"My Rapist Doesn't Know He's A Rapist"

We should be better than that.

from every direction of our society there is a concerted effort to normalize disrespect of women.

you said it, sea. Exactly right.

it is always good to hear from you.

hey

hear here. lol. which one. here here as in present. or hear hear as in i hear you.

i do the same

I moved recntly and the last year or so has just been stressssssssssfulllllllllll. Blecchh.

Now starting a new, better phase. So just haven't been talky too much, in general.

Anyhow, I always felt like "Hear here" was like "yeah, everyone should hear this comment here!"...kind of like that.....

Sooooo many just don't get it. Because they don't understand, your fight is one of desperation! It has gone on past our collective memory. More and more are waking up, in my heart I know that you WILL win. We have had it backwards for far too long, it is not "might makes right", instead it is "right makes might"! YOU. ARE. RIGHT., this is your strength. Keep educating, keep fighting and one day, Martin Luther King will have it more than his dream come true. Not just 'God's Children' but ALL EARTH'S CHILDREN will be equal. My hat is off to all who carry the torch.

are so inspiring. thank you so much for your posts..... always.

Not the 19th? Not the 17th, not the 11th, OR the 6th.

I don't get it, and I find it utterly revolting!!!!

men as a whole get that we are not that.

instead of seeing the benefits and opportunity to be their authentic self, they see a loss in control and dominance. control and dominance never works as a whole. a woman may allow the disrespect, but only so long before their is a pay back. it simple does not work. we dont allow it as human beings. regardless of gender.

including against women.

So this dehumanizing trend you're citing doesn't really seem to result in differences in crime stats.

/before someone says it: no I am not arguing that no women are raped, or that any amount of rape is ok. Or that attempts to limit abortion access are acceptable. Merely pointing out that the crime stats have been positive for the past few decades.

She will forever have my support - 100%.

In a 60's Women's Studies class one brave man, a policeman, was saying that the "mini-skirt" was certainly part of the problem when it came to an increase in rape cases.

The teacher promptly asked him, "So Officer X, how many more women have YOU raped since the mini-skirt came into fashion?"

"NONE! I'm not a rapist."

"Well, there you go. The mini-skirt doesn't make you turn into a rapist and it is only an excuse for a rapist to do what he's going to do anyway."

Most don't. And when you try, you get strange results.

Leave the windows down to your car, the diamonds on the front seat next to the keys and the Wii, and when they're stolen few say, "How horrible. Property is inviolate, and you did nothing foolish or imprudent."

If a teacher leaves an answer key to the final on his desk first thing in the morning and by 3rd period the students have spread around the answers, they've broken the rules. They may be punished. But you know that the principle won't tell the teacher, "You acted wisely and without blame. Who could have predicted that the kids would be dishonest?"

It's a slippery-slope argument. They're slippery. Usually it means that there's some undefined term in the argument just asking to be explicated. So it is in this case.

Try this one. Banking regulations don't matter. Honest bankers will behave honestly; dishonest ones will behave dishonestly. The weak regulations were just an excuse for dishonest bankers to do what they'd have done anyway, and stronger regulations wouldn't have helped in the least.

See? That's one's just plain distasteful. Parallel, but distasteful. That's a clue that there's something missing in the logic.

There's the severity of the outcome and the predictability of outcome. If a bad outcome is severe but not very likely, we like to have laws and behavior altered to avoid the bad outcome. If bad outcome isn't very severe but is common we expect people to alter their behavior to avoid the bad outcome. Most people don't like to be told to alter their behavior and are left with temptation and opportunity are unrelated to the crime because in some cases temptation and opportunity are fairly unrelated. However, we accept it in many cases. If you leave all your presents in the trunk, with the trunk open, most people blame themselves and not the thief.

When assigning blame, there's often more than 100%. Leave your presents out in high-crime area and the thiefs shouldn't steal them, but you're also responsible. It's not split 50-50 or 60-40, it's split 100-40 (as a guess). This works out bad in liability awards, but works well in a lot of other areas.

Seriously?

NO ONE is saying a woman deserves it. We are saying we teach our daughters to be smart about the situations they put themselves in. Quit being so dramatic.

STILL doesn't mean they are "asking for it"....and STILL doesn't make it okay for anyone to force themselves upon them...

