Let’s see, out of 20 posts here, we have six already from one poster. Methinks the “gentleman” doth protest too much. One has to wonder why he is so incredibly defensive about rapists.
11 Likes
Okay, so the young lady drank and she was intoxicated – I get that. She " chose to follow a stranger onto a dark rooftop?" – Was the “stranger” the security guard the school hired (the man who raped her)? How does a “stranger” fit into the picture? If the stranger was said security guard, I’d argue that he was supposedly someone she could trust – the very person the school hired to secure the place. If someone else (the “stranger”) raped her on that rooftop, then she’s only guilty of very poor judgment – not of raping herself. If the stranger who raped her was not the security guard, then she’d have a poor case against the school – but if the security guard is the rapist, then she has a strong case.
Am I missing something?
7 Likes
I wish I had an answer for you, Chammy. But there is none. If there is no consent, or the consent isn’t ongoing, it’s rape. Sadly, as long as there are courts and defense attorneys, and straight up assholes who believe some girls have it coming or just rape easy, victim blaming will persist.
3 Likes
You seem to be confusing the time before the rape with the time after the rape. There is an enormous difference between being careful and being partly_to_blame which is what you suggest when your post is completely about what she did wrong. No matter how prudent it is to stay sober, it does mitigate the wrongness of rape IN ANY WAY. There is no blame-sharing, she did not do anything wrong. It is 100% the blame of the rapist. Period. When men get drunk at parties, they are NOT partly to blame if someone takes off their pants and shoves something up their ass. That would be a crime. Just as rape of women is.
Once the crime has happened, and it is in the courts (as this discussion is,) there is absolutely no portion of “blame” that accrues to the victim, no case of “if she had only used common sense” then she wouldn’t have been a victim. Your use of these phrases implies “partly to blame” and is 100% wrong. You imply by this line of talk that people who are mentally incapacitated are partly to blame. That elderly rape victims are partly to blame for their failure to stay fit and strong. No. The fact that a person is incapacitated for_whatever_reason does not make them partly to blame for their crime. And indeed should not even be discussed during the court phase since it does not mitigate in any way the crime of the predator.
11 Likes
Okay, lets try this.
In the 1970s, I was raped walking home from a University Library at 1:30ish after cramming for a chem final. Was I doing something risky?
My future wife was raped when she opened her apartment door when a neighbor she’d talked to a few times locked himself out of his apartment (again) and needed to use her phone to call the office. This was pre-cell phone in the middle of the day. What she doing something risky or was being a friendly neighbor?
Another good friend was biking on a bike trail out of town while training for a triathlon in the early evening. She was attacked by two guys but managed to fight them off and get away but only after they managed to rip her biking shorts off. Was she doing something risky?
A cousin and very good friend was working two jobs to raise her daughter after her abusive husband left her; one job was a night shift, and she was raped in the pre-dawn early morning while walking to a parking garage. Was she doing something risky?
I’ve seven other friends that have been raped. Only one had been drinking at a party–your probable definition of risky behavior–and it was her boyfriend that raped her.
Your “when someone says victim blaming another woman gets raped” is so offensive I can’t even compose a calm response other than what I cited above.
And I just revealed something about myself that I almost never talk about, and never have posted publicly.
24 Likes
Aaaaaaaand, SMACK!
1 Like
I always find it amazing how the only people who aren’t blamed, and deemed the author of their own misfortunes, for failing to make perfect decisions 100% of the time are non-poor white men. I also find it amazing how invariably those perfect decisions everyone but the non-poor white males are supposed to make 100% of the time add up to “my freedom is real and absolute, yours is theoretical and you have only yourself to blame if you think otherwise and it turns out badly for you.”
Women must never get very drunk, always walk in well-lighted areas, carry a whistle and mace, cover their bodies, keep their eyes on their drink 100% of the time. Poor people must always make 100% perfect decisions with money and about food. Black people must adhere to a standard of meek servility when stopped by the police.
Oh, wait. I take that back. There is another category of people who never seem to be held to this standard of 100% perfection of decision: gun owners.
