Great post. I have a post in drafts atm I've been plugging away at after the Sarah Everard tragedy occurred. Something I've always found deeply disturbing is the culture that's present in our public service wings (police mainly) where a type of grooming and sexual predation is a mainstay in career advancement. Most of the time the women who are at the receiving end of this treatment are oblivious to what's underway. They have no clue that the officer they are dating is sharing photos of them, and grooming them to pass on the next guy.

Having worked around this type and it taking me a while to clue in back when I did I can't help but feel that by granting law enforcement more powers we are essentially granting the fox control of the henhouse. These sorts are infinitely charming, wonderful at their careers, and normally seen as pillars in their community. Wayne definitely was down in Deal (I know of him in the community down there as used to live down that way, family still do). No successful predator actually stands out. They tend to blend, place themselves in positions of authority, and earn trust.

I think the dilemma that's faced is that this goes beyond no means no. We have a massive cultural issue where if the woman says no, the male just adjusts tactics and shifts into a different predatory stance. Sometimes violent, sometimes manipulative. The perception of the woman is still a creature of prey, not a human being. This is endemic among our civil servants here, not just our culture. It also directly impacts how they handle inquiries into rape investigations. If the officers decide the girl is lets say from a low social position and the officer believes she sleeps around a lot then they will completely pass over the complaint. Why does this happen? What is it in our culture that makes a woman less credible if she sleeps around? It doesn't occur with men. The more a male sleeps around the more empowered he is viewed by his peers. It's a sickening double standard, made more so when applied to responding to the victim of a sex crime.

I worked a lot through my career with victims of violent sex crime and sexual exploitation. I know how hard it is to get law enforcement to respond to an allegation. Every time it has boiled down to a cultural perception on the officer/officers view point of the victim. Website like the one in this post are a big step, but I fear may not be enough. Though I hope it's the beginning of something larger and sparks change. But really in the end we need a powerful shift in our cultural perceptions here with how we treat victims reports, and the predatory culture that currently exists in our public service branches.