The Utter Horseshit About Rape
Rape culture.
Something that's been percolating in my mind for quite a while now.
I realize that what "rape culture" means to me and what it means to other people may not be the same, and because of that it's a broad term that ends up often meaning nothing. If you describe every kitchen utensil as a spoon, then "hand me that spoon" becomes a really confusing request.
I see and hear a lot of people talk about the "rape culture myth." Again, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what they're calling a myth. I've read a lot of different reasons, from "of course rape is a crime and we don't accept it," to "feminists describe everything as rape."
When you're not sure of the definition, you're not sure of the refutations either.
I'm specifically on this topic today because of an article I read this morning. This is the story of a 17-year-old girl who was violently raped in a bathroom stall at a dance, there were witnesses, she was left cut and bleeding and required weeks to heal. The perpetrator was a 16-year-old boy with a previous assault that came out during the trial.
He was sentenced to 3 years, and he served 2 weeks.
Let that sink in for a moment. Two. Weeks.
Back a few months I'd come across a petition to remove the judge who made this ruling, at that time there was a publication ban and the victim had nothing to do with it. I signed. I wish I could've signed more than once, I wish I could've signed 100 times. The story stuck with me.
When I first saw the petition, I thought... this can't be real, this has got to be a spin. It's got to be out of context. There has to be something else. My first reaction was disbelief because in my country, in my province, I could not fathom that a legal travesty like this would occur. I looked it up. It was all true. I was fully revolted, outraged and appalled.
Then today, this article. I saw that the victim had literally gone to court to remove the publication ban, to be able to tell her story. I admire her so much for doing this - it takes a lot of strength and courage and she is so young.
As a child, I suffered a lot of sexual abuse and rape. As an adult, it was hard for me for many years to call any of it rape, it was always... I was molested. It made it sound better. It was soothing even to my mind, to shut it away and pretend it wasn't that bad. It lessened the pitying looks and the way that people became uncomfortable when hearing about it for the first time. Because I wanted people to understand on some level why I was so fucked up, but I didn't want to scare them away.
This is the story that I go back to when people say that rape culture doesn't exist. I was 9 years old and I'd spent countless hours being interviewed by the police. 3 separate offenders, 3 separate cases, triple the police interview fun. I was a painfully shy child at the best of times, this period of my life was so terrifying to me that I've blocked most of it out. No child wants to talk about the things that were done to them that they shouldn't even know exist. I didn't want to be prodded to describe things in details, asked to repeat with proper terms for body parts, given dolls to point at. Even at that time, even being so young, I had a distinct impression that I had to prove myself - they didn't want to just hear from my mouth what happened, they wanted to look for holes in my stories. They told me that if I could give enough detail in the interview I wouldn't have to go to court, and the only mercy was that I was spared going to court, I believe they used video of my statements instead.
As an adult, my mother told me that after one interview, one of the officers told her that he thought I was "provocative." The implication was that somehow, as a 7/8-year-old, I led these men on.
Let that sink in for a moment.
And I think to myself, if a police officer could come out with something like that, if he could find a way to blame a 9-year-old even in the slightest, what would it be like for a grown (or nearly grown) woman? He couldn't talk about what I wore or if I drank or why I was there with these men in the first place and yet, he managed to read something into my actions, still. And because of that, I fully believe that when women report things they are grilled and accused and made to feel guilty.
When I was in therapy, a counsellor told me that sexual abuse/assaults are some of the only crimes where the victim often feels more shame than the offender. Where we question what we did wrong constantly, where we feel damaged, where we are ashamed to speak up. I spent years feeling like I should've done things differently, that I could've prevented things happening the way they did. As if a small child could get in the way of an adults plans.
Rape culture, to me, is the society that encourages this, that refuses to analyze this, that continues to care more about offender rights than victim's rights, that shifts blame to victims.
People focus on false rape accusations even though statistically a man is almost more likely to be raped himself than to be falsely accused of rape. Victims are treated without much care. Victim's stories are shredded apart. Victims go through the whole legal system, being treated with suspicion, being humiliated, being re-victimized by the system that's supposed to bring them justice, only to be treated like garbage in the end when the perpetrators get a slap on the wrist.
The status quo is questions like:
- What were you wearing?
- Why were you alone?
- Why were you there so late?
- Did you drink?
- Did you take drugs?
And my absolute favourite, typically coming after these questions, is this one:
- Well, what did you expect to happen then?
