So How Do We Talk About Rape?

[rax]

Lately I've been working on talking about things when I think it's important to talk about them, even when doing so makes me uncomfortable. I've also, very recently, been trying to be more frank about what I don't know, and willing to be publically uncertain. So here's a post that contains a bunch of things that make me uncomfortable to share, and that I have absolutely no idea what to do about. As such, it might also contain a lot of things other people have said before or said better; I might be totally off base or missing something obvious. Please let me know if so.

I roll with a pack of genderheads, and sometimes conversation turns to rape[1].I usually refrain from talking about my own experiences. Frustratingly, not talking about my experiences makes me feel like I am silencing myself; I often am actively preventing myself from participating in conversations. However, when I do come in and bring up my own experiences, I feel both silenced and silencing. If a conversation is theoretical or about a specific issue of policy or behavior, and I say "This one time that I was sexually assaulted, the following things happened," conversation often shifts radically to be centered around my own personal experiences of sexual assault. Everyone is so sorry that I had to deal with that, and I have no idea how to respond. How did it happen? What have you done about it? Who did it, so I can be mean to them? That's not actually what I wanted to talk about. I didn't share the anecdote because I was looking for sympathy; I gave you details because they were relevant. I wasn't trying to win the argument, I was trying to relate to the issue the only way I know how, as someone with personal experience. At best when this has happened I've felt like the thread of conversation got lost in people tripping over themselves to make sure I knew they thought what happened to me was terrible; at worst I've felt like I accidentally used "I've been raped" as a thought-terminating cliche, winning an irrelevant argument, and felt guilty about bringing it up at all.

At the same time, when someone says "I'm sorry that happened to you," I do appreciate it. And I've gotten used to it. I don't know what it would feel like to be talking with a group of friends and just be frank about my experiences and have everyone take it for granted. What if it actually felt really horrible? I don't want to take rape and sexual assault for granted, I don't want that sort of statement to be just part of the scenery, and I don't want my experiences glossed over as if they aren't important, either. If this sounds like I want it both ways, it's because I do; I want every assault to be treated as unacceptable but I want to be able to discuss them calmly and impersonally. I have no idea how to do that.

At this point, anyone sufficiently on the Internet to read this post shouldn't need me to tell them that rape happens to many people, regardless of age, color, creed... There are various blog posts and forums and LJ communities where survivors (I'm pretty sure that's the right term? I'm not really a part of this community) get together and discuss their experiences, and anyone who wants to have an absolutely depressing and reality-inducing evening can go and read them. Hopefully you already know that a number of the people in your social group have been victims of rape, and most likely some of them have been perpetrators, too. You'll note I didn't list gender; for the most part these collections of rape stories are very gendered. Partially this is because rape itself, as a cultural phenomenon, as an exercise of power, is gendered. What we know both anecdotally and statistically suggests that this is true: The lion's share of rapes and sexual assaults have male perpetrators and female victims.

I recently read something someone I didn't know wrote that said something like "No discussion of rape is complete without referencing the Ceretapost." (I don't remember exactly where it was, or I would reference it.) This sort of bothered me. I don't know cereta , and I think that her original post --- about men and rape culture --- was valuable and worth reading. The comments made me really upset, though. I didn't read all 4000 because, well, I have a job, but there were a few themes I picked out, that I've also seen other places where this topic comes up in conversation:

• The idea that women shouldn't have to feel unsafe walking alone at night, because most rapes are committed by friends and acquaintances. Yes, thank you, I know this; what I'm concerned with here is a feeling of safety, something that can't just be rationalized away, because most is so, so far from all, and even if I'm not likely to be raped, I may very well be harassed.
• The idea that considering men dangerous or as potential rapists first is bad. I really want to agree, but I have a lot of difficulty doing so. There's a part of me that thinks this is one of the ways sexism hurts men and that I don't want to be part of perpetuating that in the name of feminism, and a part of me that looks at the other part and says "Are you crazy? Can you really afford to give men the benefit of the doubt like that?" The answer is, I don't know.
• A small number of people came up with things like "What about men raped by women, or same-sex rape? Where does that fit into this?" To which the answer was "That doesn't fit into the topic of this post," with a side of "You're derailing." Now, a couple of those posters actually were derailing, but is the idea derailing? I don't know. Having been raped by a woman, and raped while not everyone around me considered me a woman, I feel left behind by this argument, actively pushed out of the conversation. At the same time, I just said above that I wanted there to be room for serious conversations about specific elements of rape issues that weren't focused on my experience. So shouldn't I be glad that this conversation didn't apply to all of my assault experiences, not angry at being excluded? Isn't it important to have these conversations that happen in broad sweeping gendered terms, even if they leave some people or experiences out? (I think part of the problem with that is that the same people get left out, time and time again, but I don't have a good solution for that, or even know if it's true.)

