“Hotel Elevator Rape” Is Less Common Than “Man Bites Dog”
July 10th, 2011
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If you happen to be at involved at all in the organized skepticism community, then you likely know about “elevatorgate.” Basically it’s a rather unfortunate series of events involving Rebecca Watson, Richard Dawkins and others. I’m intentionally not linking to the quotes (you can find them easily on Google if you so choose) but I will paraphrase the situation:
Watson was at a hotel for some conference she spoke at. She stayed out late, going to the bar or whatever. Then, at 4 AM she went back to her room, taking an elevator. Some guy from the conference was on the elevator. He tried to strike up a conversation. He said he found her interesting and suggested she might want to come back to her room for a cup of coffee. She declined. They exited the elevator and that was that.
Now according to Watson this made her very uncomfortable. It was an elevator, which is the quintessential (if not factually supported) place for rape to occur. She was a woman and he a man and our society is one in which women are most often the victim of sexual assault and men most often the aggressors. It was forward and the act of inviting a woman back to your room in a hotel has some obvious undertones (even if it didn’t necessarily mean anything other than he actually wanted to have some coffee.)
Richard Dawkins took Watson to task on this with some rather sarcastic comments which seem to be intended to point out that she really wasn’t a victim of anything and in a world where women are having their genitals cut in Africa, can’t drive cars in much of the Middle East, are sold into slavery in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and where many places still operate in a near-feudal manner, Watson is not really in that bad of shape and should just get over the fact that someone asked her an awkward question in an elevator, which probably was not the best venue.
What followed was a lot of really far-out feminists coming to Watson’s defense and attacking Dawkins. They said he didn’t understand because he was a heterosexual Caucasian male from a privilege background, while Watson is a … heterosexual Caucasian female from a privilege background. They repeatedly said how men “Just don’t get it” – that women live in a world of terror where every guy they encounter is a potential rapist and where the very act of making a social invitation means they must fear that you are planning on assaulting them. Some either didn’t get Dawkin’s sarcasm and disgust for the culture of victim-hood that has permeated western society or thought he was somehow putting down women who actually do suffer horrible acts of violence by asking those who were asked to coffee to grow some thicker skin.
Of course, I’m a man so I can’t ever understand this. Somehow others can know what I can understand but I can’t understand what they can. Somehow they know what my background is and my life experiences but I don’t know there experiences. And also, apparently every woman knows “what it’s like to be a woman” because there is only one single experience of being a woman, it’s not like, they are all different or anything, or like there is no one ‘anywoman’ who can tell you what the experience is for all XX chromosome members of humanity.
Oh and if you see a paradox here, that just proves you’re already a bigot and a rapist.
But before going into this any further, there’s a question nobody seems to have asked: DO RAPES ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN HOTEL ELEVATORS?
Sure, they have happened. In the history of human race and the billions of hotel stays that have been made, they have happened. But lets get something straight: people have also been struck by meteors on at least two occasions.
As Wattson suggested, if you Google “Hotel Elevator Assault,” you will find plenty of pages, but then take a closer look. Many of them are about how to avoid it, some of them are about her and others simply have all three words together in the same page, such as “Kobe’s accuser said after the assault, she went to the hotel elevator” or “The alleged attacker was seen on a security camera exiting the elevator on the 11th floor.”
But what about actual occurrences of women being raped or assaulted in hotel elevators. Is it common? Sure, it’s commonly feared. People fear dying because of nuclear power plant accidents too. People fear having their throat slit by an intruder in their bed at night. Yet these are pretty small risks.
Sexual assault: fears versus reality
While sexual assaults are some of the most common crimes to occur, the vast majority do not fit the popular image that most worry about. Being raped out of the blue by a stranger in a public location with little or no previous contact is one of the rarest types of sexual assault. An even rarer type of sexual assault is home-invasion sexual assault. Yet these are the types of assaults most prominent and which people tend to worry about most. The fear of a masked stranger breaking into one’s home and assaulting them in their bed is common. Yet such events are amongst the least common crimes.
At least 75% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a person known to the victim. Often a former intimate partner, friend or acquaintance and occasionally a family member. Even when the victim does not have a previous relationship with the perpetrator, most rapes assaults still involve some level of voluntary contact or interaction prior to the assault. Many are so-called “date rape” assaults. Others involve the victim engaging in some level of intimate contact consensually but then having the perpetrator continue past clearly stated boundaries or becoming forceful when the victim attempts to stop the encounter. In other cases, the rape is defined as being “alcohol-related,” where the victim has become too intoxicated to provide consent or resist.
Why a hotel elevator is a very unlikely place for a sexual assault to occur:
- All modern hotel elevators have security cameras and intercoms. At hotels, it is routine for cameras to be monitored by security. If an assault were to happen, it is very likely that someone would come to the aid of the person being assaulted quickly. Even if they did not, the presence of cameras has a very strong deterrent effect.
- An elevator really does not provide much opportunity to keep a person captive. The average elevator ride is less than a minute long. Elevator doors can open at any time should the elevator be summoned by someone on a floor it is passing. There is no control over who greets the elevator. For an assailant it’s impossible to know if the elevator door is about the open to a group of security guards or to be summoned by a group of off duty police officers headed down to a law enforcement convention.
