I don't think that women have to have been sexually assaulted to have an opinion on the issue of rape. The fear of rape is there in our brains and hearts and souls because of the world we live in. The world cannot be safe until all women are safe. (Did I mention I'm a closet idealist? )

I live three blocks away from a potential emergency that I could have to deal with any day -- or any night. I have left instructions: you can always reach me. Call me any time. Call me in the middle of the night; I will come.

And I will. But it is three blocks. At night, three very dark blocks, one of them, I think, potentially dangerous. To me. At 3 a.m.

In my early 20s, I had a really scary experience when walking home alone late at night, where car after car with a single guy in it would pull over and try to get me in.

The first time, the guy indicated he needed directions. When I walked toward him, he opened the door. I told him there was a misunderstanding and went briskly on my way.

A couple of years later, I spoke with a sex-trade activist at Maggie's about what happened. She said because, at the time, the location was a main stroll, and yet there were no prostitutes around, the men calling me over and freaking me out were most likely cops, making sure that a recent "clean-up" was sticking, out to catch any stragglers.

Real johns would know the stroll had moved elsewhere, and would be there, instead.

Before moving to that neighbourhood, I had lived at Gerrard and Church, surrounded by prostitutes. Not once did I feel threatened or scared. There was always somebody around.

On that empty "cleaned up" street, I could have disappeared and nobody would have known the difference.

[ 21 September 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

And it has occurred to me, when I'm scaring myself, that the men most likely to stop me because they can't figure out why I'm walking along it at 3 a.m. would be the cops.

The places I've been accosted have always been very quiet places -- suburbs, countryside, or cold thoroughfares. I remember first grasping that as I was picking my way along a street in Soho in London years ago at about 1 a.m., looking for a cab. I was young and drunk and alone in a famously louche area, and yet I wasn't scared. Why? Because the streets were alive, with all kinds of people. Some of them were sleeping on grates at that hour, which was why I had to be walking carefully. But for the first time in my young life, I was not scared of the dark in the city.

The closest I ever came to fighting: the summer we finished high school, my friend Gwen and I went walking out along the road that then led to Bragg Creek from southwest Calgary (all those roads have changed now -- where we were then is now probably very close to the main highway to Banff). We were several hills away from town, all alone in the countryside about dusk -- a very beautiful, peaceful time on the prairies, especially for two seventeen-year-olds, talking obsessively about our dreams and hopes and plans ...

And then suddenly, a jalopy came roaring up next to us, and stopped. Three guys piled out (and there was a driver), sloppy and slurring already from the beer. They weren't much older than we were, I'm guessing. And they had these stupid grins on their faces. I can still sort of see one of them.

Me: paralysed. Gwen: picked up large rock. Me: sheesh, do I have to do this? But of course I did, so I also picked up large rock.

Gwen starts to walk towards staggery grinning idiots, raising her rock. So, ok, I did too. And I would have, y'know. God, everything in me doesn't want to, but I would have.

But they cut out. They backed off, stumbling and snorting and dribbling and chortling, and peeled away.

That's not the closest I ever came to being assaulted, but it is the most garden-variety I know, and it is the physically bravest I've ever been.

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Elizabeth Sheehy, lawyer and University of Ottawa professor specializing in criminal law and women's issues, doesn't want to minimize the significance of Myers' arrest.

But she points to how few women come forward to report sex assaults; to police departments, which deem their accusations unfounded at a much higher rate than almost any other offence reported to them; to the "very" low conviction rates in cases that do get to court.

In general, she says, shockingly, our society still offers "pretty good conditions" for men to sexually assault women.

"I find it very hard when an individual is apprehended for one femicide," said Sheehy. "The patterns are so deep and broad, it doesn't relieve me very much."

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I was working at a Women's Centre, do you suppose that and the fact that I wasn't scared brought out the worst in these Police Officers?

[ 21 October 2005: Message edited by: a citizen of winnipeg ]

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I was working at a Women's Centre, do you suppose that and the fact that I wasn't scared brought out the worst in these Police Officers?

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Know what you mean. When I spoke to police in the Sexual Assault Squad, I noticed they were getting increasingly agitated / aggressive during the interview. I suspected part of the reason for this was because I wasn't crying and all emotional - I wasn't behaving the way they thought a "real" survivor would - but instead talked about what happened in a plain, factual manner, with notes, even.

Later I cried, because of them. But I held it together so they didn't see me. I got as far as the lobby of Toronto's police headquarters before I broke.

I didn't cry after being assaulted.

To serve and protect. Yes indeed.

A convicted sex offender who was at the centre of the "no means no" case is in court charged in the alleged sexual assault of an eight year old girl.

