How much responsibility does the victim hold?

The person commiting the crime is 100% responsible for that crime. Though some victims made choices to be where and when the crime occured and many times the vitim knows the perp.

The victim, deserves none of the blame. In a truly honest society a man should be able to walk through town with $20 bills hanging out, without risk of being robbed. A woman should be able to walk nude in public without being raped.

People like to feel as if they’re in control of what happens to them at all times, when in reality, one can’t control someone else’s behaviour. One can only control their own behaviour and their own response to outside forces.

It’s as if saying such things is a mantra against their own potential of coming to harm by circumstances beyond their control.

The victim isn’t responsible at all. If I want to go to a bad neighborhood, because I heard there was a good restaurant there, I’m going to go and I shouldn’t expect to be mugged.

@Blackberry It is called a bad neighborhood for a reason. Bad things happen there. You have to expect to get mugged and more. You go there at your own risk.

Not that it should be like that but it is like that.

The victim deserves no blame.

This is why I leave my car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, I store my cash and valuables on my front stoop and I insist my girlfriend travels by foot nude after midnight.

You should all move here. The unicorns are awesome.

No, the victim should not be blamed for the crime. But it can be pointed out that she made a bad decision going where she went if she knew the risks. That’s doesn’t make her responsible for the crime, just not very smart.

In situations where the victim intentionally put themselves in harms way, then they are responsible for that action.

Don’t stick your hand in the lions cage Johnny. Don’t touch the hot oven door Johnny. Use your freaking brain Johnny to lower the odds of being harmed.

Johnny loses finger, shall we blame the lion, the oven?

The same responsibility should be put upon anyone who puts themselves in questionable circumstances. I would not condone violence against me if I went to scream “niggar” in gangland. Upon getting my head bashed in, I would wager that some of you would tell me that I got exactly what I deserved. I would wager that some of you would tell me that I should have known better.

Violence against a rape victim is never never ever to be justified by the actions of the victim. But if the victim intentionally put themselves amidst environments that increase the odds, and knowingly does so, and even goes to the extreme of dressing the part to encourage such violence against them, then we have every right to advise that victim that had they been more thoughtful, then the potential of violence against them could have been much less.

This argument spans every notion confronting humanity… from smokers who blame tobacco companies to drug addicts who blame pushers. Society has a right to expect rational decisions from otherwise law abiding citizens.

The victim deserves no blame. If any of those things were the victim’s fault, then naturally the only faultless behavior would be to never cross a street, never drive, never socialize, never meet new people, take no risks, and stay inside all the time. What kind of life is that?

I believe that the basis of victim blaming is fear. People don’t want to accept that they don’t have control over everything that happens, that there is no sure-fire way to make sure they never get seriously hurt, and they don’t want to accept that the victim could have just as easily been them. As a result, they attempt to find something dangerous the victim did that supposedly put her in that situation and then say, “Aha! She was being reckless! I’ll be fine so long as I don’t behave so recklessly!” Then they pat themselves on the back and push it out of their minds.

If you walked out in the middle of traffic and got slammed, would you blame the bus driver?

Victims of crime should never be blamed under any circumstance.

That said, If you deliberately put yourself in the way of harm, knowing what can happen, are you responsible if you get hurt? No, but you should know better, have some common sense and avoid potential dangerous encounters and situations.

…why do we do this instead of just fully blaming the people who committed the rapes… Yes, criminals carry 100% of the blame. Discussion that the victim shouldn’t have been there doesn’t make them responsible for what happened to them. But also it’s only natural that people would point out that the victim probably didn’t take the necessary precautions or should have been more careful.

…does the victim hold any blame? No, they don’t. But why put yourself in harm’s way? It’s rather naïve. It’s like if you play with fire you know are going to get burned.

