Potty Mouth Princesses (OR) How to Undermine Your Message 101

“What the fuck? I’m not some pretty fucking helpless princess in distress,” they shout." 

So...yeah:
Step one: stop treating girls like victims who need to be protected and saved from themselves. When we accept responsibility of making our own choices, we also implicitly accept the consequences when we make bad ones. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, implying that we are now responsible for our own safety as well. I don't need a man to protect me, I don't need a husband to keep me in line, and I don't need the government telling me what to do with my body. But I also accept that sometimes decisions have disastrous results and horrific unintended consequences. Does this mean that someone was asking for it? No. Absolutely not. Rape is never appropriate nor justified.
But, "teach men not to rape" doesn't address the problem. People who rape others don't do it because they think it's okay. They do it because they don't care about the differences between right and wrong, and they're just interested in getting what they think is theirs to take. This isn't a gender issue.

"Don't lock your doors! Teach burglars not to steal!"
"Don't tell kids not to talk to strangers! Teach strangers to stop kidnapping kids!"
"Don't teach people to not walk around with a wad of cash in a dangerous neighborhood! Teach muggers not to mug people!"

Pretty stupid, right? Am I missing something?

Of course, it would be helpful to note that a new study has found that under the current definition, men are raped as often as women BY WOMEN. Men are also raped by men. Women are also raped by women. Did you also know that men are also just as likely to be victims of domestic violence as women, but you know...facts are apparently the patriarchy. Instead, we're going to just keep drinking that kool-aid. Good on you. Ignore facts. They never did anything for you anyway.
 
I don't get to abdicate my responsibility to and for my own body for any reason. I don't need a man to protect me. I will protect myself. I will do so by making choices that are wise and vigilant. When I ask society to protect me for me, I've returned to the image of the meek housewife who faints at the mention of masturbation.
 
"When you constantly point at other factors as being completely at fault--the patriarchy, discrimination, sexism, even sexual predators--what you end up with is a whole group of people who may feel empowered, but they aren't, and subconsciously they know that they've been further disenfranchised on a deeply human level. If you are never held accountable for your decisions, you're being told that you're essentially as ineffectual as a child."

I couldn't have said it better myself. 


Furthermore, I like sex. I embrace my sexuality and I'm not offended or patronized or insulted when another human being expresses appreciation for my body unsolicited whether I find that person attractive or not. Sure, these people can be crass, but that's not illegal. And neither do I have any defined right to go through life never feeling offended.
 
"The sexual revolution gave women control over their sexual destiny by letting them conduct their sexual lives based on their own individual risk-reward assessment without being stigmatized as prudes or sluts. Its promise never was and never will be to guarantee complete safety — an impossible goal. What's more, this revolution managed to deliver its gains without sacrificing liberal norms of justice. It is implausible and dangerous to suggest that after all these gains these norms now must be trampled for further progress."

The world is offensive. Read "All Quite on the Western Front" if you want to experience offense, or better yet, take a general breadth course in world history - that should give you a good dose of offense. Someone on the street that I'm likely never going to see again saying, "Hey baby, can I get those digits?" is not offensive, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. You have no protected right to go through life never feeling uncomfortable. Life is uncomfortable. Embrace the uncomfortable and grow.

And one more thing: we already teach children about consent. We teach them that their body is their own and no one has a right to touch them, even if they're being nice. Leave it at that and stop driving divides between our youth. Let them just see their friend as their friend - don't bait and force them to identify their differences for the sake of pacifying your own guilt and lame attempts at nullifying your own prejudice.