a disturbing thought

[swan_tower]

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.

Comments

[elialshadowpine]

I think this is actually a really important statement. Because most people's inclination is to call rapists "monsters" -- which is dehumanizing and makes it SO harder to believe that nice friend of yours may have done something horrible. Considering that enthusiastic consent is not something that is taught, and that many people (even women) don't realize that people can't consent under influence, and even more people don't realize that talking someone into something is rape...

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.

[(Anonymous)]

From "HG".

" 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.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

You've been making a lot of statements of that sort -- "if X, then Y much more distant effect." And I keep on really, really not agreeing. If you look further downstream, at cepetit's comment, you'll see that our laws are moving toward a model where there is a category of "criminal sexual assault," with gradations within it based on the circumstances. Calling all forms of killing another person "homicide" doesn't erase the distinction between hitting somebody with your car when your tire blows out, and planning a brutal serial murder. Likewise, calling all cases of non-consensual penetration "rape" doesn't mean that holding somebody at knifepoint and raping her until she nearly dies will somehow cease to be monstrous.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

This post (http://www.anamardoll.com/2012/08/deconstruction-legitimate-rapes.html) covers several incidents that illustrate, all too well, the failure to understand the need not only for a lack of refusal, but the provision of consent. Including one where, as you say, the rapist didn't understand until it was explained to him that yes, he was raping her.

Rehabilitation is, as you say, something we are sadly very bad at.

[elialshadowpine]

When I was in my teens, I was part of a young feminists board founded by a pair of YA writers. I was about 16 and the age range was 13-20ish at the time. The number of young women who truly, honestly believed that it wasn't rape unless they fought back or outright actively said "no" (and sometimes not even then) was shocking. Many said nothing like that was even covered in school sex ed (if school sex ed covered anything more than just abstinence and horror stories about STIs).

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.