I live in the #1 most dangerous city in the world. There are more than 6M people here and we get more dead people on a normal weekend than casualties in countries where there is war. So we know a thing or two when it comes to avoid putting ourselves in harm’s way. We know that if we go to certain areas, it is not a matter of if but when and how we are going to be victims of crime.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies In your examples above you’re listing logical consequences from inanimate objects, or wild animals. Walking out into the middle of traffic is also a no brainer if you want to die, although the drivers would move heaven and earth not to hit you, but it would be a logical consequence.
In a rape situation you have a disgusting individual who makes a decision that he doesn’t have to make about what he’s going to do. It isn’t a “logical consequence” that a girl will get raped. It’s a decision that is made by another human being.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I would blame the victim in an obvious cause-and-effect situation in which the cause is no fault of another. The bus driver didn’t do anything wrong because he didn’t intend to hurt the victim and couldn’t avoid hurting the victim because he simply couldn’t stop fast enough. Crimes like rape and muggings are choices that the perp makes.

I have to say it depends on the situation. There is a big difference between being a rape victim and being a victim of something like being injured after walking in front of a bus.

Yes @Dutchess_III, you are correct. But the lessons learned by those examples provide the reasoning skills used to not park my car in a dark alley when a well lit secured parking lot was available.

Violence can happen in either situation. But I use reason and the lessons of life to decrease the odds against it. I’m not condoning violence in any way. But we live in a world where it must be expected without notice in the most peaceful of circumstances. Our accountability to one another as citizens of this world is to use our brains to the best of our ability in order to decrease the violence potential.

My gangland example was not based upon inanimate objects. Would you not say that I get what I deserved? Would you not say that I should have known better?

I believe it is possible to invite violence upon ourselves. That doesn’t justify violence. But it might help us to learn how to avoid it.

From early childhood we are taught the lessons of caution. Tales of wild monsters in the woods keep small children from wandering off alone.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Interesting example. If someone goes out to hang out with bears, and they get mauled, are they to blame? Is the bear to blame? The bear is doing what bears do. So surely the person gets the blame for being stupid.

Criminals are doing what they do. As are rapists. Aren’t you to blame if you deliberately go and hang out with them?

I’ve seen a number of news stories recently about animal attacks. Some of them result in killing the animal, and some don’t.

My examples of animals and inanimate objects is only for setting the stage of how lessons of caution are learned from early childhood. They are not to be conflated with intentional acts of human predation.

Human predators act out of their own selfish desires, placing them above the liberties of another person. Animals act out of fear. There is no innate selfishness at play.

I think people are confusing two things here.

Pointing out a victim’s unwise behavior does not equal exonerating the criminal.

I agree with @jaytkay

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Agreed as well.

Ohrally @Coloma? You agree with me even after I made a public request for you to will me one of your geeses?

ohrally…

I was raped and it was not in the middle of gangland. It was at a fucking motorcross event. Did I expect something like that to happen there? Fuck no. I probably would have been more on guard in a bad area and, possibly, safer.

Rapes, assaults etc. are 1000% the perp’s fault.

I’m sorry to hear that @tranquilsea. It should never have happened and I hope the person is held accountable.

What advice could you share with others to lower the odds of your experience being repeated?

@tranquilsea I’m so sorry…I think all women have found themselves in a potential rape situation at least once in their lives, under totally innocent conditions. I know I have. Twice.

I think that the angle of this question is, if you dress like a hooker and go walking down a high crime district knowing the chances of you getting raped are high, do you have any responsibility if you DO get raped? I still don’t think so. Just like a guy walking around with $100 bills sticking out of his pocket doesn’t “deserve” to get robbed, even if he’s in a high-crime district. Both of them are dumber n a box of rocks, yeah, but it’s the criminal’s fault.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies the thing is you really can’t be prepared for things like that without being paranoid all the time. I have right to walk where ever I want to and to not be assaulted. And the sad thing is that most rapes happen between people who know one another. When you think you know someone you don’t believe that they are capable of rape. If that was a possibility then you wouldn’t be with them, period.

I’ve been back and forth on what happened to me ad nauseam. And I did everything that I could have reasonably done to stop what was happening. But the deal was that he knew what he was about to do and I had to figure it out.

