A reader named "Victim? In Virginia" recently wrote into Dickinson's "Ask Amy" column looking for clarification on an event that happened during a frat party she attended, noting that she was intoxicated and agreed to go to a room with a man who promised he would not do anything inappropriate with her.

"Many times, I clearly said I didn't want to have sex, and he promised to my face that he wouldn't," the reader writes, "Then he quickly proceeded to go against what he "promised." I was shocked, and maybe being intoxicated made my reaction time a bit slow in realizing what was happening." Looking for clarification that she had indeed been raped, the reader later asks, "if I wasn't kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape? I feel like calling it that is a bit extreme, but I haven't felt the same since it happened. Am I a victim?"

Here is Dickinson's charming response:

Dear Victim?: First of all, thank you. I hope your letter will be posted on college bulletin boards everywhere.

Were you a victim? Yes.

First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment. Getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.

You don't say whether the guy was also drunk. If so, his judgment was also impaired.

No matter what — no means no. If you say no beforehand, then the sex shouldn't happen. If you say no while its happening, then the sex should stop.

She then goes on to quote a passage from RAINN's website regarding drinking and rape and encourages the girl to get tested for STDs and pregnancy, and to "see a counselor to determine how you want to approach this. You must involve the guy in question in order to determine what happened and because he absolutely must take responsibility and face the consequences for his actions, just as you are prepared to do. He may have done this before."

It's incredibly alarming that Dickinson feels the first thing an obvious rape victim needs to hear is "well, you were drunk, so you were asking for it." Closing her advice with a bit about facing the consequences of her actions, as if getting drunk at a frat party is equivalent to RAPE, is also quite disturbing; the language Dickinson uses seems to evenly place the blame on both parties and make light of an incredibly dark situation, as if the girl should just go up to her rapist and ask him to fess up at the counselor's office so that both of them can move on and he can finally stop, you know, raping people, just as she can stop drinking too much at frat parties.

Dickinson may want this letter posted at colleges across the country as a means to scare young women out of drinking at parties; after all, it's their fault if they get raped, right? It's not about a larger rape culture, or a modern masculinity that promotes the notion of "no means yes," or the incredibly tired parade of victim blamers who still insist that rape is the fault of any woman who dares to drink at a party or wear a skirt or walk down a street at night or go into a room with a man she trusts or dance a certain way at the club or, you know, be born with a vagina.

Perhaps Dickinson is right after all. Her advice should be plastered around college campuses. They could even build an entire course around it: Rape Culture And You: Victim Blaming 101.

Rape Question A Matter Of Consent [Chicago Tribune]

[Image via SomeECards]

Unsurprisingly, "Sense and Sexuality" was created by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, which claims on their website to offer the "leading resource for advice, training, and guidance of young conservative women" (the anti-feminist organization also famously encouraged their members to boycott and protest Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues). Their newest effort is the aforementioned craptastic website, based almost entirely on the work of Dr. Mariam Grossman. Grossman is a psychiatrist and author of the book Unprotected. She also has her own website, where she calls herself "100% M.D. 0% PC" and explains her mission: "I am here to tell you that radical politics pervades healthcare, and common sense has vanished. Who's paying the highest price? Girls and women."

"Sense and Sexuality" takes up Grossman's task of protecting women from themselves and the horrible choices they are bound to make, given the chance, and runs with it. The result is a website that is geared toward college students and claims to provide the "scientific facts" about sex, but only offers little blurbs about how having sex will ruin your life. A section titled "The Facts" features several sentences about convenient studies, mixed with "advice" that read like an order from Big Brother: "The rectum is an exit, not an entrance. Anal penetration is hazardous. Don't do it." And in case you were wondering, oral sex is also out. The scare tactics don't stop there. Sex will also make you depressed ("As the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college women"), alcohol will make you sleep with gross dudes ("Did you hear? Science has confirmed the existence of 'beer goggles'-when a person seems more attractive to you after you've had a few drinks. Enjoy a glass of wine or a couple of beers at a party, and the guy hitting on you begins to look better than when you arrived...In the morning, you both look different") and getting a Ph.D. will fill you with the horrible emptiness of a barren woman ("It saddens me each time a patient describes this-typically a student who always put career first, and is finally getting a Ph.D. at 38 or 40. She's thrilled to reach that milestone, but aches for another: to feel a new life inside her, to give birth").

One of the best (worst) quotes follows the question "Why can't I stop thinking about the guy I hooked up with last night when he can't remembers my name?" Grossman's answer? Oxytocin (see, they said there would be science!). Oxytocin apparently turns girls into needy messes while having absolutely no effect on men: "When it comes to sex, oxytocin, like alcohol, turns red lights green. It plays a major role in what's called 'the biochemistry of attachment.' Because of it, you could develop feelings for a guy whose last intention is to bond with you. You might think of him all day, but he can't remember your name." For all their claims that this is a "scientific" website, willing to tell you the hard facts where no one else will, this is about as science-y as it gets.

