The whole world has commented on this unfortunate article by Moe at Jezebel, but I can’t help but throw in my two cents.
When I was 20 years old, I had a car accident that could have gone very, very badly. I was on a long drive back to West Texas from Austin for Christmas. When a squirrel* jumped in front of my car, I pulled the wheel before I really had a chance to think about it, and since I was on the narrowest part of the journey, on a two-lane highway with no shoulders on the side of the road, I immediately hit dirt at 75 mph and began to spin out of control across the highway. I hit a road sign on the other side, which levered my car straight up into the air, god only knows how far, but it was enough that it started spinning. And I thought as I was hanging upside down in the air,** “This is how people die.”
But the car kept spinning. Enough that it didn’t a 180 but a 360 and I landed on all four tires. Not dead. Not even hurt. The car was fucked up but the only inside-the-cab damage was a few bows flying off presents. I was so relieved to be alive that “traumatized” wasn’t even in the ballpark of feelings. I was fine. In fact, I felt guilty about how fine I felt, how relieved it wasn’ as bad as it could have been.
It was still a car accident.
I appreciate that Moe doesn’t want to feel like a victim. It took me a week to admit I’d been sexually assaulted after I was, and I was lucky to have friends at the time use words like “molested” and “rape” to put my head on straight. I think sometimes I have something about me that just attracts bullies, since I’ve been fending them off in one form or another my whole life. At 20 years old, I was still holding out the vague hope that since high school was over, I had reached a free-and-clear-from-bullies point in my life. Making it harder was the very many times that I had personally witnessed when this guy had a chance to assault other women and hadn’t, making me think he was alright. But I apparently attract bullies. I didn’t want to admit that I had been a victim, because I felt sometimes like I had a target on my back. So I sympathize with her on this.
It’s this sense, this fear of admitting that being victimized says something about you that makes people embrace right wing rhetoric that blames the victims for “playing the victim”. It’s an odd mental trick, this need to feel that a victim is only a victim if she labels herself as such, and then she’s the one to blame if she does for grabbing that label and making everyone feel uncomfortable. I can attest that it’s not entirely unwise to live in denial of certain facts, because people react to victims, particularly victims of male dominance hate crimes like domestic violence or rape or even sexual harassment, as if they have a disease that’s spreading. Domestic violence experts will point out that one way that the abusers isolate their victims is that people pick up that “victim” vibe from her and avoid her. Also, there’s reason to believe that a lot of women who come out to mutual friends about it will have said friends side with him, either overtly or they will feel they have to help her, but the cooties effect kicks in and they find themselves distancing themselves from her. So honestly, I respect the rationality by refusing to label a crime against you as such. I find denial in perpetrators infuriating, but in victims, it has a certain understandable rationality to it. Well, I guess it does in perps, too, but you know. Fuck them.
Norbizness made a comment worth requoting on the legal rationality of ignoring sexual assault instead of reporting it:
At the same time, given the utterly insane judicial decisions pertaining to rape that have been catalogued on this and other websites, it’s definitely tough to fault somebody who looks at the cost-benefit analysis of reporting to said system and deciding against it.
It’s a real difficult individual vs. the system issue. There’s individually relevant reasons to avoid the word “rape” and to avoid the misery of criminal prosecution. But of course, the only way to change society so rape victims are not treated like they have cooties or dragged through the mud in court is for more rape victims to fight back, make it clear how prevalent the crime is, and start holding perpetrators responsible, instead of our current system of holding victims responsible or at least treating them like they did something wrong. This is the calculus that goes through the head of probably most victims when trying to digest the crime and make decisions after it, which is something to consider next time you hear someone come forth about sexual assault in any way, shape or form. Which Moe did, in her way.
*In true redneck fashion, the man who pulled over to help me chivalrously announced that he saw the animal and it had to be a cat or perhaps a small fox. To this day, I remember the gracious fish-this-big gesture.
**Not flying from the car and bashing my brains out against the road. Wear your seatbelts at all times, kids!
142 Responses to “Cooties”
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It is an interesting mindfuck isn’t it?
I need to apologize for being attacked by someone else so that you can feel comfortable hearing my story and won’t think that there must be something wrong with me for having been attacked in the first place.
WTF?
The problem with prosecuting those cases is that it usually boils down to one person’s word against another. And if alcohol is involved? Judge Judy ignores testimony given by people who were drunk at the time of whatever incident is being litigated.
I remember the one time I was assaulted. I usually avoid the term sexually assaulted because the clothes stayed on and it was just excessive groping, even after I told him to stop…and he then attempted to lock the door to keep me from leaving the apartment. Then he told me I was a rotten kisser (THAT IS A LIE!)
One the way back to my car, I remember saying, “Why did I go to his apartment? Why did I make out? Why did I …. Hold on, I’m doing the classic victim self-blaming.”
I’d worked in the sexual assault/domestic violence services field prior to that, so it surprised me how much those self-blaming thoughts immediately came into my head, but it was also that previous experience that allowed me to recognize them.
I still feel rather sketchy about calling it a sexual assault. I mean, it was, but it still feels like I’m diminishing what people who are actually raped go through by calling it such.
It’s so easy to fall into the self-blame, even when you know better. But then to have people discount you and stuff? Fuck that.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever told any of my friends face-to-face, but have only written about it once or twice on here.
I think part of the problem, is that although the rapist is seen as 100% guilty, we STILL have this knee-jerk reaction to think what we could have done differently to avoid the situation. Because of that, people internalize some of the guilt, and that part takes away from the perception of guilt from the other party.
The thing is, in cases of familiar rape, which seems to be the VAST majority of cases, generally have something that “could have been done”, which I think for some insane reason seems to count as reasonable doubt.
The reality is that anybody who could rape another human being is a purely sick fuck. Full stop.
I think that the weaker you are in society, the less easy it is to admit the weakness of your situation. Unless you are assured of strong support, or you are already very strong minded, you fear to acknowledge how little you could have done to make things turn out any differently. You hold on to that last vestige of faith in your own power. And, in actual fact, that faith — as false as it may be — can save you up to a certain point. Thinking, “if only I had done things differently..” saves you from crumbling to pieces in sheer terror at recognising your absolute vulnerability. It preserves a belief in your own power, in the abstract. A psychology article I read quite some time ago suggested that those who think “I could have done something differently,” are more likely to recover from their trauma than those who face the reality head on, as it were. So, the victim blames themselves because they’re trying to save the overall image of themselves as creatures who have choices. Similarly the abused child makes the assessment that “I must be evil because I’m being punished so much,” as a way of saving a certain amount of faith in the human race — thus preserving his or her will to live and not die from shock. Similarly, we are taught to tell an injured soldier on the battle field, “everything is going to be alright” (no matter what their actual condition is), whilst preventing them from looking at their wound, lest they go into shock. All self-defence mechanisms– although, after the initial reaction of disbelief, the truth has to be faced.
Silly comment below the article:
“but the rate of reporting is so low and false convictions (Duke aside) are almost unheard of.”
What? There was no “false conviction.” They weren’t even found “not guilty;” they were declared “innocent,” and will win lawsuits that will force innocent bystanders in Durham to pay higher taxes, and innocent bystanders at Duke to pay higher tuition.
(I’ll stop talking about that now so as not to get this discussion off topic.)
Karmakin:
I think part of the reason for that is that some folks feel that being raped requires a rapist, and they aren’t ready to label the person who hurt them a rapist. Part of them wants to believe that he *would* have stopped, “if only”.
When you realize another person *really* wants to hurt you (or just doesn’t care about hurting you), it takes some adjustment, and a lot more when it’s someone you know.
On the car wreck: kids, just hit the damn animal. It’s not worth your life. DO NOT SWERVE. Brake, but don’t swerve.
I think part of the reason for that is that some folks feel that being raped requires a rapist, and they aren’t ready to label the person who hurt them a rapist.
actually, yeah. even after realizing that you “were raped” it can be a whole other ballgame to say that someone “raped you” — was, in a word, your rapist. (and maybe that difficulty is more acute if it’s someone you loved and trusted, which you can’t bring yourself to equate with “rapist” because then you’re either admitting you have terrible judgment or you’re being way too harsh and, pathetic as it is, you’re still worried he’s going to react with hurt or anger at your calling it that.) but yeah, it’s all part of the oppression — and part of male privilege — that even when we do acknowledge rapes we speak in the passive voice and so politely, so delicately skirt around the existence of perpetrators.
When I was around 9 years old, there was an incident with my grandfather that I still have a hard time calling molestation, because what happened was rather minor compared to the sexual abuse that many children experience. But what else are you supposed to call it when your grandfather starts french kissing you? It’s not an “incident.” I minimized it because I felt almost guilty calling it molestation or sexual abuse. Unfortunately, I think my parents minimized it too, because they never ever brought it up after I first told them about it, even just to ask whether I was okay. (Their reaction was more traumatic than the actual incident.)
I’ve never told any of my friends. The only person I’ve ever told is my current boyfriend. For years and years I kept telling myself to just get the fuck over it because there are lots of kids who experience terrible abuse — kids who are raped, kids who are abused over long periods of time — and my experience wasn’t really that big a deal. But I finally realized that continuing to minimize what happened to me was only making it harder to get over it. The fact that other people have faced worse abuse doesn’t take away the pain I felt after what happened to me.
Anyway, not sure I’ve really added much to the conversation, but I don’t tell that story very often.
That’s almost exacty how I was raped. Except I was so drunk that it only barely registered that he was pulling my pants off. I don’t even remember now if he took my top off. It was years before I realized (or let myself know) that I had been raped. It did sear my soul so deeply though that I never got drunk again after that - 26 years now!
Reading that post was heartbreaking– her determination to name it something else was just painful.
On the other hand, I was actually encouraged by how many commenters there were willing to say “no, call this what it is.”
“I think part of the reason for that is that some folks feel that being raped requires a rapist, and they aren’t ready to label the person who hurt them a rapist.”
I’d have to wonder if part of the pressure is that in trying rightly to get the kid expelled from school, sent to prison, etc, they’re worried about the rapists’ parents “wasting” their five-to-six figure educational investment (on top of the rapist’s rightly lost income through any criminal charges and subsequently not having a real professional career because of background checks.)
I say those pressing charges shouldn’t worry about it; if God forbid any future son I were to have ended up in that situation and it was clear they were guilty of criminal or at least expulsory charges, they’ll have to eventually pay back all educational assistance they’ve gotten from me…in full, dating back before college to any private schooling.
A comment and a question: As far as the “cooties” effect goes, I think it has a lot to do with recognizing the victim as such and not wanting to be one of the herd of prey. Associate too closely with the victim and the predator might come from you. It’s a lizard brain instinct that couples with something in human culture and psychology that desires a scapegoat in order to define oneself by what one is not.
The question, for anyone who cares to answer, is what do you say or think when the victim really did behave stupidly? I’m not talking “went for a drink with a guy and didn’t realize he was such an asshole as to drop a roofie in it,” because really, who would? but “deciding it would be a great idea to go upstairs to do shooters in a fraternity house.” Placing oneself in a situation where there are obvious predators circling.
This is a bit off the central topic but it’s something that’s been puzzling me for awhile. If looking at things from a feminist perspective entails treating women as full human beings with full agency, to what extent does not blaming the victim at all costs run at cross-purposes to this? This sort of question applies to victims in general, not just rape victims in particular. Can you hold someone responsible for placing themself in a situation that even someone who’s had a couple of cocktails would recognize is a bad idea, while still placing the real blame on the predator?
Nice car accident story, BTW: I’ve rolled three cars but haven’t yet managed to land on the wheels.
felagund, i guess you CAN, but it doesn’t really serve any purpose. what is the point of saying “the person who raped you is obviously the one to blame for the rape, but let’s still get it on the record that it’s a dumb idea to drink with assholes”? i don’t think it really advances any sort of attempt at parceling out actual responsibility. and personally, i still think that it’s really inappropriate to chide someone for trusting the wrong people or being too trusting of people in general or whatever. it’s sad to learn you were wrong in believing that the average stranger has a good heart, and it’s cruel for a bystander to feel the need to spell it out for you just in case.
it’s sad to learn you were wrong in believing that the average stranger has a good heart,
or average acquaintance, friend, partner or family member, for that matter.
while i’m at it, i also want to note that when people pull out the “well, it’s the rapist’s fault you were raped, but what on earth were you thinking getting into that situation?” thing, it really can make women crazy. the more i realized or was told that you just can’t trust men to be decent human beings and not assault or violate women, the more angry and afraid i got — and yet when i expressed those very same thoughts people told me i was being paranoid and mistrustful of men. what the fuck. you seriously can’t win for losing, and i feel thoughtful people ought to avoid engaging in that pointless game. does that make any sense? you really cannot walk the tightrope between “good girl not asking for it” and “victim-minded paranoiac”, so let’s not contribute to the pressure to do so.
i found a great poem a while ago that i’ll post in a separate comment, and sorry for rapid-fire posting.
