With a title like that, you know Scottie is opening a big ol' can of worms.

To catch everyone up, a Canadiaan policeman got in a teensy bit of trouble when he advised students not to dress like sluts, in order to avoid being victimised. This has sparked a wave of protests around the world which, for some unknown reason have attracted a lot of media attention. Please do not respond in an angry fashion to this post until you have read the entire thing.

A picture of some of the protesters in the UK - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13739876

The protests are to draw attention to what they see as a culture of blaming the victim.

I hope to avoid getting myself in a whole mess of trouble, but here goes.

I think that a policemen giving students the advice of

"Avoid walking alone, especially at nighttime. Doing this will decrease your chances of getting raped."

Is perfectly reasonable advice, and I suspect that the vast majority of people will agree that this is helpful advice, and does not constitute victim blaming.

If we phrase the above slightly differently (the contrapositive to be precise)

"Walking alone, especially at night will increase your chances of getting raped.

This still seems fairly reasonable to me, although its phrasing is such that it more resembles 'victim blaming'

How about a policeman telling a group of students

"Dressing in clothing that covers the majority of your body has been shown to lead to a decrease in the chance that you will get raped"

Assuming that it is true, and there is evidence to support this, is that a reasonable thing to be saying? In my view, it is. I'm interested to hear from all of you.

Then we get to the final thing, which is what the policeman actually said, that the students should  "avoid dressing like sluts" to avoid being victimised.

This last one is what is causing all the commotion, but in actual fact, it says the same thing as the previous sentance. Again, they are contrapositives. In my opinion, if the policeman had been slightly more tactful (using the word slut is never a good start) then he could have got his point across, without causing all the uproar. I do not believe that the policeman believes that it is people's fault if they get raped. There is a big difference between telling females that their actions can increase or decrease their chances of being raped (which is what this policeman's job was to do), and saying it is their fault.

So VGChartz, give me your opinion. Do we have a culture of Victim Blaming? Was this policeman a part of that? Or did he simply make a poor choice of words in order to communicate a very complex point to people.

Maybe this is a bit of a side comment, but I laugh and roll my eyes every time I see a girl dressed in a sexy/revealing outfit who then complains about all the attention/flirting/looks she gets from guys.

I mean come on... It's like they totally don't get human nature at all.

The policeman could have said it in a more graceful fashion, but I agree with what he told them. Telling someone that their actions may increase/decrease the chances of becoming a victim =/= it's their fault.

Then again... there is the concept of "well.. you had it coming for acting like that," which I would actually agree with. If you go to the edge of a cliff and start doing a shuffle dance right at the edge and fall over, or if you walk up to a dog who looks like he wants to bite your neck off, and he does, you really did have it coming for acting that way.

Failing to take good precaution to avoid a bad situation doesn't necessarily make it your fault, but it's a sign of idiocy imo.

But oh well, survival of the fittest, as they say.

I think it is pretty obvious that dressing like a slut will increase the chances of being raped. It is solid advice not to wear very revealing clothes and walk around alone at night. Whether it is right or wrong that showing more skin will raise the chances of being raped doesn't matter, at least in this argument. Women can be appalled that dressing in a sluttish manner means they will be more likely to be raped but it is still wise to dress sensibly. Sadly it is inevitable that scantily clad women are going to get more unwanted attention,but even if you despise men for this, you should still realise that is is sensible to wear more clothes.

I wonder what will happen if they walked naked on the street.... and as a teacher i'll supervise that test..

plenty of women here protesting too.

they told me the aim is to water down the meaning of the word by calling each other a slut to show that it does not mean you can go raping them.

Which clearly shows they do not understand what was meant by the original comment.

Its ok though. Just means the next time that cop does that speech he will use the word whore.

i barely have respect to a woman (or a man) , who for some reason can't respect herself, its not rocket science to find the reason why no one respects you.

I think there have been a few crossed wires between the comment and the women:

If the police officer had said that less women would be SEXUALLY ASSAULTED (rather than raped) for 'dressing like sluts' then I would agree with him all the way and would say that women were over-reacting.

I would agree that a percentage of rapes would not have occured if the women hadn't been dressing so provocatively, but people who rape usually do not rape based on looks or clothing, they do it because they are literally ill in the head.

Agreed.

They are so intent on their so-called 'human rights', they don't realize how incredibly stupid their actions are.

No, this is definately the "blame the victim" mentality at work. What's all this nonsense about revealing clothing increasing the chances of getting raped? There's only 1 entity responsable for rape, and that's the rapist! Raping someone is wrong, under any circumstances.

We live in a so-called civilised society. There's not such thing as saying "she was wearing a sexy shirt and I just couldn't help myself", which is exactly what that cop was suggesting. Are "sluts" somehow fair game for rapists, or what? What's with this constant fear of female sexuality that men have, which makes them try to repress women?

What's this guy suggesting, that these women werar burqas? Maybe he should be going around telling men about the consiquences they face if they try to rape a woman (and possibly do a better job of making sure rapists are punished).

The problem with that analogy is that rape isn't a law of nature. It's not something that comes naturally as a consequence of dressing provocatively. It's a deliberate act commited by someone. It's also illegal. So no, it's not the women's fault, regardless of how they dress, and they do not "have it coming".