Today, my friend @portraitofjenny asked me:

Do you have any kick-ass well-reasoned unassailable critiqus of the “women shouldn’t invite rape with attire/behaviour” thing?

I told her that I didn’t have links to any, I’m sure they’ve been written, but I prefer a single sentence response: clothing is not consent, even nudity does not confer it.

Of course, I’m not disposed toward rape apologia, so for me that’s enough. But I recognize that it’s not that simple. So when Jenny asked if I had anything more, to counter the (offensive and dehumanizing) example that is the most common refrain of casual slut-shaming rape apologia: “I wouldn’t wear an expensive watch in a dark alley in the wrong part of town.” And I went off on a bit of rant toward the guys saying that. And it went something like this:

People are raped wearing burkas, in pajamas in their own beds, in nuns’ habits and jeans and t-shirts. People aren’t often raped on beaches in bikinis. This is because rape isn’t about clothing. Rapists aren’t tempted into rape by “available” flesh on display, they’re tempted by opportunity. And many opportunities arise while their victims are simply engaging in activities of everyday living, in every day clothing. But you’re speaking primarily of stranger rape, built on an idea of some guy in the shadows who sees some uncovered woman and can’t stop himself, leaping out and overcoming her. That’s not what the vast majority of rape is. It’s a date who won’t hear “no.” It’s a coworker who fixates and stalks. It’s friends, boyfriends and husbands who don’t need their victims to be in tiny skirts or baring cleavage because their victims trust them. And they violate that trust and their victims’ bodies not because of their victims’ clothing or naivete or because of opportunity, but because they can, because they want to hurt, to teach a lesson or most often, to take what they think they’re entitled to. And that is their fault, and their fault alone.

But even for victims of stranger rape, once we start talking about what they might have done differently, start critiquing their dress and behavior or start trying to concoct a cautionary tale, what you’re saying is that sometimes rape is the fault of someone other than rapists. You’re suggesting some idea of shared liability, as if rape is like a car accident with both parties sharing some level of blame. And that idea is not morally, ethically or legally valid. It’s the perpetuation of a myth, the shaming and slandering of victims and, worse, the insulation of perpetrators from the responsibility of rape in order to obfuscate who does it, where they do it, and when. It’s to cover up the times you and your friends have been fuzzy about the consent of your partners. It’s to further a culture in which you haven’t been taught about what consent is (the presence of yes, not just the absence of no) but you have been taught, often and well, about “sluts” and what they “deserve.”

Think on that, and then explain how a short skirt says something more meaningful or understandable than the “no” of the person wearing it.

It’s not a well-reasoned critique, but it is a heartfelt one.