As a human being, and as a woman, I do agree with the idea of personal responsibility with regard to dress and decorum. That said, how you dress (and, with regard to sex crimes against women, how you act) are not situated upon some sliding scale of appropriateness with regard to inciting / allowing criminal behaviour.

I do understand where you're coming from, but you have to realize that crimes against women (because they are women) are hate crimes and are not different from crimes against members of distinct racial groups or against *****exuals. There is no grey area when you attack someone because of their gender, race or sexual orientation. None.

Your example of walking through a bad area of town and being attacked is disingenuous to the discussion at hand as those types of crimes are not targeted crimes ... a man, woman, child, rich, poor, black, or white would all face the same risk. What's at issue here (funny how the topic kinda changed in the last several pages, huh?) is crimes that specifically target women, more or less because they are women.

...And, its kinda interesting that most of the female voices that contributed to the start of this thread are now very, very quiet. It's hard to want to keep participating when you have a bunch of men (even if they mean well) expressing such latent hostility toward women and engaging in paternalistic discussion of what behaviour we should / should not engage in.

As I've said before, reframe much of the discussion over the last couple of pages in a racial context and I suspect everyone would be able to see it's inappropriateness.

Anyways, this is a useless discussion to spend anymore time on. I do thank certain posters (male and female) for their contribution, and am now excusing myself. Party on.

BTW - Dr. Pete's story is not a rare one. An acquaintance of mine, who is the least "asking for it" kinda girl you would care to meet, was at a bar with some friends. I guess a couple of guys thought she was "hot" and she was slipped something in her drink and essentially kidnapped. She was, in a drugged state, taken to a hotel where she was going to be *****, and was told as much. One of the young, college age boys came to his senses, let her call her mother and dropped her on the sidewalk outside a hotel. These weren't "bad guys", they were university students at frosh week who somehow have gotten the idea that if a girl is "hot", she's up for grabs. She was too drugged out to give much information to the police, and they got away with it. Here's hoping the next girl they set their eyes on was as lucky.