“It’s all on their female party guests for not assuming every guy they ever hang out and drink with would like to rape them”

…and what’s great about that is that, when we *do* act like everybody is a potential threat, *that’s* not okay either, and it makes us into “frigid bitches” or (le GASP oh noes!) “humorless feminists”. For a more fleshed-out, coherent explanation of this side of the coin, see Phaedra Starling’s excellent Shapely Prose Guest Post “Schroedinger’s Rapist” ( http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/ ) cause why say it when it’s already been said?

There’s also old familiar party tricks like rigging drinking games to make sure the target woman drinks more, or make her shots full-strength and your (hypothetical rapist) own watered down, or give her tequila while you drink beer.
But of course the rapey dudes who’ve been pulling this shit for generations are never called what they are. It’s all on their female party guests for not assuming every guy they ever hang out and drink with would like to rape them.

What’s interesting to me is that my friend, and the other man who also arrived at the police car, felt totally comfortable reporting what had happened and sure that their drinking wouldn’t count against them. UNlike many ladies who have been raped.

That is, indeed, very very interesting.

No. It doesn’t matter what time you are out at night, it doesn’t matter where abouts you are, it doesn’t what gender you are, it doesn’t matter if you are drunk or drugged; nobody brings attacks on themselves. None of this ‘contributory’ bullshit that you are hinting at. No.

A person (whomever it is) has the right to occupy public space. Saying a particular type of attack is inevitable in a certain area, upon a certain person, is basically a really neat way of trying to keep certain people OUT of public space. It IS a mechanism of control, and it ISN’T acceptable.

And of course, if a woman is raped and reports it and is drug tested, nothing will show up but a high level of alcohol, which will be treated as something she did to herself, not as something that was done to her with a premediated agenda.

In the UK there was a massive furore a couple of weeks ago about this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death–.html

Just incredible…

In other words, my friend was doing what a lot of people do on a weekend – walking through the city in which he lives, socializing, drinking – and was a victim of a random act of violence, by people who were out to do some violence. Much like many ladies who are raped, actually! And while it makes sense to take measures to protect yourself, most of us don’t go around expecting there to be strangers who want to punch us in the face on every corner. What’s interesting to me is that my friend, and the other man who also arrived at the police car, felt totally comfortable reporting what had happened and sure that their drinking wouldn’t count against them. UNlike many ladies who have been raped.

I feel sorry for the drunken guys in Wrigleyville who stumble home alone and end up getting mugged, but I also wonder why they didn’t just wait for a cab.

Allow me, then. Tsk Tsk.

I live in Chicago. The crime rate here spikes in neighborhoods around the popular bar areas between 2 and 4 in the morning. Knowing this, why would you wander alone inebriated through these areas?

When you can take relatively simple action to help ensure your own safety, aren’t you at some point committing what amounts to participatory negligence by not doing so?