Much has been made of the recent British survey wherein a majority of respondents blame rape victims for their assailants’ assaults at least some of the time. Whilst most news outlets focus on the fact that women are harsher on victims than men, and feminists explain why, commenters insist that certain behaviors are so stupid and slutty that rape is inevitable. As Amanda observes, these behaviors are also called “dating.” There’s really no way to win. Women can either treat all men like rapists and be frigid bitches, or they can live their lives and be stupid sluts who were asking for it should anything bad happen to them.
After reading about this yesterday, I began thinking about all the times I’ve done things that supposedly “invited” rape but, miraculously, was not raped. I do feel lucky that I’ve never been raped, considering how many times I’ve allowed myself to be alone with boys and men: my father, my brother, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, neighbors, boyfriends, potential boyfriends, boys I’ve kissed at parties, study buddies, co-workers, cab drivers and others. According to a lot of people, I’ve lived a life of danger!
During my freshman year of college I met a guy. That summer, he drove to visit me at home whilst my parents were on vacation (they didn’t know). We had a good time. We slept in my bed together, though I never had sex with him. He had a huge window of opportunity to rape me but he never did.
When I studied abroad in Sydney I went out a lot. I went to bars with my friends and chatted with young men. One time I even agreed to leave the bar and go for a walk with one. Looking back, I think, damn, that could have ended really badly. But it didn’t. He didn’t rape me.
I spent a lot of time alone with my now-boyfriend when we were teenagers. I got into his car and let him drive me places. I drove him places. I went to dances with him. I hung out at his house after our other friends had gone home. He never raped me. And as college students in the beginning of our relationship, I visited him at school. He visited me at school. We had consensual sex and slept in bed together. He never raped me.
The reason I haven’t been raped is not that I’ve followed some impossible Good Girl script that supposedly lowered my risk. It’s not because of something I did or didn’t do. It’s because the men I’ve spent time with have not been rapists. There was no way for me to know that by looking at them. It’s just the way it is. I suppose the commenters on Cara’s and Amanda’s articles would say these men are defective because everyone knows that, given the chance, men will rape women, especially if said women are foolish enough to express interest in them and trust them. That’s nonsense and it needs to be called out.
It’s amazing to think that by wearing a certain outfit, or saying certain things, a woman is basically painting a bullseye on her vagina.
Sadly, I still have to regularly tell myself the following: “You were not raped because you were at a party. You were not raped because you drank. You were not raped because you only had one ‘buddy’ and she was also drunk. You were raped because there was a rapist there.”
Ugh, I lived this, with a roommate in college who told us about an incident where she woke up to man having sex with her. She said, “Well, I knew what I was getting into, I was drinking.” Um, so was he? But she deserved to raped for it? GAAAA!
At the time, my roommates and I backed off on arguing with her that yes, she had been assaulted because we didn’t want to put that idea into her head if it wasn’t there all ready, and I remember we even begin to doubt our own conviction that she had been raped. We are carefully taught, aren’t we?
I’m tempted to say “I’ve never been raped because I’m, like, smart,” but I think not everyone here would get the reference.
I too tend to be trusting, a bit because I’m trying to (that old sawhorse) be the change I want to see. It’s a bit secret-y, I know, but I feel entitled to behave with the primary expectation that men will not rape me.
It’s good we have these studies to let me know that that will be called a “risk factor” at some point.
Damn, Sarah, you’re inviting rape by being female, you evil temptress, you.
I’m only partly kidding here; when I see women being required to cover more and more of themselves so men won’t have dirty thoughts, it enrages me. They just will not admit that the problem is with them, and even if no women were around at all, they’d still have the thoughts.
I’ve thought about this often. Once, in college, confused and drunk in a dorm that wasn’t mine, I crawled into what I thought was my boyfriend’s bed, but was actually the bed of a friend of his. His friend was a nice guy and took me back to my boyfriend and besides a long-standing joke about me never having any idea where I’m going nothing came of it. And that’s just one example of the many times I’ve been alone with men, or been drunk around a guy or slept in the same bed with a guy.
Sometimes I feel really incredibly grateful that I’ve known so many non-rapist men. I’ve slept cuddled up to more guys than I’ve had sex with and all of them seem to be dodged bullets, sometimes.
(And the bullet I wasn’t lucky enough to dodge? That happened when I wasn’t engaging in ANY risky behavior other than being in a friend’s house as a teenager, where adults were present and supposed to be supervising.)
I tend not to be that trusting, PSoul. Apparently, though, there was a time (pre feminist awakening?) when I didn’t think about rape as much as I do now. Luckily things worked out but I look back in amazement at all the situations I’ve put myself in where I’d have been blamed had I been raped – situations that are just part of life and getting to know people.
