rape culture

lou

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I went to my first proper party last night and drank and got a little drunk. A bunch of boys needed a ride home and we agreed since we know most of them at least kind of, and most of them are nice. One of them had been quite friendly all night and even asked me to be his pong partner; by the time we reached the car I was feeling the booze and he insisted I had to sit next to him bc I was the only one small enough. Once I sat down he immediately put his arm around me and started stroking my thigh, moving under my leg towards my butt and up my side toward my chest. I kept wiggling trying to signal my discomfort, put my hand under my butt to act as a blockade but he persisted. Leaning his head into my neck, breathing on me, kissing my shoulder. Eventually I turned to him and said “I know what you’re doing and we’re not doing this.” And he acted shocked and innocent. I went on trying to keep the mood light even tho in all honesty I wanted to cry, I wanted to get out of the car, after years of studying rape culture reading horror stories thinking that could never to me, feeling the kind of paralyzingly fear every women has described, I instead said “we were pong partners once, you know what that means? Absolutely nothing.” He goes “oh it means a lot of things” as he leaned back into my neck. I grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm away from me, he then protested “I can’t fit in the car like this come on.” And so again I agreed for whatever reason and said “fine you can keep your arm around me but only PLATONICALLY okay?” He said okay but he didn’t mean it. That was the longest car ride of my entire life.

Kitty

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I was on YouTube the other day, & was watching a few vids. I read the comments under one particular one, & some guy had posted a comment with the sentence “rape her raw” in. To be fair (!), he wasn’t talking about a woman, he was talking about an inanimate object (won’t go into specifics about what), but I still thought it was an unacceptable thing to write, & I did find that it was a jarring note in an otherwise very enjoyable vid. Why do people think it’s OK to toss the word ‘rape’ around in such a casual fashion?

Kitty

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The fact that it seems to be more of a travesty for a woman to accuse a man of sex crimes (especially if this man is famous or of high standing in the community, both of which are convenient things to hide behind, & it means that people are more likely to believe them than the accuser, & it also means that they can afford clever lawyers to help them weasel their way out of trouble) than it is for a man to commit a sex crime. Indeed, it seems that the media seems to go out of its way to make rape victims out to be liars with an ulterior motive (usually financial, malicious or publicity-seeking), focus on alleged false allegations, make out that victims are over-reacting & making mountains out of molehills & bewail the fact that the man’s ‘reputation/career’ is now ‘ruined/in tatters’ as a result of the allegations made against him. Little wonder then that rape myths prevail & that conviction rates are rubbish (although a conviction doesn’t necessarily stop people from saying that the accuser was making the whole thing up either, mind you, as the previous sentence shows) if the media is so biased.

DB

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Last week, a colleague (who has just applied to be a supervisor) made a joke about the young lady that recently started at work. The gist of it was about having sex in the customer toilets. When I pointed out that this wasn’t the kind of jokes a potential candidate for supervisor should be making, he said: “It would be consensual. She won’t be able to say no with my dick in her mouth”. Immediately afterwards he realised that he’d taken this too far and insisted it was only a joke. The worst part is that at least one other supervisor was there and said nothing. I had to corner him later to tell him that it was offensive and that he should talk to our colleague about this. I’m pretty certain he didn’t bother.

Katie

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I was working at a day hospital that only has emergency clinics available after hours. We have the sexual assault clinic there. A patient came in and the nurse that was on call was taking longer than expected. Being a rape victim myself. I tried to give her space but support her. She sat in a room with a friend of hers. My partner (male) said to me “i bet they went out drinking last night”. This is exactly whats wrong with society. Rape culture. Labelling her and assuming she was drinking. Unbelievable.

J.C.

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There was a rape scene in a scary movie that my husband and I went to last night. Just as the girl in the movie was about to be raped, a man in the movie theater laughed. Loudly.

Naomi

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I never saw it as rape, I don’t know if I do even now. I always kind of thought I wanted it to happen so it wasn’t. I was 17 and having my first house party. The boy who I was interested in (and would go on to be my boyfriend of three years) was coming. I had said to my friends that I wanted to sleep with him and had mentioned how I hoped tonight we would. After having drunk a lot of wine, I find myself laying next to him in bed chatting. I wake up later in the night knowing he had had sex with me while I had passed out. I didn’t see it as rape because I liked him, I wanted him to be my boyfriend. But then I was thinking today, what must have have been like. To have sex with someone that is completely unresponsive. Who wasn’t even awake to kiss you back. How could you enjoy that?

Caitlin

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I was out with four guy friends. There was an older man at the bar who would not stop staring at me. At first I tried to ignore it, but it got to the point where he was fully turned around in his seat to get a clear, unflinching look at me. I looked directly at him and asked if I could help him. He turned his back to me. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, he was fully turned around again. This time I flipped him off. He did nothing but continue to stare in a scary, hungry way. It was at this point that one of my guy friends told me to stop because he didn’t want to have to deal with any trouble. Another told me I should be happy that I’m someone guys want to stare at. Thank you for invalidating my feelings, making it okay for a man to treat me like an object, and promoting rape culture. You guys are doing great things.