Pa. liquor board pulls ad on heavy drinking, rape

poisongirl6485

http://news.yahoo.com/pa-liquor-board-pulls-ad-heavy-drinking-rape-164139006.html

PITTSBURGH (AP) — An ad meant to warn young adults about the links between heavy drinking and rape has been pulled by Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board.

Critics said it was another example of suggesting victims are to blame for rape.

The ad featured an image of a woman's legs on a bathroom floor with her underwear pulled down to her ankles, and the words: "She didn't want to do it, but she couldn't say no."

Stacey Witalec, a spokeswoman for the Liquor Control Board, said the online ad was part of a broader campaign that began a few months ago on the website ControlTonight.com. She said there was both criticism and support for the ad, but the board decided to pull it Wednesday evening.

Witalec said the campaign was trying to bring attention to a serious problem, not suggest rape victims are to blame.

"On an annual basis more than 97,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 are the victims of alcohol-fueled sexual assaults," Witalec said, "and those statistics are staggering."

One expert defended the ad.

Jennifer Storm, Executive Director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, noted that one sequence in the interactive ad stated very clearly that rape isn't the victim's fault.

"I feel strongly that we need to be having very frank conversations about prevention. Otherwise, all we're doing is intervening after the fact," Storm said.

"Alcohol is the number one drug used to facilitate rape. You lose your capacity to make sound decisions," Storm said, adding that "we need to empower people with every tool and piece of knowledge we have."

One blogger on the website Jezebel didn't agree.

"Rape is not just a bad thing that happens to someone after drinking too much," wrote Erin Gloria Ryan. "It's a deliberate act on the part of the rapist, a violation of another person committed solely because the rapist wanted to rape. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we'll be rid of stupid, finger wagging ads like these."

Ryan also said that the portion of the ad reading "See what could happen when your friends drink too much" was "just shifting blame away from the rapist and onto the victim and, oddly, the victim's friends."

Several other ads in the campaign warning about the dangers of heavy drinking are still being used. Those subjects include excessive drinking and alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, and drunken arguments.

poisongirl6485

This kind of ties into the debate we were having earlier about sexual assault and alcohol.

I see where they were going with the ad: wanting to spread awareness about the number of sexual assaults that result when alcohol is involved.

But they missed the mark. Instead of blaming the RAPIST, they are putting the blame on the person who drank too much and couldn't say no.

The issue I really have is that if a person is too drunk to say no (or to say yes, even) then they cannot provide consent. Then it becomes rape. Yes, the woman should have been more responsible about her liquor intake, but just because she's drunk doesn't mean it's an open invitation to take advantage of her.

adrian_indy

My ad would go like this "Don't drink yourself into oblivion because statistically speaking, someone in that bar is a rapist."

suzycreamcheese

My ad would go like this "Don't drink yourself into oblivion because statistically speaking, someone in that bar is a rapist."

good one

BrettPGH

Ugh. Why must this come from my hometown? STUPID PA Liqour Control Board. You guys don't know how good you have it in other states. Because of ridiculous and outdated laws we can only buy liquor from regulated state stores. Now they don't regulate how much alcohol you can purchase or anything like that, it's just state run instead of privately controlled. So the PALCB is always trying to find ways to justify their existence. They say they help promote safe and responsible alcohol consumption. Well clearly that's just talk. They just want to keep selling the booze and making the money themselves. That's not for the state to be involved in. Because now they're in a position where they enjoy the profits made from the sales of alcohol they say they exist to regulate.

I'm a pretty liberal guy for the most part. But I don't want government where it has no business. No one does. They do nothing to safely regulate the sale of alcohol (which is good because that would be even worse). They merely act as a private industry with a monopoly. It's not their place and it should end.

As far as the ad goes that's just flat out tasteless. You can speak of the dangers of alcohol a million different ways without showing a woman lying on a bathroom floor after a brutal attack. And alcohol is no defense in such a case. It's not the booze that made the rapist do what he did. It's the person. Most people drink and it doesn't turn them into rapists.

Adrians approach is much more effective and gets a better message across. Ladies it's the truth that there are dangerous characters out there. You have to be on guard against that. So it's best not to get so drunk you can barely speak around people you don't explicitly know and trust. No one's blaming the rape on a woman or her drinking. We just want you to be careful so this sort of thing doesn't happen to you. That's all.

macpatti

The ad was obviously made for shock effect. Looks like it backfired. I do, however, think it's important to get the message across to young adults that if you you have sex with someone too intoxicated to know what's going on, it's rape. I tell my sons this all the time, and I often use dramatic stories with shock effect to get my point across.

Bahet

Ugh. Why must this come from my hometown? STUPID PA Liqour Control Board. You guys don't know how good you have it in other states. Because of ridiculous and outdated laws we can only buy liquor from regulated state stores. Now they don't regulate how much alcohol you can purchase or anything like that, it's just state run instead of privately controlled. So the PALCB is always trying to find ways to justify their existence. They say they help promote safe and responsible alcohol consumption. Well clearly that's just talk. They just want to keep selling the booze and making the money themselves. That's not for the state to be involved in. Because now they're in a position where they enjoy the profits made from the sales of alcohol they say they exist to regulate.

I'm a pretty liberal guy for the most part. But I don't want government where it has no business. No one does. They do nothing to safely regulate the sale of alcohol (which is good because that would be even worse). They merely act as a private industry with a monopoly. It's not their place and it should end.

As far as the ad goes that's just flat out tasteless. You can speak of the dangers of alcohol a million different ways without showing a woman lying on a bathroom floor after a brutal attack. And alcohol is no defense in such a case. It's not the booze that made the rapist do what he did. It's the person. Most people drink and it doesn't turn them into rapists.

Adrians approach is much more effective and gets a better message across. Ladies it's the truth that there are dangerous characters out there. You have to be on guard against that. So it's best not to get so drunk you can barely speak around people you don't explicitly know and trust. No one's blaming the rape on a woman or her drinking. We just want you to be careful so this sort of thing doesn't happen to you. That's all.

Virginia does that too. Hubby and I lived in MI when we got married and drove to the Poconos for our honeymoon. It was weird that we needed to go to a special liquor store to buy alcohol. In MI they do have liquor stores. They are privately run and some even have a drive thru :laugh: You can also buy liquor in most any grocery store, Walmart, etc. AZ was the same as MI.