- The stop switch cannot be used to stop an elevator and hold it indefinitely – this is a matter of some level of urban mythology. In most elevator designs, it is impossible for a rider to suddenly stop the elevator between floors and hold it in the location, thus entrapping a passenger. Most newer elevators have “keyed” stop switches – the switch cannot be operated by a rider in the elevator unless they have a key.
On nearly all elevators, the stop switch activates an alarm, which, in a location like a hotel, would alert security to the incident in the elevator.On some elevators the stop switch has been reprogrammed such that it does not simply cause the elevator to stop, but rather will stop the elevator from ascending and cause it to stop on the nearest floor. On others, it causes the elevator to stop and return to the ground floor in an unpowered descent. This is a safety feature which is employed by elevators to allow passengers to exit in the event of a power failure. The elevator will reach the ground floor by gravity alone.Even in circumstances where the stop button does cause the elevator to stop between floors, it’s not indefinite. The elevator can always be restarted by hitting any other button. Actual examples of the elevator stop switch being activated. - Escaping an elevator is not difficult. It will stop at a floor, usually within less than a minute and making it stop sooner can be done by hitting other floor buttons. On some elevators, the “door open” button causes it to stop at whatever floor it is closest to.
Escaping a hotel after committing an assault is nearly impossible, especially if the assault is somewhere like an elevator, where exiting requires leaving the victim (potentially screaming for help) in an uncontrolled and public area to exit either through the hotel lobby or through guest floors. Avoiding capture is even less likely for those staying at the hotel, who would have had their identity recorded.
Rape is a crime of violence. It’s also a crime of control. It requires a place where the assailant can take control of the victim and have some level of comfort, knowing that the act will not be interrupted. Many such assaults take place in residences. Others take place in vehicles. Both of these places provide the setting necessary to gain and maintain control.
A hotel elevator does not and therefore is a very unlikely location for a sexual assault.
Rape in elevators:
Elevators are not a very common place for sexual assaults, but they certainly do happen, although this is usually limited to elevators serving certain types of locations.
There are cases of women being raped in elevators or followed by men out of an elevator and then quickly raped, but very very few happened at a place like a hotel, which is generally continuously inhabited and not secluded. The vast majority happened at elevators that are relatively isolated at times when there would not be many people around. These include such places as parking garages and subway stations at night. Others have occurred at apartment complexes, where there were few using elevators or walking around at night, in the early morning or during working hours.
Other cases of elevators being used as locations for rape or sexual assault involve elevators that are not generally open to the public. Workplace assaults have occurred in service elevators or elevators cabs that are out of service and sitting idle in the subbasement of buildings. Cleaning crews or late night workers have been assaulted in elevators at office buildings after hours, when few were around and the elevators were not being used or monitored.
Hotel elevators and other busy public elevators have been the location where other crimes were purported. They are a popular location for pickpockets. Muggings and robberies on elevators are also known to happen. They are usually very fast. The assailant pulls a knife or other weapon on a person in the elevator and runs away with their wallet or jewelry as soon as the door opens, often fleeing out of the hotel lobby.
Bonafied Incidents of Women Being Sexually Assaulted in Hotel Elevators:
Confirmed cases in which a woman was actually assaulted, raped or attempted to be raped in the elevator of a hotel by a stranger. I was unable to find any statistics that listed this as a location where rapes commonly occurred, so I had to resort to searching legal documents and news sources to try to find every example I could of rapes and sexual assaults in hotel elevators. After three days I couldn’t track down very many!
1976 – A woman was stabbed and sexually assaulted by a man at the Marc Plaza in Milwaukee. She first encountered her assailant on an elevator she had taken from the hotel’s parking garage. The actual assault did not take place on the elevator, but rather, happened after the man followed her out from the elevator.
1977 – An airline stewardess was raped in the elevator of a Boston hotel.
1981 – A group of three men assaulted a deaf-mute woman in a hotel elevator in Toronto.
1983 – A woman was raped after being dragged off an elevator in a Louisiana hotel by three men.
1984 – A woman was forcibly abducted by four men who accosted her in an elevator at an Atlantic city hotel and dragged her to one of the rooms in the hotel where she was raped. She escaped after four hours.
1987 – A 14 year old girl was “molested” in a Virginia Beach hotel elevator. No further details available.
1988 – An actress was assaulted in a Texas hotel. The assailant pulled down the front of her evening dress and tried to further sexually assault her, but the door opened and hotel guests came to her aid, restraining the man until police arrived.
1989 – In a highly publicized incident, a Chicago man robbed and raped a woman in the elevator of the Hilton by pulling a handgun on her and stopping the elevator between floors. Most elevators will not stop in this manner and if they do, hitting a button will get them to move again. However, he was able to stop her from doing anything because he was armed with a gun. The same man had attacked two other Chicago women. Of the three women he attacked, only one was raped in the elevator. Likely because of the limits of most elevators to be held in place, the perpetrator raped another woman in a vacant room, while another of his victims was only robbed but not sexually assaulted.
1995 - A man was arrested for attempting to rape a woman in a hotel elevator in Lake Tahoe, although she managed to get away.
