The troubling reality of sexual abuse on college campuses across the nation has been the focus of much media attention, and lately there has been discussion about one uncomfortable truth: that the world is imperfect, and just as we must practice “defensive driving” to avoid dangerous drivers on the road, women — fair or not — may have to practice “defensive discernment” in order to avoid dangerous encounters in ordinary life.
David Mills, in today’s piece As I Tell My Daughters, a Fallen World Isn’t Fair, writes:
It’s a fallen world, and in a fallen world you can’t always do what you want. A young woman at a party with young testosterone-laden men who have no belief in chastity, whose sexual instincts have been formed by pornography, who may be used to “success” in sexual pursuits, who are drinking heavily, that young woman is in some degree of danger. The later correct assignment of moral responsibility for a crime committed against her does not protect her from being raped then.
Rape and sexual abuse is never the victim’s fault. You would not blame a banker for being robbed, or a passerby for being shot in a gangland altercation, nevertheless, we still hear people arguing over who’s to blame for these horrifying events. It is with this in mind that we ask our readers to opine:
