So recently there was another incident of rape at the university I used to work for. Apparently, some chick went to a party, got drunk with a guy she "knew" and ended up being raped.

One thing I will never change my stance on about incidents like this is "who to blame" because I know most people in general have it backwards. Watch this video up until the 1:50 mark and then continue reading.



The lion ( predator ) is presented with 3 different options of prey. When let loose, he immediately makes a beeline toward the smallest, easiest target. The reason this is important is because we're no different than animals. Human predators choose their prey in the exact same manner. Criminals are looking for the easiest way to accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do, which means they like lone, unaware, non-threatening targets to go after. For example, a criminal is much more likely to take his chances robbing a guy who's 5'4 than a guy who's 6'4 - he simply interprets his chances of success being higher with the former than the latter.

The fact is this: everyone is potential prey. When you're at a party or a club, you and all of your friends are being observed carefully by predators. They're taking note of how vulnerable and naive you look and behave, if you're alone, if you look like you can put up a fight - the exact same way the lions look for the prey that's young or limping or away from the rest of the herd. When the party is said and done, there's a reason why 49 girls went home safely while the 50th chick woke up naked next to a guy she doesn't recognize. It's because the predator knew girl #50 was easy prey. If you're a rapist, you're not going to target someone you know is smart, suspecting and aware of all the tricks people like to play - you're going to go for that chick that's new to all this and knows absolutely nothing about how the world works.

I'm mentioning this because every time one of these cases happens, no one ever seems to question the victim. Everything is "she had a right to get drunk and not get raped", which is completely true - you should be able to drink a glass of wine and not end up in someone's trunk an hour later. But here's the thing: we don't live in a perfect world. As we've just established, we live in a world of predators and immediately shifting blame to the predator for doing what predators always do, we never focus on how the victim ended up as the chosen prey in the first place. Which is extremely important because until people start recognizing that their actions directly impact their chances of being a victim, they will continue living their oblivious, unprepared lives until they too become a victim.

My sister was a victim of date rape years ago. She met some guys at high school who soon after invited her to a party. She got to the party and accepted a drink from one of them and was then taken to another room in the house and can't remember anything after that other than the fact that she woke up with her clothes in a pile on the floor beside the bed. Should people be able to go to parties and not have that happen to them? YES. Should people behave as though we live in a world that's all flowers and happiness where things such as this don't occur? NO. In other words, my sister ended up a victim not just because predators exist, but partly due to her own ignorance. She went to a party with guys she barely knew, she accepted a drink without knowing where it came from or what was put into it, and then isolated herself from the rest of the people at the party by going into a room with the guy. In other words, she was already potential prey to begin with - including every other chick at the party - but transitioned to "perfect prey" after her poor decisions.

And why was she ignorant to these things to begin with? Well, the thing is, every time a rape case pops up in the news, the remarks are always "that guy is despicable and needs to be locked away", "if that was my daughter, I would've killed him", "people are crazy", "give him the death sentence", "what is the world coming to?"

And if just ONE SINGLE PERSON types anything along the lines of "Well.. it was kinda poor decision making on her part to go to a party with guys she just met a few days ago and put her full trust in them", the comments just erupt into multiple people spamming "WTF R U VICTIM BLAMING BRO?" What this does is it blocks constructive criticism and fails to address one key part of the issue, and so even after reading stories about girls being raped, people don't learn how they can help prevent themselves from ending up in the same situation because literally no one is allowed to talk about it. The moment you bring up a separate course of action the victim could've taken to go home safely that night, you're bashed for "victim blaming" and told to "STFU" and so then since the entire discussion is nothing but predator blaming, the prey never get any wiser and continue to fall into the same traps year after year like the peers before them because the girls are never made aware of the fact that the prey made mistakes that contributed to their situation.

Imagine if we never taught our youth to look both ways before crossing a street. Don't you think more kids would get hit by vehicles? Furthermore, don't you think it'd be ridiculous if every time someone got hit by a vehicle, we immediately put 100% blame on the person driving the vehicle every single time and never taking into consideration how the person crossing the street went about doing it? And then on top of that, we ridiculed anyone and everyone who would dare to utter anything along the lines of "people should make sure to look both ways before crossing the street"? The only reason we tell our youth that is because we acknowledge the fact that poor driving can result in car accidents AS WELL AS poor pedestrian behaviors. Not crossing within the crosswalk, crossing with your head buried into your iPhone, not looking both ways, crossing before you're given the walk signal etc. are all ways pedestrians, through their own actions ( NOT the driver's ), raise their chances of getting slammed by a car.

And I'm not saying every person who's ever been raped is just some naive idiot at a party who should've made better choices. Tons of people were raped as a result of things like slavery and war - there's not really much they can do in those situations. But I'm sorry, people need to quit whining about predators ( who aren't going anywhere any time soon ) and start being more vocal when it comes to all the things people need to do to protect themselves. We can bitch about rapists all we want, but we're always going to have rapists no matter how many we complain about or lock up in jail, so the smart thing to do is to look at how people constantly end up as rape victims ( especially in these retarded high school or college party cases ) and start teaching people "hey, doing A, B, and C lessens your chances of ending up like that girl over there" ( without some asshat coming out of nowhere screaming "OMFG VICTIM BLAMING!" ) so people can be equipped with the knowledge necessary to make stalking predators think twice about targeting them. And I'm not just referring to rape cases. Even things like mass shootings follow a similar pattern.

Every time someone walks into a university and shoots a handful of people, the discussion is:
- I wish we had better psychiatric hospitals
- I wish we had stricter gun laws
- I wish violent people would just kill themselves
- I wish we wouldn't publicize these mass shootings

And literally NO ONE says JACKSHIT about "I wish more people knew what to do in case of a crazed gunman shooting". Each one of those topics shifts attention from the victims and onto something else, and that's not to imply the victims are to blame for some random guy shooting them - that's just to point out that no progress is ever made because no one ever seems to stop and consider the fact that awareness and preparation saves lives more than hospitals, laws, and wishful thinking do. I'm pretty sure if a maniac ran into the bookstore where I work tomorrow and opened fire, none of my co-workers or managers would know how to react or even be aware that someone is walking into the store with a visible firearm in their hands to begin with. There are tactics and things you should know when you're in the middle of such a situation, and like, no one knows what those tactics are because no one talks about them so people remain their ignorance and end up getting used as target practice for some guy who had nothing better to do than to go on a killing spree and then die in a high speed chase on the interstate.

So yes, in some cases to an extent, we should be blaming victims not because they don't have a right to not be raped or not get shot, but because we can't save lives until we are allowed to talk about things other than the predators. We can't stop lions from existing, but what we can do is make sure that impalas know they're frequently being targeted and are aware of actions they can take to not be the vulnerable straggler lagging behind the rest of the herd. In some situations, being someone's prey is completely avoidable, and the only factor coming into play at that point will be the decisions you make. Please don't buy into the misconception that every single bad thing that happens in your life is entirely someone else's fault.