I recently had a personal conversation with a good friend after having talked about one of my assault experiences. She felt strongly that I should push my friends to terminate connection with my assaulter, and to call my assaulter out on their behavior. I did not and do not want to do this; I do not feel the energy spent in making a big deal out of it is actually worth what little I might gain. After all, even if 100 people walk up to this person and tell them "You raped rax  and you're an asshole," I'm not going to be unraped. So I'd rather just let it slide and get on with my life. At first, I thought my friend was bringing it up on my behalf, and I tried to explain that it just wasn't worth it to me. After a while, I understood that it wasn't just about my experience --- it was also about her anxiety and her anger that someone could hurt me like that, and feeling of powerlessness in the face of horrible things happening to people she cared about. She expressed that she wished she knew who in her life had done such things so that she could call them out and ostracize them, and that it was difficult to not be able to, knowing that people she associated with regularly had gotten away with rape. And I feel bad, now, to be contributing to that; to some extent, it's like I'm defending and protecting them by not revealing them, even though what I'm trying to do is defend and protect myself. Oh, cultural systems of power, how clever you are at preserving yourselves!

So what do I want from people when I tell them this has happened to me? Mostly I want them to keep seeing me as a person, not as a "victim," not as someone needing physical or emotional protection, not as a shrill man-hater. Really it depends on context; I'm not averse to expressions of sympathy but if that takes away from the conversation, can we save it for later? Also, it's important to keep in mind --- but it's the sort of thing that I might forget if I didn't write it down here --- that not everyone's desires and needs in this space will be anything like mine. Maybe some people really want and hunger for that sympathy, that focus. Maybe some people feel very strongly that it should go completely unremarked, as if saying "Many years ago, I ate a sandwich." All of these things and more are valid, and I don't know how to handle them any better than anyone else, except when it comes to myself, really. [2]

So, given this, how do we talk about rape? How can we normalize these conversations so that we can be comfortable and make real progress? How can those of us with experiences share our experiences without centering them and without denying the trauma they contain? How can those of us without experiences express our opinions and participate in the conversation? How can we silence no one?

[1] I'm going to use "rape" here as shorthand for "rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault" both because it's convenient and because having a four-letter word to cover that seems valuable and maybe "rape" should be it? I don't know. I could write a whole post on that too except no thank you I have spent enough time on this already.

[2] What I do know is how I'd like you to respond to this post: Please, please don't comment and tell you how sorry you are that I was raped. I consider it safe to assume that you are displeased. If you really want to tell me anyway, send me a private message or an email. I'm much more interested in talking here about how we talk about rape and handle these conversations than in the particulars of my experiences or how terrible they must have been. Thank you.

Comments

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

After I read the responses to my comment, I called a good friend to ask for perspective. Was I in the wrong, or were those who replied? A little of both, that person noted.

We talked about the trauma theory that gaudior has mentioned, though not in those words. I had not been aware of the fight, flight, or flee reaction, though now it makes perfect sense, especially as I have been hit in the past, right before which I became perfectly still, hoping that my attacker would lose interest. Rape is more serious and harmful than any physical attack I've experienced, so I can understand that the freeze reaction would be that much stronger in such a case.

Even before the aforementioned conversation, I did not mean to belittle you or your experience or recriminate any victim of sexual assault. I have no doubt that your experience was horrible. I'm sorry to have given the impression that I didn't care.

I meant to say two things, namely that we don't have enough terminology to differentiate between different types of sexual assault, that calling everything that goes wrong between two people in a sexual context rape is too general; and that misunderstandings take two people, not one -- both (or more) participants in any sexual situation need to be made able to communicate before the fact. Regretfully, that doesn't always happen, but even so blame shouldn't be assigned 100% on any party.

My terminology may be flawed; I admit that. I'm not sure there shouldn't be a different term for what you experienced than "rape," but since there isn't, then yes, you were raped.

However, I do not appreciate your attempt to turn a theoretical discussion into an emotion- and event-based one.

[kiya]

I am quite familiar with this particular theoretical discussion; back when I was trying to deal with the aftermath of my assault the going conversation on the subject was all about whether or not date rape was really rape, or whether it should have a different word.

When the theory invalidates someone's experience, the theory needs to be fixed. Period.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

I meant to say two things, namely that we don't have enough terminology to differentiate between different types of sexual assault, that calling everything that goes wrong between two people in a sexual context rape is too general; and that misunderstandings take two people, not one -- both (or more) participants in any sexual situation need to be made able to communicate before the fact. Regretfully, that doesn't always happen, but even so blame shouldn't be assigned 100% on any party.

I am not sure if this is what you mean to say, but I am reading this as a zero sum argument. That is, that you are arguing that if assailant cannot be held 100 percent responsible for the assault, using your terminology, that the rest of the responsibility falls to the person who was assaulted. Read in this way I find the argument flawed. Some of the responsibility might be argued to fall elsewhere; with society in general, with whomever designed or executed any sexual education the assailant participated in during the course of their schooling, with the assailant's parents/guardians, etc. I don't think someone physically incapable of communicating is in any way at fault for being unable to communicate or for that lack of communication being interpreted as consent, whether the lack of ability to communicate is due to freezing or being incompasitated in some other way. The way that I am interpreting the above appears to me to indicate that you do place some blame on the person who has been assaulted.

Perhaps this is not the argument you are trying to make?

I find a paragraph below similarly problematic. I will reply to it as well briefly.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that blame may not be 100% assignable merely between the parties involved in the sexual situation, but no, I don't agree with you that the victim is entirely blameless.

It is really hard to talk about this without delving into personal experience, so I'll do so with the caveat that I'm saying what follows to illustrate a point, not for sympathy.

I lived alone with my mother, a schizophrenic at that time entirely untreated, between the ages of 7 and 16. She had kidnapped me after my father was awarded custody in their divorce, and there was a warrant for her arrest because of it, so we lived incommunicado, and I did not attend school or interact much with other people of any age. I came out of that experience with chronic PTSD and severely flawed to nonexistent social skills. (And before you say it, yes, they're still flawed, though not to the same extent.)

In the years following, those flawed social skills have caused me extreme difficulty. No one has ever taken me aside to explain that in such-and-such a situation, you do this, and in this other situation, you do that. I have been in every case expected to pick this information up on my own, as my own responsibility.

And you know what? That is correct. To no one but me is it most important that I acquire these skills, and since this is the nature of individuality, so it should be.

So here is the parallel I build on the above: If it is true that a person is responsible for his or her own social skills, does that not include, to some extent, acquiring education on how to act or react or communicate in sexual situations? Aren't both parties to blame when there is a situation involving a misunderstanding that leads to rape, for neglecting to educate themselves on how to handle such a situation, at the very least? Because it is most important to those people involved in the situation, not to someone else or to society, to avoid rape.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

The problem is that we are talking about someone who is not able to communicate. (At least that's what I'm talking about?) Probably someone who knows they should say no/stop/don't and isn't capable of doing so, because they are frozen due to fear, or because they are intoxicated, or because things are happening too fast for them to process quickly enough to react appropriately, or there are some other factors making them physically incapable of communicating a lack of consent.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

The victim should in no way be blamed for the act of being raped, and in many cases, it's really hard to tell what social situations can lead to rape, so there is no fault on the victim's part in those cases. But if before such a social situation begins, someone feels that something weird is going on, that it's uncomfortable, that someone else is making unwanted passes and they're not alone yet... I would say that knowing that and getting into the situation anyway is partially the fault of the person who may later because of it become a rape victim.

[kelkyag]

They're not to be blamed, but they're partly at fault? You can't have both of those.

Having sex with someone who is unable to say no is wrong and entirely the fault of the one initiating sex in my worldview, even if the one unable to give or deny concent was in that state entirely of their own initiative.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

They're not to be blamed, but they're partly at fault? You can't have both of those.

I think there's an important distinction to be made between "blame" and "responsibility". Blame is "you fucked up and did something you absolutely should not have done". Responsibility is "you could have done something to mitigate or prevent this, but you weren't the ultimate cause". So, yes, it can be both, though I think "fault" was probably the wrong word to use, as it's a fuzzy concept that can apply to either "blame" or "responsibility" depending on context.

[rax.livejournal.com]

If it is true that a person is responsible for his or her own social skills, does that not include, to some extent, acquiring education on how to act or react or communicate in sexual situations? Aren't both parties to blame when there is a situation involving a misunderstanding that leads to rape, for neglecting to educate themselves on how to handle such a situation, at the very least? Because it is most important to those people involved in the situation, not to someone else or to society, to avoid rape.

This makes me really nervous. I'm not 100% sure that you're wrong --- it's hard to get emotional brain and theory brain to calm down and talk to each other rationally on this one --- but I think there's a big difference between the enlightened self-interest of "I want to learn how to say no more effectively" and blame of "This was my fault for not having the presence of mind to say no more effectively." At the same time, I don't want to do the anti-porn feminist thing and act like women are some precious flowers who need protection and can't protect ourselves.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

Oh, no. I don't mean the "This was my fault for not having the presence of mind to say no more effectively" interpretation. I mean that we should all make an effort to listen to signals we're receiving, and if we don't want to respond to them in the positive, respond to them immediately in the negative.

