Women, Social Mores & Sexual Violence
There’s a conversation going on in the fatosphere about rape and sexual violence that I’ve found thought-provoking and incredibly important. Start here and here and here.
Please be warned that the conversation may be triggering. (I’ll put the long quote from Fugitivus behind a cut, but highly suggest you read the whole entry, if you can.)
It’s a rude fucking awakening when a woman gets raped, and follows the rules she has been taught her whole life — doesn’t refuse to talk, doesn’t refuse to flirt, doesn’t walk away ignoring him, doesn’t hit, doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t deny she liked kissing — and finds out after that she is now to blame for the rape. She followed the rules. The rules that were supposed to keep the rape from happening. The rules that would keep her from being fair game for verbal and physical abuse. Breaking the rules is supposed to result in punishment, not following them. For every time she lowered her voice, let go of a boundary, didn’t move away, let her needs be conveniently misinterpreted, and was given positive reinforcement and a place in society, she is now being told that all that was wrong, this one time, and she should have known that, duh.
For anybody who has ever watched the gendered social interactions of women — watched a woman get browbeaten into accepting attention she doesn’t want, watched a woman get interrupted while speaking, watched a woman deny she is upset at being insulted in public, watched a woman get grabbed because of what she was wearing, watched a woman stop arguing — and said and done nothing, you never have the right to ever ask, “Why didn’t she fight back?â€
She didn’t fight back because you told her not to. Ever. Ever. You told her that was okay, and necessary, and right.
You didn’t give her a caveat. You didn’t say, “Unless…†You said, “Good for you, shutting up and backing down 99% of the time. Too bad that 1% of the time makes you a fucking whore who deserved it.â€
Nobody obtains the superpower to behave dramatically differently during a frightening confrontation. Women will behave the same way they have been taught to behave in all social, professional, and sexual interactions.
I know this isn’t about body image per se, but it is about our bodies, and our right to maintain control over our bodies, even when that results in us being labeled or marked. Even when it’s unpopular. Even when it’s not “ladylike.”
I would recommend men and women alike go join the conversation—even if that means just listening. Sometimes, that’s the most powerful thing we can do.
Posted by mo pie
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[Blah blah blah I am a troll.]
Well, Kimie just managed to connect misogyny, rape culture, and fat hatred all in two neat sentences, didn’t s/he?
Wow, that was definitely a BINGO right there, on several different cards!
I wrote a post inspired a while back by SugarLeigh over at Shakesville where she talks about how she’s never been raped but… The but is important because of the conversation and realizations that sprang out of it. I’ve never been raped but I’ve put up with painful sex, sex when I really didn’t want too but couldn’t figure out how to say no and actually be listened too, and on and on.
My body is MINE and noone else’s. I’ll have sex with who I please, when I please, tattoo or pierce it how I want, get an abortion if I need one, cut, dye, style my hair however I want, all without needing the permission of anyone in my life, male OR female. It’s time the world stopped looking at women as something to ‘have’ and start seeing them as someones who ARE.
Ach, Kimie, shut up. Who cares what you think? Off you toddle.
This whole discussion (on various parts of the fatosphere) has been eye-opening, horrifying, rage-making and amazing. I’m so grateful for it.
Don’t feed the trolls and they will wither and die.
I posted a response on Shapely Prose…and after I read this I had another thought in my head. I was raped by my ex husband…and yes I call it rape because I didn’t want to do it and told him and he did it anyway and laughed at me as I screamed at him…though at the time I thought he was just being a dick and a typical man and I didn’t realize the emotional damage until much much later.
With that said…I need to write a post about this in relation to what happened to me…but I am not sure I can…
I’ve never been raped, but….
No, I never even put up with sex I wasn’t keen on having. I’ve been lucky.
On the other hand, I’ve been anonymously groped on the street. I’ve been in at least two situations where my brain was feverishly working out an exit strategy while the rest of me prayed that guy didn’t do what I was afraid he was going to do. I’ve been ‘informed’ that basically if a guy offers enough money, any woman will spread her legs. Yeah, and that probably a ‘couple hundred dollars’ would be more than enough to get me.
And I’ve been told by people in authority whose job it is to protect me that if I need them, there’s a huge likelihood they won’t be there for me. I’ve been told outright by people who are supposed to have my welfare at heart that if the inevitable happens, I need to just lie down and take it. No question of varying circumstance, no weighing of options, just lie back and don’t make him mad because then he might hurt you…as if rape wasn’t really harm. As if a penis gives the right to sex even if – perhaps especially because – it’s not what I want.
Compared to a lot of the stories I’ve been reading the last two days, I’ve been damn lucky. I’ve never had the unthinkable perpetrated on me. I’ve never had to explain how I ‘let’ rape happen to me as though there wasn’t another person actively forcing it on me.
And how sad, how disgusting is it that not having actually been raped is mere luck?
And how sad, how disgusting is it that not having actually been raped is mere luck?
It is. I’ve never been raped, but I’ve had some unpleasant experiences with unwanted come-ons by men. One happened while I was 15, and he was 15 too. He got pissed because instead of being grateful to him for giving me a kiss on the cheek, I told him never to do it again. Not surprisingly, he turned out to be a child molester.
This whole discussion has triggered some pretty intense emotions from me. I was just 11 years old when the unwanted sexual advances began. By time I was 14 I thought it was better to just let him have sex with me rather than risk being violently raped, again. This mindset turned me into quite the slut before I was even 16. Not because I really wanted the sex but because I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t go along with it. It all started at home, with a father that should have protected me and taught me that I deserve better but instead taught me that my worth was in between my legs.
I no longer feel that way and will not let a man touch me unless I am absolutely into it but it took years of righteous anger and therapy to get here.
I have been raped. It was 1982. It was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. I did not deserve it. No one ever does. It took me a very long time to get through it. I don’t think I will ever be able to say that I will ever be able to completely move past it, because there is always going to be this little piece of me that I am never going to be able to get back. It was violent, and the one person that I thought would be in my corner, my mother, was not. I had to learn to cope and deal on my own. Thank God now, I have a wonderfully understanding husband who knows my limits and why and gives me all the space and time and love and respect that I need.
Just wanted to let you know that some of us men are listening.
“doesn’t refuse to talk, doesn’t refuse to flirt, doesn’t walk away ignoring him, doesn’t hit, doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t deny she liked kissing”
This looks like a recipe for misunderstanding. If a guy is attracted to you and your not into him he needs some clear signals that you don’t feel the same way and the above quote sends mixed signals to an average guy. On the other hand I think what these rules are trying to do is keep you from suffering violence worse than rape (like battery or murder) perpetrated by sicko’s.
So to me the caveat ought to be it’s up to you as an individual to make that decision. No one else has the right to make that decision for you.
Finally no one deserves to be raped. Even the ones who like to push a guy to the edge for kicks. No is No.
Bobby, way to miss the point. The whole discussion is that this fucked up situation comes from the social conditioning to “be nice”, which makes it nearly impossible for women to stand up and speak out when a happy kissing session turns into an uncomfortable grope.
I was trained to respond to bullying (verbal and physical) by keeping quiet, not fighting back and “just ignore it”, how was I, at 16, supposed to break all that conditioning and run screaming from the room when my date went further than I wanted him to?
Rosemary, way to miss my point. My point is regardless of social conditioning a woman should have the right to maintain control over her own body as mo pie’s comment stated;
“I know this isn’t about body image per se, but it is about our bodies, and our right to maintain control over our bodies, even when that results in us being labeled or marked. Even when it’s unpopular. Even when it’s not “ladylike.†”
I simply used the “recipe for misunderstanding” statement to illustrate the absurdity of the notion that women should only cower to a man. It’s a ridiculous notion.
I’m on your side.
I wish somebody had spoken up on my behalf when I was raped as a teenager. I wish I’d believed it through my twenties when I thought I had to submit at all costs to various boyfriends or they’d hurt me. (Even though none of them ever threatened violence.)
And I am so thankful that I have a husband who gets that I still have issues connected to being raped (both as a teenager then date raped in my mid twenties) and who will back off if I don’t seem 100% into sex.
I’ve been reading all of these and wondering if I’m just spectacularly lucky. I haven’t been raped, I’ve been in some scary situations, but they never escalated to that point. I was able to get off the subway, or grab my friend and leave the party, or let the boy know he’d crossed the line. I’ve put up with dates I didn’t want and kisses I didn’t want. I now have no desire to ever go on movie dates again, but whatever.
I’m wondering if growing up in NYC with a street-wise mom has anything to do with this. Or if I just haven’t been raped YET. That’s the scary thing about it, you may not have been raped, but there’s the insinuation of a “yet” at the end of all the stats about rape. “1 in 3 women has been raped or sexually abused” seems to say silently “2 out of 3 women have not been raped yet” Are the things my mother taught me about being safe and respecting myself the things that are keeping me safe or the things that have prevented me from becoming a bad statistic *so far*?
Sorry this is rambly.
Bobby G. Keith, do you understand that being “on [a woman’s] side” means listening to her rather than dismissing her when she tries to explain to you the reality of being a woman in this society?
Rosemary is trying to point out to you that social conditioning is part of the reason women so often can’t “maintain control over [their] own bod[ies]”.
You can’t just give ally status lip service and expect that to be enough. Listen when we speak to you, or you’re no more “on our side” than anyone else.
Caitlin, with all due respect, I’m not trying to take away from or dismiss the seriousness of this issue, and I’m certainly not denying that this situation exists, I just hate to see anyone give over that much control of their lives to societies ills.