You'll pardon me for asking - or perhaps you won't - but I am at a loss to understand why this is inflammatory.
Serena Williams was asked about the Steubenville rape case - why I'll never know - and noted: "I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people."
I'll leave any ideas she might have expressed regarding the predators' punishment aside - that's a phenomenon for another blogger or blog. UPDATE: Serena has apparently apologized for her comments - hopefully it is only for those that suggested that the punishment for the rapists was too harsh.
If you cling to that you will miss the important part she did say; parents teach your children that getting drunk, high, or whatever, letting your guard down, being where you should not be, making yourself easy prey is the most direct path to being raped, preyed upon, or taken advantage of by predatory criminals. Parents must stop abdicating responsibility for teaching children that all is not right in the world and start teaching them how to protect themselves.
First, to deflect the obvious, self-serving, interpretations! Rape is not something anyone asks for and it can never be explained away...no one goes looking for it and those who commit it are heinous criminals. Nothing a victim does can ever justify such behavior. This girl did not ask for or deserve to be raped. But, with that out of the way, let's talk about prevention! Is it better to be "right" or safe?
What is inflammatory about suggesting that people - every person - can and should take responsibility for their personal safety and security - not leave it up to the good will of others? There are predators in the world - we all know that - they see the rest of us as prey, as meat. They look like us but are less than human. We can bemoan this all we want and insist that, no matter what we do, no matter how we put ourselves at risk, they should not behave this way. Of course they shouldn't; but all protestations aside, they do! Does that make you feel better? Whine about it until you are blue in the face, insist that offering one's self to them as easy prey plays no part in the outcomes, that bad things just should not happen. In the best of all possible worlds, this might be the case, but that's not where we live. The ends are partly a function of the decisions one makes.
It is an old adage in personal security that the best way to avoid trouble is don't be there! [Perhaps the rest of our culture might benefit from paying more attention to the gun culture instead of vilifying it]. If you know an area is is not safe, then don't be there. Do all you can to avoid it (if you can't then you need to be prepared for it - as in armed and in the company of like-minded others). If you end up there and are victimized - no, it is not your fault - but that does not mean you couldn't have prevented it by prudent planning and situation awareness. Part of avoidance is not getting drunk and passing out, whether you are a 16 year-old girl or a 40 year-old man. DTA! Would you rather be a sad story of a righteous, justified, blameless victim or not a victim at all?
There is nothing inflammatory about the idea that you can choose to pull your head out of the sand and come back from that fantasy world where no evil can befall you - where everyone around you will comport to your rules. Come and take responsibility for your own safety in a world where others will violate it given the chance. Those who think that it is inflammatory to remind potential victims that they can prevent their victimization are the same people who think that carrying a firearm is paranoid or unnecessary. They live in a dream world filled with only good people and seemingly prefer righteous victimization to self-preservation. In the meantime in the real world, the rapes of young girls and shootings of helpless victims (see Chicago) continue.
Comforting but ineffective fairy tales - and righteous indignation - solve nothing.
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