In 2002 a 17-year-old Scottish girl committed suicide after being forced to hold up, in court, the panties she was wearing when she was assaulted. She was made to hold them up in front of the court three times as evidence that she consented. Her parents later said that she had felt raped all over again, 2 weeks later she was dead.
Last year, a man was found not guilty of raping a 17-year-old Irish girl, the defence attorney also brought up the girls panties. Quote: "Does the evidence rule out the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front."
"What did you expect would happen?" Maybe for nobody to even see the panties in the first place? That would be my guess. I wear underwear like that all the time and I don't expect rape. I mean, I've been high-fidelity married for the better part of 2 decades, I'm not remotely interested in sex with randoms, consentually or otherwise, I assure you.
There are these stories, there's my story, there are thousands of others that nobody has ever heard. There are victims who never reported. There's a suspicion that rape is one of the most under-reported crimes there is, and when any of us wonder why that is, or point out why that is, we're just "hysterical feminists making shit up." Snowflakes. Man-haters. We, the victims, are terrible people, then. I feel that there's this prevailing attitude that essentially says to victims, "You can go ahead and suffer for years to come for what he did to you, but really, why should he have to suffer too?"
Here's the thing. When you are victimized this way, in a way that's so intimate, that's so private, that's so invasive that you end up ashamed to even speak of it - your life changes in an instant. You will never again be the same person you were before. You will spend years trying to fix the damage that's been done to your psyche, your self-esteem, your sense of safety. You will pay, as the victim, for years - for something you didn't do.
You can heal yourself, you can get better, you can work hard at it and succeed. You become a survivor, not a victim. But you're never the same, and it leaves a scar that sometimes aches when you least expect it to. You serve that sentence for much longer than the person who left you this way, and while he's moved on and likely long forgotten your name, you're still digging yourself out.
2 weeks. 3 months of weekends. 6 months. Considerations for graduation, for college, for work. We don't want to disrupt his life, after all. What about his reputation? What about his social standing? What about his family's reputation?
Why are those things even factors?
The justice system spits in the faces of victims when they do this. Because when I think about it, I think... what about her mental and emotional health? What if she's unable to function properly for some time? What about her fear, her family's fear, and their trauma, physically and emotionally? What is the proper justice to balance that out? How does he pay for what he's taken from her? Isn't that what justice is supposed to be about?
Why is there no such terms as "murder culture" or "robbery culture" or "arson culture"...?
Probably because when those things happen we see them for what they are. We don't blame the victims. We don't ask if they maybe liked getting stabbed and things just went too far. We don't say "Hey, are you really sure you locked your door? Can you prove that? Cause maybe you were just asking for someone to walk in and take your stuff..." We don't tell people that perhaps they should have bought a less flammable house. People aren't ashamed to have to say someone tried to kill them, or their house was burned down. Nobody says "Okay yes I can see that you brutally beat that guy, but I don't think you'll do it again and of course you need to work so, probation it is."
What message does it send when a violent rapist gets 2 weeks in prison? Where's the deterrent? Why are his victim and her shattered life so worthless? Why is the crime treated like no big deal?
Now, NOTE: As a woman, of course, I have spoken in terms of male offenders and female victims. That's for my own ease of processing and writing, but this is not just a women's issue.
One in 4 girls and one in 6 boys are estimated to experience childhood sexual abuse.
One in 5 women and one in 71 men will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.
An estimated 63% of rapes are not reported to the police.
The medical cost per person sexually assaulted is high, higher than victims of non-sexual physical assaults.
Victims are more likely to attempt suicide, more likely to develop PTSD, more likely to become drug or alcohol dependent and experience moderate to severe distress and increased problems at work or school.
All of these numbers skew in places like college, the military and prison.
Source (1)
Source (2)
When my kids were small, I drilled this simple concept into them - "Don't touch that, it's not yours." You want it? It's not yours, don't touch it without permission. The same goes for bodies, it's not yours, don't touch it without permission. It does not matter one bit how much you want it, how pretty it is, how it's decorated, it's not yours. Period. You're not entitled, nobody owes you, get over yourself.
And this same principle applies if it does happen. It didn't belong to him, he wasn't allowed to touch it, it doesn't matter how it looked or how it was decorated. So stop acting as if the way someone looks entitles someone else to their own physical being, as if her availability, her inebriation, her location, her clothing matters in the slightest. It does not.
We can't be complacent, we can't accept this any longer.
rape cul·ture
noun
a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.
