Objectifying women

[tavarish]

Even though you personally are not blaming the victim, any expectation for the victim to have to be more alert than men have to be for their whole lives, will not go over well, especially when to do so would be to avoid the very things society tells us we should do, like dress attractive.

Life isn't fair. Personally, I don't give a shit how it will "go over".

That expectation for the victim to prevent the rape from happening is too often used as the reason to blame the victim, even if you weren't trying to do that. There is too much history of, and current situation of, blame being put on the victim of rape for not protecting herself enough.

But it wasn't what I was illustrating. Why would others' arguments be relevant to mine?

In some countries, women are in this day and age being punished with the death sentence for being a victim of rape with all blame assigned to the victim for having 'tempted' her attacker (another thank you to those abrafuckinghamic god believers). The wound is too fresh to women in the world for a statement about how it shouldn't have been a surprise.

The majority of us on this forum don't live in such societies, and I don't care how fresh the wound is. A point is a point, regardless of proximity to a particular event.

Anyways, it's not ever been concluded that sexy clothing catches the attention of potential rapists any more than a loud attention-getting voice might. Or being noticeably short. Or being noticeably fat. Or any other thing that might catch a criminal's eye. I doubt that rapists, like any other person on this planet, have their horniness restricted only to a particular style of clothing. Lots and lots of guys get horny over plain, even 'ugly', women, as proven by how many have kids. Any woman with a vagina is vulnerable to rape. Disabled wheelchairbound women get raped at a higher percentage than other women. Are they extra sexy looking?

WTF? Did I say that wearing revealing clothing = rape? I said it attracts attention moreso than a regular woman, who already gets enough attention as it is. I didn't say people commit rape for the sole reason of getting turned on. In fact, I didn't even talk about any reasons people might do such a thing - I have no interest in it, and it is irrelevant to the conversation.

Even if risk/vulnerability were not being used against victims to shift blame to them, in the case of rape and attractiveness, no measurements have ever been done. It would first require defining what's considered attractive by men who want to rape. Visually and clothingwise this would be difficult to do. The only thing that has ever been determined for sure about what rapists often find attractive is vulnerability in, personality weaknesses like won't fight back/scares easy/appears to lack confidence/low self esteem/won't tell, and physical ones like smaller size than attacker for ease in overpowering. I read this stuff years and years ago though and I'm completely paraphrasing, so I can't cite anything. If true, then a sexily dressed, strong looking and confident looking woman will be much safer than a plainly dressed and scared looking physically weak woman.

So what does this have to do with my text?