2005 - A woman staying at the Omni Hotel in Washington DC was assaulted by a man she had met at the hotel’s bar. Part of the assault occurred in an elevator, although the elevator was not where the assault began. The man assaulted and wrestled the woman on the ground floor of the hotel near the elevator area. He then pushed her into one of the elevators when the door opened. The hotel normally had three guards on duty in the lobby area and monitoring cameras which would have prevented the incident from happening. The victim thus successfully sued the hotel for negligence as they did not have their full security detail available on the night of the incident.
2006 – A Florida man attempted to sexually assault a 12 year old girl in a hotel elevator, but she got away. He was captured shortly thereafter.
2011 – A guest of the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt was assaulted and stabbed in an elevator. It appears that the perpetrator had intended to sexually assault her, but she got away and received only non-life-threatening wounds.
That is twelve cases of women being assaulted on elevators at hotels, in a period of almost 40 years. Many of these cases the victim managed to get away or the assault didn’t get very far. Granted, it’s possible that there could be others I did not find, and most of the sources I could find were English-language, so that limits the area in question. Still, it this clearly is not something that happens every week or even every year.
Perhaps just as importantly, not a single example can be found which actually fits the MO and circumstances of the situation Rebecca found herself and the fears expressed – that an attack would actually happen, that this would happen in the elevator, that the attacker would managed to successfully restrain or assault the victim and that this would all happen with a single attacker, but after some kind of initial approach that did not involve violence, such as trying to flirt with the victim and being declined.
One might counter by saying that even an attempted but failed attack would be a horrible and traumatic experience, and while that’s true, the actual chances of it happening are still extremely remote. By comparison, in the United States alone, more than 1,300 individuals lost their lives due to lightning strikes between 1980 and 1995 and tens of thousands more were severely injured by lightning.
To put the rarity of this in greater context, examples of “Man Bites Dog” since the year 2000:
2001 – A drunken man was arrested for biting a dog in Florida.
2002 – A Long Island man defended his small dog when it was attacked by a pitbull by biting the pitbull.
2003 - A 33 year old man in Syracuse New York faces charges related to biting a dog.
2004 – A Florida man was jailed for biting his Jack Russel Terrier as a form of punishment.
2007 - A Wellington NZ man attempted to evade capture after robbing a store by biting a police dog.
2009 - A UK man was bitten by a dog. He bit back.
2010 – A West Haven CT man attempted to assault a police officer and in the process bit a police dog.
2011 - An Arizona man attempted to escape from police. A police dog took him down, but he bit the dog back.
I should add, I did not spend nearly as much time tracking down stories of men biting dogs. I did, however, have to limit myself to the years 2000-2011, because there were just too damn many of them to list otherwise!
So, in conclusion, if you want something to worry about, don’t bother worrying about being raped in a hotel elevator – worry that your dog might be bitten by a man. It’s a far more common occurrence!
In the end, it’s just not a very reasonable risk and women should not panic if they are asked to coffee on an elevator. It might be a dumb place to ask a woman for coffee, because it would somewhat put her on the spot (but how many of us haven’t asked something dumb at least once). Still, being flirted with on a hotel elevator should not cause a feeling of terror.
It’s a little sad that a self-described skeptic would have such irrational fears and such a victim complex.
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2011 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Amazing Meeting, Announcements, Bad Science, Culture, Good Science, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 15th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Anon said:
Yep. I’ve seen it happen. Not to me, of course, but to the brother of a girl I was dating. His girlfriend wanted to get pregnant and he caught her poking holes in the condoms that they were using.
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July 20th, 2011 at 3:33 am
I’m a large, socially retarded male, with no experience with women and I guess they can sense that. So I avoid them as much as possible. Unless I’m approached I’m going to die alone.
HURRAH FOR EVOLUTION
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July 25th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
I can tell you right now, not all women spend every second their around guys thinking their going to be raped and that includes elevators. Not every second that men and women come into contact is completely about sex. Any women who spends every second of their lives afraid when there is no actually reason behind it is stupid and is in for a long and very hellish life.
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August 3rd, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Unfortunately, this post missed the point by a mile. The main reason why “elevator rape” came up was because a lot of obtuse people didn’t get why it could be uncomfortable. Being in an elevator mostly isn’t, because people follow a sort of etiquette with it but that can be breached sometimes. This was really just about the context, the discomfort came from the approach when isolated and which ignored the previously stated intentions (i.e. going to bed). There would have been no issue if that approach had been to ask to meet the next day for coffee for instance. It’s nothing whatsoever to do with living in terrible fear, but more to do with social interactions, showing a bit of awareness and sensible avoidance of situations that might be risky for one reason or another. That one applies to both men and women and whether or not they are the ones being approached or the other way around.
“I’m a large, socially retarded male, with no experience with women and I guess they can sense that. So I avoid them as much as possible. Unless I’m approached I’m going to die alone.”
No, no, no. Want some advice? I’ve been propositioned, but the people I’ve had sex (or a relationship) never propositioned me, nor I them. We just talked and got to know each other a little or a lot as the case might have been, and then moved on to sex if that was desired by both of us. The key is don’t approach the other person as someone you want to have sex with, but to approach them simply as another person just like the people you might talk to at work or otherwise interact with in daily life. No need to for any special skills. Women are not mysterious creatures, but human beings with much the same motivations as anyone else and if you approach it like that it’s not that hard. I have to say it’s a canard to make out that unless able to proposition someone right off the bat, that sex will stop happening though. In fact, it’s often insensitivity and lack of respect for others that can stop the potential for a bonk cold, no one likes being treated like a piece of meat.