What a fucking stupid thing to say....

Unless and until the woman confirms that she is a willing participant in the activity NO MEANS NO!!!!

I don't know how I can be any clearer when I say "THEY DO NOT DESERVE IT." I am talking about simple, basic, 3rd grade statistics here.

I don't tell my daughter if she does that she deservese to get raped. I don't tell her no suddenly means yes. I am merely teaching her common sense.

I really don't know how to make a fundamentally simple statement any simplier.

Rights are rights. Everyone has the right to not be raped. Period.

Rapists rape. It's not about who their victims are, what they are wearing, or whether they drink. It's about one person commiting an act of violence upon another person unprovoked.

Would you be able to not rape someone who happened to be dressed in some particular way and was drunk? I know I wouldn't have the first urge to rape someone. Regardless of what they were wearing. Regardless of whether they were intoxicated. Regardless.

Rapists rape. Stop apologizing for their violent criminal behavior.

I NEVER said rape was okay. I NEVER said a woman deserves it. I NEVER said "no" means "yes."

What I DID say is that people should pay attention to simple statistics. NO ONE deserves to get murdered. However, I will still tell my kids to backpack through the rockies and not Syria.

Once your argument started, it sloped downward pretty quickly.

Answer keys and diamonds are things, not people. They cannot consent or withhold consent.
People can voice their objections, cry, try to escape.

Things such as diamonds are already property. Theft transfers property from one person to another illegally.

People are NOT property. Turning them into property--as rape does, by making them subject to your will--represents an entirely different type of crime.


The law recognizes distinct differences between theft of property and harm to others. That is not a slippery slope; it is a clear line.

The woman from the OP was raped by her (now ex) boyfriend.
Women in the 60's wore mini-skirts, but rapists rape 80 year old ladies too. NO.

To extend the argument I made to the woman in the OP - he was her boyfriend, she'd probably already done allowed him in her car without repercussions, and if there were diamonds on the front seat next to the keys and the Wii he'd never stolen them before and he'd never raped her before either.

Here's the thing. RAPE isn't about SEX. It isn't about desire. It's about POWER. This bozo HAD her as a girlfriend. If she wanted to wait and he didn't, then he needed to negotiate or find another willing partner. INSTEAD he chose to violate her trust and take what he wanted.

To extend the argument I made to the teacher and the answer key. Wearing a mini skirt or being in a private place with someone you have previously trusted, isn't like having the answer key on your desk and walking away. A rapist is going after the "key" that's safely tucked away in a private place and a rapist has to go through a person to get at that key. So again, this layer of blame you are assigning is a myth and the example not even comparable.

To extend the argument I made to the Bankers and regulations. Wearing a mini skirt or being in a private place with someone you have previously trusted, isn't like expecting that every banker is an honest banker. We aren't talking about money and some manipulation of funds or hidden accounting books, we are talking about physical, personal violation. Rape is already against the law. Banking regulations that would be stronger would regulate the bankers not the customer. So stronger laws against rape should not penalize the victim either.

If you leave all your presents in the trunk, with the trunk open, most people blame themselves and not the thief.

So if you have the trunk open because your boyfriend/girlfriend is supposed to be helping you bring them into the house and the boyfriend/girlfriend changes their mind and steals all the presents and beats you and tells you that you deserved it, then you blame yourself, not the person who just flipped into phsyco mode on you?

Or if you have a hatch back instead of a car with a trunk and even though your presents aren't showing there is more window to view inside of your car, so that makes it your fault when a thief uses a crowbar on your window, takes your presents and beats you while telling you it's your fault.

All she says about her ex-boyfriend is that he - like her friends - blamed her for her rape. No doubt that's how he became her ex-boyfriend. And likely for all the reasons she cited in her story... she drank too much, she flirted, she wore a short skirt, etc. What is unfortunately too common is that the men in women's lives that have suffered being raped not only blame them for being raped but also look at them as "damaged goods" and get angry at HER that SHE "allowed" HIS "property" to be "ruined". Seems clear that her then-boyfriend did just that with how he reacted about her being raped - not just blaming her for it but being angry at HER for "allowing" his "property" to be "ruined" as if her rape was something evil that SHE did to HIM.

