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OBVIOUS TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY I was watching this documentary on Ted Bundy, the notorious serial killer, and it mentions how he was active around the UofU. In fact at around half way through this interview, a woman mentions how she was attacked by Bundy and survived (she jumped in a river and was swept downstream.) She also mentions how she was LDS and how she felt she had to keep her virtue, as if being raped somehow stole it from her. For me this goes totally against the free agency we teach.
Virtue comes from the root meaning “strength”. We have destroyed the original meaning with our acceptance of the “apostate” meaning focused on sexual purity – and nearly exclusively, in practical terms, on women. The idea that it is better to be dead than to accept rape passively is a horrible outgrowth of that Victorian idea.
To be fair to the woman she did manage an effective escape plan. He kept smothering her, so she passed out, but she managed to haul herself out of there and.used a river to get away from him… But it is sad that someone could be held guilty for an unwanted attack. She was stupid to get in the car with him, I suppose, but that still doesn’t justify it. Historically there have been serious double standards against women for virginity. In essence, for large portions of human history a wife was seen as a form of property. If a man raped a married woman, he would have stolen from the husband. If a married woman had sex with someone not her husband, she would have stolen from her husband.
If a man raped an unmarried woman then it was an affront to the father and the family. Who would marry her now that she was no longer a virgin? According to a verse in the bible this rapist could help atone for his crime by marrying her himself.
I believe that these understandings are a corruption of the true value that our Heavenly Parents place upon their daughters. Although there have been vast improvements, we have still not managed to filter out all the corrupted ideas of the past.
SamBee wrote:
She was stupid to get in the car with him, I suppose, but that still doesn’t justify it.
I think we should be really careful with statements like this. I have gotten in cars with others. I suppose almost any of those instances could have turned out horribly. Does that mean that I am/was stupid each and every time I allowed myself to be vulnerable? Is it ok for me because I am a man? I do not like where this train of thought leads.We now live in a time of Uber and other ride services that until very recently were not nearly as well vetted as traditional taxi services – and even the older taxi services had serious issues. Just saying. When I was much younger, I once said that a woman should not be blamed for being raped if she walked down a darkly lit street at night – but that we shouldn’t be surprised if it happened. I know much better now. Even that statement implicitly puts the responsibility on her – even though I didn’t intend to place it there. The implication is that she simply should go to her destination in some other way. However, MANY people have no other way to go where they have to go. It literally is not possible for them. Assuming they can avoid that darkly lit street isn’t necessarily sexist – but it absolutely does show my unconscious privilege, since I have the luxury of knowing I could find a different way (or not realizing consciously that I would not hint at criticism of myself if I did it).
The core issue for this post, in my mind, is the mistaken notion that someone loses their virtue if they are raped – and that depends entirely on how someone defines “virtue” and to what extent they value “purity” and “virginity”. I know people who have been assaulted and, as a result, have lost a degree of “strength” (at the very least until they process the trauma and have a chance to return to normal strength), and there is a linguistic argument for losing “purity” if that is defined very narrowly in sexual terms, and rape certainly can end virginity – but tying “virginity” and “virtue” so tightly together that the latter is lost when the former ends overlooks the difference between the words even if they share the same root.
“Virginity” is a derivative of “virtue”, and that difference is important. Virginity is one manifestation or type or subset of virtue; it is not virtue itself. Virginity is important only to the extent a particular society makes it important – and that varies radically among societies, even those that value virtue highly.
I think it is important also to point out that virginity is lost in cases of rape specifically because the person who is raped is not as strong as the rapist. Someone who is not as strong physically does not lose strength because they are overpowered by someone who is stronger physically. They simply were not as strong physically in the first place.
Saying someone who is raped loses virtue (“strength”) because of the rape is setting just one more double standard that weighs more heavily on women than on men, speaking generally – and that only increases the damage done by the rape itself.
Old-Timer wrote:
When I was much younger, I once said that a woman should not be blamed for being raped if she walked down a darkly lit street at night – but that we shouldn’t be surprised if it happened. I know much better now. Even that statement implicitly puts the responsibility on her – even though I didn’t intend to place it there. The implication is that she simply should go to her destination in some other way. However, MANY people have no other way to go where they have to go. It literally is not possible for them. Assuming they can avoid that darkly lit street isn’t necessarily sexist – but it absolutely does show my unconscious privilege, since I have the luxury of knowing I could find a different way (or not realizing consciously that I would not hint at criticism of myself if I did it).
Thank you Old-Timer. We humans are sometimes motivated to blame the victim. There can be multiple competing motivations for this. I believe that one motivation is to maintain a false sense of security about ourselves and our loved ones. The thought that I (or my children) could be brutally murdered at multiple points throughout the day is too terrifying to contemplate. Thus when something like this happens to someone else we tend to distance ourselves by thinking that the victims were careless somehow and that we, ourselves, would not be as careless.
I would love for us (as humans) to discontinue using virtue in the sexual “purity” sense. I would like for humans to only use virtue as the primary definition. Strengths, values, righteousness, qualities, ethicalness!
Roy wrote:
SamBee wrote:
She was stupid to get in the car with him, I suppose, but that still doesn’t justify it.
I think we should be really careful with statements like this. I have gotten in cars with others. I suppose almost any of those instances could have turned out horribly. Does that mean that I am/was stupid each and every time I allowed myself to be vulnerable? Is it ok for me because I am a man? I do not like where this train of thought leads.
We’ve all done stupid things, that doesn’t mean we should do them. I’ve found myself in dangerous situations a few times through my own fault. On one occasion, I just had to run as fast as my legs would take me. Luckily it was an easy route back to safety.
The woman didn’t know Bundy at all, so I think that is mistake no. 1. I think we do at least teach our youngsters to be careful with these things. I know practically anyone can turn out nasty, but you’ve got to be especially careful of guys who arr an unknown quantity.
It is perfectly fine to evaluate our own stupidity and fault for our own negative circumstances and events. It is somewhat more dangerous to evaluate the “stupidity” and “fault” of others. Far too often, humans tend to justify that those that are suffering more or less deserve their circumstances. We make snap judgments and aspersions on others with only a tiny fraction of the “big picture.” This is especially true in situations of rape and/or murder. No victim ever asks for that. No victim ever has that coming. No victim ever is to blame or at fault or even partly responsible for being attacked by another. Those that survive these types of situation quite often wrongly place blame upon themselves for being vulnerable.
To anyone reading these words that has lived through something similar, you are not at fault… not even a tiny bit.
Moderator Hat: I believe that this thread has run its useful and healthy course. Even with the best of intentions, I find it difficult for a group of men to have a enlightening conversation on the topic when each of us have obvious limitations in perspective and experience. In addition, I feel that this discussion is in danger of detracting from the mission of StayLDS. I am locking the thread for these reasons.
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