“With No Immediate Cause”, Ntozake Shange
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
yet i rode the subway today
i sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his
daughter but i sat there
cuz the young men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
i might not shut my door fast
every 3 minutes it happens
some woman’s innocence
rushes to her cheeks/pours from her mouth
like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
apart/their mouths
menses red & split/every
three minutes a shoulder
is jammed through plaster and the oven door/
chairs push thru the rib cage/hot water or
boiling sperm decorate her body
i rode the subway today
& bought a paper from a
man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron/i don’t know
maybe he catches lil girls in the
park & rips open their behinds
with steel rods/i can’t decide
what he might have done i only
know every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes every 10 minutes/so
i bought the paper
looking for the announcement
the discovery/of the dismembered
woman’s body/the
victims have not all been
identified/today they are
naked and dead/refuse to
testify/one girl out of 10’s not
coherent/i took the coffee
& spit it up/i found an
announcement/not the woman’s
bloated body in the river/floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor/not the baby
broken on the floor/
there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands & lovers with no
immediate cause”
i spit up i vomit i am screaming
we all have immediate cause
every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes
every 10 minutes
every day
women’s bodies are found
in alleys & bedrooms/at the top of the stairs
before i ride the subway/buy a paper/drink
coffee/i must know/
have you hurt a woman today
did you beat a woman today
throw a child across a room
are the lil girl’s panties
in yr pocket
did you hurt a woman today
i have to ask these obscene questions
the authorities require me to
establish
immediate cause
every three minutes
every five minutes
every ten minutes
every day.
The reality is that anybody who could rape another human being is a purely sick fuck. Full stop.
I wish that that were true. But the truth of the matter is that rapists, apparently, almost never think it’s rape. They convince themselves that not saying no is consent, or agreeing to be bought drinks is consent, or being attractive is consent, or just “making someone horny” is consent.
The truth of the matter is that anybody who could rape another human being is just someone who can fool themselves for about 10 minutes, and it’s hard to imagine who exactly that doesn’t describe.
I think that when we demonize rapists, and fail to understand how entirely normal people (men, predominantly) can rape, we make it a whole lot harder for victims to call what happens to them “rape”, because we’ve put it squarely in the province of monsters, and who wants to admit that they were with a monster? That they couldn’t detect monstrosity? That someone they know, and that their friends are friends with, is a monster?
If looking at things from a feminist perspective entails treating women as full human beings with full agency, to what extent does not blaming the victim at all costs run at cross-purposes to this?
Why does being a guy in a fraternity constitute a waiver of any responsibility for one’s actions?
Why shouldn’t a woman - being a full human being with “agency”, whatever that means - be able to drink somewhere? Or hang out with guys? Or both? Oddly enough, women aren’t automatically raped any time they’re alone and outnumbered by men.
If you blame her for being insufficiently chaste, as though she was raped by an act of nature rather than because a bunch of guys chose to rape her, in what sense exactly are you upholding full personhood and agency?
Ten years ago, I got up the guts to use the word “rape” to describe what my ex-husband did to me. I lost almost all my friends, people I had known since I was twelve years old. No one wanted to believe me because then they would have had to admit that a man they had befriended was a rapist. it was easier for them to believe that i was “messed up in the head” than to believe their friend could do that.
Out of everything that happened to me, that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get over. A decade later, and I still miss them all so much. And I have never had many close friends since then.
thanks, chet, that’s a good way to put it. the other good way i’ve seen it stated is that it pretty much doesn’t matter what you are doing or wearing or drinking, only whether the people you’re with are rapists or not. and someone in that thread at jezebel related a series of examples that really illustrated that.
and also on your other comment, “I think that when we demonize rapists… we make it a whole lot harder for victims to call what happens to them “rape”, and who wants to admit that they were with a monster? That they couldn’t detect monstrosity? That someone they know, and that their friends are friends with, is a monster?”
yes, exactly. or at the least, i think that the culture of male entitlement is so pervasive that people who otherwise wouldn’t be “monsters” — and whom other people would never believe is a “monster” — are able to commit rape, which after all IS a monstrous thing. so yes it helps make it very difficult to call it that, not to mention talk about it with others. with me it was also that i couldn’t talk about it with the guy who did it, because it was in a long-term relationship that was emotionally abusive and i was spending a lot of myself worrying how he would react to having his actions called rape. fucked up, i know.
DO NOT SWERVE. Brake, but don’t swerve.
Thanks. Yeah. Now that you’ve patted your back thoroughly, listen to me carefully: I’m not some idiot softie that you think I am. It startled me. I wasn’t trying to save a squirrel at the expense of my own life. I usually plow right through anything in my way if I can’t swerve.
It really did startle me and the shoulders were non-existent.
Sorry if I’m harsh. There was just a lot of tut-tutting that had a distinctly sexist edge after my accident (oh women—Amanda, especially, with her strong unwillingness to engage in two-bit sexism—are too busy saving squirrels to learn to drive). The 8 million times that I didn’t confirm the stereotype of Woman Drivers were set aside to focus on the one time I slipped up one a day I was tired while driving home after a huge fight with my then-boyfriend wherein I basically was about to quit speaking to him.
I’m not blaming her for being insufficiently chaste. I’m saying that one should take basic precautions, and that it’s not incoherent or contradictory to place the blame for the crime squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator while still thinking that basic common sense on the part of the victim would have made the crime not happen.
Of course one should be able to drink somewhere. The point is that certain places are better than others. Someone with agency (academic doublespeak for the ability to make real decisions: neither a slave nor an automaton) should IMHO be able to avoid places where they’re very likely to be in danger. This does not absolve society from holding predators responsible, however.
Why does being a guy in a fraternity constitute a waiver of any responsibility for one’s actions?
I’ve often wondered that myself.
Roula said: felagund, i guess you CAN, but it doesn’t really serve any purpose. what is the point of saying “the person who raped you is obviously the one to blame for the rape, but let’s still get it on the record that it’s a dumb idea to drink with assholes”? i don’t think it really advances any sort of attempt at parceling out actual responsibility […]
Well, I guess I’d disagree with you. Again IMHO, by emphasizing the perpetrator’s guilt but pointing out that the victim should have known better (and I want to reëmphasize here that I’m talking about egregious cases, not the sort of thing referenced in the original article) it inspires potential victims who do have agency to think twice before walking into obviously dangerous situations.
yeah, apparently i am not sad enough about being raped for me to have really been raped (and by sad enough, you must apparently be immobile in your bed at all hours, having flashbacks CONTINUOUSLY), but i’m acting too much like a victim because i acknowledge that if i worked while having PTSD, i’d be committed to a psych hospital.
you can’t fucking win, man.
ragingred:
That happened to me, too. I was older, about 14, and when I told my mom she said “oh, that’s just him. He did it to me too. He just wants to make sure we know how to kiss.”
I loved him like crazy– he helped to raise me– and never had any good way to process how humiliating and violating that was.
I actually was also molested as a young kid, a much more serious and ongoing thing with a trusted neighbor whom everybody loved. I’m still coming to terms with that too, but for some reason it never carried anywhere near the shame that the incident with my graddad did.
I have never told anyone else about my granddad except my partner, and that was years after we got serious. I have always felt totally isolated about it. So thank you for telling your story– and though the implications suck, I guess that we each are not alone.
Again IMHO, by emphasizing the perpetrator’s guilt but pointing out that the victim should have known better (and I want to reëmphasize here that I’m talking about egregious cases, not the sort of thing referenced in the original article) it inspires potential victims who do have agency to think twice before walking into obviously dangerous situations.
So when your friend gets mugged, is your first reaction, “Well, you shouldn’t have been walking down that street by yourself!”
If you find out that your grandmother has been bilked out of her life savings by a con man, is your first reaction, “You can’t be so trusting, Grandma — it’s your fault he was able to rob you.”
If your classmate dies while driving drunk, do you walk up to the family at the funeral and say, “You have to admit, it was his own fault for driving drunk.”
If not, why is that your first reaction to a rape?
And felagund, you are not saying anything that any woman reading this thread hasn’t already had to grapple with. Do you think there is any shortage of victim blaming already going on? Do you think that any woman who gets raped will not ask herself what she could have done differently, wonder how responsible she may have been for it, and face the same questions from others? Do you think they do not run through possible scenarios and responses in their heads?
What possible purpose does your action serve? In case you hadn’t noticed there has never ever been any shortage of people willing to blame women for rape.
But I will tell you what. Once we have dealt with putting the responsibility for rape and rape prevention where it belongs (ie with rapists and with complicit men generally), when every single woman who is raped can confidently expect people to believe her and to blame the perpetrator rather than the victim, when they can expect a fair trial in a court of law and for the public to be on the victim’s side, when these women themselves won’t have to struggle with the kind of victim Catch-22 that Amanda describes here—
When all that is taken care of, how about then we can revisit your topic.
as a survivor of domestic abuse/violence, i can relate to the “cooties” reaction. i’ve gotten it from many people i speak with.
it’s very frustrating, and i usually feel like i am supposed to excuse myself or apologize for marrying someone who turned out to be abusive. i also feel that i am expected to redeem myself by “proving” i’m not a “victim”.
Re: cooties. I think this comes down to a very strong desire to believe that we control our own lives. By blaming those who have had bad things happen to them, we reassure ourselves that things like that won’t happen to us. We are different from the victims. We won’t be victims.
How sad to read all these comments! Those of you who still suffer pain from your experiences, I hope that you will heal in time and get whatever help and support you need to live a life without fear. How many of these stories resulted in a police report? I’m not pointing fingers, nor am I blaming anyone for not telling the cops. I’m just curious to know: how many people are raped/molested that society doesn’t know about. I hve a feeling even the statistics that take unreported rapes into account are still too low.
Could I get some advice here? I’ve never been able to quite find the right retort to a situation that sometimes comes up on the forumboards that I manage.
Scenario:
Someone mentions that a friend of a friend was gangraped.
People make sympathetic noises.
Then a detail is added: it was a party, she was drunk and only slightly aware it was happening, and oh, she’s an Asian girl who likes white boys.
People say they aren’t feeling quite so sorry for her. Some do the inevitable “She needs to bear responsibility for her actions, why did she put herself in a risky situation?”
Some complete (male) winner then adds the piece de la resistance: “What red-blooded male would refuse a hot babe who was probably cock-teasing them anyway? If it was my daughter, I would be ashamed of her.”
When some of the women on the forum responded to him, they were told, “Oh, you’re a woman and you’re too emotionally involved in the case.”
How would you deal with this situation, in a way that does not involve calling him something unprintable? The reason why I’m asking is because I’m aware that I cannot change his mind, but I’m more concerned about the other people listening in.
Thanks in advance!
“Now that you’ve patted your back thoroughly,”
Had a grey squirrel dart in front of me while learning to drive in Bangor a gazillion years ago- my dad was with me. (the only time he was; it was a fave and very patient uncle the rest of the time) No time- no choice- ran the sucker over. And teared up a bit. Dad’s only response was that it was better to kill the squirrel than swerve and hit a kid on a bike.
In the 25 years since, I have hit a rabbit, a partridge (must have flown out the pear tree and into my windshield), multiple squirrels, birds, chipmunks and cats. I have avoided many deer and turkeys. Fortunately, no close encounters with moose or people.
As far as the rape aspects of this thread, I had put some of the incidents that occurred to me beginning at age 9 behind me. Or so I thought. I think some demons haunt forever, no matter how you go on with your life afterwards. You remember colors, smells, details ingrained. You remember losing your sense of trust. Being too scared to talk, so ashamed, so sure it must have been your fault somehow.
I wasn’t “raped” per se, but I was coerced by 2 cousins on separate occasions to engage in sexual activities at age 9 and at 11-13. My mother and father knew- and I took the only beating I ever received from my dad when I was 9. They are very close to these 2 nephews, even now. It was just never discussed.
