No, it wasn’t. You didn’t deserve this. You did not make anyone do this. 
I was helicopter Mom on steroids. My girls were taught from early on what to expect and how to tell. I cannot be 100% sure but I think they would’ve told me. I know they’ve endured catcalls, groping and unwanted attention, just like myself. I am fairly certain things never happened in extended family situations. I was the only sober adult, generally, so I watched the kids. I worry about the lil’wrekker because she is such an open, social, trusting girl. She does run in a pack of girls and I do find some comfort there.
We will be having a renewed talk next weekend when she’s home. Helicopter Mom is at it again. I can see the rolling eyes already.
Moms are, I think, less likely to do this than dads, but don’t threaten harm to the person that might assault her. I’m lucky that mine were as minor as they were, but if something worse had happened I would have had trouble telling my parents because I’d have been afraid of my father killing someone.
Also, may she be lucky in her own way and never need your advice or mine.
What ZipperJJ said.
What andros said.
What happened is not your fault.
Thank you all for telling us.
I was stupid v. It was my fault.
I’ve survived a lot of stupid decisions, and I’ve been assaulted just going about my own business.
People want to believe there is a magic cloak of sensible and cautious behavior that will protect them from bad things, but there isn’t. There just isn’t. Bad things happen to all of us, and some times that bad thing is a sexual assault.
I think I thought being disbelieved and blamed would be even worse than the assault, and from those of you that did report, it looks like I was right. I was still a bloody coward, though.
Being a “coward” is another word for self-preservation. Being a “coward” is the smart thing to be. Being “brave” and telling what happened to you can bring down a ton of shit on your head, intentional and unintentional.
Demonizing those of us who dare to tell our stories is one on the best ways to keep us from doing it.
I think women are brave for just managing to get through the continual gauntlet of shit we have to endure just to, you know, have a life.
I think I am gonna have the lil’wrekker read this thread. I am not all together sure, now that I think back, she would know how far is too far. The groping, hands-on boys( and maybe some young women)are apparently still around. And, in numbers I was hoping were declining. Maybe not. This raises the hair on the back of my neck.
And a new threat is the dick-pics all these young women get on their phones. I have seen more young man pics than I would have ever imagined a few years ago. It’s a big deal in the highschool/ college set.
What I don’t understand is how some women verbally lacerate other women who come out and disclose that they were raped. But it reminds me of something I’ve noticed in the human creature: people will take advantage of vulnerability, of weakness.
If you watch documentaries about canines and other animals, the narrators and experts speak of animal instincts that can trigger an animal to attack. I think humans have those same instincts. Humans attack or otherwise take advantage of vulnerabilities and perceived weaknesses. And few people are as vulnerable as a rape victim.
I get the sense that conservative women who defend right wing rapists do so out of the belief that they’re somehow too smart to be allow themselves to be raped, and that only weak and feeble women get gang-banged, and that, well, that’s just their tough shit. Survival of the fittest and all.
I saw it last night on You Tube. Keep looking around until you find it; one way or another, it should be there.
It also seems that a lot of people are not differentiating between forcible rape, and a wolf whistle or some lesser form of harassment that some women may view as positive attention. Some people may think they’re the same thing; I don’t. I’ll put on my flameproof suit right about now.
And as for male rape victims, in the mid 1980s, the late actor Richard Crenna won an Emmy for portraying a police officer who has a bad attitude about rape victims, until he becomes one himself. It’s a very powerful movie, not for preteens by any means, and is available on DVD under the title “Deadly Justice”. Its original title was “The Rape of Richard Beck”.
And she now knows it’s not, hence the angry smiley. But back then, the first reaction from pretty much anybody would have been that it was. My grandmother was the victim-blaming world champion: except for this one time that she happened to be mad at him right then, every time Gramps assaulted someone in front of her (and yes, you’re reading it right, it was a frequent occurrence) it was the fault of whomever he’d attacked. If she had big tits because she had big tits, if she was flat because she was flat, if he was a little child because it’s fun to watch little children flounder, if she had ass because she did and if she hadn’t waxed her armpits because she hadn’t (never mind that it was winter and nobody really knew the status of her armpits).
Bolding mine.
I’ve never seen anyone equate rape with a wolf whistle. Not once. What I have seen is including rape, groping, wolf whistles, lewd comments, etc. in the description: sexual misconduct.
Rape with a wolf whistle, no. But a yelled compliment with assault, I have.
I wasn’t going to respond because I DID report the worst one–14, sexually assaulted by a stranger in broad daylight. I told my parents after several hours of hoping I could leapfrog over what had happened in order to get back to normalcy. I told them because I was terrified he was still out there and would attack again. My parents took me to the cops. The cops said this guy must have been stalking me for days. They never caught him. If they had, he would have walked: no witnesses, no evidence.
