I've seen this discussion around here a lot, so i thought i could bring some insight on what i think about this topic. Yeah i know i'm male an that i supposedly "don't know what it is to feel fear of being raped everywhere i go", but i'm also human and empathetic enough to know that rape is am extremely traumatic experience, sometimes worse than death depending on who suffers it.

Sorry if bad format or typos, i'm on mobile and english is not my first language.

As i see it, we need to remember the difference between prevention and victim blaming. Abuse is abuse, and the perpretators should always be punished, the thing is: A lot of those abuses would not happen or at least have a lower chance to happen if some specific behaviours (like driking alone with a stranger) were removed from the "equation".

Yeah i agree, abusive men are pure scum and should be punished ASAP, but the whole idea about prevention is that it's supposed to take someone out of harm's way, not to blame the victim for someone else's crimes. If you have the choice to not go somewhere dangerous in order to stay alive, would you not take it? The killer is to blame of couse, thing is that there is no murder if there are no possible victims. Also, please notice i'm talking about rapes OUTSIDE the victim's home or social circle, simply because there's almost nothing one can do to prevent a rapist that knows about the victim's daily life and is close to them, to commit the crime.

But why do those people rape? (I used "people" because there are female rapists, but they are much less present than male rapists so i won't talk about them). I actually went out there and searched for studies on the topic, and found interesting ideas and statistics. Basically, in schools, we as a society teach both sexes not to abuse (or what is abusive behavior) and how to prevent being abused/abusing someone, but rapists in general tend to have historic of suffering sexual/physical abus in childhood.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777344/) /\ This is the article i think that explains better what i meant with the last paragraph (look for "Intimacy/attachment problems" section). It links with other studies to say that most rapists (the "normal" ones that do not show deviant sexual desires) experienced multiple adversities such as sexual abuse, physical abuse and/or dysfunctional family relations while they were kids/teenagets. That tells us that whatever effort we tried in teaching those people "not to rape" was thrown in the trash because of bad family background and previous instances of abuse.

It's important to look at the origin of that behavior since:

  1. Most rapists are not mentally ill.
  2. We can only treat a bad behavior if we know where it came from.
  3. If they think it's okay to sexually assault someone, they were, directly or indirectly, "teached" to be rapists by other rapists/family members who abused them in some way

While they (rapists) are fully to blame for their crimes, bad family backgrounds and child abuse cases are in urgent need to be addressed more aggressively, simply because there's no use teaching correct sexual behavior to children/teenagers if they learn something totally different from the abuse they may or not suffer. We also need to punish rapists that already exist, but this should be a priority as big as addressing child abuse itself.

Of course not every rape can be ruled out by eleminating child abuse, but we have to start thinking from somewhere.

Now going back to the main theme: A woman was raped in a party yesterday. Who is to blame? The rapist. Could it be prevented? Yeah, if she wasn't drinking unaccompanied in a place full of people she didn't knew. Is it actually her fault because she could have prevented it? NO, while it is true that there is no rape if there are no victims, we have to remember that there is no rape if there are no rapists. With that said, i have one advice for those who want to hear:

Women, please take care of yourselves. I know you girls can't do that future vision shit to see who would rape you, and that you want to go to parties to have fun, etc, etc. But please, don't put yourselves in unnecessary danger. I know you couldn't know the person you were attracted to was abusive, but don't let your hormones blind you to the red flags abusers tend to show. I know you want to go out and party, but don't drink alone in a place where you know no one. And finally, i know you want to go out and do something without the fear of being raped, but as i showed before, rapists are people who think that sexual abuse is ok, and they will rape no matter what if they have the chance. They need to be punished, and i don't know about y'all, but i personally would rather a hidden rapist than a traumatized victim.

Always keep an eye out, never lower your guard. Peace 👍.

TL;DR: Punish the abusers, but also at least try not to be abused in the first place. Wanna put yourself in risk? Ok, i'll never blame you for that choice, do what you want, but then you have to deal with the succeeding consequences.