Why Women are Sometimes Responsible for 'Rape'

2/3/00
I want you to imagine two parents, a father and a mother, who, on most evenings, at about 10 o'clock, when it is very dark, send their 11 year old daughter off to the local shop to buy a packet of cigarettes. The journey to the shop and back involves walking along a deserted pathway through heavy woodland. The daughter usually wears a mini-skirt and has a bare tummy.

One evening, the daughter is sexually assaulted by a dysfunctional, slightly sub-normal, drunken male of 18.

QUESTION: Do the parents bear any responsibility at all for this incident? Should they be chastised or criticised in any way at all?

If your answer is 'NO', then I don't agree with you.

If your answer is 'YES' then, presumably, you recognise that adults have some responsibility when it comes to preventing a child from doing something 'stupid'.

It follows that you also recognise that adults have some responsibility when it comes to preventing themselves from doing something similarly 'stupid'.

The responsibility for doing something stupid should not evaporate and disappear just because a female reaches the age of 21.

The responsibility that once resided in her parents should now reside in her!

It follows that were this girl to have been 21 years old, instead of 11, then she would have had some responsibility when it came to preventing herself from doing something 'stupid'.

But our sex-discriminatory feminist UK laws say not! And UK women seem increasingly to take no responsibility for anything that they do.

Now, the case described above is of an 'unprovoked' sexual assault by a complete stranger. And the 'responsibility' factor for a 21 year old girl in this situation is minimal indeed. But it is not insignificant. After all, if the parents of an 11 year old in this situation would have DESERVED SOME CONSIDERABLE REBUKE, then it follows that an adult who had put herself into a similar situation would also have DESERVED SOME CONSIDERABLE REBUKE. In other words, a woman who has put herself into such a situation should take some responsibility for the events that happen.

Furthermore, most sexual assaults do not occur between complete strangers. They mostly occur between people who are very familiar with each other. There is, therefore, some further significant degree of control with regard to the actions and reactions that take place between the men and women involved in them. In these cases, therefore, women should bear much, much more responsibility for what happens 'to them' than when such things come 'out of the blue' through the actions of a stranger.

There is wholesale confusion in the general public regarding the matter of 'responsibility' for what might happen and 'just deserts'.

Typically, the invalid argument goes something like this.

If a man walks around flashing his money - or perhaps leaves a wad of it by an open window - there is still no justification for a criminal to rob him. Therefore, it is argued, that the man bears no responsibility for being robbed.

But these two things are completely unrelated.

There is indeed no moral justification for robbing him, but it does not follow that he bears no responsibility for his ill-considered actions.

Indeed, the law - and the insurance companies - recognise this when they assess any losses due to theft. The more irresponsible are the victims of theft with regard to looking after their own property, the less will the victims be compensated.

And the same should be true with regard to sexual assault.

As another example, if a white man goes up to a black man, calls him a Nigg.r and rudely sticks two fingers up at his face, it would not be at all surprising if he got bopped on the nose. In other words, we recognise that people have some responsibility for the way in which people react to them.

Similarly again, there is no moral 'justification' for getting cancer. Yet smokers who get lung cancer clearly bear some responsibility for what happens to them.

And so it is that if women blithely disregard the real world in which they live, and simply ignore the realities out there, then they are not only behaving irresponsibly, but they should expect less sympathy, and less redress, when things go wrong.

Furthermore, despite the claims of feminists who consistently argue that women should bear no responsibility at all for sexual assaults, it is clearly the case that women, by their behaviour and by their dress, do send out messages regarding their attitudes towards sexual approaches.

For example, if a woman at a nightclub is wearing hardly anything then she is making a statement about her attitude toward, let's say, being touched in a sexual manner by a man. At the very least, she is saying that should some such thing occur she is very unlikely to be very worried about it in comparison to a woman who is not dressed in such a manner.

This is not to say that a man is justified in touching her, but the notion that she has absolutely no responsibility with regard to her clothing and the message that it sends out is utter nonsense.

And any 'compensation' for her as a 'victim' of an unwelcome touch should most definitely take into account her own behaviour.

Dear Harry

In your article 'Rape Baloney', you claim that 94% of rapes reported to the police are false. The main piece of 'evidence' you use to back this up is that only 6 out of 100 accusations of rape made to the police result in a conviction.

Does this mean that the other 94% are false? In my opinion, NO.

I agree, but that 94% is pretty good evidence. Indeed, it is the very BEST evidence that we can get! We are not mind readers. When ALL the investigations are done, 94% result in no conviction.

Where is the strong evidence to suggest that these 94% SHOULD have been convicted? Well, there isn't any.

Furthermore, when it comes to the usual questionnaire research about such matters, we know that women lie about their real attitudes towards sex, about their own sexuality and about their own experiences; e.g. 

Woman Never Lie (academic)

Women Fake Sex Numbers

Unless a woman is raped and IMMEDIATELY after being raped, without showering or changing her clothes, goes to a hospital, and has a rape kit done, she can't prove she was raped. 

