Many Accuse Victims of Being at Fault

I've noticed that people seem to have a tendency to blame victims for their situation. Is this because it's easier for us to come to terms with deviant behaviour when we think a victim deserved what happened, as if we can't fathom that bad things sometimes happen? I may have read that theory somewhere before.

I read an article today about a 14 year old child who was raped, but the judge said she wasn't such a victim because she was promiscuous. Her attacker agreed in a confession that he raped her and he even said he couldn't believe what he had done and that he was sorry. He was sentenced to 5 years probation, which included only 45 days in jail, and the victim wondered why she even came forward and laid a rape charge--very sad. One thing in the rapist's favour is that he seems sorry for what he did, but still, I can't fathom that the victim was blamed in this case, because the confession clearly says that she said no many times and asked him to stop and her past should have no bearing on the case.

I have read of cases of child sexual abuse where a similar thing was said. Offenders will say the child came on to them or that the child agreed to the abuse. A child is a child and an adult should always know better than the child. If a child comes onto an adult, the adult should say no. When people say the child agreed to the abuse, the request was given by the adult first. How can it ever be okay for an adult to ask a 10 year old, or any child, if he or she wants to try out a sexual behaviour? A 10 year old child usually doesn't know anything about what the adult means the first time this happens, and will often say yes if the child hasn't been taught to be careful of such a situation and to say no. Later on the child will continue to say yes, even when the child realises the behaviour is wrong, because the norm has been set up and the child may now feel complicit in the cycle of shame and guilt and also is trapped in a learnt cycle.

As in the above cases, I have seen where victims are blamed for bullying that happens. Bullies are often very personable people and other people may like them, and sometimes victims aren't always seen as that nice. Bullies may bully their victims on the quiet and the victim may then react badly towards the bully in public, reinforcing the perception that the bully is in fact the victim, but things aren't always what they seem. A good piece of advice I was given was to always ensure I behaved calmly and well towards a bully in public, otherwise people would believe the bad things the bully said about me in private. Unfortunately people don't normally want to get involved when they hear about bullying, and they will sometimes blame the victim, and may even ask the victim to leave an organisation thinking this will keep the peace, but the bully will probably just find a new target later.