“Unless she also pokes holes in the condom (there are women who really do that, a surprising amount even admit they’d be willing to do it).”
I love the zero-sum game, if talking about just about anything to do with gender and particularly contraception, someone always has to go “but women are bad too” as if no one in reality left most, if not all the responsibility on the woman to make sure that stuff happens. The reality is we’ve got a few stories about women conniving to steal sperm off guys, but many more men that just won’t wear condoms or simply don’t care that they are half the equation and they’ve got some responsibility too when depositing their sperm in someone’s vagina. Men are also known to do sabotaging of contraception too – reproductive coercion goes both ways, and it’s also important to note that it’s women disproportionately bear the responsibility of pregnancy and childbirth and the child that comes later and that can be a strong disincentive to just getting pregnant for the hell of it. http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/635254.html is an example of research into this.
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August 3rd, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Mitch said:
Who still uses miles these days?
Anyway, whilst the original point was more of it just being uncomfortable it pretty quickly got beyond that and into rape.
Mitch said:
Women also need to know how to say no when asked to do something they don’t want (like say, having sex without a condom).
Mitch said:
Of course if a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant she can get an abortion and completely avoid all that, there’s no equivalent option available for men.
Also I should note that economics isn’t always at the front of the mind of the women who are insistent on getting themselves pregnant no matter what.
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November 12th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Shouldn’t we be more upset about incidents that do happen rather then telling off the overly jumpy women?
For example, any one of the elevator incidents you looked up that DID happen should have made you more angry than the words of this silly woman- for example, the attack in Toronto of the deaf-mute girl by boys that left her with broken ribs, didn’t that make you feel sick?
This article should have had one paragraph gently making fun of the woman for being ridiculous, another informatively explaining how the elevator is not the location of choice for rapists. No need to viciously attack a relatively harmless if excessive female response to the risk of a male created crime.
(the above was written based purely on your article; upon independently looking up the facts, the whole thing is bull****, elevator man did nothing particularly wrong but neither did the woman on expressing her opinion of it. Dawkins was overly harsh, considering his stance means no one can ever complain about anything, and what is life without commentary, even if the occasional error is made. The so called ‘far out’ feminists merely pointed out that Dawkins was being stupid. And you spent 20 hours researching this? What made you so damn bitter? Your critique of Watson and her supporters is way more disproportional than Watson’s comment, considering hers was probably made flippantly and was based on a life experience, while yours involved hours of research into a minor indecent concerning people of who don’t really matter all that much.)
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November 12th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Pudd’nhead: You’re an idiot.
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October 25th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
you realize the man could have easily noted what floor she stayed on, known her hotel room, etc. hotel room rape is actually very common, and doing a simple search notes that most of them are committed by strangers or someone the victim had tangential contact with who then followed them back to their room or gained access to their room by other knowledge. this is exaxtly the point. as a woman, you have no idea if the guy you are saying no to is a nice guy who will understand that no means no, or a bitter jackass who is going to “get some from that stuckup bitch how dare she say no” etc etc. women being concerned about rape and made to feel uncomfortable by men who don’t understand that they have to keep that in their minds at all times is an actual problem. saying women are just being jumpy by talking about that problem is not only dismissive, it is contributing to the problem that rape is prevalent in our society, rarely punished like it should be, and you are complicit in that when you tell women to shut up about talking about that. the fact that you spent so long researching this and trying to downplay her viewpoint of the situation says so much more about you than about the situation. i suggest instead of tearing down people who might have a viewpoint that you aren’t party to, you instead turn that attention and energy on something that will positively benefit you instead of making you look like a downplaying rape apologist. because that is exactly what this reads as.
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October 26th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
hep said:
Any stats to back up that claim? (Distinguishing, of course, from date rape the happens in a hotel, rape at parties in hotel rooms, etc.)
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March 28th, 2013 at 12:52 pm
Wow. As to number 2. DUH, all he has to do is hit the emergency stop button! Gavin De Becker ‘Gift of Fear’ Every man should read it… it’s coming from a man, so you might actually absorb some of it.
A woman isn’t required to put herself in danger so other men don’t have to be afraid they’ll ‘die alone’ How self-serving. That is precisely why I knew the stakes on this were so high for so many men. ‘GOD’ forbid a woman try to dictate a few terms on the sexual playing field.
Every man I’ve dated (and slept with) asked me out in a proper way; after getting to know me first or, at least, for something quite casual… and not in an elevator at 4 AM to go ‘back to his room for coffee’ *eye roll* Still not understanding the absolute rage over this situation. It’s unreal.
Puddnhead – what makes them so bitter, is that, no woman, in their minds should dictate the terms of sexual conquest.
I’ve been asked out plenty of times, some appropriate, some not, but never, thankfully, in an elevator at 4am. Not that I would have gotten in at all. As De Becker points out, wait for the next one. I can’t even go to 7-11 past midnight without all eyes on me. Hey, why is she here, oh look, a woman out at night… Men have absolutely no idea whatsoever what women go through. I’ve never been able to go anywhere with autonomy. It’s always eyes on me, glaring, staring or whispered comments or blatant comments. I took a fancy to the track and thought (how silly of me ) that as a free human being in the USA I could simply go to the track and watch the horses. I was harassed so thoroughly, so uncomfortable and downright afraid, I had to stop going. When I took a friend it was better, but why the hell can’t I go out anywhere alone, without men’s eyes on me; without hearing their ignorant and filthy comments? Maybe instead of ripping Watson a new one you should be turning to each other and monitoring the behavior of your friends and your sons, etc.
