Rape, sexual assault, culture and common sense

So after getting the tiniest 25 rows done on MS3, I went home and went to bed. No knitting last night, although I did, before leaving work, cast on for the second Monkeys sock in the Fleece Artist Nova Scotia sock yarn (which is yummy).

Then I read The Yarn Harlot's blog about the sexual assault trial in which the words rape and sexual assault, etc. have been banned by the judge. Just how far political correctness is going to go, I don't know, but this sort of cock-eyed thinking is clearly the product of a mentality where we have newscasters calling a rapist "the gentleman" or when prostitutes are called "ladies".
I have news for them - rapists are not gentlemen and hookers aren't ladies. But carry this sort of "we mustn't label anyone anything negative" mentality and you get a sexual assault trial in which the words sexual assault can't be mentioned.

Now that said - what in heck are these young women thinking? There have been a string of cases in which apparently intelligent (OK, attending college or grad school which should mean some degree of brightness) women go out and get plastered and bad things happen to them. No,
I'm not blaming the victim for the fact that there are bad people out there who do bad things, but I am saying, you know, just saying, that anyone with any sense has to know that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk in bars (and having friends that leave you while you are drunk) is a not very sensible thing to do. Is it fair, when men can go get plastered and the worst that might happen is losing their wallet? No. It's not. And the one thing that Jimmy Carter ever said that I agreed with is "Life isn't fair."

Now, that said, it behooves women of all ages to remember that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk or even tipsy with someone you don't know is probably not a good idea. And if you go out with female friends and one of them gets tipsy, don't let her wander off with someone she doesn't know. Exercise some caution - because there are bad people out there and while it would be really nice if we could live our lives as if there weren't ...

Even back in the long ago past when Ms. Packratty was attending college and there were no such things as "date rape drugs", we were cautioned not to leave a drink where anyone could get at it (there was a quaint, not so funny practice of putting hallucinogens in people's drinks back then and Ms. Packratty has always preferred her trips to come with airline tickets).

Ms. Packratty also noted the name of the accused reflects the strong possibility that he is the product of a culture with little or no respect for women, especially Western women. She also noted news reports that two other women came forward after the fact with claims that he had done the same thing to them. Perhaps this third young woman would not have been a victim of Pamir Safi if one of the prior victims had reported it. On the other hand, if the judge's ridiculous ruling on language reflects the local community's attitude toward rape, one might understand why the earlier victims did not.

So, to recap - the judge's ruling is insane (but a logical extension of the illogical political correctness doctrines) and young women need to exercise caution out on the town and men who rape should be punished.