{"id":5407,"date":"2014-06-18T06:16:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T10:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?p=5407"},"modified":"2015-03-13T22:31:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T02:31:30","slug":"women-should-be-able-to-walk-the-street-naked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/women-should-be-able-to-walk-the-street-naked\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Should Be Able to Walk the Street Naked"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I\u2019m going to say something really shocking, but bear with me and hear me out, okay?<\/p>\n<p>A woman should be able to walk down the street completely naked and not be raped or even worry that she might be.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not saying that women will want to exercise this freedom or that I think it would be great for there to be naked people all over the place, but the point is that IF, for whatever reason, a woman ended up in public naked, that would have absolutely nothing to do with her sexual availability.<\/p>\n<p>This narrative we have that men cannot control themselves if they become filled with desire for a woman is really insulting to you men! Is that really all it takes for you to turn into animals? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n<p>Look at Arjuna and Urvasi.<strong> When Arjuna went looking for weapons in the mountains, a beautiful naked woman holding a lamp that didn\u2019t flicker in the fierce winds walked up to him and tried to seduce him.<\/strong> What does he do? He honors her as a mother. He touches her feet in respect!<\/p>\n<p>Now, she\u2019s an otherworldly creature and she\u2019s upset with him for not wanting to sleep with her and curses him, but I still think he did absolutely the right thing. Besides, that curse comes in handy during the 13th year of exile.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5411\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5411\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstnews.co.uk\/news-in-pictures\/offbeat-news-pictures-of-the-day-i201\/indian-hindu-woman-poses-with-earthen-lamps-p2546\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5411\" title=\"Indian Hindu woman Rupali Bamba poses wi\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/317\/2014\/06\/umashi-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5411\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">http:\/\/www.firstnews.co.uk\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Men, the vast majority of you know that it is your job to protect and care for women. Most of you understand that rape is not something women \u201cask for,\u201d it is something that men choose to do and in doing so violate <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>dharma<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Women having freedom and equality means that we can choose how much we cover or uncover. No government should mandate modesty in dressing. No government should force women to cover themselves completely up and no government should force women to uncover themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As women, we make our own choices. If we want to be covered up, if that is what makes us comfortable or happy, then we can do that. If we want to be uncovered, we can do that too.<\/p>\n<p>What a woman wears has to do with her own life, convictions, decisions, and what she likes and wants to wear. None of those choices have anything to do with whether she deserves to have her body violated by someone else.<\/p>\n<p>Those who love and respect women know that a woman in public completely naked is not a target to be raped, but an expression of the Goddess, as are all women.<\/p>\n<p>Do not make women\u2019s choices for them. Respect and honor that they know what is best for them and are just as capable as men at knowing what is best for their life.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m pointing out an extreme because the \u201cshe was dressed to ask for it\u201d is a ridiculous argument. Women show an elbow and they are told they are asking to be violated. No, she\u2019s wearing what makes sense to her to wear. She should not ever have to consider whether it will tempt a man into attacking her.<\/p>\n<p>A great anaology I heard once was that of a store front. If the owner puts up a nice display to make all his wares look good, is he asking to be robbed? Of course not. A girl dresses up for different reasons. Maybe to feel good about herself, maybe to look attractive to potential mates, maybe to fit the theme of a party, but none of those reasons give anyone permission to hurt her.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t have any desire to walk down the street naked, but if I did I would expect that all my lovely readers here would be the kind of people to not attack me or rape me. And if they saw someone trying to hurt me, they would intervene.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>Some great further reading is this sarcastic piece from a guy named\u00a0Micah J. Murray:<br>\n\u201cAlthough men dress ourselves based on comfort, taste, and social appropriateness, it\u2019s selfish of you to do the same\u2026.Please, don\u2019t expect us to see you as fellow human beings with thoughts and feelings and value and dignity.\u201d<br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/redemptionpictures.com\/2014\/04\/30\/what-i-wish-women-knew-about-men\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/redemptionpictures.com\/<wbr>2014\/04\/30\/what-i-wish-women-<wbr>knew-about-men\/<\/wbr><\/wbr><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m going to say something really shocking, but bear with me and hear me out, okay? A woman should be able to walk down the street completely naked and not be raped or even worry that she might be. I\u2019m not saying that women will want to exercise this freedom or that I think it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":5411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1766,1765,1763,1764,1762,1767,1768,1720,1520],"class_list":["post-5407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-the-life","tag-arjuna","tag-arjuna-and-umashi","tag-asking-for-it","tag-feminism","tag-rape","tag-umashi","tag-victim-blaming","tag-women","tag-women-in-hinduism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Women Should Be Able to Walk the Street Naked<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;m going to say something really shocking, but bear with me and hear me out, okay? 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