But we’re not in GD! This thread wasn’t started in order to debate what victim blaming is. It was just to share experiences.
I went with the non-technical “fucked in the head” because I didn’t want to get into a discussion on why people rape. It can be about power, it can be about sex, it can be about insanity, it can be about putting your own needs and desires above the needs and desires of another person… All of these things ultimately boil down to, “There is something fundamentally wrong with your worldview.”
You can argue that there are times when murder may be ethically justified (e.g., to prevent harm from coming to yourself or another), or theft (e.g., to feed your starving family). I challenge you to come up with a single scenario of, not legally, but ethically justifiable rape. Betcha can’t do it. Thus, “fucked in the head.”
I got some comments. They were hurtful at the time, but I can now look back on them differently (it’s been 15 years).
My father was hurt and his first reaction was to try and figure out why I didn’t fight harder. But I can now see it was his own hurt and guilt coming through. Mostly, he was blaming himself thinking that he hadn’t taught me enough about how to defend myself.
I had friends say things like “I’d rather die than have that happen.” Those hurt worse. It made me think something was wrong with me that I’d survived. Should I have let him beat me to death? Was I somehow worse than dead now? Again, I can look back on it and see that they didn’t intend to hurt me. They were trying to sympathize (although it went all wrong).
But no one blamed me for what I was wearing (running clothes since I was out jogging at the time) nor for where I was or when I was out.
Seconded.
If we’re talking about psychological impact on the victim, then no it’s not worthwhile to make any distinction. They all are completely shitty experiences, especially coming from people you trusted, in the form of a cumulative cacophony of selfish asshats who would rather look the other way than hold the guilty party accountable for his or her actions.
It’s been hard for me to determine how to respond to this question. I want people to know that this really happens to people, but it’s happened to me so many times I am beginning to lose faith in people’s ability to deal with the truth, even from an anonymous stranger on an internet message board.
I was 17 years old and an emancipated minor when I disclosed my stepfather’s abuse. To be honest, the timing was terrible – I had just legally emancipated and things between Mom and I were not good. The only person I chose to tell was my therapist. Unfortunately I believed I had full confidentiality on this, but since my abuser had children, I didn’t. The abuse was reported to social services against my will.
Two people in my family believed and supported me unconditionally. Two actively blamed me (as in, ‘‘This is your fault, I blame you’’ verbatim.) Several undermined my credibility in subtle ways (’‘oh, this is awfully convenient timing.’’) Most ignored the incident as much as possible and have developed selective amnesia whenever the subject comes up. My mother reacted the worst, and actually began to call me repeatedly and harass me about how selfish I was forcing her to chose between her husband and her daughter, yadda yadda. She oscillated between me being the instigator, me misinterpreting, me hallucinating due to my (nonexistent) psychosis, telling me I should just move on, and actually fully corroborating incidents and admitting she remembered something was going on. She stayed married to him for six more years, and I was constantly pressured to have a relationship with him again. I don’t think anything says, ‘‘I refuse to believe’’ quite like continuing to fuck the guy who molested your daughter.
The losses * I* experienced because of his actions were legion. The mother of his children from a previous marriage was so outraged at me for this accusation that she forbade me to ever see my brother and sisters again. And I didn’t. So I lost the man I considered my Dad, two sisters, and a brother, because of something that someone else did to me. I was living with my Aunt at the time of the disclosure, and her boyfriend couldn’t help but announce that he didn’t want to be left alone with me anymore, in case I accused him of something untoward. He told her he would leave her unless she threw me out of the house. Maybe not everyone turned against me, but at 17, it sure as hell felt like it.
Even looking back 9 years later, I just don’t get it. I thought only irresponsible teenagers and promiscuous women got blamed for shit like this, but the fact that my credibility was so diminished by this thing that happened to me is still absolutely incomprehensible. I was a straight-A student, assistant editor of the yearbook, 3rd chair trombone, a regular member of my Baptist church, and notorious for my overzealous approach to morality. I was the biggest goody-goody you ever met in your life. Nauseating, really.
I was told all of my life to be honest in all things. Yet all it took was this one bit of honesty to completely destroy my reputation and life as I knew it.
On this subject, I would like to share the only rape prevention tips I’ve ever read that actually work.
Nice.
Great link, matt_mcl.
Nope, that’s just another story we tell ourselves so we can think “this awful thing (in this case, not being believed when accusing someone of rape) would never happen to me”. It’s reassuring to think that it couldn’t happen to you, but that kind of thinking makes things harder for you if it does.
It’s just that there’s honestly at some point nothing you can do. Some cultures will think a short tight skirt = asking for it. Some people think it’s any skirt. Some people think wearing pants is asking for it. It’s so frustrating because there is nothing you will protect you from rape 100% of the time. So you know, don’t ask me what I was doing or wearing. Can you have the decency to just think that maybe the victim in question wasn’t doing anything wrong and that the problem is with the perv who thinks that a woman wearing the “wrong” thing or acting in a certain manner entitles him to molest her? Or…what mattmcl posted.
