http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktRTYNsLtGM

If you actually read his quote, he was referring to a woman's ability to escape an attacker, bot that the clothes instigated the rape. He was excusing rapists at all but was talking about risk mitigation.

He could have chosen to relay the thought in a better manner, no doubt, but his intent was not to blame the victim for the rapist's actions.

My youtube video defends Graham in better words then I could. However he wasn't defending Graham, but a police officer who made the same comment in Toronto back in 2011.

Clothes don't instigate rape; improperly balanced neurons and chemicals in the brain instigate rape - in other words, you have to be pretty damn fucked up to rape someone. Like Thucy, I don't know how that's so hard to get.

My problem with his comments is that it perpetuates the "stranger-hiding-in-the-bushes" myth of what rape looks like, when pretty much all research indicates that rape victims are rarely assaulted outside of their home or the home of their attacker, and that it is rarely a stranger who is assaulting them.

bo_sox, Graham isn't saying its the womens fault, but that she shares part of the blame.

If your half naked and in a bar, there will be a lot of drunk assholes in that bar thinking about fucking you, and if one of them is drunk enough he may try regardless of what the law says.

If you cover yourself and dress properly, your chances of being raped will go down. This is a fact.

I am not blaming the women, that asshole shouldn't be allowed to rape you anyway, but shit like this will happen no matter what, and preventative measures are fine.

I'm not saying ban slutty outfits, what I am saying is if you want to lower the chance of being raped, don't dress like a slut.

Sure, you could potentially lower the chances, but no woman dresses in the morning with the intention of getting raped. There is *zero* blame on her - she is a victim for a reason. That's like saying that if a woman is naturally curvy then she carries part of the blame if someone rapes her because she looks good to some either brainless man or insane man. Complete crap.

@Bo_sox: Just like no person who leaves the door to his house unlocked leaves his house with the intention of being robbed.

Preventative measures to protect yourself could be, for example, carrying mace; telling a friend you're out with not to leave without you, or to call you if he or she can't find you (or to call you the next morning); or a number of other things that women these days generally do for their safety.

But covering up their bodies so they don't tempt rapists is not a "preventative measure", and says something awfully terrible about men that, as a man, I find pretty offensive. Men are not animals who will rape an attractive women that is showing just a little more leg than the attractive women next to her. Rapists are animals who will just as likely assault a woman regardless of what she is wearing.

Stackel +1

Stackelberg: You don't represent every man in the world. I wouldn't rape someone for this, but its a precaution because some men will.

I don't think there is any reliable data that indicate how a woman dresses affects her chances of being raped nearly as much as other factors.

+1 as well Stackel.. couldn't say it better.

Fasces, you're missing the point. Women do not get raped because they wear revealing clothing, and there is no research at all that says men who rape choose their target victims because of what they were wearing. Most research indicates that men who rape choose their victims based on a combination of being able to be alone with them and how vulnerable they are acting.

Let's try this, Fasces.

I could observe that you're far less likely to be raped if you never go anywhere alone with a rapist. Since you don't know who is and who is not a rapist, it is probably a bad idea to ever go anywhere alone with anyone. If you do go somewhere alone with someone who you thought you could trust and then end up getting assaulted by them (just like if you wore what you thought was a safe outfit but end up getting assaulted by a slutty-outfit-rapist), then you are in part responsible for what happened to you.

Make sense? I hope not. This should strike you as a terrifyingly shitty argument, and perhaps give you pause that it is so similar to your argument about "dressing slutty". "Preventative measures" aren't measures which advocate hermetically sealing women off from society or tell women to go to extreme lengths to never encounter or provoke a rapist; they're behaviors and precautions that can help keep women safe without denying them the ability to live their lives like the rest of us.

I do think it is prudent to have a friend you can call in case of emergency, or have a friend check on you, or whatever, if any woman (or man) judges it to be a good idea for them. These are reasonable things which, when they aren't enough (and sadly, they often aren't), don't put us in the really shitty territory of blaming rape victims for their rape.

First: Rape (of women at least) is rarely about just sex. IT is a control thing more often than not and often is because the man has some other issue that normal sexual relations won't fulfill (or he can't get it up without the violence and control of rape). So, no, it is *never* the woman's fault. And I don't agree with what the MP said, but I understand his poitn of view in that he wasn't trying to blaim the woman, just say she should take precautionary measures. He was wrong because his knowledge of the motivations and circumstances behind the typical rape are wrong and we need to educate *everyone* better about what typically drives rapists, but his intent was good. Of course, the road to hell...

"improperly balanced neurons and chemicals in the brain instigate rape - in other words, you have to be pretty damn fucked up to rape someone"

This raises some questions for me. In some places rape is common and "acceptable". Do these rapes take place because all the men have chemical imbalances, or do the rapes take place because cultural attitudes make rape "normal" and "acceptable"?
And if rape is made "normal" by some twisted set of cultural values, may I suggest that biological determinism may not be a philosophical tenet we really want to propagate? How much different is "the chemicals in my brain made me do it" than "I was horny and she was begging for it by wearing a skimpy dress"?

