This is not always cut and dried like the “common sense” advocates make it sound.

There are lots of reasons to be in a confined space alone with a person of the opposite gender and I don’t see why a woman should have to take the absurd (and very insulting to men) precaution of avoiding all such situations.

I am a professional corporate trainer. Sometimes I have to travel and conduct training in a hotel. Sometimes in the course of these events I have to meet with another trainer or training manager (who is male) in one of our rooms. I certainly do not assume that doing so means I am inviting rape.

When I was in college and lived in a dorm I did not assume that going to a guy’s room meant I was asking for rape, either. This included if we were working on research or studying together but it also included if I went there after a date. Was I just being naive? Was I merely lucky that, in 4 years of college, not one of the men I ever visited, assumed that I was asking for sex by entering their room and forced me? Or is it that the idea of men as much more than merely sexual beings, is actually a more accurate assumption than the reverse?

I lived in Saudi Arabia for a year, where making eye contact with the opposite sex is a come-on — I learned to keep my eyes on the ground while I lived there. These “common sense” standards sound like America is moving that way. Just avoid all situations where you might have to be alone with a guy? Can you say “Gender Segregation”? What should I do if I am waiting for an elevator and it opens and there is a single guy inside? Take the stairs, I suppose, that would be just “common sense.”

Re your answer to my completely silly and gratuitous example of refusing to get on an elevator:
ARGH. And I thought it was a misogynistic climate here in the MIDDLE EAST where i live. At least no one that I have ever met has a problem getting on elevators with strangers.

Re your comment on miniskirts, that also reminds me of another Saudi Arabia anecdote: Some people had started health clubs for women only (everything is gender segregated in SA as you probably have heard), and they caught a guy who was peeping into the windows of these health clubs in Riyadh — so they closed down EVERY women’s health club in the ENTIRE KINGDOM in order to protect those women from peeping toms. Whose behavior needs to change, indeed. Obviously women who work out are being provocative and asking for it.

It seems that in the late 60’s there was an epidemic of rapes taking place after dark on the streets of Jerusalem. In a cabinet meeting, entirely male, except for Ms. Meir, someone suggested that perhaps there should be a curfew imposed on women to keep them off the streets after dark for their own protection.

She responded by pointedly questioning why the curfew should not be applied to the men since it was they who were committing the rapes.

No curfew was ever imposed.

Oh, yeah someone’s got to get a grip, indeed. Sheesh.

Going to a man’s hotel room alone with him because you’re a trainer or for some similar business-related reason is one thing.

Having drinks with a guy in a bar and then going to his hotel room alone with him is a bit different. No, you’re not “inviting rape” but certainly it’s disingenious to pretend you didn’t realize getting tipsy and going to someone’s bedroom wasn’t at least a tacit signal that you were willing to engage in sexual behavior.

Walking a dog, getting on an elevator, working out, these fall into the first category. They’re something anyone, male or female (men get mugged and sometimes even raped), should be able to do without being perceived as “inviting” an assault.

Everyone has to be responsible. People have to exercise some common sense and society has to take action to minimize the risk of just living everyday life.

Men are not, by and large, rapists. There are circumstances under which each of us, male or female, would commit different kinds of violence, but very, very few of us are just randomly violent.

A few men do commit rape but I think it’s necessary to distinguish between a psycho crouched beside a dark bush on an unlit street, knife or gun in hand, and the kind of, well, almost “date rape” that fits the “going to his hotel room” scenario.

Of course, bottom line, as a woman I think “no means no” and it’s rape if you’re saying no and you’re overpowered and forced to have sex, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there are qualitative differences between a predator and a more, well, “situational” rape.

I’m no psychologist and I’m not trying to pick a fight, but in some way I can’t articulate, it seems to me that there’s a significant psychological difference between the two.

Some time ago I used to work in a city where a very unusual serial raping crime was ongoing. Two men, as a team, kidnapped women, forced them into their car, drove to some deserted location and then raped the women. These kidnappings and rapes took place at any hour of the day, but usually in the middle of the day. One woman was kidnapped from a busy supermarket parking lot.

The advice I was given at work was not to go out unnecessarily… I did go out, of course, but that’s when I started learning self-defence. It’s no substitute for a safer society, but it’s something.

