It's very frustrating to spend a lot of actual energy and time on trying to reduce sexual assault on platforms like this - only to get sniped for supposed "victim blaming" by an anonymous person on the internet because I didn't virtue signal hard enough.

You want a virtue signal? Here you go: sexual assault is the fault of the assaulter, not the assaulted.

Unlike most people passing by this thread, I have actual experience with this topic. I'm close to several women who have Couchsurfed solo, and I have hosted countless young women (men as well, of course.)

If a discussion about American gun deaths came up, it would not be victim blaming to explain the context and the source of most of these deaths.

My comment had several purposes. One was to explain the most common reason for sexual assault on the platform. Another was to help people getting into Couchsurfing. There will undoubtedly be a number of HN users joining Couchsurfing as part of this thread, and I wanted to pass along valuable safety information to any women among them.