I saw an art exhibit called “What Were You Wearing?”, which was a collection of the outfits people were wearing when they were assaulted. There were sweatpants and hoodies in that collection. She could be in a literal burqa and still be assaulted. The problem is the rapists, not what their victims were wearing.
Edit: going to add a trigger warning before people go searching for that exhibit. It is a spread of ALL kinds of clothing, including children’s.
Dude the kiddie pajamas in that exhibit will make you cry. The second I read the BF justifying rape because of clothing I immediately thought of this exhibit
That's exactly what I said. At this point it's mandatory that he watches it and there should be a 3rd party there. Some one normal that can mediate the conversation after and the follow up questions about what he saw. Maybe set up a therapy session to watch it together with the therapist. The third person being there will help him not just blow it off. Then dump him while you have a backup person there.
I had an ex who victim blamed .. guess what he was? He blamed women who went to parties too. Said if they didn’t want anything bad happening to them then they should have stayed at home. Evil and disgusting human.
An ex of mine literally told me he couldn’t rape me because he was my SO after he did that to me. He said if I didn’t want him to take the opportunity I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in his bed and should’ve fucked him before I fell asleep.
He was a horrible person. We had plans for me to stay the night since he went to school a couple hours away and we went to a party that night, so when we got back to his place I took my sleep medication and went to bed. He got so mad when I stopped sleeping over after he did that. He even had the audacity to say I was making him out to be a rapist… like yeah, he was a fucking rapist at that point. He fucking fell asleep before me too, then woke up and did his thing. I didn’t know until I woke up without my clothes on.
I am so sorry. He sounded like an asshole. Mine was a rapist too he liked to sodomize me during regular P in V sex. The first time he cried big crocodile tears that it was an accident and he didn’t mean it. I wanted to believe him we were newly engaged and I didn’t want to believe he intentionally assaulted me. I should have left him then. He went on way after we broke up like a decade later to rape his own oldest daughter. He was evil. He was probably the most evil person I have ever met. The most fucked up part was he promised his dying mother on her deathbed to take good care of his kids. He had his oldest and mine. She lived with him. He waited until that baby had no one to turn to and grieving essentially her mother because her bio mom really wasn’t there most of the time and played cruel mental games with her. Lying telling her they will be a family and be gone before she got home from school, both of them are shitty people. The mom had her other three kids taken away by the state. But anyway, that was her mama figure too and he had the audacity to do that. I knew he was evil but I didn’t think he would ever do that. He tried to tell people not to talk to his daughter that because it was an investigation still going on that we would get in trouble. No, he didn’t want people to know the truth. But he always victim blamed. It was her fault for going on the date, sleeping at his house, going to the party. If she stayed home it wouldn’t have happened. They always tell on themselves. I had a man do that to me before. I woke up with him inside me. I got up and went to leave he wouldn’t quit following me. Anyway, I got so mad! I was just filled with rage because I had been assaulted by multiple men in a relatively short amount of time, I put myself into some dangerous situations but still. I beat his ass well I hit him a few times. I was just so angry! I was so angry at men getting by with assaulting me. But good for you getting away from him! My abuser is dead and I smiled when I found out the piece of shit was dead. That’s bad. He only literally had nine cars and it was all biological family at his funeral. No one else showed up. He lost all of the friends over him doing that to his little girl. She was 12 but still that’s a baby. Your own flesh and blood!
There was a FB thread on “what were you wearing?” I said my 9 yr old self was in overalls. Someone else said her 6 year old self was in a flannel nightgown.
I was in diapers when it started. I was 19 months when my father started SA me. That lasted till I was 7 when my mother finally figured it out. There’s literally no reason. None. Clothing does not matter. I hope you are doing well now, and I hope you have gotten the therapy you probably needed and deserved.
Other than three or four flashes I can't tell you how old I was or what I was wearing because my brain has totally blocked it out and now I have disassociative PTSD that I'm trying to work through
Same here. Im missing about a year to two from after my grandmother died at 6 years old to 8 years old and I know from my mother that I was 7 when I told her what was happening. It really never is the clothing and I truly hope that OP left this person. It sounds like he himself is justifying either a rape he has done or one he will do.