The point she was making is that not only doesn't her rapist believe he is a rapist but that neither did her boyfriend or her friends and all because of what society taught them to believe about rape - that it was HER fault and that she even instigated it happening because she drank too much, flirted and wore a short skirt.

I just can't for the life of me imagine from what she wrote on her sign why in the world you believe that it was her then-boyfriend that was her rapist.

I do not interpret her sign to mean that her ex boyfriend raped her. I take away that she was out, was inibriated,and someone there attacked her. When her boyfriend found out, he spit in her face and called her a whore and her friends turned their back because sometimes, the circumference of destruction following a rape is wide and viscious.

Have you ever heard of "date rape"? It happens.

And rethugs, they think that a woman who they are in relationship with are there to service them no matter what. In fact, if married, they believe it is a God given right.

I'll go back and read it again, but my initial impression was that her boyfriend took what he wanted and then blamed her for fighting back.

Still for purposes of the comparison, the slippery slope analogies did not wash and THAT was the main gist of my post.

"White collar crimes" DO do a lot of damage, but their perpetrators are not physically violating someone and can delude themselves on the extent of damage because they don't SEE the other person.

A rapist is there, in the flesh doing the deed, and REGARDLESS of whether the girl made poor choices that allowed her to become the target of a violent criminal, it's plain wrong to ALLOW a rapist to use such a flimsy excuse for his behavior. NO means NO. Laws need to punish the person who commits the crime, not the one victimized by it.

Rape is rape. Period.

Read response #5 again.

B-O-G-U-S!!

Your post is absolutely repulsive. In fact, it's fucking creepy. Did you write that from prison?

to students holding themselves back from peeking at answers to a test?

Do you think men have difficulty not raping women and if a woman in short shorts walks past them that will tip them over to becoming rapists? Because that's how your post reads.

"She wasn't wearing a full burka and her hands wear visible ... so she acted imprudently."

(my version ) is that--no human being is to blame for being raped, the responsibility lies with the rapist.

The key is we are talking about apples and oranges when we compare sociopaths, who have no ethics, to law abiding people who are self governing. Regulations are put in place to protect the public against sociopathic behaviors, whether it is raping a woman or raping the environment.

Common sense and street smarts tell us they are out there, predatory behavior lives in the human race, that is a fact. Any victim who has messed up and ended up a victim lives with this as well as the crime for the rest of their life as well. (I shouldn't have opened the door for that stranger!!)

In my opinion is THIS is why we need laws -- to provide a strong enough CONSEQUENCE for breaking them, because this is the only way to control sociopaths. We cannot rid ourselves of these people, but we can structure our society so that we are protected against their behaviors.

Sociopaths are the ones who are derailing this whole issue by focusing on the victims, because they do not want regulations, they want a free for all so they can continue raping and pillaging.

Most sociopaths are incapable of calling themselves rapists or criminals.

Great post, and great thread! Peace, felix

I saw NOTHING excusing or justifying criminal behavior. Simple an acknowledgment that we need to recognize pieces of shit exist in our society and we need to be vigilant in protecting ourselves. Quit being obtuse.

This thread has context. It is the context of the original post which outlines a case being made that we are teaching the perpatrators that they are doing nothing wrong and that the victims are totally responsible.



Most people still "blame" the thief, they just ALSO blame the victim. The point being made in this thread is that we have gotten to the point where we tell the thief he's done nothing wrong, and the victim that they were not a victim.

Tony Bouza essentially declared open season on women by publicly declaring that any women who was inebriated in public 'deserved' what she got this was during a rash of serial rapes wherein some the victims who were for the most part Native American were being raped, murdered, and dismembered it seems things have not changed all too much since then

My younger sisters. We fought against these blame the victim laws. It looks like the Repukes and their right wing religous organizations, want we women to go back to those times.

While I am an old woman, I have 2 young daughters, who I didn't "abort". Despite their Repulican father, I taught my daughters well. They totally understand what is at stake for females in this country; both my married daugher, and my lesbian daughter. BOTH can be raped, forced to have a rapist baby, which I can tell you, NEITHER wants to do. My son-in-law feels the same. He doesn't want his WIFE to be forced to have a rapist baby.