Well, yes, of course. That’s not even a question. Our legal system doesn’t blame the victims of murder for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No matter where you are, the person who attempts to kill you, or even, attempts to kill someone else and kills you by accident, is always at fault. They can’t say, “Sure, I murdered that person but I was really shooting to kill someone else.”

Now, what if you do something against common sense or cultural mores, and accidentally are in a situation where someone might think you wanted to have sex? Are they allowed to FORCE you to have sex without your consent?

No, that’s just silly. Even if you are sending the wrong signals about your intention to consent to sex, if someone has sex with you against your will, that’s rape. If you look like you could use a good meal, and I forcefeed you a sandwich, no jury is going to say, “Well, he was too skinny, she couldn’t help herself.”

The only reason that a rapist (or his lawyer) can even introduce the idea that you were in the wrong place, or wearing the wrong clothing, or whatever, is that we as a society are still confused about the difference between consent and force. Or, one could argue, introducing such arguments are predicated on using the threat of rape to keep women from having freedom of movement, dress, etc.

Am I tacitly agreeing to sex if I hang out alone with a guy friend (whom I know and trust) after havinga few drinks? Where, exactly, do we draw the line? What is wrong with expecting men to assume that going to someone’s room doesn’t mean you’re consenting to sex, or consenting to certain sex acts? It’s irresponsible to give men license to do whatever they want. Why is it so difficult to ask *men* to take responsibility for their actions? Men who rape make a choice to force someone to have sex. They don’t have to make that choice. And if they don’t think they can handle it if a woman turns them down for sex, maybe they shouldn’t be inviting strangers up to their hotel rooms.

And yes, I think men’s behavior needs to change. Not all men are rapists, but there is enough BS out there excusing rape. And you know, more “situational” rape (whatever that means) is still committed by someone who thinks he’s entitled to take what he wants no matter what his partner/companion says. *That* behavior has to change.

If a strange man allowed himself to get drunk and pass out at my place, I would still be guilty of theft if I stole his wallet. No matter what rationalizations I gave (he should have known better, I’m not a mugger waiting in a dark alley, this was situational, he should have realized that he was consenting to sharing his wealth with me when he passed out in my living room).

“Walking a dog, getting on an elevator, working out, these fall into the first category. They’re something anyone, male or female (men get mugged and sometimes even raped), should be able to do without being perceived as ‘inviting’ an assault.”

Walking a dog in a well-known dangerous area? How is that different from going to someone’s hotel room? Except, of course, that the crimes that can be committed usually happen to men as well. Let’s say it’s a serial rapist out there, and a woman gets raped while walking her dog. Is she responsible? Many would say so.

“Everyone has to be responsible. People have to exercise some common sense and society has to take action to minimize the risk of just living everyday life.”

No argument with that. I do, however, have a problem with “responsibility” being put on women when they are assaulted. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If I use “common sense” and refrain from being alone with a man, I’m a man-hater who assumes all men are rapists. If I am alone with a man who rapes me, then I’m being irresponsible.

Echidne was advised to not go out “unnecessarily” when there were serial rapes happening. I don’t think that putting women under virtual house arrest is the same as being responsible. I think it’s shifting the blame to women for the actions of criminals.

I don’t see as there is any pretending or disingenuousness going on at all if after a few drinks a woman goes with a man up to his room. I think the assumption of sexual interest merely because a woman goes to your room is reasonable. However, (and this is the big however), if at any time the woman says no, even after having drinks with the man, even after going to his room, then that assumption of interest MUST end. Yes, women should even be free to go to a man’s hotel room without worrying about whether they will be raped, and without the stigma induced when somebody asserts that their very act of going to a man’s room was an implied yes.

“Sorry to double-comment, but I just had to add this. I’m a bit concerned about discussions of “changing men’s behavior.”"

Well, now, men are the larger part of the population of rapists. So we talk about changing the behavior of men. There isn’t any assumption in that statement that ALL men are rapists or even that most men are rapists–just an understanding that by and large the rapist is more likely to be male than female.

Of course, the stance that questions why men’s behavior is focused on, yet still thinks that women should hold to common sense notions that entering a man’s hotel room is a high risk behavior seems contradictory. On one hand, women are directed to see every man as a potential rapist, and on the other that very assumption is questioned.

