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

[ckd]

This is not easy stuff for anyone to talk about, and that's unfortunate for everyone.

To look at only one of the several points you address: I think that women considering all (or most) men to be potentially dangerous is bad, yet sadly necessary. I don't mean this in a sexist way, but there is a power asymmetry in society and that's the direction it runs in. This doesn't mean that all men are rapists, nor does it mean that no women are; this also doesn't mean that this assumption is somehow not hurting the men who would never harass or assault a woman.

This just means that the costs of a false positive (someone feels bad) weighed against those of a false negative (someone is raped) make it better to err on the side of caution.

The only way to change this equation in a general way is to change the culture, which is hardly a simple task. The only way to change this in a specific situation is to build trust between the woman (or women) and the man (or men) involved.

I am flattered when someone says or otherwise indicates that they have that level of trust in me. I wish I weren't, because I wish it were possible for it to be a baseline default assumption; I don't treat it as "oh look I get a cookie" or anything. I do see it as an indication that I'm managing to be the kind of person I want to be, to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

But dammit, I really wish it wasn't like this.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's one of those things wherein we have to specify the intent first? As in, "Now, I'm about to give this example to facilitate conversation, and I'd rather avoid expressions of sympathy that detract from that conversation..."

I consider it safe to assume that you are displeased.

That's also a very good way of putting it.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Is culture the reason people fail to respect other people's boundaries at times? I somehow suspect there are other factors at play in at least some cases.

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

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.)

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

over the char limit!

(digression: I would like education to expand into Teaching Women About Their Bodies, in addition to all the Sex For Men: How Not To Rape education. If women know it shouldn't hurt, and if women know how to make sex good, I think they'll be more in touch with themselves and able to communicate consent better. This is often called Victim Blaming, and that annoys me. How Not To Rape is incredibly important education and we should all take the class. But we should also take Clear Communication And Assertiveness Training. I think a lot of rape is the Clueless Asshole kind; where people aren't responsive, people are trained that nonresponsive is normal, and don't know they're raping when someone's not responding. I think a lot of assholes are more likely to stop if the victim is screaming "stop raping me!" although, of course, a lot aren't. mumble mumble, can't address rape without addressing rape culture; can't address rape culture just by addressing one gender; mumble, mumble grr.)

[cshiley.livejournal.com]

Er. I mean, "as if understanding it would be condoning it". Sheesh. :)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

... well, the reason I'd want to know if a person I knew/spent any amount of time around had committed rape/attempted rape/sexual assault is not just so I could break off connections with the person, ostracize them, or even express disapproval; it is so I could never be alone in a room with them again. Telling people about it when you know someone to be dangerous helps keep everybody safe.

[iainuki.livejournal.com]

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.

I'd argue it is sexism (because it's judging all members of a gender as a group, not as individuals), but a necessary evil nonetheless in our place and time? Maybe in the future some context will change, whether its human biology or pervasive surveillance or VR pornography (yes, crazy suggestions), but for now I don't see a way around it. It's really a subset of the caution that I think everyone should have about men and their potential for violence, male and female, it's just because most men are heterosexual, women need to pay special attention to the risks of sexual violence. It doesn't make me happy, but I don't know how to change it.

On the other hand, I think the sexism surrounding men and rape, the dismissive attitude of society towards men as victims of rape, is entirely unnecessary. Sexism most often cuts against women, but that's one definite way it hurts men.

[ckd]

There are certainly many other factors in play.

I think that a change in the culture to make personal boundaries more clearly valued within the larger cultural framework would make boundary transgressions (all across the spectrum) less common. Will they be sufficiently less common to really matter? I'd like to think so, but it's probably a utopian hope.

[kiya]

It's not that simple (and you're not even saying that it's simple; it's not even as simple as that).

What I tend to take away from 'men are dangerous' is "And therefore it's your own stupid fault you were sexually assaulted, you should have known better."

It does not help that my own mother was so blase about the prospect that I might have been raped that she not only didn't ask me if I was all right when she thought it had happened, but the first time I tried to talk about it she responded with a shrug and a, "I figured he forced himself on you." Just another everyday occurence.

That's the message I get from it: rape is normal. If it happens to you it's because you didn't take proper precautions. You should have known men are just like that.

(The victim-blaming self-hatred shit around rape and sexual assault? I managed to pick up rather a lot of that.)

Took me eight years to get the emotional space to believe it was okay to admit to having been messed up by the assault; nine years after that, and I still haven't genuinely shaken the conviction that it was basically my fault. Because men are dangerous. I should have known better.