Many women are still afraid to speak of their rapes, 20, 30, 40 years later.

that was immediate reaction too. What an amazing lady!

Some people treat women who have been raped as if they should be available at a discount,...like going to an appliance store and finding a deal on a fridge with a scratch on the side.

Then there's the idiots out there who figure rape victims will hate all men and turn gay.

For the true nutcases,...you have the Lavinia solution from Titus Andronicus.

You nailed it. It's the blame the victim and the continued secondary rape of women. It's prevalent in so many parts of the world and women in this country have it 'good' compared to most of the Middle East countries. We don't get executed for being raped.

It is "victim" in the case of robbery or assault but often "accuser" in the case of rape.

They act like you have to have vaginal tearing to prove it.

...it depicts men as ruled by their urges and it's no coincidence that the guys who make that argument are the same ones who claim women are incapable of controlling themselves during their monthly cycle.

what is that? cause i think more of men then SOME of them do about themselves?

think with the little head, dna, boys will be boys. how many times do we hear men describe themselves like this.

why? it benefits them, until it doesnt.

in this world today we have made everything wrapped around the male sexuality. awe inspiring and all powerful, 24/7.

it is going to effect all of us, pretending this nontruth.

we even have a science now being promoted in the university and society as a whole devoted solely to male sexuality in evo psych.

....and it's only been recently that those who wish to separate you from your money has recognized that women have money and respond to sexually implicit messaging.

It's the old boys network who still make the call and most of them are terrified of women being sexual beings. Thus, there is a whole "fem fatale" thing still prevalent in the imagery and some of that is absorbed by the culture to where some women become a cartoon version of it in the false impression that it makes them respected.

It's also why many rapes are especially brutal. Insecure and frightened men afraid of the power of women and who feel the need to knock women down a notch and prove male power is superior.

good stuff. thanks.

and most all of mine are men, ah ha.

what a hoot.

When it's combined with integrity and intelligence, I'm hooked.

I wonder some times ... have we made any progress at all? And why does the "party of personal responsibility" keep pushing responsibility for THIS crime on the victim, and not the perpetrator? It feels like I have been thrown into the way-back machine.

but we use different decks.

The first bad assumption is that there's 100% of the blame to go around. Therefore, if you blame the woman who was raped even 2% then makes the rapist only 98% guilty.

The second is putting all crimes that bear a label in the same category. I can assign a label to all sorts of things. "Shot" is an adj. and a noun; it's a small piece of metal used for shooting birds, a large piece of metal chucked by a fat sweaty guy, it's a certain amount of hard liquor, and it's an eventive noun derived from "to shoot". ("That's a fine shot, you really caught the color in his eyes in that picture!")

It's harder when the things are semantically related. See the extended quibble over "enemy" vs "foe" wrt how Putin was referred to in Romney-speak.

If the rapist had simply beaten the hell out of her, or run her over, burned down her house, would you be making this same ridiculous argument? That somehow how she was dressed or whether she had been drinking somehow mitigate the crime?

Really?

Come on, get into the spirit!

This is one of those times.

Kudos to the young woman for standing up and speaking out.

"They called me trash."

Some friends.

It is an act of violence and it is all about inflicting power, control and degradation over the victim. Ask the rapist of an 80 year old woman asleep in in her bed. Was it this temptress in her granny nightie that pushed him over the edge?

People this uninformed about a violent crime are just too stupid to grace the halls of our congress - much less enact legislation on this subject. God I hate willful ignorance and the morons who swallow this shit.

This "rape is not about sex" argument seems to be just another way to ignore acquaintance rape, which most rapes are. Plenty of times it's because of a sense of entitlement TO SEX.

BUT - how do you KNOW he thought it was a sexual act? Because she is pretty? I worked in a Rape Crisis Center for over 5 years and whether it was stranger or acquaintance rape - the underlying motive was the same. Power and control using sex as a weapon. A 1000 other men could look at this woman as being sexually attractive and NOT rape her. A sense of entitlement to sex goes back to power and control - not hormones run amok. It takes a certain psychological pathology to commit a rape.

. . . biology will tell you that when power, control and reproduction are involved, you'd do well to presume reproduction was the reason.

Especially when there are few species that reproduce exclusively by rape. Ducks, chickens are what come to mind. Perhaps a rooster wants to feel powerful, too. But his genes are demanding something else.

I hope our species isn't going in that direction, not that I'll live to find out.

Fact is, there's a certain feeling of power inherent to arousal and orgasm. So, in my opinion: you can't really separate sex from power when it comes to rape.

Even acquaintance rapes are about power and denigration. Do you think a husband who violently rapes his wife isn't imposing his power over her? Or do you think that's different because they're obviously acquainted? Really Odin, this is so unlike you. As a matter of fact it's so unlike you that I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean what this statement seems to say.

What I was rejecting was the notion that sex has nothing to do with it, that power was the end unto itself and not the means to an end.

If a man rapes you it's pretty self evident that he gets an erection so it's easy to believe that sexual desire is there. The reality of the situation is that if you fight back it should be self evident that you don't want to have sex. If he then beats you into submission or simply chokes you or puts his hand over your mouth while raping you do you really think it's sexual or do you think it's the use of his penis to dominate you?

On the other hand if a man wants to have sex with you and you say no and he doesn't overpower you then it is sexual. If you consent or not does he need to beat you up and overpower you physically?

Most men know the difference and most men have no desire to beat the woman into consenting to having sex. Most men feel that it isn't sex if they have to take it by force.

When you're on the receiving end of rape you know that the intent is not to have great sex. It's to humiliate, denigrate and hurt and force you into getting what he wants which isn't sex itself. It's to show you that he has the power to force you to do what he wants. You know this. Was your friend just getting in the way of a man having simple sex with her? You and I know the answer to that.

But they wouldn't be the ones we would talk about with rapists. What of the minority that do?

And you also qualify again by saying, "When you're on the receiving end of rape you know that the intent is not to have great sex." Whether the sex is great, by most standards, is irrelevant. Whether sex was part of the intent is the question. If the rapist can get and keep an erection from it, then the sex the he got was as good as he needed it to be. Perhaps the rapist doesn't need great sex (because that's fulfilled in a relationship) or has given up on getting it and settles for just sex.

And really, if it were all about power, I would think that most rapes would involve using implements. That would seem a bit easier at least in many circumstances. I can't imagine keeping an erection during a rape. The very fact that they do, says something.

I agree with Odin, and I disagree with the majority on this. There's something else going on there besides just power. A person's genes manipulate emotions to create reproduction. If they have to do it by making the person feel powerful, then they'll mix the right emotional cocktail to do it.

Rape is rape. Period.

Sometimes if a woman says no because she changes her mind the man will force her to have sex. It's still rape because men who aren't rapists will stop, even in the throes of sex, great or not.

Sex and power can certainly work side by side, and it seems to me serial killers, at least many, get sexual gratification out of what they do. I can't think of another reason to rape a corpse (Yeah, I know that's gross). I mean, there's nothing there left to subjugate.

You don't know exactly why some men stop and some don't. Naming "power" as the reason, while a brain has a lot of other things going on is still just a guess. Maybe rape simply isn't a turn on for most men? There's a such thing as empathy and sympathetic pain. Maybe they have some sense of the damage they would feel if they continued. Maybe they feel turned on only by consensual sex? Despite studies that we've been quoted that some huge percentage of men would rape if they could get away with it, that honestly is not my observation. I mean, consensual sex is a more successful reproductive course than rape, biologically speaking.

There is power involved generally in arousal and climax, except normally it passes back and forth between the partners, who are consensual. Power is involved, and it's shared, but the power wouldn't be there unless the sex were there first.

Power definitely becomes perverted in rape, but it wouldn't be rape unless it were also sexual. You can't point to the trees without pointing to the forest.

Or there is an attempted rape, then it is NOT ABOUT sex to me. Why should rapists be allowed to define what sex is while the victim has to accept it?

In fact, that would be the only standard by which it should be defined.

Rapist doesn't get to define it, either. I don't think you could trace the scholarship on describing rape as a sexual act back to any convicted rapist. Unless you mean to say anyone who says rape is a sexual act is a rapist. In which case, it's a logical fallacy, affirming the antecedent, and I feel insulted.

