We all know that women and girls can wear anything from sweats to a cocktail dress and be raped. So is there truly any validity to the belief that what a woman wears will increase her chances of being raped?
There are those that believe that rape is about power and those that believe it's more about sex, or more perhaps unhealthy sexual urges. Because of the latter belief, people believe that if a woman dresses a certain way, whatever that may be, that a certain male sect of the population would target her for rape. Or something like that.
Here's what I think. If someone's planning on raping you, they're going to do it regardless of what you wear. With that being said, unlike the belief that rape is only about power, I see it as being both about power and about warped/uncontrolled sexual desires. So is it possible for a rapist to see someone wearing something sexy/flattering and be turned on to the point of wanting to rape them? Yeah I think so...but a pair of skinny jeans and a nice shirt can be seen a sexy, so can a professional pencil skirt or a nice turtleneck. Does this mean that women should not wear cute skinny jeans, a flattering top out in public, or heck wear workout outfits while jogging (or even jog outside), out of fear of attracting the wrong attention?
Absolutely not. That's like saying that we shouldn't EVER carry around expensive purses or wear expensive jewelry out in public - AT ALL -, out of constant fear of being robbed.
Something else I want to touch on.
All this talk of how women shouldn't go off with strange men...what makes a guy a "strange man"? Many rapes and sexual assaults occur by someone the victim knows so I wouldn't think they would be considered "strange". So what is a "strange man", one you don't know? In that case any guy you don't know that well or just met is "strange", which is funny considering how much guys around the "man-o-sphere" hate how females (to them) throw around the word "creepy" when referring to guys they aren't attracted to, who tries to hit on them or stare at them a little too long (God forbid, guys are called creepy because they act, well...obviously creepy).
Look, I'm for taking precautions, but there's that and there's this ever ending list of reasons why you were raped or risks of being raped that's brought up time and time again. You know, those discussions that happen whenever a girl is raped that focus on what she did wrong. Even worse are those discussions that focus on what she was wearing. Why even mention what the victim had on or not have on? All it does is insinuate that the victim was partially to blame in inciting that rapist. It's saying....he wasn't going to rape her if she was wearing something else. As if it was solely because of what she was wearing. It also insinuates that women and girls have to be careful in what we wear because all men have the potential to be rapists, which is a big lie, and it's something MRAs (men's right activists) accuse feminists of believing and teaching to the masses.
The ONLY time I think it's OK to know what an alledged victim was or was not wearing is in cases of he said/she said. Like, if the guy being charged claims the sex was consensual and it was found that the alledged victim did go into his bedroom voluntarily, wearing lingerie at the time. But even then, one shouldn't automatically disbelieve the victim.
Hopefully this post didn't go all over the place. Sorry if it did...just wanted to share my two cents, or three, or a dollar lol....
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