Letters to the Editor
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@haggismold ("as if by magic...")
Interesting link, it (allegedly) shows that women DO sexually assault men, even violently, even if it happens very infrequently compared to male assaults on women.
One thing I found interesting in the article is that of the three suspects arrested, all started off with bail amounts of $500,000, but then the (female) judge lowered the bail amounts for the two women to $50,000 while keeping the man's at half a million, even though from the account provided by police and prosecutors it sounds as if the women were the primary culprits in the incident. And people at this site scoff when I mention the strong pro-female, anti-male bias in our criminal courts! Yeah, what-EVER.
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@Leslie Talbot
Why can't modern men just assume that women don't want to have sex with them?
Good advice, and I'm not being facetious. I've never understood why so many straight men seem to think that straight women out there are just itching to have sex with them. That shows an almost comical misunderstanding of female sexuality. It should be abundantly clear to any heterosexual male who cares to understand that there is a vast gulf separating the sexual needs, appetites, wants, and desires of the average man and the average woman, and that most women have comparatively very little need or desire for sex on a regular basis compared to most men. Most pre-menopausal women have what can be described as fairly strong sexual urges for at most a few days out of every month, and the rest of the time their attitude can best be described as indifference, or at most a low level of interest (and it's been explained this way to me by numerous women, so don't go spouting off about me being an ignorant male who wants to deny the natural sexuality of women or some similar BS.) This is in contrast to the rather consistently high sexual interests and desires of the average healthy, non-elderly male.
One only needs to examine the different gender approaches to porn and masturbation to see this clearly. How much interest do women have in porn compared to men? How much porn is consumed by women compared to men? How frequently do women masturbate compared to men?
Anyway, back to the main point. I agree with you: A straight man would be much better off to err on the side of extreme caution and assume that the women around him are completely uninterested in sex in general, and sex with HIM in particular, unless and until a woman has made her sexual interests and desires for him explicit. Of course if straight men were to do this, given our culture's continued insistence on sexual assertiveness on the part of men and sexual passivity on the part of women, the end result would be that the number of heterosexual encounters would drop precipitously. I'm sure that would please plenty of sexual Puritans on both the right and left!
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@ TheSelfishGene
I think you do have a pretty clear picture of this fellow. But reread what I was wearing. No heels, but sneakers. To make me even less appealing, I was also wearing jeans held together at the waist with a big safety pin rather than the snap because I had lost weight recently. Sunscreen and no makeup. Not only am I not hot; I am not haute either. Upon reflection I had better be quite wary of this man. He is obviously insane.
You said: It's impossible for women to expect to prepare for every possibility or every random stranger; but just like a woman being hired for a job wouldn't wear bust-tight, semi-transparent, bra-less shirts unless she was sending out a "signal", there are some pretty clear situations that women can voluntarily enter or refuse, like bars, and certain signals and expectations the clients of such places have, and which women should be aware, and not act as if these unwritten expectations are completely unexpected.
We part company here. While I don't enter bars myself (since I am allergic to cigarette smoke), I will defend almost to the death other women's right to enter them. Perhaps they merely need a drink after a hard day at work. In other words, women often enter bars for the same reason that men do. (Not every bar is a pickup-type bar.) Having entered said bar, the woman should have a right to get completely plastered -- as long as she isn't driving. The idea that there are public places that half of our population should not enter for fear of rape is absurd. Let's us say that at this juncture our hypothetical woman meets mister-seems-really-nice. Maybe she has even chatted with him before in that very bar. Since she is quite drunk she welcomes his offer to drive her home. She passes out in his car. He rapes her while she is passed out. Should her poor judgment in any way lessen the ugliness of the crime? I say no. I say a jury should be able to hear the facts.
All of this comes down to a somewhat recent trend about young women, who at least more publically, are not really recognizing why they want sexual attention (yet still seeking it subconsciously), what sort of attention they want, and when or whether seeking that attention is appropriate in the context she finds herself in.
I would say a certain amount of attention seeking is utterly normal for either young men or young women between the ages of 15-25. That is why psychologists are reluctant to diagnose narcissism in the young. It is difficult to distinguish normal attention-seeking from pathology. Since this is also an age of high sex drive and even some experimentation with the power of their own sexual attractiveness, it is not really possible to avoid this. To suggest that young women should especially restrain themselves and not young men is too urge women to skip a perfectly normal stage of development. I contend that it is actually bad for people to skip normal stages of development. We have always excused men for sowing their wild oats, but we don't excuse women. I actually think this may be to the detriment of women, producing dependant almost infantile adult women who are not at all in touch with their own needs. Of course, dependant and infantile women are actually of benefit to a patriarchy.
Other women and/or society needs to educate young women about their own bodies' power and limitations - not just teaching women that they have beautiful bodies, and that it's ok to be a woman, ect., but also when certain behavior/dress styles/ect should be discouraged and why.
I don't think men really get what clothing and personal ornamentation mean to women. Maybe dipping into a few books on women's dress at your local library would help. I am not sure that I can explain it to a man (assuming you are a man). It actually need not have much to do with men at all. What women wear is not exclusively about -- but is often mostly about fashion -- rather than sexuality. Men waste lots of time trying to parse what women wear as signals. Often, women are not sending signals to men at all but rather to other women. Oddly, when men actually seem to get this, they resent it. They seem to want to think women are only sending signals to them. In other words, men, young men in particular, want it to be all about them. Why should it be? Women have a right to indulge their own whimsy and creativity in clothing and have it be all about them.
Again, we are back to the author and the reader and the disconnect in interpretation. Your Pride and Prejudice may not be my Pride and Prejudice. You may think a woman is sending fuck-me signals by her clothing and I may think she looks completely appropriate.
Self-preservation is one, unfair and distressing, important aspect of modesty. Every rape is a terrible tragedy that condemns the society in which it happens, but that doesn't mean much to the victim. Sometimes practical concerns and recognition of your societies' drawbacks must trump ideology.
Which judging by your chosen username may also mean that you think that biology trumps culture. But that does not mean that this is as it should be, nor does it mean that this is a circumstance that benefits women. On the individual level, rape happens to the victim. On the cultural level, it happens to all women. It impacts us all. We can cower in fear and make all our choices based up avoiding it, but that doesn't move us forward one inch.
BTW, I can guess you are a Dawkins fan. However, I hope you are not also a fan of Thornhill and Palmer:
http://www.geocities.com/i_sang_holy_holy/article_salon.html