From: woodhous@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: ISO Bi-Fem and Girlfriend
Date: 10 Oct 92 01:18:06 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

williamt@athena.Eng.sun.com (Dances with Drums) writes:
>woodhous@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse) writes:
>>   Do we really suggest that banks are "financially provocative" and should
>>take responsibility for armed robbery because of all that money they keep
>>there?!?
>	To use your analogy.  If banks had G-string walls and kept their
>assets all sitting there in plain site -- 1000's of stacks of money just
>sitting there out in the open for the taking, then -- yes, I would
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>say they are financially provocative.

   But listen to the language you're using! Are you really saying that
women wearing G-strings are displaying a body "for the taking"?!?


>>   "They should really have known better than to...<whatever>" is very
>>damaging because (in my opinion) it takes the burden of responsibility
>>from the perpetrator and places it on the target.
>	You seem confused on the idea of responsibility vs. criminal guilt.
>If I walk down the shadey side of town with 100$ bills sticking out of
>my pants/shirt, and I get held up, isn't the same if a woman walks
>down the same area in a mini-skirt and a tank-top and gets raped?

   It isn't the same, for many reasons.

   Even with the two examples you give, the male who was mugged will
probably we told that they were pretty stupid, but the trial will not
centre on their attire & behaviour. Yet these issues are central to just
about any rape trial. For no other crime is the focus so totally on
the target! (I don't like saying victim).

   A personal prejudice perhaps, but I would also regard being mugged of
even hundreds of dollars to be less an invasion & violation than even
one "itty bitty" rape.

   I begin with the axiom that we are not responsible for the unreasonable-
ness of others. An example I used recently in email - if someone points
a gun at me at fires, does it then become my responsibility to get out of
the way of the bullet?!?


>Both
>are illegal and both are wrong, but *practically* speaking, it wouldn't
>be the *smartest* move for me or the woman to do those things.

   But all I hear here is "come on, it will happen, and if you know
it will happen and it happens to you anyway, well, it's *your* fault".

   There is a societal sanctioning of sexual violence that is just not
made for any other sort of crime. Here in Australia, you will be sent
to prison for more years for burning down a hedge than for raping someone.
What sort of message is that?

   The reason I am so fired up is that is all the rape case & trials of
people I know, people who are important to me, I hear all these things
that you are saying coming out of the mouths of smarmy lawyers acting
for the defense. Would a defense lawyer ever really say "But of course
my client mugged and shot the victim, they had many hundreds of dollars
falling out of their pants!"

Joe.

  / Joe Woodhouse        / I'm just a sweet bisexual...   / Hello, there.
 / Latrobe University   /    (think - Rocky Horror)      / Threesomes are fun.
/ Melbourne, Australia / Music. Magic. Mathematics. Me. / I like cats! (miaow!)
Organization: Junior, Biology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA