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The heart of SlutWalk’s stance on rape is its attack on ‘victim-blaming’. SlutWalk believes that society pins all the ‘blame’ of a rape on the victim instead of the rapist. On the surface, this is only logical. A rapist committed a rape, therefore the rapist is to blame. But this is a shallow way of looking at rape – the rape probably occurred because the victim didn’t look after herself. What did I tell you? Can a deep, incisive, correct way of looking at rape point us back to (gasp) victim-blaming? If you can bear to, let's read on. Predatory rapists like to ambush their targets. The key word is ambush. They wait in dark, secluded areas, and assess everybody who walk by. As soon as they see a target, they strike. Predators can be avoided by going where they can’t hide and not provoking an attack. Personal safety is beyond the scope of this blog, but for more information, there are plenty of books and websites available. I favour Marc MacYoung, Gavin De Becker, and Rory Miller. While geared towards an American audience, much of what they say applies across cultures and borders. More importantly, they make sense, and their tactics work.

Most rapes occur because a woman took a risk, and got burned. She took a risk by walking down a dark alley, by ignoring the three young men lined up against a wall, by leaving a charming handsome stranger alone with her drink, by continuing to live with her abusive husband, and she paid the price. But these are avoidable risks. Most crimes occur this way. It’s controllable, even eliminated in some cases. Now, two things. I first need to point out how ludicrous the second paragraph is. So, to avoid being raped, I am responsible for developing an internal Rapist Detector that enables me to systematically de-friend any rapist that could inhabit my friendspace. What's more, Cheah claims that they're "not that difficult to spot". I would love to personally introduce him to all my friends, just so he can tell me, afterwards, who is most likely to rape me - lest I suffer the consequences. It's easy! Cheah also conveniently ignores the fact that many rapists are people that you cannot easily disassociate yourself from with the click of a button - what about family members? Work superiors? Husbands you have young children with? Is it my fault that I am raped, or is it their fault for raping me? No prizes for the correct answer.

Secondly, being strongly against victim-blaming doesn't mean that we can't encourage people to be careful. There is a reason why I avoid walking alone in the dark by myself. It is perfectly natural for me to ask a female friend to send me a text when she reaches home safely. Before I left for university my mother gave me a flashlight/alarm hybrid that I was supposed to set off if someone tried to assault me (I never used it). The problem arises, however, when we say, not only that rape happens because we fail to do these things, but that we, as Cheah implies, have it coming.

various angry feminists groups and hardworking researchers have shown that rapists in fact, don’t give a hoot about their victims’ getup at all. So a protest for the right to dress like a slut without the fear of being raped, makes no sense either. All women – skanky or not – have an equal chance of being raped.

if the photos plastered online were any indication – a fair bit of SlutWalkers don’t exactly qualify as sluts. So unless these wholesome voluptious women with no business showing their overflowing bits in a overly-tight bra top out in public HAVE actually been called a slut previously, their protest to be called a slut without shame makes no sense. Like a meat-eating person joining PETA. To put it more crudely: Put on some better fitting clothes woman. No one’s calling you a slut. And while you’re at it, get some higher-cut jeans too, your ass crack is showing.

Going by the previous SlutWalks, it’s probably going to be an occasion for women to turn up in their undies without fear of being judged by their sexual un-attractiveness as they rally together in a common message: the right to be respected no matter what.

What’s wrong with the above? Everything! If I have to spell it out, It tramples on women’s sexual autonomy by laying on thick the negativity associated with promiscuity; It reserves to men the right to judge which women qualify for the label; It asserts that other women have no business contesting (1) and (2) above.

– newnation.sg, 4 September 2011, SlutWalk: a celebration of the right to be slutty even when you aren’t by Fang Shihan (which I am told is a pseudonym for a female writer passing off as male).

feminism has long been bedevilled by sex. Many feminists speak of gender equality without wanting to touch the subject of sexual freedom. They’re strong on the right of women to say No, but cannot shake off negative attitudes against those frequently saying Yes.  In this, they are in the same bed as lots of patriarchal men.

