BEFORE I BELIEVED IN "RAPE CULTURE"

Before Steubenville and #IamJADA I thought "Rape Culture" was too big a label for...I don't know what. I think I was calling IT "boys will be boys" attitude. I hated "boys will be boys" attitude but for some reason I didn't want to call it "Rape Culture." For whatever reason "culture" made IT sound too big -- especially with the word "rape" in front of it. Male attitudes toward dominance and entitlement, collectively speaking, couldn''t be THAT bad, right? That's what I must have been thinking. I'm not really sure now. However, Steubenville and Jada convinced me. And I was sold on Rape Culture long beforeI needed to separate Bill Cosby from Cliff Huxtable. Good thing too. Black men, and women too, were saying things that made me feel like the top of my head was going to blow off.

I've been thinking about "rape culture" a lot again this week. Aside from all the muck that's arisen in me as a result of the slap on the wrist given to the Stanford Rapist, Brock Turner, the Grim Sleeper got the death penalty this week. In additional to being a serial killer, it seems clear that he was a rapist and sexual torturer. I guess "sexual torturer" is what the main stream media means by "sexual sadist." I never had to really think about that before. I hope I don't have to ever again. Since it's obvious that so many in our society, still don't believe that "Rape Culture" exists, I've been thinking about my own transition into believing in the obvious. There's an incident I remember, that happened just before or just after my transition. A group of us were chatting in a anti-racism facebook group This guy posts a picture or video of a woman sitting by herself in a park. She was just sitting there, enjoying herself, not dressed any particular way - not slut shame-able, in other words.

Somehow this man that posted this picture managed to convey, in two or three sentences, that he was outraged that he is outraged by her, this woman in sitting in a park. So, I start staring at her clothes. I'm looking for some sort of indication that she's doing something unacceptable by men prone to judging what is worthy of high class femalehood, ladylike etc. But I couldn't figure out what he's talking about. It took a while for me to understand that her choice to be alone was THE problem. The photo wasn't like the one below. The photo was a long shot. You could see tons and tons of open grass with nobody else in it. This man that posted the photo went on and on, "What's she doing there by herself" becoming more and more outraged. The "she's asking for it" tone became very clear.

When I stopped being confused I was angry. I start thinking, 'I'm not allowed to be in a park by myself? I'm stupid if I am? I'm asking for it?' So I ask him, "Can a man go to the store at midnight to buy a pack of cigarettes without asking to be shot by a robber during a hold up? Is he stupid for going out late? How is it everybody understands that a man getting shot by a robber at a store, in the middle of the night, is the robbers fault BUT SOMEHOW a rape is my fault if I'm alone? Even in a park in the middle of the day, if i"m dumb enough to be alone? How does that work? How does "asking for it" work? I can't tell you how "asking for it works." But I can tell you "asking for it" only works within rape culture.

"Asking for it" came to mind again today, because in the woman attacked by the Stanford Rapist said her sister was calling her, weeks or months after the rape, from college, barely able to speak. When her sister calls the woman who was raped, she is crying so hard she can barely make herself understood. The rape survivor says her sister is always trying to say, "I'm so sorry...so sorry...so sorry....so sorry....I left you." Women are not supposed to be alone. Women are not supposed to leave each other alone. We're been taught rape culture is our problem to deal with.

Her sister --no matter how much logic says that rape is the rapist's fault -- thinks it's her own fault for leaving the woman alone.

And I know I would feel the same way.

I know I would. Even now.

I too live and accept that I live in rape culture. I accept rape culture. I have accepted rape culture. I'm trying not to. But it's in me. Rape Culture is what is normal to me. Have I, in the past, said and done things that mean "She's asking for it?"

I probably have - before I believed in Rape Culture. I pray I don't say those things now. I pray I don't really believe in the worst of Rape Culture. But you never know. I was raised in it. I've been bathing in it for years and years. I have to watch myself. The woman who was raped called her boyfriend too that night.
She was so drunk, she was slurring her words so badly, that he couldn't understand her. It doesn't sound like he was terribly worried, reading between the lines. He couldn't understand her so he kept telling her to find her sister. It was probably mostly funny in the moment, ya know? To find out your girlfriend can't hold her liquor like she used to when she was in college.Now though? Her boyfriend is another person that's probably been destroyed by this rape.
I almost wish he'd write something about how he feels so other men can understand that "asking for it" is part of a Rape Culture Belief System.

Continued here: "BEFORE DADDY TURNER MADE THE STANFORD RAPE GO VIRAL"

http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/06/before-daddy-turner-made-stanford-rape.html