Always Be Aware of Your Surroundings

Do you monitor the internetz for potential rapists? Perhaps you should.

I myself have one of those automatic Google thingies set up to scan for variations on my name and report links to me in a weekly e-mail ('course that's not why I do it, but never mind). Perhaps that's how this rape victim discovered a Craigslist ad in her name asking for a partner to act out a rape fantasy. Or not.

In any event, by the time she found out about it and got Craigslist to take it down, a real-life rapist had already seen it and was happily on his way to her house to fulfill some of his deepest fantasies.

Turns out she was set up by her ex-boyfriend.

So if we are responsible, as so many rape-prevention experts advise, for maintaining a constant awareness of our environment, now I guess we are to not only acquire eyes in the backs of our heads (this would be especially tricky if, whether for religious reasons or simply because it is raining cats and dogs, you cover your head when you are out in public), figure out how to see around corners and through parked cars and tree trunks, but also be aware of every transaction on the internet around the entire world in every language all the time! Because you will have nobody to blame but yourself if you get raped because you were unaware of your surroundings.*

My goodness. When will I ever find the time to wash my hair?

*Nobody in the original article--not the reporter, Ben Neary (AP), or anyone interviewed, implied any such thing--but wait for it. It's only a matter of time. I'll bet you a guest post that someone, somewhere, will at least say that once the victim found the ad she should have taken extra precautions. Any takers?