I think... we have to be able to distinguish between Support Conversations and Theory Conversations and Policy Conversations.
For instance, a Scenario:
Boy and Girl are hanging out. They end up somewhere private. Boy makes a move; Girl doesn't respond clearly; Boy has sex with Girl, who doesn't say no.
Boy figures he had sex with a cold fish. Girl figures she was raped; she was too afraid to turn him down clearly when he made the move, and she shut down when he started to have sex with her, and could not respond.
If I'm in a support conversation with Girl, then I figure if she feels raped, she was raped; the important bit about people taking psych damage is that it's all about their own perceptions.
If I'm in a theory conversation, then I'm interested in the fact that Girl was raped -- she didn't consent to the sex -- but Boy didn't know he was raping her. Isn't that interesting? I think that's really interesting, and I wish the conversation could make a space with this. You can rape someone and not know it. Wow. Bring this up in a dynamic forum and watch the condemnation rain down on your head... people *suck* at thinking theoretically about rape, like they can't think theoretically about terrorism or child porn, as if understanding it would be condemning it. But you've also got questions here about "what if both people are impaired?" and "what should a person's level of responsibility be around sex?" and "how can we help all the different kinds of sexualities determine and communicate consent, because most people just are not ready for Enthusiastic Consent or any of the other theoretical constructs."
If I'm in a policy conversation, then I'm interested in what society should do about rape, whether by constructing laws or inducements or education. Here is where generalizations are absolutely necessary; you don't make policy for individuals. I'd be trying to change assumptions and challenge sexism, and I will pretty much not give a rat's ass about Poor Men Who Would Never Rape (although I am very, very sympathetic to Men Who Are Raped; I think policy needs to address this population, and that the numbers are probably way higher than we know.)
So, I guess... I'd want to know what conversation I'm having, so I know how to respond to disclosures. I think people are not good at figuring out what conversation they're having, and that some disclosures tend to make everyone shift into a Support conversation. After all, for you it's old news, but for them it's the first time they heard; it's a fresh shock. Ideally, you could calmly accept condolences and then move back onto the topic. Maybe there's some communication tricks where you can give the audience a moment to respond and then guide everyone back to the real point, before they get derailed into a litany of suffering and sympathy?
I dunno. I do know that, while my personal story is not like your story, people do react way more strongly than I would have expected. I'm also only recently discovering the goodness that comes with discussing it; I hadn't really talked about it, because it seemed like it was long ago, not that big a deal, and didn't really matter. Now I see echoes of it and have talked about it a bit, and it's helped. So I think it would be fantastic if we could find ways to welcome peoples' stories without making it into A Big Deal.
It is A Big Deal. It also is just a fact of life for millions of people; and in fact, it almost has to become Not A Big Deal, so that it doesn't control a person's life.
(and yes, the terminology is "survivor", and from what I can tell the same peoples' experiences are consistently left out of the conversation, and yes at least part of that is because it seems like the only people who bring them up in non-trivial ways are trolls of one sort of another.)
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-18 02:00 am (UTC)For instance, a Scenario:
Boy and Girl are hanging out. They end up somewhere private. Boy makes a move; Girl doesn't respond clearly; Boy has sex with Girl, who doesn't say no.
Boy figures he had sex with a cold fish.
Girl figures she was raped; she was too afraid to turn him down clearly when he made the move, and she shut down when he started to have sex with her, and could not respond.
If I'm in a support conversation with Girl, then I figure if she feels raped, she was raped; the important bit about people taking psych damage is that it's all about their own perceptions.
If I'm in a theory conversation, then I'm interested in the fact that Girl was raped -- she didn't consent to the sex -- but Boy didn't know he was raping her. Isn't that interesting? I think that's really interesting, and I wish the conversation could make a space with this. You can rape someone and not know it. Wow. Bring this up in a dynamic forum and watch the condemnation rain down on your head... people *suck* at thinking theoretically about rape, like they can't think theoretically about terrorism or child porn, as if understanding it would be condemning it. But you've also got questions here about "what if both people are impaired?" and "what should a person's level of responsibility be around sex?" and "how can we help all the different kinds of sexualities determine and communicate consent, because most people just are not ready for Enthusiastic Consent or any of the other theoretical constructs."
If I'm in a policy conversation, then I'm interested in what society should do about rape, whether by constructing laws or inducements or education. Here is where generalizations are absolutely necessary; you don't make policy for individuals. I'd be trying to change assumptions and challenge sexism, and I will pretty much not give a rat's ass about Poor Men Who Would Never Rape (although I am very, very sympathetic to Men Who Are Raped; I think policy needs to address this population, and that the numbers are probably way higher than we know.)
So, I guess... I'd want to know what conversation I'm having, so I know how to respond to disclosures. I think people are not good at figuring out what conversation they're having, and that some disclosures tend to make everyone shift into a Support conversation. After all, for you it's old news, but for them it's the first time they heard; it's a fresh shock. Ideally, you could calmly accept condolences and then move back onto the topic. Maybe there's some communication tricks where you can give the audience a moment to respond and then guide everyone back to the real point, before they get derailed into a litany of suffering and sympathy?
I dunno. I do know that, while my personal story is not like your story, people do react way more strongly than I would have expected. I'm also only recently discovering the goodness that comes with discussing it; I hadn't really talked about it, because it seemed like it was long ago, not that big a deal, and didn't really matter. Now I see echoes of it and have talked about it a bit, and it's helped. So I think it would be fantastic if we could find ways to welcome peoples' stories without making it into A Big Deal.
It is A Big Deal. It also is just a fact of life for millions of people; and in fact, it almost has to become Not A Big Deal, so that it doesn't control a person's life.
(and yes, the terminology is "survivor", and from what I can tell the same peoples' experiences are consistently left out of the conversation, and yes at least part of that is because it seems like the only people who bring them up in non-trivial ways are trolls of one sort of another.)