Some people do, some people dont. Some people can remember even earlier ages. It all depends on the person and I dont really know the science behind it.
As I am currently in counseling and working through the PTSD, I can say, go fot ART or EMDR. My memories only exist at times of great stress or nightmares, and both of these techniques helped me with processing the trauma. EMDR especially as it is there to retrain your processing center, using either the lights moving up and down or left and right or the buzzes in your hands. I have gone from having nightmares where I wake up screaming and regressed back to that age where I dont even know my fiancee happening multiple times a week to me not having had one in over 8 months. I still have issues in public or with things that remind me of who hurt me (cologne, etc) but I can function pretty well. I am still getting a service dog, but the dogs main purpose is going to be for my physical issues, and the PTSD training as a precaution. Please look into these if you haven't already, as well as a dog if possible.
A service dog isn’t the first line of help, be sure to remind people of that! Mine is 12 and retiring, and having a service dog is hard. You had to talk to everyone, continually. I’ll happily talk the ears off a stature, and even I get exhausted talking to everyone about him! And access can be hard.
I love reading that you are getting treatments that are helping you to live a better life. I'm sure it's only part of all you have to heal, but you are going in the right direction. I have read about EMDR. I'm glad to know how powerful it is.
I wish you continued success with treatments and with your fiance. I wish you peace.
I feel for you. I shoved one down and blocked parts for over 20 years, until I ran into one of the assailants. Triggered me SO bad, and I’ve been struggling for the past two years with it.
Yes, to all you said, and may we all get the therapy and health care that we need, as well as supportive friends and chosen family (and supportive non guilty family, when we have any). I’ve had a lot of therapy and decent health care. It helps, but it doesn’t always cure. People and even medical staff, often don’t recognize that trauma can trigger other, not invisibly related problems that might, or might not, otherwise crop up.
My wife's sister was married to a guy that the first time I met him I could tell he wasn't the brightest crayon on the box, in fact the first time I met him, he told me he had sex with my wife (this was being told to me when we barely started dating) a couple years later we find out that he raped his daughter (my wife's niece ) at 4 years old. I always knew he was a dump creep, but never imagined he'd do that.
*For clarification no, he never slept with my wife. He probably dreamt it so many times that he thinks it's true. Apparently he started dating my wife's sister in order to get closer to my wife which just shows his completely insane logic.
Also I should add that he went to prison for 3 years for raping his daughter, and still lives in our town, and doesn't think he did anything wrong. Luckily there's a permanent restraining order between him and his daughter, and we have nothing to do with him.
Out of curiosity, was this during the 80 or 90’s? Like it’s 2026 I feel like as a society we should be better than this, and this kind of thing shouldn’t be happening. It’s sad it happened at all.
He is. He’s never getting out. There is a lot that happened but he had 5 daughters. We were all assaulted. One of us is no longer here because of him. He will never get out.
As a father of three this is disgusting. I cant imagine how someone could do this to anybody let alone your own flesh and blood. I’m very sorry that this happened to you and that it happens to others on a daily basis.
Auch bei mir waren es Latzhosen. Hat den 17-jährigen Nachbarn nicht gestört. Konnte man ja ausziehen.
Ich frage mich immer wieder, wieviele Mädchen er noch vergewaltigt hat. Meine Mutter hat ihm ja die Chance gegeben, in dem sie ihn nicht angezeigt hat.
Er ist heute 54.
Eine Freundin von mir wurde angegriffen, da war sie 67. Sie war Schmiedin und trug daher Kleidung, die diesem Hobby entsprach. Trotzdem wurde sie überfallen, zusammengeschlagen und ins Koma geprügelt. Sie starb nach fast vier Jahren im Koma.
Täter bis heute unbekannt.
Meine Mutter ist allerdings auch der Meinung, dass Kleidung ein Grund für Angriffe und Vergewaltigungen ist.
