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From: steiny@idsvax.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: Women/men and the consumption of toilet paper (Rape & dress)
Message-ID: <178@idsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 01:00:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: idsvax.178
Posted: Wed Jun 26 01:00:28 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 04:49:08 EDT
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Organization: Independent Consultant - C/UNIX, Natural Language
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Xref: watmath net.women:6089 net.flame:10795

>
> . . .if the woman
> dresses in a fashion that broadcasts that fact that she is desirable, she at
> least should accept that she attracted the rape by her manner of dress.  Your
> life is yours to live as you see fit, but if you play with knives you will get
> cut.
> -- 
> Roy J. Mongiovi.	Office of Computing Services.		User Services.

	This is predicated on the assumption that what motivates
rape is overwhelming sexual desire.  Read "Soul On Ice."  Rape
is a violent crime, the rapist does not rape for sexual gratification,
he rapes with angry violence.  The idea that a woman solicits
the rape by he mode of dress is not addressing the crime.   
Rape is more akin to racial violence, and often it is a
part of racial violence, both in and out of prison.  Women
are raped simply because they are women, in prison men
are often raped. They are raped to establish dominance and
protection.  Many states have recognized that women can
be raped by their husbands.   Rape is a method
that extremely powerless individuals use to convince 
themselves that they have power.  

	The idea that rape is caused sexual desire is not
appropriate.  Since it does not reflect the actual real
world instances of rape (you looked so ravishing tonight
dear that I had to rape you), it is not a useful model.  
Besides not appropriately modeling the facts of the situation,
the idea that women can somehow bring it on themselves 
is counter productive.    If a women who believes
this is raped,  she would be less likely to take appropriate
action against the man, being trained to believe that there
is something she could have done to prevent it.   

	The idea that rape is cause by overwheleming sexual desire,
in this day of psychological defenses, makes is seem like you are making
the rapist "not guilty by reason of insanity."  (You know, jury,
he was an all around good guy, went to church on Sunday, coached
little league, but .., well, I guess he had too many sex hormones.
When that little cheerleader went by, he just went apeshit  But,
look, she was asking for it, and  boys will be boys . . .  The doctors
are sure that she will recover her speech almost completely . . .).

	There is a group in Santa Cruz called "Men Against Rape."
If you are ever around here, give them a call.  On of their
councilers will be glad to talk to you about violence 
against women.  

pesnta!idsvax!steiny
Don Steiny - Computational Linguistics
109 Torrey Pine Terr.  Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0832