And even while having a happy life now at age 42, there are occasional sudden reminders, especially as I try to raise 2 daughters now 9 and 12 to be strong, able to talk to us, and able to stand up and say NO. Thank the Cosmic Muffin for my husband, who knows all of this and loves me unconditionally.
Not even my best friend of 28 years knows any of this. But my daughter does- I had misgivings about telling her, but wanted her to know what can happen and how to protect herself.
Because I didn’t know until I was an adult that my own mother, who protected her nephews, was raped at age 5 by a 15 year old cousin and also had to cover it up for 60 years now.
@ louise:What your cousins did to you was absolutely horrible,and your parents’ reaction was just as horrible in my opinion.Punishing a CHILD,for dog’s sake,for being molested?!? But,as you said,it makes “sense” (so to speak)when considering your mother’s history.The Swiss psychologist/sociologist Alice Miller has written extensively about child abuse in all its forms,one of her findings is that the blame-the-victim-mentality stems from once having been a victim and maintaining desperate denial over this.Her books as well as her website www.alice-miller.com are highly recommended.
Mezz9, I like the reply above: “It doesn’t matter what she was doing or drinking or wearing. The only thing that matters is whether those guys are rapists. Turns out they are.”
Also, @Amanda, I remember a particularly insane drivers’ ed instructor telling the class that it was better to hit a bush than a tree, a tree than a cow and, if you had a choice, better to hit a cow side-on than head-/butt-on.
Even with no driving experience under my belt at that point, I recall thinking that that was an absurd amount of analysis to be expected to do in a situation where you may or may not have control of the car in the first place.
Accidents are just that–accidents.
“The question, for anyone who cares to answer, is what do you say or think when the victim really did behave stupidly?”
You think what you want– but you DON’T say anything to the victim. You LISTEN. Maybe she was told by her parents that Christains are good people and the frat boys were wearing crosses and Xtian tee shirts. Maybe she went with friends and thought she’d be safe, but they left/ignored the problem. Maybe she went with her boyfriend, and he was the one who started the rape. Felagund, some college students, strange as it may seem, come out of protective environments and don’t believe anything bad is going to happen to them. They have this strange notion they can trust kids they have classes with.
If you must say anything, maybe you should consider giving talks to high school or college students about the dangers lurking ahead BEFORE they are preyed on. Afterwards, duh, they can figure out it was dangerous for themselves.
@mnemosyne
In an egregious case - say, my friend was drunkenly wobbling down a dark, deserted street in a high-crime neighborhood with a crumbled wad of hundreds poking out of his pocket - yes.
Blind pig Camille Paglia found this acorn in one of her essays - if you leave your purse sitting open on the hood of your car with the keys in the ignition, and your purse and car are stolen, the cops will do their best to find your stolen property and arrest the people who stole it. They’ll also tell you you’re an idiot for not taking basic precautions. And they’ll be right.
There’s absolutely no argument that a woman ought to be able to go anywhere and do anything without worrying that she’s subject to traumatic assault if she lets her guard down. But we don’t live in the world of ought, we live in the world of is, and if one doesn’t have better sense than to put oneself into potentially dangerous situations with lowered rather than heightened vigilance, bad things can happen.
All that said, I’m pretty sure that the immediate aftermath of a rape is not the time to tell a suffering person that his or her actions were contributorily negligent (in a non-legal sense).
All the rules in a patriarchal society are set up precisely so that consent/non-consent are explicit though unstated. I.e., the situation, the context decide what is permissible and not someone saying yes/no. It is this remnant that we are wrestling with.
Then, Coweird, I guess what we’re trying to do here is change “the world of is” to one where women are automatically, reflexively, knee-jerk BELIEVED when they say they were raped/assaulted.
In Roula’s beautifully haunting example, what is it about “every (3) (5) (10) minutes” that you do NOT understand? Someone is raping, mutilating, killing women by the score. Hold the PERPETRATORS responsible. It is absolutely insane and unforgivingly misogynist to start the discussion with, “Yeah, yeah, someone raped her — how did SHE contribute?”
And you’re not ever allowed to quote Camille Paglia on a feminist website, by the way.
Thank you too, yugenue.
Um, Anonymous Coweird, do you think there’s anything wrong with comparing a woman to various inanimate objects? Just a touch? Think really hard.
Paglia didn’t find some home truth in her revolting bleating about rape. She just repackaged the same old shit in new five-pound bags so people like you, evidently, would find it attractive.
Coweird — the only “precautions” against rape are to avoid all men, all the time, for one’s entire life.
Women have been raped in hospital beds, their own bedrooms, bars, cars, malls, schools, classrooms, parks, workplaces — and I’m sure every one of those women were blamed for their own rape.
So take your precautions and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Anyone who thinks seriously about what it means to suffer atrocity at the hands of others should intuitively understand how difficult it is to recognize themself as a victim. For most people getting to clarity is a tortured process that mental health experts acknowledge and work deliberately to facilitate.
In therapy victims of sexual assault generally don’t volunteer material that points to their victimization. They normally avoid and minimize and outright deny what happened to them, and go at the material at an angle, if at all. Self-silencing is the norm, and the reasons for that are not mysterious. People don’t relish excavating humiliating memories, they resist seeing themselves as vulnerable, and they carry enormous shame and self-indictment; all of which has to be worked through in the therapeutic process of facing and resolving the aftermath of what others have done to them.
Not only are victims NOT self-aggrandizing, attention-seeking drama queens, they defend against the horrible truth, even when facing the truth is what they are in therapy to resolve. Successful outcomes involve getting to the place s/he can accomodate her status as victim and begin to reframe her identity as survivor.
It was totally your fault for being in a place and situation where a squirrel could force you off the road.
That actually makes a lot more sense than blaming the victim for rape… and it doesn’t make much sense at all. The squirrel has an excuse too: its brain really is the size of a pea.
felagund: to paraphrase another comment somewhere on one of the umpteen comment threads I’ve read so far about the “gray rape” articles, if you start to put some blame on the victim you are taking some blame away from the perpetrator. Also, as has already been said, pointing out the things you point out is simply supremely unhelpful and unsupportive, and is nothing that the victim hasn’t already said to themselves.
Choice: act in a way that is best calculated to genuinely help & support a victim or, however much you may not mean it, implicitly condone the rape by not blaming the rapist.
Emphasising the importance of precautions kind of sounds like you think that women should expect to be raped in all these kinds of situations - i.e. that men aren’t to be trusted, or that on some level you think given the opportunity men should take sexual advantage of women.
See many good links here:
Feminism 101: What’s wrong with suggesting that women take precautions to prevent being raped?: particularly this.
scratchy888:
I was thinking something along those lines but not nearly so well articulated, thanks.
Blind pig Camille Paglia found this acorn in one of her essays - if you leave your purse sitting open on the hood of your car with the keys in the ignition, and your purse and car are stolen, the cops will do their best to find your stolen property and arrest the people who stole it. They’ll also tell you you’re an idiot for not taking basic precautions. And they’ll be right.
I’m extra-highlighting part of your post here because you don’t even seem to realize what every woman in this thread is telling you. The cops are far more likely to believe you when you say your purse was stolen than they are to believe you if you tell them you were raped, especially if you were raped under “bad” circumstances (ie you were drunk, at a frat party, the rapist(s) were “nice boys” with “a good future”).
When the cops are more willing to believe the victim of a purse-snatching than they are to believe a sexual assault or rape victim, we have a bit of a problem here, no?
That’s something I’ve learned too: just because you refuse to embrace victimhood doesn’t mean there aren’t still bullies out there who are still happy to bully you. And just because you’ve been bullied doesn’t mean you have to be stigmatized as a victim.
You’re right about wearing a seatbelt, although I always think twice about that because a friend of mine was saved from having her legs crushed when she wrapped her car around a telephone pole on a snowy road only because she WASN’T wearing a seatbelt: she was thrown into the back seat just before the dashboard collapsed into the front seats.
Felagund, the issue with the discourse on how women are too irresponsible is problematic for reasons:
1) It’s taken as permission to rape/let someone get away with it.
2) It wrongly assumes that women don’t spend our whole lives on guard.
3) Women who do take precautions are mocked for it or called man-haters.
4) Rape is best understood as a hate crime. Hate crimes have a twofold function—the directly hurt a specific victim and to restrict the freedom of everyone else in a target group. Think about lynchings. The specifics of how they are used varies from situation to situation but the overall message is that white people will dominate a specific culture and black people better leave/walk with their heads down. When the response to rape is to tell women they better leave/walk with their heads down, you may mean well, but over time, the collective effect is to assist the rapist agenda of keeping women under the boot.
I don’t know what to do. It’s the same immediate individual safety vs. improving the situation issue. Until we all stand up no one is safe standing up. But someone has to start the standing up process.
The proper response, in my mind, to rapes at frat houses is not for women to avoid frat houses but for every frat house that tolerates rape should be shut down and their property turned over to battered women’s shelters. The first steps to getting there might be holding vigils in support of victims, perhaps?
Well, Flora, it’s an odds game. You don’t smoke even though you could be hit by a bus tomorrow and make the chances of lung cancer irrelevant because smoking is a) something you have control over and b) the odds of dying of lung cancer if you smoke are higher than being hit by a bus. The odds of having an accident where the seat belt saves you are exponentially higher than the ones where it “traps” you.
My dad of much-libertarian leanings was a firefighter and is a staunch supporter of seat belt laws. When Texas started ticketing people for not wearing them, my dad found that the number of calls they had to attend to scrape someone’s brains off the road plummeted.
What Amanda said. I used to be someone who wondered why women seemed to stupidly let themselves get raped, and why they weren’t on guard about it all the time.
And then I was informed that they were always on guard about it, without me telling them to be, and that they get raped anyway, because rapists are raping them.
So I’m suitably ashamed of what I used to think. And I know that women are as smart as anybody else, and perfectly capable of absorbing whatever lessons might be found in someone else’s story without needing them to be explicitly crammed down their throats like schoolchildren. Not exactly sure how that constitutes treating women like “fully human beings with agency.” Why is it the people that always talk about women having agency always act like they don’t have any at all? I’ve never encountered talk about “agency” except exactly as it’s being used here - as a stalking horse for a man to condescend to women.
Dear everyone,
Maybe you all forgot or something, so I’m just reminding you:
Having your shit stolen is nothing like having some douchebag rape you. As in, they aren’t particularly comparable.
That is why you can tell someone, ‘You dumbass, why’d you leave your purse in the other room at the bar?’ after they’re robbed, but you DON’T tell a rape victim, ‘You dumbass, why did you get yourself so drunk that this guy raped you?’
Definitely echoing what Amanda said, all four points–and tacking on to point 4: if you want to have a serious discussion about rape, stop using a fucking robbery analogy. Rape is not a crime against property; it is a crime against a person. Going to a frat party is not analogous to “drunkenly wobbling down a dark, deserted street in a high-crime neighborhood with a crumbled wad of hundreds poking out of his pocket” because a woman’s bodily integrity is a civil and moral right and not a piece of property.
As Amanda notes, rapes are much more analogous to hate crime, in that they strike against both the victim and the community of which she is a part. They’re about abusing power and getting away with it. They’re not about snatching some dangling wad of cash.
You know what takes courage? Naming rape as rape takes courage. That takes strength. That takes power.
To go and say “That man, he victimised me. He tried to take away my humanity. He RAPED me” THAT takes courage.
I wish it didn’t need to be an act of courage in our society. I wish that women didn’t feel like they had the couch what happened in euphemisms. I wish they didn’t feel like the right thing to do is to make excuses for him, and to take (ir)responsibility and fault for it themselves.
This “oh, it’s kinda rape, but it’s not really rape” bullshit definition is the thing that victimises women MORE. Not less.
Oh, and felagund? Shut up. Seriously. When we get to have men take responsibility for rape in society, then, and ONLY THEN, do we perhaps talk about what women maybe could do. Until then, by bringing up what you are bringing up, you’re actually contributing to the already existing overwhelming amount of victim blaming. You’re not contributing anything except more pain.
Amanda, you may be on to something with the seizure of the frat house idea.
There is a body of law called civil forfeiture, you may know about it. In Maryland where I practice, civil forfeiture is used to restrain/deter drug dealing and gambling by seizing the proceeds of such transactions or the facilitating means thereof. Example: a drug dealer’s car might be seizable under either theory, either that he bought it with drug money, or it was used to cart drugs to the customer, customers to the drugs, or equipment for the manufacture, etc.
