It's not victim shaming to ask: "Did you take the necessary precautions?" The fact that the victim was operating with reckless abandon doesn't change the level of atrocity done to the victim, but it sure as fuck changes my level of sympathy for the victim.
When a child runs toward a busy street the instinct of a parent is to scold the child because it doesn't understand the seriousness of its actions. Likewise when I see a woman walking around dressed in a way that provokes attention to herself in a sexual manner I want to call out to that woman and say: "Hey - small adult-child who was raised in a society that has sabotaged your sensibility as an intelligent human being - hey - you're in danger!"
I'm not saying that the woman shouldn't be allowed to dress how she wants. Nor am I saying that she should have to worry about men's reactions. However, saying that the solution to the problem is to tell men that they should "keep it in their pants" is like telling all women that they should't act like a bitch when they are on their period.
A man's loss of control and reasoning due to overwhelming primal drives (or whatever the cause is I'm just making an assumption there) isn't something that you simply say "turn that part of you off" to. There are broken people in the world, there shouldn't be but there are. Their brokenness is undetectable (until it's not). You can't wish them away and you can't pretend they aren't there. They are a part of your life even though they shouldn't be.
That isn't to say that the only trigger for these people's crazy is the way a woman dresses. A busy street isn't the only place you can get hit by a car. Not walking through busy streets will drastically reduce the chances of you getting hit by a car in your lifetime, but it won't eliminate it. The same goes for dressing "the way you want". Doing so will drastically increase your risk, but it doesn't introduce the danger altogether.
I call a person crazy who would live in the fantasy world of should and shouldn't rather than the real world of is and isn't. A woman is absolutely not automatically blameless when reasonable measures are ignored by that woman for her own safety. No one in their right minds would say the attacker shouldn't be held accountable, but to try to dismiss the thought that the victim couldn't have done anything reasonable to avoid the situation is irrational.
Where does that leave us? Do we need to make laws about how women dress because we want to create a society that is void of personal responsibility allowing us to believe we can float through life like perfect little snowflakes drifting safely through the air? Do you really want those kinds of laws? Really? Think about that world.
My only answer right now is "fuck you". I am so exhausted by you. Fuck you for wasting my time. There is sympathy for you in my heart, but it is completely overridden by my outrage for society. You volunteered yourself for this and fuck you for telling me how I am supposed to think in my own head. "Intellectual Terrorism" is becoming more popular as a term to describe the litigious exploits being used to gradually erode our right to have freedom of thought. We've long since lost our rights to free speech. It's a shame that the only people using the term in this way right now are pretty much the scum of the earth wanting nothing more than to keep their guns and drink their beer.
To be clear I don't blame you, not you as an individual. I blame your people. The mass that you are a part of. You were raised by their ideals and ways of thinking so I'm not sure you really had a choice. You were trained to think just enough to defend yourself from intelligent thought. You were raised to believe that being selfish and self-centered is instead being an empowered person with rainbows and goodness. You were tricked into thinking that you don't have to share this world with other people, instead they have to share it with you. You were brainwashed from an early age, maybe even birth.
When a child runs toward a busy street the instinct of a parent is to scold the child because it doesn't understand the seriousness of its actions. Likewise when I see a woman walking around dressed in a way that provokes attention to herself in a sexual manner I want to call out to that woman and say: "Hey - small adult-child who was raised in a society that has sabotaged your sensibility as an intelligent human being - hey - you're in danger!"
I'm not saying that the woman shouldn't be allowed to dress how she wants. Nor am I saying that she should have to worry about men's reactions. However, saying that the solution to the problem is to tell men that they should "keep it in their pants" is like telling all women that they should't act like a bitch when they are on their period.
A man's loss of control and reasoning due to overwhelming primal drives (or whatever the cause is I'm just making an assumption there) isn't something that you simply say "turn that part of you off" to. There are broken people in the world, there shouldn't be but there are. Their brokenness is undetectable (until it's not). You can't wish them away and you can't pretend they aren't there. They are a part of your life even though they shouldn't be.
That isn't to say that the only trigger for these people's crazy is the way a woman dresses. A busy street isn't the only place you can get hit by a car. Not walking through busy streets will drastically reduce the chances of you getting hit by a car in your lifetime, but it won't eliminate it. The same goes for dressing "the way you want". Doing so will drastically increase your risk, but it doesn't introduce the danger altogether.
I call a person crazy who would live in the fantasy world of should and shouldn't rather than the real world of is and isn't. A woman is absolutely not automatically blameless when reasonable measures are ignored by that woman for her own safety. No one in their right minds would say the attacker shouldn't be held accountable, but to try to dismiss the thought that the victim couldn't have done anything reasonable to avoid the situation is irrational.
Where does that leave us? Do we need to make laws about how women dress because we want to create a society that is void of personal responsibility allowing us to believe we can float through life like perfect little snowflakes drifting safely through the air? Do you really want those kinds of laws? Really? Think about that world.
My only answer right now is "fuck you". I am so exhausted by you. Fuck you for wasting my time. There is sympathy for you in my heart, but it is completely overridden by my outrage for society. You volunteered yourself for this and fuck you for telling me how I am supposed to think in my own head. "Intellectual Terrorism" is becoming more popular as a term to describe the litigious exploits being used to gradually erode our right to have freedom of thought. We've long since lost our rights to free speech. It's a shame that the only people using the term in this way right now are pretty much the scum of the earth wanting nothing more than to keep their guns and drink their beer.
To be clear I don't blame you, not you as an individual. I blame your people. The mass that you are a part of. You were raised by their ideals and ways of thinking so I'm not sure you really had a choice. You were trained to think just enough to defend yourself from intelligent thought. You were raised to believe that being selfish and self-centered is instead being an empowered person with rainbows and goodness. You were tricked into thinking that you don't have to share this world with other people, instead they have to share it with you. You were brainwashed from an early age, maybe even birth.
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