Something that's been percolating in my mind for quite a while now.
I realize that what "rape culture" means to me and what it means to other people may not be the same, and because of that it's a broad term that ends up often meaning nothing. If you describe every kitchen utensil as a spoon, then "hand me that spoon" becomes a really confusing request.
I see and hear a lot of people talk about the "rape culture myth." Again, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what they're calling a myth. I've read a lot of different reasons, from "of course rape is a crime and we don't accept it," to "feminists describe everything as rape."
When you're not sure of the definition, you're not sure of the refutations either.
I'm specifically on this topic today because of an article I read this morning. This is the story of a 17-year-old girl who was violently raped in a bathroom stall at a dance, there were witnesses, she was left cut and bleeding and required weeks to heal. The perpetrator was a 16-year-old boy with a previous assault that came out during the trial.
He was sentenced to 3 years, and he served 2 weeks.
Let that sink in for a moment. Two. Weeks.
Back a few months I'd come across a petition to remove the judge who made this ruling, at that time there was a publication ban and the victim had nothing to do with it. I signed. I wish I could've signed more than once, I wish I could've signed 100 times. The story stuck with me.
When I first saw the petition, I thought... this can't be real, this has got to be a spin. It's got to be out of context. There has to be something else. My first reaction was disbelief because in my country, in my province, I could not fathom that a legal travesty like this would occur. I looked it up. It was all true. I was fully revolted, outraged and appalled.
Then today, this article. I saw that the victim had literally gone to court to remove the publication ban, to be able to tell her story. I admire her so much for doing this - it takes a lot of strength and courage and she is so young.
As a child, I suffered a lot of sexual abuse and rape. As an adult, it was hard for me for many years to call any of it rape, it was always... I was molested. It made it sound better. It was soothing even to my mind, to shut it away and pretend it wasn't that bad. It lessened the pitying looks and the way that people became uncomfortable when hearing about it for the first time. Because I wanted people to understand on some level why I was so fucked up, but I didn't want to scare them away.
This is the story that I go back to when people say that rape culture doesn't exist. I was 9 years old and I'd spent countless hours being interviewed by the police. 3 separate offenders, 3 separate cases, triple the police interview fun. I was a painfully shy child at the best of times, this period of my life was so terrifying to me that I've blocked most of it out. No child wants to talk about the things that were done to them that they shouldn't even know exist. I didn't want to be prodded to describe things in details, asked to repeat with proper terms for body parts, given dolls to point at. Even at that time, even being so young, I had a distinct impression that I had to prove myself - they didn't want to just hear from my mouth what happened, they wanted to look for holes in my stories. They told me that if I could give enough detail in the interview I wouldn't have to go to court, and the only mercy was that I was spared going to court, I believe they used video of my statements instead.
As an adult, my mother told me that after one interview, one of the officers told her that he thought I was "provocative." The implication was that somehow, as a 7/8-year-old, I led these men on.
Let that sink in for a moment.
And I think to myself, if a police officer could come out with something like that, if he could find a way to blame a 9-year-old even in the slightest, what would it be like for a grown (or nearly grown) woman? He couldn't talk about what I wore or if I drank or why I was there with these men in the first place and yet, he managed to read something into my actions, still. And because of that, I fully believe that when women report things they are grilled and accused and made to feel guilty.
When I was in therapy, a counsellor told me that sexual abuse/assaults are some of the only crimes where the victim often feels more shame than the offender. Where we question what we did wrong constantly, where we feel damaged, where we are ashamed to speak up. I spent years feeling like I should've done things differently, that I could've prevented things happening the way they did. As if a small child could get in the way of an adults plans.
Rape culture, to me, is the society that encourages this, that refuses to analyze this, that continues to care more about offender rights than victim's rights, that shifts blame to victims.
People focus on false rape accusations even though statistically a man is almost more likely to be raped himself than to be falsely accused of rape. Victims are treated without much care. Victim's stories are shredded apart. Victims go through the whole legal system, being treated with suspicion, being humiliated, being re-victimized by the system that's supposed to bring them justice, only to be treated like garbage in the end when the perpetrators get a slap on the wrist.
The status quo is questions like:
- What were you wearing?
- Why were you alone?
- Why were you there so late?
- Did you drink?
- Did you take drugs?
And my absolute favourite, typically coming after these questions, is this one:
- Well, what did you expect to happen then?
