Last night I went to a gig. I had a few pints, and I probably danced like a bit of a tit, as I sometimes am inclined to do. I got talking to some people about bands we like, and accepted an invite to go to theirs for a beer. Upon arrival, they (cis men, for the record) got a bit sleazy with me, so I left. Nothing harmful happened (I was pissed off, but whatever).
But let's imagine something did happen. Suddenly, not only would my life be upside-down, what could I do about it? Would I report it? Honestly, no.
If something had happened, and I said something publicly, people would be queueing up to tell me it was my own damn fault. I was drunk. I went to a strange man's house. I was wearing a minidress and leggings. It was late. What did I damn well think was going to happen? Actually, I thought we were going to go listen to some punk music and talk about it while drinking beer. Notice how that previous sentence does not contain the phrase 'have sex'.
I'm not a man-hating feminazi, primarily because such a thing doesn't exist, but also because I'm mates with a lot of guys. So before anyone jumps in with accusations of 'misandry' (also a thing which does not exist, by the way), consider this - I want to hang out with guys. I want to be friends with guys. I want to have sex with guys. I just also want to be assured that if one of those people rapes or sexually assaults me, I won't be blamed just for being in the same vicinity as him while not being a cis-man. What actually IS misandric is the suggestion that no one should be friends with men in case they rape them.
Did you know one third of the UK's population would have said it was my fault if I'd been raped last night? Thirty fucking percent of people think that if a woman touches alcohol, she's declaring open-season on her genitals.
FUCK THAT SHIT.
Why am I telling you all this anyway? Well, last night, a hashtag got going on Twitter, titled #ididnotreport. This was inspired by the Mumsnet 'We Believe You' campaign, designed to highlight the hidden problem of rape and sexual assault. On it, thousands of people - men and women told their personal stories of why they didn't report their rape or sexual assault. And it's because of this VICTIM BLAMING BULLSHIT. Some trolls got on the tag, including a confessed rapist by the name of @NiceGuyBrianG (SERIOUS TW for that link), who thinks that the law on spousal rape shouldn't just be reverted, but should apply to anyone in any kind of relationship. Presumably only women should be allowed to be raped, because if I took him back to mine and tried to assfuck him with a strap-on, I'm sure he'd have some quite loud opinions.
I REPEAT, FUCK THAT SHIT.
It is NOT your fault if you are raped. No ifs, no buts. It is only a rapist who decides to rape people. It is NEVER A VICTIM'S FAULT. And I want you all to know that and shout it with me.
Rape apologists, I'm going to give you a quick lesson in human interaction, because you sorely need it: YOU ARE NOT OWED SEX. NO ONE OWES YOU ACCESS TO THEIR BODY. PERIOD.
"But Nat, what if [insert convoluted scenario, possibly involving drink, usually espousing just how darned confusing this whole 'consent' thing is]??!?!?!"
IF YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE, ASK THEM. POLITELY. IN FACT, IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO BE POLITE. "WANNA FUCK?" WILL USUALLY SUFFICE. IN SOME CASES IT WILL NOT.
IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHETHER SOMEONE ACTUALLY WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU, WHETHER IT'S BECAUSE OF DRINK OR YOU PRESSURING THEM OR WHATEVER, DO NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT PERSON.
THE EASIEST WAY TO AVOID BEING ACCUSED OF RAPE IS TO NOT HAVE SEX THAT MAY BE RAPE.
UNLESS YOU ARE 100% ABSOLUTELY IRON-CLAD CERTAIN A PERSON WANTS TO HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH YOU, DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH THEM.
I genuinely can't make that any clearer. If you wish to comment with a wonderful scenario of your concoction about just how gosh-damn tricky it is to not stick your penis in people, I suggest you take your scenario and shove it up your rape-apologising backside. Here's some (long but awesome) posts on consent:
And if anyone feels the need to talk to someone about something that happened to them, here are the details for Rape Crisis (women and children), Pandora's Project (trans* people) and Survivors UK (men).
I completely agree. In cases where a person did rape (as opposed to being wrongly accused of rape) that person has no one to lay blame on. It was their action alone, and if they are not capable of controlling themselves in that manner, they shouldn't out in public. (I've always believed castration would be an appropriate punishment for proven rapists)
ReplyDeleteI have a question about the misandry does not exist, though. Do I have the wrong definition of the word, or do you think there are no women who hate men just for being men? There so many different kinds of f-ed up people in the world, I can't imagine some of them aren't women.
I do think it exists in theory (the idea that some women hate men purely for being men). HOWEVER, there's not an actual systemic oppression of men. If you change 'racism' for 'sexism' in this piece, it sums up my feelings pretty well: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-Reverse-Racism-
ReplyDeleteAlso, fun fact, the word 'misandry' wasn't coined until the latter part of the 20th century.
Only just read the 'reverse racism' article.
DeleteIt uses an uncommon definition of racism to encapsulate the idea that something must be pervasive to exist and thereby smuggles the argument that if something isn't important it doesn't exist.
At best misguided at worst mischevious.
Persixty, it's not an uncommon definition at all. I can think of only one person who seems to be twisting things and is at best misguided and at worst mischevious, and it's not the author of that article.
DeleteWhy am I a nazi?
Ahkay, so I didn't understand the word properly.
ReplyDeleteWell, anyway, I agree with your post, and will try my very best to only have consensual sex.
Even though, as a faithful partner of six years and father, this seriously limits the amount of sex I experience. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I'm making here.
Also, this is just for general information - the number of rapes reported per year is around 15% of the actual rapes. The number of false reports is around 3% - so there's around 400 false reports per year. (Figures taken from here: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/11/29/rape-statistics-what-can-we-rely-on/, maths my own)
ReplyDeleteAlso, only 9-10% of reported rapes result in a conviction: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2012/01/09/rape-and-cjscps-performance/
"UNLESS YOU ARE 100% ABSOLUTELY IRON-CLAD CERTAIN A PERSON WANTS TO HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH YOU, DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH THEM."
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more! Seriously, this should be common sense to anyone with a jot of compassion.
The fact that in 2012 there are men out there who believe it is their right to have sex with whomever they want, whenever they want, should anger us all. IMO they do not deserve to be called men.
This is a great post, Nat. Although, I truly wish it wasn't needed.
testify sistah!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with everything here. You mirror a lot of my own sentiments on my blog, it'd be cool if you checked it out http://www.sarah-lauren-scott.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately for me something DID happen to me one of those nights I was out drunk acting like a tit. I was told by so many people it was my own fault and I was responsible for my rape. I believed it for a long time. I think only when he was found guilty was that burden truly lifted from my shoulders. Unfortunately, as you know, the majority of women never receive justice and are left, usually alone, to deal with the thoughts that they caused their own rape. I wish I could reach out to them all and tell them that they didn't.
:( Writing and reading about this stuff makes me sad but it also makes me happy because an open dialogue with women AND men is what we really need if we're going to make any progress.
Great post Nat!
I'm glad they were found guilty and you saw it was really their fault.
DeleteIf it's silly to blame yourself then i'm down-right stupid because when I grew up i thought "8 years old onwards, it was my fault that ______ did ______" as if i was looking so "come hither" as an 8 year old in my conservative clothes. In my case i was an easy, quiet target, i know that now and i know that you and i are much stronger. Though i wish i could report the person. But i know that now days, i can hurt him =)
I'm really sorry that happened to you Sarah. I'm glad he was found guilty though.
ReplyDeleteOdd to say misandry doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteThere are certainly people who have expressed ideas of men as the 'the enemy' and think of them as by nature negative. That's certainly misandry and exists if (in the same way) misogyny exists.
Equally odd to say men-hating feminazis don't exist.
There are certainly men-hating feminists and if people choose to label them feminazis that's just fair comment.
People don't need to stand up and accept labels for those labels to apply.
It is just so tragic when a woman is faced with the fact that she is not safe in the company of rapists - it is that moment when you realise that there are predators out there and you have unwittingly put your trust in them by assuming that you are safe. Which indeed, most of the time you are. But there is always the predator who gives the rest of men a bad name. What frustrates me is that many of the men who are not predators not only do not understand this, but that they do not become vocal in their condemnation of these rapists. It would help so much if they did not join in with the rape jokes, the catcalling of the short skirt, the slavering over page 3 etc. It really would.
ReplyDeletePersixty - please read the comments before commenting, as I've further explained that above (at comment 2).
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, feminism is JUST LIKE genocide. Just like it. Uncanny really, how feminism forces people into ghettoes for their religious views, disability, sexuality or just plain not liking them, then bundles them into trains to death camps then gasses them to death.
Fair cop, you've got us there. That's a brilliant and totes legitimate analogy!
a) I massively agree with sentiment of the piece.
DeleteI saw a study of undergrads recently and the number who identified with 'blame the victim' statements was appalling.
b) I didn't read the comments. Thanks for the heads up.
c) However, the fact that something isn't as common or as intense as something else doesn't make it non-existent.
The fact that a phrase wasn't coined for a long time doesn't make the thing it refers to non-existent.
"Gold doesn't exist because there's far more Iron in the world and Iron is economically more important" is obvious nonsense or "Helium doesn't exist it was discovered in the 20th century".
What you mean is you don't mind about misandry because it isn't important to you.
Ironically misandronic point of view.
PS: A patriarchy might not have a word for misandry. It could use misanthrope because it doesn't bother to recognise and/or regard women!
Misandry is not a recognisable or evidence-based system of oppression.
DeleteAlso, can you explain why I'm a nazi yet?
a) Misogyny isn't the defined as a recognisabe evidence-based system of oppression.
DeleteYou're (consciously or unconsciously) making the same manoeuvre as the reverse racism argument to demand in your definition a balance tipping prevalence for something to accept it exists.
But that isn't the definition of those things and it's at best unconstructive to put such tipping point requirements in definitions given they will be incredibly contentious and disable the discussion of how much of something there is if people can't say that thing exists until it tips the balance!
b) I never said you were a Nazi.
Do you adhere to the views of the National Socialist German Workers Party or similar views?
I'd be very surprised by the slant of your blog.
c) I never suggested you were a feminazi.
It never even crossed my mind.
d) I don't like the term.
However I read it like grammar Nazi not like Nazi.
I don't think many (if any) people who use it think those people want to (say) commit mass murder of men. Though of course some have postulated the extinction of men as a good thing. It would involve some genetic jiggery pokery to initiate asexual reproduction.
NB: I'm assuming here that no grammar Nazi wants to actually gas people for misplaced apostrophes...
Feminazi obviously a pejorative label but that doesn't quite mean the things it describes don't exist. I think it's best avoid if only because at its introduction the discourse tends to descend into the Godwin singluarity.
Did you mean to put 'misogyny' there? If so, I can provide you with evidence.
DeleteYou said it was fair to call me a feminazi. It's not fair, because of the other reasons you listed.
However, misplaced apostrophes and confusing 'less' and 'fewer' do bring out my murderous dictator side. But I wouldn't invade Poland about it, I usually just grumble.
http://pinterest.com/pin/230739180878571533/ this is a good, quite positive story. I like when writings like this and yours come out and people can, without too much gory detail (that i fear they'd just shun), see what we we do to deal with nights out or walking, even in day light, by ourselves.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post. Thanks for it.
ReplyDeleteA great post. I took part in #ididnotreport twitter even as I am recovering from a very bad situation in my family - my 18 year old cousin went to her prom ball and then agreed to visit her boyfriend's house. She was a bit drunk but she just wanted to visit, nothing else. She was raped by him and his brother. I described it in more detail here go and read if you want to, I don't feel like repeating it. Her parents blamed her AND didn't report it AND didn't even want to let her go to a gynaecologist. I can't still get over it.
ReplyDeleteI'm really, really sorry to hear that. I don't know what to say, other than I hope that your cousin will be OK.
DeleteThanks, Nat. Physically she is ok (yes, a doctor visit was finally arranged), her mental state is not so good though. Showing you are never too careful.
DeleteGood work, woman.
ReplyDeleteHi, just passing through
ReplyDeleteWhat gets me is how if you HAD declined their invitation because you were wary of being assaulted, and posted about this instead, the accusations of misandry and accusing all men of being rapists would be flying left, right and centre. Like what happened with Rebecca Watson and the lift incident last year.
You can't win. If you base your life around precautions against rape, you're a man hater. If you don't, you're naive and were asking for it.
Instead of having to based your life around precautions, is it possible to base the precautions around your life? What I mean is, I think few would criticise a women who enjoys "higher risk" activities whilst taking precautions, as opposed to one who avoided them all together.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I appreciate that people have to see me as a potential rapist, I probably wouldn't appreciate them skipping invites purely based on that assumption, all the same. No one likes being distrusted.
The post wasn't about distrusting men, it was about the fact that I do trust my friends, but if something happened, the fact that I did trust them would probably be used against me.
DeleteIt's sad, those statistics about victim blaming. What makes it worse is that as most of those victim blamers probably never had to comfort a raped friend or family member, they are oblivious to the victim's side of the story. Even that fails to occur to them.
ReplyDelete