In MOST cases, there is no dispute by the alleged perpetrator that sex took place. The dispute is about the **manner** of the sex. In other words, the presence of sperm is somewhat irrelevant in MOST cases.

Most rapes are not violent - they don't leave visible injuries. It's enough for the man to scare the woman, or to hold her down, or to threaten her - unless she's struggling a lot or he's sadistic, he doesn't usually beat her up. And in most cases of rape, the woman doesn't go to the police immediately (if at all). She's in shock. Reporting it - and having to be naked in front of a bunch of doctors as they perform invasive tests on her - is the LAST thing she wants. 

Yes. Yes. Yes. I am sure that this sort of thing happens. But my belief is that this sort of thing happens far less frequently than women making false allegations. And if you had read my article properly you would understand why I believe this. In essence, my belief is that women lie far more often than men rape. And I have a great deal of evidence to support this view.

When I was fifteen, I was raped by a stranger in my town. I was hitchhiking (it's very common where I live, and considered safe if it's within the town), he picked me up, flirted with me, then announced he 'wanted' me, drove to a secluded area and raped me. 

Immediately afterwards I showered - washing away all the physical evidence. Only two weeks later did I go to the police. He was not even arrested, let alone convicted. But that doesn't mean I wasn't raped - only that there wasn't enough evidence.

Aha. I see. So you reckon that men should be prosecuted and imprisoned solely on the uncorroborated say-so of a woman?

Well. I would have no sympathy at all for this point of view. In most cases, this would simply result in far more innocent men going to prison. And there has already been far too many such men.

Some women also claim their accusations were false... when they were NOT false.

Imagine a popular boy in high-school rapes his girlfriend. She reports him to the police. Immediately everyone in school hates her. She's subject to harrassment and verbal abuse. Is it any surprise she decides to drop the charges?

Yes. I am sure that there are a zillion rape possibilities that you can conjure up, but I could also give you a far bigger catalogue of possible situations wherein women would lie about such things in order to profit in some way.

I'm not saying that there aren't women who make false accusations of rape. Those women certainly exist and I believe they're EXTREMELY harmful. They don't only harm the men they falsely accuse - they harm every rape victim. 

I haven't done research on how likely women are to make false accusations But I did do some research on how likely men are to rape.

A few findings:

"Research indicates that 25% to 30% of male college students in the United States and Canada admit that there is some likelihood they would rape a woman if they could get away with it."

"In the first study of males' self-reported likelihood to rape that was conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles, the word rape was not used; instead, an account of rape (described below) was read to the male subjects, of whom 53% said there was some likelihood that they would behave in the same fashion as the man described in the story ...

Yawn.

The most popular sexual fantasy among women is ... yes, you've guessed it ... RAPE! (e.g. see my piece Women Love Manga). As such, one could, presumably, conclude that women encourage rape and yearn for it. Indeed, we could actually conclude that rape is fun for most women.

But what people say they would want, or would do, is usually very different from what they would undertake in reality.

If such a high percentage of men admit that they would rape a woman if they knew they wouldn't be caught... then why is it not likely that 1/4 women are sexually abused at some point?

Because fantasy and reality are different.

I repeat; one could conclude from women's fantasies that women who are raped, love it. 

You can conclude nothing of value from piffling simplistic questionnaires - especially when they relate to hypothetical situations.

Furthermore, men and women largely view hypothetical situations - e.g. fantasies - in a completely different way to reality. For example, my guess would be that the majority of women whose pictures are salivated over by men would be of no actual interest to them in real life. Not because these women are unattractive 'intrinsically', but because they would be unattractive - in real life - to the majority of men who, nevertheless, found them attractive in pictures.

Men have loads of fantasies to do with overpowering women and having their wicked ways with them. And the rubbish research that you quoted above has simply tapped into these fantasies and twisted them into some male-bashing propaganda.

Men are simply being honest and saying, Yes, I could see myself enjoying/doing that.

But if those oily researchers had bothered to ask women about the very same situations then they would have found that many women felt exactly the same way as the men. 

(But, of course, they would never have dared to publish such results, because to do so would end their feminist careers.)

Wake.

Up.

Woman.

Another problem I had with your site was your article Women are Sometimes Responsible for What Happens in Cases of Rape.

Are you talking about fault... or responsibility?

If a woman goes to a party wearing a very short skirt and flirting with everyone, then goes with a man to a secluded area and makes out with him, and he rapes her... it's quite possible she could've prevented that. She put herself in an unsafe position.

But does she deserve to be rebuked? She was raped... is being raped not 'punishment' enough for her behavior? Did she somehow FORCE the man to rape her? No - HE chose to rape her.

You are purposefully oversimplifying the typical 'rape' situation. Nevertheless, my point in that article was that if women behave stupidly, then they deserve less sympathy should something untoward happen. And if, for example, they wander about the place showing off all their bits then they should not be too surprised to find that some mentally dysfunctional male might respond to them. And the fact that women know that such unhappy events are more likely to occur if they are sexually provocative then the fact that they carry on regardless suggests that they are not very concerned about such events. That is the message that they are sending out.

