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

[rosefox]

(trigger warnings, etc.)

To add another layer of complication:

The last time I saw the guy who date-raped me--let's call him Lou, since it's his name--it was at a dear friend's wedding. Lou was the best man. We still have many friends in common. When I saw him at the reception, I gave him a hug, rather to our mutual surprise. I was actually glad to see him. We hung out and chatted and caught up, as any two people might do when they haven't seen each other in ten years, and we parted on friendly terms, though neither of us has made any effort to get in touch with the other since then.

I don't think of him as "a rapist" (though I was furious when one of his later partners yelled "How dare you call the man I love a rapist!" at me when I dared to speak up about what he had done, and I do... retain the right, I suppose, to apply that label if I feel it fits). I do think of him as someone who emotionally blackmailed me into having sex I didn't want. Maybe he's still the sort of person who would do that. Maybe not. I don't know. But I've changed a whole lot in the past 17 years--half my lifetime!--and I expect he has too. I like to think he's probably become a better person, smarter and kinder and more mature. I like to think he's become someone who now cares a great deal about passionate active consent and "yes means yes", and who would no longer respond to a not-tonight-dear with weeping wailing misery that forces his partner to soothe him one way or another. It would have been entirely fair to call him a rapist when he was 18 and truly did not value my bodily autonomy over his own hurt feelings; I like to think he isn't one now.

So I would distinguish between "has raped someone" and "is a rapist" while still being quite uncomfortably aware, as you now are, that people in both categories are probably among my friendly acquaintances, and possibly among my friends. And while I don't mind that Lou and I have friends in common, if someone told me that I could not be friends with both them and the person who raped them--no matter how long it's been, or how that person has changed--I would respect that, because every survivor gets to decide which labels fit their particular situation and the person who caused them harm.

[brooksmoses]

I did see this idea used to make a point about why rape jokes are bad: Not only because of their effect on victims, but because of their effect on rapists [1] (which is to reinforce their feeling that it's not a big deal, that it's funny rather than horrifying, etc.). And often you don't know that none of the people listening to your jokes are rapists.

Very personal.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm pretty sure two men I know are rapists. I'm also pretty sure one of them is in denial about it. The other... aware, concerned, makes a show of how he's changed and I don't trust him an inch.
I don't let either of them into my home. One, I haven't seen for 20+ years, so that's not hard. The other is a friend-of-a-friend, which can be a bit difficult. But I know women who have suffered serious harassment from both. I'm with Rose on this.
One of these men coerced me into sex by bullying, blackmail and threats. It wasn't exactly rape, because I said 'oh, all right' under the pressure. I find it unforgivable, all the same. I'm not the only woman in my social circle to whom he did this.

[celestinenox]

People probably think I'm too quick to believe someone's been raped. :/

I have a friend who was raped by the guy she'd been seeing on and off for several years. There was a lot of "fooling around" going on, and he asked her at every stage if she was okay with things, and she always said "yes, with what we're doing now, but I still don't want to have sex." He refrained from asking her before penetrating her.

I told her to go see a therapist. I don't know where she found the idiot, but that person convinced her that it wasn't rape. That it was a misunderstanding. She believes this now with 100% of her being. She's married to him. They have a daughter. She and I don't talk much because I still believe 100% that he raped her, and that the therapist is a raging moron who should never be allowed to talk to other people, and she just can't understand why I'm holding a grudge for so long. He hates me because I said, flat out, that he's a rapist. She's told me that I'm the only one of her friends who holds out and still thinks of him as a rapist.

I don't care. He's a rapist. She married her rapist, because someone convinced her that what happened to her was a misunderstanding that was at least partially her fault because she let it go so far.

I guess I'm babbling about something that really doesn't have much to do with your post, but... I've been holding that frustration in for a long while now.

It is very disturbing to think that someone you know may be a rapist... someone you know and like. And the more people you know, the more likely it is to be true.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

The estimates put the number of rapists at anywhere from 1 in 13 (Lisak and Miller's study) to 1 in 6 (McWhorter's study)*, and the numbers suggest that it's probably on the higher rather than the lower side. Given that most of us know at least 13 men... yeah.