What is at question here is the idea that women’s behavior needs to be restricted while men are often given a pass, if only in our internal judgements (ie, when women restricting their behavior is seen as merely common sense).

Yes, there *is* a huge psychological difference between the serial rapist lurking in the bushes and the acquaintance rapist who seems nice but isn’t.

I think that prescribing defensive behaviors for women, such as not walking alone at night, is going to be more effective for reducing the incidence of stranger rape, and that changing men’s attitudes about sexuality is going to be more effective in reducing the incidence of acquaintance rape.

Since acquaintance rape is far more common, and since women already know that we can be (marginally) safer through defensiveness, changing men’s attitudes strikes me as the more urgent project.

If someone named Rapey McGee invites you to his hotel room, then I’d advise you not to go into there, since his name being Rapey McGee, same as I would advise someone not to get into a dark alley with Stabbey McGee and his brother Muggy McGee. But real-life rapists aren’t that clear cut.

Okay, so having a drink and then going up to a guy’s room is inviting RAPE?! Suppose she’s just interested in SEX? There is a difference you know.

I remember my mother ripping into two young guys at work over this after the Mike Tyson case. One of them made that comment: “Well, she went up to his room — what did she want if she went up to his room?”

My mother (my little 4′11″ tall Italian grey-haired mother) rounded on him and said, “Maybe she wanted SEX. Women are sexual beings. What she didn’t want was to GET THE SHIT BEATEN OUT OF HER.”

But to too many men (let’s face it, damned near all, and if you aren’t in that category I’m not going to kiss your ass and reassure you, you can figure it out for yourself), a woman who agrees to mere sex has tacitly agreed to have her head put through a wall, her bones broken, her eyes blackened, to get stabbed, thrown down a flight of stairs, anything at all done to her, anything he wants.

(And too many women, as your comment illustrates, are perfectly willing to agree with this.)

By agreeing to sex with a male, a woman signs away all ownership of her body. She can agree to sex, and if he promptly picks up a baseball bat and nearly KILLS her, no jury in the world will convict him. It’s wonderful for males — as long as a woman agrees (or seems to agree) to sex, he has a complete carte blanche from every society in the world to commit acts of savagery that he would never ever get away with otherwise. In what other situation does this sort of blanket exemption exist? None. Even war has rules. (Then again, war is between men, which means it matters.)

Sex with men == he can KILL you if he so desires. And no jury in the world will convict him.

Unless, of course, the world is willing to put some muscle behind the supposed claim that there IS any difference between sex and rape.

The older I get, the more I become convinced that Andrea Dworkin was right — and that men and women agree with her. That’s why the reaction against her words was so strong — no one ever makes friends by being right about something unpleasant.

I resent being restricted if I’m not the problem. I think arming women would go a lot further toward reducing the incidence of strange rape. I’d much prefer that solution to a solution where I’m punished through restriction of my actions because of something someone else did.

Okay, so having a drink and then going up to a guy’s room is inviting RAPE?! Suppose she’s just interested in SEX? There is a difference you know.

I’d also like to know how your comment is different from mine.

Sex with men == he can KILL you if he so desires. And no jury in the world will convict him.”

I don’t agree. I think there is a lot more to that than the scenario you’ve given. If a man beat his wife to death after having consensual sex with her, he would be charged with murder. In fact, it has happened, so there has been a jury in the world that has convicted guys like this. There are other juries who won’t, but I don’t think it’s constructive to paint this in abseloutes.

Also, about the war comment: Women fight in wars. Women are killed in wars. And women (and men) are raped in wars.

What if she goes up thinking of sex, and he really wants to be spanked because it’s a turn-on? If she doesn’t agree, is she a tease? Who’s to say what sex is, or what acts can/should even be implied? What if she’s expecting penile-vaginal intercourse, and he’s just hoping for oral sex? Does he have the right to force her to go down on him? What if *she’s* hoping for oral sex? By inviting her up to his room, is he giving a tacit signal that he’ll perform oral sex on her? And if he doesn’t, is he being provacative?

What sex acts are we supposedly agreeing to by going up to someone’s hotel room? And if we can agree that it’s not okay to force someone into doing something that’s outside the realm of the missionary position, penis-vagina sex (or oral sex), why can’t we agree that forcing someone into penis-vagina or oral sex isn’t okay?