The most frustrating thing about the website is that it offers absolutely no advice beyond just say no! According to "Sense and Sexuality," condoms are bad, birth control is worse, and men are never, ever to be trusted. Sex will lead to heartbreak, infertility, and genital sores. That's it. "Sense and Sexuality" offers no other options the college-aged women they claim they want to help. There isn't even a mention of how sex can be positive within the bounds of marriage. The message here isn't wait until you're ready but instead sex is dangerous, bad, and you should be ashamed of yourself, young lady! "Sense and Sexuality" allows absolutely no sex, not now, not ever, and offers even less sense.

Sex & Sensuality: New Anti-Sex Website Shames Young Women [Feministing]
Sense And Sexuality [Official Site]
Miriam Grossman [Official Site]
Unprotected [Amazon]

In the world of Cosmo, everyone's boyfriend is a lazy, selfish, messy, unromantic jerk who needs to be "trained" to be, you know, marriage material. Men, in Cosmo-Land, are dogs. Or elephants, horses, or chimpanzees, depending on the situation. Everything that your crappy, terrible boyfriend does wrong can apparently be fixed by utilizing animal training methods: essentially, you need to trick and train him into being the person you want him to be. Mmm, healthy! Sounds like a really mature, open way to build a relationship. Here's an example:

#5 BOYFRIEND BUMMER: He Won't Drag Himself Off the Couch

As Used on Lions. Lions are, in a word, lazy. According to trainers, they sleep for up to 20 hours a day and only move when they see it as beneficial to themselves. "Trying to get a lion to do something when it's in resting mode can be very difficult and even dangerous," says lion wrangler Dave Salmoni, host of Animal Planet's "After the Attack." "That's why we make use of the animal's active time instead of trying to force it into doing something it doesn't want to when it's chilling."

Apply It to Your Guy. A man in veg-out mode is unlikely to move no matter how much you try to engage him. "You have to gauge when he's in a productive mood and then pounce to get him to do what you want," says Riche. If you notice that he prefers working out in the morning, that's a good time to ask him to help you clean when he's finished. If you need something done during his downtime and don't want to wait, bribe him. "Motivate him by making it worth his while," says Riche. When you feel like you haven't been able to have a heart-to-heart but he's in a coma in front of the TV, try plying him with his favorite snack. If his cravings for the food outweigh his interest in the TV, he'll eventually cave.

So...basically you should treat your man like a lion by bribing him to clean up his shit with a delicious snack. You know who else this strategy works on? Four year olds. Look, man. If you need to "train" someone to fit the mold of what you feel your ideal partner is, perhaps you're with the wrong person. These articles are just as gross as the Men's Health articles that give instructions on how to "make her yours," by weird manipulative techniques: there's no emphasis on real conversation as much as how to manipulate the situation for your own benefit. And sometimes, it's better to leave people's bad habits alone. Here are a few lessons I've learned over the years:

#1 Boyfriend Bummer: He Won't Stop Sleeping As Experienced With: Cthulhu
Look, all I'm saying is, sometimes you should just let him sleep. He will wake when he wants to. And if you wake him up, you might not like the results. I had this boyfriend once (you don't know him, he lives in R'lyeh) and I totally woke up him before he was done dreaming and let me just tell you: it was NOT a good move on my part. I mean, it was really bad. Really, really bad.


#2 Boyfriend Bummer: He Wears A Costume As Experienced With: Batman
So I was all about the costume for the first few weeks, because I'm pretty gothy and was all "Ooh, bats, nice." But then he insisted upon wearing it everywhere: to the movies, to the grocery store—he even wore it to my friend Tricia's wedding, which was so embarrassing, because it was in August and it was 102 degrees outside and his pants nearly melted and stuck to the pew at church. But as soon as I asked him to take the costume off, I lost him, and I've missed him ever since. Thankfully I've started dating a nice rich guy named Bruce who, strangely enough, kisses just as well as my beloved bat.


Boyfriend Bummer #3: He's An Imaginary Creature As Experienced With: Figment
Nobody liked Figment, but we were in love. Everyone kept saying, "He's not real, Hortense, that's why his name his Figment!" But I didn't care. I saw him for what he was, not what he wasn't. It wasn't until he stood me up for an anniversary dinner that things fell apart. "You didn't show!" I yelled. "I never show," he yelled back, "I don't exist!" I begged him to materialize into a real thing, but he refused. Sometimes you just can't force an imaginary being to cross into the real world.


