who dares wins?

But no, really, how DARE they??

I refer to the front page of Friday's Dom Post World Section, and the appalling investigation by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers into the life of the woman taking him to court for molesting her.

The third paragraph reads "Their mission is to unearth anything in the background of the 32-year old woman that would erode her claim to have been the innocent victim of an unprovoked attack."

"The ideal would be to find that the victim had previously made false accusations against a man or demanded money in connection with a sexual relationship."

Sorry, what was that? If by money for sex, do you mean prostitution? Is that an excuse for rape in your world? Because in the real world, it sure as hell isn't.


This is a disgusting example of what happens to rape survivors when they go for justice. It is part and parcel of the system.

Everything about their life is examined to see if they are anything less than virginal. If it's not our clothes that encourage rapists, it's our drinking, if it's not our drinking, it's our sex life (don't have a one-night-stand, it could mean you're a slut who was asking for it).

This is not justice. I can't imagine that this woman's lawyers are going to scurry around sniffing out all the indecent behaviour Strauss-Kahn may have been involved in.

Fuck no. Rape culture doesn't allow that. Rape culture says it has to have been her fault somehow, that she deserved it.


I feel so badly for her. And so angry. I want her to win, and I want Strauss-Kahn to go to jail for a long time. I want him to pay lots and lots of his precious money to the woman he hurt, and all the rest of it to Refuges and Crisis Centres. I think that would be justice.

rape is just not permissible. ever.

Wallace Chapman, you are a fuckwit for even daring to ask someone if women in short skirts could be "asking for it" (rape)
Paul Quinn, you are also a fuckwit, for answering that it's down to drunkenness and their behaviour.

It is not a woman's fault she gets raped. There are no excuses for rape.


Damn it, I've been having intense conversations with my male friends over the last couple of weeks that have left me stressed and on edge trying to explain to them what rape culture is and not to crack jokes that promote it. (Including, but not limited to "it's not rape if you say "surprise!"...)

Listening to one young man explain how he was accused of rape and then hearing the horrible details of what happened the next morning, and trying to find sympathy for both people. It ended up in front of the cops and neither of them got counselling.... Christ, sometimes it just isn't as black-and-white as you'd like it to be.

I've got one mate who insists that all rapists should be killed. I still don't know if he quite understands what that would mean. (Obviously, a helluva lot less men.)

I've explained that most of the time, women who are raped aren't out in a dark alley at 3am wearing a miniskirt and heels. That they're at their home or a friend's house, somewhere they felt safe, and were with a man they thought they could trust.

I've told them that when they call women sluts, skanks, whores, bitches, it pisses me off personally. (Especially "whore", because not one of them has had any experience of who prostitutes are and what they do.)

I've even told them the short form of Kate Harding's "that guy thought you were on his side". Yeah, that one shut them up.

Some of them seem to get it. I don't know if they're getting it because I'm there calling their crap, or if they actually have had their thoughts shaken up. But this is all down to the SlutWalk. Hearing about it, reading about it, and planning to be there.