I ask a man, if getting in an elevator posed any risk of you getting raped anally, would you get in? Of course not. But since you have no idea (apparently) of the reality of the situation (or don’t want to know) you just don’t get it. My suggestion, stop arguing an issue, you can’t even begin to comprehend. Don’t be concerned with how a woman feels about getting into an elevator at night with a man and I won’t be concerned with what it feels like to have jock itch…
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:05 pm
Excerpt form Gift of Fear – Gavin De Becker
Whether or not men can relate to it or believe it or accept it, that is the way it is. Women, particularly in the big cities, live with a constant wariness. Their lives are literally on the line in ways men just don’t experience. Ask some man you know, “When is the last time you were concerned or afraid that another person would harm you?” Many men cannot recall an incident within years. Ask a woman the same question and most will give you a recent example of say, “Last night,” “Today,” or even “Every day”
Still, women’s concerns about safety are frequently the subject of critical comments from the men in their lives. One woman told me of constant ridicule and sarcasm from her boyfriend whenever she discussed fear or safety. He called her precautions silly and asked, “How can you live like that?” To which she replied, “How could I not?”
I have a message for women who feel forced to defend their safety concerns: tell Mister I-Know-Everything-About-Danger that he has nothing to contribute to the topic of your personal security. Tell him that your survival instinct is a gift from nature that knows a lot more about your safety than he does. And tell him that nature does not REQUIRE HIS APPROVAL.
It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different – men and woman live in different worlds. I don’t remember where I first heard this simple description of one dramatic contrast between the genders, but it is strikingly accurate: At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:08 pm
So, “Woman”, can you document any cases of hotel elevator rape that Steve missed? If not, you’re spewing emotions, not facts.
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Gavin De Becker – Gift of Fear excerpt on the ‘Elevator’ Funny, it would be in his book isn’t it since it’s no threat? Read on and bear in mind that De Becker’s reasoning is not to live life in total fear but to listen to our instincts, the instinct that keep us safe. There are reasons for fear, signals; if we relax and listen to them we will spend less time worrying when it is not necessary to worry, and rely on ourselves to know when true danger (true fear) makes itself known. The book is fascinating. He works with companies re: violence from employees and major stars like Madonna, re: stalking, etc.
+++++
A woman could offer no greater cooperation to her soon-to-be attacker than to spend her time telling herself, “But he seems like such a nice man.” Yet this is exactly what many people do. A woman is waiting for an elevator, and when the doors open she sees a man inside who causes her apprehension. Since she is not usually afraid, it may be the LATE HOUR, his size, the way he looks at her, the rate of attacks in the neighborhood, an article she read a year ago – it doesn’t matter why. The point is, she gets a feeling of fear. How does she respond to nature’s strongest survival signal? She suppresses it, telling herself: “I’m not going to live like that; I’m not going to insult this guy by letting the door close in his face.” When the fear doesn’t go away, she tells herself not to be so silly, and she gets into the elevator.
Now, which is sillier; waiting a moment for the next elevator, or getting into a soundproofed steel chamber with a stranger she is afraid of?
+++++
Listen to the instincts you’ve built up over a life-time and don’t let any person try to marginalize or discredit your own particular set of intuitional skills that have gotten you, not them, this far.
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Matthew – I just found 4 cases of elevator rape on google and it took me 30 seconds to do it. Feb 2013, May and Decmber 2012. You’re absolutely off the mark and wrong in this. You think a world-renowned expert on violence and safety like Gavin De Becker is ’spewing emotion” LOL
You guys are beyond rehabilitation. I’m doing my best to share information but if you don’t want it to be, you will resist the facts. That’s your issue, not mine. When my intuition tells me something is dangerous i’ll listen to it and won’t stop for 1/2 second to wonder what Matthew the denier of facts and reality might think about my choice of action. I wouldn’t care if every man within a county mile thought it was wrong, I know, and apparently, De Becker, knows what’s what. I see, no one has bothered to comment on the excerpts from his book. He’s not a woman, he makes perfect sense, so what’s the problem?? He’s quite possibly the FBI’s foremost authority on violence and safety but, hey, Matthew knows better!!
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
Woman said:
Links, please?
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:34 pm
I am a ‘woman’ and therefore know a heck of a lot more about my safety than you ever could, no matter how blue in the face you get or how hard you stomp your feet. I am a WOMAN and will protect myself with or without ‘Matthew’s’ approval or the ‘atheist’ community, which, sadly, I thought was more enlightened than this.