Sometimes that doesn't happen, and sometimes if it does happen, it doesn't work. But it's always worth trying.

[rax.livejournal.com]

OK, I feel much better now. Thank you.

[eredien]

However, I do not appreciate your attempt to turn a theoretical discussion into an emotion- and event-based one.

I think part of the point of this whole discussion is that it's really hard to seperate out the "theoretical" of discussions surrounding rape from the "emotion" or "event-based" discussions surrounding rape.

Rather, I see it as a series of open questions, among them these:
- whether there are or can be such distinctions
- whether it is good to have such distinctions
- whether it is useful to have such distinctions
- a question of who makes the distinctions, on what basis or grounds.

I think that you and lilairen may be running into the question of if there can be a distinction between theory, emotion, and event on some of these questions; I think you are each coming down on different sides of that question. I won't presume to answer the question of why you may be coming down on different sides or what on what grounds or basis you are distinguishing, because I don't know.

and that misunderstandings take two people, not one -- both (or more) participants in any sexual situation need to be made able to communicate before the fact.

This would be ideal, yes.

As I understand it, it's your understanding that both people need to communicate before the fact, and if that doesn't happen it's partially the fault of both people that the rape occurs for not communicating clearly. However, that doesn't address the point that I think lilairen is making, which applies to situations where people *can not* communicate clearly (panic attack, druggings, mentally disabled people, the very elderly or very young, people with severe mental health problems, those in institutons, etc.)?

I think your position leaves those people out because it's assuming that everyone has the ability--and associated responsibility--to give or withhold consent, but not everyone does at all, and of those that do have that ability, not every one of those people has it all the time.

If I've misrepresented your understanding in the above, please post here and let me know so I can come back and reconsider.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

The second half of this articulates the thing I was objecting to much better than I did. Thank you.

[kiya]

Precisely this, yes.

I would add: the ability to have a discussion purely in theoryland about such subjects (rape, racism, heterocentricity, transphobia, whatever) is a pretty sure sign that the person in question doesn't have to wrestle with the problem on an intimate personal level. "This is just an abstract, theoretical conversation" not only doesn't play with actual life stuff, it can't; as soon as real people with actual experiences come into play, the theory needs to be tested against reality, and if reality conflicts, the theory has to go.

And part of the cost of being those people with actual experiences is being told by the people with the theories that those experiences are atypical, exceptional, don't count, didn't happen the way they were reported, or, as in this case, that mentioning those experiences is a sign that we are too emotional to have the conversation in the first place.

I am glad that other people took up the conversation, honestly, and were competent to express the points that I felt needed to be made; I am not someone who is well-suited to teasing out alternate interpretations of theories that appear to me to be primarily about making space to blame victims of crimes for allowing themselves to have been harmed.



Looking at some quoted phrasing, meanwhile, there's an interesting and relevant question:

Who determines that people are "participants in a sexual situation"?

I know in my own experience with assault and harassment, the "sexual situation" was something that was created externally and inflicted upon me from the outside. I was not a "participant in a sexual situation" any more than the victim of a pickpocket is a "participant in an act of commerce".

I'm entirely willing to grant that participants in a sexual situation have some level of reasonable obligation to communicate about their boundaries, but that still does not cover situations in which nonparticipants are dragged into such a situation. This isn't even getting into the question of whether or not those nonparticipants are capable of expressing consent clearly - it's noting that one person's sexual desire does not obligate anyone else to perform.

The idea that someone can unilaterally create a "sexual situation" that conveys obligations on other people is one I think ... dangerous.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I would add: the ability to have a discussion purely in theoryland about such subjects (rape, racism, heterocentricity, transphobia, whatever) is a pretty sure sign that the person in question doesn't have to wrestle with the problem on an intimate personal level. "This is just an abstract, theoretical conversation" not only doesn't play with actual life stuff, it can't; as soon as real people with actual experiences come into play, the theory needs to be tested against reality, and if reality conflicts, the theory has to go.

Across a lifetime, I agree; in an individual conversation, I disagree. I know this isn't what you mean, but it's possible to read this as "your abstract theoretical engagement means you don't have to wrestle with this problem on an intimate personal level," and just no.

[kiya]

Yeah, I didn't phrase that as well as I could have. I have a lot of pent-up frustration around stuff that looks like "My theory about people like you, it matters more than what you've actually been through!" right now which is probably interfering with my language generation functions, alas.

Plus reading more goddamn racefail stuff in which various POC have pointed out that it's all easy to be rational and detached about stuff that isn't the same-shit-that-gets-thrown-at-one-every-damn-day, which I paraphrased poorly.

[rax.livejournal.com]

That's cool, I know you well enough to know where you were going, but I thought it was important to clarify. I have a lot of related frustrations. :/