I spent a lot of time going through every step that I took that led me to that point and wishing I had the knowledge of what I was walking into. But I had a reasonable expectation of safety. He took advantage of that.

This is why even before all else fails, and all precautions have been satisfied, the ultimate accountability must always be put upon the predator, and not the victim.

We start with that foundation, and from there, attempt to build a society that is safe for all.

I’m sure you have run over your experience countless times @tranquilsea. That only prolongs the pain, and extends the crime beyond the original offense. I’m pleased that inspection has not tempted you to take any of the blame upon yourself.

Yes he did @tranquilsea. He is an ass hole.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I actually spent a lot of time blaming myself in an effort to kind of undo what happened. Doesn’t make sense but that’s what happen as my traumatized brain worked the situation.

Another point I’d like to make is that what a woman wears has little to do with whether or not she’s raped. It’s a crime of opportunity.

That said, there is no shame in reviewing what could have been done to decrease the opportunity. Extra pain comes for victims who do that, and I can’t imagine any other way to face it. Reminds me of Hypocrisy Central not being able to get his kitty’s death out of his head, reviewing over and over what he could have done to prevent it. I think it only proves that you have a real heart that was truly hurt. This stands against the objectification that the predator views. Your suffering beyond the initial crime PROVES that you are a valuable human.

The person who commits the crime is a criminal. Sometimes the victim is stupid. Both can be simultaneously true.

I agree with what @aprilsimnel stated. I think society participates in “blame the victim” mentality because they desperately want to believe they are safe. No one really wants to believe that they could be the victim of crime.

This is one point that I really struggled with. I understood that I couldn’t guarantee my own safety and that is a complete mindfuck as you’re out and about.

We love you @tranquilsea,...gosh this makes me feel so awful. I’m so so sorry it happened. That ass hole.

There are situations where the risk of danger can be predicted to varying degrees—walking alone at night, leaving kids unsupervised for hours at a time, bringing a guy into a dorm room while both are extremely drunk, marrying someone that is verbally abusive, then there are situations where the risk is not predictable. @tranquilsea was clearly one of the people who walked unwittingly into a horrible situation (and I’m so sorry you had to go through that…) It’s not fair to hold her to the same standards as someone who made a decision to endanger oneself.

There is a huge difference between becoming a victim and endangering oneself. It might be hard to compartmentalize because they do overlap, but if someone is guilty of endangering himself, then they are guilty of that whether they become a victim or not. If I drive 100mph and do not crash, I am still guilty of endangering myself. If I black out at a party full of predatory guys, then I am endangering myself—then if I get raped, I become a victim. Two distinct actions. I do agree that if someone becomes a victim, then he is not guilty of the action done to him—he didn’t ask to be a victim.

There is another layer… I had a discussion with a friend of mine who works with domestic violence victims—I asked her how she could identify the difference between a victim and someone with a victim mentality. There IS a difference… she went off her rocker, telling me that there is nobody that asks to be a victim. True that, nobody asks to be a victim, but some personalities are more easily victimized than others, and some behaviors are more victim-ish than others. (To make matters more complicated, playing the victim can be used to manipulate others, then who’s the true victim, but I digress…) If someone has seen all the red flags, understands the cycle of abuse, and has been abused in the past by the same person, then stays with the abuser… that’s another form of self-endangerment—one that’s probably way more dangerous than leaving doors unlocked at night. I’m of the belief that if someone learns self-defense to protect themselves in dark alleys, they’re doing themselves a favor—why can’t the same belief be applied to women who are getting out of abusive marriages? Why aren’t these women being taught mental and psychological self-defense? Why aren’t there any venues for that?

What drives me nuts is the focus on victimizing the victims after the crime, instead of empowering them. Even some forms of “help” somehow keeps them in the victim role. Then people blame the victim and make matters worse. I think if people worked more towards victim empowerment (not victim blame), were more honest about risks and red flags, and upped the safety education, things would be better.

once again… brilliant @linguaphile

@linguaphile So a person can feel guilty about endangering themselves, but that does not mean they are in any way responsible for the crime? It seems like slicing and dicing with a diamond edge.