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
https://www.google.com/search?q=woman+raped+in+elavator&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:36 pm
https://www.google.com/search?q=woman+raped+in+elavator&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=woman+raped+in+elevator&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ei=vItUUaTQGdDw0QHvi4GoBA&start=10&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44442042,d.dmQ&fp=6e49fdf8cc37ca2&biw=1371&bih=704
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:46 pm
If it makes you feel any better, I greet dogs with a strong sense of apprehension and respect for the fact that they are a threat. I was bitten and attacked by a dog as a child, so that reinforced the idea that I need to be careful, which I always am. Dog attacks can be fatal… just like rape… and neither is something I’d like to experience, so why would I ever take undue risks. Oh wait, cause Matthew thinks I should so that he can ask a woman out down the line somewhere LOL How inhumane and insulting.
Can’t even believe I have to type any of this. I feel like I’ve landed on another planet with Martians
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March 28th, 2013 at 1:49 pm
I’ll leave you with these words AGAIN from De Becker, who I wish, I could get to speak at an atheist convention but he’s too high-priced and far too busy to tackle each situation personally, which is why he wrote the book.
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I have a message for women who feel forced to defend their safety concerns: tell Mister I-Know-Everything-About-Danger that he has nothing to contribute to the topic of your personal security. Tell him that your survival instinct is a gift from nature that knows a lot more about your safety than he does. And tell him that nature does not REQUIRE HIS APPROVAL
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That’s pretty much all there is to it.
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March 28th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Holy ****! Gordon. I am speechless right now.
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However, if being a man meant I’d have to live in a constant hell where I always felt threatened and harassed and unimportant, then I don’t know I would want that even if it was who I felt I was. I think I would rather live as a woman (even if that is not who I am) then live in a constant living hell of harassment.
I’m actually surprised that F-to-M sex changes are not more common if being a woman is such an unending horrible experience. I’m surprised most women don’t commit suicide if it’s such an unending torment. How is it that I know so many women who are happy and perfectly well adjusted when they live life in daily terror?
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Wow, I don’t even have words for this. This is so completely and utterly inhumane and ignorant. As a woman, who has been harassed almost daily for 40 years, I manage to function in society. I do my shopping, go hang out, etc., date, have sex, with ever the wary eye toward my safety. So you’re saying that rather than learn to live and work within the parameters of being a woman, which is definitely hard and often times unpleasant, I should KILL MYSELF?
Because I’m on here talking about the issue and defending Watson doesn’t mean I’m not ‘well-adjusted’ I’ve had 40 years to learn to deal. I’ve been terrified many times, but I, and many other women, hold it together and function. This issue is so utterly beyond belief. These comments are completely and utterly shocking to me. You have a man who is transgender and is telling you how different life is as a woman, which should be even more proof if a woman’s word isn’t good enough (crazy) but instead of accepting the truth, you then branch it out to well then why don’t women kill themselves???? I hate to say it, but you’re a twisted SOB.
It’s like stepping over the crack in the pavement you’ve learned to live with… because it’s there, are you going to never walk that way, freak out and cry and kill yourself, or simply adapt to the crack and use your instincts to step over or around it?
It may surprise some men (apparently) but yes, women deal with fear on almost a daily basis. I am never without my guard up. Not when I’m outside my home. Sorry, if our unfortunate lot in life, which we have learned to deal with, seems so unthinkable to you that you would suggest we kill ourselves.
I’m stunned. I’m not going to kill myself, I’m going to do what I’ve always done; take precautions, make the most out of life, stick by men who are not animals and sexists, and speak out for women’s right and hope things get better.
Perhaps all men should be made to live as a woman for a week?
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March 28th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Let’s keep in mind also, something everyone seems to be forgetting: This is all Watson said:
…so I walk to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me and said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?’ Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don’t do that. You know, I don’t really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and–don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner…â€
She just got done discussing being sexualized by men, and then this. Her response was very tame and very calm. Dawkins, as I’ve said before, is an advocate for women and I respect him immensely and we need him desperately, but we all can be wrong at times; he was wrong here. Perhaps all men, Dawkins too, should be made to live as a woman for a week? Or have to wear a funny hat or bright orange face paint, to learn what it feels like to have eyes on you at all times. At the store, in the parking lot, buying a soda, or a coffee. Only, with women it’s worse because we know we are being sexualized which makes it feel very uncomfortable and not just looked at for having a funny hat on. It might help men have an idea though, what it’s like.
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March 28th, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Another excerpt from Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
I encourage women to explicitly rebuff unwanted approaches, but I know it is difficult to do. Just as rapport building has a good reputation, explicitness applied by women in this culture has a terrible reputation. A woman who is clear and precise is viewed as cold, or a bitch, or both.
A woman is expected, first and foremost, to respond to every communication from a man. And the response is expected to be one of willingness and attentiveness. It is considered attractive if she is a bit uncertain (the opposite of explicit) Women are expected to be warm and open, and in the context of approaches from male strangers, warmth lengthens the encounter, raises his expectations, increases his investment, and, at best, wastes time. At worst, it serves the man who has sinister intent by providing much of the information he will need to evaluate and then control his prospective victim.
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March 28th, 2013 at 6:01 pm
woman said:
This is sage advice and a good observation. This is what I was referring to in comment #35, in the absence of common social signals, a direct approach is probably best for all concerned.
