Are Women Who Dress Provocatively Responsible for Unwanted Attention, or Should Men Learn to Control Themselves?

There are three words that stand out for me in @ecotrain's polarising question of the week - 'provocative' 'responsible' and 'control'.

Firstly, I unequivocally will argue that everyone is responsible for controlling their desires, knowing the impact that it may have on them and the world. Human beings have the power of free will and it is no excuse to say that 'that's how men are wired'. Sure, that maybe true - yet since when did we allow genetics to rule human behaviour? We could argue the same is true for paedophiles - would you argue that children are asking for it? This may be an extreme analogy, but the point I'm trying to make is that we all have self-control, and to not exercise that whilst knowing your actions are wrong is immoral. I never subscribe to that 'I just couldn't help myself' line, whether it comes to affairs or rape - it's still base and ugly. It's bowing down to your primal desires and giving in to them and be damned with the consequences - and we know what these are. I'm ashamed to say that in Australia, we have one of the "highest rates of reported sexual assault in the world, at almost 92 people per 100,000 of the population, according to the United Nations" - please go and find your own figures for your own country, and if it's zero, please let me know. We know what happens when men can't control themselves.

A few years ago, a woman was raped and murdered in a Melbourne Park. She's just one of many, of course, but this time the Police Commissioner was rightly criticised for saying that woman need to watch where they walk at night. Great. We're in the 21st century and we're still told to watch what we wear, where we walk, what we say. We're the ones that are meant to moderate our behaviour and please everyone. A female politician can't get up and speak without everyone judging what she wears - and yes, that's coming from men and woman alike. Because woman's bodies have always been a site of control. The thing is, it doesn't matter what we wear - we're still going to be under intense scrutiny and judgment because of it. And what we do, say and wear is our own fault, and never, ever anyone elses - apparently.

This brings me to the word 'provocative'. Are we ever inviting, ever asking for 'unwanted' attention? In the comments on one of the other responses (I can't remember which) said that the sexual dynamic between people is like a 'dance', which is true indeed - there's a pleasure in dressing a certain way to titillate and draw in the sexual advances of men (or woman, for that matter), a play that crosses cultures and time. However, it doesn't mean we are asking for 'it' - no one invites rape, abuse, judgement or assault. We could also consider what 'provocative' means, because it's very easy for men to say that whatever she was wearing was provocative, or, not understanding the situation, to **assume** that how she dressed or behaved was inviting whatever it was that the man did. I did not ask to be raped when I was in my own house, in my own bed, under the covers, thinking that the man asleep on the couch in the other room would be 'provoked' enough by my presence to consider himself invited into my bed. Waking up to that was not pleasant, as you can imagine, and I don't want a big discussion in the comments if you don't mind, because it's well and truly over, and resolved in my mind. I use this example to illustrate that it didn't matter what I was wearing that night, that man was going to take what he wanted. As the picture to the left, and the first photo suggests, it's doesn't matter what woman wear - men see, and men take. They **apparently** can't control themselves. Now, of course it's not all men - I had a whole extended group of male friends who, upon finding this out (because I did speak out, and vocally), marched him to my door to apologise. Well intended, of course, but frightening for me, who somehow found the wherewithal to tell him how that affected me, and how fucked up he was, and that I'd never accept his apology, and that if I heard him do it to anyone else, I'd call the police immediately. He was contrite and horrified - genuinely, I believe, and years later he cried as he apologised again for what he'd done (and I still didn't say it was okay - how could it be?) I had a good outcome - many woman don't.
The next word I want to address is 'responsibility'. Earlier I said that men should control themselves, and that's true. However, I think we're culturally responsible too. I think it's what we allow to slide, and what we accept as normal, that's problematic. I think the media is very much to blame, and we should be aware of that, and speak up against it.

The image to the left may drive this point home. Are you kidding me? And there's baby shirts that say "I'm a titty man" or "Jailbait" - like it's funny. There's woman in these marketing campaigns too - why aren't they speaking out and saying this is not okay, and contributing to a culture where woman are sexually objectified and it's okay for men to judge them in this way and then blame them when they 'lose control'? Men are raised to be predatory, and woman are raised to take it. And that's no longer good enough.

I love what Collective Shout are doing to address this problem - they're directly campaigning against any advertising that diminishes woman in this way. She's not saying that it is only men who are responsible, but that everyone is. Everyone needs to take responsibility for how woman are perceived and treated, and how men behave. They campaign against big companies like Wish selling child sex dolls online, or full on lingerie models in high street shopping centre windows, the advertising of pornography in public places, plastic surgery apps for kids, and so on. All of these are incredibly damaging to our culture and it's not just men who create this world, it's woman too. Such as the woman I saw at the airport in Bali, with a t-shirt that said 'Tastes Like Honey: I'm Yours' which was *identical* to the one her three daughters wore - and they were between 10 and 13. And please don't tell me that they were asking for 'it'.

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Thus, yes, men should learn to control themselves - but that probably needs to start much, much earlier with the messages they receive about relationships and woman to begin with. Like anyone else, they should be taught to control desires which has the potential to harm others as well as themselves. Woman shouldn't have to feel that their safety is at risk if they are dressing to be part of an age old play between woman and men. And everyone is responsible for changing the culture that makes us believe that it's some biological imperative that makes all this normal.

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