YES. AN EMAIL FORWARD. THE SAME SHIT YOUR GRANDPARENTS SEND TO YOU TELLING YOU THAT CANOLA OIL IS ACTUALLY ACIDIC AND WILL GIVE YOU CANCER THAT CAN BE CURED BY DRINKING ORANGE JUICE FIVE TIMES A DAY. THAT KIND OF BULLSHIT.
ARE YOU TOO LAZY TO READ THIS SNOPES LINK? LET ME COPY PASTE THAT SHIT FOR YOU
This bit of codswallop began its Internet life in January 2000 as an enthusiasticĀ e-mailĀ penned by an employee at theĀ St. LouisĀ office of the public relations firm Weber Shandwick. The writer was among a group enrolled in a self-defense class taught by David Portnoy, an instructor who claims to have trained with actors Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.Ā
Portnoy refuses to give information about what he teaches in his classes or details of where he gained the information he passes along, preferring instead to sell it. (He demanded a $1,000 interview fee from aĀ Denver PostĀ reporter). If, however, this Weber Shandwick employee'sĀ e-mailĀ describing what he teaches is accurate, Portnoy should be characterized as a fear merchant vending false information to those anxious to feel safe.Ā
If rapists choose their victims based on hairstyle and length of tresses, itās news to those in law enforcement; theyāve never noticed this trend. Rape victims have short hair, long hair, and no hair. Theyāre also young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, femininely dressed or looking like they just fell off the tractor, and all points in between.Ā
Likewise, the claim that rapists go after women wearing overalls because āthe straps can be easily cutā is pure hogwash, as anyone who has ever tried to cut up an old pair can attest. Overalls are made of some of the most resilient fabrics known to mankind (denim and canvas, usually), and cutting these straps is made almost impossible because the fabric is doubled over and seamed at that point in the garment. If thereās a pair of scissors that can snip through this, Iāve yet to wieldĀ
them.Ā
Rape is also not always about getting sex quickly. Often itās an act of rage or punishment directed at a vulnerable person for perceived injustices done to the attacker by others. Getting a woman out of her clothes quickly isnāt a factor in these rapes; terrorizing her and inflicting bodily harm is.Ā
If we take points one and two together, weāre to believe rapists arm themselves with scissors for cutting overall straps (instead of just easing them off the shoulders or ā heaven forbid! ā undoing the fasteners) yet fail to think to equip themselves with rolls of duct tape to keep their victims subdued, preferring instead to grab hold of their hair and hang on.Ā
According to Denver PoliceĀ Sgt. JohnĀ Burbach, most rapes occur in the evening hours and into early morning, ending before dawn, not ābetween 5 andĀ 8:30 a.m.āĀ as claimed in theĀ e-mail.Ā Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice fully support him in this claim: The DOJ says āApproximately two-thirds of rapes/sexual assaults occurred at night āĀ 6 p.m.Ā toĀ 6 a.m.āĀ
As for the tidbit āThe number one place women are abducted from/attacked at is grocery store parking lots. Number two is office parking lots/garages. Number three is public restrooms,ā Kathie Kramer, public relations coordinator at the Denver Rape Assistance and Awareness Program (RAAP) says, āStatistics in studies Iāve found donāt support this idea about grocery stores or parking lots being especially unsafe.ā Location is important in a violent sexual assault, but thereās nothing inherently dangerous about parking lots or public restrooms; what matters is their isolation. Areas heavily frequented by foot traffic are far less likely to be chosen by a rapist. Likewise, badly-lit, less-frequented places will be favored for this type of attack.Ā
TheĀ e-mailĀ claims that only 2% of rapists (one out of every fifty) carries a weapon. That figure isĀ seriouslyĀ out of whack: 1995 U.S. Department of Justice statistics show that weapons were used in 30% of all rapes, meaning the chances that your rapist will be armed is just a little less than one in three. Battling an armed attacker while unarmed yourself is rarely a wise course of action to take, and misstatements such as the 2% figure could well incite an attacked woman to thrust herself into that dynamic because she figures her chances are far better than they actually are.Ā
āIf you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isnāt worth it because it will be time-consuming.ā Thatās great advice, provided you get the right rapist. And youāve no way of knowing until itās too late.Ā
As comforting as it might be to believe thereās only one sort of baddie out there and if you understand his mind you can stay safe, that just isnāt the case. There is no one set of right answers, andĀ e-mailsĀ of this ilk potentially put us at even greater risk by suggesting that there is.Ā
Around 1980, Nicholas Groth, director of Forensic Mental Health Associates, established a typology of rapists. Groth arrived at his conclusions by distilling his observations of more thanĀ 3,000 sexĀ offenders over the course ofĀ 25 yearsĀ of practice. (Most of his patients, Groth points out, were not sexually deprived at the time they committed rape, thereby exploding that most common of rape myths: that men rape because theyāre unable to get sex any other way.)Ā
