This blog entry is written in response to an excellent blog entry from way back in 2009; if you haven’t already read it, go ahead and read Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced. Go ahead and read it now if you haven’t already; I’ll wait; I’m patient. Skip the comments by all means (although there’s a lot of interesting stuff in them too).
Back already? That was quick!
Now before I start responding to that blog entry (and to some of the comments too), let me emphasise that I mostly agree with it – say 95% agreement – and most of my responses to some extent are saying “Yeah, but you don’t go far enough”. Because some of what I’ll go ahead and say is a bit … controversial.
Mostly because when people say “men” they should be saying “people”, and when people say “women” they should be saying “people”. I am one of those weird people who insist that men and women have far more in common than differences – that’s just as wrong as saying men and women are completely different of course, but that’s just the way I prefer to think. We’re all human.
Yes, Men Fear Assault Too
Third paragraph in, Starling asserts :-
Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. The first thing you need to understand is that women are dealing with a set of challenges and concerns that are strange to you, a man. To begin with, we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted.
I don’t know about most men, but yes actually I do continuously assess the risk of assault to myself. Perhaps not to the same extent as yourself, but probably more than some women. As for curtailing my daily activities, I can’t think of a recent example; possibly because as I get older I’m less inclined to indulge in activities that I used to find fun … and which carried a risk in themselves which even to the younger and more foolish version of me would cause me to think “No, it’s time to go home”. An example from about 15 years ago or so, I was physically assaulted in a nightclub, and because of the circumstances I stopped going there for over 2 years.
I don’t know how many men are as cautious as myself, or more cautious. But some are – I knew several men who avoid walking through certain areas in my home town (in fact the area starts just across the street from my flat). Perhaps they don’t fear the same things, but they are still engaged in risk management.
And if you include assault as a whole, it is probable that men have more to be wary of than women given that the most likely “group” to get attacked are young men aged 18-30 (or something … it’s been a while since I read that statistic). That is not meant to imply that women should not be wary if they choose to be.
Don’t Bug Me I’m Busy
Now I’m veering a little off-topic away from the subject of rape, and onto something that got mentioned again and again in the comments starting with Starling’s :-
You want to say Hi to the cute girl on the subway. How will she react? Fortunately, I can tell you with some certainty, because she’s already sending messages to you. Looking out the window, reading a book, working on a computer, arms folded across chest, body away from you = do not disturb. So, y’know, don’t disturb her. Really. Even to say that you like her hair, shoes, or book. A compliment is not always a reason for women to smile and say thank you. You are a threat, remember? You are Schrödinger’s Rapist. Don’t assume that whatever you have to say will win her over with charm or flattery. Believe what she’s signaling, and back off.
Now this concentrates on the unknown intruder being a possible threat, but many of the comments later on went for the basic respect angle. I can totally appreciate that – there’s something incredibly irritating about somebody sidling up to you when you’re engrossed in a book, and assuming their company is bound to be more interesting than the book. Most of the time it ain’t.
And guess what ? On both of the most memorable occasions when that has happened to me, it has been women interrupting me. Both occasions ended after me telling them the polite equivalent of “Bog Off! I’m busy” with me getting an earful of verbal abuse for not appreciating their innate right to let me know how much more interesting their company was than my book. I don’t know whether my lack of interest was due to an unconscious risk assessment raising a red flag, or that I was just really into the book – the occasion was memorable for the verbal abuse.
No I don’t think women are being unreasonable when they choose to be a bit twitchy when approached by a stranger; neither are men if they choose to be! And any such stranger who gets the “Bog Off” message from any person they approach should be retreating respectfully and not throwing out verbal abuse … or worse.
But … I’m Not A Rapist!!
This is addressed mostly to some of the men who responded to Starling’s blog entry with comments along the lines of being insulted that anyone might think they might be a rapist when approaching an unknown woman.
I get irritated when women behave cautiously around me as if they suspect I’m a rapist. I know I’m not a rapist and that they’re perfectly safe around me. But I don’t expect women or men to be mind readers and know what I know.
When I get irritated I get irritated with the people who are really to blame – the fucking rapists who make all this shit necessary.
Are Rapists Also Sociopaths ?
One of the themes that came up in the thread was whether or not rapists are (or can be considered to be) sociopaths :-
This, however, is just false [that rapists are sociopaths]. Our culture is so saturated with sexism that it is not a stretch for a man to think that women are not “real people” — that is, in fact, what patriarchy is all about. So no, rapists are not sociopaths; they are men who know they can get away with it.
Well it turns out that the “trendy” term for sociopaths these days is anti-social personality disorder, but I’ll carry on saying “sociopath” because what little I learned of abnormal psychology was quite some time ago (just shy of 25 years ago) and the old word is more widely known. Using the WHO diagnostic traits for ASPD (as shown on the Wikipedia article linked to above) I would say that a rapist easily matches at least 3 of those traits. Using a more simple layman’s oversimplification of what a sociopath is – someone who is unable to see other people as people and sees them as objects to be used for their own amusement, you may well see (I do) that rapists are sociopaths.
It is also helpful to label rapists as sociopaths (even if it possibly isn’t quite right in terms of abnormal psychology) to declare them as “broken” – as people who need “fixing” before they can be allowed free association in society. It is not as simple as “men who know they can get away with it” – most men don’t rape (remember Starling’s 1 in 60 men are rapists ?). I’ve been in situations where I could have “gotten away with it”, and I haven’t committed rape.
And it is not just men who rape – women do too! In fact let’s get away with the whole “men rape”, “women rape”, or “people rape” – it’s the “broken people” who rape – sociopaths and rapists. And those broken people can be male or female – let’s not call them “men” or “women” as they’ve lost their right to carry the “man” badge or the “woman” badge.
Why is it so important to remember that it isn’t just men who rape ? Well there are at least two reasons :-
- Every time that you neglect to mention the women who rape, you are belittling the suffering caused by those rapists. Victims of women hurt just as much as the victims of men.
- If every single male rapist disappeared in a puff of smoke overnight, and we were left with just the female rapists we would still have a problem that is far, far too large. I’ve seen an estimate of 1% of all sexual assaults are by women (don’t look for a reference … not only do I not really believe it, but the numbers don’t matter too much here), so for every 100,000 rapes, 1,000 are committed by women. I hope you agree that whoever committed those 1,000 rapes and whoever the victims may be, that it is 1,000 too many. One rape is one too many.
