swan_tower (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
swan_tower) wrote2012-08-22 11:14 pm
swan_tower) wrote2012-08-22 11:14 pm
a disturbing thought
The various blow-ups around Todd Akin's comments and the accusations against Julian Assange and all the rest of it mean that a lot of the internet is talking about rape right now. And one of the posts I just read got me thinking about the topic from an angle I've never considered before -- a deeply disturbing one.
I know that I know women who have been raped. I know that I probably know more of them than I think, because not all of them necessarily have mentioned it to me -- or to anyone. This is horrifying, but it's a kind of horror I've gotten used to, in the sense that I understand this is a real thing in my life.
Tonight, I found myself thinking that I may very well know one or more rapists, too.
I can't be sure, of course, because it's the kind of thing people bring up even less than they bring up being the victim of rape. But I may know a guy (or a woman, but that's uncommon enough that I'll go with the assumption of a guy for now) who has raped someone. Not the hold-them-at-knifepoint kind of rape, maybe, but the sort where the other party didn't consent -- which is, yes, still rape. I may know a guy who slipped roofies into a woman's drink (or a man's), or just got her too drunk to know what he was doing. I may know a guy who climbed onto a sleeping woman and fucked her against her will. I may know a guy who coerced his victim with words, who did any one of the hundred things that guys write off as "not really rape" and therefore rest secure in the knowledge that they aren't rapists.
But they are. And maybe I know a guy like that.
It's easy for me to think, when I read about those kinds of cases, that the guys in them obviously deserve condemnation. That it doesn't matter whether they're "nice guys" the rest of the time; what they did is still rape and should be called such, without prevarication. That their friends need to accept that somebody they know and like did a horrible thing, and not try to defend the guy by shifting the blame onto the victim.
Then I wonder how I would react if somebody told me one of my friends raped them. How long it would take me to move past the "but he wouldn't do that!" reaction, and listen to what the victim has to say. To believe them, at the cost of what I believed before.
I hope I could do it. I hope I could, if the situation arose, swallow questions like "are you sure?" and "but didn't you . . . ?" and other things that would hurt somebody who's already been hurt too much. I think I could do it after a while, but in the moment itself, I'm not sure if my principles would beat out my partisan bias, my loyalty to that friend. I hope they would.
I hope that, if one of you ever comes to me and says somebody I know and like did a horrible thing to you, I will be able to face the fact that there is a rapist among my friends.
Because there might be one among them right now. And that's appalling in ways I'd never really thought about before.
I know that I know women who have been raped. I know that I probably know more of them than I think, because not all of them necessarily have mentioned it to me -- or to anyone. This is horrifying, but it's a kind of horror I've gotten used to, in the sense that I understand this is a real thing in my life.
Tonight, I found myself thinking that I may very well know one or more rapists, too.
I can't be sure, of course, because it's the kind of thing people bring up even less than they bring up being the victim of rape. But I may know a guy (or a woman, but that's uncommon enough that I'll go with the assumption of a guy for now) who has raped someone. Not the hold-them-at-knifepoint kind of rape, maybe, but the sort where the other party didn't consent -- which is, yes, still rape. I may know a guy who slipped roofies into a woman's drink (or a man's), or just got her too drunk to know what he was doing. I may know a guy who climbed onto a sleeping woman and fucked her against her will. I may know a guy who coerced his victim with words, who did any one of the hundred things that guys write off as "not really rape" and therefore rest secure in the knowledge that they aren't rapists.
But they are. And maybe I know a guy like that.
It's easy for me to think, when I read about those kinds of cases, that the guys in them obviously deserve condemnation. That it doesn't matter whether they're "nice guys" the rest of the time; what they did is still rape and should be called such, without prevarication. That their friends need to accept that somebody they know and like did a horrible thing, and not try to defend the guy by shifting the blame onto the victim.
Then I wonder how I would react if somebody told me one of my friends raped them. How long it would take me to move past the "but he wouldn't do that!" reaction, and listen to what the victim has to say. To believe them, at the cost of what I believed before.
I hope I could do it. I hope I could, if the situation arose, swallow questions like "are you sure?" and "but didn't you . . . ?" and other things that would hurt somebody who's already been hurt too much. I think I could do it after a while, but in the moment itself, I'm not sure if my principles would beat out my partisan bias, my loyalty to that friend. I hope they would.
I hope that, if one of you ever comes to me and says somebody I know and like did a horrible thing to you, I will be able to face the fact that there is a rapist among my friends.
Because there might be one among them right now. And that's appalling in ways I'd never really thought about before.
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Yeah, that's complicated. There's a difference between somebody who did something they knew was wrong (but decided, for one reason or another, that they didn't care), and somebody who didn't realize what they were doing was wrong. And, of course, it's difficult-to-impossible to decide where the line between those two things is -- because while we'd like to think all these things are clearly and obviously Not Right, that is clearly and obviously not the case to enough people. There have been enough studies showing that guys will admit to rape if you don't call it that in the question to prove that point.
I was thinking, after I posted this, about how I would respond not only to the victim, but to the perpetrator. What I would say to them -- presuming, of course, that the victim doesn't ask me not to say anything at all. And I really don't know. I hate confrontation, so having that conversation . . . a very huge part of me would want to chicken out on it. But I need to be willing to look somebody like that in the face and say, "what the ever-living hell, dude, that is not okay." Because if we want to make rape a thing that happens less often, we need people who are willing to point at "less rapey" ways of raping and say, nope, sorry, that's rape, and you have got to mend your ways.