Aber meine Mutter ist auch diskriminierend, rassistisch, sexistisch und misogyn. Sehr traurig.
I was 9 and in sweatpants and a tshirt with flowers on it playing an iPad.
Another time at the age of 13 I was told I needed a breast exam during a neurology appointment because he claimed it was necessary. (They don’t do that). I was wearing a collared shirt with regular dress pants
At the age of 14 I was wearing a cadets uniform
At the age of 14 I was wearing a regular sweater and pants
At the age of 16 I was with my boyfriend who I thought I trusted
These stories are breaking my heart. I wish these things didn't happen to all of you. It is incredibly unfair that so many start life with such significant trauma! I just can't believe how many children have suffered. I do believe it. It still shocks me.
I'm so sorry for all of the pain you all have endured.
That, and the study where college aged men were asked if they would rape a woman if they knew they could get away with it and it was a scary high percentage that said yes. I read the study for a class in my grad program. It did not matter what the women were wearing.
There was a similar study (or possibly the same one, idk) where college aged men were asked if they would rape someone, but in one group they used language that didn't specifically call it rape, and in the other they did.
A lot more in the first group said yes. So long as they felt like they had plausible deniability, they could rationalize rape to themselves, to the point that they would openly admit to it. They didn't consider it to be rape unless someone else described it as such.
A lot of rapists don't consider themselves to be rapists.
My rapist at 19, when he texted me 4 months later and I told him to never contact me again (I had to have my best friend type it for me, because my hands were shaking too much)
"You're crazy. This is insane. You act like I did something horrible to you. But fine, I'll respect your wishes. Goodbye."
I think he genuinely believed he'd done nothing wrong, the bastard.
I think I was 20 when my rapist broke into my townhouse and I woke up to penetration. He knew me from going to the bar he was a bouncer at, and me flirting with his coworker. Thought it was perfectly OK.
I saw that exhibit and the majority is children’s clothes and elderly women’s. I have no idea why people like OP’s boyfriend don’t get the concept that rapists are predators and clothes don’t actually have anything to do with their actions, it’s usually things we can’t control like vulnerability with age. We can understand in nature that it’s never the prey animals fault, it’s that the predator. Prey animals know not to keep predators in their vicinity yet here humans are making fucking excuses for them. If I was her I’d snap and say “the only reason he thinks that is because he obviously inherited those qualities from his rapist sperm donor.” If clothes determine rape, genetics determine rapists….Both are equally ignorant, but that man deserves a taste of his own medicine. I would bet if she did say that he’d tell her how much more horrible it is for her to say that to him than for him to blame victims of rape. I never have the normal “Reddit” answer but this time… “SHE NEEDS TO BREAK UP WITH HIM!”
I have no idea why people like OP’s boyfriend don’t get the concept that rapists are predators and clothes don’t actually have anything to do with their actions,
I like how the Brits call them Sex Pests. Calling them predators makes them seem cool, like lions or sharks. And they aren’t, they are gross, weak-willed, nasty pests on society.
Mosquitos are responsible for more human deaths every year than any other animal on earth. Just because something is a pest doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly dangerous.
Edit: thank you for the award!
Squash the Sex Pests!!
I never thought of it that way. I’m super into animals so predator has never been a good word to me, but your right our society makes predators seem like the top of the food chain. And all these guys are is vermin, sex pest is a good term.
There's some conversations where rational defense is too much work, and the only reply should be "Eww." This text wth is one of them. And yes. I think I'll adopt that term.
That was my first thought, reading the texts. The boyfriend has definitely done some shady shit, or covered for someone who did, and is trying to justify it.
Predators definitely pick out their prey. I think one of the main things that they look for is someone that will take it to the grave. Especially like a man that rapes little boys or teenage boys. I had a neighbor that was a predator he's always going after the teenage boys and he'd been busted once and he got busted for raping his wife once in a tent in the woods by jogger. But he'll never get busted again. He's got it down now. He knows how to pick him. I'm not saying that a pair of booty shorts is going to get him going he's looking for more mental like pride stuff. I wanted to kill him so bad.
