Trigger warning for talk of rape
Preface the victim’s open letter about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father with a statement saying that he deserves the presumption of innocence. Always approach situations like this with the thought that the victim might be lying; remind yourself and others that the burden of proof is on her.
Insist on referring to the victim as the rapist’s “adopted daughter,” as if that mitigates what he has done. Using subtle language cues like this, imply that though it might be rape, it’s not really incest because the the rapist is not the victim’s biological father. Pretend that adoptive parents somehow feel differently about their children than biological parents do.
Like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, insist on your ability to differentiate between an artist and their art. As a spokesperson for the organization said, “The Academy honors achievement in film, not the personal lives of filmmakers and artists.” Tell yourself that many great artists have been problematic – for example, Picasso was an abusive womanizer, but you can still enjoy his paintings – and that a person’s behaviour should not influence whether or not we view their art as great. Perhaps you could even take this a step further and insist to yourself that a perpetrator of such violence could never make such wonderful art. Let the rapist’s popularly beloved films stand as a sort of character witness, proving that there is no way he could ever have harmed his own child.
If you have worked closely with the rapist, take a page from Cate Blanchett’s book and distance yourself from the accusations, pretend that it has nothing to do with you. Tell yourself that it’s a private family matter; your willingness to be friends with the rapist is certainly not a public statement either condoning his actions or dismissing the victim’s accusations. Make a statement similar to Blanchett’s, something like: “It’s obviously been a long and painful situation for the family and I hope they find some resolution and peace.” This type of conflict is not at all convenient for your career or the image you’re trying to build for yourself.
Blame everything on the only parent the rape victim is able to love and trust. Accuse her of being the truly abusive parent; say that she was and is crazy with jealousy. Insist that she orchestrated the entire thing as an elaborate revenge plot. Paint the rapist as a victim who has had his relationship with his children destroyed by their monster of a mother. Pretend to be sympathetic to the victim, the poor girl whose mother has planted terrible ideas in her head. After all, this certainly worked for Woody Allen and his lawyer, who issued a statement saying: “It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan’s distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen.”
Write a lengthy article about how we don’t know the other side, the rapist’s side, of the story. Construct an elaborate argument explaining why the victim is a liar, knowing or not. Use a multitude of circumstantial evidence not even a little bit directly related to the actual assault described by the victim to discredit her. For example, insinuate that the victim’s mother is a hypocrite because she testified on Roman Polanski’s behalf when he was accused of rape; pretend that that has any bearing on whether or not Woody Allen raped his daughter. Using every anecdote and half-truth that comes your way to cast doubt in your readers’ minds. This won’t be hard; they are looking for a reason, any reason, to doubt anyway.
Or, like Diane Keaton, you could refuse to issue a statement, hide your head in the sand, and hope that this will all blow over.
Do not treat the victim as if they are a person with agency and thoughts and feelings – instead, treat them as an intellectual exercise, their life a puzzle to be solved, their words an argument to be defeated. Do not imagine yourself in their place, what it must be like to write a letter about the abuse they’ve suffered at their rich and powerful father’s hands. Do not try to think about what it must be like to have the entirety of the Hollywood machine working against you, swaying the minds of the population against what you are saying. Do not picture the anguish you might feel at seeing scores upon scores of people trying to discredit you, trying to trip you up, trying to defend the man who raped you, the man they all love so very much.
Do not think about the message that this, your willingness to doubt, is sending to all of the people you know who have also been victims of rape. They almost certainly number far more than you know, but try not to think about how your reaction might further convince them that sharing their story will only be met with derision and disbelief.
Tell yourself that this is not rape culture. Tell yourself that a knee-jerk reaction of you must be lying or remembering it wrong when faced with a victim’s accusations of rape is not a sign that our society is so very, very fucked up. Tell yourself that it’s rational and logical to want to know all sides of the story, though you never want to know the other side, the perpetrator’s side, when your house is broken into or your wallet is stolen or your child is hit by a car. Tell yourself that we can never know for sure what happened and since a man’s life can be destroyed by accusations of rape, it’s best to err on the side of caution. Do not think about the girl whose life was destroyed when she was seven.
Above all, never, ever, ever think about the ways that you might be complicit in this.
I stand with Dylan Farrow.
The Belle Jar 
Fabulously stated. Love this.
Reblogged this on garjito89 and commented:
Follow back.
I remember a woman I worked with shutting my office door and telling me her rape story, returning to work after a leave she took because of the rape and beating. I was amazed at the things she had to endure afterward–even from her own boss. Thanks for being brave enough to speak out on a tough subject.
I hate that people use the possibility of wrongful conviction as a way to defend him. Statistics have shown that there are by far more rapists who get away with the crime more than actual wrongful convictions. There are many talented artists out there who deserve recognition but don’t get it for one reason or another that we can afford to lose a horrible human being
Hibari, are people who are saying that the presumption of innocence should remain necessarily defending him though? I’m sure some people might be using it as a smokescreen, but all of them?
For example, I personally think it’s entirely plausible that he did it and that it’s tragic that the system didn’t find him guilty. However it would be even more tragic if the presumption of innocence were lost here in terms of the legal precedent it would set.
Sure you could argue that his case deserves an exception to the norm, but once you start wanting to apply exceptions, where do you start and where do you stop?
The fact is that the presumption of innocence has never been there because of the guilty, but because of the innocent when the system gets it wrong. You could argue that the number of legitimate cases which go unsuccessfully prosecuted far outweigh wrongful convictions, however even if you were in a situation where you were talking a ratio of unsuccessful prosecutions to wrongful convictions of 19:1, that 5% is still 5% too many in terms of men and women subjected to a brutally unjust outcome.
In fact, given that such wrongful convictions not only result in brutal physical violence, but ironically and invariably, serial prison rape itself, such an approach is ironically, a form of rape apologetics in and of itself, no matter how unintentional it might have been on your part.
If anyone wants to look at where a complete removal of the presumption of innocence leads, I suggest they look no further than the Salem Witch Trials, to see just what happens when you have a system where the accused is “guilty until proven innocent”. Given that wrongful conviction situations have a proclivity for turning into “witch hunts” (which let’s face it, is where the term comes from), such a comparison is in no way, shape or form, hyperbolic.
It is for that reason that while I have no doubt that your argument here was made with the best of intentions, that your argument is itself, an example of the old saying of “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”.
I don’t think anyone here is saying anything about legal culpability?
It think it’s incredibly important not to take what is a legal principle (reasonable doubt) and apply it to public and personal opinion. If there wasn’t strong evidence to convict Woody Allen then fine, I’m ok with saying it’s right that he wasn’t convicted. But saying that isn’t mutually exclusive with believing, and standing with Dylan Farrow, and choosing not to support Woody Allen’s work. There’s nothing inconsistent in saying that I believe he molested Dylan, I believe she is telling the truth, I believe he deserves every bit of the anger a lot of us feel about this, and I still think it’s quite possible that he ought not to have been convicted.
There are lots of legal principles we don’t apply in personal ways and that’s a good thing.
Eden, the problem is that when people start talking about removing the presumption of “innocent until proven” guilty in the context of ” Statistics have shown that there are by far more rapists who get away with the crime more than actual wrongful convictions.” then it’s very much drifting into the territory of applying that argument in terms of a legal setting, hence why I responded the way I did though.
As far as Dylan goes, I also stand with her and agree that people should support her and commend her for bravely speaking out. Even if there were false memories there as some people have argued, she would still be in a situation of living with the trauma of incest and so I’d even take your “not applying legal principles to everyday life” argument and extend it to drawing a distinction between supporting the brave disclosure of a child trauma survivor (and I use that term only because it covers every possible “what if” while in no way diminishing what she has endured) and passing a judgement on what actually happened.
As for not supporting Woody Allen’s work, I’d say I’d make a conscious decision to no longer support his work, but that would imply that I was somehow changing my viewing habits.