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A lot of the conversation around the Readercon debacle helped to crystallize this for me. It's very easy to be in my own head and be all, "I would be denying this person my friendship and hospitality just because they made one mistake a long time ago! Is that fair and just and reasonable?" Because of course in my world I am the most important person. But in their world... I'm just one person. And if I turn out to be just one person who can't be friends with them anymore because they raped someone, then that is actually not a very big sanction. There are six billion other people they could be friends with, about 5.99 billion of whom (let's be honest here) really won't care that they raped someone, or at least won't care enough to let it get in the way of being friends. No matter how awesome I am, denying someone my friendship and hospitality is small potatoes. Regardless of whether you want to talk about consequences or punishment or deterrent, it ranks really low on the scales of possible consequences or punishments for raping someone, and even lower on the scales of deterrents for raping again in the future. The more I think about it, the more angry I get that all I can do to this person is deny them the pleasure of my company and the comfort of my home.
On the other hand, making a safe space for someone who's been assaulted, and pledging to them that that space will never be invaded by the person who assaulted them? That is a big deal. That is an amazing thing to do. People who talk about being raped are shamed and blamed and made to feel like crap, whether they're reporting it to the police or just telling their friends. Those same 5.99 billion people who wouldn't hesitate to befriend a rapist also wouldn't hesitate to say awful things to the rapist's target, because rape culture is pervasive and horrible. Offering any kind of help at all to someone who's been raped, even a moment of listening and support, is a glorious bounty of kindness compared to what they get from most people. Going a bit out of my way to make a little oasis of safety for them is pretty high on the mitzvah list.
So to run the cost–benefit analysis from this perspective, with all numbers on a scale from 0 to 10:
Cost to the ostracized rapist: .0001
Cost to me (sadness over the loss of a friend, the effort of the "we're no longer friends and this is why" conversation, the effort of making sure that person does not enter any spaces I have say over): .01
Benefit to me (knowing I've done the right thing, cementing a friendship): 2
Benefit to the rape survivor: 1000
The conclusion is obvious.
Because if we want to make rape a thing that happens less often, we need people who are willing to point at "less rapey" ways of raping and say, nope, sorry, that's rape, and you have got to mend your ways.
Yes, very much so.
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I run events on a scale where this isn't actually possible as a blanket policy. But specifically in the case of someone having been assaulted--whether it's sexual assault or not--I agree completely.
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And hello! I'm afraid I'm pretty faceblind and photos are useless to me, but feel free to email me your name; I certainly know your handle from various places around LJ.
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IDK, I'm not trying to say "save all the rapists!" here, which I'm sure some people would take it as, but consent isn't something people are properly educated about. So somebody will say "rape" and the other person will be like, "I didn't jump out a bush at nobody, wtf!?", and it's just a mess. Whereas they need to be told (NOT by their victims) that it's NOT OKAY.
There's also the attitude, at least in US culture, that criminals of pretty much any sort are un-rehabilitatable, and I don't entirely agree there. It's a complex topic I can't really cover in one comment but I SERIOUSLY wish that enthusiastic consent and consent in all its forms were covered in sex ed, because I have seen so many people NOT GET IT. And with the way rapists are dehumanized, it's going to be really tough to "get through" to the rapist after the fact (because nobody thinks they're a monster).
(And obviously, there are rapists that know what they're doing and just don't care. But I know at least one who... really didn't and was totally horrified after the fact when it was explained, because he THOUGHT that it was consensual. And I think some people expect that this stuff should just be automatically known, when it's never taught, and I certainly wasn't aware until I started hanging out in feminist groups. Going to edit to add here also that this is someone I know online and not like I took his "side" over a friend who was his victim.)
Argh, I hope this came across the way I meant. I'm really, really not trying to say that rape shouldn't be taken seriously or punished or etc (because I am a survivor myself) but I think between dehumanization and lack of education regarding consent (plus the whole male privilege thing that's all through our culture), it's just setting situations like this up to occur with very little chance of actually rehabilitating the perpetrators.
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(Anonymous) 2012-08-25 10:54 am (UTC)(link)" Considering that enthusiastic consent is not something that is taught, and [...] and even more people don't realize that talking someone into something is rape..."
The trouble is, that if the term 'rape' is expanded to cover misunderstandings like this, and the 'perpetrators' are to be rehabilitated and re-educated instead of condemned -- then rape using physical strength will also be considered not a monstrous act, and the term 'rapist' will lose its meaning.
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Rehabilitation is, as you say, something we are sadly very bad at.
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If young women believe these things and often don't learn otherwise until college (if then; I've gone back to abovementioned board and found folk I knew who were members back when I was still there and spouting crap like if a women wears a skimpy dress, she's responsible)... the impression I've gotten is that it's even less talked about among men. It's just a mess all around, and education about enthusiastic consent starting in school would help a lot, I think.
Rehabilitation in general is something we in the US are bad at. It was interesting to me to read the news coverage and commentary in various communities on the mass murderer in Norway; folks here in the US were basically calling for blood and questioning why Norway thought there was any chance of rehabilitating ANY criminal, of ANY sort. The folks over in Norway, who have a very good rate of rehabilitation, were all o.O
American society in general is very revenge based, which I can understand on an emotional level, but it leaves some huge issues with criminals who might be able to be rehabilitated. Certainly not everyone, but other countries have proven it's possible.
It's really complex and something I'm not sure of even how to start to put into place with all the issues with society as it is, but something needs to change.