Ding ding ding ding ding! That is correct. Yes, everyone should teach their children to play it safe IN THE ABSTRACT, but when it comes to discussions of specific events and we start questioning the behavior of the victim, we get periliously close to blaming the victim.

Steve Gillard wondered if she was intending to have sex with all three of them when she “went off” with them, as if that is the only logical reason she would. I would imagine that she thought she was more safe because there were three of them–what kind of normal guy wants to whip it out and have sex in front of his buddies.

The problem with questioning a specific girl’s behavior is that there is no rape situation in which people can’t find something she was doing wrong. Well, she shouldn’t have been in that street at night. She shouldn’t have been alone with her new boyfriend . . . who then raped her.

Generally, do as Crosby Stills and Nash said and teach your children well, but don’t presume to teach adult women who’ve been hearing it all our lives. Especially not ones who have already been victimized. We know we take our lives into our hands every time we walk outside or spend time with a member of the opposite sex, but we also have to live.

*breathe*
what i mean is, the difference between those two modes of “look over there at the real problem”, it only works as much as you’re willing to see everyone as a person. which is to say, terrorists are frightened, rapists are damaged. does that make me an apologist?

hey, look, that’s not the point you were making.

Please don’t overanalyze this statement. I’m talking about the broad arguments here, not criticizing Ross, comparing rape to terrorism, or anything else like that.

The point I tried to make by mentioning terrorism is that I see a paralell between Ross’ complaint that a lot of men are losing sight of the fact that rapists are inhuman monsters with conservative complaints that liberals who hate the president lose sight of the fact that terrorists are evil. It was this narrow similarity (which I previously summed up as “Have you forgotten who the real villains are here?”) that I was hoping people would pick up on, but I guess that the overwhelming number of differences between the circumstances of rape and terrorism make the analogy between the two particular arguments a little difficult to see.

That said, good points everybody (except jes5199).

When people talk about rape, they talk about it ONLY in context of the rapist, and the rape victim. If they discuss the larger cultural meaning at all, it’s (almost) never about what the majority population of women feel about rape, but what factors might accidentally cause women to be raped – which leads us back to the subtle and not so subtle justification othe male role in rape.

What we don’t see are presidents and foreign countries decalring that “we” are all rape victims. It would be nice if they did for once.

Terror, on the other hand, is usually described against “us” meaning that an attack against people by a terrorist is an attack on all of “us”. It’s technically true in that terrorism is always meant to send a message.

The problem then is that our very means of description keeps us from having an honest conversation, but here’s the facts: I was not a victim of 911. Neither was Jonah Goldberg, Sully, Greg, or anyone who wasn’t on those planes or in NY or washington on that day.

However, I AM a potential victim of terror. And I think most people see themselves as potential victims. They don’t like to think of themselves as bad people, and therefore, any suggestion that the terrorists have legitimate (at least, recognized) grievences implies to them that the tactic they use is just.

Of course, as we know, NO ONE is suggesting that the people who worked in the Towers were asking for it. And no one would argue that being in a nightclub that gets bombed made the people a target. We’re not suggesting that terrorists shouldn’t be punished, severely, when we say that we want to now why they’re doing it. We do on the other hand want to know just what the hell is pissing them off so much. That way, even as we bring the people who attacked us to justice, we can try to figure out how to keep more of them from popping up.

Rape on the other, not so much. This might be because we don’t see all of us as potential victims of rape, which is technically true – Most men are not at risk and most women are. On the other hand, because of the cultural damage, reinforcement of sexual stereotypes, sexual fear, mental scarring, the horror of having the people we love assaulted, and just the sheer physical terror that affects everyone around it, we are all, in some way, victims of rape.

I mean, GO USA! No, seriously, you know what I mean, I hope.

I guess my ill expressed point is that comparing terror to rape isn’t fair because aside from Greg’s question, which I think is a reasonbabe one to ask, we simply don’t talk about them in the same way. If only rape victims were accorded half of the blanket sainthood victims of terror are. And if only terror was treated with half of the “attempts to figure it out” that rape is.

And if only the victims in each case were allowed to live without being exploited (terror) or blamed (Rape).

In the end, the solution to both is understanding – understanding what we can do to prevent both. And neither point of veiw has to mean blaming the victims. Nor should they.

I really hope this made sense.

terrorism is a myth

I can think of at least 3000 people who disagree with you on that one.