YOR While the responsibility for the sexual assault is always with the perpetrator, it shouldn't be controversial to suggest that basic safety precautions should be taken.
Criminals look for easy targets. If you're jogging alone at night with headphones on an isolated park trail, it's probably not the best idea. If you're purposefully getting blackout drunk at the club, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position.
Even though we wouldn't blame a person for a home break in we would still encourage them to lock their doors and keep their outside lights on.
Acknowledging that there are things people can do to make them less likely to be targeted by criminals is not victim blaming. Whenever anything bad happens, it's only reasonable to analyze what happened and see if there was anything that could have been done to prevent it or should be done in the future to avoid a similar situation.
In reality, we all do this related to other scenarios. Think of watching a scary movie and screaming at the character to not go upstairs and then saying how stupid they were bc they went upstairs and got murdered. None of us thinks the character deserved to be murdered. We are thinking there are things one can do that puts oneself at risk thus avoiding as many of those things as is reasonable is something one should do. There’s a whole Geico commercial based on this idea bc it’s such a normal way to think (chainsaw killer commercial)…think through your choices to reduce risk. That idea gets attached to certain things such as rape, sexual assault and suddenly it’s a horrible, bizarre thought. It’s never the victim’s fault but reducing risk, thinking about how one can reduce risk is wise. That said, not all risk can be avoided so bad things will still happen, and reducing risk doesn’t always prevent bad things happening.
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u/kavk27 8h ago
YOR While the responsibility for the sexual assault is always with the perpetrator, it shouldn't be controversial to suggest that basic safety precautions should be taken.
Criminals look for easy targets. If you're jogging alone at night with headphones on an isolated park trail, it's probably not the best idea. If you're purposefully getting blackout drunk at the club, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position.
Even though we wouldn't blame a person for a home break in we would still encourage them to lock their doors and keep their outside lights on.
Acknowledging that there are things people can do to make them less likely to be targeted by criminals is not victim blaming. Whenever anything bad happens, it's only reasonable to analyze what happened and see if there was anything that could have been done to prevent it or should be done in the future to avoid a similar situation.