Thank you for writing this. I'm not reading the other comments because I know the majority of what I'll find. But as a survivor, as a feminist, and as a woman I thank you.

"for citizens who feel they are about to be caught up in a violent uprising". I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get that feeling every time I watch Question Time'

I see that the recent riot deaths have faded in Laurie's mind and she is beginning to warm again to her favourite topic of riot incitement.

Oh how she loves to build up the romance of riots and stoke tension and the casual acceptance of "protest" violence from her New Statesman Pulpit.

Editors - Can we please have Hackney Grandmother Pauline Pearce replace Laurie Penny?

The problem with articles like this, and feminists in general, is that they look at the world through idealistic goggles and think of things as how they would like them to be, not as they actually are. The Ken Clarke uproar wrecently as a prime example of their idiocy. He was absolutely bang on with his comments but the silly feminists were practically burning their bras in protest. There are different degrees of every time of crime, why should rape be any different? It is as if common sense has deserted them

"Susan, I see Flashbuck has shown up to get his pay for the day by making the right look bad. Sadly, this means any hope of civil discussion has fled."

I'm afraid that hope was long gone already, on account of you saying extraordinarily offensive and ridiculous things like this:

"So what you ACTUALLY said was that you hate Laurie Penny and that you think women who get raped may be at fault for dressing provocatively or being in a bad neighbourhood. Very rape culture."

"How far do we go? Do we lie and tell women everything is fine? If a friend of mine decides to walk through a neighbourhood I know to be dangerous, should I refrain from warning them? because if I do and something happens, I'll have blamed them in advance?

We can't ignore facts in favour of ideology."

This. A thousand times this. Articles like Laurie's aren't just silly, they're actually dangerous.

"Rapists are motivated by only by hatred and control. "

Nonsense.

I don't know about this:

"sexual violence has little or nothing to do with physical attraction: rape is a weapon of war, a tool of humiliation, power and control."

The divorce of rape from sex has never seemed to me particularly helpful and seems itself to be bound up in a strategy of power rather than telling the truth. To say that rape is not about sex and attraction is every bit as absurd as saying that sex IS about sex and attraction. The removal of rape from sex has more to do with social necessity and politics than reality.

Regarding 'sexualised dress' momentarily, and how this plays in with rape, I think there are several ways. In the first place - I believe in both male and female sexual rape fantasy, blame is part of the technology of the sexual exchange. Part of the charm of rape's erotic function is the infliction of horror and responsibility on the victim - it doesn't seem in the least bit strange that these tendencies make their way into daily language and attitudes. There is a sexual charge in blaming the other or being blamed for what the other does to you.

Secondly, on revolutions with short skirts - to an extent, this too can be read in terms of power. The natural state of being for males in being attracted to women is one of pain - not life threatening pain - but pain all the same. Sexualized dress amplifies this dizzying need and in the hidden language of nature, speaks in different tongues to civilized nicities. 'Civilisation' (I quote the word cos we barely have one) governs how you gain access to the need and as such power asserts itself against desire's fulfillment and generally against the male. By this, amplifying sex on the body of a female is itself an act of power in that it increases male desire as the world continues to stifle it. A ubiquitous and endless 'strip-tease'. Looked at in that way, it seems obvious how rape fantasy is built around precisely that issue. To some extent short skirts are 'weapons of war' and too bound up in 'humiliation'.

In brief:

1- Rape can't be divorced from sex and attraction - the divorce is itself political and power-based;
2- Blame has a sexual function and 'dress' is one method of producing 'blame' - there are a great many others.
3- Sexualised dress can be read as being about power and humiliation in the same way a strip-tease might be.

Susan O'Neill writes:

"For God's sake, does ANYONE reading the New Statesman think it's okay to commit rape under ANY circumstances? No, of course not."

Are you for real?

You think *no-one reading this has ever raped*?

For real?

::speechless::

@ Dan:

"You can inform someone of a statistical reality without assigning blame to them."