Y'know?

[ckd]

That's not a reading I'd thought of, and I apologize. My privilege is showing.

That was not my intention, but I can see that angle on it, and it doesn't change anything for me to say ex post facto that I don't support victim-blaming.

I'll be more direct about it: the rapist is the one responsible. Period.

My apologies.

[kiya]

I think, like I said back when that post was making the rounds, that the necessary first step is for people to talk about their experiences. To be able to do that, to open up and say what happened, in their own terms, on their own terms. The people whose rapes were in keeping with the social narratives of rape; the people whose rapes were not. The people whose emotional responses were in keeping with the social narratives of response; the people whose emotional responses were not.

There was a meme that went around back when I was fairly new on LJ, called "No pity, no shame, no silence." In response to that, I wrote down my assault experiences in detail for the first time; I'd talked around it before, but there I laid out what happened, in detail, as precisely as I could do it. And there was a huge number of people who did basically the same thing - ranging from violent rape through to 'yeah, it was technically rape, but whatever' - and it was impossible to read through all this and say there is one true narrative of the rape experience.

I think the asynchronisity of the internet helps with that one; nobody was talking over anyone else, everyone had their space for it. It was also spontaneous - not a "Let's all tell our stories" but one person, then another, all these people cascading into this giant expression of reality and stunning all those people who didn't know, who weren't aware that all this was out there, who could now be aware of the fact that this was only the people who were able to speak up and tell their stories.

I don't know what the next step is after that. I'm pretty sure that's the first step, though - to make it so that this stuff can be said. All the stories. Without the people telling the stories getting stamped with the RAPE VICTIM stamp and sent off into the purgatorio of never-listened-to-again-except-to-tell-a-sob-story.

[kiya]

It's not a big deal; you didn't trigger me or anything, I'm not upset. Just ... wanting to point out some of the difficulties of talking about it: you don't know what will be someone's trigger, what approaches will be useful. There aren't sound narratives, and it's all tremendously fraught.

The messages of culpability directed at survivors are many and complicated, and it's hard to tell which ones will catch. I got what I think is an atypical one there, or at least I haven't run into many people who have it and will speak up about it.

[inkmark.livejournal.com]

These are all very good points, and rather than come up with a coherent essay response (which would require more brain power than I have right now; blame baking), I'll respond to a few points that really jumped out at me.

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?

I think that's asking a lot of survivors, don't you think? If we're just exchanging facts and getting people up to speed, that's one thing, but to have a conversation and dialogue ideally entails an ability to consider alternate points of view, a willingness to be wrong, an ability to not let differing opinions generate anger or distress, and a degree of adeptness with the material being discussed. For many reasons owing to the trauma experienced, I wouldn't assume or expect an individual survivor to be ready to do some of these. If they're in a really angry spot in relation to their trauma, I wouldn't expect them to be in a place to calmly discuss mitigating factors in rape, for example. It's not my call to expect that of survivors; it's a factor of their healing and coming to terms, and that is a life long process. It certainly is for me.

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.

Yeah, that's pretty much why I don't bring up my experience at all. :) A similar thing happens when I bring my speech disorder into a discussion; they don't apologize for me having to live with it, but it does put a pall on the discussion, like I simultaneously played a trump card and a sympathy card unexpectedly and inappropriately. It's quite annoying, and oddly silencing; in the past, it was even shaming.

Having been on the other side, though, it's not just about the person who says it. It's also about the other people in the conversation. No one wants to be the person who doesn't have sympathy for the rape victim, you know? For example, you may be ok and even appreciative that I didn't try to apologize but instead carried onward with the conversation; but the other people listening certainly will wonder why. That's not to excuse the act or diminish or dismiss other facets, but just to bring to light another facet of the situation.

Second part:

[inkmark.livejournal.com]

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.)

Well, cereta's post sort of assumed male on female rape was the major issue that needed to be discussed. She was targetting it as a female to her male readers and friends, so I can see why she'd make the assumption, but it's still there, and it's still silencing and distancing. When we discuss these issues, it isn't like physics or engineering where we can consider a gluon or a cog apart from the whole; it's like biology, where even if we discuss a muscle apart from the body, that body is still there, implicit and necessary to understanding the muscle. And just as a discussion of that muscle would have to mention the other muscles near it or related to it, the bones it attaches to, the nerves and blood vessels and use and overuse of it in relation to other bodily functions and actions, so should a discussion centered around male on female rape at least give tacit acknowledgement that it's not the only kind of rape, just that they're choosing to focus on this kind in that post. This can be done either in the post, or though responses in the comments. Maybe she thought her blog and prior posts were acknowledgement enough?

