Comment by voces
4 years ago
> the rational decision not to risk her safety or even her life by escalating a fight she likely couldn't win
The rational decision is to get the hell out of there, then call her dad or a friend. Giving in without a fight to what you consider to be rape by a Scala programmer is the poorest decision you could ever make, and I shudder to think any of my loved ones would be panicked enough to even entertain it.
> the situation she was actually faced with
Yes, a long chain of bad decisions to end up drunk on your own wine, in a foreign country, in the apartment of a stranger you met on the internet, making unwanted advances towards you. Please don't make it worse by staying and accepting your "fate".
I don't care about illegal or not. This is my advice: If you say "No". And you repeat "NO!". And he still advances. Then he is a threat to you, and you get to hurt him badly, I'll pay the bills. If you don't want to have unprotected sex with someone, be clear about that, and make sure to hurt any penis without a condom coming close after that. If you don't want any confrontation and feel drunk or disoriented, lock yourself in the bathroom, and call someone to come deliver a pizza.
Would feel better too, to act right then and there, and not crop up all that anger to release it later in a damaging story. But the named person in this story is fucked either way, so perhaps dish best served cold.
I feel for her. I feel for him. I feel for you. I feel most of all for myself, for getting sucked into this.
You should talk to more women in your life about their experiences.
Every suggestion you're making here is premised on priors from your experience as a man that do not hold true for many or most women.
You say she should get out and call her dad or a friend. Yet your own reaction is one of questioning her experience and shaming her for "a long chain of bad decisions to end up drunk on your own wine, in a foreign country, in the apartment of a stranger you met on the internet." Do you imagine that a woman friend of yours reading your comment would trust that she should call you?
Experience as a father of daughters, raised by a single mom. But set that aside, as your experience as a man cancels it out.
You seem to view women as weak victims. Your suggestion she underwent the rape as a rational decision, so she did not have to escalate a fight she would likely lose, is downright horrific to me. Maybe 100-200 years ago, a woman had her life lived to that degree, but these days they are equals.
Majority of rapists will desist if you put up a fight. You don't need to be physically stronger, to grab a pinky finger and twist it to break it. Put your thumb in his eye, and he won't be in the mood for anything. If he gets aggressive and physical after that, run to the police, and have him arrested for attempted rape and physical assault.
Not only can my loved ones and their friends trust me to call me any time, for any thing, they have actually done so. Locking yourself in the toilet is not some alpha-male fantasy. It is one of the safest places to be at a party. I'll come pick you up, and not ask any questions.
Yes, it was a long string of very bad decisions. To call anyone pointing that out "victim-shaming", is not helping. I do think that what a woman wears at night has direct influence on the risk she runs. Don't try to turn that into "she was asking for it", but also don't blame the rest of the world when you are responsible for your own safety.
If you do any more flamewar like this on HN we will ban you. You violated the site guidelines very badly in this thread. No more of this please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> these days they are equals
This is laughable and just reinforces what I'm saying: you need to listen to more of the women in your life about their actual experiences, not what you imagine them to be. I am not invoking my experience as a man. I am invoking the experiences of the vast majority of women I know. Their experiences are not even close to equal to mine, when it comes to their ease of moving about the world, not to mention their physical safety.
Any person, placed in a situation where they are in danger, can react in a way that isn't necessarily a matter of deciding in the first place. I was pointing out that even where there is a decision to made, it doesn't obviously favor fighting. But your confidence that a victim can fight back ignores what we know about rapes and the fight/flight/freeze stress response. Not reacting is entirely natural and very common, particularly when the situation isn't one that you've trained a habitual response to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/2...
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