Rape more Common than Smoking in the US

[thucythucy]

231. We tell people not to drive drunk

or to let their friends drive drunk, and I have NEVER heard complaints about how such messages are stereotyping all drivers or holding them out to be "Dumb or evil." Certainly no one has ever suggested that spreading the mantra "don't drive drunk" is somehow demeaning to those who might hear it.

But when we tell men a) not to rape and b) not to tolerate those who do, all of a sudden we get all these guys telling us how hurt they are, how horrible it is to be stereotyped, how turned off they are by this simple admonition. Hell, if we simply post statistics on rape, we get the same response. I wonder--if I started an OP about drunk driving statistics, do you think I'd get push back from drivers offended at being stereotyped as drunks?

Interesting side-bar to that: we tell people--"don't drive drunk." The emphasis is on stopping the individual who might commit the crime. We don't tell them, "Here's what you should do to avoid getting hit by a drunk driver" at least not with anything like the same intensity. Contrast that with what usually passes for "rape awareness education."

"Witch hunts [on an internet thread] are ugly things."

Not nearly as ugly as rape in real life.