I’ve started this post a dozen times.
So here is the short and sweet version: Blaming rape victims. STOP DOING THAT!
The girl who was out partying with her friends and got slipped a roofie, didn’t ask for it.
The girl who was drinking and passed out, didn’t ask for it.
The 10 year old aboriginal girl who was gang-raped in Australia, didn’t ask for it.
The girl who went someplace quiet with the boy who told her he loved her, didn’t ask for it.
The woman who told her husband no, didn’t ask for it.
Blaming a woman, anyone really, for their rape is like blaming someone who got hit by a drunk driver because they were out on the roads. After all, if they hadn’t been walking, standing, driving around in public like that, the drunk driver couldn’t have hit them, right?
If a woman just didn’t drink, walk alone, spend time with someone she was attracted to or trusted, go dancing, dress suggestively, dress chastely, or really, just be female… she wouldn’t be raped, right?
Women have a whole list of things that they aren’t supposed to do in order to stay safe. A guy who works with educating boys that rape prevention IS THEIR BUSINESS once said asked a group I was part of how we could think we were a civilized society when half of our population lives under seige because of their biology.
And you know what? None of it makes any fucking difference. You can be raped regardless of how careful you are.
It’s a terrifying realization. That you can do everything right, and still have everything go so very wrong.
And no one deserves to be raped. Ever. It is one of the most horrible things you can live through. It really, really is. It affects you in ways you can’t imagine (and this goes for men who’ve been raped as well).
What makes rape so difficult, is that the majority of rapes aren’t stranger rapes using a gun or knife. Most rapes are what is termed aquaintance rape, where the victim knows and trusts the perpetrator which is how he gains access to them in the first place. The perpetrator manipulates the victim via that trust, to get them in a situation where they can’t fight back, or even if they do, it won’t do any good. I was raped by the very nice boy who I took home to meet my parents, and who called them “Sir” and “Ma’am,” who opened car doors for me, and brought me flowers at school, who told me I was beautiful and he would never, ever hurt me.
Aquaintance rapes violate you on two levels, physical and emotional. Ok all rapes do, but aquaintance rapes have an extra emotional impact. You trusted this person, and look what they did to you. You doubt yourself and your instincts. You think you deserved it, that you must have done something, worn something, said something, looked at him like you wanted it…
It really is one of the worst feelings you can ever imagine, trying to figure out what you did to deserve this. Particularly when the answer is, you didn’t do anything to deserve it. No one deserves it.
Ok, I’m getting a little too keyed up about this. I can’t write anymore right now. I’ll try for more later.
Polimicks 
the same is true for men who are raped. But they get the “these things dont happen to men, suck it up” layer instead of the “girls are just asking for it” crap.
Rape is bullshit, no matter who it happens to. It’s not your fault, or any other victim’s fault.
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Same goes for lesbian rape, from what I’ve heard. The public perception is that unless it’s a penis entering a vagina, and unless it’s a total stranger who was wielding a weapon, it’s not rape. The first factor affects the pregnancy risk but has nothing to do with issues of consent or violation, and the second is sheer nonsense.
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yes, a very valid point. There certainly can be rape in the gay communities just as easily as in the straight ones.
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And incidentally, I was once telling my best friend (gay male, has experienced what I’d call something along the lines of sexual assault but not sure he thinks of it that way) about a woman I knew who was trying to bully her boyfriend into having sex with her, and his response was to laugh. He just couldn’t take seriously the idea that a woman could sexually intimidate, bully or assault a man. I have no idea what happened to those two in the end, I know they’re no longer together but that’s it.
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you know, I find it bizarre that so many men are terrified of the Deliverance or prison scenarios, but they never seem to associate those acts as being *the same* as any other sort of rape.
And, of course, a lot of men (even gay men) really do believe that men are Big and Strong and women are Weak and Helpless; all of which means that a man should be able to take care of himself in any scenario, and a woman could never be capable of raping anyone, especially a man.
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Me too. All of it.
One of the extra emotional impacts for me after my aquaintance rape was the anger at myself, for not preventing or stopping that from happening to me. I froze, and it took a very, very long time for me to forgive myself for that. I don’t know that I will ever get over that, but I do feel like I’ve gone a long way towards learning from it and trusting myself again.
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Yeah, for me as well, it was that feeling that I had somehow betrayed myself for letting this happen.
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I have the “How could I have been so stupid? I should have known better” thing.
I’ve gotten mostly to the point I have more fun and interesting things to do than beat myself up about it… but every once in awhile I pause to kick.
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Yeah, same here. But you know when you get those moments where your brain just seems determined to replay every horrible, humiliating, awful thing that has ever happened to you or you have ever done…?
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Absolutely.
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