Happy Halloween! The LA Times has decided to celebrate the unholiest of holidays with a convoluted op-ed from conservative ideologue Charlotte Allen using Halloween as an excuse to bash both sluts and slutwalks. Because, you know, if you dress like a slut – whether to protest rape or to go to a Halloween party – it’s like you’re begging to be raped. Bad feminists! Bad Halloween revelers dressed as sexy nurses!
Here are a few of the more coherent passages from the piece:
[T]he SlutWalk feminists are in denial of a reality that is perfectly obvious to both the women who favor “sexy” for Halloween parties and (although perhaps not consciously) the SlutWalkers themselves. The reality is that men’s sexual responses are highly susceptible to visual stimuli, and women, who are also sexual beings, like to generate those stimuli by displaying as much of their attractive selves as social mores or their own personal moral codes permit. … It’s no wonder that SlutWalks have quickly outstripped (as it were) Take Back the Night as anti-rape protest. Women get another chance besides Halloween to dress up like prostitutes!
Just watch out, ladies, because dressing sexy is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, with your wallet hanging out!
[T]he vast majority of rape victims are under age 30 — that is, when women are at their peak of desirability. …
[T]he fact that rapists tend to target young women rather than grandmotherly types suggests that in the real rape culture (in contrast to the imaginary rape culture of some feminist ideology), the faux-hos of Halloween and their SlutWalker counterparts marching in their underwear — like a man walking at night with a bulging wallet — should be careful about where they flash their treasure.
So thank you, Charlotte Allen, for once again showing just why the Slutwalks are necessary in the first place.
Jill at Feministe has an excellent response to Allen’s nonsense, which points out that while, yes, younger women are more likely to be victims of rape,
Younger people are also the most likely group to be the victims of aggravated, non-sexual assault. … In fact, younger people are victimized by violent crime more often than older folks as a general rule. A person between the ages of 12 and 24 is six times more likely to be the victim of a robbery than a person over the age of 50; about half of people who report being the victims of aggravated assault are under the age of 25. Men are much more likely than women to be the victims of violent crime. In every age group, black people are the most likely to be the victims of violent crime.
So yes, it is true that younger women are more likely to be targeted for sexual assault than older women. But it’s not because of The Sexy — unless hormones and hard-ons are what are causing criminals to choose their (mostly male) targets for robbery and assault also.
So, really, the only really safe costuming strategy for young people on Halloween, regardless of gender, is to dress up like an old white lady. Might I suggest Dame Judi Dench?
Also:
Gasp! You mean feminists have a problem with a lack of choices for women in the costume market while still maintaining that women have the right to choose whatever costume they want! Why, that’s…that’s…such a feminist position.
I don’t think asking that I be able to go out in public with all my genitals covered and showing no more skin than one wouldn’t see on the beach without being assaulted or harassed because of it is such a big thing to ask for.
One last note: I didn’t wear the Wonder Woman costume because I wanted a sexy costume. I wore it because Wonder Woman kicks ass, and her comics are what turned me on to feminism in the first place.
I break this picture out everytime sexy Halloween discussions roll around:
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs21/f/2007/307/a/1/Sexy_feminist_costume_by_GeneticMishap.jpg
Lauralot I like your Wonder Woman costume. It’s an actual character and is obviously not one of those “sexy for the sake of sexy” types of costumes.
It’s perfectly internally consistent once you realize that there’s more than one woman (!!!) and we’d like to wear different things. We want sexy costumes to be an option.
The phrase “feminist apologist” gives me a gigglefit. What do I need to apologize for?
But most rapes aren’t matters of “she was just too sexy.” Most rapes are matters of “a man who was capable of conscious thought made a decision to commit rape.” That’s not poor impulse control. That’s deliberate action. And it has a hell of a lot more to do with “can I get away with this?” than it does with “is she hot and sexy?
Like VoiP said I would say–what should we wear? It’s not intuitive. Is there a line on my thigh or on my bustline that demarcates between “likely to get raped” and “not likely to get raped”? Could you please tell me where it is?
…
It’s such a fucking moot point anyway. In grand Slutwalk tradition, I’ll say what I was wearing when I was assaulted: nothing. I was dating the guy, and I was naked in bed with him. (And no, without getting super detailed, this wasn’t an “fuzzy gray consent” thing; I was screaming for him to let me go.) Fat lot of good all this Stranger Danger bullshit would have done me–as is the case for a lot of rape victims, this is less of a “fat wallet in a bad neighborhood” and more “fat wallet next to your own bed inside your locked house.”