It’s a so-called “in rem” proceeding meaning that the object is the civil defendant. In Maryland, there are cases called “State v. 156 Gaming Devices,” “State v. Two Thousand Seven Dollars And Forty-Three Cents in Cash, and the like. Houses get seized as grow-houses or “retail outlets.” While the owner of the property has the right to fight the seizure and have a contested proceeding on the merits, much of criminal procedure does not apply because there is no criminal jeopardy from the proceeding. Goes back to old English law called the “deodand,” the trivia geeks can look it up.
Anyway, I think that knowingly allowing a frat house to be used as a venue of sexual assault is a better case for forfeiture because it’s more directly tied to the nature of the wrong.
I think this relates to the whole distancing-from-the-victim thing. If you barely escaped death because you were a bad driver, then that’s something that couldn’t happen to me. If you barely escaped death because, well, shit happens to everyone, then that’s an abyss of existential terror that we don’t really want to look into.As for me, I was driving down a steep hill in a snowstorm a few years ago, very slowly. The car started to accelerate, and was going about forty halfway down the hill as I furiously pumped the brakes to no avail. The wheels started to turn, and the car whipped around, there was a blur, a loud *bang*, and then I was at the bottom of the hill, with the car facing forward.
The section of the guardrail I had bounced off of ended halfway down the hill; I would have flown into a tree if I’d hit the side of the road ten feet further down.
I think we do our best not to think of these things, because, well, would you ever go out driving again if you thought of the possibility of screaming metal death every time you got in the car?
Word. To just about everything you’ve said. These questions (”Why can’t we talk about her responsibility for her own rape?”) do sound reasonable if you’ve tra-la-la’d through life as a male without the threat of rape constantly hanging over your head. Until, of course, you actually think about them, which if more people would do, we’d be a lot better off.And, you know, I’ve actually gotten my things stolen because I did something stupid. I went skiing and left my wallet in a pile of stuff in the lodge instead of putting it in a locker. You know what? Nobody told me what a stupid thing I’d done, or told me I was asking for it, or gave me a “what did you expect” speech. Apparently we don’t accept the presence of thieves, but the presence of rapists is a given.
Of course, I had done a stupid thing, and I was kicking myself for it, but everyone who I talked to started from the assumption that getting robbed was the thief’s fault.
I don’t understand why the phrase “gray rape” is such a bad thing. Yes, it’s clunky and there’s not really a good reason for its existence, but it does have the word “rape” in it. It just seems like a slight variation on “date rape”, in any case.
Then again, me not getting what the point of the phrase is is good evidence that it’s being used to distance “gray rape” from “rape rape”, or something like that.
Let me point something else out–men feel free to get drunk and hang out and are not particularly worried about being sexually assaulted. In fact, when a man is sexually assaulted, it is seen asparticularly abhorrent.
But the rules are different for women, who are supposed to simply accept that that’s the way the world is, and restrict their freedom of movement.
Give me a goddamn break. We can’t ever say that we don’t want to be open to talking with strangers or getting too comfortable with men we know, because then we’re stuck up, paranoid, and man-hating. We do give a stranger or friend or relative or acquaintance the benefit of the doubt, and we were being stupid or making bad choices.
The next person who goes on and one about how we should examine our choices is going to get a good swift kick in their cyber face, and yes, asshole, you’ll be asking for it. As will the next fuckstain who snivels about “victim-tripping”.
Seroulsy? FUCK YOU.
We can’t ever say that we don’t want to be open to talking with strangers or getting too comfortable with men we know, because then we’re stuck up, paranoid, and man-hating.
Sheezlebub, I love you. Because the next time the rape apologists pop up, it’s always on a thread about dating, and they’re all asking why women don’t like to be harassed in bars when the menz just mean it as a “compliment.” Maybe we’d cheerfully meet people in bars if women didn’t get fucking raped all the time.
I hate victim-blaming; and I hate that society expects me to live my life crouched under my security blanket, holding a flashlight, worrying if my skirt’s too short and that then I’ll deserve what I get. Hate that. Hate it to death.
I can’t get through the whole thread, too difficult for me. So I apologize if I’m repeating something that has already been said. But I just have to respond to this:
… pointing out that the victim should have known better (and I want to reëmphasize here that I’m talking about egregious cases, not the sort of thing referenced in the original article) it inspires potential victims who do have agency to think twice before walking into obviously dangerous situations.
WTF?? You think women aren’t told everyday, everywhere they turn to think of all of the dangerous things that could happen to them. We’re pretty much told that we have to be on continuous lookout but at the same time we can’t be frigid and cold or paranoid. Clearly the system of pressuring the victim to “have agency” is not working out so well. The pressure to stop rape needs to be put on the potential perpetrator not the potential victim.
Correction: Love ya so much I spelled your name wrong. Apologies.
I’ll chime in with another “rape is rape no matter what you call it.” I actually think the reason people are reacting relatively strongly to Moe’s post is the unspoken implications present in her argument. She says she has “gotten over it” and thus, anyone who was, say, raped in the exact same way who isn’t just “getting over it” is somehow weak, over reacting, or otherwise overly sensitive.
I honestly understand 100% why Moe wants to tell herself this wasn’t rape. God knows I used the exact same defense mechanism for almost 8 years. But to blithely suggest that she is totally fine and “managed to just get over it by refusing to give him power” she tells me that I’m somehow responsible for the feeling of betrayal and hurt that I feel. I’m just not looking at my rape right and if I did I could be just fine too.
Jodie, EXACTLY.
Listen to what the women and men in this thread are saying: They were molested by cousins, grandparents, other relatives, PEOPLE THEY TRUSTED. A LOT of people are. Rape and sexual assault aint rare. What “precautions” should a six-year-old take against molestation, huh? What “precautions” should a woman take against being raped in her sleep by her husband? Fucking seriously. Rape doesn’t “happen” because women and girls are careless and stupid. It happens because men feel entitled to women’s and girls’ bodies. Read the thread at Jezebel and realize that a WHOLE lot of women have been sexually assaulted and/or raped, many at a very young age.
The only effective precaution women and girls could take to prevent rape is to separate themselves from the males of the species from their first day of life on.
Most guys will tell you none of their buddies are rapists. None of their relatives would ever do that. And yet, so many women and girls have been victimized. Hmph.
So chances are, at least one of your buddies or uncles or cousins HAS raped a woman or molested a kid, or will in the future. Rapists are among us. They go to work. They go to church. They have friends. So yeah, stop kidding yourselves, men. You know rapists.
I don’t think the molestation of a child and the rape of an adult are exactly comparable, either. Far too many comments here are conflating the two.
Is a part of the issue the thread addresses the fact that the word victim has multiple (though related) meanings?
In the one sense, it is used to describe a fact, an event. When someone does something to you without your consent, you are the victim. Just like when you are behind the wheel of a car, you are the driver, and so on.
On the other hand, the word is also used to describe a mindset of powerlessness, and in some cases, the choice to abdicate responsibility. And to move on, to heal, to have a healthy life, we need to “stop being a victim.”
Is a part of all this getting the two mixed up? In a weird semantic way, sometimes the only way to stop being a victim is to clearly acknowledge that we are in fact a victim, and letting that really be a fact.
(which is, I think what Amanda was saying, at least in part.)
If we could separate the two concepts better, wouldn’t we also be better able to say “Yes, it is completely the rapist’s fault, and at the same time, yes, I have choices, both before and after, without in anyway assuming blame.”
And when can we get to the point where we can separate out things so “Yes, i have the choice to jump off the three story building, knowing it could mess me up” is not the same as “Yes, I have the choice to attend a party without having to expect to get assaulted?”
Open letter to anyone (male or female) who can advise me on how not to get myself raped:
I’ve heard it.
For serious, I have. I’ve heard it from both parents. I’ve heard it from my karate instructor. I’ve heard it from my guidance counselor. I’ve heard it from my therapist. I’ve heard it from my gynecologist. I heard it twice at college orientation - once from the campus police, and once from some dumb skit the orientation leaders put on.
Here are things I’ve heard:
- Don’t go out at night alone.
- Don’t show too much skin.
- Don’t wear anything too tight.
- Don’t drink too much.
- Always cover your drink.
- Watch the bartender the whole time he’s mixing your drink.
- Don’t accept a drink from a stranger.
- Don’t let a stranger buy you a drink.
- Don’t let yourself be alone in a room with a stranger.
- Don’t let a stranger walk you home.
- Always take the elevator; stairs are dangerous.
- Always take the stairs; elevators are dangerous.
- Keep your keys between your fingers to blind an attacker.
- Carry Mace.
- But don’t go out at night if you can avoid it.
- If there’s a van parked on your driver’s side, get in through the passenger side.
- Check your front and back seat and under your car.
- But project confidence.
- Don’t talk on the phone.
- Talk on the phone so an attacker knows you’ve got someone looking out for you.
- Don’t wear high heels; you can’t run in them.
- Wear high heels; they can be used as weapons.
Should I, God forbid, ever get raped, please do not tell me any of these things. I’ve been told these things. I’ve committed these things to memory, and if I get raped anyway, the reason will not be that I’m simply unaware of these rules. If I get raped, the reason will be my close proximity to a rapist.
If you have any advice on how to identify a rapist at no less than ten paces, I’m open to hearing it.
Most sincerely,
ACG
“I don’t think the molestation of a child and the rape of an adult are exactly comparable, either. Far too many comments here are conflating the two.”
Eh? Why not?
What about the murder of a child versus that of an adult?
This whole thread, and the one over at Jezebel is just killing me. Yes, I’ve been raped & molested numerous times since the age of 7 (that I know of), and how was I supposed to prevent that? How? Tell me the fuck HOW so I can do it from now on. I’m pretty careful. I don’t talk to strangers. I go places with other people for safety.
You know what? I don’t think it’s possible. Rapists will rape, either because they’re opportunistic, or sadistic fucks. That’s what they DO. And there’s not a damn thing women can do about it until the Rapists Stop Raping!
I like the idea of seizing the frat houses. While they’re at it they can seize the frat boys and hang them up by their balls.
And yes, sometimes, when I can’t do anything else, I still feel victimized and so angry. I’ve had therapy. I call myself a survivor. But it’s not always so easy to just move on like it was nothing and it didn’t affect me. I want to do that but it’s not going to happen 100% of the time.
And felagund? Fuck you. Seriously.
Arun - rape is rape is rape. Yes, I know what I’m talking about. So fuck you too.
That’s certainly true, and it’s a fucking scandal. It wasn’t what I was addressing, though.
Having bad shit happen because you are insufficiently vigilant is not limited to women (nor is rape, for that matter, but I think one can o’worms is enough per comment). As a very Jewish-looking guy, I know better than to go hang out at the bars where the Aryan Brotherhood congregate. And if for some reason I do, I remember that I am not among friends and I keep my guard up.
I absolutely agree we should be working to change the world as it is so that young men respect women’s autonomy, and so that male bonding + alcohol != rape. I hope in whatever small ways I can, that I am. I hope everyone is.
But we’re not there yet. And yes, it’s true that women are at risk of rape in all kinds of circumstances, including many where no reasonable person would expect it. But some conduct is just stupid. Getting too inebriated to defend yourself and going into a closed room with a group of drunken young men in a sexually-charged male-bonding atmosphere is stupid. Does that mean a young woman who does that deserves to be raped? Of course not. Does it mean that she had it within her power to avoid putting herself in that particular set of foreseeably dangerous circumstances? Yes. I see a clear difference between those two questions.
felegund, please enlighten me about these egregious situations! Should I not go outside at night? Never drink? Never smile at strange men, unless, maybe, by not smiling I piss them off more? Wear more circumspect clothing? Fight back? Not fight back? What magic steps will protect me and mine? Please, o please, teach me me how to think twice!
It’s called “blaming the victim” because it’s bullshit. There’s no way “to know better”. If wearing a burqa prevented rape, we’d all wear them. If following any set of cautions worked, we’d do it. But women still haven’t figured out the magic formula that prevents rape–because it’s not under their control. They are the victims.
Men rape. It doesn’t matter if you play by the “rules” or take the “proper” precautions. Men rape. That is NEVER the victim’s fault.
And why should we tolerate that things a man can do without even thinking about–such as walk unescorted to his car at night–should be “obviously dangerous situations” for women?
Not to mention the case here *is* egregious and, unfortunately, far more common than rape by a stranger.
Great. As a woman, I can just avoid… men, and I’ll be fine.
Funny story, there. I was hanging out with a bunch of friends, seven guys and one other woman, and we were drinking like fish, and I distinctly remember chugging a glass of Jack Daniels (which is actually one of the last things that night that I remember distinctly), and boy were those guys (five Navy pilots and two Marines) rowdy and male-bonding-y. And yet, I woke up in the morning completely un-raped. Why did I let myself get into that state? Because I knew the guys. Was that responsible of me? No telling; probably not. Why did I not get raped? Because none of them were rapists.
Moe’s story is very similar to mine, with the exception that my rapist was a trusted friend with whom I had a long history.
I have not reported it. I will not report it. Actually, all I’ve done so far is refuse a facebook friend request from him.
And some people will not only blame me for my own rape (what was I doing getting drunk alone with a friend?) but will blame me for other people’s potential rapes (since I didn’t report it). But all of you know, that in both Moe’s case and mine, despite the fact that in the jurisdiction I was in at the time, raping a drunk woman is definitively illegal, a court case wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. So to what purpose, exactly, would I be risking my own reputation and mental health? Is any tiny incremental change in society worth sacrificing myself?
Coweird, if you HONESTLY don’t get how you are SERIOUSLY contributing to victim blaming with that kind of talk, then just STFU.
This is not a useful contribution. Not in the slightest.
When men talk responsibility for commiting rape. When society changes that it doesn’t seem the sexuality of women as something to be soiled. THEN we’ll talk about things “we can do”. As it is, given how much women are blamed for their own rape WE HAVE ALREADY HEARD ALL THIS SHIT YOU ARE SAYING A MILLION TIMES OVER AND WORSE.
But until then, bringing this shit up IS VICTIM BLAMING. YOU ARE VICTIM BLAMING.
“As a woman, I can just avoid… men, and I’ll be fine.”
This is what (most) men just don’t understand. Living alongside MEN is the “dangerous situation” women are in. Yes.
I just think it’s sad that everyone has a rape or assault story. Mine was when I was 20. I had been to a party with some friends, got drunk, and fell asleep on my ex’s couch. When I get really drunk, I usually just want to lie down and not move for about 10 hours, that’s always the way it is. But the next morning when I woke up, I was naked. My ex claimed that I woke up in the middle of the night, went to the bedroom, took all my clothes off, and started ranting about how much better my new bf is in bed than he was, but he, being a perfect gentleman, just told me to go back to the couch, and so I did.
I’m sure none of this is true. I think he saw I was sound asleep, took my clothes off, and then.. well I don’t know how far it got, but it doesn’t really matter. My ex was my friend, and everybody thought he was a good guy. I found out later that he was devastated when I started going out with someone else. I haven’t told a lot of people about this because I wasn’t sure what they would think about it, and its’ been almost 10 years now.
But the truth of the matter is that rapists, apparently, almost never think it’s rape. They convince themselves that not saying no is consent, or agreeing to be bought drinks is consent, or being attractive is consent, or just “making someone horny” is consent.
[…]
I think that when we demonize rapists, and fail to understand how entirely normal people (men, predominantly) can rape, we make it a whole lot harder for victims to call what happens to them “rape”, because we’ve put it squarely in the province of monsters
Chet, this is a good point, and it’s just as good from the other direction:
Because we are not willing to call a rape a rape (isn’t “date rape” already the “gray” form of rape?), we make it a whole lot harder for men to realize that what they did waws rape. So it becomes very easy for a significant chunk of the population to go through life believing that having sex with a unconscious woman isn’t rape, that purposely getting a woman drunk or stoned so that you can have sex with her isn’t rape, that coercing sex from a woman if “you spent money on her” is perfectly fine, that women “don’t really mean no” when they say it, that fondling a random woman at a party (or even on the bus or subway) isn’t sexual assault.
The only reason these things aren’t obviously “rape” or “sexual assault” is because we as a society don’t think there’s really anything wrong with it. Bullshit terms like “date rape” and “gray rape” only serve to remove acts from the sphere of “rape” and “assault” so we can go on believing that there’s nothing wrong with the guys who try shit like this. (How is it different than using “baby” terms for body parts and bodily functions so we can pretend they don’t really exist?)
I never grasped the concept of “rape culture” until I started hanging out at feminist blogs, but it basically comes down to this underlying belief: Men have the right to fuck any woman who doesn’t adequately fend them off. Everything else–the victim blaming, the slut shaming, the restrictions on women’s behavior, the “baby” terms for rape, the “cooties”–stems from that.
You know all those fucking rules about how to avoid rape? It’s just to make yourself less like prey–the rapist is going to rape, he’s going to take advantage of someone, so try to make sure you are not the weakest of the pack.
BECAUSE SOMEONE IS GOING DOWN!
It’s just shit. Rape is rape is rape. Why does anyone have to be raped?
Why is a woman stupid for going to a frat party? Why aren’t the frat boys demonized for raping a woman? Because they aren’t. They never fucking are.
Why don’t we tell the frat boys to think twice before raping? That having sex with a woman who isn’t gung ho willing and able to consent isn’t worth it? That if you can only have sex with someone when she’s not fully cognizant of having sex with you, then you’re not just a complete loser, but a vile criminal?
Why can’t THAT be the non-stop “you should have known better” mantra? Especially, seeing how the criminal really has the agency to stop the behavior–no one can make you rape, that’s something you decide all on your own, no matter what you’re wearing, drinking, where you go or if it’s day or night.
I remember that I am not among friends and I keep my guard up.You know what? Fuck a lot of that noise.
By those standards, women can NEVER leave their homes — or, Hell, be comfortable IN their own homes, because a lot of people get raped/molested by family members and friends — PEOPLE THAT THEY TRUSTED. They thought they were among friends, and that trust was betrayed.
I have no wish to live in a constant state of hyperaware vigilance, even in my own space, because some assholes can’t accept the word no, or feels that he has no control over his primal penis urges.No one ever goes in to a siituation saying, “Hey. I think I’ll go court rape tonight.”
These threads are so fucking depressing.
First of all, to everyone here who has shared stories of victimization: I’m sorry. I’m not taking responsibility for the actions of your victimizer, but I’m sorry any of you (us) has to go through this. The violation of body, mind and spirit should just not happen.
to the guys trying to talk about women’s responsibility. SarahMC just nailed it:
End of story.
Guys, we need to change the shit. when I was an RA at Iowa State, part of our responsibility was educational programming. One of mine was called “Rape is a Men’s Issue,” and it was about men’s responsibility and power to stop rape. When I was teaching at UW-River Falls, one of my students started anti-rape organizing in his fraternity after our class discussion of gender and violence. I’m not bragging. I’m saying it requires work, the work of men. I’m also saying it can be done.
When I see a woman tense up because she’s heard my footsteps, I get pissed. Not at her, but at men. I’m not a rapist, but how is she supposed to know that?
Guys, it’s our responsibility. And part of that responsibility is not blaming women for something our gender does. And if it’s your buddy, call him on it. He’s a fucking rapist and he needs to know it and accept it, and will most likely only do so if he’s hearing it from other men.
christ, i feel like i’m just sputtering incoherently here. I’m pissed at people, I’m hurting with people. argh.
I don’t think the molestation of a child and the rape of an adult are exactly comparable, either. Far too many comments here are conflating the two.
Considering that many adult rape victims were also molested as children, it’s pretty hard not to conflate the two. Are they only allowed to talk about one experience but not the other?
There are some child molesters who are pedophiles, but a lot of them prey on young girls because they can physically control them. They don’t think they can control an adult woman (or they’ve tried and she got away), so they go younger and younger until they find someone of an age that they can overpower without too much trouble.
Rape and child molestation are not unrelated, much as you’d like to tell yourself they are.
Dorothy,
Your outrage and upset is justified and I don’t want to minimize anything. But as you said, it works both ways, and I think the solution has to come from both directions. Both you and Chet point out valid truths.
I think we need to get to the point where any specific case of rape gets one of several agreed on qualifiers, which leaves “rape” to mean the whole spectrum, from gray (or whatever) to armed and aggravated.
There was a time when rape only meant the armed stranger attacking a woman in her home or on the street. Raising the consciousness that rape includes all these other things also means that we do need to have qualifiers like date rape and marital rape.
Using the qualifiers only separates them from the sphere of rape if the sterotypical assailant with a knife in the dark sort of rape doesn’t get a qualifier too.
Because even though all forms of rape are wrong, there are in fact different situations, and the solutions to them and what society (men and women) need to do to make it stop. Because education isn’t going to do much to stop the sociopath with the knife and the mask, but it is precisely what needs to happen to stop frat party rapes - that and severe penalties for the enablers and bystanders. Again, because the parking lot owner or homebuilder isn’t responsible (generally) but the party-throwers and party-goers are.
There is definitely a need for “rape is rape is rape” and that has to happen, for all the reasons you said, but there also, if we really do want a solution, has to be tools to make some distinctions to make some changes. Not because any kinds of rape are good, or excusable, but because they are different.
And, of course, none of this is anything you haven’t heard. Just chiming in.
Does it mean that she had it within her power to avoid putting herself in that particular set of foreseeably dangerous circumstances? Yes. I see a clear difference between those two questions.
The only reason to see a difference between those two questions is if you see the woman’s actions as a mitigating circumstance in the rape. In other words, you’re excusing the rapist by saying, “Well, she shouldn’t have gone there in the first place.” You’re giving him an out. You’re giving him a wink and a nod and a, “We all know you couldn’t help yourself.”
Here’s the difference between you and a typical rape victim: if you went into a bar full of Aryan Nation guys and got beaten up, the cops would arrest the guys and the courts would try them. If the defendants even tried to say, “He walked into our bar — what did he expect?” they’d get a couple more years added to their sentences.
So, again, you’re trying to pretend that a woman who says that a crime was committed against her is treated the same way as a man who says the same thing. You have had multiple people, men and women, tell you that women are not treated the same.
Sorry, but this is like arguing that your African-American friend was not followed through the department store because of the color of his skin — he must have done something to make security suspicious. If he would just act less … black, then these things wouldn’t happen to him.
Were you there? Then why didn’t you say something at the time?
You weren’t there? How do you know there were obvious predators circling?
A person who has been raped is fully aware of how things could have been different… if she hadn’t been so trusting, if she hadn’t let herself be put in a vulnerable situation, if she’d recognized that she was with (a) rapist(s). She isn’t going to need you to point out the obvious. And the inobvious? You weren’t there; you didn’t see it. And it’s none of your business.
Don’t magnify the hurt of an already painful situation.
Anonymouse Coweird,
Let’s start there.
Imagine that approximately half of humanity looks like the Aryan Brotherhood. Everywhere you go — work, school, the supermarket, wherever you go for fun or to relax, even in your own family or your own home — there are people who are in every way indistinguishable from the Aryan Brotherhood.
Everywhere.
Now, most of these people are probably not out looking to have a good time beating up a Jew. Many of them would never do so, and would be appalled at the thought (especially that what they thought was a friendly slap wasn’t received that way). You know this, because you love and trust and (maybe) desire people who are members of that group. Also, everything in the surrounding culture tells you that these people are the normal, ordinary, ‘real’ people — the ‘man-in-the-street,’ as it were. What they do (or think) is normal, ordinary, and ‘real.’ What you do (or think) is almost normal, almost ordinary, almost ‘real’ — except for that ‘being a Jew’ thing. And everyone knows that sometimes Jews get attacked, but, well, no one talks about it much, and since all Jews don’t get attacked everywhere, all the time, it was probably just that one Jew. Right?
And then someday, you let one of these looks-like-Aryan Brotherhood guys walk you to your car after work, or drive you home when your car’s in the shop. Maybe you need an extra couple of hands to do some work around the house. Or maybe you go do something that you’ve done before safely, that everyone else does — go for a drink with a couple of these guys, turn up to watch a movie, maybe go out on a date. And you get beat up.
Well, what did you expect, existing in the presence of people who might be Aryan Brotherhood? You do know you look Jewish, right?
There was a time when rape only meant the armed stranger attacking a woman in her home or on the street. Raising the consciousness that rape includes all these other things also means that we do need to have qualifiers like date rape and marital rape.