If you endanger yourself, should you or should you not be surprised when something bad happens? If you are not surprised, and you have put yourself right in the path of a predictable danger, then how can you not have any responsibility for what happens when the absolutely predictable happens?

You can’t think of the rapist here as a person. He is just a rape machine. Or a rape animal. He doesn’t think. He just does what he does. In fact, if it were a machine, such as if you laid down in front of a bulldozer tread, wouldn’t that be your fault if you die? If you walk up to a rapist and say, “rape me,” do you still bear no responsibility for the rape?

Sure, the rapist is responsible for the rape, and a good person would have ignored you if you asked to be raped, but it seems to me that if you literally ask for it, then you must have some responsibility, no? Then, if you do have some responsibility if you literally ask for it, then after that, it’s a matter of interpretation of the signals.

“She was asking for it.” Well, no, you were reading into it what you wanted to see. Even so, unless you say that a person is not responsible for leading someone on if they ask for something harmful, then everything else is a matter of degree.

Ok. Let’s say that I walk up to a rapist and asked to be raped. If he rapes me, I bear no responsibility for the rape even though I was begging for it. He still should have known better than to rape me. I guess we’re saying that people should resist invitations to do something that could harm someone else.

That makes sense if it’s something obviously harmful like murder or rape. What if I invite you to steal from me? Should you refuse to do it? Is it theft if I have invited you to do it? Is it rape if I have invited you to do it?

I guess we’re saying that there are certain things that are wrong even if you’re invited to do them. Killing someone via “assisted suicide” is wrong even though the victim is begging to be put out of their misery.

Does this principle stop anywhere? What if I invite you to kick me? Scratch my car? Punch me in the stomach (like Houdini invited and then was killed by the punch). Steal from me? Set fire to my house?

These things are all wrong and against the law if you do them on your own. If you are invited to do them, are they still wrong? Are they still crimes?

@wundayatta Yeah, a person can feel guilty for endangering themselves, if they did the endangering knowingly. If I drove drunk with a friend, I am endangering both of us. If nothing happens, pshaw, I got away with it. If I hit a tree and paralyzed myself and my friend, I would be mortified with guilt. That’s clear-cut, actually- I gambled and got caught.

Now when it comes to endangering oneself, like at a party, then becoming a victim, it becomes way more complicated. It’s like the guilt I mentioned above becomes braided with the victim status. It becomes really hard to differentiate between the guilt related to endangering the self vs. the guilt of becoming a victim. It’s separate, but enmeshed.

In the case of rape—the rapist is a rapist, period. The victim is the victim, period. A guy should not take advantage of a girl, should not use power to get sex, and should not take sex without consent. (or vice versa) Period. I don’t have a gray area for this… If you’re talking about accountability—the rapist is the only one accountable.

If someone is just a victim, happened to become a victim without endangering oneself, then that comes with a complicated level of guilt already. They feel responsible, want to know why, want to know what they could’ve done differently—it’s a horrible emotion… but then braid that with the guilt from self-endangerment… aww, that’s worse, and those are the people that we tsk tsk and the most.

Another layer…What about bystanders? Because if my friend was being dragged off by a guy to possibly be raped, you can bet I will go after him with whatever weapon I can get my hands on. I’ve seen “friends” just let their drunk friends become victims- they are equally responsible for the rape as the rapist. Maybe that should be in this question—just how accountable are the bystanders?

I just re-read your question, @wundayatta—uhmm if someone “asks/begs” to be raped, isn’t that giving consent, and that cancels out the “rape” accusation?

Thanks @Dutchess_III. It took me a long time to come to terms with that short 15 minutes of time and I’ll live with the after effects for the rest of my life.