It’s because the men I’ve spent time with have not been rapists.
Thank you. I have never been raped, and I feel I have to justify that with “Oh, well I’m really careful.” It’s not about being careful, it’s that the men I’ve been with aren’t rapists, too. When I hear rape statistics, I feel incredibly, incredibly lucky and wonder how I managed to escape it. But then I realize I could just as easy be on the other side.
Yeah, SarahMC, I guess my question is what to do with this information. Like I said, I’m trying not to let it get to me, trying to understand that no matter what I can’t win. But maybe that’s not the right thing to do, I don’t know.
@PSoul: You’re not alone. “I’m, like, smart” was the first thing that came to my mind too.
I haven’t been raped. Maybe that’s because I was vigilant about my safety. More likely, it’s because I have been lucky that so far I haven’t met up with a rapist on the street, or at a party, or in my own family. I don’t think this is cause for self-congratulation, though, which is what I often hear when women say “Oh, she was raped because X and I’ve never been raped because Y.”
I found this via a friend and thought it’d be useful to link here: http://www.lovelight.me/2009/11/how-to-prevent-rape.html
It really puts the responsibility where it belongs and every time I read it, I feel empowered.
Despite being sexually assaulted a handful of times, the worst experience I had was when I should’ve been the safest: when my live-in boyfriend of over a year tried to anally rape me during what started as consensual sex. Like funnyface, I still have to remind myself that nothing in that situation was my fault — it’s that my ex is a rapist.
When we were in high school–high school!–one of my best friends was (along with a couple of other girls) drugged and raped at a house party. I never asked her whether she’d been drinking at the party, because, even then, I knew it was irrelevant. However, when she finally got the courage to tell an adult, our youth minister no less, his first response was, “Did you put yourself in a bad situation?” Her response, which was perfect, and which I still admire (especially coming from a 17-yr-old) was “Does anyone EVER put themselves in that situation?” I shudder to think how many other girls are made to feel responsible for their being raped by the adults in their lives who should be protecting them.
I also feel like the fact that I haven’t been raped is mostly pure luck. I also drank, went home with dudes, etc etc. Once in the US VI I randomly started talking to 2 dudes and then left the bar to go smoke weed with them like outside near their car. Luck.
Yes, this. I’ve done a lot of things that, in hindsight, were foolish and, had I been raped, would have been used to show that I ‘deserved it’. I’ve gone out drinking and dancing late at night, by myself, wearing revealing clothing, in strange towns. I’ve walked by myself at night in dangerous cities in foreign countries. I’ve hitchhiked by myself in foreign countries, and caught rides with men. Heck, just last night I walked by myself through one of the rougher parts of town – where I’d been shot at 2 years ago – near dusk, slightly drunk, and in a low-cut top. Some would say I’m asking for trouble; I would say I’m trying to live my life without fear.
But I’ve been lucky so far, and that’s not because I’ve followed the script. Like SarahMC said, and like Melissa McEwan repeats over and over, the reason I haven’t been raped (knock on wood) is because I was not in the presence of a rapist, not because of anything I did or didn’t do.
Thank you for saying this, SarahMC. Although I haven’t heard it in a while (yay Feminist friends!), I used to hear people suggest that women who were raped were “asking for it” all the time.
Also, a mini-axe to grind. I don’t like the phrase “suchandsuch was raped.” I prefer to say that “someone raped suchandsuch.” Maybe it’s nitpicky, but the passive wording of the first phrase totally takes the instigator of the action out of it, and I think that we can’t forget that a person DOES the raping. That’s a pet peeve of mine.
/English major
@vegkitty: That’s a worthy point, and more than just a grammatical preference. Reminds me of how the girls in my dorm had to go through “sexual assault awareness” classes with their “OMG, don’t get raped!” message and I wanted to yell, “Tell men not to rape me, then.”
Funnyface, I know exactly what you mean. I used to think that being uber feminist, being mindful of my company, and taking care not to get trashed would keep me safe. Then in law school I went to a bar with a group of good friends and had two (yes, TWO- got the receipt) drinks, neither of which was left unattended for *even a moment* (I had/have a long-standing practice of keeping one hand on my drink at all times in hopes of preventing this very thing from happening). I wasn’t even approached; it was dark and crowded enough for someone to slip something into my drink without even acknowledging me. An opportunist will create an opportunity. A rapist will steal your free will from you with all the tools in his possession. Do not blame yourself. Even knowing this intellectually, it took me years to be able to say this to myself and mean it. Thank you for reminding me that no situation invites rape, and that it can happen no matter how “vigilant about [your] safety” you are.