I agree that the term “marital rape” was necessary because previously, it was perfectly OK for a husband to rape his wife–that was his explicit legal right, in fact. The term “marital rape” was necessary from a social and legal aspect, because it was not previously a crime. But I also think we’re beyond that, or at least we should be.
But there isn’t a legal definition for “date rape”: it’s legally no different from “regular rape” or “real rape”. “Date rape” really just a weasel word used to make the “date rapist” feel better about himself because he’s not a “real” rapist and he didn’t “really” commit rape. I don’t think that term helped anything–and “gray rape” is even worse.
I do agree that we need different approaches for different rapist mentalities, but I don’t see a common “issue” for date rapists: some may be serial rapists with the exact same motivations as “stanger” rapists, but they just prefer to stalk their victims in the personal ads instead of the park. Yet because we often give “date rapists” a pass or blame the victim, those serial rapists get a free pass to victimize women over and over again, because you know, “boys will be boys”.
Likewise with “gray rape”: is there a psychological distinction between “a guy who deliberately or deceptively gets a woman drunk so that he can have sex with her” and “a guy who slips a woman a rufie so that he can rape her”? Not really, no.
So why are these distinguished in the victim’s mind, in casual conversation, in the media, in the courtroom? Because we as a society aren’t ready to admit that Guy #1 is a rapist, because we probably know someone who plays that role, maybe? Or because we’ve established that “getting a woman drunk” is within the “rules” of “courtship” but “slipping her a rufie” isn’t? I don’t know.
It seems like the psychological motivation and mental state of the rapist should determine how he’s dealt with, not the coincidental circumstances of the rape itself.
I was just thinking, about school shootings and other crazy killings, how, there is really nothing one can do to avoid being in the line of fire if you are there. Nothing, you never know when, if you were in that place at that time someone decided to kill, there is nothing you could do.
Although I suppose one can argue since it’s so common, it’s everybody’s responsibility to wear bullet proof vests eh?
heres a new one for ya, i was raped after a friends wedding by a “nice innocent christian boy” who had been warned not to go off alone with me by mutual “friends” cos i was a wild promiscuous girl with a past. except i had given up sex to focus on recovery from other rape and victimization that had been imposed on me since childhood and i thought a nice sweet innocent christian boy was just the ticket for innocent kissing and hand holding. guess you cant let the town slut be celibate afterall.
and arun, as a survivor of incestuous rape as a child and aquintance rape multiple times an an adult, i can promise you that all rape has to possibility to hurt equally and all rape has the possibility to effect you profoundly, no matter your age. by somehow justifying the rape of an adult as less detrimental than the rape of a child, to me, seems to be a roundabout way of saying the rape of an adult is less important, or that adults might somehow be better capable to avoid rape.
but here, anyone who was curious as to why us dumb wimmins get raped so damn much, the only way a woman will be able to 100% avoid rape is to either 100% avoid men and live inside of an impenetrable fortress, or to simply shoot men on sight, you kno, just in case. and if you dont enjoy either of those options, well, stfu with your hand wringing over the victims culpability.
MA Jeff:
holy shit, off topic but i lived in river falls for a few months, worked at the pizza hut in the kitchen. you are the first person ive ever even encountered who has heard of that town outside of the people i knew when i lived there. crazy small world.
“I do agree that we need different approaches for different rapist mentalities…”
There is one thing all rapists have in common, though. They all feel entitled to women’s bodies. That entitlement is at the root of a lot of society’s problems, IMO.
It really chaps my ass how these conversations focus on “what should the victim have done” and “what can I get away with and not be legally charged with rape” and never talk about, “how can we have sex in which everyone feels safe and respected.” I’ve been a victim in a couple of those cases that arguably fall into that “grey area.” I’m also one of those people who defy the common wisdom in that I don’t count my molestation as an especially traumatic event. But trying to pin a label on those events is just semantics. The key is that those events constituted a real harm in which another person felt that he or she considered his or her desires to be more important than my well-being.
I knew I had it!
Sexual Assault Bingo, by Midnight Louise.
Only taught there a semester, and commuted their from S. Mpls. (Rive Falls two days a week, Gustavus Adolphus three days a week–lots of commuting that semester)
But I was proud of that kid. He was the son of a single mom, and after our class he talked to his mom about the issue (as I recall-and this could be hazy-she was a social worker), and then started organizing in his frat. We need more boys like him, or at least more to take action like he did.
One of the things my office mate and I talk about sometimes is, how do we model non-violent masculinity for our students? (I don’t want to rehash the masculinity debates from last week here) I never thought I made an impact on student lives outside the classroom (I just teach after all) until some of the reviews I started to get mentioned it, and then the letters from Tufts in which students would list me as the most influential person in their Tufts experience (having only had one class with me…). Those moments give me some optimism. Some.
optimism is the wrong word….hope.
Dorothy:
When I first heard the term “date rape”, my impression was that it was saying “Hey, women! You don’t have to put up with this shit! Yes, you were a bit horny; yes, you were doing things with him; yes, he expected some physical affection. It doesn’t matter. You said ‘no’, he didn’t listen. It was rape.”
That was when the myth of the cock tease started showing up more, as well… the hypothetical woman who says “stop!” mid-coitus, just because… you know, *not* because she’s getting a leg cramp, or having a bad experience, or having something else go wrong, she’ll just say “stop!” because she wants to turn the guy into a rapist. (This brings to mind the obvious question: wouldn’t you notice you were fucking a straw(wo)man before things got that far?)
Oh my lord the strawwomen!
The woman who decides to press rape charges against her long-term-boyfriend just because she didn’t really feel like having sex last night but went along anyway.
The woman who decides to press rape charges against the guy who asked, “what?” a second after she whispered “stop” and a second before pulling out.
The woman who decides to press rape charges against her regretted drunken hookup from last night, which she completely remembers but is really embarassed about, even though in doing so she’s only going to call more attention to the fact they hooked up and is guaranteed not to result in a conviction or even a case, for that matter.
Oh god, when Kathleen Parker, bitch extraordinaire, carried on about that case…
Anyone who read the transcript (except apparently the jury who heard it) would realize that a woman who had just been raped and had just been threatened to be raped again might not really be giving consent and even if consent is given no man is entitled to keep fucking till he ejaculates if he’s causing his partner pain. His orgasm !> other’s pain
The fact that - what is it? 1 in 4? 1 in 3? women have been raped means that every one of us knows someone it’s happened to. It’s wildly random and, no matter what you do or where you go or who you are or where you live or what parking place at the mall you pick, it could still happen to you. It makes me crazy when well meaning friends send me those internet urban legend “how to keep yourself safe” ignorant damn emails.
I was molested from 16-19 by my grandparent’s neighbor. I hope that he doesn’t show up at grandma’s funeral this weekend, but then, maybe I’m strong enough 20 years later to kick him so hard in the balls that he chokes on them. Doesn’t that sound lovely?
And, Tina H, that statistic only includes the women who admit that their rapes were rapes. I bet the actual number is more like 2 in 3.
Tina H, SarahMC -
What then would happen to the number if we added in those of us that were sexually assaulted but not raped? Or molested?
How difficult would it be to find a woman in our society that was not raped, molested, or sexually assaulted?
Any figures are estimates; the real proportion is, of course, “too damned many”. I recall but do not remember where a number more like one in six being cited, possibly by Amanda. It works as kind of a litmus test, where citing a very low number means you’re probably an MRA, and citing a very high number (as SarahMC does here) tags you as a radfem.Do you doubt that 2 out of every 3 women, if not more, has been raped, grendelkhan? Or at least sexually assaulted or molested?
For those who want to focus on what the victim “should have done:” it’s very simple.
Saying, “I told you so,” is rude.
Saying, “I told you so,” when you did not, in fact, tell someone so, is rude and dishonest.
Saying, “I told you so,” to someone who is suffering, and probably going over and over what she could have done differently, is rude, dishonest, and cruel. So don’t do it.
Besides, there have been a number of rape stories on this thread. How many of them feature incautious women getting drunk at frat houses? Seems like a lot more of them involve cousins and uncles, or nice elderly neighbors who wouldn’t hurt a fly. These are the typical rape stories, if there is such a thing.
Irene
I have never been any of those things. Just extremely lucky, I guess.
But, I personally know several women who have had one or more of the above happen, including my sister (raped by an abusive boyfriend–she still can barely admit that’s what happened), a couple of cousins (one who was molested as a child by our uncle (who nobody in the family will admit is a sick pervert and even the cousin that I know, for a fact, was molested by him refuses to say anything publicly, no matter that we’ve both had it implied to us that he’s done it to a few others as well, because “he’s family”), as well as being assaulted by a friend in college), and one of my old roommates (raped by a ‘friend’, also in college–she dropped out for over a year because she couldn’t face coming back while he was still there). And I’m sure I know others who have also been assaulted/molested/raped, but who haven’t said anything to me about it.
It’s absolutely pervasive.
I’m sure a lot of women would say “I’ve never been raped, sexually assaulted or molested” only because they don’t realize that certain things count as rape, sexual assault and molestation. You know? I’m sure there are plenty of women who’ve never been sexually violated, period. But a large contingent only feels that way because they don’t think of X, Y, Z as “sexual assault,” for example.
I have no way of knowing what the real figures are. I know it’s too damned many, and that there have been some efforts to figure out the real number, because the reported ones are certainly too low.My own opinions are (of course) tainted by my own experience, and that’s why I don’t go by my gut. I’m sorry if this seems like a weaselly answer; I’m a weaselly person.
On the other hand, if you’re asking if I’d be surprised if that turned out to be the number (assuming some kind of magical breakthrough in knowledge), no, I wouldn’t. I’d certainly be depressed, but not surprised.
Given how survivors bottle up rape and molestation for years on end, this may be unanswerable due to underreporting–if someone hasn’t told you that they’re a survivor, it may not be that good a guess to assume that they’re not.I’m told that in days gone by, it was assumed that it never happened to anyone else, and that hearing others’s stories was a revelation that lots of people had been suffering silently. On a more personal scale, it worked that way for me; I didn’t really understand how prevalent rape and molestation were until I suddenly realized that a majority of my female friends were survivors. Like ks said, it’s absolutely pervasive.
I’ve been sexually assaulted a few times, and pressured heavily (think ‘too hungover to drive home, no other way of leaving’ but not forced or overtly threatened) several others, and none of them were remotely analogous to the “frat party” situation. All of the perpetrators were my close friends.
However, like some others on here, it never really traumatized me much. I’m just not quite so interested in making friends with men anymore.
And despite having at least 3-4 assaults or seriously questionable situations (i asked an ex if he was into BDSM and his answer was holding a knife to my throat during sex) i’m pretty sure i’m one of the least assaulted/raped/victimized women I know.
1 in 3 seems low.
And why the hell do I insist on saying “molested” instead of “coerced, mind-fucked, sexually abused and told it was all in the name of luuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrvvvvvve”?
Wretched little rat bastard anyway. I hope his balls rot off from gangrene.
“christ, i feel like i’m just sputtering incoherently here. I’m pissed at people, I’m hurting with people. argh.”
Thank you MA Jeff. I hope that there are many many more people in the world like you.
Considering that many adult rape victims were also molested as children, it’s pretty hard not to conflate the two. Are they only allowed to talk about one experience but not the other?
Mnemosyne:
They can talk about whatever they want, but fuzzy thinking I will challenge if so inclined.
One major difference is that there is no possibility of a child having said “Yes”.
Another difference is that in children, it happens to both sexes, and women tend to be the majority of the victims among adults.
Anyway, in your first statement, are you implying a causal link between having been a child victim and an adult victim? Or is it simply that both crimes are so widespread?
FUCK YOU ARUN, NO WOMAN EVER SAID, PLEASE RAPE ME! BECAUSE THEN IT WOULDN’T BE RAPE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!
From your steadfast refusal to “understand” what rape is, I can only conclude you are a rapist.
Anyway, in your first statement, are you implying a causal link between having been a child victim and an adult victim? Or is it simply that both crimes are so widespread?
It’s quite common for people who were victimized as children to be re-victimized when they’re adults. Their sense of “normal” has been fucked with. It’s the same way that people who were physically abused as children will often end up in physically abusive relationships as adults — that’s what they think relationships are supposed to be like.
Another difference is that in children, it happens to both sexes, and women tend to be the majority of the victims among adults.
