STFU, Rape Culture!

Anon said:

i constantly struggle with accepting my rape, and talking to others about it because it wasn’t what most people picture when they think about rape. I was 15 and black out drunk. I had said no earlier in the night, before he managed to get me so drunk i could barely walk. I didnt even realize that it was rape until over a year later. because i was so bullied and tormented for it, while he just laughed about it with his friends. even my current boyfriend doesnt seem to believe me and that sucks.

I’m so sorry. I don’t know why people are so resistant to the fact that sex with someone who is intoxicated is rape. If your boyfriend, or any of your friends or loved ones for that matter, does not 100% believe and support you as a survivor, he doesn’t deserve to be in your life.

Anon asked:

I recently tried reaching out to a friend my abusive ex made me block out of my life. I tried to explain the situation to her - he made me cut off a lot of ties I had to close friends and family. She said I had a choice in staying with him and should have seen how his controlling/abusive behavior was wrong. She said I should have reached out to her and it was ultimately my choice to not speak to her at that time. I feel more ashamed than before. Is her reaction valid? Sorry if this is unclear.

I think it’s valid to be hurt that a friend wasn’t present in your life, regardless of the reason. However, I don’t think it’s in any way valid to blame someone who was in an abusive relationship, for not fighting harder against their abuser to maintain a friendship with you. To me it displays a lack of understanding on how abusers work, and a stunning lack of empathy in general.

People generally do realize their abuser’s behavior is wrong, but it’s not like you can just get out super easily—that’s why we call it abuse. Even assuming that you were not financially dependent on this person, you lived separately and didn’t have any threat of physical violence to you—coercion and manipulation alone are very powerful forms of abuse. Abusers are skilled at exerting control over their partners. You have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you made the step to reach out to her and reconnect—and it doesn’t sound like it was easy! She is the one who should be ashamed because she is a terrible friend, and a victim blamer. I hope that you have other support in your life, from people who understand what you’ve been through. Take care.

Anon said:

I was raped by someone I had known for years and considered a close friend. I think the worst part of it, though, was having one of my best friends tell me that I obviously didn’t try hard enough to fight him. I’m still not quite sure how to take that.

I’m so sorry. :( They’re a terrible friend and they don’t deserve to be in your life. You experienced a complete betrayal of trust and something very traumatizing besides. Your friend should be there to support you, not tell you that this was your fault.

Anon asked:

When I was 5, I was molested by an older male cousin. My grandma caught him holding me down on a bed while he humped me. She told him to go outside while she spanked me and called me a bad girl for not fighting back, as if I liked him on top of me or something like that. My parents were horrified, but my cousin’s mom begged them not to press charges. So no one mentioned it again. I felt like my parents let me down big time; they refused to talk about it. By the time I was 9,another cousin had exposed my younger cousins and I to porn and touched us. By then, I felt I couldn’t tell b/c I’d be a snitch.  

Now, two other men in my family are known to hit on/ feel up women and younger cousins sometimes. No one calls them out on it  b/c” that’s how they are.”  The young women and younger cousins are warned not be around them  to avoid “putting themselves in a bad situation,” yet nobody reports them. I’ve never told anyone in my family what happened to me b/c the cousins that hurt me are the ones everyone looks up to. I feel like the black sheep of my family and don’t see them much unless I have to. I’m moving out of my hometown soon. But I’m worried for my cousins that’ll be left behind. If no one’s willing to talk about this issue, how many other family members will suffer in silence? I don’t want this to continue. What should I do?

I’m so sorry to hear about this. Unfortunately, it’s really common for there to be a pattern of abuse like this in families (mine included). Predators use the silence in families to prey on more and more victims. It sounds like many of the adults in your life, not just your parents, let you down rather than protecting you as they should have. I don’t think there is much legally you could do at this point, but that doesn’t mean you’re powerless to help stop this cycle and protect your cousins. There is a lot you can do, depending on how vocal you feel ready to be.

If you are already somewhat estranged from them and you don’t mind causing some (much needed) waves in the family—talk about what happened to you! This could be in the form of telling your parents everything and talking about what happened. It could be in the form of talking to the cousins around your age who you know were also molested and asking for their help in breaking the silence within your family.

This could also be in the form of talking with the younger girls in your family. Warn them—not in the ‘keep yourself out of a bad position’ victim blaming way that’s been done so far—but tell them what you know and let them know that if the men you’re talking about try this with them, it’s not their fault, it is a big deal, and you’re there for them. Be the person they know they can turn to—and the one who advocates for them when it’s necessary. It can be really hard to stand up for yourself, but sometimes easier to do it for someone else. If you hear about an incident of abuse, raise hell about it!

You are absolutely right that if no one breaks the silence, this will most likely continue. This all being said though, I would never push you to do more than you feel you can. Standing up to people who abused you can be really painful—especially since they are most likely going to minimize what happened and try to blow you off. Do what you can to help, but remember to take care of yourself. And if you decide to discuss this with other women in your family you know were abused, be sensitive to them. Even if you’ve faced what happened and you’re prepared to take a stand within the family, they may not be.

Anon said:

Yesterday, my mom told me about a woman that was repeatedly raped by her uncle when she was a child. My mom said the girl’s aunt had warned her not to go near the woods outside their house or bad things would happen. Coincidentally, the girl’s uncle would sexually abuse the girl and her little sister there. My mom told me if the little girl had just listened to her aunt, she would’ve never gotten abused. I can’t believe she blamed the child for her uncle violating her. That’s really messed up :/

It never ceases to amaze me when people find a way to make child abuse the child’s fault. It obviously baffles me when people try to make sexual assault the fault of the victim at any age, but I find it particularly disgusting when we’re talking about kids. I don’t know what’s wrong with your mother, but that’s total bullshit.

Anon asked:

tkark asked you:

im just wondering, if a salesman asks me to buy his product and I keep saying no but he is like “are you sure”, “why not” blah blah so I eventually give up, is it still theft?

Gee, you have totally stumped me with your incredibly accurate and not at all dehumanizing analogy in which you compare rape to theft!

Let’s think about this reasonably.

Do you live in a culture that teaches you that only cheap assholes won’t buy products, and you are going to be shamed for not wanting this product? (Keep in mind though that only gluttonous hoarders actually do buy products, so you def don’t wanna do that, right?). Do salesman systematically oppress you, and is society set up so that you are conditioned to find it difficult to refuse their products? Is there a chance that if you keep saying no, the salesman is going to hurt you physically? If there is, perhaps you will eventually just say yes because you are afraid that might happen.

Is this salesman perhaps your friend, or your boyfriend, and you will be manipulated or emotionally punished if you don’t buy from him?

Does the law recognize that the use of coercive tactics to sell products is illegal?

Do any of these conditions exist?

If they do, I will fucking lead the campaign to make upselling and pushy sales tactics illegal.

Otherwise, kindly crawl back under whatever rock you came from, and please try to avoid interacting with others since you clearly don’t know what consent means and seem like a potential rapist. Insufferable prick.

*Salespeople and rapists both come in all genders. I was just going with this bullshit analogy.

No, I didn’t say anything about victim blaming, and no victim was blamed. So I don’t know why you would put those words in my mouth. What I am saying is it isn’t very fair for two people to go to bed under the influence and for one person to wake up and say that since they regretted it and they wouldn’t normally do it had they not been under the influence, that therefore it is a rape. There is rape, and there is also not rape. The distinction should be made before condoning ruining lives.

I don’t know how I could say this any more clearly.

Sex without consent is rape.

Intoxicated people cannot consent.

Logically, sex with an intoxicated person would be rape. I don’t personally believe that all sexual encounters that occur when drinking have to be classified as rape. But when a person’s reaction to their experience is more severe than regret, which clearly it is when a person is saying they have emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, etc, and they confirm these feelings are linked to the sexual encounter that happened when they were legally unable to give consent, it is by no means a stretch of the imagination to classify it correctly, as rape.

Given the propensity to self-blame, to qualify, to not recognize rape when it occurs, there are not great numbers of people claiming to have been raped who have not. This is an actual fact. Rape does not have higher false report rate than any other crime.

So for you to sit there and act like people are lying about their experiences because they regret consensual sex, is victim blaming. You are essentially claiming that people “cry rape” to pawn a bad decision off on someone else. This is not true. It’s not supported by statistics. It’s not supported by the law, which is clear in saying intoxicated people cannot give consent. And I have not had one story submitted to this blog that I thought was a false rape claim.

