Letters: Violent history

That sad truth is diminished by the rash generalisations in her arguments. While "American GIs beasted their way through Germany", some of them took time out to liberate the German work camps like Dachau.

To compare Darfur, the Congo and Serbia to a spate of attacks in Glasgow is a disservice to all of the victims, denying them the reality of their very different experiences.

This type of inflammatory rhetoric may appeal to a section of the women's vote which Alex Salmond so desperately needs and Joan McAlpine so assiduously courts on his behalf. But it doesn't appeal to me.

Let me suggest that instead of giving funds from Cashback for Communities to the new Scottish Communities League Cup, he should fund self-defence training for all victims of domestic violence.

The hard lesson for Ms McAlpine and her ilk is that rape will not be stopped by governments bent on banning pornography and lap-dancing clubs.

It will stop when a woman can look a rapist in the eye and say: "I am not afraid of you."

Anne M Keenan

Roshven

Lochailort, Highland

Joan McAlpine is right to link the incidence of rape with rampant sexual immorality in wider society, including lap-dancing bars, pornography and prostitution.

The more distorted, obsessive and corrupted a person's sexuality becomes, the more likely they are to commit sexual crimes.

Wisely, Ms McAlpine largely avoided the error of framing the issue as a feminist one, thereby alienating many males in the process.

Once the message starts sounding like "us women are fed up with you nasty men - you need to sort yourselves out" the proper moral outrage against rape becomes muddled and diluted.

Rapists and their victims can be male or female, gay or straight. The issue is an horrific crime, not a skirmish in the battle of the sexes, and 99 per cent of the population will support reasonable measures to tackle it.

Richard Lucas

Broomyknowe

Edinburgh