I'm tired of staying silent.
So, shit is about to get real.
Okay. So I should start off by saying I hope this doesn't trigger anyone. Because I do sincerely hope that. But it's my life, and it's my journal, and I will write what I feel I must. And I genuinely feel I must write this.
About a year ago, I had an affair with someone I shouldn't have. But no! That isn't right, that isn't how I meant to put it at all, because oh, look, already I'm taking more blame than I think is mine. But that's precisely the problem with situations of dubious consent, isn't it? We -- the victims, the fucking victims -- take on all the responsibility (the I should've known better's, and the Well, I enjoyed it so it doesn't count as rape's, and the No one would ever believe me that he did that's).
And no, this isn't meant as a commentary on how much I hate men, that men are bastards and pigs etc, because I don't hate men -- I don't hate anyone that I know of, and besides -- it's not just men. Women can be rapists too, and men can get raped, and it's not the rapists who are the sole issue here: it's this culture. It's women and men and everyone in between repeating those oft-uttered, well-worn phrases regardless of what transpired and who started what and who forced whom and who was bigger. And it's our fucking tendency to try to placate those around us by taking on the blame for ourselves, because then it sounds like "Well, I made a mistake but I learned from it, I won't put myself in that situation again."
Damn right, I won't put myself in that situation again! Hell no! But that still doesn't make it my fault that it happened in the first place! Not entirely. Because in order for it to have been my fault, and mine alone, I would've had to know what I was getting myself into, I would've had to know what the ramifications were, I would have had to know what I was saying yes to. And I didn't, which in the eyes of the law puts me about at the level of a child in just how much my "yes" really meant.
Ready for this? He was my therapist. And yes, I came on to him, but he had a responsibility to say no, because he was fucking counselled through school that he should never sleep with a patient no matter how much he wanted to, because the emotional and psychological harm it can cause could lead to worsening depression, paranoia, suicidality and death. I didn't know this, but he did. Further, I was drunk and I was in a dissociative state -- which he knew about! -- and therefore not myself and not aware enough to really know what I was consenting to. He was married. He was thirteen years my senior. He knew I had a history of sexual abuse.
He told me to suck him off anyway.
But this isn't about him, not really -- this isn't about him being a cad and a jackass and a sociopath. I don't know him well enough as a real person to know if he is any of those things. He might just be a lonely guy in a loveless marriage who saw an opportunity and took it, and who knows? He might even be sorry about it. I frankly don't give much of a shit if he is or not, though, because this isn't about him.
It's about us. It's about the way I told myself "no one will ever believe you," and how my mother told me "It was between two consenting adults, there's nothing you can do," or how my new therapist I got to replace him asked me to confess that I "wanted it," or how my best friend told me she "didn't blame or judge me" or how my father told me to talk about it in therapy and heal from it, "but use a pseudonym," because the idea of reporting this guy "made everyone uncomfortable."
So what? So fucking what? I'm sorry that it scares you to think someone who should've kept me safe didn't. But it happens all the time -- priests, teachers, parents, lovers, strangers, all with a responsibility not to violate each other and they do it anyway, sometimes. It happens. It happens all the time, all around the world. Every day. And the issue here, the whole issue, the most crucial part is (here's the kicker!) they tell the victim to let it go, pray it away, forgive and move on because there's nothing to be done.
Which isn't true, first off, and is a complete load of shit, secondly, because telling someone nothing can be done when something can -- I mean, something always can! Even if it's just to speak out and tell your story -- even if no one listens, even if your audience gets uncomfortable, even if no one believes! Just speaking out is doing something -- and telling us nothing can be done...that's tantamount to telling the victim to "keep the secret" and "protect the person who violated you."
Why? Why why why? Why the fuck was I being told to protect a rapist? And more importantly, why is that socially-sanctioned as "okay" advice to give a victim? It wasn't my fault I was raped, and it certainly isn't my responsibility to shut up about it to keep my friends, family and doctors comfortable. I'm sorry that it scares them -- I'm sorry that it feels so unwieldy and dangerous and potentially explosive. I am. I really am. But it is not the victim's job to be braver than his or her friends, family, and treatment team. It isn't. If they do happen to be braver, then okay, good for them! They have inner strength others can only dream about. But they shouldn't have to be.
And it's not that I blame any of these people in my life -- I don't exactly, not really anyway, because they are good people with kind hearts and a lot of love for me, and they never meant to insinuate I "let myself" be raped or I have to "be the strong one," etc. Because in the end, this idea is a tired, common one reflected in so many societies and cultures across the world. When in doubt, we blame the victim. We suggest they are overreacting or making it up, we swear it would never happen to us or someone we love, that no one could ever do something like that, even though we see evidence of it happening all the fucking time.
In truth, the people who are so close to me, so supportive and loving, never meant to hurt me by telling me it was my fault: that's just how they were raised and hell, I've said those exact same things myself to close friends and victims of sexual abuse before. As if it's our fault that someone bigger than us or in a position of authority didn't have the common sense to keep it in their pants! As if we, the "younger" and the "weaker" and the "lesser," should've known better. As if -- as if! -- grown men and women can't be held accountable for fucking us, because we all know the victim was provoking them, asking for it, leading them on, etc. We must have invited this, somehow.
And that's precisely the problem. My story isn't unique, and it isn't tragic -- it sucks, don't get me wrong! For months I was mired in a sea of paranoid delusions and ruminating thoughts of "No one would ever believe me, I enjoyed it so it doesn't count, I'm sick and damaged and twisted and I'm a freak!" I thought daily of suicide because I thought I'd never heal, I'd never be rid of this, I'd never be able to enjoy sex or have a healthy loving relationship with a consenting partner. I thought I was the problem, I was to blame.
And that story, that right there, is so commonplace it makes me sick.
Because this happens all too often. We are shut up, we are torn down, we are told we wanted it, we are told we started it, we are told we dress too provocatively and flirt too easily and must secretly have a rape fantasy and we devised it all. Men and women alike, the victims, all around the world, are told this every day.
But tell me something: if you tell the victim it's their fault, doesn't that make their rapist little more than a child who doesn't know right from wrong and can't be held accountable for what they do? How is that right? How is that fair? I believe everyone is entitled to blame, and responsibility, and everyone needs to be accountable if they are mentally and emotionally able to be.
When you say to a victim, "It wasn't his fault, he couldn't control himself with you dressed like that," it removes the rapist's power to be responsible for his or her actions. And that isn't acceptable. That isn't okay. If you are going to have sex, you should be able to take responsibility for who you have it with, and how you have it. This is everyone's responsibility -- not just the victim's.
I am tired of society telling victims to shut up and pray and get over it and keep quiet so they don't make the rest of the world uncomfortable with their pain and their stories. Yes, rape is a problem and I wish I could do something to stop it. But telling someone to "just don't get raped" isn't a solution. Telling someone to "use a pseudonym" isn't effective. Telling someone to "admit they wanted it" isn't acceptable. It isn't okay. Because rape will, unfortunately, probably always be a problem -- I wish it wouldn't be, but I am not naive enough to think it won't. Some people are just cruel, or sick, or power-hungry or bored. Some people just do that. But the people who do that should be just as responsible for what they do as the victim who allegedly "provoked" them, or "wanted it."
So what needs to change? Our attitudes towards rape. Our attitudes towards the victim. Our attitudes towards men and women who violate others.
That needs to change. Because even if you think you wanted it and halfway through change your mind, your partner should stop. Even if you came on to the other person, it doesn't mean you owe them sex. Because even if you are dressed in stripper boots and a tube top, it doesn't mean you're "well up" for it. Because even if your rapist is a priest, a teacher, a parent, or a therapist, people in positions of power and authority ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM THE RULES and should have to answer for their actions just as much as anyone else!
No one is exempt, unless a court can legally declare the rapist was, due to mental or emotional defect, unable to tell right from wrong. And even that gets dicey. Because the person still did that, they still violated someone, they still destroyed someone else's life -- and I'm tired of the victim being told (not just by those who love us but by ourselves too!) that we don't deserve justice for that.
Because we do. Rape is rape. Dubious consent is rape. Abuse of power dynamics that results in someone losing everything they had is rape.
So I say we stop shutting up about it and fucking start talking about it.
Okay. So I should start off by saying I hope this doesn't trigger anyone. Because I do sincerely hope that. But it's my life, and it's my journal, and I will write what I feel I must. And I genuinely feel I must write this.
About a year ago, I had an affair with someone I shouldn't have. But no! That isn't right, that isn't how I meant to put it at all, because oh, look, already I'm taking more blame than I think is mine. But that's precisely the problem with situations of dubious consent, isn't it? We -- the victims, the fucking victims -- take on all the responsibility (the I should've known better's, and the Well, I enjoyed it so it doesn't count as rape's, and the No one would ever believe me that he did that's).
And no, this isn't meant as a commentary on how much I hate men, that men are bastards and pigs etc, because I don't hate men -- I don't hate anyone that I know of, and besides -- it's not just men. Women can be rapists too, and men can get raped, and it's not the rapists who are the sole issue here: it's this culture. It's women and men and everyone in between repeating those oft-uttered, well-worn phrases regardless of what transpired and who started what and who forced whom and who was bigger. And it's our fucking tendency to try to placate those around us by taking on the blame for ourselves, because then it sounds like "Well, I made a mistake but I learned from it, I won't put myself in that situation again."
Damn right, I won't put myself in that situation again! Hell no! But that still doesn't make it my fault that it happened in the first place! Not entirely. Because in order for it to have been my fault, and mine alone, I would've had to know what I was getting myself into, I would've had to know what the ramifications were, I would have had to know what I was saying yes to. And I didn't, which in the eyes of the law puts me about at the level of a child in just how much my "yes" really meant.
Ready for this? He was my therapist. And yes, I came on to him, but he had a responsibility to say no, because he was fucking counselled through school that he should never sleep with a patient no matter how much he wanted to, because the emotional and psychological harm it can cause could lead to worsening depression, paranoia, suicidality and death. I didn't know this, but he did. Further, I was drunk and I was in a dissociative state -- which he knew about! -- and therefore not myself and not aware enough to really know what I was consenting to. He was married. He was thirteen years my senior. He knew I had a history of sexual abuse.
He told me to suck him off anyway.
But this isn't about him, not really -- this isn't about him being a cad and a jackass and a sociopath. I don't know him well enough as a real person to know if he is any of those things. He might just be a lonely guy in a loveless marriage who saw an opportunity and took it, and who knows? He might even be sorry about it. I frankly don't give much of a shit if he is or not, though, because this isn't about him.
It's about us. It's about the way I told myself "no one will ever believe you," and how my mother told me "It was between two consenting adults, there's nothing you can do," or how my new therapist I got to replace him asked me to confess that I "wanted it," or how my best friend told me she "didn't blame or judge me" or how my father told me to talk about it in therapy and heal from it, "but use a pseudonym," because the idea of reporting this guy "made everyone uncomfortable."
So what? So fucking what? I'm sorry that it scares you to think someone who should've kept me safe didn't. But it happens all the time -- priests, teachers, parents, lovers, strangers, all with a responsibility not to violate each other and they do it anyway, sometimes. It happens. It happens all the time, all around the world. Every day. And the issue here, the whole issue, the most crucial part is (here's the kicker!) they tell the victim to let it go, pray it away, forgive and move on because there's nothing to be done.
Which isn't true, first off, and is a complete load of shit, secondly, because telling someone nothing can be done when something can -- I mean, something always can! Even if it's just to speak out and tell your story -- even if no one listens, even if your audience gets uncomfortable, even if no one believes! Just speaking out is doing something -- and telling us nothing can be done...that's tantamount to telling the victim to "keep the secret" and "protect the person who violated you."
Why? Why why why? Why the fuck was I being told to protect a rapist? And more importantly, why is that socially-sanctioned as "okay" advice to give a victim? It wasn't my fault I was raped, and it certainly isn't my responsibility to shut up about it to keep my friends, family and doctors comfortable. I'm sorry that it scares them -- I'm sorry that it feels so unwieldy and dangerous and potentially explosive. I am. I really am. But it is not the victim's job to be braver than his or her friends, family, and treatment team. It isn't. If they do happen to be braver, then okay, good for them! They have inner strength others can only dream about. But they shouldn't have to be.
And it's not that I blame any of these people in my life -- I don't exactly, not really anyway, because they are good people with kind hearts and a lot of love for me, and they never meant to insinuate I "let myself" be raped or I have to "be the strong one," etc. Because in the end, this idea is a tired, common one reflected in so many societies and cultures across the world. When in doubt, we blame the victim. We suggest they are overreacting or making it up, we swear it would never happen to us or someone we love, that no one could ever do something like that, even though we see evidence of it happening all the fucking time.
In truth, the people who are so close to me, so supportive and loving, never meant to hurt me by telling me it was my fault: that's just how they were raised and hell, I've said those exact same things myself to close friends and victims of sexual abuse before. As if it's our fault that someone bigger than us or in a position of authority didn't have the common sense to keep it in their pants! As if we, the "younger" and the "weaker" and the "lesser," should've known better. As if -- as if! -- grown men and women can't be held accountable for fucking us, because we all know the victim was provoking them, asking for it, leading them on, etc. We must have invited this, somehow.
And that's precisely the problem. My story isn't unique, and it isn't tragic -- it sucks, don't get me wrong! For months I was mired in a sea of paranoid delusions and ruminating thoughts of "No one would ever believe me, I enjoyed it so it doesn't count, I'm sick and damaged and twisted and I'm a freak!" I thought daily of suicide because I thought I'd never heal, I'd never be rid of this, I'd never be able to enjoy sex or have a healthy loving relationship with a consenting partner. I thought I was the problem, I was to blame.
And that story, that right there, is so commonplace it makes me sick.
Because this happens all too often. We are shut up, we are torn down, we are told we wanted it, we are told we started it, we are told we dress too provocatively and flirt too easily and must secretly have a rape fantasy and we devised it all. Men and women alike, the victims, all around the world, are told this every day.
But tell me something: if you tell the victim it's their fault, doesn't that make their rapist little more than a child who doesn't know right from wrong and can't be held accountable for what they do? How is that right? How is that fair? I believe everyone is entitled to blame, and responsibility, and everyone needs to be accountable if they are mentally and emotionally able to be.
When you say to a victim, "It wasn't his fault, he couldn't control himself with you dressed like that," it removes the rapist's power to be responsible for his or her actions. And that isn't acceptable. That isn't okay. If you are going to have sex, you should be able to take responsibility for who you have it with, and how you have it. This is everyone's responsibility -- not just the victim's.
I am tired of society telling victims to shut up and pray and get over it and keep quiet so they don't make the rest of the world uncomfortable with their pain and their stories. Yes, rape is a problem and I wish I could do something to stop it. But telling someone to "just don't get raped" isn't a solution. Telling someone to "use a pseudonym" isn't effective. Telling someone to "admit they wanted it" isn't acceptable. It isn't okay. Because rape will, unfortunately, probably always be a problem -- I wish it wouldn't be, but I am not naive enough to think it won't. Some people are just cruel, or sick, or power-hungry or bored. Some people just do that. But the people who do that should be just as responsible for what they do as the victim who allegedly "provoked" them, or "wanted it."
So what needs to change? Our attitudes towards rape. Our attitudes towards the victim. Our attitudes towards men and women who violate others.
That needs to change. Because even if you think you wanted it and halfway through change your mind, your partner should stop. Even if you came on to the other person, it doesn't mean you owe them sex. Because even if you are dressed in stripper boots and a tube top, it doesn't mean you're "well up" for it. Because even if your rapist is a priest, a teacher, a parent, or a therapist, people in positions of power and authority ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM THE RULES and should have to answer for their actions just as much as anyone else!
No one is exempt, unless a court can legally declare the rapist was, due to mental or emotional defect, unable to tell right from wrong. And even that gets dicey. Because the person still did that, they still violated someone, they still destroyed someone else's life -- and I'm tired of the victim being told (not just by those who love us but by ourselves too!) that we don't deserve justice for that.
Because we do. Rape is rape. Dubious consent is rape. Abuse of power dynamics that results in someone losing everything they had is rape.
So I say we stop shutting up about it and fucking start talking about it.