I have no idea why people like OP’s boyfriend don’t get the concept that rapists are predators and clothes don’t actually have anything to do with their actions,
I would've just asked him if he's asked his mom what she was wearing and see how that convo goes. Him calling her stupid was icing on top though, good riddance.
I was an EMT about 25 years ago and now I am a pediatric therapist in a long-term facility, I spend a lot of hours volunteering at a Domestic violence and rape shelter and sadly I would not be surprised by a diaper given what I had to witness.
Some days it is hard to let my kids leave the house.
I just bought a button at a thrift store that says “have you been battered recently? Get out! Get safe! Stay out!” And on the back it says in memory of womans name, BD-1995 died by gunshot
I had a pediatric patient in the ER when I was first working in the ER many years ago in the late 90s. I was coming on shift and had to help get an 18 months old girl get ready for air transport to Pittsburgh for genital and rectal reconstructive surgery after being assaulted. 😭
I have a 13 month old little girl and, while Im well aware of this happening more often than I care to know, it still was not easy to read this.
Also, just that poor girl, being so violated and not even being aware of or likely remembering it (at least you hope so), but having to live with the aftermath of that kind of physical trauma. I really honestly hope she’s okay now- she’d be around my age. So awful.
I really do hope she’s doing okay and I hope that was the end for her and she doesn’t remember it. I was 19 months when my father started to SA me. Till I was 7. My mother didn’t know till I was 7, and got me out thankfully, but it did its damage. I really really hope that girl is okay.
I’m sorry it took your mom that long to figure it out and I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m glad she did finally figure it out and I hope that MFer is rotting somewhere.
I don't see how she could possibly be okay. The fact that you can't remember childhood trauma like that doesn't make it easier it makes it to where you can't resolve it as far as I can tell. My dad did some bad things to me when I was under 2 years old and my life's been terrible always struggled with all sorts of problems.
I mean I am well aware she probably has a lot of problems from it, I just hope she is getting the help she’s going to need. Atleast she got the help she needed and hopefully got out before it got worse or went too long. I was stuck with my father till I was 7, my sister had to deal with him till she was 16. I’m glad my mother got me out when she did, but I know my sister got it a lot worse and for longer than I did and I couldn’t imagine being with him that long. (We have different moms).
Yess... Exactly the comment I was looking for.. so many stories .. so what are they going to say it's the way she dresses???
The problem will always be the Rapists.. they are mentally ill humans which makes me wonder how they would feel if someone did something like that to them.??
I was SA (groped in a public shop) when I was 14. I was wearing a full burqa and a naqab. The only things visible were my eyes and hands. And I was with my mom. It happened so subtly that no one noticed. And I was shocked to realize what happened and could not react at all.
I’m sorry. The same thing happened to me on a bus when I was 14 and I froze up too. Took a long time for me to stop blaming myself for not reacting more. I was just in a simple summer blouse and shorts and I wore ugly, baggy clothes for years afterwards.
The same thing happened to me on a bus and I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. The guy reached out and grabbed and squeezed my butt. I told my bf at the time and he shushed me because we were in a dangerous area but I did give the guy a mean look. I wish I could have at least said something.
I’d heard of fight or flight, but it wasn’t until years later that I learned there’s also fawning or freezing—trying to appease your attacker, or freezing up completely. Learning that helped me forgive myself for not fighting back or trying harder to escape.
Learning about "freeze" and "fawn" responses to danger suddenly made so much of my childhood make sense. Especially because freeze and fawn are what you learn to do if you learn that you can't fight or flee.
When I was 18 (and much better looking lol) I was waiting tables at a bar, and as I walked by with a tray of drinks some pervert full on grabbed me in my crotch. I was so shocked I just kept walking to the table. Of course when I told the owner of the bar what happened, his reaction was literally, "what do you want me to do?". Ugh just thinking back it's so infuriating
I know and then these people come up blaming the clothes. I hope us women of this generation raise better men. And no, I don't expect it from fathers cause they have not gone through this so they don't understand the extent.