Rapists aren't doing the defining. They might have the motive, but other people, not rapists, attempt to describe it. If the defining isn't being done by the criminal, the only consideration should be whether it's an accurate description. There's pretty much no mystery to the victim's motives. They have as little access to what's going on inside a rapist's head as anyone. If your entire intent is to insult the rapist, and yes, he or she deserves it, but don't do this at the cost of misleading everyone.

Absolutely no improvement can come out of that, for victims or future victims.

the woman being insignificant. dehumanized. to be used. her worth. her position in society.

If you have to force someone to have sex with you it is rape. There is a line. It's not even a fine line. All you have to do is ask yourself what your reaction is when a woman says no or tells you to stop. Do you just proceed even while she struggles because you're having great sex? Or do you stop because in reality sex is about mutual consent?

Rape is NOT a sexual crime. It is an awful assault and is a crime of violence. Who, in their right mind (no matter how inebriated) could enjoy a non consensual act with another person? Disgusting.
I have "partied" with women and when we felt amorous, had sex (or made love), if my partner showed signs of not being competent, it is time to stop and cover her up...make her comfortable to sleep. Not take advantage, how enjoyable could that be? It is sick.

have had to endure.

It's always the victim's fault, right? Personal responsibility stops at overactive libido in insecure, worthless men? Isn't that right, Akin? I wonder if your rape was legitimate. . .ggrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!! As for your ex-boyfriend, that loser. . .sorry, I am at a loss for words over this!

I'm glad there are people who stand up against the shaming and denigration rape victims face, not to mention the victim-blaming that is so prevalent.

Rape is always about power in the sense that the rapist thinks he (or she) not only has the right of power over their victims, but also that the victims have no right not to consent. In that sense, rape is not about sex, for sex is something to which each participant, regardless of number, consents enthusiastically. Anything less than that, it is rape (so nagging, and whining, and cold-shouldering a partner into sex - where one partner thinks 'I'd better give in, otherwise things'll be awful/he won't talk to me for days/she'll whine and nag" - is non-consensual.)

In 1982, I thought this wouldn't be an issue in five years.

Is rape the fault of the woman due to the way she dressed? How much she drinks? No and no.

Mode of dress, and level of inebriation are not consent. Simple flirting is not consent, especially when combined with drinking.

There may be fantasies about sex in a stairwell, but that's the kind of act that unless she says specifically that's what she wants, with less than 3 drinks in her, don't do it, and especially don't insist on it. Never insist.

"Justified rape and sexism, racism and pure unchecked greed all brought to you by... the "Republican American Exceptionalism Card... Don't Leave Home without it!!!""

Her story is so similar to my story.............Thank you for your courage!

I became a teenager in 1959, so am obviously a senior citizen now. I have a daughter in her mid-thirties. I've envied the women of her generation being able to live a more satisfactory single sexual existence than mine did. The "swinging sixties," during which I was a teenager and young adult were not swinging for middle American women until the latter end of the decade. Having come of age in those years, I was always well aware that many young men were hung up on wanting their "good" girlfriends, yet perversely lost respect when they "got what they wanted." This was not just your parents' caution to girls, their brothers were absorbing the same message.
Girls who truly acted as teases or "sluts" had many sad issues of their own. Many "good girls," however, had just as burgeoning sexual feelings as boys, which were bound to come out in 'heavy petting" situations with boyfriends to whom they were attracted . The whole thing was a total mess, which should have been solved with serious sex education and safe birth control. Emotional and religious issues still remain to this day, however. BUT, am I truly reading here that rape should be causing men to turn on the victims, for any of the stated reasons ( provocative clothing, etc.) in this day and age? We are truly spinning back to the fifties in this respect. Have the past near fifty years since I was a teenage girl been for nothing in sexual matters?

she's got heart. america's gender culture SUCKS!

I spent years supposedly defebding against this

I know I'll get flamed for this, but please try to read with an open mind. I am a woman. I have been a victim of child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. I *know* what these experiences are, and what they do to a woman.

I don't know anything about the woman pictured above. I don't know anything about her specific experience. I don't know if she got violently raped or if she got drunk at spring break and had consensual public sex and suffered fallout as a result.

However, I want to address what I see as a harmful trend. There is a huge tendency to water-down the definition of sexual assault. There are initiatives and ad campaigns that try to convince every female that she has been sexually assaulted in some way. There is a tendency to call any sexual contact that a woman later doesn't feel great about assault.