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March 28th, 2013 at 9:12 pm
This is very true DV82XL
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While formal manners now are considered quaint and anachronistic by many, it did provide a useful framework for social communications and behaviour that is missing today
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While being of the younger generation with formal manners a bit unfamiliar to me, I can see how, in some situations, having a framework might help communication. Pick up Gift of Fear. It’s such an interesting book and certainly not only for women; it covers so much more. Gavin De Becker helped Olivia Newton John when she was being stalked, etc. Just a lot of interesting stuff but also fantastic tips for women and for business owners who have employees who are angry they were fired, etc. A lot of it is learning how to predict behavior and then deal with the threat of violence in the most productive way, i.e., orders of protection, when taken out on a man in the wrong frame of mind, increase murders of women, not decrease them. He talks about when to use what approach.
He also has a chapter on how unsafe our children are in school and how background checks are not up to par, etc. and what we can do to promote safety before dropping our kids off at school.
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March 29th, 2013 at 3:01 pm
Woman said:
Woman said:
Woman said:
Okay, let me just be a bit more specific here: I qualified this as being the elevator in a hotel for a reason. By the way, I read almost all the articles that come up in the searches you linked.
Stranger-on-stranger assaults typically happen in a place where the perpetrator can have control. That usually means somewhere secluded. An elevator would be a prime place to victimize someone under certain circumstances. Notice many of these are parking garages. They are pretty secluded, especially at night, when not many people are parked there.
Others happen in apartment buildings. Typically these are housing projects or high rise apartments. These are big places where people keep to themselves and, at 3 AM, most residents are sleeping and nobody would hear much from within an elevator shaft. Additionally, these apartment buildings don’t normally have staff members on site all the time, or, if they do, it’s just one.
A hotel is basically the opposite. The elevators converge in the lobby, which is a public place that is always staffed. There are people coming and going 24/7 in a hotel and the elevator is subject to constant use. There’s no way out of a hotel that is unobserved. Because a hotel has to deal with many guests coming and going and ward off potential unauthorized entry, any large hotel will have constant active security.
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April 2nd, 2013 at 12:14 pm
Matthew, let me be more specific here – I just want to know, if it was your **** (literally) on the line, exposed and vulnerable to a forcible and unwanted penetration by a stranger with potentially murderous intent… would you bend over and spread your cheeks more easily in a ‘hotel’ elevator as opposed to a ‘housing project’ elevator (which, if you knew anything about housing projects, you’d know are frequented far more often at 3 am then a hotel elevator would be, with more people coming and going. Projects never sleep.)
Or, let’s say you got arrested. Would you spread ‘em wide in a low security prison because the risk MIGHT be lower that you wouldn’t get that tender orifice ripped open. I think you’d be airing on the side of caution; that’s what I think.
And ‘notice many of these are parking garages’ is of no comfort when it’s your ass on the line; which, clearly, it isn’t or you wouldn’t be wasting your time and mine with these desperate attempts to prove a point. You’re so cavalier with someone else’s safety, aren’t you? Rebecca was, and always will be right, for being afraid in that elevator with the social misfit who hasn’t managed to pick up a scrap of social etiquette in his decades of life. He lives in a vacuum where women should feel safe in elevators with strange men propositioning them for sex because he wants to take that course. That’s his problem. I realize men don’t want to be told where and how to proposition a woman for sex because ‘with these rules, I’ll wind up dying alone’ (= WTF and too damn bad) but how about listening instead of throwing walls up? The odds of getting laid go way up when you’re not being skeevy in an elevator at 3 am. The old coffee back in my room line? LOL, please. Don’t let that guy guide you; if you’re trying to get close to women, listen to what women are saying. We don’t want to never be approached, we just want common frakkin sense to be used.
And, again, with your tender, vulnerable **** on the line, would ‘many of these are parking garages’ make you feel any safer in that hotel elevator and, beyond feeling safe — not insulted — if a whole community turned against you, dedicating themselves to how stupid and irrational you were for ‘covering your ass’ so to speak, which you have every right and responsibility to do? Meanwhile, AGAIN, all she did was post a word or two about the situation.
And not one word, not one single word about De Becker’s book, which I quoted more than once. Not one. Why is that? He knows a hell of a lot more than you on the subject, but go ahead, just ignore his thoughts and proceed onward in your blind bid for the finish line of ‘I was right’
If a rapist were capable of putting reason before rape, we wouldn’t have rapists. I doubt, very much, he’d be in the elevator wondering about security. He’s worrying about getting his dick inside whatever hole he can get it in. Period. He wants to overpower and take you, period. Protection is instinctual. If every time you feel threatened, as De Becker says, you’re going to let yourself get distracted by anything other than your gut instincts… you’re in trouble. It’s not a time to refer to the statistics of hotel rapes LOL
I’m not wasting any more time on this ridiculousness.
And don’t forget, you’re still starting from a point of defeat because Rebecca did feel afraid, I would have, and so would have the 5 women I asked. So, unless you think you’re some kind of God who can go in and CHANGE her feelings, or dictate her feelings, you had no right to even take up this crusade. You just come off looking like an insensitive prick, to be honest. I have a friend whose Father is a psychiatrist and when I asked her to ask him for his opinion on all of this – his first words were ‘why is this person trying to dictate to this woman how she should FEEL?’ Good question. Because how she feels determines how you feel you can approach women going forward. Well, tough ****.
Like I said, take down your pants and underwear, bend over, spread your ass cheeks wide and offer yourself to the world if you think it’s such a safe place. Go ahead, Matthew, spread ‘em and rely on the goodness of the human race not to be taken by the first animal who comes along… or better yet, print out your research and try to cover that vulnerable ass with a few pieces of paper when that dick is converging on it… that’s basically the amount of protection this research of yours affords women in the real world.