I’m so sorry to hear that happened to you Holly 🙁
I’m okay. I’m just frustrated with this narrative of rape as something that an unfathomable (and hence, paradoxically blameless) monster does to a sexy stranger. It lets 99% of actual rapists off the hook.
(And hey, MRAs? Lets female rapists way off the hook.)
I’d like to point out, if you walk into a police station and say, “I was really drunk and got lost on the way back to my car, and I was stumbling around in the street and had my wallet in one hand and my phone in the other, and some guy ran up to me and jacked me in the face and stole my shit,” the police wouldn’t say, “THAT WAS CLEARLY NOT A CRIME AND ALSO YOU DESERVE YOUR SHIT TO BE STOLEN.” A defense attorney wouldn’t argue that, a jury wouldn’t refuse to convict the guy, and you wouldn’t be roasted in the press.
Not to mention, the people most likely to be robbed are actually often poor or working class because they live in neighborhoods that are under-policed and under-maintained, and the people robbing them are often neighbors–it’s easy to rob people if you can case their house. Those gated communities and McMansions 50 fucking feet back from the sidewalk actually do cut down on crime. So having money doesn’t get you robbed, but being ignored by society does. I wonder if there’s some lesson in all that…
It is extremely frustrating. This type of victim-blaming just doesn’t exist with other crimes. Rape is one of the worst things that can happen to a person and for so many people to just automatically start thinking and assuming about what the victim did to deserve it rather than express outrage at the actual rapists themselves. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just one of those things that makes me want to crawl into bed and never leave my house.
And then when feminists try to put a stop to this type of thinking and spread awareness about properly preventing rape, all of a sudden they have an “agenda”. Because wanting to help victims of a horrible crime is just such a sneaky bad thing to do!
I’m so sick of this victim-blaming crap… When will people understand that clothing has nothing to do with rape or sexual assault?
Guess what? My Halloween night was ruined when some guys decided to shout insulting and disgusting catcalls at me because of my costume. What was it? I dressed as a Hogwarts student. No, not the “Sexy” Hogwarts student. I was wearing black uniform skirt, a sweater, stockings, and some ballet flats. They decided that as a woman my body was obviously public property and they had ever right to comment on it as they chose. It isn’t about clothing, it is about the idea that women are somehow less than human. Why can’t people just understand that?
@ClioPersephone: Boys are stoopid.
@Holly Pervocracy
“It’s such misandry to suggest that men can’t control themselves if they see the wrong clothes.”
Nah. What we have is women being unwilling/unable to sexually restrain themselves. Women dress sexy to attract a man, period. Look around on any day, even in freezing weather women will wear low cut shirts to show cleavage, while men don’t. In the modern western world we have virtually all women being unable/unwilling to control their animal urges, while virtually all men do control theirs.
Since the number of women who can’t/won’t control their sexual urges in the western world is near 100%, while the number of men who rape in miniscule, we know men have excellent self control and women have little to none. Particularly considering the amount of temptation, teasing and frustration women willfully subject upon men.
Of course when I say rape I mean an actual rape and not, “we were both drunk so he should’ve known better.” Or it has to be batshit-crazy, swinging from the rafters enthusiastic consent, before, during and afterwards, up till the time, how ever many years the statute of limitations expires for that particular State.
Also, I’m making the totally outrageous deduction, that men and women are actually different, contrary to the greatest feminist minds of the modern world. Which is why I say that women dress and act sexy to attract a man, (their animal instinct). And of course men trying to have sex with the woman who attracts them, (their animal instinct). Which would be talking to women, Their actions/accomplishments, PUAs, and in extremely rare cases, rape. So the actual misandry you speak of would be, 100% of women being unable/unwilling to sexually control themselves, while demanding 100% of men to sexually control themselves.
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@Integral
“There was a serial rapist in my area who targeted elderly women and broke into their houses. So clearly to avoid rape we should not dress conservatively and stay out of the kitchen.”
There is a woman teacher who is a serial rapist of young boys. So clearly to avoid this situation women should be forbidden to be teachers.
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@Myoo
Ah, the “bulging wallet” comparison. You know, that kind of comparison can be used to great effect:”
I won’t list all of you rant, just one to illustrate the point you’re feebly trying to make.
“1.4)PERSONAL TRANSPORTATION
-Cars and motorcycles are definite signs of wealth. Do not own one of these, for it may cause you to be robbed.”
Well don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. Take all your money and put it on the front doorstep with a rock on top so it doesn’t blow away. Put a sign on it saying, ” I dare you to take it.” Leave your car key in the door with a sign that says, “sweet ride.” Or are you all talk and no walk?
