Rape - Whose Fault Is It?
 

Today in the news, I read an article that some Egyptian politicians say it's womens own fault for getting raped if they join in the current demonstrations. That made me wonder how people in general feel about this controversial topic.

So, in western society, raping someone is illegal and a rapist may have to take responsibility for that. But do you ever think the victim of a rape has to take responsibility for getting victimized in the first place? Is a rape the fault of the rapist, the victim or a bit of both?

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Victim blaming is not something I believe in when it comes to rape. I don't think a victim can ever be blamed for rape, under any circumstances. In my opinion, if it is a legitimate rape case, the onus is 100% on the rapist. I think it's utterly absurd that in today's society, people are using the actions of rape victims to shield the rapist and defend their crimes and try to abolish the rape shield law.

To those people who will likely comment to tore's question with things like "Oh but if she's dressed like that she's basically asking for it." Unless the words come out of his/her mouth saying that they consent to the sexual action, they are not asking for it.

Agree 100%. What sort of strange society do we live in if we have to take blame for other people's criminal behaviour against us? The idea that the victim should take any part of the blame for getting raped seems completely bizarre to me and seeing people front that sort of attitude both saddens and angers me.

If someone walks around drunk and naked, they may have to take responsibility for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct, but not for getting victimized.

I tend to see or hear the attire and drunken arguments, whenever I encounter this particular topic.

While being completely, leglessly drunk may arguably make it easier for someone to take advantage, it still in no way justifies rape.

I agree with Lateralus. The onus is completely on the rapist. I'd really struggle to imagine a scenario where I would say anything the victim could be accused of equates to a green light, and justifies rape. I don't consider rape something that can be justified.

Exactly. I agree, tore. There was a recent, awful rape/murder case in Melbourne, Australia recently involving a 29 year old Irish woman living here, Jill Meagher. She was walking home, alone, from a pub in the wee hours of the morning when she was dragged into an alleyway, raped and murdered.

As always, when there is a rape case, there were a variety of comments floating around about how it was her fault that she had decided to walk home alone, that it was her fault because she was probably intoxicated and not thinking straight, I remember even hearing that it was her fault because she was wearing high heels and makeup or something (what the?). I agree that it probably wasn't the best idea to walk home alone at night while intoxicated. However, that does NOT under any circumstances mean that she holds any bit of fault to being raped and murdered. She was not "asking for it."

I think some people have strange ideas regarding accountability which they should probably sort out for themselves.

If I was a young woman, I would be worried about getting raped if I joined in the mass demonstrations that are currently taking place in Egypt because a lot of women are getting raped there. But just because it seems a good idea not to place yourself in a potentially dangerous situation does not mean that you are in any way to be held accountable when people commit crimes against you.

If you open a store, you risk getting robbed. But you're not the one who should be held accountable if it happens!

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Exactly. The way some people talk about rape victims is sickening. :mad:

this is easy, it's never the victims fault contrary to the belief of those that tend to victim blame

The only way it can be the 'victims' fault I'd say would be in some individual cases where you have a 16ish year old having consensual sex with someone a few years older since that is technically rape. I am sure this topic will be filled with the same type of comments. I dont think hardly anyone in the western, civilized world would blame a rape victim for 'asking for it' because of the clothes they wear or whatever.

There's probably a good amount of drunk sex that goes on that gets reported as rape which i think is bull****.

I'm not sure legally of how rape is defined, but I do remember years ago in a college course a professor explaining the different meanings of rape. I believe if someone says 'no' at any point in the evening and sex occurs later it could be rape. Like a women saying no then changing her mind with her husband or something. Maybe that was an extreme example he was tying to make at the time.

Not to go too off-topic but there is definitely a big problem with the legality (or maybe it's common courtesy) of publishing names of victims and accusers. It has always been surprising to me that everyone would like the victim's name protected, yet I see accused rapists names all over the paper although they haven't been convicted of anything. I feel like false reports should carry a heavy sentence as well.

I can't seem to find it right now but that recent Ohio case had a shit load of people on twitter doing just exactly that.

There is like a tumblr feed or just a website that has a collection of awful tweets like that collected.

I'm not big on tweets being used as an indicator of the majority. One of my favorite websites always does screen caps of tweets after major events and there are always racist/homophobic/sexist comments depending on the context. The thought that idiots have social media shouldn't be a surprise to anyone but it's still an incredibly small percentage of people.

I didn't really understand the Steubenville rape case. I guess some football players raped a drunk girl but the controversy was people were defending the football players?? I'm not sure, I just saw a lot of reddit outrage about it.