"Is that really such an impossible to accept or understand view, even if you don't agree with it?"
Really, yeah. I don't agree with you that it's a commonly held view with regard to anything except rape. Take the mugging example I just posted above; when someone gets mugged in a dark alley do we blame the victim? Does the attacker's lawyer spend lots of time in courts asking probing questions about whether the victim liked walking down dark alleys, walked down dark alleys because they liked the thrill of it, and so on? When someone gets murdered do we start asking questions about the victim's lifestyle and whether they did something that made them more likely to get murdered?
Usually no. The only cases I can think of are when the person who was the victim of a crime was also a criminal - classic example being gang members getting shot - or, sadly, when prostitutes get killed (this is often seen as less 'bad' than murder of, I dunno, the homecoming queen). Which is part of the same problem as blaming rape victims.
Rape has a much bigger problem with victim blame. Just about every time rape comes up, someone has to question the victim. Did they go to bars they shouldn't have gone to? Did they like a drink? Did they wear short skirts? It's just about unique. What happened when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused? Everyone started investigating the victim.
I think there's a _huge_ difference between the practical issue of avoiding being a victim of crime - which is pretty uncontroversial and something we all do - and assigning blame or responsibility to the victims of crime. They are completely different things. Are you maybe statistically slightly less likely to get raped if you never go out drinking? Possibly (I don't know, but for the sake of argument, let's say yes). Okay. But that doesn't mean that if you go out drinking and get raped that it is your fault or your responsibility or you are to blame. That's a very different thing and a hugely problematic thing for anyone to say.
The reason I think you have to draw a really clear bright line here and say that the responsibility and blame for crime lay entirely at the feet of the criminal is that if you don't draw it there, where do you draw it? This is another place where there's a continuum, which runs all the way from blaming a victim who's passed out drunk through blaming a victim who wears miniskirts all the way through to the Victorians covering up table legs to avoid inflaming the male passions to requiring women to cover their entire bodies in restrictive clothing because otherwise men won't be able to restrain themselves from raping them. They are _all ultimately a result of the same line of thought_: women are capable of arousing irresistible passions in men, and it is the responsibility of women to avoid tempting men to rape them. I'm sure you'd say that's absurd, but if you don't draw the line at a point where the rapist is entirely responsible for their own actions, where _do_ you draw the line? How do you differentiate between the rapist who rapes a passed-out drunk, where perhaps you think the victim bears some of the responsibility, and the rapist who rapes a woman who wasn't wearing a veil and claims the sight of her face roused irresistible urges? On what basis do you make that distinction?
I think the only reasonable position is that a person who makes a free choice to have sex with another person against their will is responsible for that choice. The circumstances of the person they rape are entirely besides the point. Doesn't matter if they're wearing a miniskirt, in the wrong part of town, drunk, or all three. It is not their responsibility.
"But as far as I can see he did NOT say that; he'd clearly consider that rape and a crime, and I don't see him saying that it'd make the actions of the rapist any less condemnable either"
Well. I have been reducing the quotations down to a single one that's really objectionable, but if you read the whole mail. He posits a whole series of hypothetical scenarios with the question 'Is it rape?'. Which is clearly questioning the definition.
Re: Worst piece of libel on Planet Gnome ever
Really, yeah. I don't agree with you that it's a commonly held view with regard to anything except rape. Take the mugging example I just posted above; when someone gets mugged in a dark alley do we blame the victim? Does the attacker's lawyer spend lots of time in courts asking probing questions about whether the victim liked walking down dark alleys, walked down dark alleys because they liked the thrill of it, and so on? When someone gets murdered do we start asking questions about the victim's lifestyle and whether they did something that made them more likely to get murdered?
Usually no. The only cases I can think of are when the person who was the victim of a crime was also a criminal - classic example being gang members getting shot - or, sadly, when prostitutes get killed (this is often seen as less 'bad' than murder of, I dunno, the homecoming queen). Which is part of the same problem as blaming rape victims.
Rape has a much bigger problem with victim blame. Just about every time rape comes up, someone has to question the victim. Did they go to bars they shouldn't have gone to? Did they like a drink? Did they wear short skirts? It's just about unique. What happened when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused? Everyone started investigating the victim.
I think there's a _huge_ difference between the practical issue of avoiding being a victim of crime - which is pretty uncontroversial and something we all do - and assigning blame or responsibility to the victims of crime. They are completely different things. Are you maybe statistically slightly less likely to get raped if you never go out drinking? Possibly (I don't know, but for the sake of argument, let's say yes). Okay. But that doesn't mean that if you go out drinking and get raped that it is your fault or your responsibility or you are to blame. That's a very different thing and a hugely problematic thing for anyone to say.
The reason I think you have to draw a really clear bright line here and say that the responsibility and blame for crime lay entirely at the feet of the criminal is that if you don't draw it there, where do you draw it? This is another place where there's a continuum, which runs all the way from blaming a victim who's passed out drunk through blaming a victim who wears miniskirts all the way through to the Victorians covering up table legs to avoid inflaming the male passions to requiring women to cover their entire bodies in restrictive clothing because otherwise men won't be able to restrain themselves from raping them. They are _all ultimately a result of the same line of thought_: women are capable of arousing irresistible passions in men, and it is the responsibility of women to avoid tempting men to rape them. I'm sure you'd say that's absurd, but if you don't draw the line at a point where the rapist is entirely responsible for their own actions, where _do_ you draw the line? How do you differentiate between the rapist who rapes a passed-out drunk, where perhaps you think the victim bears some of the responsibility, and the rapist who rapes a woman who wasn't wearing a veil and claims the sight of her face roused irresistible urges? On what basis do you make that distinction?
I think the only reasonable position is that a person who makes a free choice to have sex with another person against their will is responsible for that choice. The circumstances of the person they rape are entirely besides the point. Doesn't matter if they're wearing a miniskirt, in the wrong part of town, drunk, or all three. It is not their responsibility.
"But as far as I can see he did NOT say that; he'd clearly consider that rape and a crime, and I don't see him saying that it'd make the actions of the rapist any less condemnable either"
Well. I have been reducing the quotations down to a single one that's really objectionable, but if you read the whole mail. He posits a whole series of hypothetical scenarios with the question 'Is it rape?'. Which is clearly questioning the definition.