rape, men as potential rapists, fear of

[firecat]

There's an Internet conversation about rape, one post about which is here.

After reading that post, I saw several posts in which a woman said although she intellectually understands that many women fear men as potential rapists, she doesn't have that fear, and she has never been sexually assaulted, either because no one tried or because she defended herself with words or weapons.

I'm really glad that these women haven't suffered sexual assault or fear of sexual assault.

But I don't understand why a number of women are apparently responding to this conversation by saying that they aren't afraid of rape and don't have a general fear of men as potential rapists. Do they feel they should be afraid? I'm getting the impression that they feel not being afraid of rape makes them weird. Maybe that it makes them unfeminine somehow? Is this because our culture sends the message that all women should be afraid of rape?

I'm also not sure what I think about the suggestion that a certain attitude or body language -- specifically, attitude/body language that shows a lack of fear -- can prevent an assault from happening. I think it can make a difference in some situations--maybe a lot of situations. (I gather that it's part of what's taught at self-defense classes.) But I don't think it's any kind of guarantee. I know plenty of people who have a "don't mess with me" attitude/body language who have been assaulted.

(For the record, I haven't experienced sexual assault either. I have feared it in a few specific situations.)

Comments

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

my definition of derailing is to deviate the communal discussion from a set course, direction; to undermine, weaken, divert, sabotage the focus into something one would rather talk about for one's own selfish reasons.

i don't think of derailing as something good for the original train of thought, no (an actual train derailing has no good side effects, unless we're talking about, uh, "freedom fighters", and let's not :). on usenet occasionally a sidetrack would also be useful, but however much i enjoyed some thread drift, if it occurred too early, it usually put the kibosh on the original subject, and that's a pity. however, usenet readers are better software than most web forum software and LJ/DW, so one could at least try to stick with the original subject even if others wandered off. i think derailing is much worse on LD/DW and blogs that don't even have threads.

i can see certain circumstances under which i would say talking about a tangent in your journal after it started elsewhere is derailing -- if you leave a comment there with a linkback, for example. or if you continue to reply in the first place with feedback from what's going on in your journal discussion.

but in general, taking a tangent to your own journal is the very opposite of derailing. derailing means to distract the conversation from its focus. leaving the discussion to talk about related things in your own space instead of insisting that you must insert those 2 cents in some other space is a _good_ thing.

i wonder what odd definition these other people used, or whether it was totally self-serving.