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

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Does it really? Putting aside the difference between information and implication for the moment, was it useful to your aunt?

"Black people are potential rapists" says more too. Let's decode the implication into "There are more black rapists than white rapists." Even if it's true information, is it useful? I think we've demonstrated pretty well in this country that when we take this "information" to heart and decide that the solution is to treat a group like ("potential", read "likely") criminals, it not only fails to reduce the crime, but feeds the cycle by leading more of them to conclude that they might as well be criminals if we're not going to let them be anything else. Yes, the individuals are responsible for their actions, but statistics beget statistics. People can be weak in the face of limits, and the nature of these circumstances decides how many succumb and turn their back on virtue. Do we want to uphold the statistics so we can keep pointing at them, or prevent them? This ties into lilairen's vital complaint.

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of those "We are having different conversations" moment. I think sethg_prime is just saying that it is significant that men do more rape than women do. You are talking about "well what should we do about that?" and generally contending that anything we do about that is going to be bad.

Some of the things we do about it could be more positive, such as spending our money to put "It's hotter if she says yes" ads in the mens' bathrooms at bars instead of in both the mens' and womens'. It could lead us to wonder why men are more likely to rape and try to figure out the underpinnings and address those (like figleaf's Two Rules of Desire (http://www.realadultsex.com/archives/2009/01/shorter_nosex_class_paradigm.html)) where we can.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

and generally contending that anything we do about that is going to be bad.

No, there are good things to do about it, and they fit into these categories:
1. Focusing on the crime itself, and saving our scorn and punishment for those individuals who commit it and enable it.
2. Undermining cultural gender essentialism at every opportunity. Not feeding it.

Too often the question is reduced to "What is it inherent in men that makes them more likely to rape?" which by its starting assumption throws out a lot of answers. I believe that this very assumption and its repetition throughout culture is one of the underpinnings of why, and I am addressing it. Dissatisfied with the lack of first cause, you can instead follow it chicken-and-egg back to the Stone Age, but the answers you find there are not going to offer a solution to today's problems.

[sethg]

Putting aside the difference between information and implication for the moment, was it useful to your aunt?

In spite of my aunt's experience, I would still contend that a cyclist who wears a helmet while riding in traffic is exercising necessary prudence, while a pedestrian who wears a helmet while crossing the street is being silly.

Let's decode the implication into "There are more black rapists than white rapists." Even if it's true information, is it useful? I think we've demonstrated pretty well in this country that when we take this "information" to heart and decide that the solution is to treat a group like ("potential", read "likely") criminals, it not only fails to reduce the crime, but feeds the cycle

As cshiley says above, it's not the recognition itself that is the problem; it's the response--in particular, response that reinforces social hierarchies. In the case of race, the problematic social response is generally actions to maintain white privilege using the threat of black-on-white rape as a pretense.

When men's statistically greater likelihood of being raped just leads women to be a little more on their guard when they are alone with men, well, it makes me sad that not everyone can read my mind well enough to perceive my impeccable virtue and trustworthiness, but I wouldn't call it unjust.

When it leads to women being restricted (by law or social pressure) from doing certain activities that men are free to do, because "if you do X and Y and Z you will be all alone with a bunch of men and one of them might rape you" (examples have been given in other people's comments here), that's a problem, because that restriction is perpetuating male privilege.

I assume there are a few cases where a man was turned down for a job as a nurse or some other conventionally female job because everyone else in that work place was female and having him as a co-worker would lead to a woman alone with a man in the break room, or whatever, and they were concerned about the threat of rape. I would also consider that to be illegitimate discrimination. (If the job in question was working at a battered women's shelter or some such, and the justification for not hiring him was that it would be triggery for the clients... I'm not sure where I stand on that one.)

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really looking at it in terms of how the treatment is fair or unfair, but more in terms of what happens when you put the idea in someone's head that this behavior is in their nature. There are a lot of people who think they need to follow their nature, even if they have to do it consciously because someone else told them what it is. Make a thing part of their identity, no matter how negative, and they embrace it, even take pride in it. A small-minded man who thinks cleaving to his gender role is the most important thing in the world might feel like a rape or two is what he needs to assert and fortify his masculinity. This may, in fact, be what happens every day. I can imagine a really insecure F2M having internalized this idea and thinking that to be a man he really has to rape someone. Set down tracks for people and they will follow them.

[sethg]

I'm not saying that a propensity for rape is in the nature of men, or that there's no hope of ever reaching a society where rapes by men and women are equally rare. It's just that right now in this society, the correlation exists, and it's not always unreasonable to act in a way that takes that into account.