Teach MEN not to rape. Be sensitive to the victim. Prosecute every rapist. Legally treat rapist just like child molesters by requiring them to register locally (and every time they relocate) as sexual predators.

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(I wish they'd tell us our character limits, ugh, continued) but if you have the power, it's only right to use it.

This ad should inspire groups of friends to agree on how much each can interfere with keeping each other safe while some of them are drunk. They can give permission to hold them back in certain scenarios, don't let them go with strangers, limit them to certain number of drinks, etc. It would be a GREAT tool in reducing ALL SORTS of tragedies from intoxication.

It's a VERY important message, which is now being denied to everyone. A real shame.

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Kudos to John H., you hit the nail right on the head. I'm a woman, and I've been traumatized by sexual abuse as a child (still trying to learn to trust people). And I don't see the ad as victim-blaming at all!

I mean, that ad's only one part of a series, yes? So I'm sure the series looks at all different angles of the problem, and part of prevention is in safeguarding yourself and your friends, as well as convincing others that all rape is wrong, and that drunkenness can result in terrible things all around.

I'm upset that it's been pulled, because it's counter-productive to take away a legitimate warning. It calls attention to the fact that drunk people can give drunken consent, but it's not REAL consent. But conversely, the drinking is their consent to subject themselves to risky situations.

Not consent to be a victim, but consent to open themselves up to MANY risks including rape, drunk-driving, accidents, suicide, getting into fights, getting their purse stolen, etc. None of those are excused by drunkenness, but the risk is heightened. And being warned that the risk is heightened, is important advice.

That's why we should drink in moderation, or be able to count on a friend to watch out for us. After all, if you don't do everything in your power to stop someone, especially a friend, from being raped or assaulted, you're just as guilty as the perpetrator. There's a line to draw of course, where it's no longer your fault, but if you have the power, it's only rig

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I find this discussion troubling. It seems to me that there has to be some space between victim-blaming and denying women any agency at all in reducing their risk of sexual assault. In a world that still contains numerous rapists and potential rapists (i.e. men who've never attempted to rape, but are inclined to do so if they find themselves in a situation where they think they could successfully rape someone and get away with it), it's completely reasonable for a woman to ask, "What can I do to minimize my chance of being raped?" It's also completely reasonable to answer that question, "One thing you can do is avoid drinking to the point of incapacitation or severely impaired judgment."

It is *not* reasonable to accuse the person giving that answer of "blaming the victim" or "contributing to rape culture." Still less is it reasonable to answer "There's nothing you can do, because rape is all the rapist's fault." The first clause in that statement is a lie, the second is true but a non sequitur, and the whole thing taken together is a misogynistic denial of women's agency in their own lives.

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Look at it this way: if I leave my car unlocked with the keys inside and it gets stolen, the crime is no less serious than it would have been if the thief had broken a window and hot-wired the ignition; the fact that I unwisely made it easy for him does not reduce his criminal liability one bit, and using that temptation as a defense in court should not shave one second off his prison sentence. However, that doesn't mean that advising me to lock the car and take the keys with me is "victim-blaming." My car could still be stolen if I do those things, but it's a lot less likely, and therefore they're smart things to do.

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Stupid post length limits; doubly stupid comment system that doesn't let you know when you've reached the limits and just eats the rest of your post. The rest was as follows:

Part of empowerment is learning what situations are especially risky (e.g. being drunk and alone with a man you don't know very well) and how to avoid them. While the phrasing of this ad is unfortunate, the message is a good one: you *can* reduce your risk of sexual assault by not drinking to excess, and you *can* reduce your friends' risk by either keeping them from drinking to excess, or, should they insist on doing so, by not leaving them alone with potential rapists. To pretend otherwise is both sexist and a willful denial of reality.

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Silvia G: can you not see any distinction between admonishing women, "Don't get raped!" and advising women, "Here are some things you can do to reduce your risk of being raped?" Are those really the same thing? And is the latter message really mutually exclusive of a "Don't rape!" message directed at men? I just don't see it.

A crime requires means, motive, and opportunity. "Don't be that guy" and other similar campaigns are aimed squarely at motive. Persuading all men not to rape, though, is a long-term project with uncertain prospects of success; the tendency of men to rape is, tragically, one of the universal features found in every single one of the thousands of human cultures anthropologists and sociologists have studied. (That's especially tragic because, if there were such a thing as a non-rape culture, we might be able to learn by studying it how to eliminate rape culture.) Note that the doesn't mean we have *no* chance of ending rape altogether; other nasty aspects of human nature that were once universal (at least among settled societies), such as the assumption that people could own other people, have in the last few hundred years been rejected by most of the societies that exist today.

However, there's no reason that, while working on the long-term problem of motive, we can't also make a more immediate attack on the opportunity front by empowering women. Part of empowerment is learning what situations are especially risky (e.g. being drunk and alone

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Always when i hear about terrible things it makes me sad, and i cannot understand how someone could do something terrible - bully, hurt, rape or kill a person or animal. When i was a child this also happened to me... and surviving this is more terrible than not (parents and other may think different, but a victim?), living with all this pain... living with guilty feelings... full with hate for the own self... having one wish, not to wake up at the following day anymore...
No one can understand, because most people cannot imagine this, cannot imagine how much it change. Some of them think, that this would not be so terrible, because all would make some sexual experiences, and so it would not matter if there were some without own interest or wish. This cruel and superficial society makes me sick.

I know that it is not good to wish someone who does terrible things something as a punishment. But when i hear about violent people then i think why are they so "afraid" to go to someone equal and get some hits for their selves. This is a perversion, to think being more a man when beating a woman or a girl. This men are a shame for all normal men.

"We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of living together as brothers." (Martin Luther King)

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I loved this sentence: Again we see our culture continuing to teach “Don’t get raped!” instead of “Don’t rape.” I think it summarises the problem, one of them at least.

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This ad is so, so wrong. . .the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign is far better and puts the blame where it belongs--on the rapist! It is the rapist (almost always a male) who should shoulder complete responsibility for the act and NOT the victim! Only in a sexist patriarchal society would victim-blaming be so readily condoned--oh if only we had a matriarchy, the world would be so much better off.

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