Rapists look for the spots where boundaries cannot or will not be enforced. They don’t really care why. They are opportunists. They do what works. They can’t be changed. And we sure can’t wait around for the people who can’t defend their boundaries to change it; they’re doing what they can with what they have where they are. More than that, the boundary violations tend to work by degrees, so that the little ones build the foundation for the big ones, and by the time the rape happens the rapist stands on a stepladder of disempowerment. What we as a wider community need to do, if we care about solving the problem, is to take down the ladder. We need to look for the places where boundaries can’t and won’t be enforced … and fix them. We can’t start when and where the rapes happen. We have to start at the beginning. We have to believe that bodily autonomy is a human right, and that the little violations matter. If the whole culture believed that, it might not end all rape, but it would end a culture where rape is normalized and generally unpunished.
The Boiling Frog Principle Of Boundary Violation «