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]

I would argue rather that if the man can't tell if the woman wants to have sex or not, if she is not clearly consenting, that he should take that as an indication that she does not until proven otherwise.

Yes. He should. And if he doesn't know enough to do that? And she doesn't know enough not to put herself in a situation where she might not be able to say no and regret it later? Who's at fault then? Everyone should be more aware of these issues. But that doesn't mean that they are or will be. I would argue that there is an element of personal responsibility there that we're trying to say isn't there.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

And she doesn't know enough not to put herself in a situation where she might not be able to say no and regret it later?

Unfortunately, this is prohibitively restrictive. Such situations might include going over to someone's house to watch a movie or play games and being the only other person who shows up, inviting someone over for dinner and having them be the only other person who shows up, getting a ride home with a coworker and having them ask to come inside to use the bathroom, being in a hotel room with a coworker for some sort of conference either because you are rooming with them or because you are working on some sort of work thing with them, staying late at work, staying late at school, getting off at the same bus stop as someone you know from the bus and chatting with them as you walk home, having a couple of drinks at the bar with friends and getting more drunk from them than you expected, having some punch at a party and getting drunk from it because you didn't know it was spiked, going for a hike in the woods with someone you've hiked with before, making out with someone without any intent of going further, leaving your room unlocked when one of your roommates has a guest you don't know well staying over, leaving your room unlocked when you have roommates... Any social situation has the possibility of suddenly becoming a situation where one person is initiating sex and the other person isn't able to say no. And I do go through my life personally assessing how safe I feel in each situation as I go along. This isn't going to help if all situations are potentially dangerous.

If the options are never be anywhere alone with anyone ever even if you think you know them pretty well or ever let yourself be at all incapacitated in a voluntary way such as drinking or being tired even if you think you are in a pretty safe space, or sometimes put yourself at risk, that isn't really a choice.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's a really good point; I hadn't considered that variety of situations. Sometimes there are no signs beforehand that things are amiss. But when you're getting the feeling that something's wrong, and you ignore your instincts, you're putting yourself in danger.

I would never say that if a person gives another person the benefit of the doubt after getting a negative impression of him or her and is later raped by the other person, that the first person was "asking for it," should be socially reprimanded, or should be legally at fault. But it remains a personal responsibility to hone your instincts and learn to listen to them.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

This has been a really interesting conversation. Thank you.

Instincts is one of the places where things start to get complex, I think, because there is a great deal of social pressure to not listen to them. I think most of that is related to expectations about polite society and not making a big deal out of things. I also think that we get inured to listening to gut instincts because most of the time nothing bad happens.

(On the other hand, if I'd listened to my instincts I'd never have dated my first boyfriend, and that wouldn't be such a bad thing. I mean, nothing really bad happened, but he was obsessive and pushy and I most certainly wouldn't date him again.)

I think it would be very good if we did listen to our instincts more, and I think I've been able to more as I've gotten older, but I do still feel social pressure to not listen to them sometimes in situations where I've decided that the discomfort I'm already feeling is better than the possible discomfort of doing something socially improper where I don't know what the consequences are going to be. So far this has worked out OK, but it is a risk.

Example: I went to a class on bondage with a friend and her boyfriend. I didn't have a partner and so I partnered with someone else who was there on their own. I felt a little uncomfortable about this, especially when he started to insist that I smile more, but kept working with him because I didn't want to not work with anyone and couldn't think of any better solution.

[eredien]

And she doesn't know enough not to put herself in a situation where she might not be able to say no and regret it later?

Unfortunately, this is prohibitively restrictive.

I agree.

In its focus on giving or withholding of consent and trying to determine "safe" vs. "unsafe" situations, I think this mini-conversation is still overlooking situations where people are not able to say "no" at all.

It is not true that everyone is capable of having and/or expressing those instincts that tell you "something's wrong," and of those people who can and do express those instincts, there is a subset that is not capable of putting themselves into or getting themselves out of a dangerous situation. Please see partial list above.

I think that the culpability and responsibility in those cases, especially, lies firmly on the shoulders of the rapist.