Responsibility.

UglierThanMoe · 2014-08-09T03:39:15+00:00

Scenario 1: She drank until she passed out and got raped.

Scenario 2: She drank but didn't pass out, climbed into bed with a guy and had - at this point - consensual sex, woke up next morning and couldn't remember a thing.

In light of both scenarios, "don't drink that much next time" is valid advice and not victim blaming because she neglected her own responsibility to remain in control of herself.

outhouse_steakhouse · 2014-08-09T03:46:02+00:00

I really hate the shit out of this whole "don't teach women not to be raped, teach men not to rape" bullshit, because:

It ignores the fact that some women rape.
It ignores the fact that some men are raped.
It treats all men as rapists, or at best as moral idiots who need to be taught not to rape.
It criminalizes all men. (Which I suspect is the whole point.)
It disempowers, infantilizes and scaremongers women.

Radfems, whether from ignorance or dishonesty, confuse two different concepts: risk and blame. The blame for a rape (if there is one) obviously lies with the rapist. However, women can reduce their risk of being a victim by common sense things like monitoring their alcohol consumption, having a buddy system, not getting blotto amongst a crowd of strangers who have also been drinking heavily, etc. Radfem advice that women should take no responsibility what so ever for their personal safety is incredibly wrong headed and dangerous, and much more about scoring ideological points than protecting women.

Udran · 2014-08-09T08:28:46+00:00

I was a teenager when I first got drunk (drinking age was 16 back then there, in an European country) and, for some reason I don't remember, I had an important amount of money in my wallet (Around $200?). I could stand on my feet, but I needed help to walk or I'd end falling after every three steps. My "friends" discovered that I had a good amount of money and I had a hard time saying "no", so they helped themselves to my wallet and basically paid for their drinks for the entire night, inviting several girls on the way, some other strangers, etc.

They basically stole my money in front of me and I was unable to resist because I was too drunk. These are people I trusted, but they took advantage of me.

They stole from me, they are thieves and while you could argue on some details, I really think they are to blame 100% for stealing my money. I'm quite sure I didn't offer to pay any drinks. Now, if I wouldn't have gotten that drunk, this would have never happened. They are to blame, but I failed to be responsible for myself.

I think that my situation can be linked to this entire drunken consent thing. It's very obvious that there are predators out there, men and women, who will have no problems exploiting a person in a weakened state. When I think about my own situation, how I was unable to say no, I can somehow feel how rape victims may feel in those situations, you're kinda like dreaming, you feel way too weak to stand for yourself (literally sometimes), you see it happening and you don't want to.

So, those predators are to blame 100%, but you owe yourself the responsibility of taking care of yourself. I failed at that. So, they are predators, I was a victim, but I put myself in that victim position. I failed myself.

Victim blaming shaming is a way to dodge the responsibility. This thing is not about assigning blame to the victim. I am responsible for having put myself in a weakened state, but I am not to blame for having been robbed by my own friends. I think the same stands for rape victims, men or women, those rapists are to blame, but you have to assume your own responsibility. I was not asking to be robbed when I got drunk, but I put myself in a very endangered situation.

Unconfidence · 2014-08-09T09:32:42+00:00

I understand the points being made by other posters, but if your friend's son just accidentally shot himself in the face, because your friend left the shotgun in an accessible place, you don't tell him "Should have locked that shit up."

Teaching people to avoid bad situations is fine, but when you do it to a victim of a heinous act, in the wake of that heinous act, it's insensitive and frankly assholish. I don't think it is necessarily victim blaming (although I've seen this kind of advice used as a vehicle for it quite often), but it's kind of a douchey thing to do.

Telling your friend who got stung by a wasp that he shouldn't have poked it with a stick is one thing. Telling your friend who just got hospitalized that they shouldn't have been speeding is another. At some point, it becomes really insensitive and hurtful to give this kind of advice, and while that point varies from person to person, you probably shouldn't push it unless you know that person really, really well. I mean, when we went to visit my friend in the hospital after he learned the hard way that he has type 2 diabetes, we were sure to bring up the way he'd championed beer as the "breakfast of champions", to fuck with him. But he's my friend, and I know he's not going to take that to heart. You don't pull anything like that with people you don't know.

sillymod · 2014-08-09T08:24:33+00:00

It is possible that a person can drink too much, be advised not to, and also be emotionally supported for what may have happened to them.

Our society forgets that the placebo effect can take place for a person who believes they have been victimized - it can have the same psychological effects on them.