I don’t think its that people necessarily blame the victim, but rather they think some times the victim left common sense down the rabbit hole.
Truth is rape can happen anywhere and any time to any one. One should always wish for safety but remember that the world isn’t a safe place. We do not live in a fair tale land.
You don’t see rabbits walking past a wolf. He knows to look for wolves even if he doesn’t see any.
I was almost raped myself when I was about 13 or 14 coming home from school. Luckily I was able to get away from my attacker before any real harm could be done. . He had absolutely no right to grab me, but at the same time I knew I should’ve listened to my mother about getting near strangers. I was told a thousand times and I let my guard down. I never did after that.
Doesn’t mean the victim should be accused. We are only human and some of us are too trusting. Especially young children with no real world experience. Sometimes you can do everything right and still you get caught off guard. You can lock up your house as tight as a drum and still someone can attack you while you sleep. The attacker should always take 100 percent of the blame.

I think a victim can be guilty of endangering herself, but that doesn’t mean that the victim deserved what happened to her, “had it coming to her,” or that the situation was her fault.

I disagree completely with the idea of viewing a rapist as a “rape machine” as opposed to a person making decisions. Rapists make that choice. Rapists are not born to rape.

Walking around at night in a bad part of town is risky. You know what else is risky? Driving a car, crossing a street, getting drunk at a bar where you don’t know every person present, meeting new people, being a firefighter, being a paramedic, being a female college freshman (one of the most common situations in which women are raped).

Should we all avoid all of these behaviors? Should we blame anyone who engages in any of these activities for putting themselves in harm’s way? NO, because people shouldn’t have to fear that they’ll get raped, beaten, or killed if they don’t avoid every single possible dangerous situation. And they wouldn’t have to if attackers, the real people at fault in these situations, did not commit these violent crimes.

I understand that we have to be realistic and understand that these people do exist and take efforts to protect ourselves against them, but that does not mean that we are at fault if we happen to fall victim to a crime while attempting to live our lives in a way that isn’t wracked with fear and cautiousness and paranoia.

If you walk up to a bear and get killed, whose fault is it?
If you jump from a plane without a parachute and are killed, whose fault is it?
If you go into the rapists den (a house where known rapists lurk, waiting for prey) and get raped, whose fault is it?

If in the third case, it is still the rapist’s fault, then I don’t get it. How can it not be your fault if you put yourself knowingly in danger? It doesn’t matter that rape is a crime and the man shouldn’t do it. We’re not dealing with shoulds. We are dealing with the real world. Yes, by law, the rapist has 100% of the blame.

But the law isn’t out there on the streets. We’re on our own. We take risks. To the extent we knowingly take a risk, it seems to me we share some responsibility for what happens. The fact that we knowingly take a risk should not take anything away from the rapist’s culpability. Even if you act in such a way that he thinks you are inviting him to rape you and he does rape you, he gets a sentence.

But you still have responsibility for knowingly putting yourself within the grasp of a potential rapist, don’t you? That does not reduce the rapist’s 100% responsibility one bit. But it is real, isn’t it?

Bears are not sentient and don’t have the mental power to make decisions that go against their instincts. Their instincts are to kill for protection and food.
I already said above that a victim is responsible in an obvious cause-and-effect situation in which no other parties have any control over what happens. I said this in response to the example of walking in front of a bus. Same applies to jumping from a plane with no parachute.
It’s obviously a terrible decision to go into a known rapist’s house. You have endangered yourself. But ultimately it was the rapist who chose to commit the rape, and he could have chosen differently. The victim obviously shouldn’t have gone into that situation, but the fact that the rape happened was not her fault.

I don’t think we need to discuss situations where people are behaving as idiotically as to walk up to bear, jump from a plane, or willfully enter a known rapist’s home. These situations are hyperboles and don’t happen in real life.

What does happen in real life is a woman walked around in heels at night and gets raped and people say she was asking for it because of her attire and her location. I don’t think it is okay to blame a victim for her rape because she decided not to succumb to paranoia and fear for one night.

