from stealthmunchkin

[ewt]

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.
Don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape. See comments for why I've crossed this out.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

If you agree, re-post it. It's that important.

Note:
This goes for any gendered rape, male on female or female on male or FTM on MTF or non gendered to dual gendered and so on and so forth

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

No, X and Y aren't all we have. I have Z, it's called a national DNA database and firm sentencing. It would eliminate stranger rape and many other forms of violent assault overnight.

Sadly there's this thing called the civil liberties lobby that is in favour of the civil liberties of potential rapists, at the expense of yours.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with a national DNA database is that people assume - and rightly so, from what I can tell - that it's going to involve multiple bureaucratic fuckups in which innocent people get screwed around. People think of that possibility as worse than the possibility of being raped, at least in part because they think rape happens to other people - you know, the ones who wear short skirts and walk home drunk late at night.

That, and nobody wants to actually pay any money to the government for anything, ever.

I'm not against firmer sentencing for convicted rapists, and I'd be willing to pay higher tax to support it, but I suspect I'm more realistic than many.

I'm very uneasy about the prospect of a national DNA database, and will remain so until I see other government organisations (local councils for example) run with far fewer fuckups.

[uon.livejournal.com]

civil liberties of potential rapists

By which you mean "civil liberties of everyone".

I speak as a potential rapist, a potential cattle-rustler, and a potential pirate of the high seas.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Not at all. A national DNA database would help the civil liberties of the innocent by reducing the likelihood of them being mistakenly arraigned, and shortening the time it would take to clear them of suspicion if they were so arraigned..

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Not at all. A national DNA database would help the civil liberties of the innocent by reducing the likelihood of them being mistakenly arraigned, and shortening the time it would take to clear them of suspicion if they were so arraigned..

Given that a strict DNA match at a chance of 1 in a million has only a 1/50 probability of giving the right suspect in England (and last time I checked, DNA was not even that clear), but that DNA matching is seen as authoritative, I suspect you'll get a somewhat different group of suspects being wrongly convicted.

[uon.livejournal.com]

We already have a "National DNA database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_DNA_Database)" , so do you mean extending it to contain DNA information on everyone in the country rather than just those who have been arrested for any reason?

I like the idea in principle, but I'd take a lot of convincing that the database would not be open to abuse.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

do you mean extending it to contain DNA information on everyone in the country rather than just those who have been arrested for any reason?

Yes.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

There's this thing called the civil liberties lobby that is in favour of retaining innocent until proven guilty as the fundamental principle of the British legal system. The civil liberties lobby is therefore incredibly sceptical about anything that would give supporters of "victim centred justice" (like Tony Blair, Lord Falconer and $Home Secretary) easier access to potential suspects.

And you simply can't convict on DNA evidence alone. If one person in a million matches the DNA sample, and there are 50 million people in England... Do the math.

And that's without the bureaucratic fuckups and amazing IT record (particularly under PFI) this government has.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Innocent until proven guilty has nothing to do with making it easier to determine innocence or guilt.

I've done the maths, it reduces the number of potential suspects by a factor of a million, and in a case where the police have, say, ten suspects, gives you a spectacularly high chance of excluding nine of them. Then you can also exclude on the basis of age, physical description by victim, opportunity, alibi, geography...

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Innocent until proven guilty has nothing to do with making it easier to determine innocence or guilt.

And the award for missing the point about "victim centred justice" and what this says about the mindset of those setting the law goes to beingjdc.

As for your so-called maths, there is absolutely no point in your database for that. You collect the dna sample from the victim, round up the suspects in the usual way and then ask them for DNA samples.

Therefore it will, if used as you claim, not be any improvement - and will cost millions and be open to abuse. And you wonder why the civil liberties lobby objects?

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

So you would rather round people up every time there's a crime they could be involved in than take a sample of their DNA once and for all?

The award for listening to what you would like to think I said rather than what I in fact said goes to you. This is only victim-centred justice in that it will deliver a greater number of more reliable convictions. It's justice-centred justice.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

So you would rather round people up every time there's a crime they could be involved in than take a sample of their DNA once and for all?

With the current situation, yes. When things change, I might change my views.

It's justice-centred justice.

And if Blair, Falconer et al had been praising justice-centred justice rather than victim-centred justice, I might have a little trust that a highly abusable new system would not be abused...