Anyway, just to round this off, this has been said many times before by people better able to express it, but there is something so twisted about the whole “how women can protect themselves against rape” thing. In the dialogue about preventing sexual assault, it’s all about women being careful and women staying out of dark places and women carrying pepper sprays. What the fuck happened to men not raping women? Men learning that when a woman says no that might possibly be what she means? It’s not the women in this scenario who are the problem.

I was trying to articulate this to Ed once. That *everything* rape related is aimed and directed at the woman: what she did, what she didn't do, what she could have done, what she drank, what she wore, blah blah and I was trying to get him to see that no where is it ever just said "he should not have raped her". He couldn't see it, because he's never been on the end of that for his entire life. A woman should be able to be able to walk down an isolated alley, on her own, in the pitch black, pissed out of her face and wearing no clothes and not be raped. Because you. should. not. rape. But if anyone ever did that? She'd be pulled apart for not looking after herself.