The Clothesline Project puts on a week of activities every year on our campus. At first, I thought that it was this group that the OP was referring to. I encourage others to start similar projects on their campus.
I’ve taken part in making a tshirt, but did not think for a second to wear it. It took enough out of me to make the thing.
I would think so, but of coure they’d be under no obligation whatsoever to have a conversation about it with you.
It’s okay for me to ask strangers about the band their T-shirt advertises, but if they just brush me off, no harm done. I think it would have to be the same with the rape shirt.
-FrL-
Ok, I agree with **WhyNot **and **Cat Fight’s **amendments.
As a random t-shirt, no I wouldn’t. As part of a rally or event or some kind of temporary movement, sure I would.
WhyNot, I have similar startling numbers in my group of friends - no one was ever “tied up and raped by a stranger” but between sexually abused and date rape, there are few of us that haven’t had non consensual sex. And you are right - the question then becomes “well, how raped was I?” Like there is a scale.
I’ve had rape come up casually in business meetings. Generally its a throwaway comment “gee, we really don’t want to get raped by this vendor.” As a rape survivor, words like that can still send you reeling years after the fact. Its a word I’m careful of using casually.
Until you get out of denial and accept how horrifically that sandwich hurt you, you can never really heal.
I think a shirt like that is meant to have shock value. Seems to me to be a perfectly valid way to raise awareness that there are many rape victims that walk around you every day. Sure, everyone knows that rape happens, but do most people have a concept of just how widespread it is?
Some schools have take back the night.
Incidentally, anyone who doesn’t think that joking about rape can be funny, please refer to posts 7 and 16 (edit-- and 25).
How do you think people would react if a man wore a “I Was Raped” t-shirt?
As being on the received end of non consensual sex from an older brother, it’s not something I tell most people (with the exception of anonymous message boards).
I wouldn’t wear such a t-shirt, although perhaps under special circumstances, such as an event promoting rape awareness. While more awareness is important, that wouldn’t be how I would promote it.
I’m not sure of my thoughts if a stranger either male or female were wearing one outside of an event. The reaction and level of emotional damage to being raped or sexually abused is widely varied. Certainly the four of us kids in my family who were abused (by either my older brother or our father) have been affected differently.
Discussing it publicly is not easy. I would hope that someone who wears such a t-shirt were doing it in order to create awareness, but unfortunately, it may also cross my mind that it’s just to shock.
Where I live, if you wore that T-shirt, people would straight-up laugh at you. No lie.
Unfortunately I suspect that if enough people wore RAPED T-shirts then it would be seen simply as a fashion statement rather than a statement of fact.
Also did some of you miss in the article where the bold “I WAS RAPED” T-shirt was rejected? I gather that the actual T-shirts are more subtle.
I don’t know what I would think if I met someone wearing a T-shirt like that. I do think that it would bias peoples perceptions of you in one way or another. If I were to meet someone wearing a “raped” shirt I think it would define her/him in many ways. Aside from the rape itself (which is out of their control) it says a lot about the person that they are wearing it on their clothing. I don’t know what it says about them, and each individual would be different, but it is broadcasting a multitude of signals that people will interpret based on their own world-view. It would definitely be confronting in isolation.
My little brothers have an aggravating tendency to use the term ‘rape’ as a light-hearted hyperbolic description of how one sports team beat another, or how they won in some online game, which really rankles me. A good proportion of my female acquaintances have suffered sexually to a greater or lesser degree, and bandying the word about without a thought to its real-world meaning is childish and offensive.
If I saw someone wearing a t-shirt saying ‘I was raped’ or just ‘raped’, I would feel as awkward as when I’ve met young women who seem to flaunt recent scars of self-harm. TMI for a stranger in my book.
As WhyNot, Cat Fight and now Queen Tonya have said, I’d definitely wear one to a rally or to anything else to help raise awareness. If in the process, anyone wanted me to explain my feelings behind the shirt, I’d be prepared to do so. If I saw someone else with one, I’d also be ready to feel uncomfortable because I’d expect that was part of the goal (you know, the merging of the overwhelming with the mundane). Although I wouldn’t ask anything, it would certainly make me think.
I do think one relatively good use for these would be support… if someone you know was raped but was being dismissed, I could see encouraging others who’d been there to show their solidarity by wearing these on mass. And I’d whole-heartedly understand a male donning one as well and think it, if worn seriously, would make huge strides towards destigmatizing what’s lesser known.
I haven’t been, so no. I’ve known a couple of women who have been raped or abused, and while they’ve put it behind them to varying degrees I don’t think any of them would wear it either. I wouldn’t reproach anybody for wearing a shirt like that, but I’d wonder if it really makes the point they want it to make.
I went through the same thing when I dated one of the women I mentioned above. Until I noticed that she used the word the same way and never had a problem with anybody else doing it. It might be childish, but it’s not a big deal.
Aside from a rally, I think that just about the only other socially acceptable situation to wear that shirt would be when performing with your punk band. Other t-shirts that could be worm in that situation would be “i fucked your sister” or “seriously disturbed.”
I think many people would assume that the man was wearing the shirt for the shock value, or a fashion statement and people would treat someone who claimed to be wearing it as a serious statement that he’d been raped with derision.
This is unfortunate, because while men may be less likely than women to be “tied up for 48 hours by an intruder and raped repeatedly between beatings, like Mary” (to borrow from WhyNot), I’m not sure that men are that much less likely than women to experience other forms of less than consensual sex. Especially situations like TokyoPlayer’s.
No, I wouldn’t wear such a t-shirt. I’m continually amazed at things people feel the need to share with perfect strangers, who quite honestly, don’t really give a shit except in the most over-reaching “I don’t want kids to starve in Africa either” kind of way. Laying bare their souls for the world to see is so…undignified.
I blame Jerry Springer.
Well, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? At least with the “wear it at a rally” concept. You might be surprised to find out that it’s not a perfect stranger wearing the shirt, but your sister, your roommate or your mother. (Or, of course, your brother, your boyfriend or your father.)
I see it like any other “raise awareness” campaign. Do you think the women running for three days for breast cancer couldn’t really raise more money if they just got all their friends and co-workers to write checks and the American Cancer Society didn’t have to pay for all those pace cars and signage and people with clipboards? Of course they would! But the idea is that when you are forced to confront an actual *face *on an issue - a face you already know - it makes you want to do something to help.
ETA: I don’t care if strangers feel sorry for me or embarrassed for me. I *would *be pleased if that makes them dig into their Starbucks fund to throw a few bucks into the can for funding for installing brighter lights in the parking lot to prevent stranger assaults.
Extrapoliting the feelings of one rape victim (its not a big deal) to the millions of women who have been raped is probably not the safest assumption for sparing someone’s feelings.
To a certain extent, I’ve learned to just “let it go” and it barely phases me (and not in anyway I’d let anyone notice) - but its been more than a decade since my rape. I’m not sure I’d be able to “let it go” so invisibly if the assault were six months ago.
I don’t see how being raped is so much more important than a lot of other bad things people live through (and I am one who survived one of the abducted and beaten kind of rapes). And I definitely don’t see the benefit of making it a part of one’s identity. Some how it smells of martyrdom.
Where do you live? and why?
Yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot lately in our culture. It just seems like everyone takes pride in some kind of victimhood. It’s getting a little disturbing. It’s like you’re wearing some sort of badge because a litany of horrible things have happened to you.