I agree with that. Unfortunately it's not usually what happens in this area. "She was asking for it by x, y, z" is still very common, so if one doesn't want to be indirectly explaining to potential rapists "Here are the circumstances in which you can rape and get away with it", one has to be very, very careful in how one presents that kind of information.

'These things don't "just happen" in disorderly situations. These things happen because some men believe that they have the right to police and punish the bodies of women.'

well said.

@MsChin "No, I’m afraid it’s not an obvious factor. Sexual predators simply take advantage of individuals they can exploit. If provocative dress was a factor how would you explain those who sexually predate on the elderly or on infants?"

I never said that provocative dress in particular was a factor because I don't know whether that's true or not. In terms of behaviour: Capable adults can, to some extent, control how "exploitable" they are. Babies are not able to do so and are extremely vulnerable as a result.

And on a further note - given human history and all its natural animality, isn't all this thinking somewhat weak? By this, I mean aren't there just better ways of interacting with the possibilities of death and violence? Better responses than 'it shouldn't happen', 'it must be prevented' etc? I'm not convinced that such a fear of having to deal with trauma makes for a particularly respectable life. Hardly Jean Genet is it, this sort of anxiety?

Please don't wear a short skirt. Wear a burkha, dear. Keep short skirts for the pulchritudinous.

I notice from photographs that women in the Anarchist militia fighting in the Spanish war quite sensibly wore trousers. And they knew what Revolution really meant.

http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com/2011/06/meeting-spanish-revolu...

littleZ:
"The thing is, every comment here that replies: 'But we CAN'T tell people it's safe to wear short skirts..." makes one big assumption- that the myth that the mini-skirted get assaulted more is obviously true. Only it isn't."

Which is why I don't support telling women what to wear. Whether walking down a dark alley, alone, at night will increase your probability of being sexually assaulted however, is a different matter (it's a definite yes - rapists prefer secluded areas to strike).

Susan O'Neill:
"Nobody is BLAMING the victims. It's incredible that intelligent adults still perpetuate this disgusting straw-man argument."

This is a valid point. While there are people elsewhere who do blame victims and that is a serious issue, that is simply not the case here; thus, it is a straw man to say that we are.

littleZ:
" It's not any fairer to say 'stick together, *ladies*'.... in fact, that's far more restrictive. Just think about that for a minute. All females should either assemble in groups, or at least fix themselves up with a chaperone, before stepping outdoors? So if femininity isn't treated as a very serious disability, they can't complain at mistreatment? So we can make strides in education, employment etc., but how exactly are we supposed to put them into practice if we can't actually go to them without assembling in a group first?"

I can't speak for others, but I'm certainly not saying that.

It's about combination of risk:

1) Going out on your own on in a good neighbourhood in the day time carries an acceptable risk in terms of probability of being attacked.

2) Going out on your own, at night, in a risky neighbourhood, carries an unacceptable risk. For most men as well as women.

and presenting factual information:

3) Where there is an unacceptable risk, information should be clearly provided to people about that risk.

4) Where information is provided it should not blame victims, but should present the reality about risk probability.

People should be free to do whatever the hell they like, but they should be given truthful information on risk when that risk is high.

This very article proves the complete and utter disconnect between the real revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere on the Arab Street, and the pretend student leftie squats at St Pauls and Wall Street. A guide on how to avoid rape is more than needed in the brutal dictatorships where rape will inevitably be used as a form of control. The women there will almost certainly be avoiding short skirts but protesting all the same, rather than saying "Sod it, if I can't go out in the middle of a revolution in a short skirt" as Laurie would.

But where are we expecting this in London? Probably, in the minds of the deluded "anti-capitalist" Tarquins and Sophies, it'll form part of the fabricated "police brutality" they like to witter about. In reality, there is no increased risk of rape to female protesters in London and these immature undergraduates are a million miles removed from those actually protesting for something - viz, freedom and an end to fear.

