If it dresses like a slut and walks like a slut, it's a slut

The recent occurance of something called "Slut Walks" disturbs me. It came out of a Toronto police officer's advice that, "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."

Let us leave the rights and wrongs of this for a moment. Let's consider the scenario of the female who gets blind drunk on some coloured fizzy alcohol beverage and hase a one night stand. In the morning she feels a combination of guilt, self-loathing and anger. Instead of taking responsibility for her actions she decides that the casual sex encounter was rape. The police are called in, a man is arrested and his life is turned upside down.

False allegations of rape are particularly bad, not only because men tend to suffer disproportionately, but also because for women who have experienced rape, it moves justice a few paces further away. When a woman cries rape and it was not rape, the biggest damage is to real victims.

So another case goes to court. A woman claims she has been raped. There is a jury trial. It transpires that the couple were seen laughing, drinking and petting earlier in the evening. The woman wore clothes which were skimpy and designed to show off the maximum amount of flesh. Her friends say she was very drunk.

This jury has been convened in the Midlands somewhere. The jurors are chosen according to the system which is supposed to be random and supposed to reflect a cross-section of the general public. Given the nature of the general public, and in particular the concentrations of conservative individuals whose religious beliefs proscribe immodesty, is is not possible that if the "victim" is perceived to be a "slut" by certain jurors, might they not come to the conclusion that she was "asking for it"?

1 comment:

Ed P said...

Always get a signed permission before sex - if she can't sign her name, she really is too drunk for enjoyable sex anyway.
Many years ago, I was raped by a woman whom I had, kindly I thought, provided with somewhere to stay for the night (a separate room since you ask). She was considerably stronger than weedy little me and came into my room in the night and wouldn't take no for an answer. Do you think a jury would have convicted? No, nor do I