Ali Barnard of Sheffield Beach writes:
I was hugely disappointed to read the article in this week’s Courier titled ‘Alcohol a key factor in rapes’ (Courier, January 17).
The headline instantly grabbed my attention for all the wrong reasons.
When are we going to start changing the rhetoric surrounding our rape culture?
Why are we still blaming the victim instead of the perpetrator when it comes to sexual violence?
Is the victim more to blame for their impaired defence mechanisms as a result of consuming alcohol than the criminals who initiate these violent and invasive acts?
Your article certainly seems to suggest so. How sad that in 2020 we are still not able to shake this outdated and offensive attitude towards victims of sexual assault.
Not only does this type of reporting perpetuate the shame that victims feel as a result of the sexual violation against them, it exonerates the perpetrator from their heinous crimes.
Both your sources made statements like “drugs and alcohol put victims in a vulnerable state, increasing the risk of rape and sexual violence,” and “the bulk of rape cases we see could have been avoided.”
This language is hugely inflammatory and serves only to preserve the belief that victims are accountable for acts of rape against them.
Intoxication is never an invitation or an opportunity to rape.
Decreasing the risk of rape and sexual violence will only start happening when blame is placed squarely on the aggressor as a violator of human rights.
Intoxicated or sober, there are no blurred lines when it comes to consent.
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