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For the past seven years Terrifica has been patrolling New York's party and bar scene, looking out for women who have had a little too much to drink and are in danger of being taken advantage of by men. She says she has saved several women from both themselves and predators who would prey upon their weaknesses — both from alcohol and a misguided notion that they have to go out drinking to find a companion.

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I do this because women are weak. They are easily manipulated, and they need to be protected from themselves and most certainly from men and their ill intentions toward them."

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Maybe this quote was taken out of context, or perhaps she meant to say "drunk people" instead of "women", but it does cast a bit of a shadow over what she does.

Personally, I don't blame her for feeling weak and vulnerable. Having just moved to Toronto, I feel like I'm bordering on agorophobia sometimes. The people out in the street are pretty creepy in the dim light of the streetlamps and I would never dare to go to a bar by myself, never mind actually getting drunk alone in public. It's too scary. But some women do, I guess, and they put themselves at great risk.

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But while Terrifica has never addressed Fantastico directly, her alter-ego Sarah has. Sarah says she was seduced by Fantastico years ago.

However, Fantastico does not even remember Sarah and has no idea that she is Terrifica. He does remember Terrifica, though.

"While I don't know a Sarah, I do know Terrifica. She does exist, and we have crossed paths from time to time," he says.

"What? You mean he doesn't remember me?" Sarah asks, stunned. "You see, that's why Terrifica exists, that's why she's needed."

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Looking for Mr Goodbar is pretty sad, but it would be far better to come up with constructive alternatives. Mind your own business Terrifikkka.

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I don't know, sometimes the constructive alternative is just to extricate yourself from a potentially dangerous or damaging situation, and sometimes it's difficult to do that--especially, say, if you're totally loaded and some creep is taking creepy advantage of that. It'd be nice to have someone come and ask if you're sure you want to be leaving with the guy, or if you'd prefer some assistance in getting a cab and going home alone.

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I don't know, sometimes the constructive alternative is just to extricate yourself from a potentially dangerous or damaging situation, and sometimes it's difficult to do that--especially, say, if you're totally loaded and some creep is taking creepy advantage of that. It'd be nice to have someone come and ask if you're sure you want to be leaving with the guy, or if you'd prefer some assistance in getting a cab and going home alone.

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I have never been so drunk that I couldn't tell off some would-be Don Juan if I wanted to. And in the years of my misspent youth, I was pretty damned drunk a number of times.

I also had a friend who hooked up with some guy while we were at the bar, went home with him and was date-raped. If I couldn't talk her out of it (and gawd knows, I tried, my gut told me he was dangerous), some strange woman in a mask and cape wouldn't have been successful.

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In this case, a meddling, patronising, puritanical attitude. I'm not talking about wanting to extricate inebriated young women from date rape, but everything else she says about relationships and life values. Bully for her if that is how she feels, but I think she is a meddling young fogey to impose her values on others.

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Consenting adults?

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Alcohol is the number one date-rape drug.

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Indeed.
It's also the #1 justification for any goddamn stupid thing we wanted to do, and the #1 remover of inhibitions we never wanted in the first place and the #1 excuse for stuff we would have done anyway, if only we'd had the guts.
It's not some snotty little girlscout's decision to make: it's our own, each and every time. If we get burned, we might learn something. If we get lucky... but we're not gonna get lucky, if Terrifica has anything to say about it.

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Holy crap, Nonesuch. What if it was your inexperienced young daughter sitting in a bar sipping doubles cheerfully supplied by circling vultures? Wouldn't you want someone to remind her of the consequences of her decision?

I think her intentions are good, but yes, she should be helping women take care of themselves, if she wants to do something.

Frankly, I'm surprised women do these things. I would never, ever get trashed alone at a bar. I don't even like going to parties without a buddy.

I'm thinking of all the excellent suggestions on this thread, that people stick with a group when they're partying, that they don't abandon one another to strangers, that they don't over-indulge in drink/drugs in an unknown environment. The buddy system, it's a great plan - until your buddy tells you to fuck off and leave her alone, she'll go home with Mr RightNow if she wants to. What do you do? Go with her? Wrestle her to the ground? Honestly, I don't know what I'd do.

At some point, we all have to make our own mistakes. We can certainly learn from the experiences of others but think about it - how often do you, while acknowledging that harm does happen, also acknowledge that it could happen to you? For me, it's almost never. Sometimes I feel like I'm charging about the world as if acting like it won't hurt me means that it actually won't.

My gf works in a rape crisis centre and listens with horror when I describe my past - nights out drinking, sometimes alone, the men who have bought me drinks in a bar or engaged me in conversation on the street, the ones I've followed home, or allowed to follow me home. "Do you know what could have happened to you?" Her work day is filled with what could have happened to me.

But it never did and I'm lucky, because I certainly would not have listened to anyone who tried, in the moment, to question my judgement. Or at least I'm sort of lucky - we don't really ever escape, because if it's not a stranger who wants to harm you, it's someone you think you know. I was sexually assaulted by a guy I was dating, had gone out with several times, felt that I knew and liked, and that he knew and liked me. And it makes me angry that I've had better treatment at the hands of drunken strangers.

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but sometimes we put ourselves in harm's way, like I did when I went to bed with a guy that I didn't, clearly, know as well as I should have. I hate that guy for mistreating me, but I also accept my own responsibility for taking that kind of a risk.

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Put ourselves in harm's way? Taking that kind of risk? We all put ourselves in harm's way and take that risk, every time we become friends or casual acquaintances with someone, or go anywhere, with anyone. The most careful and streetwise woman in the world can be raped. IT IS NOT OUR FAULT IN ANY WAY! Unless you are sitting alone in your panic room, there is a possibility of rape, and while we can do things to minimize being in a situation, IF IT HAPPENS, IT IS NOT OUR FAULT. The rapist is the one who was waiting and searching for and in many many cases attempting to set up the situation where they could force the person to have sex or in other ways assault them.

I have a friend who was raped by a guy she'd been dating for years - he just wouldn't take no one night. A cousin whose ex-husband raped her - she knew him as well as she knew anyone in the world. And since I work on a sexual assault crisis line, I get to hear all types of stories - friends, family members, strangers, casual acquaintances, on and on. Situations I've been in many times and been fine (drinking with friends, going to a party of people I just met, walking home, chatting at school, accepting a ride from a coworker, etc. etc. etc.) have resulted in assault for other people. Not because I was careful and they weren't, or because I am a good judge of character and they aren't, but because the person who they were with at the time chose to assault them. Period. Anything less is blaming the victim, and not only is that a horrible and unfair responsibility to place on a survivor, it is untrue.

Of course it's not always possible to fully protect ourselves, and we aren't to blame for the results, ever.

[ November 15, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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We all put ourselves in harm's way and take that risk, every time we become friends or casual acquaintances with someone, or go anywhere, with anyone

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swirrlygrrl, that's my point exactly and I think that we need to acknowledge it in a way that doesn't strip us of our self-determination.

In my situation, I made the choice to go home with the guy, I made the choice to go to bed with him. He made the choice to mistreat me. I'm not responsible for his choice but I am for mine and it was my choices that put me into the place that he could choose to harm me. And for me, in this instance (heaven forfend that there should ever be another), I need to own that choice, to know that I wasn't coerced, that I went into the situation in good faith. It makes his betrayal that much worse.

And it also proves to me the very point that you go on to make: that sexual assault can happen anywhere, at any time, and by anyone. I think that by acknowledging our own choices and taking responsibility for them, it becomes even clearer that we are not responsible for the choices of others. If we don't acknowledge our actions, then we're only acted upon and I don't see that as a position from which we can take strength.

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I feel like I'm admitting that I can't take care of myself, that I'm a "weak woman" who needs others to look after her. We all need others to look after us, certainly, but in the end we need to be able to look after ourselves and live with the decisions that we make.

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absolutely. But I can think of one or two times in my life when a whisper or reason might have saved me a lot of heart break.

I didn't like Terriffica's comments on women being weak, but there is a chance they were taken out of context.

By the time we reached Abootsford, he had convinced her to get off the bus with him in Vancouver, and not go over to her grandparents.

She was 16, admitted by herself, and it was first time she was way from home and travelling alone.

This guy had even told her he just got out of jail and had the clothes on his back. And yet she was still swooning.

I fuckin stepped in when we got to the bus depot and made a scene, he got pretty verbally abusive with me, and then and woman, who also was sitting near, and had been listening stepped in too.

The guy ran off the bus pushing past everyone ahead, just as I was dialing 911 to have him picked up.