single thing is to be aware of your surroundings and those around you.

If a situation looks/feels shady it probably is.

If you ever have to enforce your boundaries with someone over the age of six, you should not associate with that person.

If you're going to go drinking/clubbing bring freinds.

[befall.livejournal.com]

Tornadoes and earthquakes are beyond human control; rape is something people do. The comment is offensive because saying women should "prepare" for rape makes it sound like it's our responsibility to just deal with the possibility of getting raped, rather than men's responsibility to not rape us.

beyond human control

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think your comment illsutrates an interesting contrast.

Tell me, do you really think people can or should be controlled?

I would say no. As far as I am concerned the attitudes and actions of others are beyond my control. In that sense you are as immutable to me as the weather.