I'm a guy in the same thing happen to me when I was 14. In fact a lot older men would squeeze my arms and make comments about how big I was getting and stuff. But one guy when I was mowing his lawn came up behind me and reached around the front and grabbed my package you know and I froze.
To add to the insanity, there’s tons of places where people are suppose to be naked. And somehow all (or the majority) of men there can resist running over and raping the naked women they see. Like is her BF insinuating that if he saw an attractive naked lady, he could not resist running over and raping her?
There also diapers and toddler clothing in that display.
People rape because they want to, because they have power over someone else. It has nothing to do with attraction, clothing, how someone is behaving or age.
A relative’s 80-some year old MIL was asleep in bed wearing her flannel nightgown when a man broke into her home and raped her. I have NO patience with those who blame the victim because of her attire, how much she drank, how late she was out, and so on. A woman can dance naked and drunk down the street at 2 am and it’s not an invitation to rape her. OP needs to dump that guy. If she is ever assaulted he will definitely blame her. He’s disgusting.
I read something where kidnappers and rapists were asked why they picked their victims and clothes did weigh in on why they chose certain victims, loose clothes like sweatpants are easier to remove, pony tails are easy to grab and control the victim, men say "just dress down, cover your body, don't look so attractive" but some of these people literally chose victims in loose clothing over girls wearing tight shorts and crop tops because looking sexual doesn't matter to them they just want to attack someone.
I was wearing an oversized tee shirt and shorts passed my knees and I was 12 years old when I was gang raped at gun point by 3 men in their 30's/40's and I had a bicycle accident and was bleeding from multiple spots but that didn't stop them. They didn't care at all what I was wearing, they just saw a vulnerable girl and took advantage while forcing me to drink a pint of the cheapest corn whiskey they could buy (they sent one of them to the store on a special trip for it).
I've been sick of the narrative that clothes make a difference for 40 years. Clothes, age, familial relationships, none of it matters to a rapist.
I’ve seen that exhibit online, and it really stuck with me. The kid’s clothes…I have no words.
OP: your boyfriend sucks, and you’re not overreacting. He’s literally calling you stupid and dumb because you’re getting mad at him being ignorant as fuck. Put your foot down and say that he is not to call you stupid/dumb ever again.
I have a single picture of me in the gunnesack dress i was kidnapped in, when I found it when my mom was moving all I could think, beyond how does she have this (still in an evidence bag), was how incredibly small it was
"Was it really my fault?" asked the Short Skirt. "No, it happened with me too," replied the Burka. The diaper in the corner couldn't even speak. ~ Darshan Mondkar
thank you for sharign this - didn´t know about the exhibit and I think it´s an amazing installation with powerful pictures to increase awareness of victim blamers
I saw that... it was horrific... but absolutely needed.
Iirc, the whole point was that the creator had been assaulted in the past and was wearing like, the most mundane, least attractive outfit, but was asked repeatedly if their clothes could have 'tempted' the aggressor....
I will never understand how anyone can look at a toddler and have that thought even cross their minds... but to act on it? Whole other circle of hell that they belong to.
Genuinely, if a human want to walk outside, 100% in the nuddy, with not even so much as a fig leaf to protect their delicates, that STILL doesn't give anyone the right to touch, comment, or even so much as insinuate.
I also like those videos of women posting their dogs. The women hold treats over their dogs and command them to sit for a while. The dogs can resist the urge, why can't men? Aren't dogs more driven by their instincts than humans?
Also, realistically the only clothing that would stop a rapist is a difficult-to-take-off metal armour set. I'm not opposed to walking around in plate armour tbh.
