A young man, out on the town in a rough neighbourhood, gets beaten up, maybe robbed. Are there any such circumstances when the victim bears any responsibility? If everybody beforehand advised them that it was dangerous, say. If there are things you can do to make it considerably more or less likely, and you do the former rather than the latter, is that not partial responsibility? At least in an objective, causal sense, if not a moral sense? If you go back to a man’s house and get into bed with him, and then say no… well, is that the most sensible way you can think of to avoid trouble?

Admitting that there are things one can do to avoid becoming a victim of crime does not exonerate the crime.

Interested to see that the figures were 23% for women and 20% for men. Statistically significant?

I disagree. When someone is told that they need to “take responsibility for what happened”, the implication is that they are at least partly to blame for what happened. It’s possible that the actual survey didn’t use that language (I don’t see a link to the original wording), but the BBC report quite specifically does.

My guess is that a lot of people who responded to the post did not intend for “responsible” to be interchangeable with “blame”.

Yes, I indeed meant after the deed was done.

If, for example, the women consents to sex and before the act is finished she finds the other person has some kind of disease, I would think it fair for her to withdraw consent then and there.

But after the act has concluded, if the same kind of information came to light, I do not believe it fair for her to say she was raped when she had consented throughout the entire course of the act.

And I believe that applies to men as well as women, I merely use a women as a victim in the example because that is what is more often hear of.

I believe you and I are in agreement.

I wrote: This does not mean a victim is guilty of the crime committed against her or him but it does mean society can and should draw lessons from the circumstances of the event.

Your wrote: Women who make irresponsible choices are responsible for those choices, not what someone else does when taking advantage of those choices.

Being less responsible – or irresponsible – is not the same thing as being responsible for the rape. The question was should the victim “take responsibility for what happened”. Not whether, for example, drinking within 1 mile of a male is irresponsible.

“Women who make responsible choices have sound reason to pass judgment on women who do not and then suffer adverse consequences.”

Sure. And the judgment should be, at worst, “They were irresponsible”: Acting unsafely and increasing their own vulnerability. Not “They should take responsibility”: They bear fault, blame or were the cause.

A women who happened to park at a rapist’s ambush point and got raped should take responsibility for parking there, not the rape. She parked, the rapist raped.
A women who dressed “provocatively” and gets raped should take responsibility for the way she dressed, not the rape. She dressed, the rapist raped.

And women who drinks too much and gets raped should take responsibility for drinking too much. Not the rape.
Why? Because the rapist committed the rape, not the victim.

To sum up: Women who make irresponsible choices are responsible for those choices, not what someone else does when taking advantage of those choices.

Play with fire and you might get burnt. This does not mean a victim is guilty of the crime committed against her or him but it does mean society can and should draw lessons from the circumstances of the event.

Em said “later.” Since the alternative is indeed ridiculous, I assumed “later” meant afterward. Three days later, for example.