The reason why I talk about extreme cases is that it sets up a scale of responsibility. If you don’t think the person has any responsibility for putting themselves in danger, then you would have to blame the bear for making you come up to him, or gravity for causing you to decide to jump out of the plane. It just doesn’t make sense for people to have no responsibility for putting themselves in the situations they put themselves in.

That does not mean they brought on what happened in a legal sense. The rape is entirely the rapists responsibility, I think. You can’t get away by saying she should have known better. Of course she should have known better, but that doesn’t make a difference. It’s still the rapists responsibility, even if it is her responsibility to try to make herself safe.

Do you see what I’m getting at? I think there’s a difference between what we need legally speaking, which is why people contort themselves by saying she has no responsibility for being in danger, so they can justify putting 100% of the blame on the rapist.

I don’t think that is necessary, nor do I think that makes sense. You do have responsibility for keeping your safe, but if you take a risk, that does not make you blameworthy for the rape. You are, however, responsible or blameworthy for taking the risk.

I also think that the idea that the woman isn’t responsible has come from a notion of helping her heal. Maybe I’m wrong. But it seems to me that is happening. If women blame themselves, then they feel worse, which is not what we want.

So there has to be some middle way of giving the rapist all the responsibility for the rape, and yet letting the woman learn something from the situation about how to keep herself safe. She can’t just go merrily on her way again. Let’s hope she learns that. In order to learn that, she needs to take responsibility for her behavior.

Does this make sense?

Okay. I understand your point of view much better now, thanks. I agree that oftentimes the victim is responsible for putting herself in danger (though oftentimes, like in @tranquilsea‘s case, people fall victim despite doing nothing dangerous at all). But being responsible for putting oneself in danger is a far cry from being responsible for getting raped (which you seem to agree with, so I’m not arguing with that.)

My point, and I know this is very idealistic, is that there shouldn’t be such horrendous consequences for slightly reckless behavior, because living life in fear is horrible.

I know we live in the real world though. I know we have to avoid some actions, that ideally we should be free to do, because of the potential results of those actions. When I assign blame, though, I seek to assign blame to the people who are the root cause of making the real world so different from an ideal world, not to the people who fell victim to the imperfections of our world. Walking around at night is not “wrong” in my mind, so I really can’t put any true blame on the victim except to say, yes, unfortunately, in our world that isn’t always such a great idea. But the consequences suffered are way out of proportion to the mistake made, and the victim doesn’t need any more weight on her shoulders in the form of guilt.

Right. So we are seeking to relieve the victim of guilt, presumably because that prolongs her recovery? She blames herself for something that wasn’t her fault. There’s a difference between blaming yourself for getting raped, and understanding how you could, in the future, lessen the chances this will happen again. I.e., you can blame yourself for being stupid while not accepting any blame for the rape.

Personally, I’m not in favor of blame, anyway. I’m in favor of responsibility and of learning from your mistakes. You can make a mistake but not need to take any blame. You’re punished enough already, anyway.

Exactly. I think there is no need to impress upon a rape victim, “hey! You did something stupid! You better make sure you don’t do that again!” I think the rape was more than enough to “teach” her that lesson.

But also, it’s not as though I’m “just saying” it wasn’t her fault to make the victim feel better, while secretly blaming her. I think that people who harm other people are monsters and people who get harmed because they take a risk here and there and refuse to give in to fear and paranoia are victims.

I think people blame victims mostly to make themselves feel better. If we can accuse the victim of bringing it on themselves, it seems less likely that it would happen to us, because we’d never be that stupid. It could also be that a lot of people don’t understand the criminal, so they figure it must be something that the other person did. If we can’t imagine ever killing someone or raping someone, we figure the victim must have made it happen themselves, because we can’t understand being the one to commit the crime itself.

I don’t think it’s right to blame victims, and at the very least it’s in very bad taste to try to pin something on the person who was harmed. No one wants to become a victim, and implying that if they hadn’t been so dim as to take a left turn instead of a right turn does nothing but give more power to the people who commit crimes.