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AR I think my criticism now lays firmly on the website I posted rather than the message it's poorly attempting to get across.
Personally I'd take them down, have a bit of a rethink and revamp, and come back with a campaign which says what the police actually want it to say and say it clearly
I am not going to lose too much sleep about it though, some people will get upset and that's their prerogative, but I sincerely doubt any actual harm has been done.
Honestly I don't think the responses in this thread have warranted that at all. Thesite has a crazy supportive community. But there is real and tangible difference between supporting a victim, and discussing policies and campaigns. If you mix the two up you end up with bad suggestions for policies + campaigns, or extremely insensitive support. Imagine doctors talking about how they deal with terminal patients. They may say some things which to the patients, could be hugely painful to hear, but they have a professional responsibility really to talk about those tough issues.
It's 100% about context. You would never compare rape to other crimes when talking to a rape victim. Ever. That would be to diminish and un-validate some of their sense of pain, loss, etc. But, rape is just another crime, and in a discursive context, comparisons to other crimes and proven crime reduction methodologies are completely legitimate discussion.
Completely agree.
Shyboy- I don't understand your point about it being me considering it an illegitimate discussion or even crime reduction methodologies? What do you mean?
I find the campaign insensitive and worth scrapping because it can be done in a better way. Not one which lumps 'regrettable sex' and rape together in one page.
:yeees:
Maybe it's you.
In the second part (after my quote) I was replying specifically to you saying you would never come here if you were the victim of a rape, implying that thesite is actually really shitty about rape. Which I disagree with quite strongly and think if someone was looking for support, they would receive it in bucketloads here.
Since we are discussing the campaign, and campaigns surrounding rape though, rather than specifically offering support in this thread, I think people should be allowed to discuss a little wider and bring up comparisons where relevant. Someone in the thread earlier said that comparisons are in no way valid because women aren't credit cards, which is basically a straw man because nobody has said that women are credit cards.
I do agree on scrapping it though, rape like I said is too sensitive of a topic to have any focused campaigns directly about it. You can either take the sympathetic almost-pandering campaign which is very sentimental and validates a lot of people's feelings but has very little real impact, or you can have 'low level' campaigns around peripheries (e.g. 'general advice' on being safe) without address the big R word directly, which may make people think and may even have a small impact, but not as big as it could be otherwise.
At the risk of this becoming I love-in I agree. Regrettable sex is waking up with someone who isn't nearly as slender as they were last night or cheating on your love with someone's who's name you don't know. It's not raping a girl and its not for the peelers to police sexual morality.
What I think they're trying to say to bloke is the fact that you were pissed as well isn't going to be an excuse when the twelve good men stomp back into the courtroom and judge looks sternly at you as the foreman says guilty.
This was on an evening where the mercury was about minus 5.
Fortunately nothing had happened to her, I found her first. To say she was lucky is the understatement of the year because I was on my way back to the nick and made a spur of the moment decision to turn my alley light on. If I hadn't, she would have died from exposure. She could have been robbed, she could have been assaulted, she could have been raped.
Would any of these possibilities have been likely if she was sober? Perhaps, but she increased her chances of becoming a victim dramatically by losing control. She wouldn't have deserved any of these things to happen, but that wouldn't change anything.
The advice not to get absolutely plastered to the point where you will end up hurting yourself or someone else is good advice.
If you choose to ignore the advice and you end up sleeping with someone you don't know, you end up unconcious in a hospital because you've stepped out in front of a car, or you pass out in the street and die from exposure, who's fault is it really?
Humans are at their worst when we're drunk, you'll do well to remember it I think.
And btw, it is a crime to get drunk.
Okay- I'm sorry you saw it that way but I'm not anti- thesite at all. I'm a big supporter in their work. I felt the need to move away from the alcohol argument because 1) I was getting more pissed off and 2) It was evident that it was going around in circles. I think it's pretty clear that I entered this debate expecting at least a few people to agree with me. That doesn't make me wrong, it doesn't make the rest of you wrong. But it gets old pretty soon when I'm having to defend my view for 7 pages.