Flem, what area are you talking about? I mean, sure, that's cool, if you want to forcibly impregnate a woman, I guess you could always go to these areas and do it there instead. That's a good plan.

@Fasces - "I'm not saying ban slutty outfits, what I am saying is if you want to lower the chance of being raped, don't dress like a slut."

And if you want to lower your chances of being shot by some demented feminist don't say such things.

I hope you will not stop exercising your right to say things out of fear of being shot by some lawbreaker; and I hope women will not stop dressing as they wish out of fear of some potential lawbreaker.

If you are shot Fasces, I will blame your attacker, not you.

We witness all too often men from Islamic inspired countries trying to control how their women dress. I hope we don't go down that road.

The most amazing part of Germany is that the censorship is either unenforced or much lighter and the dress is either looser or people just understand that they have the right to dress as much or as little as they want anyway. Sounds crazy, but hey, the USA incurs 27.3 rapes/100,000 citizens while Germany's rate is 9.4/100,000 citizens. Yeah, a nation with tons of nude beaches has a third as many rapes of the United States in 2010 per 100,000. Crazy stuff.

Don't forget, TV in Germany after about 10PM goes topless and after midnight goes full frontal. Sexuality in Germany is much more free and so, compared to the repressed views of the US, Germany's open sexuality reduces the number of fucked up minds.

'I'm not saying ban slutty outfits, what I am saying is if you want to lower the chance of being raped, don't dress like a slut.'

I'm not saying ban freedom of speech, i'm saying if you want to avoid being murdered by militants avoiding saying things which will offend then.

Does my comparison fit closely enough?

Damn it Maniac, you got there before me, that's what i get for going offline for a bit; NEVER AGAIN.

But seriously, those who say 'preventative measures' would do well to move to an Islamic Culture - i'm pretty sure the prohpet Mohammed said wouldn't shouldn't dress like sluts for pretty much the same reason.

Of course the pejorative sluts has it's own problems. First the implication that women who like having sex are somehow bad or wrong. The their 'purity' is valueable - in fact it s like buying a second hand car; do you refuse to get a used car because it isn't pure enough? I mean you might refuse to date/marry an 80 year old woman because you felt she was likely to die/develop some terrible illness... But the purity angle does no favours to equal rights.

Men are proud of their acomplishments, and women tend to prefer a man with some experience. Not equal, thus feminism hasn't achieved parity/fairness yet.

But 'dressing slutty' and even being a slut, that is willing to have sex whenever you can find an attractive man and happen to be on the mood, does not read as an invitation to be raped.

That's like expecting a morbidly obesce person to eat rubbish directly from a tip. And you have no right to stuff food into them regardless of their weight.

Yeah, forgot Watershed. It's probably an example that simply wouldn't fit in the USA but it works great there.

*sorry, my OP said lawyer, should have been lawmaker. My bad.

Is this lawmaker of the opinion that the law should reflect this, and punish those who take bigger risks - like it does for drivers who take unnecessary risks??

this site has misogynists hanging from the rafters

almost as bad as reddit

@orathaic - the MP's view do not mean he is seeking to amend the law. Even though his party is the larger party in a coalition government, there is no chance of a change of the law.

@Maniac, thank you for the answer.

My point was that there is precedence - drivers are punished for taking risks like driving while on mobile phones, and drinking while driving is completely banned - though the difference there is that you're likely to hurt others aswell as yourself, so perhaps it is an unfair comparison.

The insurance industry, however, is perfectly willing to increase the amount you pay for your car if you drive dangerously, have a bigger engine (faster cars are more dangerous) or happen to be an age and gender which makes it more likely that you will be in an accident.

Should medical insurers not increase their fees based on the likely-hood of rape? (dress, behaviour, ability to get away, not living in germany, whatever the factors happen to be...)

@orathaic - I understand your point and in some ways it follows the logic that you have to be responsible for your own actions. Many argue that smokers or the obese or drunks shouldn't be entitled to free treatment on the NHS and whilst I disagree with their viewpoint I can see merit in their arguement. However, if you drink too much or eat hamburgers or smoke and someone attacked you for being drunk, or fat or a smoker the blame is clearly on the attacker, you may be able to avoid being attacked if you didn't smoke, drink, eat and stayed at home hiding under your bed, but that doesn't make you responsible for the attack. If I stalked you for using the Internet would you blame yourself for using the internet? We should all be free to wear thin tee-shirts in cold weather, Liverpool football shirts in Manchester, mod clothing in a bikers pub etc. are we taking a risk, yes probably - should we allow an MP to influence our risk - no, never.