Finally, Someone Gives A Way of REALLY Discouraging Gropers

I was going to post this last week when I came across it but it wasn't exactly festive.   Advice that a parent should give to a daughter - or a son - on what to do when someone starts pawing them.  And what to do if they won't cut it out.

I'd add that this might work in a public context, if the creep has gotten you isolated, where it's just you and him or, probably worse, him and one or two of his buddies, you've already allowed yourself to be in a dangerous situation that you should get out of as fast as possible without worrying about what they're going to call you when you're out of there.

If there's one thing I can't stand about SOME PARTS OF the #me-too phenomenon, it is those who discount a person's responsibility for not being stupid either involuntarily by getting played into a dangerous situation or voluntarily by being drunk.   THE ASSERTION OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY ISN'T "BLAMING THE VICTIM" SOMEONE WHO ASSAULTS OR ATTACKS OR RAPES SOMEONE HAS 100% OF THE BLAME FOR THEIR CRIMES AND SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR THAT.  The responsibility of people for their own safety isn't a matter of criminal liability or providing an excuse for the criminal, it's more important than that, it's about preventing someone from hurting you.  There is no right to be stupid, there is no right to make yourself stupid by getting drunk.  That's not a right, it's being stupid which isn't a right, rights come with responsibility not with being stupid.  Bob and Brad were, maybe, too polite to point it out but being as smart as you can be is part of not sending out a message that you're an easy mark for the kind of scum who grope and rape.  There's a reason that the ultra-scum who visit pick-up artist sites advocate getting women drunk, it's to get them to be easy marks, the same reason scum like that slip rohypnol into the drink of someone they want to rape.  Alcohol works too well on its own, for that.  So does putting yourself alone with someone you don't know which is asking for trouble that even a successful prosecution of the scum, after the fact won't entirely fix.

If you think your university or some other institution has a responsibility for being smart for you, you don't belong at a university.  That's demanding that you get to be a child when it suits you while demanding to be considered an adult when it suits you.  That might get you a "reality" TV show or a Republican-fascist nomination for president but it's not going to protect you if you're a woman because other than the little princes of the American-fascist aristocracy and their like around the world, it's not going to be sustainable or work.  Especially as the media-constructed back-lash against #me-too sets in.

Most of us have to be adults because those are the people we have to protect ourselves and our loved ones from, especially nieces, daughters, granddaughters, but also the boys.