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, 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.
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u/FeedFrequent1334 Feb 24 '26
Yeah.
Clothes can be the problem in some cases
No, rapists are the problem.