Duke University, a prestigious institution of higher learning, is going through a very public shame right now. Several members of its lacrosse team are being investigated for the rape of an exotic dancer they hired to perform at a party they were attending. 

Now, before I proceed, let me be VERY clear. The actions of the Duke lacrosse team, if true, are completely and utterly inexcusable. These vermin (I refuse to call them men; they proved themselves unworthy of the title and disgraced their university in the process) have noone to blame for their actions but themselves. But there is a valuable lesson to be learned here, and it is one I intend to teach my daughters as they age into adolescence. 

That lesson is a very simple one, and one passed on to me from generations prior: if you don't play with fire, you won't get burned. If that exotic dancer had chosen another profession, or even confined her activities to a public place where a bouncer could have thrown the riffraff to the pavement, this whole horrible incident could have been avoided, and this young lady would not have to forever bear the scars of such a horrible and despicable incident. 

Now, I could launch into a whole diatribe about the stripping profession, but I have known many strippers, and the vast majority of them are decent, honorable women who are trying to earn a living and quickly discovered that men would pay them better money to take their clothes off than they could make in most other sectors of employment in their communities. While some of these ladies have certainly fallen into drug addiction and prostitution, many more of them are quite more "normal" than you might expect, and their stories are often compelling. The problem isn't in the stripping profession, but in its patrons. 

This incident and the recent murder of the young woman in New York City have a common denominator: both could have been prevented, had these young ladies been more aware of the dangers to which they were exposing themselves. While they certainly had a right to be where they were and do what they were doing, it wasn't necessarily a wise choice. I have a right to hula dance on top of a frozen lake, but if the ice is too thin and cracks, all the rights in the world aren't going to save me from the consequences. 

The sad, and honest truth is that there are dangerous predators out there. Unfortunately, they don't carry warning labels and you can't tell who they are until they actually act on their impulses. They will search for victims wherever they can find them, so the trick is, not to be where they are "hunting". We need to teach our young ladies not to patronize the places these vermin frequent; while they will still continue to search for victims, it would help if we would show our ladies how to ensure THEY aren't the victims.