Edmonton Journal

Background: R. v. Ewanchuk - Definition of "Consent" in Sexual Assault | Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF)

I don't want to belittle others experiences by comparing mine to sexual assault, but I had a peeping tom at an old apartment, which led to both a call to the police and the changing of habits related to my blinds. A few weeks after this, I came home one night after a party, where I had been drinking, and realized as I walked up that someone had been in my place while I was gone.

I stood outside for maybe 15 minutes, trying to think if I could be mistaken, if I could have left that blind up. I decided I couldn't, but went inside, carefully propping open all the doors so I had a clear exit route, listened at my door for a while to hear any sounds, then opened it, grabbed the cordless phone and called a friend to be on the line while I searched my place. A second after walking in, I realized I hadn't been wrong - the toilet seat was up (single girl, living alone, with a fetish for putting both the seat and lid down).

Two officers came, and while the male officer wasn't rude, I felt very clearly that he thought I was overreacting, maybe imagining things. It was the female officer who reassured me, telling me that even though there were no signs of forced entry, and nothing taken, that I was right to call, and she too would know if the toilet seat was up and she hadn't done it. She gave me her direct line, and told me to call her if I thought of anything, letting me know she'd do some follow up. And she did (eventually found cause of problem - landlord who came in illegally, but she called him too).

Prosecutors will again seek dangerous offender status for the man at the centre of the "no means no" Supreme Court of Canada case after he was convicted yesterday of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.
Repeat rapist called public danger

[ 08 November 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

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Courtroom apology from Calgary rapist scorned by victim

Defence lawyer Larry Ross proposed a sentence of 10 to 12 years, arguing that the rapes were on the lower end of severity compared with the broad spectrum of crime.

Ms. Deneve was raped in the early morning of May 6, 1989. Mr. Cromwell also struck her with a pipe, gouging the side of her forehead, which required 12 stitches. She is now 46 and a mother of four. Her anger was palpable outside court when asked about Mr. Ross's argument.

"I could say some really vicious things right now but I'm not that type of person," Ms. Deneve said. "But any man that stands up and says that a rape is a lower-end crime needs to be slapped. He has no idea what a rape is."

Mr. Ross cited mitigating factors that could merit a shorter sentence, including Mr. Cromwell's co-operation with police and his decision to plead guilty, in theory sparing the women from the pain of a trial.

Ms. Deneve was also insulted by that suggestion.

"After hearing what went on today, I would rather have gone to trial," she said. "If we had been sitting on a witness stand, then at least we would have been able to voice what it really meant to us."

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Something very similar happened to me. My ex did this 'assault-threaten with a large knife thing' about 9 years ago. After my 3rd attempt at calling police I finally succeeded (the first 2 times my ex grabbed the phone out of my hands, while foaming at the mouth, and shouted at me to sit down and shut up).

A disturbing study out from the UK (though sadly not too surprising for many who have been through it):

A third of Britons blame flirty women for rape
Reuters UK
"These findings should act as a wake-up call to the government to urgently tackle the triple problem of the high incidence of rape, low conviction rates and a sexist blame culture," said Kate Allen, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International UK which commissioned the research.

Women 'get blame for being raped'
BBC News

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Originally posted by Sisyphus2:
I have never personally been attacked in the physical sense that we're talking about here but I do know that the one thing that infuriates me is when female victims of assault are persecuted for the crimes of their assailant. Example, "Well, why would you walk down the street by yourself at 1:00 in the morning? What did you think was going to happen?" Was the man who just attacked me not doing the very same thing? Why is it the "fault" of women who are attacked simply because they had to get home, go to the store for an emergency pack of smokes, or just be outside?! I wonder how many men actually know what it's like to be afraid to leave your home to take the garbage out after dark? Obviously fear isn't restricted to the female sex, but it's a constant, everyday thing for women. Potential danger exists for women around almost every corner and in almost any situation. I fear elevators and stairwells the most.

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I have never been attacted/assulted, but I also absolutely refuse to live my life in fear. This may be the result of my relitive youth and the fact that I'm still getting over the whole indistructable teenage thing.

I personally refuse to be scared while walking in the dark, despite having been assaulted more than once. Most assaults are by people we know and teaching us not to be critical of that element of society, but rather to fear streets, is a way, I believe, that patriarchy works to maintain their system.

[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: marcella ]

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Originally posted by smcniven:
It seems like the UK is truly regressingwhen it comes to this subject.

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Further onto that subject: Scotsman Why Rapists love our courts

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EVERY day in Scotland an average of two women report being raped, yet there is less chance of their attackers being convicted than in almost any other country in western Europe.

At every point in the system - police, prosecutor, judge and jury - rape cases collapse more frequently than any other crime involving adult victims.

The situation is getting worse. Reported rapes have soared 300 per cent between 1977 and 2001. But the number of guilty verdicts has only gone up by one.

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