Boyfriend Bummer #4: He Is A Bowl Of Cereal As Experienced With: A Bowl Of Frosted Flakes
I tried so hard to make him understand that true love meant never getting soggy in milk. He didn't agree. And now I'm left with nothing but a dirty spoon and a box of empty promises.

6 Ways To Train Your Boyfriend [Cosmopolitan]

Dating "rules" are usually dumb, and this list is especially bad. Proving yet again that, yes, women can be sexist too, Penny Isaacs and Sarah Lockett lay down the law for having a man over to dinner. The first few rules on their list of 10 are all about the setting: don't serve him champagne, don't put on romantic music, and don't dim the lights. OK, so they think you should not act like a romcom cliche, and I suppose that makes sense - and while it does enforce stupid gender stereotypes, that is kind of a given with stuff like this. They even include a few nuggets of common sense that I can get behind, like eat as much as you want, and don't criticize his mother (why this would even be an issue on a first date is beyond me, but whatever).

However, numbers 7 and 8 really bring the stupid:

7. Don't let him help with the washing up.
WHAT?! He should help clear up if you've gone to the trouble of cooking a meal for him, right? Wrong. When you invite people for a meal, do you expect them to load the dishwasher? No. And we don't offer to do it at other people's houses either. One key objective in cooking for a date is to make you look like a capable, efficient hostess who hasn't slaved too keenly over a hot stove all day. It must look as though you have whipped up a delicious spread without skipping a beat, AND without making a massive pile of dirty pots and pans. You are not auditioning as his housekeeper! Incidentally, clear up mess and conceal the work you've put into the meal BEFORE he arrives.

First of all, I do offer to help clean up at other people's houses. If any guest really wants to help with the clean up, it is ridiculous to tell them no. As for hiding all the work that went into the meal, well, they know. But Sarah and Penny apparently see the first date as an audition to be a '50's housewife, so clean bitches, clean!

And we saved the worst for last:

8. Don't forget about current affairs.
WHAT?! You expect me to recite ten members of Barack Obama's team? Well no. But you are hardly going to be whispering sweet nothings all evening, so you're going to have to hold a conversation with your Dish, and it will help to know something about what's been going on in the world. You don't have to be fluent in the Sub Prime Mortgage Lending Crisis but scan the headlines. Check out the news on MSN. Most men want a woman they can talk to. In our experience, men absorb current events as if by osmosis. Even if you just know the latest twists and turns in the Britney saga, or who won Strictly, it would give you something to discuss if conversation wanes.

Yes, because the only reason a woman might possibly want to know about current events is to impress a man. Men don't have to worry about this, because they just somehow know about current events, but we ladies have to work hard to memorize basic facts, like who is running the country.

10 things a girl shouldn't do on a first date [MSN UK]

Atterbury says that women should never, ever tell the men they love that they love them because men are all emotionally stunted creatures scared of commitment and other people's emotions and doing so will more or less inevitably end your burgeoning relationship and all your hopes of marriage, really.

And the truth is, it often takes men longer to get there than it does for women. Men process their emotions more slowly, they're usually more cautious about taking their feelings and relationships to the next level.

So what happens if you get there first and you say it and he's not there yet? What happens when your "I love you" is met with a "thank you," or worse, a dear-in-headlights look? Well, it stings, sure, but more than that, it can stop a perfectly happy and healthy relationship in its tracks before it's even too far from the station.

So, to keep your relationship intact, a little dishonesty is in order! Swallow your tongue, not your pride! A lie of omission isn't a lie! Stereotypes exist for a reason! You've read The Rules, right?

Ack! Enough already! Look, yes, if the only reason you're telling your partner that you love him or her is to elicit an expression of similar emotion from your partner, I agree, don't do it. Also, refrain from doing it naked in bed after good sex or drunk, when you are not going to be operating at full rational capacity. That said, if you love someone, fucking tell them. Say it to your parents. Tell your best friend. Call your grandmother or grandfather. Of the things you will regret in life, not expressing your depth of emotion for someone for whom you honestly have it will rank up there because unexpected horrible things happen every day.

And, if he or she doesn't say it back, so what? Do you no longer love that person? Do you love only when it's reciprocated? If you mean it, if you can look at the situation honestly and say that you love this person without hesitation or doubt, if it's not about the sex or trying to tie them down, then don't play stupid games with your heart or theirs. If the person runs, or freaks out, you probably weren't going to hear it "first" anyway — and if you catch yourself wanting to say it or blurting it out two weeks into every relationship (oh hai JOHN!), then maybe you need to go figure out the difference between love and infatuation before you say it again to someone.

But this BS game of playing by some stupid set of gendered dating rules in which men can only deal with pursuing and not with being pursued and can't handle women's overwrought emotions without freaking out and running away and women should let men make all the emotional leaps and jumps off of all the ledges and wait for them to come around needs to stop being perpetuated by women and by men. I'm sick of hearing how men can't be mind-readers but women should never be honest. Telling someone that you love them isn't or shouldn't be about emotional blackmail or hearing it back any more than you should be giving holidays gifts expecting reciprocation. Love is a gift, too. If so

[Note: I asked my father and brother-in-law their opinions, and my dad called Atterbury's advice "foolish" and said he would never tell me to do such a thing, and my (younger) brother-in-law said that it sounded stupid and that "People should be honest with their emotions."]

Why Women Shouldn't Say "I Love You" First [CNN]

Image generated from The Candy Heart Generator at Despair, Inc.

Related: Best Women Bloggers of 2008 [The Frisky]

They should call it The Not. Okay, that was stoopid, but your brain would break too, if you saw this list:

1. He's growing out of his bachelor ways.
"If he's constantly using terms like 'we' and 'our,' and plans for a weekend with the guys in Vegas are suddenly on the back burner while weekend picnics with you are becoming more common… [he's] squarely on the path to proposing." Or! He is an Adult; i.e., no longer in college or acting like a fratty fratty frat boy. Congrats!

2. He's Redecorating
Gay.

3. He's Curbing Big Purchases
Adult.

4. He's Not Complaining About Weddings
Gay.

5. He's Taken an Interest in Your Jewelry
Gay.

6. He Wants to Meet the Parents
Plenty of perfectly good boyfriends have met parents and not proposed. Since when has any guy "become the first to RSVP for your nephew's birthday party"? As if that's the one thing keeping him from saying, "I think we should get hitched." This one is neither for the Adults or the Gays, this one is toro caca.

7. He's Acting out of Character
Gay.

Seven Signs He's About to Propose [MSN via The Knot]

So, here are her eight signs:

1. Your partner is not as social as he used to be.
2. Your partner lacks interest in sex or is sexually unresponsive.
3. Your partner is being uncharacteristically demanding or rough during sex.
4. Your partner does not seem “present.”
5. Your partner has started to nit-pick your appearance.
6. You feel like you’re no longer getting straight answers from your lover.
7. Your partner is practically wed to the Internet.
8. You’ve noticed a change in your partner’s demeanor.

Great, well, welcome to the world of a bad relationship. Numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 are stereotypical signs also of someone who is unhappy in a relationship, having and affair, thinking of having an affair or simply creating emotional distance for whatever reason. Spending a lot of time on the computer could be a porn addiction, or it could equally easily be him, say, communicating with his other romantic interests — for instance, in the 2 months before I caught a long-ago ex posting personal ads on the Internet, his computer time spiked because he was obsessively checking his online profile and IMing potential dates and looking at profiles, not because he was downloading porn (though he was doing that, too, and obviously that was the least of our problems and not representative of an addiction).

Look, people like porn. Some people like it more than others. Some people masturbate to fantasies in their head and some people masturbate to porn and as long as neither one is significantly interfering with any aspect of your life then it doesn't really qualify as an addiction. Normal people don't look at porn or masturbate to compete with their sex life. The moment that it becomes more important than your actual sex life, than your lover or your partner, the second you can't achieve orgasm without your porn of choice in your face or you forego (good) sex to masturbate to porn, the second you start plunking dollar after dollar down to access this or that webcam or some specific actress's site and you feel yourself attached to someone you don't even know and will never meet, yeah, that's heading into addiction territory. But some images on a hard drive, or an interest in viewing it is not an addiction.

A couple of friends-of-friends have actually struggled with porn addiction. One spent tens of thousands of dollars and drove himself and his family into bankruptcy. Another got to the point where he was consistently turning down sex with his hot wife in favor of masturbating to straight vanilla porn. Both required therapy (and one required a strategically placed mirror by his computer) to start to deal with their lives again, because their interest in pornography turned into a need for it that interfered with their relationships and their lives writ large.

So, look, if your partner is not communicating, refusing sex, experiencing personality changes and spending a lot of time on the computer and/or wanking to porn, the problem you need to focus on is not the porn. It's the lack of communication, the deliberate or even subconscious creation of emotional distance and the lack of honesty. By attacking the porn, you'll be inviting the other person to become defensive and allowing both of you to ignore the actual issues in your relationship that are much sadder and more difficult to deal with.

But, hey, it's your relationship and so if you want to believe your partner's pornographic taste is totes a reflection on you and if that partner just stops masturbating, then everything will be sunshine and rainbows and you'll live happily ever after, the end, go ahead. I know a good lawyer that will help you with your eventual divorce, and a great house cleaner you will help get the stains out from the underside of your computer desk.

FOXSexpert: 8 Signs Your Partner is Addicted to Porn [Fox News]