Some people’s coping mechanism for having been abused is becoming abusers themselves. It’s an extremely well-known dynamic that has been written about for at least a decade. Most pedophiles were themselves sexually abused as children, and they cope with it by insisting that it was “normal” … so normal that they themselves have to become abusers to prove it. Most physically abusive men were themselves physically abused by their parents. Why is it so hard for you to draw the same conclusion that dozens of sociologists have after actually looking at the facts rather than relying on your gut instinct that it must not happen that way, because that would mean that childhood abuse is even more pervasive and more damaging than we will ever admit.
Sorry, Mnemosyne, but are you implying that we have abusers participating in this thread? Otherwise one of the implications you’re referring to, while correct is utterly irrelevant to this thread. I.e., whether abused children turn into abusers has nothing to do with the experiences mentioned in this thread.
Secondly, if you are asserting that it is common for abused children to become raped adults, i.e., they are more likely to become adult victims than non-abused children, then you are saying what most on this thread are denying, namely they are saying that the behavior of the victim is utterly irrelevant. Otherwise we must postulate something nonbehaviorial like pheromones or unconscious body cues or something, or somehow the attacker knows the childhood history of the victim.
Thirdly, the difference I’m trying to draw attention to is the difference between A pursuing B who under no circumstances must be pursued, versus A pursuing B in circumstances where it is legitimate to pursue B; but A refusing to put any boundaries on that pursuit, in particular ignoring B’s right to say Stop, No.
[Some people’s coping mechanism for having been abused is becoming abusers themselves.]
In my case, my mother became an enabler. She stood back and said nothing to her nephews or their parents and ESPECIALLY said nothing to my father about beating me. It was all covered up and not discussed. Dad had married her, despite the fact she had been raped as a child- in her eyes, that was enough to buy her loyalty for life, even when he was a verbally and emotionally abusive drunk who tormented his daughters for years until we fled.
I finally confronted her one day about it, when I was married and a mother myself- I was finally able to question as a mother, HOW could you do NOTHING? How could you allow your child to be victimized and then beaten into shameful submission? How could you allow your kids to be torn apart buy their own dad? It led to a very open conversation and the apologies I needed to hear from her- because I’ll never get them from Dad. We’re more equals than mom/kid and very good friends.
He told me, as we (just he and I) drove to my sister’s funeral this spring, that he knew he was a lousy father to his daughters and would have done better had we been the sons he would have preferred. He and Mom are very close to these nephews- I live 100 miles away and keep a polite emotional distance as well.
I wish my parents no evil and no bad- I know we are all grieving right now. But they lost one daughter to chemical dependancy and mental illness then finally to death, due in part to their neglect- at the end, before she killed herself, she begged Mom to let her come home, as her 39 years on Earth were finally spinning wildly out of control. Mom said she would need to talk to Dad- then sat on the call for a month. By then, the phone was shut off. And then came the police with the news from far away.
One of the last sane things my sister ever said to me was how proud she was of me for managing to rise up and survive being sexually molested years ago. I hadn’t thought about it for a long time. I can forgive every rotten, hurtful thing she ever did to me now that I understand how broken she was.
Too much crap bubbling up to the surface today. Parents, be good to your kids- try your best- accept that you’re gonna be fuck up, but be fearless in your honesty and love. Let them know they can believe in you.
And thank you, Pandagon folks, for letting me say something here I’m unwilling to say aloud.
I’ve been to a couple frat parties and was fine. I was raped in my own bed by a friend. From my experience, sleeping in my own bed seems to be more dangerous.
louise…wishing i were there just to give you a hug right now.
The naming issue is one I have struggled with for years, for so many of the reasons that others have mentioned. It’s hard to call him a rapist, because I knew him, loved him and dated him for three years. Calling him a rapist calls my judgment and his every declaration of love into question, and that’s hard to accept.
For the first 5 years after the relationship ended, I focused on one incident in which my boyfriend used, over several weeks, verbal pressure, name-calling, threats of breaking up with me, threats of suicide and tears to convince me to try oral sex. I did, after he promised that if I didn’t like it, I could stop. I didn’t like it, but instead of letting me stop, he held me down by the back of my neck. I wasn’t vaginally or anally penetrated, I wasn’t physically harmed (i.e., no bruises, no bleeding) and I consented to the initial contact, so calling what happened “rape” seems like an insult to people who have been more violently assaulted.
In talking about my past with the next man I dated, I started to see that many — in fact most — of my sexual encounters with my ex had some element of coercion to them. Sometimes it was that I said no to any sexual activity, he begged and I gave in. Sometimes it was that I said no to a specific activity (e.g. I’ll make out with you, but I don’t want to take my underwear off) only to have him cross the line I’d set and call me a cocktease when I pushed him away. In addition to this, he was very controlling, criticizing what I wore, trying to keep me from spending time with my family or friends, flying into jealous rages if I so much as said “hi” to another guy, screaming at me — no word of a lie — for half an hour because I pumped gas and went to $10.01 instead of $10.00. Still, calling the relationship abusive seemed like an insult to women who suffered bruises, broken bones, rape or worse at the hands of their partners.
It is only in the past year, nearly 20 years after my first date with my ex, that I have been able to say “I was abused,” and even now, calling it that makes me feel like I have to qualify, quantify and apologize for my experience.
Here’s one thing I *can* say for sure. Not calling it rape didn’t diminish the hurt I still feel sometimes or the flashbacks I had for the first few years after the relationship ended. Not calling it abuse didn’t make the memories any more pleasant. When I can get past the guilt I feel at claiming those names in the face of others’ much worse experiences, calling it as it was — as I believe it was — seems to help. And yes, having someone else say that having the identical experience to mine wasn’t any big deal for them makes me feel judged for not moving past it more easily.
Thanks, hon- as they say, you have to own your own shit. This is just a small part of mine. But I will gratefully accept the hug- dammit, I was planning to get all skanky
and naughty today! Oh well, will make the next opportunity worth the wait.
I actually love my cousins- I have watched them become very decent men in the 30 years since and understand that we were all at such vunerable pre-teen ages with weird family stuff going on. Both sets of their parents divorced about the same time as these events and I have no doubt that if my cousins knew this had caused me pain today, they would genuinely apologize.
Off to tuck the kids in bed and think happier thoughts!!
They can talk about whatever they want, but fuzzy thinking I will challenge if so inclined.
Suggestion? Begin with your own.
It is only in the past year, nearly 20 years after my first date with my ex, that I have been able to say “I was abused,” and even now, calling it that makes me feel like I have to qualify, quantify and apologize for my experience.
I’m sure you know that you don’t have to, and if the feelings of a stranger help, let me tell you that I had not made it farther than halfway through your third paragraph before I said to myself “wow, what an abusive prick.” The gas thing, in particular.
There’s no qualifications necessary. Abuse isn’t about physical injuries. That stuff is just a means to an end. Your abusive ex used different techniques but the goal was the same - your compliance to what he wanted.
That’s abuse. No need to qualify it. But I’m sure you know that. I imagine that turning that knowledge into emotional reality is the hard part.
Secondly, if you are asserting that it is common for abused children to become raped adults, i.e., they are more likely to become adult victims than non-abused children, then you are saying what most on this thread are denying, namely they are saying that the behavior of the victim is utterly irrelevant.
Yes, Arun, what I was saying is that if people are victimized as children, that means they’re responsible for their own abuse.
Jesus, you’re stupid.
Arun, there’s no possibility children said “yes?” Boy you’re ignorant.
Of course children can say “yes” to their abuse/molestation. They’ll do it because they’re scared to say “no,” too intimidated to say “no,” coerced into saying “yes,” whatever. They say “yes” because it’s their daddy/uncle/priest/neighbor and “he loves me so he would never hurt me.” But even when children say yes it’s irrelevant because they’re children and can’t legally give consent.
Arun, seriously, if you are so very interested in the sequelae of both sexual abuse in childhood and rape in adulthood from such a detached, logical perspective, there is an abundant literature out there (you might begin with Judith Herman and work your way out); there is no need to create mathematical formulations and hold survivors accountable for proving or disproving them. Are you not listening to these stories? Has the most striking and important aspect of this thread–the fact that most of the women commenting have been sexually assaulted, raped, or molested–completely escaped you?
I will add to one of Mnemosyne’s points to say that, just as boys and girls are socialized differently in abuse-free homes because of broader cultural influences, boys and girls are (sometimes) socialized to respond to *abuse* differently…because anger/rage and numbing of feelings (or aversion to tender, “weak” kinds of feelings) are more acceptable, reinforced, and even normative for boys, they may be more vulnerable to coping through aggression against others, and more likely to become the perpetrators of abuse in the future. So it’s not just what was modeled for the child–what they learned about relationships–but what they learned about their own range of acceptable emotional and behavioral expression, and who safe targets are for said expression, as a function of socialization processes within the family and the broader culture.
And no, it does *not* immediately follow that because some victims of abuse / rape in childhood may be more vulnerable to future abuse / rape, they are somehow in some way *responsible* for future abuse / rape. This is WAAAY more complex than, *they have boundary issues* or *they are drawn to abusive people*. It’s more like saying, on one *possible* dimension out of many, that for many abused children, their sense of basic worth and personhood can be altered / compromised (understandably so), their coping resources are stretched, their ability to detect who is trustworthy and who is not (or discern what trust means) has been altered because their most basic trust has been profoundly violated, and they may be socially alienated or isolated (because that’s an effect abuse has). And because they are perhaps less sure of their rights as a person, and because isolated, alienated people whose resources are stretched thin dealing with painful and intrusive and confusing thoughts and emotions (including thoughts and feelings related to what *fault* they may have had) can be more vulnerable to a lot of things - these individuals *may* (either in childhood or later) be more vulnerable to future abuse or harm because some abusers and rapists are attuned to all of the above, and capitalize on it, because they are PREDATORS. THIS IS NOT TO SAY that former abuse victims are the only people vulnerable to abuse and/or rape, or all former abuse victims are destined for further abuse, or that anyone who is abused or raped must have been putting out some signal of vulnerability. IT IS TO SAY that just as rapists and abusers can be equal-opportunity, they can also sometimes be opportunists, and they can also sometimes be planful, contemplative predators. Again, we can clearly see that the responsibility lies squarely with the rapist / abuser, not the victim. Again, we can ALSO see, that because of all these M.O.’s of abuser and rapist, it is STILL a world that is not safe for women, and STILL the only way to reliably stay *unraped* would be to avoid all men, 100% of the time. And yes, I believe that underlying it ALL, as SarahMC said upthread somewhere, is an attitude of entitlement toward women’s bodies.
Also importantly, abuse and rape are also about power, which children are always lacking and women (NOT for lack of *agency*, but because of social, political and cultural inequalities) as a group are lacking, but adult men are generally not. So yeah, not so very surprising that women and children are raped/violated, and not adult men. Your point again?
SadieBeth - a hug from a fellow survivor.
My mom went through significant emotional, mental and I would even call it spiritual abuse from my natural father before divorcing him going on 30 years ago. He never hit her. It took her quite a while before she could call it abuse as well.
SarahMC - you are so eloquent and passionate and clearheaded that you blow my socks off. Thank you for saying what you say so clearly.
Wow, thanks Tina.
I may be oversimplifying, but it seems like people who were abused as children are more likely to end up abused as adults simply because they don’t recognize the “warning signs” soon enough. What most people would see as “asshole” behavior seems perfectly “normal” to them.
Case in point: SarahMC, your description of your relationship with your could have been written about me and my ex, with only minor details changed. Looking back with 20 years, a healthy relationship, and lots of therapy behind me, I can see the abusive asshole in the incidents, but I was blind to them at the time–because he actually treated me a tiny bit better than my own family did.
My “normal” friends spotted the “asshole” aspect right away: they would never have started a relationship with him, much less stay in one for three years. And they wouldn’t have had the bad experiences I did.
TiaRachel, comment #86 is so outstanding it actually makes me glad that Anonymous Coweird brought up his stupid Aryan analogy. Right on.
Dorothy, I think you may be talking about another poster.
(Chet@122) “I imagine that turning that knowledge into emotional reality is the hard part.”
Chet, yes that’s the challenge. I can call another person’s similar story “rape” or “abuse” without a problem. Doing it for myself without feeling guilty or ashamed, or blaming myself entirely for the things that happened between me and my ex — that, I’m still working on. (Words from a stranger do help, at least in this case, so thank you.)