In 2002 a 17-year-old Scottish girl committed suicide after being forced to hold up, in court, the panties she was wearing when she was assaulted. She was made to hold them up in front of the court three times as evidence that she consented. Her parents later said that she had felt raped all over again, 2 weeks later she was dead.
Last year, a man was found not guilty of raping a 17-year-old Irish girl, the defence attorney also brought up the girls panties. Quote: "Does the evidence rule out the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front."
"What did you expect would happen?" Maybe for nobody to even see the panties in the first place? That would be my guess. I wear underwear like that all the time and I don't expect rape. I mean, I've been high-fidelity married for the better part of 2 decades, I'm not remotely interested in sex with randoms, consentually or otherwise, I assure you.
There are these stories, there's my story, there are thousands of others that nobody has ever heard. There are victims who never reported. There's a suspicion that rape is one of the most under-reported crimes there is, and when any of us wonder why that is, or point out why that is, we're just "hysterical feminists making shit up." Snowflakes. Man-haters. We, the victims, are terrible people, then. I feel that there's this prevailing attitude that essentially says to victims, "You can go ahead and suffer for years to come for what he did to you, but really, why should he have to suffer too?"
Here's the thing. When you are victimized this way, in a way that's so intimate, that's so private, that's so invasive that you end up ashamed to even speak of it - your life changes in an instant. You will never again be the same person you were before. You will spend years trying to fix the damage that's been done to your psyche, your self-esteem, your sense of safety. You will pay, as the victim, for years - for something you didn't do.
You can heal yourself, you can get better, you can work hard at it and succeed. You become a survivor, not a victim. But you're never the same, and it leaves a scar that sometimes aches when you least expect it to. You serve that sentence for much longer than the person who left you this way, and while he's moved on and likely long forgotten your name, you're still digging yourself out.
2 weeks. 3 months of weekends. 6 months. Considerations for graduation, for college, for work. We don't want to disrupt his life, after all. What about his reputation? What about his social standing? What about his family's reputation?
Why are those things even factors?
The justice system spits in the faces of victims when they do this. Because when I think about it, I think... what about her mental and emotional health? What if she's unable to function properly for some time? What about her fear, her family's fear, and their trauma, physically and emotionally? What is the proper justice to balance that out? How does he pay for what he's taken from her? Isn't that what justice is supposed to be about?
Why is there no such terms as "murder culture" or "robbery culture" or "arson culture"...?
Probably because when those things happen we see them for what they are. We don't blame the victims. We don't ask if they maybe liked getting stabbed and things just went too far. We don't say "Hey, are you really sure you locked your door? Can you prove that? Cause maybe you were just asking for someone to walk in and take your stuff..." We don't tell people that perhaps they should have bought a less flammable house. People aren't ashamed to have to say someone tried to kill them, or their house was burned down. Nobody says "Okay yes I can see that you brutally beat that guy, but I don't think you'll do it again and of course you need to work so, probation it is."
What message does it send when a violent rapist gets 2 weeks in prison? Where's the deterrent? Why are his victim and her shattered life so worthless? Why is the crime treated like no big deal?
Now, NOTE: As a woman, of course, I have spoken in terms of male offenders and female victims. That's for my own ease of processing and writing, but this is not just a women's issue.
One in 4 girls and one in 6 boys are estimated to experience childhood sexual abuse.
One in 5 women and one in 71 men will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.
An estimated 63% of rapes are not reported to the police.
The medical cost per person sexually assaulted is high, higher than victims of non-sexual physical assaults.
Victims are more likely to attempt suicide, more likely to develop PTSD, more likely to become drug or alcohol dependent and experience moderate to severe distress and increased problems at work or school.
All of these numbers skew in places like college, the military and prison.
Source (1)
Source (2)
When my kids were small, I drilled this simple concept into them - "Don't touch that, it's not yours." You want it? It's not yours, don't touch it without permission. The same goes for bodies, it's not yours, don't touch it without permission. It does not matter one bit how much you want it, how pretty it is, how it's decorated, it's not yours. Period. You're not entitled, nobody owes you, get over yourself.
And this same principle applies if it does happen. It didn't belong to him, he wasn't allowed to touch it, it doesn't matter how it looked or how it was decorated. So stop acting as if the way someone looks entitles someone else to their own physical being, as if her availability, her inebriation, her location, her clothing matters in the slightest. It does not.
We can't be complacent, we can't accept this any longer.
 |
| THIS NEEDS TO STOP. |
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