Am I loud enough? Can you hear me yet?
April 18th, 2006Blogging to raise awareness about sexual violence.
If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention.
How many of you know someone who’s been the victim of sexual violence? How many of you know someone who’s been raped?
How many of you think you don’t know anyone who’s a survivor? I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you don’t even know it.
People always seem surprised that I can be so passionate, so angry. I’ve never been raped, right? So why should I care? The statement is baffling, the sentiment downright insulting. Why shouldn’t I care? I’m angry that people live in poverty and starve to death even though I do not. I’m angry about a lot of things I have never personally experienced and hope to keep that way. What kind of person can simply not care when others are in pain simply because it does not affect them personally? (Don’t answer that. I’m not asking because I don’t know. I’d really rather not think about it.)
If you’re not angry you probably just don’t realize why you should be.
I have friends who have been raped, you know. Too many. I know girls raped by strange men in dark alleys, by their friends, by their fathers. Some of these women are my family. I know a man who was sexually abused by his mother throughout his childhood.
Mostly the blame sits on them, not their rapists.
How does a six-year-old girl “ask for it”? What sort of sick mind says a girl systematically abused for years by her father “led him on” or “made him do it”? That may horrify any thinking compassionate person, but that’s what this girl’s family said when she told my sister and my dad called the police. They lied and said they talked to the police, who wouldn’t investigate, so that she’d drop it. When we did contact law enforcement, suddenly, she was the bad one, she’d “broken up the family” and it was all her fault.
Why would a fourteen-year-old lie about being raped at night outside her home? Oh, right, to get attention. Making it all up so that she can be the center of attention, when…it’s so very obvious there’s something wrong. Her mother wonders why she’s suicidal, self-destructive, depressed? Oh, right, that’s for attention too. There couldn’t be a real problem there, now could there?
These are only some of the stories I know, and some of them I’m merely aware of.
It’s not that people I know have been hurt that makes me angry. It’s just that gives it a face. That makes it even more important. I was angry before, but knowing what’s happened to people I care about makes it worse.
How can anyone not care about violence? How can anyone think that the only reason to care is if one is a bitter victim? Must I know someone who’s been murdered to think that killing someone is horrible?
If you’re not angry you probably don’t realize just how pervasive sexual violence is in the world, or how little is being done to prevent and punish it.
Open the paper on any given day; you’ll see a story about rape or child pornography or human trafficking or sexual slavery or something. It’s everywhere. And no one ever talks about the real problem: that sexual violence is wrong. That seems obvious, tautological — so obvious, in fact, that it’s totally ignored and obvious no longer.
Instead the discussion shifts to what people should do to avoid it, when…no one should have to go out of their way to avoid what other people shouldn’t be doing. Idealistic, perhaps, but, legally, true. That’s why we have laws. Certainly, if someone is walking alone in a dangerous part of town and gets mugged, perhaps they had a lapse in judgment — but it’s not their fault, it was the fault of the person who took advantage of that and did something that was wrong. Our hypothetical victim here is not the one who broke the law, and the person who did ought to be punished whether or not the victim put themselves into a position of weakness.
I have a confession to make: I did this too, when my ex reported that she was sexually assaulted. I thought she had put herself into a dangerous situation which she should have been smart enough to avoid, and to some extent I still feel that way, but… it’s not her fault that he committed a crime. That doesn’t excuse what he did to her. I don’t care if she was high or if she should have been smarter than to be in a room alone with some creepy older guy, or if I was a little pissed that she didn’t listen when I told her not to do stupid shit because she’d get hurt; he shouldn’t have touched her. No one can ever be held responsible for the violent acts perpetrated by others, no matter what they did or didn’t do, “should” or “should not” have done. There are circumstances under which, perhaps, sexual violence could have been prevented, but it’s not the victim’s fault if it happened. It is never less wrong if the victim’s foresight and actions weren’t perfect or didn’t fit into some flawless formula. Questioning the thought process or actions of the victim only leads to shifting responsibility from where it actually belongs: the one who committed the crime.
Why aren’t more people angry? How can people honestly not be angry about the fact that sexually violent acts happen, every minute of every day, all over the world?
Why isn’t everybody outraged?
I know the answers to these questions, of course, and a critique of rape culture and the idea of women as a sex class will have to wait for another day. But I think that most people aren’t so malicious as those answers would imply. I think most people really…don’t notice, don’t see the problem, don’t understand why rape is wrong and what it does to people. It’s a crime so horrific that people want to pretend it doesn’t happen.
I said before if you’re not angry you’re not paying attention, and sometimes…it’s not that people are willfully ignoring things. It’s that they honestly don’t know. There’s such a stigma against the victims of sex crimes that many people never engage in honest dialogue about the subject. People repeat what they’re told without ever thinking about it.
So we need to talk. We need to repeat what people still haven’t heard, again and again until victim’s voices can be heard and not judged.
Are you listening?
Are you learning?
Are you paying attention?
Are you angry yet?
April 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
[...] Am I loud enough? Can you hear me yet? Why isn’t everybody outraged? [...]
April 18th, 2006 at 10:57 am
DAMN GOOD post!!! THANK YOU!
April 18th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Yes. The sad truth is that many people don’t think beyond their little circle, so whatever doesn’t affect them…well they don’t want to think about it. Although having said that, I know one particular victim of sexual assault who, even though she knows it was wrong, thinks it’s just one of those things that ‘happens’. It’s this feeling people have that nothing can be done about it. I can’t believe that. I must believe that something can be done- if only in the realm of public awareness. The law, on the other hand, is a tough thing to change. But yeah, I’m outraged. All the time.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:33 am
Brilliant post. Somehow we have to stop people seeing sexual violence as “normal.” I guess in a way it is “normal” in our culture, but that’s what we have to change.
April 19th, 2006 at 9:01 am
And the worst part? Those who are molested as children are very likely to grow up to be molesters or molestation-enablers themselves, thus perpetuating the cycle.
I understand what you mean, earlbecke, about partially blaming your partner for her actions leading up to the rape. I’ve had an ex-girlfriend and a few close friends raped. While the friends’ rapes were mostly date-rapes of one kind or another, the ex-girlfriend rape was a semi-stranger who managed to get her to his house (to wait on a friend) and plied her with drugs and alcohol until she was too inebriated to resist. Yes, it was a bad idea to go home with someone she barely knew. Yes, she shouldn’t have been over there. Yes, she was 16 and shouldn’t have been drinking or smoking pot. But that doesn’t excuse his actions and, let’s be clear, the actions that crossed the line were his actions and his alone. Nothing that was done up until that point was inherently harmful (though, some sex-negative folks might disagree) and, at the time, nothing was really out-of-the-ordinary for this girl and her friends. He’s the one who ignored her nonconsent and took what he wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, if I have a daughter, she’s going to be taught not to trust anyone, especially if they’re offering her booze or drugs. But, let’s be honest, those are not the cause of the problem here, it’s a lack of respect for consent, boundaries and women that causes rapes like this, not the “situation.”
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:29 am
eponymous: That’s basically the kind of situation my ex-gf got into. I was just really pissed at her anyway at the time, so I wasn’t very fair to her. I don’t think I would have blamed anyone else who had that happen to them.
But, let’s be honest, those are not the cause of the problem here, it’s a lack of respect for consent, boundaries and women that causes rapes like this, not the “situation.”
Exactly.