So sad. Sometimes I think this world is just shit. I am so sorry for everyone in this thread that had to go through shit like this. 
My sister was raped at gunpoint by a stranger when she was 12 years old about 25 years ago. The police blamed her for dressing like a slut. She was a little girl. Fucking breaks my heart to this day. That wasn’t all though, my father had some of that blame the victim shit too. He seemed to be understanding, but over time it became clear that he blamed her for it, and he went so far as calling her a slut (she was fucking 12 years old!). This was a long time ago.
My wife was raped when she was 18 by a family member. She never told anyone about it and she blamed herself for a long time.
I have two daughters, 7 and 4 years old. I am so scared for them after reading shit like this. I will never turn my back on them or disbelieve what they tell me, but there is some evil shit in this world.
Yes. As a devout Christian I genuinely believed my obedience to God would protect me. I think if I’d had a clearer understanding of reality, i.e. that the world is not just and that people suffer arbitrarily, I would have managed things a lot better.
So I hope someone reading this thread gets that. Because even if it’s not rape, that ‘‘just world’’ bullshit will bite you in the ass sooner or later.
I have been sexually assaulted, and have experienced the following victim-blaming reactions:
- You could have stopped that from happening if you really wanted to.
- You’re lying. I know him and he wouldn’t do that.
- You’re overreacting. It’s not like he raped you.
Coincidentally, a few years ago I had my bag stolen at the office where I worked. Everyone who’s heard about this has been sympathetic. No one, not once, not EVER, has suggested that I should have been more careful with my bag, told me it wouldn’t have been stolen if I’d acted differently, accused me of inventing the theft or exaggerating the value of the items that were stolen, asked me why I had these valuable items in my bag in the first place, or told me that I should stop complaining because it wasn’t like my car was stolen.
My bag probably wouldn’t have been stolen if I hadn’t left it unattended, but no one – not the police, not my boss or coworkers, nor anyone else who’s ever heard the story – ever blamed me for this. No one seemed to have any doubt that the thief was a criminal who was looking for bags to steal and that if it hadn’t been mine it would have been someone else’s. And this was in fact later proven to be true. The police managed to catch the guy who did it, and when they searched his apartment they found stolen items belonging to three other people. The same thief had also been arrested previously for similar offenses.
Whenever the subject of rape/sexual assault comes up someone always wants to compare it to a property crime and argue that it’s appropriate to blame the victim for being careless, but in my experience victims of theft (even ones who have been somewhat careless) are treated much better than victims of sexual assault.
“Hey, there’s a thing called date rape. Don’t go fuckin’ party on other people’s pussy unless they’re invited!” – Eddie Vedder
(Of course, for SOME of the people in this thread, it’ll go sailing right over their craniums)
There is another blame the victim choice missing from Lamia’s list. The ever popular, “You should be grateful a popular boy like that paid any attention to you at all.”
I got that regarding a stalker I had in college and overheard it used about a woman student at my college who was raped after she left a concert early because she was ill with a cold or flu. This one makes even less sense than the others, but basically it paint the perpetrator as charitable and the victim as at fault for being so lowly and pathetic, and then unreasonably ungrateful as well.
Those happen to be the people who are unclear as to the definition of “invited”.
I don’t think it’s so difficult a concept, but a horrifying number of people seem to have trouble with this one.
You may follow what some of the professional commentators are saying http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/feminism-prevents-false-rape-claims
I know a lot of Dopers hate the ‘rape isn’t about sex’ argument (or ‘rape isn’t (only) about sex’), but I think it sprang from this sort of situation. You still hear it when a professional athlete or popular, good looking guy is accused of rape. ‘What would he need to rape someone for? He can have any girl he wants!’ as if rape is always a result of lack of sex, or, in the same vein, ‘Who would want to rape her? She’s flattering herself’ as if rape is always a result of extreme sexual attraction.
When Golda Meir was Prime Minister of Israel, a rash of rapes occurred in Tel Aviv.
She was asked to place a curfew on women.
Her reply "“But it is the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home.”
When I was camping with a large group of peace activists, there were one or men that would say suggestive things if you passed their tent at night on the way to the latrine.
It was brought to the attention of the head of camp security who tried brush it off as “Boys will be boys.”
A female friend pointed out to him that if just one woman felt intimidated, security had failed.
We had the right to pee without being harrassed.
Female soldiers in Iraq died of dehydration because they were afraid to leave their quarters at night .
They were being raped by fellow soldiers.
So they stopped drinking water in the afternoon in 100 plus degree heat and they died.
Women are never responsible for being raped. Period.
As a woman, I have the right to wear what I want and walk where I want without being assaulted.
I have the right to move about freely in the world without being in danger simply because I have a vagina and breasts.
I don’t think they really do, I think they just don’t care.
Can you say where you got this? I’m not doubting you, but I’ve never seen this before.