Men too want to believe that women control whether or not they are raped, battered. It absolves them of responsibility for their own actions and those of other men. It protects some men from owning up to their own violent acts and other men from the knowledge that they have, on occasion, been guilty of rape. They expect us to begin with an assumption of trust. Whenever this statement has been made, the response has been similar.
Women take the responsibility of evading attack seriously.
It is a difficult job. The dangerous men are not visibly identifiable, have no distinguishable traits, fit no particular group. We know they can be fathers, brothers, husbands, teachers, doctors. They can be small, large, rich, poor, black or white. The only thing they have in common is that they are men who rape and batter women.