"SlutWalking" is attracting thousands of people to take to the streets to put an end to what they believe is a culture in which it is considered acceptable to blame the victim.Some 2,351 people have signed up via Facebook to attend a SlutWalk through Boston on Saturday, when they will chant "Yes means yes, no means no," and "Hey hey, ho ho, patriarchy has to go."

The core of my writing is my research. I refer to Marc MacYoung, Rory Miller, and Gavin De Becker amongst others fairly extensively when I talk about self defence. I posted quite a few links to MacYoung's website in my article, because amongst the three MacYoung conducted the most research into the behaviour of rapists. These men have spent their careers understanding criminal psychology and developing personal safety tactics, and are widely-recognised experts in their fields. I don't recognise any of their ideas in your work, so I would like to understand who and what informs your arguments. I don't want to assume that you're a straw feminist drawing from straw feminist theories, but I don't sense any concepts drawn from criminal psychology or personal safety in your article, which I sense should underscore any discussion on criminal behaviour - including rapists. Nicholas Liu has brought up his quarrel with Benjamin's sources, so I see no need to restate those points. You can view the thread here (http://benjamincheah.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/slutwalk-noble-but-misguided). The reason why Benjamin does not 'sense any concepts drawn from criminal psychology or personal safety in my article' is simple: I unequivocally reject how these concepts inform his conclusions, and the import he happily attributes to them. Nor do I think it is necessary for me to cite who exactly informs my understanding when I am perfectly capable of understanding - and seeing through - things myself. A note of advice from myself: one of the first things we learn, as philosophers, is that citations do not undergird arguments; it's what you do with available concepts, ideas already on the table, that matters.

SlutWalk believes that society pins all the ‘blame’ of a rape on the victim instead of the rapist. On the surface, this is only logical. A rapist committed a rape, therefore the rapist is to blame. But this is a shallow way of looking at rape – the rape probably occurred because the victim didn’t look after herself. Most rapes occur because a woman took a risk, and got burned. She took a risk by walking down a dark alley, by ignoring the three young men lined up against a wall, by leaving a charming handsome stranger alone with her drink, by continuing to live with her abusive husband, and she paid the price. But these are avoidable risks. Most crimes occur this way. It’s controllable, even eliminated in some cases. If this isn't victim-blaming, I don't know what it is.

it's true that saying a rapist is responsible for a rape doesn't ensure that other people don't get raped. The last I checked, however, nobody wanted to waste time arguing that rapists were responsible for rapes (we thought it was self-evident, we really did!) until they realised people were going around saying that victims were responsible for their own rapes. If anything, it's essentially a counter-point. Not to mention, I did state that arguing against victim-blaming is perfectly compatible with encouraging personal safety. We do not have a problem with encouraging personal safety. We have a problem with the notion that a person caused her own rape because she wore certain articles of clothing, got drunk, or ventured out late at night, a notion so embedded in our culture that it can reduce rapists' jail time (a reduction that, I may add, Benjamin once argued for - so much for not joining the victim-blaming team).

This tilting at imaginary windmills is intentional. The goal is to protest an evil that is universally hated. That way, if anybody dares to disagree with you or even raise a minor quibble, you can shoot back, "What? Are you FOR rape? Do you think we SHOULD blame victims? You're part of the problem!" As a result of this stance, your cause becomes above reproach, immune from criticism.

SlutWalk is a set of mutually contradictory statements and attitudes that all cancel each other out and make no logical sense.

Contradiction #1: I'm a slut / Don't call me a slut!

The patriarchy isn't going to smash itself, to paraphrase Habermas (sort of), but nor is it so entrenched that it cannot be overturned by sustained, informed argumentation. This accounts for the huge advances that feminism has made – consider the daunting economic inequality that has been tackled in the past four decades, the astonishing speed of equal pay legislation across Europe and indeed the world. But it also accounts for the relatively meagre differences wrought in the arena of sexuality, because the epistemic community isn't there, the argument was never sustained.

Female sexuality needs women to talk about sex, intelligently, out loud and in public (not just on Mumsnet) or it will forever remain a source of shame.