It's not my fault I had sex with that guy!

Philippe Padieu was a charming European who frequented the bar scene in Addison and Collin County. He often used that charm to get women to have sex with him. Charming Philippe had a secret, though. He is HIV positive. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for aggravated assault for having unprotected sex with his "victims."

I put victims in quotes, because these women were not raped. They made the willingly chose to have sex with a man they hardly knew, if they knew him at all. Should Philippe be in jail? You bet he should. But this is one case where the victim bears equal responsibility. Columnist Jacqueline Floyd disagrees with me. She can't believe there are people out here who take the view that the "victims are somehow 'responsible' for their involuntary exposure to terminal illness and premature death." Well, Jacqueline, it's kind of like smoking cigarettes, isn't it? If you smoke two packs a day for 30 years, and you get emphysema, it's because you voluntarily exposed yourself to terminal illness and premature death. These women should have learned about STD's in junior high school. They were the ones who voluntarily took the risk of contracting one. 

Jacqueline says that assigning blame to these women is similar to an elderly person being swindled or a college girl being raped. No, it's not! Those people do not knowingly place themselves in danger. These women did. She says the reason these women are not to blame is that Philippe knew what they risked in having sex with him, and the women didn't. Well, where have they been living? Under a rock somewhere? They should have known. 

We are so afraid of being called prudes or un-pc, that we have lost all capacity for reasonable thought. If these women had done the right thing -- not fallen into bed with a pretty boy for an illicit fling -- they wouldn't have a thing to worry about. Jacqueline says it was assault. I say they just got caught.

"Don't blame the victims in this sexual con game." The Dallas Morning News; May 30, 2009; p. 1B.