In a general sense, rapists fall into three motivational types: anger, power, and sadism. In anger assaults, the rapist is getting even for āsome wrong he feels has been done to him, by life, by his victim at the time. Heās in a frame of rage and attacks someone sexually.ā The anger rape is usually unpremeditated and impulsive, but the impulse drives the rapist into excessive force: the victim is punched, choked, and kicked into submission. Most such offenders derive little pleasure from the act, says Groth, but āthey want to degrade their victims, and sex is something bad, dirty, the worst thing you could do to someone. That reflects a lot of our values in society.āĀ
An anger rapistĀ couldĀ be discouraged by a potential victim who yells at him or puts up a physical struggle, thanks to the unpremeditated nature of the attack. Because the aggressor may not yet have fully decided to pursue this course of action, resistance may well change his mind. Here, even a half-hearted attempt might prove to be all it takes to end the assault. On the other hand, the rage the attacker is feeling might well be furtherĀ fedĀ by active resistance ā this could be taken as yet another instance of one more person trying to deny him something he wants.Ā
Power rape, according to Groth, is a form of compensation, committed usually by men who feel unsure of their competence. Rape gives them a sense of mastery and control. Power rapists usually hunt for victims or seize opportunities that present themselves unbidden. A power rapist is unlikely to be discouraged by resistance because his whole self image is wrapped up in his attempt to prove mastery. A woman who chooses to fight one of these had better do a darned good job of it, because she could well end up fighting for her life.Ā
Groth defines his third type, sadistic rape, as eroticized aggression perpetrated by those whom the very act of forcible sex excites in ways that consensual sex canāt. āIf the anger components of aggression are eroticized,ā he explains, āthen you see sadistic acts, such as deliberate sexual torture, using an instrument to rape the victim.ā A sadistic rapist is interested in inflicting pain and lasting harm. Any countering aggression on the part of the victim could wellĀ addĀ to the attackerās enjoyment of the experience, prompting him to further acts of depravity in an effort to provoke further resistance.Ā
The question of to fight back or not is an age-old one, and thereās no one right answer. Granted, one particular rapist might be sent running bloody-nosed by a swift right hook, but try that on another one and a horrific experience could be transformed into a fatal one. Resistance advice of the type being circulated in theĀ e-mailĀ in question creates the false impression that escaping unscathed from the clutches of a rapist is only a matter of knowing which self-defense tricks to employ. Reality, however, is far different. Not all rapists can be overcome.Ā
Does this then mean self-defense classes are a waste of time? Hardly. But theyāre also not the surefire protection theyāre too often touted to be, any more than a can of mace confers upon its wielder guaranteed safe passage through whatever mean streets and dark alleys lie in her path. Also, physical skills are only as good as recent training ā someone who hasnāt practiced a move in the three months since she took a course is only a tad better prepared to fend off an attacker than someone who never had any training at all. Worst of all, such training can lead those who have aced their courses to develop a dangerous complacency about their own safety, inducing them into a state of overconfidence wherein awareness of their surroundings becomes a lost art, buried under the certainty that now bad things canāt happen to them.Ā
Complacency kills.Ā
As always, the best defense to an attempted rape is not to be there when it happens ā either avoid potentially dangerous situations (none of this āOh, itās only a few blocks; Iāll just walkā atĀ 3 a.m.)Ā or run like hell if you find yourself in one. Escaping your attacker is a far wiser course of action to strive for than attempting to do battle with him. Forget about his needing a good beating followed by a lengthy jail term; your first priority has to be your own safety. Leave the Wonder Woman stuff for Linda Carter and make like a track star vying for a gold medal in the 100m.Ā
TheĀ e-mailĀ did contain one bit of valuable advice: Stay aware of your surroundings. Not only is it important to see trouble coming before it gets to you and avoid it, but an alert stance can help discourage a would-be attacker. Those looking to prey upon others ā whether their aim is robbery, rape, or mayhem ā generally choose as victims those who appear preoccupied or tentative in preference to those who exude a sense of purpose. Or, as I was told long ago, āAlways look like you knowĀ exactlyĀ where youāre going and move like youāre expected to be there atĀ exactlyĀ a certain time.ā Mooning about aimlessly can make you a statistic.Ā
So, to sum up, is avoiding a rape a matter of wearing your hair short and eschewing overalls? Hardly. And anyone who attempts to characterize it as such ought to be whomped over someoneās knee.Ā
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/rape.asp#6hTjPG6blGHFWmex.99
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