My mom used to advise me to make sure I had guy friends who could walk me to my dorm/apartment/car at night.
She also advised me never to go off with a guy alone if I didn’t know him extremely well.
I’m not blaming my mom here, because I think she herself grew up in a society of mixed messages, but if I followed that advice, it would be possible for me to befriend a guy, walk alone with him at night, get raped, and then have people blame me for being alone with a man late at night. After all, statistically most rapes are acquaintance rapes or intimate partner rapes, so my odds of being raped were actually much higher being walked home by a dude friend than going out dancing or to a party.
Meanwhile, the only time I have ever felt physically violated happened during what had started as consensual sex, with a guy who was supposed to be my boyfriend, who said he loved me. But I’m sure someone out there would say it was my fault for dating him, that it was somehow ‘slutty’ to be intimate within what was supposed to be a monogamous relationship.
A friend of mine was date raped by a guy she had been seeing. She never felt comfortable coming forward about it, because even though he was completely in the wrong (she said the words “no. stop.” and he didn’t stop) she knew that she would be dragged through the mud because she (like everyone else at the gathering where this happened) had been drinking.
As I thought about your post, SarahMC, it reminded me of parents you see in stores who are always telling their little kids not to wander off because “a stranger might grab you!”. The idea that you’re teaching your child that every single person out there might be a threat to you is, to me, a terrible one. And it’s also statistically incorrect, since most people who assault/kidnap kids are known to the victim.
I’m not going to say that “our friends are strangers we just haven’t met yet!”-gag. But I also refuse to suspect most of the human race. I prefer to be vigilant but open to connection. Living with constant fear and suspicion is a dreadful thing.
And it’s the same with half the human race. I know way too many good, woman-respecting, kind men who would no more think of raping or beating a woman than they would of putting their hand in a wood chipper. So I remain realistic when it comes to men, but ready to be friends.
In some parts of the world, women must cover themselves from head-to-toe. They cannot dance “provocatively” in clubs, or drink, or flirt at house parties. They cannot “take” men’s’ education opportunities or jobs. They can only leave their homes under certain circumstances, and there are myriad rules and prohibitions about being the presence of men. They cannot walk home alone at night, or make chit chat with cute guys at bars, or libraries, or friends’ homes. They cannot park their cars in dark lots and garages.
Yet some of these women still get raped. That’s because a woman’s behavior does not cause rape. A man’s choice to rape does.
Rape will not stop until men stop raping. Period.
I haven’t talked to my son about rape, maybe I should after reading this. NO .. a woman cannot cause her own rape, it is something that is done to her against her will. Probably the worst something possible. Its wrong and I’m ashamed to be part of the sex that does it. As with other crimes though I usually feel helpless to make a difference.
Joe, you should talk about it with your son–talking about these things is what helps make a difference.
I was not so lucky and I’m on the other side of the percent. It has led me to constantly look over my shoulder and weigh pros and cons in dating constantly. (To be clear I was not raped but I have been sexually assulted, and molested by people I trusted in my youth and as I’ve gotten older.)
I can honestly say that it was never actively in my mind until it happened. I am thankful I was able to work around the thoughts that somehow it was my fault. Should I ever choose to have children be it boy or girl I will be bringing this up. Awareness starts in the house. My family failed in pretending that this doesn’t happen and not bringing it up. It is everyones problem.
@Joe: Becky is right. This culture is loaded with messages that play into the idea that it’s okay for men to force sex on women. Hearing from a man he loves and respects that that’s not true is invaluable.
Wait, wait. Once when I was in high school there was an ice storm and the buses stopped running. I sat at the bus storm for two hours before a guy came up and offered me a ride … and I took it. We chatted, he took me to my house, and didn’t rape me. Even though I got into his car. Alone.
A couple of weeks my mom asked me if I ever don’t feel safe living alone, and I told her that safe doesn’t have anything to do with it, I feel like I have been very lucky.
Joe, you should talk about it with your son–talking about these things is what helps make a difference.
Thank you also MM. I’ve just been informed he’s helping start up a fraternity on his new campus too, one that was SHUT DOWN 3 years ago for violations. I was shy about these things, where did ‘shy’ go? I’ll try to talk to him, though fathers influence seems to wane as the years go by.
@Joe
So does a mothers but you can do your best! A good foundation from the family helps!
@Joe: Don’t be shy! If you can’t influence him, who will? And if you aren’t the one influencing him…who is?
@Joe: you may think that you have less influence, but you’d be surprised what goes on in their heads.
If your son is starting a frat, it’s vital to have this talk with him, so he can be a leader on rape-prevention among the members. These young men need a leader, and you can be the one!
Okey Dokey! (that probably dates me)
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