That is why we need to shift from a blame-focus for cases like rape to a support-focus. With this shift in focus, we can allow the legal system to deal with alleged rape cases, since it is designed to do that, while society provides support for the person who believes that they were a victim. Alleged victims have the right to be taken seriously, but not the right to be believed, and part of taking them seriously is addressing the legitimate fear that they feel as the result of being convinced that they were victimized.

MemoryHauntsYou · 2014-08-09T13:15:08+00:00

It's one of the absurdities of our time that people think it's victim-blaming to state that it is not a good idea to drink oneself into a black-out.

It's sad that people take advantage of those who do that, of course.

MRSPArchiver · 2014-08-09T03:16:59+00:00

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a0i · 2014-08-09T10:09:57+00:00

This is the whole "Don't teach me to be careful, teach them not to rape" line of reasoning. This notion that what's most important is not teaching people to limit the probability of being raped. The most important thing is making sure we know whose fault it is.

I'm sure that a feminist would tell you that even locking yourself in a dungeon with a rapist, after chaining yourself to a wall, and dosing yourself with rufies, you still played zero role in the result. Because it is never your responsibility what happens to you. No matter how much risk you take on, or what you put yourself in the path of, or how many of your defenses you abandon for no justifiable reason, it's never your responsibility what someone else does to you, no matter how much you help them to do it.

The disconnect is in failing to grasp that neglecting personal security means abetting your attacker. There are always predators in human societies, of all kinds. No one has as much power to save you from an attacker as you do. The other disconnect is the illogical urge to distance women from any personal responsibility, the result of which means distancing them from their own power and personal control. Of course, Feminists also welcome anything that keeps rape fear alive, and we can't let women think they have any power over rape. "Only men have power over rape, because only men rape", etc, etc.

But women do have power over what happens to them, just like men do. The probability of rape is a string of factors, most of which the victim can control, well before ending up in the position of being a victim. If AxBxCxD are factors leading to rape, and A, B, and C are factors under the victims control, telling them to "reduce A, B, and C" is a compassionate gesture. It's not the same thing as telling women "you deserve to get raped".

Don't get black-out drunk, and lose control. Don't accept drinks (or candy) from strangers. We teach kids this all the time -- "stranger danger". No one would suggest we stop teaching children to avoid danger. When someone tells a woman "don't put yourself in situations where you would lose control, be alone without allies, or risk getting drugged and raped" it's not the same thing as telling them "you deserved to get raped". Just like teaching firearm safety is not exclusively about passing moral judgement on people who use guns, or sending the message "you deserve to get shot".

That being said, I strongly suspect that no feminist, or anyone parroting the "don't teach me to be in control, teach them to behave differently" rhetoric, would leave their apartment unlocked, and say "teach them not to steal". No feminist would swim in a shark tank without a shark-cage, and say "teach them not to bite". So, if these feminists care about women, why are they telling them "don't teach me to moderate my substance abuse, teach them not to rufie my beer bong"?

It's your body. If you care about it, you minimize the risks to it. If you fail to accept that basic law of nature, there's a Darwin Award with your name on it out there.

2014-08-09T10:24:55+00:00

i second risk vs. blame. it's not your fault if you get taken advantage of, however it's excellent advice to not put yourself in a situation where you can be taken advantaged of. so don't drink yourself blotto, use the buddy system, etc.

this is what really bothers me about title IX on college campuses - campus feminists are very concerned with punishing accused men, but not at all about protecting young women. it's almost like they want students to get blotto and have risky sex, so that more men will be expelled from campus. just my 2 cents.

guywithaccount · 2014-08-09T22:37:40+00:00

a girl drank too much last night and passed out

The correct response to this is in fact "don't drink so much".

Chad_Nine · 2014-08-09T06:27:05+00:00

Victim blaming is horseshit. IIRC one of the biggest factors in being a rape victim is drugs and/or alchohol. Really, I think more of people could stand to lay off the sauce. This (hypothetical?) woman was responsible for her actions. She chose to drink, she got drunk. Bad stuff happened. Want less bad stuff to happen? Stop doing so much stupid shit.

And a big middle finger to "Rape apology" too. I shouldn't have to clarify that I think the men who took advantage of her are guilty of wrongdoing. Just as she was acting stupidly.

Title	Responsibility.
Author	almostkungfumaster
Upvotes	15
Comments	34
Date	August 9, 2014 3:16 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/2d1i98/responsibility/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/responsibility.1619949 https://theredarchive.com/post/1619949

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