I partly posted this because this seems like the safest thread to discuss sexual assault. I’m incoherent with rage at so many of the comments on other threads, notably the “11th hour” one in IMHO. Oh, my freaking God. We don’t tell because we won’t be believed, and the evidence is all over this board. People wonder why women are leaving the SDMB? This is why. And excusing it with “We don’t want to stifle speech” or “We can’t fight ignorance if we don’t allow people to express it” is pure, enabling bullshit.
Fuck. I’m crying as I write this.
You were believed and supported, it sounds like, and recalling it is still bringing you to tears? Or is it the reaction of so many people to rape?
Rape is uniquely humiliating, that’s why rapists rape, but I think talking about it openly helps a lot, and that’s what makes the disbelief and dismissal so dangerous and hurtful. But to me, the reminder of the attitudes people have toward rape is important, it keeps me grounded and compassionate. It also an excellent way to identify assholes, in some ways even better than racism.
I think the comparison of assault and yelled “compliments” is valid. Catcalling is meant to demean and intimidate, too. There is a whole spectrum of socially acceptable behavior that diminishes women, from inappropriate compliments at work to forcible rape that men just don’t have to put up with, because when men are the object, it is not socially acceptable.
Not to imply that rape isn’t just as bad for men, and possibly more humiliating, but **I’ve ** never seen anyone imply a man must have wanted it.
Talking about anything doesn’t help much when the reactions of those within hearing distance make the distinction between “hearing” and “listening” so clear. A lot of the responses to reports of rape or assault are from people who hear and dismiss without ever listening.
And j666, there is a reason I did NOT put scare quotes: I know the difference between something intended to demean and intimidate and something intended to tell a person you think they look good. DON’T YOU MANSPLAIN TO ME AND THEN COME SAYING THAT YOU’RE ON MY SIDE.
True. Speaking for myself (male, FWIW), the bit of my brain that says to me “wolf whistle? No way!” in some situation is the SAME bit that says “rape? No way!.” So the actions and likely consequences are not equivalent…but in some deep way (for me) they’re both “blocked” as thinkable actions by the same mental/emotional mechanism.
ETA: This is NOT the same part of my brain that guages the appropriateness of off-color jokes, though. I have to be more careful and attentive with that — there is no automatic “block.” I guess it’s because they might not be obviously threatening to a specific person in my presence.
I’m a straight guy. Years ago, I jokingly suggested to a female coworker – my age, same level, with whom I worked frequently and got along with well – that she wear a certain dress to a presentation and “make sure you bend over a couple of times.”
I’ll never forget the look on her face at that moment. She knew I was kidding, but she also knew I’d scoped her cleavage the last time she wore that dress.
I immediately apologized, and it blew over. But she never wore that dress to work again.
If a joke from a work friend can inflict that level of hurt, I can’t even imagine the pain we men inflict with more severe misconduct, or how greatly compounded it must be when you’re not being listened to or believed.
Rachel, if you’re out there, I’m so sorry.
To me, this whole Kavanaugh episode feels like a watershed moment. Anyone else feel that?
Also, sometimes the victims will minimize the assault. It’s a coping mechanism.
When I was a teenager, 16 or so, I attended a summer theatre workshop at a nearby college - a well known fairly prestigious one. And even though this college was only a few miles from my home, we got to live in the dorms during the 6 week workshop. This was in 1974, I think.
The break from parental supervision was the real attraction and the adults running the workshop ended up becoming our party buddies. There were 3 or 4 of the girls that were the wild ones and very experienced with alcohol and drugs. A handful of our instructors enabled them and they ended up having consensual sex… they weren’t pairing off or anything like that — I think all of the girls in the group slept with each of the guys at some point. The girls were all 15 and 16. The guys were in their twenties and some of them were married.
So one night one of these 15 year olds is hanging out with the group at someone’s apartment, and one of the guys that she had slept with before starts coming on to her. But she had been drinking and it was late and she was really tired and half-asleep and not in the mood. She kept trying to push him away but he was a big guy and he screwed her anyway.
She didn’t keep quiet, she told everyone. But she turned it into a snarky joke and before long “he just helped himself” (accompanied by an eye roll ) became a punchline. And no one ever called it rape. And no one “reported” it even though everyone knew.
I now realize ( and it’s been confirmed ) that the “party girls” that summer had one thing in common, they had all been sexually abused as young children ( my sister was part of the group ). And they “acted out” like crazy as teenagers and had numerous sexual relationships with adult men. None of whom seemed to see anything wrong with screwing a willing 15 year old. But it was just a perpetuation of the abuse they suffered as children.