There is a metaphor for how theoretical physicists tend to simplify problems to make them easier to understand and calculate: A milk farm's production was low so the farmer called in a theoretical physicist to help figure out how to optimize it. After collecting a lot of data with a bunch of students and toiling over the problem for weeks, the theoretical physicist comes back and tells the farmer: "I have a solution, but it only works for spherical cows in a vacuum".

The joke is this solution is useless in practice, as real cows are messy and live on Earth so they are subject to a variety of factors ignored by this "solution".

Similar "solutions" are tossed around as...

"Safety tips: How not to get raped!"

"Solutions" like "get a gun!" and yes, against a spherical rapist in a vacuum that's a wonderful tip! Just shoot the bastard before they can rape you - problem solved. But what if you're hanging out with who you think of as a friend who just gets a little touchy feely and then starts kissing you.. At what point do you blow your friend away with your .45? What are you going to show the cops to corroborate your story?

Just "walk in pairs"! Have a friend accompany you when you're walking home in the dark. When the spherical rapist shows up, your friend can fight them! Perfect! Except your protector is statistically more likely to rape you than a stranger. Oops.

Stay off the spherical rapists' radar by "dressing modestly"! Those spherical rapists get so turned on when they see someone dressed in a way that compliments their figure it causes some kind of rapey sex rage but if you're dressed like a quiet little mouse they won't see you! The non-spherical types tend to rape who they think is vulnerable.

The problem with these "solutions", aside from being useless, is they create a responsibility for the victims.

If rape can easily be averted by dressing more modestly, the question then becomes, why didn't the victim dress more modestly? Apparently they didn't care enough about avoiding the rape to follow these simple guidelines? Maybe they (subconsciously?) wanted it? Maybe not exactly like this, they probably could have done without the bloody lip. But they were baiting some kind of reaction, dressed like that?

We all agree who's responsible for a rape: the rapist. The rapist has to take 100% of the blame.

We all agree on that. For spherical rapes in a vacuum.

Real rapes though? Messy rapes, on Earth? We have questions! Why is it the supposed victim willingly made out with her alleged rapist, willingly took him home and gave him a blowjob without too much of a fuss? She should take Personal Responsibility for her actions!

Wow, that got ugly quick.

We know who's to blame! We know who to support!

Let's remember our principles when things appear messy. It's important to take a step back and remind ourselves real rapes aren't spherical. Some impulses for thought:

• The accounts of victims can be messy, the time line distorted, details can change as they process what happened to them. This is an effect of trauma. It doesn't mean they're making their rape up.

• Hindsight is 20/20. Inviting who we now know to be their rapist into their home looks incredibly foolish but at the time they didn't invite their rapist but a friend of their parents.

• it's ok to want to hang out with someone alone and not want to fuck them. It's just as ok to want to kiss someone or have a kink session with them or to touch each other sexually - and not want to fuck them. Consent about one thing is not consent for another and that's ok.

• Not everyone fights. Stress reactions include Fight, Flight, Freeze and Appease. It's irrelevant what may or may not have been more effective in hindsight: In the moment we don't fully have a choice. Would it be wiser for a hedgehog to waddle out the way of an approaching car instead of rolling up into a protective ball of spiky quills? Yes, but in the moment they don't have a choice.

• People have different ways to process trauma. Some bury it only for it to surface later. Some implode. Some appear to the world to take it in stride but are suicidal when they're alone. If a victim's reaction isn't spherical, that's not a clue that it can't have been a "real" rape.

We must not hold back support because a rape doesn't look spherical enough. They often don't but that doesn't change whatsoever whose side we should be on, who to support, or how fully we are to support them.