We need to be clear on what we are teaching our children. Our culture is trying to indoctrinate that straight males are evil for feeling any type of attraction and that girls have to take no responsibility for their actions.

If a girl has sex, and later regrets it, it is NOT rape.
If a guy and a girl get drunk TOGETHER, and both feel desire at the time and make a bad decision to have sex, it is NOT rape.
If a girl feels used because she didn't say no, though she gave no indication that she didn't want to have sex, it is NOT rape.
If a guy dumps a girl right after sex and her feelings are hurt, it is NOT rape.
If a girl has sex, and everyone finds out and calls her a slut so she feels ashamed, it is NOT rape.

Being a jerk and being a rapist are not the same thing.

There are real cases where women suffer ACTUAL assault or rape. No, it doesn't always involve violence, but it does involve more than just regret. It requires either force or an actual imbalance of power (as in a child and an adult, a boss who coerces a subordinate-not when the subordinate seduces the boss, which does happen, a teacher with a student-cases like THAT).

It is not helping ACTUAL assault and rape victims to keep pushing the idea that any sex the girl at any point regrets is rape. It is insulting them and making a joke out of the horror ACTUAL victims suffer.

Most people at some point in their lives make stupid decisions they regret or experience unintended consequences of stupid decisions. This trend to say a woman who makes a stupid decision bears no responsibility for it is just insulting to everyone. Do you think males never regret drunk sex? The same people who want to call sex rape if the girl is drunk (even if the guy is also drunk) scoff at the idea that it therefore should also be rape if the guy is drunk but the girl is stone sober. They make empty arguments about imbalance of power, blah, blah, blah. I call BS. If a guy is falling down drunk and the girl is sober, SHE is the one with more decision-making power and with the ability to walk out. If a guy is drunk and USES FORCE on a girl who says no, then, and only then, is rape.

No, short skirts, being drunk, walking alone, etc are not reasons for rape. But, a girl's bad decision is not rape.

We cannot become a society that teaches our children that girls don't ever have to take responsibility for their own bad decisions, that boys who feel desire are all rapists.

Girls who cry "Rape" when what they mean is "Regret", and those who encourage this mentality, are doing just as much harm to actual rape victims as the rapists themselves.

Why bother?

The definition of misogynistic is not "honesty". The definition of misogynistic is not "calling delusional people on their BS".

I did in fact join just to bring some honesty to this post. Everyone is just enjoying the smell of all the hot air being wafted about on here.

I am for making things better for ACTUAL victims. It is just re-raping ACTUAL victims to tell them that what happened to them is the equivalent of making stupid decisions then shifting blame.

It is not misogynistic to want ACTUAL equality between the sexes. Everyone should be responsible for their own behavior. If FORCE is not involved, it is NOT rape or sexual assault. That includes if you get drunk and make unwise choices.

What you say by saying girls don't have to be responsible for their own mistakes, even when the consequences are hurtful or negative, is that girls are NOT equal to men. YOU are saying they are lesser, therefore need to be held to lesser standards of personal responsibility.

I don't hate women. But I do hate what is happening to our society. Men and women are EQUAL, therefore they should be held to EQUAL standards of behavior. People make stupid decisions when drunk....but, by your logic, if a girl is drunk and chooses to drive drunk and crashes and gets hurt...well, she didn't give her consent to drive b/c she wasn't capable of making such a decision and therefore holds no responsibility for that decision. Therefore anyone she crashes into or who is in the car with her and is thrown through her windshield should be charged with assault and damage to her property since they were on the road or in the car when she made the drunk decision to drive (since, as you insist, is not legally capable of making decisions).

Choosing sex partners unwisely is no different. If that girl would be held responsible and not pitied and excused if she made the decision to drive drunk (even if she were terribly injured), and since any person she interacted with would not be charged for her drunk decision to drive, then any sex partner she chooses while drunk is also not responsible for her actions.

If she is unconscious or says no-it is rape. If she is drunk and says yes, it is not rape.

Simple logic tells a person who sees men and women as equals that this is true. However, our society has become sadly misandrist with the ridiculous idea that men should be held to a different standard than women and that a woman's hurt feelings and embarrassment are the same as a violent crime.