As such, the law should reflect this lesser concern - this message -  when deciding what level of negative impact any assault might have had, AND when deciding any punishment. As it is, women seem to argue that even the most trivial of 'assaults' - no matter how gentle - is the equivalent of death! And, further, that this is true for every woman in every circumstance.

This is blatantly preposterous.

And are you telling me that when, for example, a woman sits with her legs apart it makes no difference to her 'message' whether she is wearing a short skirt and thongs or a pair of trousers?

Surely not.

In other words, you would agree that her clothing might colour her message. Well, if this is the case, then her clothing is 'relevant'.

If a man wanders alone into a dangerous area where gangs are known to operate, and is brutally beaten... should he be told it's his fault because he shouldn't have been acting so unsafely?

If a man knows that he is doing something that is likely to lead to an unhappy circumstance, then he deserves less sympathy should that unhappy circumstance arise.

People must bear some responsibility for the outcomes of their actions. This is the only way in which the world can operate properly. 

Indeed, insurance companies will not insure your goods if you do not take proper care to secure them. And I imagine that if you keep going up to black men and tweaking them on the nose and saying Hi Nig###, I doubt that any judge will be very sympathetic towards you over the occasional beatings that you might receive. He will assume that you bear some responsibility for what has happened to you. And, in my view, the same should be true when it comes to matters of sex-assault.

It is all a question of degree.

Many women, however, seem to wish to take no responsibility for their behaviours. They seem to think that they should be able to flaunt their sexuality all over the place - in order to incite men - and then they think that they have the right to claim that they are victims when some men respond to them in a manner which is absolutely consistent with the message that they, themselves, have been sending out.

In my view, women who set out to entice men sexually bear more responsibility for sexual assaults against them than do women who do not set out to entice men sexually. And this should be reflected in the law.

Why should a woman NOT have the right to wear what she pleases? 

I tell you what; try wearing a Nazi helmet whenever you go out. See if other women agree with your right to wear what you want.

Furthermore, since you are soooooooo concerned about rape, should you not be advising women to dress more carefully, rather than promoting the opposite?

Why are you suggesting that women should wear what they please if you are so concerned about rape? Sounds to me like you are not concerned at all.

Are men such animals that if they see a woman dressed provocatively, they'll have no choice but to rape her? 

That is a stupid question. And so, ...

Are women such sluts that they think that they are entitled to foist their sexuality on to every passing member of the public?

Are women so mind-boggling stupid that they cannot see that flagrantly enticing men sexually might bring about consequences?

What makes women think that they have the right to overtly sexually stimulate men who happen to be in the vicinity whereas if men did a similar thing in response - perhaps with their hands - they could be prosecuted?

When women stick out their sexual organs uninvited into men's vision then this is not much different from men sticking out their hands uninvited for a grope. 

Let me put it this way. You do not have the right to wind me up sexually at your convenience - particularly so if I would get into trouble for responding even marginally to your enticement; i.e. to what I might see as your 'request'. 

Are men unable to merely look and enjoy the view without having to have sex with her?

Another stupid question. And so, ...

Many men do not enjoy the view. They do not like being sexually harassed. And my guess - and it is only a guess - is that in some instances where strangers rape provocatively-dressed women, they are doing so in order to teach them a lesson of some sorts. They are saying, "Stop fu#cking around with my private and personal emotions." They are saying, "I see. So you want to turn me on without my permission, eh? Then let's see how you like it."

My guess is that they also do not like being taunted and provoked. They do not like 'sluts' continually dangling their juicy bits in front of them and saying, "But you can't have them," any more than you would like men dangling $10,000 bills in front of your nose wherever you go and saying, "Sorry, Honey, you aren't good looking enough for this kind of money."

Indeed, many men that I know are angered by the way in which women purposely provoke them by their clothing. And they are not prudes. They are not anti-porn, or anti-wild sex, and what have you, but they do not want unattainable sexually-provocative women stuck in their faces uninvited. And they feel offended by women who do such things.

Is it only women who can be offended in today's society?

Are men not permitted to feel offended?

Besides which, I know many women who do not appreciate the presence of sexually-provocative women in their midst.

Furthermore, we all have to accept that in order to safeguard our liberties, we have to tolerate many dysfunctional and/or unstable beings in our society, as well as those who are temporarily 'unbalanced' - for one reason or another. The alternative, in practice, is truly horrible. And, of course, some 20% of males have very low IQs. As such, I think that women are - as seems typical these days - being incredibly selfish if they believe that they are entitled to swirl up the passions of whomsoever they wish and then escape all responsibility for any negative consequences that might arise from ending up with the wrong kind of attention.

In a nutshell: People who go out of their way to provoke "an attack" are less deserving - should an attack materialise - than those who do not.

Most people would agree with this.

But western women see themselves as so superior that they think they should be above such things. And they think that they should be able to provoke men - all men - as much as they like - and then take no responsibility. 

(And this is true not just in the area of sex. It is true in many other areas.)

But their own behaviour must be taken into account.

And, take it from me, it soon will be!

Thank you for your email.

Best wishes

Harry