Every year, there's news of a female body being found in a remote area -- or not found after a disappearance.

Jesus, one every year? So, that's one out of approximately 117000000 women over the age of eighteen in the United States, which means I have a .00000000855% chance of being murdered by a guy who asks me on a hike. Though I guess the numbers go way up since this woman knows the guy, so let's multiply times a thousand and call it a .00000855% chance. I better hire an armed escort.

As long as we're cataloging potential dangers, the original LW also has a chance the guy wanted to lure her to a secluded spot to sell her some Confederated Products.

Confederated Products—it's a different company, and it's a different quality of product.

Thank you for trying to set the record straight.

There is so much sensationalizing out there designed to make women fear and hate all men. But it ignores reality. Sometimes the truth of numbers is what it takes to break through it all. I do find it interesting that more die getting hit at intersections than die at the hands of bfs.
Too many women believe the constantly repeated lies: 1/4 of women raped while in college, #1 cause of death for pregnant women is BF, DV is only done by men, so is child abuse. All lies.

This letter is another example of worst-first thinking. I hate to see the way people are trading freedom for fear. There's no evidence to suggest that the man she's referring to might be violent, but he's a MAN and it COULD happen. The odds don't matter, only the most minuscule chance that something bad MIGHT happen.
Better idea: carry a concealed weapon, take self-defense training, and go live your life!

And then sometimes the violence does seem to come out of nowhere. My ex husband and I were together for 8 years and he was never violent, except for that one time at the very end when he tried to strangle me.

But the end of our marriage was emotionally charged. Going on a hike in the woods with someone who barely paid attention to you before is not. Being afraid of everyone around us is a great way to make ourselves crazy. And alone.

strong predictors that a woman will experience serious violence from a male partner: "1. He is jealous and doesn't want you to talk to other men; 2. He tries to limit your contact with family or friends; 3. He insists on knowing who you are with and where you are at all times; 4. He calls you names to put you down or make you feel bad."

Quite a few wives and long term girlfriends exhibit these behaviors. Does that mean the danger signs could be summed up as, when a man starts to behave like a woman?

This is why I date men. The only thing we're concerned with is whether or not we'll get laid on the first date. And the possibility of getting murdered makes it even more exciting.

Holy crap! With the LW's outlook on life, how does she manage to find the strength to get outta bed in the morning? I said hi to the mailman the other day. I should probably have a background check done on him before ever speaking to him again. I can't believe I escaped with my life!! I've heard stories about those postal workers...WTF?

THANK YOU Amy for showing us some real stats to call into question the ridiculous extent to which fear has begun to run our lives!

You think it's bad when it comes to dating? Well this fear-mongering culture of ours hits a critical peak when it comes to parenting. Apparently there are kidnappers and molesters lurking everywhere! Even in your locked car when you run into the post office to drop a letter in the box!

Happily married now, but I was a Very Bad Girl for a very long time, and certainly, uh, kept company with a considerable number of men I barely knew, including picking up total strangers and taking them home or going to a No Tell Motel. I have never been hit. I have never been threatened. The worst that happened was some less-than-stellar sex.

OTOH, I am patently an aggressive woman with an attitude. I'm guessing that I scared off at least a few men who were looking for an easy-to-victimize woman. Had this conversation with a male friend years ago, when I said that no man had ever laid hands on me in anger. He grinned, looked me up and down, and said "That's 'cause you look like you'd fuck 'em up real good if they tried." I think there's more than a little truth to that.

"Better idea: carry a concealed weapon, take self-defense training, and go live your life!"

Potential downside: "Your Honor, I'm innocent. He's a man, and when we disagreed about root beer, I feared violence, so I had to shoot him!"

Here's a challenge for all women. On a slip of paper, write your answer to the following:

Describe men.

What is your positive/negative ratio?

The reverse is applicable, having men answer to "Describe women", but for today's world, the women's answer is the more interesting one.

Here's a challenge for all women. On a slip of paper, write your answer to the following: Describe men.

I would never take that challenge. It's like saying "describe people."

We suck. We're awesome. We fall somewhere in between. Sometimes we're all three in the span of 10 minutes.

Knowing people puts us at risk for terrible things happening. Spending our lives alone in the fetal position is pretty terrible, too, so it's worth the trouble to not be afraid of everyone.

