firecat

To me, that post seemed to make the assumption that yes, rape is an integral part of our society, and as such, women should - think of all men as potential rapists, which implies being afraid of them. That is an entirely subjective reading of the post, though; I have to admit, I'm pretty croggled by the whole thing.

I have been in situations where I have feared the possibility of sexual assault; I've been lucky or something that such a situation has never come to pass. I've also been in situations where I should have thought about it as a possibility, but not realized it at the time; again, I've been lucky or something, in that nothing happened.

I make absolutely no suggestions that certain attitude or body language provides a rape-free guarantee. Sometimes, all it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that wrong place can be your own home, and there's really not a damn thing that can be done about it but try to survive. No Blame Attaches to being the victim of sexual assault. I'm pretty sure that a combination of my own attitude, certain learned behaviors, and care about my associates and choices of when to relax versus when to be on my guard has gone some way towards my lack of experience; but there have been times when it really was just luck that there was nobody who decided to take advantage of a situation I was in.

Mostly, what that post and most of the responses are doing to me is making me feel like an alien again. :P