22 Likes
Perhaps you don’t understand what a security guard’s job is.
He was hired by the university to PROTECT students…not RAPE a drunk young woman student…
If young people didn’t do dumb things, there would be no need for the university to hire security guards.
Grow up.
3 Likes
Well, the handle should lead no one to think he is “dangerous.”
3 Likes
Strictly speaking, the security guard was apparently hired by the lessor, Sea Breeze.
Since WPI failed to make any inquiries about hiring practices for security guards (Are background checks done so as to not hire convicted criminals?), they placed themselves in a precarious position. A student was raped by a contracted security guard in a building leased by the school. They bear financial culpability, in my opinion. I suspect the student will win the case.
7 Likes
I haven’t read the papers, but that was my impression as a lawyer when I first heard about it on NPR this a.m… Essentially, as I got the gist of it, she’s arguing that WPI did not provide a safe environment, when the fact is that she deliberately decided to go outside that environment, onto the roof of a building, with a stranger. It isn’t that she’s to blame for what happened to her, so much as that WPI is not to blame. It’s a shame that this very standard and inoffensive legal defense to her claim against WPI is being twisted to criticize WPI for allegedly “blaming the victim.” That’s not what this defense is doing. There is plenty of victim blaming and shaming to go around without automatically assuming that it is being done, without really understanding. She’s trying to shift the blame from herself - not for being raped but for making her own decisions to go outside the area that WPI could possibly have been required to make reasonably safe - to WPI for not protecting her even when she deliberately went outside the area that WPI reasonably could have been expected to be responsible for. The only one to blame for the rape is the rapist. But WPI is not responsible for it any more than she is.
4 Likes
You are very brave, and very right. Even anonymously some things can not be admitted. Let the nightmares begin…
4 Likes
Prime example of rape culture thinking. That rapist who swim’s Dad had no clue that his kid could get in bad trouble for what he got caught in the act doing. Remarks like yours explain a lot about why his kid was not better taught.
3 Likes
Bullshit. Blame the victim-again. A Matriarchal Society can’t happen soon enough.
3 Likes
Thank you. While that info does add more complicating details to the story, you’re right. So long as the school financially entrusted the company to hire security (as part of the deal to lease the building/space), they are somewhat liable … as is the other company involved. And, if the security guard was an employee of whatever company he work-ed for–as opposed to being a straight-up “contractor”–even they may bear some financial liability.
2 Likes
So sorry you and your future wife and all the others had to go through all this. Thanks for sharing this. You are very courageous.
7 Likes
Bullshit.
6 Likes
Maybe, just maybe, a male might take pity on her less-than-coherent state and choose not to take advantage. Actually, most men would do this. Still is NOT her fault. Poor judgment? Probably. Cause for rape? Hell no!
7 Likes
Let us say that there is a rapist on a campus. The rapist has decided to rape someone (because that is what rapists do).
Your job, if you are sensible, is to allow someone else to be raped and not allow yourself to be raped. I know that this sounds callous, but this is true.
If you get drunk within 5 feet of the rapist by yourself, your risk of rape is high.
If you get drunk not close to rapist with friends, your risk of rape is low.
So, you get to choose - should you get totally drunk by yourself or with friends? If you choose “with friends”, your chance of rape drops.
If you choose to smoke cigarettes, you may or may not get lung cancer. You choose. Not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer. Should you choose to smoke?
If you choose to drive while intoxicated, you may be arrested or have a serious accident, but you may not have a bad outcome. Should you ignore the risk?
If you choose to have a gun in your house, you are 5x-9x more likely to have a bad outcome. Now, many liberals will say “No, guns are bad” because of that risk. But they vehemently disagree with the statement “Its risky to drink to excess with strangers because the chance of rape is high”. Why do these two statements get treated differently?
Knowing and doing sensible things about risk factors is not a restriction on freedom. It’s just common sense. Although I could jump off my roof and fly like Superman, I choose not to, due to the risks. Are you a roof jumper?
She was responsible because she was drinking? I thought dressing like a slut was the issue that determines blame in such cases.