Incessantly goading a girl into sexual acts is abuse – I would contact the school and make a complaint at the very least. Child protective services should also be involved.

As for your other comments; they are not new to my ears and I’m saddened by their refusal to disappear from people’s discussion about rape. What you’re saying from your words is basically “what do they expect”..you can deny that when its rephrasing as being a rape apologist but basically that’s what your saying.

1 thing happens that causes rape. It really is that simple. A person decides to rape.

As for your “girls get scared abotu sleeping around” inference…I would stay away from prehistoric, tory government members and actually educate yourself on rape.

False accusations are rare and the horrific reporting procedure tends to lower the amount of genuine reports too. There is a very invasive medical exam that is filmed. I was 16 when I had one of these and they didnt give me a female chaperone..I was in a room with 2 male doctors and a video camera.

The whole thing was violating and horrid. The court case was just as violating with the defence accusing me of being too fat to be raped (i wasnt even fat) or out to get the accused.

I’ll tell you what’s scary..reporting a rape. Know what else is scary? having people know you were raped and wondering if they believe you or not. Something else – having people make crude jokes about how they “wouldn’t have said no to [accused]“…like somehow it was lucky to be forced into sex by someone attractive. Another scary thing – bumping into the man you have reported for rape and his friends..real fear of what may happen to you.

Scared of my parents finding out i like sex? Pssh nothing in comparison.

Every one of your sentiments on date rape honestly made me sick. You just exemplify the rape culture that is sadly pervading our country.

I’m glad that you were never abused, but that has nothing to do with you “protecting” yourself in every possible way. It’s honestly more luck than anything.

I know that things aren’t black and white but in the case of rape it is. Any sexual engagement that did not have active, clear, and sober consent is wrong. Always. End of story.

I’m sure just like everyone else always says to me, you must just think that it was still in the end my fault for choosing the wrong guy.

I am the author of this piece and wanted to thank everyone for the conversation. I also wanted to share a few statistics about rape that did not fit in the article, but that might shed some light on why this topic is important to discuss.

First, over 55% of rapes happen in either the victim’s home or the rapist’s home. Just over 2% happen in a bar, club, or other similar public place.

What this says to me is one of two things. First, that a couple strikes up relationship with each other. They go back to one of their places and the girl says, “No, stop, I don’t want this” or is intoxicated and unable to give consent or decline (I am comfortable using this generalization as the vast majority of rapes are man to woman).

The other thing this might mean is that a friend, acquaintance, or even relative forces himself on a woman in some way. Seeing as how nearly 45% of rape cases fit into that category this seems to fit.

This, leads me to my number one rule to change rape culture. Let’s start believing women.

When a woman says she has been raped, let’s get her help not ask, “What were you wearing?”

If a person gets shot do we say, “If you were wearing a longer skirt it wouldn’t happen.” If a woman gets mugged do we suggest that she is at fault for it? If a woman gets hit by a drunk driver do we claim that if she was dressed “properly” then she wouldn’t have been hit?

Of course not.

Unfortunately when a woman is raped we ask all of those questions or make all of those claims.

But I do think that an undignified, drunken girl dressed up and made up like a whore, with cigarette in one hand, an an hour-old vomit on the miniskirt and top, sitting spread-legged in the back of a man’s car is giving the message that “I am valuing neither you, nor myself, and especially not my body to less than the cost of this beer. I couldn’t care less about the world and I couldn’t care less about what you do so yeah, fuck me or not, whateva”. And really please don’t think that this is uncommon. My niece comes home with horror stories from school even of how “X gave Y a blowjob in the loo cus he said she was frigid and she wanted to prove him otherwise”. Do you see the point I am trying to make? This issue is far from black and white.

Both men and women should be able to control themselves, both drinks, alcohol and sex-wise. Sad truth is that most of the time neither of them do.

“Maybe she’s on medication that doesn’t interact well with alcohol.”

Then she or he should not drink alcohol. Crazy notion, but get this: some people only drink a glass of wine once in a while, and they life full, happy lives too! wow, right?

“Maybe she doesn’t normally drink, but feels pressured to by her friends. She needs new friends”

That’s sad in itself and just proves my point of female (and male) bad behaviour.

“Maybe someone has already drugged her drink with the intention of raping her.”

This is obviously outside the remit of this discussion and no question about how wrong and criminalistic this is.

“here’s no way you would know that, but you’re probably still judging her, assuming that she’s “just drunk”, and that she’s “asking for it.”"

No I am not saying “she’s asking for it”, and I never did. I said nothing is black and white.

Once again, let me try to get my point across. I completely agree with you that noone deserves to be raped. But in many “date rape” instances, there is, SADLY, most of the time, an explanation (not an excuse!! an explanation!) as to why it happened at all, and the vast, vast majority of cases it does boil down to one thing: people, and that is WOMEN AND MEN beehaving badly and irresponsibly.

I assume you don’t live in my degenerate, entitlement-entwined, alcohol and drug fuelled country, so i encourage you to google images and stories like “drunken teenagers in the uk” and i do hope you will see what I mean.

Nothing is black and white.