——————–
@Shaenon
“Don’t apologize! It’s hilarious! And it made me realize one of the creepiest parts of the “flashing your wallet in a bad neighborhood” analogy: you’re supposed to think that any neighborhood with men in it is a “bad neighborhood,” and basically you shouldn’t be going outdoors at all.”
Shit, we got women cutting of mens dicks while they sleep. That video a while back of a woman beating up a guy for like ten minutes in NYC that was an article on manboobz. We got a video a coupla weeks ago with a woman jumping the counter at MccyDs while the other woman went to the door to bash the guys brains in. Of course when he defended himself, a little too harshly for the manboobz gang, ya’ll dubbed him the aggressor. Off to prison he goes. Yet yesterday, you’re all singing praises for battered womens defense; State sanctioned, cold blooded murder. YOU might, “think that any neighborhood with men in it is a “bad neighborhood” as you put it. That’d be the misandry you so lovingly swim in and practice everyday. Men aren’t the problem where violence and manipulation are concerned, look in the mirror.
NWO: don’t you have trick-or-treaters to yell at to get off your lawn or something?
SO NWO DO YOU WANT TO DESCRIBE ONE OUTFIT THAT IS NOT SLUTTY?
C’mon, I’ll make it easy for you. Just one outfit, not a description of all possible outfits. Just one outfit–even a simple one!–that isn’t slutty and will not force men to become rapists.
NAME ME ONE FUCKING OUTFIT.
(As always, I’ll remind you: I’m not trying to “trap” you into answering. I’m trying to trap you in to not answering–that’s what really proves my point–and it’s kind of hilarious and pathetic how you fall for it every time.)
wow i totally want to rock the sexy feminist halloween costume next year! afraid it would go over peoples heads or be viewed as making fun of feminists but to me its hilarious!
Wonder Woman…well, Wonder Woman ROCKS! I love her and I love her storyline and I love her truth lasso, i would love to have one of those! I think it’s proof that there is still a need for feminism that they can make a fucking green lantern movie and have failed to make a modern Wonder Woman movie. Not even a crappy one. They don’t even want to try!!
Hey, NWO, ever going to inform us about what constitutes modest clothing for women? Let me guess, I’m an evil temptress for daring to have cleavage, right?
And apparently a woman showing some of her skin is comparable to a man raping a woman. In other words NWO’s version of a modicum of self-restraint is a Burqa.
@LyssatakeaBow:
They did try for a Wonder Woman TV show, but judging from what’s been released, it’s probably for the best that that fell through. Wikipedia says she’s getting a movie, but who knows how reliable that is?
And um, yeah, I do demand men 100% sexually control themselves. That’s about as unreasonable a demand as “I demand men 100% control their impulse to murder!” I know 70% is a passing grade but that’s just not going to cut it here, snookums.
I also expect women to 100% sexually control themselves in the sense of they also are not allowed to rape people.
HEY NWO ANSWER ME THIS: What do male rape victims do to deserve it? Are they dressed too slutty? Or (this makes sense in MRA logic, I think) are they too darn successful and dominant?
Seriously NWO. What’s the standard. Show us some pictures? What about the stuff at funkyfrum?
http://www.funkyfrum.com/
Orthodox Jewish fashion too slutty? Getting warmer? colder? Help us out!
I knew NWO would show up for this one. How could he not?
Interesting technique. I think I recognize it. Hey, NWO, you know that the “Gish Gallop” works best in a spoken debate setting? In a written forum, people aren’t overwhelmed by the sheer volume of your “points” and can actually take the time to rebut all of them.
“There is a woman teacher who is a serial rapist of young boys. So clearly to avoid this situation women should be forbidden to be teachers.”
Or! Or! Or! Don’t rape! Pah! I’m such a genius I amaze myself =D
I’m genuinly baffled as to why Slavey thinks that a woman wearing a low-cut shirt is demonstrating sexual urges. Does he literally think that we’re empty boxes with nothing on the inside, so surface = thoughts?
Does he literally think that we’re empty boxes with nothing on the inside, so surface = thoughts?
My guess would be yes.
“What we have is women being unwilling/unable to sexually restrain themselves. Women dress sexy to attract a man, period. Look around on any day, even in freezing weather women will wear low cut shirts to show cleavage”
Fucking boobs everywhere! Who do those selfish bitches think they are? And the poor oppressed men doing their darnedest to avoid getting an erection. The world can be so cruel!