Hellobee Boards

Read about it last night...pretty cool.

SCIENCE FTW

Hey this is my alma mater and my major, too! Freaking awesome.

Impressive!

This is amazing.

I think it is interesting, but more onus should be put on men to not drug women's drinks. I am glad this issue is getting more traction these days... I'm glad there's another tool in the arsenal, but prevention of rape culture and men drugging drinks in the first place should be key.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: i was thinking the same thing! you've been at a bar, bar hygiene is not the best (everyone's seen the news shows where they talk about the amount of fecal matter on bar snacks!), then you're going to stick your dirty finger in your drink!?! hopefully the alcohol kills the bacteria.... i wonder if you could just drop some on your fingernail with a straw or whatever

@.twist.: oh i'm all for avoiding rape (and rape germs, not minimizing rape, just saying there are nasty germs that go along with it), it would be nice to avoid rape AND bar germs

That's pretty cool! I'd probably rather have little strips that can detect the drugs though instead of dipping my fingers in my beer.

How is that supposed to work, I wonder? And since alcohol is a solvent, won't a little of the nail polish be coming off in the drink?

I just read this, it was shared by 'a mighty girl' on FB, they're really great if you don't already follow them, but I thought it brought up a lot if great points about how while this is a great step that men are inventing things to try to prevent rape, we need to flip the way we address rape & what we're doing to prevent it.
http://m.mic.com/articles/97362/11-ways-to-solve-rape-better-than-nail-polish

I think it's wonderful that we're doing things to detect date rape drugs, but it's another situation where society is telling women that they are responsible for it.

As a society, we need to get to the root of the issue, and stop saying that if a woman was more aware, she'd be fine.

Again, for now, I think this is awesome, but I just think there are so many other issues!

@LaughLines: it is really sad some of the responses of ppl in positions of power have had though, I just had to do this violence program for school, I think a lot of schools are using it, it's called 'haven'. I thought they did a great job talking about what consent is & the impact of sexist language & what men can do to help promote a climate where rape culture isn't tolerated. I know it was just a start, but at school they will put a hold on your account for not completing the program & it's interactive so it forces ppl to participate. I hope younger people take away something positive from it & that they can continue to change attitudes about rape and other types of violence.

@Mrs. Lion: I don't think the article is saying more tools is bad, I think what it's trying to get across is that cultural changes are very, very, very difficult to do - and when all of our solutions are focused around the "current" culture and now what we want the "future" culture to be, it's not helping move things forward. That if we want to take blame off of victims, we shouldn't be focusing all of our solutions on the victims. If we want to change our culture, major changes in the conversation need to happen.

I still think it's good to have a variety of tools, but there should be tools added to prevent men from raping, too (more education on THEIR part instead of always on women's part, etc). Right now the toolset that exists is so one sided. Women shouldn't dress promiscuously, women have to say no assertively, women shouldn't drink too much, women should have buddy systems, women should wear certain nail polishes, etc.

Right now in our culture if someone breaks into your house they don't blame you for not having strong enough locks or having too flimsy of windows that are easy to break into, or not having a sign in your yard saying not to break in. The culture around break-ins pretty heavily blames the criminal and the criminals are punished for it. You certainly want to use the tools at your disposal (locks, alarms, etc) to prevent it from happening, but there are also cultural norms against the thiefs side and laws against the thief that are enforced heavily. It's the culture, not the tools, that is the difference.