IME, it was pretty damn easy to condemn the rapist in our midst when he came to light. I think my reaction was "holy fuuuuuuuuck" when my friend told me what he'd done, no question. It meant I lost a huge section of my friend's group, but I was so grossed out that they'd keep a rapist among them that I didn't even mind that much. I do, a little, now-- I'm pissed off and disgusted with them and even kind of worried, because he gave me the heebie jeebies (he never hit on me, out of the entire group, "because you're such an alpha!" another friend said, which I found weird and super-creepy and they thought was kind of charming because I intimidated him). They thought I was reactionary and jumping to conclusions (buh?) but I was like, it's in my own best interest not to hang out with a rapist. I'm still friends with the victim, but it wasn't even about supporting my friend and "picking a side." I mean, I did because that's what people should do, but quite simply: I was friends with a rapist and he had to go. For my own safety. I would never be able to let my guard down around him, and that defeats the point of being friends.

I'm sure I have another rapist in my social circle. It just feels so inevitable.

*These numbers really only studied college-age men.

[electricpaladin.livejournal.com]

I definitely know a rapist or two. I know guys who have had sex with women who were drunk, or guys who were "fooling around" with girls, and didn't ask before initiating penetration. I know some girls who have behaved the same way.

Even though it's politically useful to say "rape is rape" over and over again, I don't really think it's that simple. If both partners are drunk, and in the morning one of them wakes up and feels violated and the other wakes up and recalls, blearily, that it was awesome, does that mean that the first was not raped? If one person feels raped, does that mean that the other person is automatically a rapist, regardless of the circumstances? Heck, what if *both* partners feel violated in the morning? Does that make them both rape survivors and both rapists? What about situations where someone doesn't *give* consent, but also doesn't have the guts to vocally *deny* consent? I know that it's generally helpful to consider that a bad idea - I've been to all the college sex talks - but what if neither of the partners feels violated?

The problem seems to be that on some level "rape" is the crime, and commensurate penalties for the perpetrator and support for the victim, that we attach to the feeling of "sexual violation." In very few other situations do we attach permanent labels like "rapist" to the consequences of one party's feelings. If I cut you off in traffic, no matter how mad and frustrated you are I don't have to spend the rest of my live laboring under the label "jerk" or "bad driver."

Now, this is getting complicated, because I don't really mean to compare rape to poor traffic etiquette. Sexual violation is a terrible thing that has the potential to haunt a person for a very long time. And, of course, when I say that there is complications or a gray area, I'm only talking about complicated cases. There are many extremely uncomplicated cases of rape.

The thing is, I recall a lot of weird stuff. I recall how in some states if a man and a woman are both drunk when they have sex then the man is automatically a rapist, because drunk people can't give consent, and of course it's the man's fault, right? And I think about all the times that anyone has ever had a feeling that didn't match my interpretation of reality. I like to think "well, I'm way too scrupulous about acquiring consent all the time for anyone to ever accuse me of being a rapist." But then, I'm also pretty scrupulous about saying what I mean and being straightforward with my friends, and I have ex-friends.

I'm also aware that there was a lot of male privilege in that paragraph, because my concern is whether or not I'm going to be unfairly accused of a crime, not whether or not I'm going to be coerced into sex through emotional or physical violence. I'm still comfortable with my statement - being wrongly accused of a crime would really suck, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that - but I thought it was a good idea to acknowledge it.

It seems to me that we should disentangle violation and rape. Violation is a feeling that requires love and support to overcome - sometimes a lot of it. Rape is a crime with civic penalties. One person can feel violated in a situation in which there is not a clear enough case for civic penalties. One person's feelings don't necessarily reflect another person's reality. If civic authorities judge that rape has occurred, than civic penalties should be pursued. If someone feels violated, than they were violated and deserve all the support they need, regardless of the situation's "reality."

That said, the political problems are a lot denser than this, because as long as there are douche-nozzles like Todd Akin out there we are going to have a hard time getting those civic penalties and needed support to the right place. I don't think disentangling violation and rape is going to happen until we have something that more closely approximates justice.

[lokifan]

:( Ugh.

There's a woman I'm still friends-of-friends with who raped a woman and then publically shamed her when the woman privately accused her of rape. And it's really shameful and confusing when I (v rarely) interact with her, because I don't want to be friendly with her, and yet I fear the fight. More significantly, I know this happened is that the rapist forwarded the private email to hundreds of people at their shared arts college and then complained about it to our mutual friend. So there's something genuinely difficult about making it public or reacting publically, I think. Dunno. :(

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is my observation and my personal experience that every time someone in your social circle commits a crime, violent or otherwise, the circumstances vary, and what you have to do varies. Really quite a lot. It's a good thing to start with the resolution to put the victim first. Sometimes there are peripheral victims who need to be put second, and who they are and how that goes and what it means will vary so much that...yeah. It's good to have general principles that are sound, but the thought-experiments of what-would-I-do are really not going to get to the heart of the reality of the matter, because the details start to matter so very much.