(November 26, 2014 at 8:32 am)Nope Wrote: What many people fail to understand is that rapists are opportunistic cowards. They wait until their victim is vulnerable. The frightening thing is that we are all vulnerable at some point in our lives so how exactly should I prevent my own possible rape? What would I be taught that I don't already know?It reminds us of the importance of making sure that no matter what the circumstances are, the victim is not to blame for the attack. Advising someone to avoid dimly-lit areas at odd hours is sensible, but it does not absolve the attacker of any of the blame for his attack. This is even more important in the more typical circumstances, where an acquaintance is the one who commits the rape, using factors like familiarity, "she knew what she was doing" and "common sense" as defenses.
I don't think that what a woman wears has much --if any-- bearing on whether or not she is attacked. Rape is a power fantasy, not necessarily a sexual one. What the victim is wearing is likely not to have any bearing on the attack, and may even spur the attacker on; he may feel that a woman who is modestly dressed may be much more traumatized by having her clothes removed, which is the sort of emotional distress that many rapists enjoy most.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould