by Pat Brown
There have been many very angry women expressing this sentiment following the Steubenville, Ohio conviction of the two high school football players who sexually assaulted a very drunk and near comatose young lady and then proceeded to threaten and humiliate her via social media. There is ample evidence in this case against these young men and that these two creeps were found guilty makes me very happy, Often, in these date or acquaintance type rape crimes, it is a he said-she said situation and it is very difficult to prove a rape or sexual assault actually occurred, that the alleged victim didn't participate consensually in the act. A Montana college student and football player was recently found not guilty because there simply wasn't ample proof the girl didn't want sex with him. I thought that verdict was correct.
But in the wake of these cases, I see a lot of furious women mad as hell about anyone recommending that they should educate their daughters on how to keep themselves from getting attacked. These angry women say, "Why do we have to keep teaching our daughters this stuff? Why can't YOU teach your sons not to rape?"
Umm, ladies, you can't teach your sons not to rape. You can't have a birds and a bees discussion and say, "By the way, don't rape girls; it's not nice."
If your son doesn't know that "no means no," and that having sex with unconscious girls is sick and criminal, you have a little psychopath on your hands and he doesn't give a crap about what you say. You lost him years ago when he was a little boy.
What we all SHOULD be are good parents, ones who teach both sons and daughters to be decent people, - kind and respectful, empathetic and law-abiding. When these children get to be teens and adults, they don't commit crimes. I did not have a talk with my sons about not raping girls; they would have been appalled that I would even have considered it necessary to tell them that. I didn't have a talk with my daughter about not tricking a guy into getting her pregnant and to not stalk and kill her boyfriend like Jodi Arias; she would have said, "Just what kind of girl do you think I am, Mom?"
I started giving lessons in morality and ethics when my children were very young, teaching them not to hit, not to be poor sports, to be polite, to not be bullies, to not take what isn't theirs, to not be greedy, to be willing to share, and so on. I started when they were at the breast ("don't bite Mommy") and then kept them from thinking it was okay to pull the cat's tail when they learned to crawl and grab. I kept up the lessons in how to be a decent human being all through their childhood and into their teens. But, I never had to tell them not to shoplift, steal cars, burglarize the neighbors' homes, set fires, or sell drugs. And I didn't have to tell my boys not to rape. Why? Because I hadn't raised psychopaths or criminals. If you really think you need to have a "rape" conversation with your son, you dropped the ball long, long ago.
And since there are enough young men out in the world who are past the point of moral return and the justice system cannot catch them all and keep them locked up, I will continue to encourage parents to teach their daughters how to keep from getting raped and sexually assaulted. Just because young men should never do bad things, doesn't mean some aren't going to. Being angry about it isn't going to keep your daughter from becoming a victim. So, in spite of a number of angry bloggers who attacked my book, How to Save Your Daughter's Life, for educating parents on how to keep their daughters safe, I am going to keep on educating young women and their parents because I know sex predators are out there - in the high schools, in the colleges, in the neighborhood, and in the home. As a female, I, too, am frustrated at having so many sexual crimes perpetrated against women and I am all for coming down harder on these sex offenders with a much tougher criminal justice system, but, right now, the reality is such that we women have to do what we can to not end up a victims of horrible crimes that will ruin our lives.
Just because some parents need to do a better job raising their sons doesn't mean we should stop doing the job of raising our daughters.They need our help keeping them safe.
How to Save your Daughter's Life by Pat Brown at Amazon or Barnes and Noble and bookstores near you.
Included in this book, a ton of information about
The Early Years
Partying, Drinking, Drugging, Casual Sex (Hooking Up), and Gangs
Date Rape
The Dangers of Social Networking and the Internet
Risky Relationships
Stalkers
Child Predators, Serial Rapists, and Serial Killers
The Sex Trade and Sex Trafficking
3 comments:
Your posts are always right on the mark. I do wish both girls and boys are also taught about sociopaths and not to assume that everyone has empathy. I say girls and boys because I'm sure Travis didn't know what he was dealing with in Jodi Arias. I also agree that lessons are taught from a very young age. Great post.
Ann
Usually in these gang rape situations there is one sociopathic ringleader who suggests the rape and the others are just following his lead. Many of these men spend their lives questioning, regretting and hating themselves for their part in the crime. So it isn't true that all the rapists are sociopaths. It's important that we acknowledge that because otherwise any reasonable mother would refuse to believe that her non-psycho son was involved in any way.
Of course a boy with rock-solid integrity is not going to go along with such depravity no matter how drunk he is, but there are many young men who are neither sociopaths nor models of righteous behavior. If the Milgram experiments have taught us anything, it's that good guys do bad things if a person they respect eggs them on. And so many parents do teach their sons to follow orders and respect authority.
These women are upset because telling them how to raise their daughters is just another way to blame the victim. The point is that we already teach girls "don't drink too much" and "don't dress like that" and "don't go into his room" etc. no matter how innocent the circumstances. We already teach girls to constantly be prepared to defend themselves from not just being raped, but also from having to defend their integrity if it happens (and there's the definition of "rape culture" for you).
Naturally you're right that it's absurd to teach boys "hey, don't go around raping!" But it's even more absurd that we do sit down with girls and teach them in detail how not to be raped. Because it's just another way for society (and the girl to herself) to say: "this is your fault. You should have done X, Y and Z differently or he never would have done this to you."
Lots of useful information here. I’m sending it to a few friends ans also sharing in delicious. And certainly, thanks for your sweat!. I added it to my favorites blog list and will be checking back soon.
Post a Comment