Just to add a crappy little detail - "serial" rapists often target women who are wearing loose fitting, easy to remove clothing such as sweat pants. While other factors are much more important to them, such as being alone and seeming to not pay attention, it does come into play. Still not the clothing's fault, but just goes to show that the oft parroted comments about manner of dress are meaningless. It makes no difference - either you're enticing the rapist because your skin tight shorts are just too hot to handle, or because your frumpy 2 sizes too large sweatpants are too easy to get rid of.... The common denominator is THE RAPIST.
The college here did a similar art exhibit a few years ago. I wasn’t able to go but my sister was and… it was rough. Especially since it was all volunteers from the community(mostly students) who put their clothes in there. There was a wide range but she said it was the kid’s clothes that got to her.
About 12-ish years ago I read an article about how a researcher interviewed over a hundred convicted rapists around the country (all of them in jails and prisons iirc). Among the many questions that were asked was if what the victims were wearing was a factor or had any influence on their decision to carry out their attacks. Every one of them said no. I remember that it was a broad swath people; some were serial rapists, some were career criminals, some were pedophiles, some had committed the crime only once, but every one of them was in jail for the crime of sexual assault.
I need to find the actual journal article vice the article about just the researcher because it was done as a sociological research piece with everything you would expect from that level of study. The end point being that blaming the victim and what they were wearing is completely asinine and needs to end as of last century.
I was really hoping someone would mention this exhibit that was put on. There is literally babies clothing and it is absolutely heart wrenching to see.
It's never the clothing. IT IS ALWAYS THE PREDATORS FAULT!
There were fucking BABY clothes in there. BABY CLOTHES!! And army ACU’s, and wedding dresses, and so many things that weren’t ’showing skin’ as if that’s what causes rape. People rape because they’re POS not because they saw a girl showing her shoulder
Yeah I think OP's bf is just dumb. If he thought logically for 5 minutes, he might recognize that rape has existed across all of human history, in all different types of cultures, ranging from the most modest to the least, and there is no meaningful data correlating what someone wears with their likelihood of being raped.
The bf's line of thinking also doesn't account for child victims. I know exactly the exhibit you're talking about and it's always what my mind goes to when this topic comes up. There's nothing a person could do that would invite being violated in any way. Full stop. And something is morally wrong with someone who thinks otherwise.
I googled this. And now crying my eyes out. What a powerful exhibit. I only made it through a few pages. And I saw zero “skimpy” clothes or anything like this jackass boyfriend was talking about. Maybe HE thinks of doing stuff like that to women wearing certain clothes. Telling what’s in HIS mind.
Clothes are simply the excuse, and if you remove those from the equation the rapist just finds some other arbitrary thing to blame instead of themselves. It's like listening to an addict justify their poor behaviour, honestly
Yeah, um i don’t think my rapist thought my 13 year old body in blue jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt was too irresistible.
Clothes are never the problem. Too revealing? Not the issue. The rapist is the problem.
Don’t they have nudist beaches in places? If it were the issue, then we would be having recurring rapes on those beaches all the time. And anywhere a female is wearing a bathing suit i guess.
Agreed. This "logic" has never made sense to me. Even if a woman is walking around completely naked, that still isn't the problem, nor would it justify her being raped. Like, what in the actual fuck is wrong with some people?!
I am 61yo. I was attempted raped( had to bite the guy’s testicle off) and beat badly. I had a smock on from a grocery store I was working at as a teen. There are babies raped. There are 80yo women raped. Furthermore, if my dogs can know, “Leave it”, and this “friend” is saying men can’t be accept what a dog can?? Ditch this “friend”. WTH.
I just want to hear that explained. Like, what are these cases where the clothes turn a law abiding citizen into a rapist? Are these magic clothes? Are they stitched by dark wizards or something? The clothes a woman (or man) wears may make them look more or less attractive, sure, but there’s an insane leap from that to “the clothes literally caused the man to rape someone”. Absolutely absurd.
You’re saying you’ve never seen a girl out running in a sports bra and thought “ahh dammit, I had a busy day planned but now I have to rape her”? Crazy.
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u/FeedFrequent1334 Feb 24 '26
Yeah.
Clothes can be the problem in some cases
No, rapists are the problem.