Sexual assaults happen for many reasons, and how a woman is dressed is certainly nowhere near the top of the list ("Mind how we dress in public" by Mr Benjamin Sim Buke Huang, July 9; and "Dentist jailed 6 weeks for molesting woman on MRT", July 2).

The academic arguments over why such crimes happen are endless, but one thing is for sure: A man's lack of respect for women is certainly a major factor.

Nobody deserves to be sexually assaulted, and it has happened regardless of physical appearances.

While I agree that there is a need to dress appropriately depending on the occasion, I also feel compelled to write in to debunk the outdated and sexist view that there is a correlation between how a woman dresses and sexual crimes.

If Mr Sim merely wanted to use the report of the molestation as an illustration, I must say that it was a poor choice.

Alan Lee Kiat-Leng