Calling all so called victims – Your actions have repercussions.
by gryphyn3

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One thing I hear about each day, is case after case of men who have been accused of rape or sexual assault in the papers. I barely read those articles anymore, simply due to the fact, they are all the same. The person accused had plied the poor victim with booze or drugs, or had met the poor victim at a party, got drunk together, and then the poor victim went home with the accused and then well, rape.

If you have been a victim of rape, it can be traumatic. We all understand this. I have had two attempts of rape happen to me.

Being a victim doesn’t mean you are blameless. It means something bad has happened to you. It doesn’t mean you are not responsible, nor does it mean you are one hundred percent blameless.

I’ll use the current Cosby case as an example. Here is a woman who admitted under oath, that she went over to Cosby’s Hotel Room. of her own free will. He offered her drinks and she accepted willingly. He offered her drugs. She took voluntarily.

I’m stopping there.

This is why I don’t think is much of a victim. Well, sorry, rather she is a victim of her own actions. She accepted the booze, and drugs of her own free will. He didn’t force her to drink and do the drugs. He didn’t hold a gun to her head.

Does this excuse Cosby if he did it? No it doesn’t, but it does give a clear idea of what the situation was at that meeting. And shows the woman was using poor judgement, and was at least a victim of her own stupidity.

Now I’ll give more detail to my two experiences.
I’ll start off by stating (I’ve mentioned in other blogs), that I’m gay. In my younger days I used to go to bathhouses. These were and are places were gay men of all ages go to have sex. They had reached their height in the Nineties when gays were not yet accepted and there was still a danger to go to a gay bar. It was also a great place for those who were still in the closet to go and have sex.

Now on this night, I had been out drinking at a dance club. I had gone to the bathhouse (because I didn’t find anyone at the bar to go home with), and got a room. In bathhouses when you rent a room it’s this tiny room with this cheaply made bed in it, with a vinyl covered mattress and thin cotton sheet. Everyone who goes to a bathhouse, can either rent a locker or a room, and you are given a towel to wear and that’s it. Basically your naked in a towel and wander around until you find someone you want to have sex with. Or, like me you can rent a room and wait for the guy to come to you. This doesn’t mean you can’t be choosy. In fact many people who go to these places are. We all have our types.

Anyway, I was laying on the bed with the towel barely covering me, when this really, really drunk guy showed up at my open door. I got a bad feeling so I told him no thank you, but I wasn’t interested (this is the politest way there to let the person know to go away). The guy however, had different ideas and came in and shut the door. He proceeded to try to throw my legs above his shoulders and penetrate me. I used both feet on his chest and threw him off, which he flew backwards into the wall. That wasn’t enough and he again tried. And again I threw him off. Banging his head hard on the wall. After a third try he left my room.

I didn’t call the police and even though I was a victim of an attempted rape, it was still my fault. I knew this at the time and to this day I don’t blame that guy. I put myself in that position and I knowingly ran that risk. This is the risk you take when you go and and sexually tease strangers. It’s not pretty but it’s true. When you sexually tease people, you run the risk of pushing the wrong button on someone that will set them off.

The second time, that I consider attempted rape, was when I lived in BC. I lived in this gay hotel and was in the lounge drinking and chatting with the cute bartender. I was happily drinking and at the end of his shift he offered to take me to his room. I drunkenly agreed. We got up to his room and I promptly passed out. With my jeans and underwear on. The next thing I remember was waking up and I was naked with him inside me. I had no recollection of even going up to his room or half the night at the bar. So I freaked out. Pushed him off em and accused him angrily of raping me. He was horrified. He apologized profusely and even sent me flowers the next day. I realized after that he wasn’t at fault. I was. I had accepted his offer to go to his room and that was implied consent. I was the one who made the mistake of 1. Accepting free drinks from him, 2. Going up to his room in that state. So I in no way put the full blame on him.

Now fast forward to today and you get you Social Justice Warriors who think that a victim has zero responsibility in their actions and I am telling you that you are full of it. You are not blameless. What you wear is important, your actions before hand are important and how you interact with a person are important. If you tease and tease someone, and then say “No no, no!” you are risking pushing that button on that person who is not mentally stable. If you accept drinks from strange men and then go home with them, expect they want to have sexual intercourse with you.

If you accept drinks from strangers, if you go home with strangers, then you run the risk of rape or sexual assault. There is a good chance you will be going home with someone decent. Don’t get me wrong there, but if you’re going home with a new guy every week or every few days, then the odds are pretty good that you will end up being a statistic.

Now, here is the advice. You are in control of your life. That means you have to accept responsibility for your actions, and as such, take precautions. Learn self-defense, carry pepper spray. Make sure a friend knows where you are going etc.

This is not taking any responsibility of a crime off the criminal. What this does is help stop you from becoming a victim and the crime from happening in the first place.

It’s like a car. You don’t go parking your car in a crime riddled neighborhood and leave the doors wide open and the keys in the ignition. If you did that and your car gets stolen, were you asking for it? Yes. The person who stole the car is still a criminal but you can bet your sweet ass you asked for it, by doing that.

Same with going home with strange men, teasing them, and then denying them sex. Most men will put up with that and respect your choice, but go through enough men and the odds are you will find one who won’t respect your saying No No.

I really hope this gets passed on and the message gets through to at least some people who believe that no victim is at fault for their actions because as I have just shown, that isn’t correct.