An absolutely wonderful, lucid explanation of why women are being taught unnecessary fear -and believe it. Thanks so much for doing it. You are exactly the right person to take this on. hs surrounding

Sadly, the same is true or our children - so many parents are teaching their children to live in unnecessary fear and not enjoy our world.

You really are on a roll, what with your recent column busting the myths surrounding herpes.

You guys have totally screwed up my plans to ask my friend of seven years on a hike and hit her on the head with a shovel.

I mean, the plan was PERFECT.

Damn you.

"There is so much sensationalizing out there designed to make women fear and hate all men. But it ignores reality."

The worst part is that many men have bought into it too, and are complicit in demonizing men.

Old RPM Daddy,
Yes, but that's on the same order of the guy spending 7 years "grooming" his victim before asking her out for a hike to murder her.

Love it Gog Magog! Too funny~

Also loved it that Amy was able to turn a seriously screwed up letter and turn it into an informative article. The LW must have sent it in as a joke, not expecting to be published. I mean, murder in the woods? Really? I do agree that we have entered a hyper sensitive era of shampoo sniffing dogs and peanut police, but even the LW can't be that whacky.

You have to admit, it could happen.

On the other hand, it's a statistical certainty you're going to die, sometime, so shouldn't you take some reasonable chances and have some fun first?

Let me parrot the previous well deserved praise, Amy. This is great, and you might consider expanding it into a book. The innumerate are easily led. We get it from our government, our politicians, banks, corporations, unions....

I have this train I'd like to sell California...

And the thing is... if you get raped you can always choose to look at it as God's plan* for you to have that baby who will make you a whole person. It says nothing in the Bible about everyone getting the candlelight dinner and the roses and the romance when making babies is concerned. Sometimes it's a little more difficult, but that doesn't mean that the resulting bundle of joy is any less a miracle. Unless it's gay.

*Thank you, Rick Santorum

Another usefull number is the classical odds of being struck by lightning. WHich a quick google search gave me numbers between 370 and 1000/ yr
so the odds of being killed by bf are about the same as being struck by lightning.

Puts things in perspective.

74% of suicides are male, and the leading cause of male suicide is DIVORCE.

Hey Magog, Wanna go out?

Somewhat OT, but also kind of related -

The warning about the danger is roughly on the level of what is mentioned in this article.

"Schrodinger's Rapist", indeed.

Uhh, Im sorry, but when people start going on about rape culture, "Teh Patriarchy", and how fear inducing it is for a guy to try and hit on a woman I just cant take them seriously

One of the most famous cases of being killed in the "woods" was Chandra Levy. It brought down CongressRat Gary Condit

I bet if you asked questions, in the nature of Jay Leno's Jaywalking, they would still associate Levy and Condit, and think he was involved.

Between the American public having the attention span of a gnat, and the large-scale media having the ability to dredge out the bad, but somehow fail to report the good, you end up with the distorted views that are held.

Very good response Amy!

Kinda sorta off the topic (more of a tangent). Statistics say basically any damn thing anyone wants them to say. Putting it in perspective makes all the difference.

I remember debating a guy a couple of years ago that had numbers from a study that indicated that pregnant women were being killed by guns at a higher rate than some other number of something somewhere. A terrible tragedy! Oh noes! He was all worked up over it and I went to the original source and found out the results were written in such a way that backed up some anti-gun brigade's policy.

The study took place in Washington DC and it showed that among pregnant women (pulling this out of my elbow since I can't recall exactly) , a large percentage of pregnant women that died from any reason were killed by gunshot. Obviously this means pregnant women are being targeted, right? Umm. nope. Those GSW deaths were almost all in the unmarried 14-21 year old bracket, minority and under 45 days pregnant. Basically, they may not have even known they were pregnant. Sounds like gang bangers to me. And the overall number of deaths was actually fairly small.

The man tried to say that all pregnant women were targets and blah blah blah.

It is always interesting to see how people interpret the info.

a woman has an 11 in a million chance of getting offed by her date. . . . In dating, this means engaging your judgment -- not going off into the woods with some guy you barely know.

"Quite a few wives and long term girlfriends exhibit these behaviors. Does that mean the danger signs could be summed up as, when a man starts to behave like a woman?"

Thought this was quite insightful. Women behave jealously, don't want their guy talking to other girls, monitor his whereabouts, and often create ridiculous conflicts within his family. So, are those the same predictors for violence in women?