I found both the analogy of the credit card and the open door offensive. A drunk woman having fun is not the same as an unlocked house, or an open door. It isn't the same at all and it's not an invitation to be violated. I find it interesting that the debate has changed into how intoxicated a woman is, like there is some sort of barometer to vulnerability but agree that a woman lying flat on her face in a gutter makes herself more vulnerable. I just that concentrating on the behaviour of the victim is the wrong way to go about it and gives out the wrong message which is misleading.
I don't think my argument is that it focusses on a sensitive issue like rape because it clearly doesn't. I think it's shit because it's in no way clear about who it's addressing and seems to regard both the rapist and victim equally. I find that odd and insensitive. If 'pandering' means devising a better campaign, one that doesn't collude both victim and rapist into some sort of shared responsability for their actions then so be it. Pander all day.
They're not the same thing but saying "OK, I'll stop drinking now because I want to keep my wits on" is the same thing as saying "I'll lock the door now because I won't be nearby". It is the same as saying "If I go over there I'm going to take my kid with me because otherwise I'd be leaving them alone without someone watching over them". All are ways to make a crime more difficult.
If you go out and get drunk, which is apparently fun/nice, and you get assaulted, you could have done something to prevent it, but it's not your fault.
In my view the ultimate answer to all this, put in such a simple way.
Clementine, sorry about bringing up an old argument if that was already discussed. It was mainly me defending thesite.
As for my argument re: rape campaigns, I don't disagree with you. Lumping the two ideas together is very controversial and perhaps counter productive. My extension of this (which wasn't against anything you said, to clarify) is that the majority of campaigns regarding rape end up being received badly, unless they are excessively sympathetic. By this, imagine the moment from Good Will Hunting that makes me cry: "It's not your fault.". That is so apt and so powerful, and it's 100% validating for the pain and feelings that victims feel.
But I think that's pretty much as far as you can go with a broad (e.g. to the public) campaign on rape. If you start talking about rape and saying 'rape occurs in these situations, rape victims are often attacked by someone they know, often when drunk' the absolute immediately reaction by so many is 'STOP BLAMING THE VICTIMS'. Rape, as a concept, is 'owned' by feminists really, because it's very much an attack on women by men. It's seen as one of the big weapons men use against women. So when anyone other than an out-and-out feminist cause talks about rape, there is a huge reaction against it.
If you get drunk and assaulted of course it isnt your fucking fault. Being sober is a precaution and definitely not 'preventative'.
Of course being sober can be preventative. If I'm sober I'm very unlikely to be involved in a fight, very unlikely I'll stumble into a road and get hit by a car, and very unlikely i'll pass out and choke on my own vomit
It is however a guarenteed method of not waking up the following morning and regretting something you did the night before. Getting drunk isn't an invite to get yourself raped, but if you get really drunk and something untoward happens then I would expect most normal people to feel some degree of regret and kick themselves slightly for putting themselves in a vulnerable position. Doesn't mean it's your fault, but you would likely struggle to persuade yourself you'd done everything you could to look after yourself and your friends that night.
On the rapist front, it still seems to not be getting through that not everyone who commits rape is sets out as a violent predator. There's rape that's non consensual sex, that happens when a drunk horny guy goes home ithba really drunk girl and doesn't take her passing out half way through the foreplay as a clue that she's not in a position to give consent. That guy ends up being a rapist, which he'd never have done sober, the girl gets raped, the starting scenario for which being she got para Eric and brought a guy home to her bed, got his pants off and passed out.
If I was either one of those two, I'd seriously regret my actions. I also think the low awareness of this scenario that the opposers to this campaign are showing proves it's value.
Rape isn't justbabout viscous predators prowling the streets.
This made me chuckle. Haven't rejoined to argue/debate CBA, but I might be the only (?) voice in agreement with you on this advert, not that I've read the whole thread yet - I just thought I'd share my lol at your sneeze analogy.
Oh shit! Arrest me, repeatedly.
You're far less likely to be involved in any of those things if you're sober.
The whole problem with this topic is that whilst some of us are advocates for self-control, others are advocates for doing whatever you feel like because it's your right to, lets just find someone else to blame.
How can we blame someone else for them sticking their dick in someone without consent though? Like, oh shit - I drank too much, that's my fault, arrest me and stick dicks in me without consent? Er no, I think the ideal we should be advertising towards is "Don't rape people."
The fact remains that saying "You should be careful" is in no way saying "If you aren't, it's your fault".