I would always tell the men in my life to follow their instincts, to be safe, at all costs; why can’t you afford women the same respect?
I hate to be so crude, but this apologist crap needs to end. In the end, it’s our asses on the line, not yours.
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April 2nd, 2013 at 12:28 pm
One more quick thing. I live in an urban area, a few miles a way from a bustling Avenue, that is all store fronts. We found out about a rape on this avenue at about 6:30 am on a weekday and were all wondering where the hell this could have happened. Above the stores are apartments so there are doors which sit back about 1 and 1/2 feet from the sidewalk. He pushed her into one of these tiny alcoves and within a minute she was raped. Done.
Or see the Glasgow, Scotland bus rape story. Raped on the upper deck of a bus with people ON THE BUS. Maybe you can add these stories to you research project LOL
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April 2nd, 2013 at 12:33 pm
Woman said:
Oh god, I wish you hadn’t. The only thing that is creepier than asking someone you don’t know to have coffee in your hotel room at three in the morning is what you have just written, apparently to try to make a point. Between standing in an elevator with the creepy guy and standing in an elevator with you, I’d take the creepy guy any day of the week. I mean, there’s creepy, and then there’s beyond creepy.
Online pissing contests about elevator rape are definitely in the latter category.
We can only hope and pray.
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April 5th, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Woman said:
No, the location matters precisely because your ass really is not on the line, or, at least, the probability of it happening is exceptionally low.
Look, setting matters when it comes to danger. You are more likely to be attacked by a bear in the woods than in your living room. Now, granted, it *could* happen inside a suburban home. A bear could wander into an inhabited area, pick your house, break down the door and decide to attack you. However, it’s astronomically unlikely.
Worry about bears in the wilderness of Alaska and not in your livingroom, because the setting makes it unlikely. Same thing here.
As far as sexual assault goes, you are safer in a public location than just about anywhere else. The elevator of any reputable hotel is going not a likely place to be assaulted for a myriad of reasons, including the presence of nearby security, the fact that most elevators can’t be stopped between floors, that those which can be stopped trigger an alarm, the fact that the doors are guarded, the fact that access to the hotel is limited, the presence of a security camera.
Yes, it’s very remotely possible, but
Woman said:
Only when there’s no reason to think safety is in danger.
Woman said:
Then she should take the stairs.
Woman said:
He didn’t proposition her for sex.
This might seem shocking, but have you ever considered that maybe he just thought she was interesting and wanted to have coffee?
Actually, I think I pointed out that this might not be such a strange thing in Ireland. In my experience, the Irish are more prone to invite a stranger to their home for tea or coffee or something like that. Being more open with your residence and perhaps hotel room is a cultural thing. It stems from the way small villages are there.
In any case, nothing to panic over.
Woman said:
Oh, I’m not saying it wasn’t a faux pass to do so in an elevator. Just nothing to panic over.
Woman said:
Well, it is a group of skeptics and as such, it’s actually regarded as being appropriate to question perceptions versus reality.
In fact, there are many myths about sexual assault which are very much worth addressing. The popular notion seems to be that women need to fear a strange man breaking into their homes and raping them or jumping from a dark ally. The fact is that home invasion rape is exceptionally rare.
Most assaults are with someone who they already know and have a previous relationship with. It’s more than 80% and of the remaining, many are after some voluntary contact, which is escalated beyond what is consented to or something like that. It’s rarely a clear cut case of stranger rape by force. That’s the problem. The fear is missplaced. If you are going to fear something, fear that nice guy you are hanging out with slipping something in your drink. That is orders of magnitude more likely to happen.
Woman said:
Have not read it, and, really, it’s not relevant. We’re talking about a narrow circumstance and the relative probability of a hotel elevator being the scene of an assault.
Woman said:
You really think rapists don’t premeditate their crimes or look for opportunities? if they were that visceral, they would likely never succeed and there would be nothing to worry about.
Believe it or not, rape rarely occurs in broad daylight in front of a police station. It would seem that rapists must be thinking about something.
Woman said:
Trust your gut instincts? I’d advise against that. For one thing, it tends to be affected quite a lot by your last meal.
John F. Kennedy Jr. trusted his gut. He should have trusted his altimeter and artificial horizon, but he trusted his gut. He trusted his gut all the way into a controlled dive into the Atlantic. He never even saw it coming.
Woman said:
Yeah. Sometimes I feel afraid when I shouldn’t. I don’t like heights. If I am on a tall building, and there is a perfectly solid railing and I know I am not going to fall, I look down and I feel afraid. I admit, it’s illogical. I shouldn’t feel afraid, and, to be honest, it’s something I should work on.
Woman said:
Asked five women? Asked your friend’s father? This is really important to you, huh? This little blog post from over a year ago. Did you also ask him about obsession?
Woman said:
If I were to do so, I assume one of the safer places for it would be a hotel elevator. There’s definitely a danger of the door opening and getting arrested for indecent exposure, but that’s about it/
Woman said:
I wouldn’t. Following your instinct without question is how you get into trouble.
Woman said:
Is someone apologizing for rape? Certainly not me.
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