How I Managed To Avoid Being A Victim of Sexual Assault

Tags

jian ghomeshi, luck, molestation, rape, risk, sexual assault

I have never been raped.

In a world where victims of sexual assault are blamed, disbelieved, and shamed, I am fortunate to be free of that.

FORTUNATE.

Canada is currently going through Ghomeshi-gate, in which an always-creepy Canadian celebrity has actually lost his job amid a wave of accusations from multiple women who all say that he has beaten them and sexual assaulted them.

Canada seems firmly divided on who to believe – the powerful celebrity who hired a PR firm to help craft his “poor me” facebook post defending himself, or the multiple unconnected women who have only their reputations to lose by coming forward.

One man on Perfect Husband’s facebook feed actually had the gall to say that since some of these women went on one or two subsequent dates with him after the initial violent incident, and since none of these women went to the police about it, they were therefore “consenting and complicit” to the abuse which followed.

*cue steam coming out of Perfect Husband’s ears*

Furthermore, while some people ripped this guy a new one, others, including women, agreed with him.

And I can’t understand it. Because even if you’ve never been assaulted, does that really imagine that you can’t imagine what it would be like? Why do people need to believe that assault victims are lying, or to blame?

I know people who were molested as children. By a family member, by a babysitter, by a parent’s boyfriend.

I have friends who were raped. No, they didn’t call the police. They somehow allowed the rapist to convince them that it was their own fault. They didn’t think they would be believed. They didn’t want to be called a “slut” by some victim blamer on Facebook.

I can’t blame them. Not for the rape, not for keeping silent.

I firmly believe that sexual assault victims did not bring their assault on themselves. I firmly believe that rape can happen to any woman. When people blame a victim of sexual assault, or refuse to believe her because she didn’t tell anyone for years, I am filled with fury on their behalf.

Because there but for the grace of… what? God? Who is he to pick who is and is not raped? No. There but for the grace of good fortune go I.

Do certain situations increase the likelihood of rape (such as, for instance, drinking at a big frat party)? Sure. But getting into my car increases my likelihood of being in a car accident. If someone ELSE runs a red light and hits me, THEY are the ones who broke the law, and they are the ones the insurance company would find to be at fault. The insurance company wouldn’t say, “Well, you chose to take that particular route, even though there is a high crash frequency at that intersection, so what did you expect?”

I have been through a few high-risk intersections, when it comes to sexual violence.

Let’s All Speak Out For Someone Who Is Still Alive

Tags

amanda todd, blaming the victim, online bullying, pitt meadows, rape, rape culture, rehtaeh parsons, teenage girls

…And another one falls.

I had to think for a while about what I could say about Rehtaeh Parsons. After all, what could I say about her that I haven’t already said about Amanda Todd, or the Steubenville rape case? What could I say that my fellow bloggers already haven’t?

So I’ve decided not to talk about her at all.

Instead of rallying around and calling for justice once the poor victim has committed suicide, let’s do it while the person is STILL ALIVE!

Because Rehtaeh wasn’t alone.

A very similar incident happened in BC, right around the time Owl was born.

A 16 year old girl went to a rave. Tsk tsk, I know, but teenagers do dumb things, like go to raves. This girl went with friends, and only had one or two drinks. She tried to be safe.

But the girl was drugged, and then gang raped. The rapes were video taped and photographed by onlookers, and by the next morning, they were all over Facebook.

The videos going viral seemed to be the focus of most of the news stories – not the fact that the girl had been raped, but the fact that PEOPLE POSTED VIDEOS.

There was immediate police action to take down the videos and photos, and charges were laid, and everything looked just fine.

Two and a half years later…

Only one guy was charged with the actual rape, and those charges have been stayed due to insufficient evidence. Sound familiar, to those people who know Rehtaeh’s story?

A couple of guys were charged with distributing child pornography – again a step up from Rehtaeh’s case, but wait:

The punishment for one Dennis Warrington was 120 hours of community service and a written apology. What is this, grade school? Say you’re sorry, hug and make up? That’s it?  FOR WATCHING SOMEONE GET RAPED AND PHOTOGRAPHING IT?

Apparently the victim felt the same.

“Dennis can tell this courtroom, your family and your lawyer 100 times that you are sorry for what you did and you can apologize to me but I don’t believe you are sorry for one second,” said the girl, in a voice flush with rage.

“You are not sorry for what you did. You are just sorry you got caught.”

The other one just had to write an essay on the harmful impact of social media. WHAT? NOT ON RAPE? Is this really a “know the risks of Facebook” issue?

So… let’s recap.

• The rape happened while the girl was drugged. The police said from the outset that it had been medically confirmed (I remember the original news stories mentioning injuries and such, I’m pretty sure she even had a rape kit done). 
• Lots of people watched/were involved.
• No witnesses have come forward to testify on her behalf.
• The people who photographed and distributed video and photographic evidence got slaps on the wrist for being so indiscrete. 
• The Crown says there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute.

The girl has said that this rape ruined her life.

Surprise surprise – she is being bullied on Facebook and Twitter by the friends and family of those people who received those shockingly minor charges. And guess what? It’s making her miserable.

“Honestly, it’s like being tortured on a daily basis and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” the girl said.

“People say that it will get better and that the pain will go away but it’s been two years and it still kills me.”

The bullying that followed caused the girl to drop out of high school. To this day, she suffers from panic attacks and anxiety. She even turned to drugs and thought about killing herself.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Look. I don’t have a photo of her. I can’t show you her face. I can’t give you a name.

But can we rally behind her anyway? Can you please share her story? Can you please demand justice?

Can we try to support this one, defend this one, SAVE this one… BEFORE the worst happens?

Please.

For Amanda Todd.

For Rehtaeh Parsons.

Let’s not wait until the girl kills herself before we share her story.

Let’s celebrate her for NOT killing herself. Let’s celebrate her survival. Let’s HELP her survive.

Let’s share now.

Let’s demand witnesses to come forward NOW.

Let’s fight now.

NOW!

Blaming The Victim. Because, WHY NOT?

Tags

blaming the victim, consequences, drunk girls, extending logic, feminism, how to be safe, irony, logical but nonsensical conclusion, rape, rapists, safe living, safety, sarcasm, steubenville, taking responsibility, victimization

There’s a lot of talk right now about the Steubenville rape case right now, not because of the case itself – that sort of thing happens far too often. In fact the same thing happened to a girl in Maple Ridge, B.C., not too long ago.

The reason everyone is up and arms about is because a news anchor whose mother named her “Candy” (a good start right there) spend a lot of time bemoaning the consequences of the rapists’ sentencing, rather than talking about how what they did was wrong.

The clip pissed me off, of course, although I do think that it may be a good idea to emphasize the consequences of raping a girl – in case the teenage boys out there need a stronger motivation than simply “because it is wrong”.

But then I read the comments, and of course you have idiots saying things like this:

“there is no doubt that what these teen boys did was wrong in that making mockery of someone they had sexual contact with over social media. Was it cold, was it callous, was it stupid…YES YES YES…but was it RAPE? NO. However, as a mother of young daughters and sons I am appaulled that no repermanding of the girl or her family is warranted. As a society, we have a moral obilgation to say something to a young girl or woman young or old who drinks to the point of not knowing what they are doing or sayng. To say that a 17 year old male is suppose to make the moral call and say ‘naw you are to drunk to know wht you are saying or doing” is a bit much.”

“men will be men. the more that is known the better. carry mace, dont get smashed at parties, dont walk down a dark alley by yourself. im a man and i realize that although i may not be looking for trouble walking home after a night at the bar, i better not get smashed in case trouble is looking for me.”

“What those teen boys did was bad, and they deserve to be punished, but where is her responsibility for herself? Apparently drunk women have no need to take responsibility for their poor choices, whereas drunk males will have to pay for their mistakes for the rest of their lives. So much for equality.”

“i am in no way condoning the actions of these juveniles and they should be punished. but acting like the girl had no part in her being in this situation undermines the importance of being responsible when consuming alcohol.”

It’s the Amanda Todd thing all over again.

“Oh, sure, what those boys did was wrong, but it’s the girl’s fault too, because she put herself in that situation.”

For all the people who want to talk about the consequences of being raped for a girl (something that gets almost NO coverage, and which I think really should be, because a lot of men clearly don’t get why it is considered to be such a big deal), there are people out there who want to talk about how stupid the girl was to be there in the first place.

And at first, I got mad.

Then I thought about it, and I realized, DUDE, they are totally right.

I mean, the girl went out and got DRUNK with GUYS around. Who does that? What normal teenage girl drinks around BOYS? Wasn’t she leading them on by simply being  there, and then by becoming unconscious?

And why should we stop there?

Since the victim in the above case clearly is partially to blame for the consequences of her action, shouldn’t we be blaming MORE victims?

Take John F. Kennedy.

Stop blaming Oswald and look at the real culprit!