""one big assumption- that the myth that the mini-skirted get assaulted more is obviously true. Only it isn't. Most rape survivors were wearing jeans when it "

If you take the above hypothesis seriously - let's call it the 'InNegative Hypothosis' - then the effect of the mini-skirt as a sign is potentially more dangerous than the act of wearing one. You couldn't really count the statistical cost of that - how much rape is the result of hypersexualisation. Essentially, power creates counter-power.

If I, as a man, wear a skirt, I will likely be assaulted in certain areas - for different reasons, but still assaulted. That doesn't mean it's my fault, but I'm still not going to wear one just because I think some people shouldn't act a certain way. The sad fact is that they do, and it would not be worth my being assaulted to stand up for a normative point. It is completely about risk and insurance. If I recommended women shouldn't wear certain clothing, it would be to reduce risk. A lot of people extrapolate a synthetic point from that, that there is a will to blame victims. I'm not sure that's true.

That should have said no one listens.

Susan: "I wish you understood just how much such idiotic comments undermine the fight to have rape treated more seriously."

And yet, you've spent a lot of time in this comment-thread alone fighting hard to have rape taken less seriously, trying to claim that rape is somehow "caused" by the victim;s behaviour, rather than by the presence of a rapist. You're a rape apologist, part of the problem, not part of the solution.

How many rapes would there be if all women had a .38 or a 9mm in their purse? Time for people like Ms Penny to start agitating for the law abiding citizens right to carry weapons in self defence.

Or they can carry on repeating endless platitudes of feminist dogma. Whichever you think is more likely to scare a rapist.

"And yet, you've spent a lot of time in this comment-thread alone fighting hard to have rape taken less seriously, trying to claim that rape is somehow "caused" by the victim;s behaviour"

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of idiocy I mean. What I *actually* said was "It's never, ever, ever anyone's fault but the rapist." Pretty unambiguous, I'd say.

And yet, in your twisted world of blind dogmatic ideology, somehow you've managed to hear "It's sometimes the victim's fault", despite that being the *exact diametric opposite* of what I said.

There's simply no point arguing with stupidity like that. Which is why nobody listens to you, and why we still live in a world where rape needs to be taken more seriously.

If you want to make a difference, it helps not to be an obvious idiot.

''The Ken Clarke uproar wrecently as a prime example of their idiocy. He was absolutely bang on with his comments but the silly feminists were practically burning their bras in protest''

I think people were upset with Mr Clarke's language. I mean he used words like ''serious rape'', ''proper rape'' and ''classic rape''. I means seriously ''classic'', you would think he was describing a car, rather than a terrible crime.

And that was just your first comment on the thread! Your next comment on the thread both attacked Laurie Penny AND victim-blamed women who were dressed wrong or in the wrong place, claiming that "Articles like Laurie's aren't just silly, they're actually dangerous" - because they encourage women to think of rapists as to blame for rape, rather than women's behaviour?

So what you ACTUALLY said was that you hate Laurie Penny and that you think women who get raped may be at fault for dressing provocatively or being in a bad neighbourhood. Very rape culture.

"... trying to claim that rape is somehow "caused" by the victim;s behaviour, rather than by the presence of a rapist."

The victim's behaviour is obviously a factor in it occurring. If a person encased themself in concrete it would substantially decrease their risk of being raped. The existence of rapists creates a world consisting of areas and timeframes that have a variable likelihood of having a rape occur in them. It is a facile and obvious statement to say that ideally this would not be the case. Until that state can be achieved it's going to have to be up to (informed) people to decide what they consider to be an acceptable risk. These calculations are not unique to rape, but are in fact made in many circumstances.

You could draw a (far) less contentious analogy with talking loudly into an iPhone. People should be free to do this in a public place, but there are places and times where to do so would be very ill-advised. This is because of crime. I would be interested to hear whether Yonmei's arguments uniquely apply to rape.

Regardless, the above still does not normally create a situation where a person could be blamed for being raped. In cases where there was a time and place that rape was gauranteed and an element of choice involved in going there it gets a bit weird, but those don't exist in the world anyway.