TinaH, thanks for the hug and the words of support.
(Dorothy@128) “My “normal” friends spotted the “asshole” aspect right away: they would never have started a relationship with him, much less stay in one for three years. And they wouldn’t have had the bad experiences I did.”
Dorothy, I don’t disagree with you at all. I think that people who have their boundaries messed with early in life do have trouble seeing the warning signs of abuse they might encounter later on. I wasn’t abused prior to my relationship with my ex, though, so acknowledging that he was abusive — and that my friends could see what an asshole he was way before I did — leads me straight back to blaming myself. As in “what the hell was wrong with me that I let him treat me that way?” It’s an important question, of course, since my staying with him for 3 years was a huge factor in the abuse: if I hadn’t been there, he couldn’t have hurt me. I tend to get stuck there, though, instead of moving on to the equally important issue: what the hell was wrong with him that my tears, my telling him that he made me feel like a prop to be used for his sexual gratification rather than his partner, and my frequent requests for him to treat me with some respect didn’t move him to change his behavior at all? (Sort of like an assault vicitm obsessing over why s/he went to the frat house/got so drunk/wore that short skirt/trusted their partner instead of focusing on why their saying “no” wasn’t honored by the person who assaulted them.)
You know what, Arun, you sound like a rapist-wannabe. Like those assholes who try to find out just what the boundary for rape is–if she has only has one drink, is it rape? If she doesn’t report it, is it rape? If she doesn’t remember it, is it rape?
The point of the question is to find out when it’s “okay” to rape. When “B” is a child, it’s always illegal, hence you say “under no circumstances must be pursued” above.
Also, there really isn’t any difference between “child rapist” and a “rapist”. A child rapist may actually prefer to violate children or may just take advantage of the opportunity. Rape, no matter what age the victim, is a crime of power against weaker victims. Trying to phrase it as “pursuit” or an acceptable way to behave toward adults is some real fuzzy thinking.
The verb you need to be substituting for “pursue” is “rape”. Then you might understand where we are coming from. Try it this way:
“the difference between A raping B who under no circumstances must be raped versus A raping B in circumstances where it is legitimate to rape B; but A refusing to put any boundaries on that rape, in particular ignoring B’s right to say Stop, No.”
Because it is basically legal to rape in certain circumstances; Victims are not readily believed, and prosecutions are arduous and often unsuccessful.
Better yet, how ’bout we reframe the question properly for this post? “If B doesn’t consciously and enthusiastically agree to whatever A suggests, but A continues in any capacity, A is a fucking rapist.” See, it no longer matters if B is a child or not. Rape is rape.
Posts like these are why I love you, Amanda. You seem alot more plugged into the source heirachialism than many other commenters ploughing your ground.
Everyone does this victim or not victim dance to everyone and from everyone at some point in time.
Being a visibly disabled person who has to wear hearing aids, I got this sort of crap all the time, only it’s of the condescending, isolating kind. I don’t really get the more threatening kinds because I’m usually bigger than the other. So I’m not available to be bullied physically.
I’m also (humbly speaking) an attractive guy (when I’m not very fat), and visibly alot smarter than most other people.
My personality doesn’t suit many other people, because I do not soften my edges much (as much out of bad habits as not playing the game). Thus I am generally not available to be bullied emotionally.
I have found that this combination is incredibly threatening to other people. People genuinly really will automatically assume that I’m only fit to be given alms. A certain subset of people, when they realize that I’m faster than them (even though I’m fat), or smarter than them (even though I’m incoherent much of the time), among other things, will freak out. If a guy with hearing aids is better than you at something you care about (even if it’s not relevant to hearing, like singing), it’s the end of the world for them. It’s not everyone, of course, or even most people, but just enough to put an edge onto your life.
I always smirk at the advice wherepon one is advised to cultivate a flaw, so as to ease insecurity in your audience. Better not be a big flaw, like being black, or female, or disabled, or whatever, ‘cause that would ratchet it straight back up.
I really would like to see more of a direct discussion about humanity’s general need to feel superior to other humanity, and how to ameliorate that innate trait.
maaaaaaaannnnn, talk about taking something completely different from the post than everyone else did. I don’t think my comment was irrelevant to the post, as I was responding to how sensitive people were to maintaining their relative social status among their social set. Amanda was talking about rape and sexual assault, and I was thinking she was applying to universal.
In any event, my comment sure is irrelevant to the general thread. Apologies.
Guys, we need to change the shit.
And anyone who says otherwise borders on rape apology. There’s nothing that women have not already tried, and it one us men who perpetuate the rape culture to STOP DOING IT. Don’t make excuses for rapists.
ACG, as you well know, the rules you were taught don’t work because they’re bogus.
None of those rules address rapist behavior, they just address the person’s status or where you are or what *you* are doing. But it’s not the place you are or what you’re wearing that rapes you. It’s a predator, the rapist. It’s his isolation, pressure, weakening and shaming behaviors. It’s the force he applies.
Predators want you to trust classes of people or situations, rather than observing behaviors. That’s because they can fake their “credentials” or manufacture the situation. But they can’t not indulge in their predatory behavior, because that’s what differentiates the rapist from the non-rapist.
Unfortunately this isn’t always very helpful, either. One of the most obvious predatory behaviors is not taking “no” for an answer, physically overpowering the victim. And of course by the time they do that, it’s too late. It’s like saying a major warning sign that you’re in danger of being raped is that you’ve been raped.
So the important thing is to inculcate into everyone the sure and certain knowledge that these behaviors are wrong and bad, in every situation. Not just sexual; any social or even economic situation in which you isolate someone from others, from sources of help and information and emotional support, anytime you intentionally make someone weak or confused, so you can force them to do something they don’t want to do, is a predatory situation, and wrong.
I was raped as a young teen, more than once. I would love for young teens (and everyone else) to really get the message that these behaviors are totally unacceptable. Because until we do, rapists can do what they do without fear of reprisal, so long as they know the “rules” about where, when and with whom women will be considered “fair game” for rape.
Knowing about predatory behavior might have helped me avoid some of what happened to me. It might not have. Regardless, it probably would have helped me at least recognize what happened as not my fault, but part of a predatory pattern, and I might have felt able to report it.
Argh, bad html.
Amanda, I cannot thank you enough for your insight and clarity of expression, especially on an issue I feel so impotent to express.
There are many comments I could respond to, but this is where I’ll begin. This will be long, but I feel I need to add this to the discussion.
I want to apologize for posting something this long. I’d post it to my blog, but my husband reads it, and I can’t quite deal with telling him all this yet; I don’t have the strength to show this pain in front of him, or to deal with his pain on my behalf.
(Note: this also contains POTENTIAL TRIGGERS — caveat lectrix/lector.)
Or their experience, having a ‘trustworthy’ person violate them, and their objections negated by the person’s ‘trustworthiness’, they acclimated to ignoring any instinct and going on other people’s opinions/the person’s own representations of themselves.
Or browbeating the victim into acquiescence/submission. Or using coersion. Or saying “don’t worry, I won’t hurt you”. Or by using any means available to them to achieve acquiescence/submission from the victim.
My abuser was psychological — if I got upset about anything relating to him, he used psychobabble and 12-step talk to convince me I was crazy. He did this in just under two months’ time. It took my sister not recognizing the person I’d become in that short time to realize that I was in a sick situation, and got myself out. (I am not digging on 12-step talk — I’m in a 12-step program, so he used my own language against me.)
This was three years ago.
My rapist was my boyfriend. He loved me. He ‘wouldn’t hurt’ me. He also didn’t take crawling away from him and shaking my head ‘no’ when we were making out as indication I didn’t want to go any further. He didn’t consider my tears to signal that I was afraid of sex and not ready. He *did* consider my willingness to make out with him again as a green light for penetration.
From the time he started kissing me again, tears running down my face, to the time I realized we were having sex, I don’t remember anything.
This was twelve years ago.
It took my experience with the abuser to realize I had real problems.
It still took another year for me to realize what had really happened.
It took four months for me to actively seek help.
It took another few months of working with a therapist for me to call these incidents ‘rape’ and ‘abuse’.
It took another year for me to not feel like calling my experience ‘rape’ didn’t somehow diminish the trauma a friend experienced repeatedly at the hands of her stepfather.
I still have flashbacks. I get claustrophobic during sex. I can’t kiss during penetration. I can’t kiss without feeling I am expected to perform. I disconnect mentally at the first sign of discomfort. I try to force myself to have sex when I’m not ready, to prove my power over the trauma. I avoid sex for as long as I can. I spend eight to twenty-four hours mentally preparing myself for sex with a man I trust as much as I am able, who has been working to earn my trust for two years. I watch incessantly for signs of potential abuse in him. I pick fights when I have sexual energy I can’t make use of because I’m too off-kilter to enjoy sex. I don’t know if I have really had an orgasm more than twice in my life that I can remember. I’ve tried to re-enact being raped to see if I could stop it. I’ve engaged in bondage to remove responsibility from myself for sexual acts. I cannot think about vaginal penetration as ‘making love’ without serious mental work and emotional stability. I’ve taken all the precautions ACG mentioned, plus some, and have never felt safer because of them, even though I’ve never been accosted in an alley. I’ve felt paranoid to be anywhere, with people or without, daylight or dark, in my home or in public, because I was afraid of being raped. I’ve refused friendship with men out of fear they would rape me. I cannot work for a man. I am afraid to be alone with any young to middle aged man in a position of authority. I sometimes have to sleep alone because I can’t stand being touched.
I could keep typing things like this for a long time.
This article (as well as some other things I’ve seen/heard lately) have incited these thoughts:
1) I wonder if I didn’t suffer some abuse at an early age, because I remember feeling shame about my sexuality from about age 10, although I have no memory of any trauma before my boyfriend raped me when I was 18.
2) I recognize now one of those famed ‘warning signs’ in my future-rapist’s behavior; he never did respect my boundaries, from the first day I met him, when he tried to physically block me from leaving the room we were in because I didn’t want to hear a certain song again. Our relationship started out as a power struggle based on his inability to accept that I had sovereignity over my body and my actions.
3) He still raped me, and is responsible for the subsequent damage to my sex life, psyche, self-worth and emotional health. His inability/unwillingness to treat me like a human with rights has made the first year of my marriage one of the hardest years of my life for all the wrong reasons. He is a rat bastard who deserves a swift kick in the balls, and if I ever see him again he might get it.
Thank you for listening, if you did. Thank you, Amanda, for the forum in which to share this.
nightgigjo, I was listening, and thank you for sharing your story.
nightgigjo, I was listening, too.
Your story helped me to clarify what I hate about the term “gray rape” — the term that sparked this thread. I know that the details of any rape differ from those of any other, at least a little. Maybe the perpetrator is a stranger, or a friend, or someone you’re dating, or someone you pick up in a bar. Maybe there’s one perpetrator or several. Maybe there’s a weapon used, or a beating, or a drug slipped into a drink, or emotional and psychological coercion. Maybe the specific acts the perpetrator forces on the victim, by whatever means, are different. I understand that every victim’s experience of violation and their way of coping with it is different. But it’s all rape, and the phrase “gray rape,” as many people have probably already said better than I am right now, belittles the very real consequences of being sexually violated.
The impact on your life — and on mine, and on the lives of many others on this thread — isn’t somehow lessened by the fact that the perpetrators were people who purported to love us rather than strangers in alleys with knives.
(I’m posting this a second time, because I think I might have done something wrong the first time. If it posts twice, I’m sorry.)
nightgigjo, I was listening, too.
Your story helped me to clarify what I hate about the term “gray rape” — the term that sparked this thread. I know that the details of any rape differ from those of any other, at least a little. Maybe the perpetrator is a stranger, or a friend, or someone you’re dating, or someone you pick up in a bar. Maybe there’s one perpetrator or several. Maybe there’s a weapon used, or a beating, or a drug slipped into a drink, or emotional and psychological coercion. Maybe the specific acts the perpetrator forces on the victim, by whatever means, are different. I understand that every victim’s experience of violation and their way of coping with it is different. But it’s all rape, and the phrase “gray rape,” as many people have probably already said better than I am right now, belittles the very real consequences of being sexually violated.
The impact on your life — and on mine, and on the lives of many others on this thread — isn’t somehow lessened by the fact that the perpetrators were people who purported to love us rather than strangers in alleys with knives.