You are casting aspersions on real survivors who have been raped in situations like these. That disgusts me. If you’d like to continue doing it, you can do so on your own tumblr. I’m not giving you the platform to do it.

ifyougiveamouse asked you:

I have only been following you for a little while now. After seeing some of your posts I have to wonder, do you ever tell anyone that it wasn’t rape? Because while a lot of the stories are most definitely rape, should regret count as rape? Lots of people have sex under the influence of alcohol when they should not. Lots of these people have sex with people they wouldn’t normally have sex with if not under the influence, men included. Should you be so quick to cite something as rape? Lives could definitely be ruined by rape accusations. That is something that never leaves your record and if both parties are under the influence of a substance, like alcohol, then why should a girl who wakes up with regret claim she was raped. I’m not saying that rape doesn’t happen, I am just saying that regret is not the same as having been raped.

I have never told anyone that it wasn’t rape. And that’s because every story I’ve gotten has involved unwanted sexual contact, which is rape.

Regret is not the same thing as rape, and the stories I get are not about regret. If you feel violated, if the incident sticks with you and you have PTSD symptoms afterward, etc, this is clearly not simple regret. Regret would be realizing that you made a decision you later do not agree with. Some people may feel this way about sexual activity that occurred when they were drunk. But many people’s experiences go far beyond regret. This certainly includes cis men. We have had stories on here about cis men who were raped while under the influence.

Given that most rapes are not reported to the police, and of those that are, only around 25% result in a conviction, I am really not concerned that there’s an epidemic of people walking around with rape convictions they didn’t deserve. Aside from which, being accused of rape is not as bad as being raped. I’m not going to sit here and be like can everyone just think really hard, are you sure you didn’t want to have sex while you were too intoxicated to give legal consent, because you might ruin someone’s life with your accusations! People who regret consensual sex do not report it as rape. The actual incidence of false rape reports is very low. It’s a non issue.

Victim blaming though? Rampant. As your ask clearly illustrated.

Anon #1 said:

But what if the guy also has a memory loss, was intoxicated etc., what if all the things you said about the girl could be applied for the guy as well? I mean, they were both drunk and I don’t think the guy started it, it could have happened spontaneously, without “the guy taking advantage of her”, especially when she mentioned there were flirting goin on. Why should I defend the “rapist”? Not at all! But I wouldn’t call that guy a rapist unless I have a valid argument, that’s all. 

Anon #2 said:

I agree with that anon because it is also possible that while drunk, it was actually the girl who started sex with him. I was a witness of a similar situation at one party, and since the girl has a memory loss, you can’t really tell who started the sex, can you? That argument “she would not have done it while sober” means nothing cause in the case you don’t know, people act differently while being drunk. I’m not defending anyone but it is unfair to call him a rapist, when it is 50:50.

These are the last questions I am going to post about the anon who wrote in and whose story prompted this discussion about consent and intoxication. I find this completely invalidating to the person who submitted the original question. She was intoxicated and could not give consent. Rape occurred. We can be sure it was rape because she confirms this sexual activity was not wanted. Boom, there you have it.

To address anon #1, you have no idea if he was drinking at all. All she said was that she was. You “don’t think the guy started it” based on… well, nothing. You feel sure it was spontaneous because she had flirted with him in the past, so she probably wanted to fuck, right? You’re blaming the victim, and that is disgusting. The valid argument for calling that guy a rapist is that he raped somebody. End of story. I don’t know why you find this so hard to believe, given that it happens all the time.

To address anon #2, you said,

That argument “she would not have done it while sober” means nothing cause in the case you don’t know, people act differently while being drunk.

That actually means everything, because that’s how rape gets reported. You’re become sober, and you categorize your experience as rape because you would not have consented if you had been capable of doing so. People do act differently when they’re drunk—that’s why the law says intoxicated people are not capable of giving consent. You actually have no idea what happened to this person, other than that she was intoxicated, is clearly traumatized now, and confirms she would not have given consent while sober. But because you have seen another woman in your lifetime initiate sex while drunk, you assume that applies to all of us, and apparently this one in particular.

Honestly, I don’t care if this person writes back in and tells me she got naked, danced on a table, and begged this man to have sex with her. She was drunk. She cannot give legal consent. If once she is sober, she says the sex was unwanted, it was rape. That’s all.

If you do not understand this point and you would like to further victim blame, please do so off anon so I can respond to you privately. I am not posting any more of these questions here.