That didn't really come out as clearly as I thought it would... let me know if you want me to restate it.

Also: Thank you for having this discussion. :)

[ckd]

I really do appreciate it, and I'll do my best to keep this in mind, and to be more aware of possible interpretations and different viewpoints. It's important.

There aren't sound narratives, and it's all tremendously fraught.

It is, and yet it still needs to be talked about. Somehow. As part of that, I need to be willing and able to listen.

[friode.livejournal.com]

And yet, I get the impression that the legislators in our government (aren't they the folks who write policy?) actually want to know about individual experiences moreso than general theory, both from things I have heard from one of them, and a letter I got from another in response to one of my letters.

[friode.livejournal.com]

The man who (thinks he) just enjoys sex with the cold fish might look at the title and figure he doesn't need How Not To Rape, and that sounds like an unpleasant title that isn't exactly going to draw voluntary participants, either.

Be careful with Clear Communication and Assertiveness that those who are naturally assertive don't miss the point about how some people aren't anywhere near as assertive as they are.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I had genuinely not considered this reason, which now feels incredibly obvious, and I am glad I made this post if for no other reason than this realization. I need to sit long and hard and figure out if this changes my mental math. Dammit, and thank you.

[friode.livejournal.com]

What's your take on defensive driving, then? (The idea that, sometimes it's worthwhile to be a conservative driver in ways that can prevent an accident, even if the accident that's prevented is one that the insurance companies would have decided you weren't primarily at fault for?)

[ckd]

That's a good question. My first reaction is that I think there's a value to being cautious in many areas of life (driving, finances, and so on) but that there's a wide band of "reasonable caution" between the overly cautious (driving at 25 mph all the time) and reckless (driving at 125 mph all the time).

The analogy is hard to carry too far, because of the question of intent and agency; there's no equivalent to the one-car accident (which is quite possibly what the 125 mph driver will wind up in), and the number of people actively trying to crash into your car is fairly low. (Not zero; every so often a bunch of people are busted for insurance fraud for staging or causing accidents that will appear to be the other driver's fault.)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I really just... don't talk about rape.

The culture around talking about it feels like it's full of assumptions as to who is "allowed" to talk about it, and it includes people who sound like their feminist discourse could slip into saying I'm not a woman (and thus not allowed to talk about anything "feminine" let alone rape) because of the trans thing. I have enough lingering issues about my own femininity that I just don't want to go wading into something like that. Not with people who sometimes seem to have ended up with "I was raped" being a huge part of their identity in a way that seems terribly counterproductive. (On the other hand it took me about fifteen years to recover from the trauma of my father's unexpected death on my twelfth birthday; some stuff can take a loooong time to process and not everyone does their processing in as involuted a manner as I did...)

Also, you are the first person I know who has ever said "I have been raped", and I get the sense that you're at a point where you've mostly processed it. A few people I know have told me about sexual encounters that could probably be labeled "rape", but they did not couch it in that term - instead, it was stories of Really Bad And Regrettable Sex with Regrettable People who they'd really rather not ever interact with again. With a power imbalance involved. I have simply not had a reason to have a conversation about it with anyone I'm actually already talking with, nor any reason to get involved in a conversation (argument) with a stranger!

[friode.livejournal.com]

I think there is also the question of whether this person needs cshiley's How Not To Rape and is merely misinformed, or if no amount of paying attention to How Not To Rape would improve this person's behavior in the future. But I suspect in the real world it's often hard to figure out which category someone fits into.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Well, there was the one time I had some lazy sunny morning thoughts about the recurrence of "rape" in the titles of various classical paintings, and posted some half-formed thoughts to LJ about some images that would poke at that theme. The flames I got made me take the post private, and decide that yes, these images would generate a hell of a lot of discussion if I actually did them... and that this was not a subject I really felt like I wanted to fight to be allowed to explore, not when I only have so much time and have some big ideas that I'm much more drawn to. I'd much rather do something that makes people happy to look at.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Actually, with the way curves are banked on interstate highways, etc, driving at 25 mph on an Interstate might be less safe than driving 45 mph, so I'm not sure I'd necessarily label always 25 mph as cautious. But that's pretty tangential to this discussion.