The fact is that I’ve never been a fan of him to begin with (the only exception would be Condorman and that in itself is an exception to the rest of his work anyway). At best his movies seem like one glorified casting couch in terms of whichever starlet he’s fixated upon and at worst, as others have pointed out, they become an exercise in glorifying abhorrent child abuse in cases like “Crimes and misdemeanours”.
Andrew, the presumption of innocence only applies in a legal setting. There is no danger of personal assumptions crossing over into the legal domain. Alas, you are engaging in rape apologia.
Except that we’ve already established that I agreed that my concern stemmed from Hibari’s comment implying it should be removed from a legal context. Secondly I already expressed complete suypport for Dylan Farrow. In short, our claims of my engaging in rape apologetics are not only barefaced lies, but considering the veiled rape apologetics which you engaged in against me, the height of depraved hypocrisy.
bowspearer aka Andrew,
Hibari implied no such thing. The point was that citing wrongful convictions to deflect attention away from the wrongdoing of accused rapists is a bogus deflection and it’s frustrating to see it. That tactic is used to discredit and silence survivors of sexual violence. You can’t use that argument and then credibly claim to support Dylan Farrow.
Your hyperbolic, verbal abuse is unwelcome and undeserved.
Auntie Alias, let’s review exactly what was said “I hate that people use the possibility of wrongful conviction as a way to defend him. Statistics have shown that there are by far more rapists who get away with the crime more than actual wrongful convictions.”
That response has an implication that it is referring to a legal context.
When Eden raised the point with me, I responded as follows:
“Eden, the problem is that when people start talking about removing the presumption of “innocent until proven” guilty in the context of ” Statistics have shown that there are by far more rapists who get away with the crime more than actual wrongful convictions.” then it’s very much drifting into the territory of applying that argument in terms of a legal setting, hence why I responded the way I did though.”
Ergo, my response made it clear my concern only extended so far as its use in a legal setting. In fact I then reiterated what I have said from the start when I said:
“As far as Dylan goes, I also stand with her and agree that people should support her and commend her for bravely speaking out. Even if there were false memories there as some people have argued, she would still be in a situation of living with the trauma of incest and so I’d even take your “not applying legal principles to everyday life” argument and extend it to drawing a distinction between supporting the brave disclosure of a child trauma survivor (and I use that term only because it covers every possible “what if” while in no way diminishing what she has endured) and passing a judgement on what actually happened.”
Ergo I have nothing but compassion for Dylan and applaud her for bravely taking the stand she has. I further went on to say that I have no intention of supporting Woody Allen’s work in the future due to what Dylan has endured.
Conversely, you have openly engaged in victim blaming and shaming tactics in order to silence a rape survivor here (myself) on the grounds of gender for the crime of bringing to light issues not covered by the blog author which must be if we are to truly begin to address and end all rape in our society- no matter how devastating they might be to the carefully constructed narratives of individuals such as yourself. As such, your claims of verbal abuse are as blatant a case of victim playing a response as if they were made by those shaming and blaming female rape survivors in response to being called out on their chauvinism.
In short, if you want to look at someone undermining rape survivors here, then look no further than yourself.
bowspearer,
“That response has an implication that it is referring to a legal context.”
No. It is referring to a statistical probability. Having a conversation about it isn’t a slippery slope to changing the law. Your objection is a silencing tactic.
Auntie Alias, your response is both disingenous and baseless. The fact is that the response by Hibari, did read as if it was erring into the legal context which I did specifically respond to on those grounds.
Furthermore not only did I make it clear that my objection was only to removing it in that context, but then went on to both state a complete support for Dylan Farrow (whichever side of the story is accurate, Dylan Farrow has still been the victim of an abhorrent betrayal of trust by one parent in the form of utterly unconscionable and horrific abuse) and stated that I would be maintaining my status quo of refusing to support Woody Allen in light of Dylan’s allegations.
As such, to claim my concerns extend beyond a specific legal context and are designed as a shaming tactic – when I have gone on to both repeatedly state that my concerns extend no further than the legal context and express support for Dylan and a boycott of Allen’s work – is blatant and baseless obfuscation on your part.
Of course when you couple it with the fact that you have openly carried on with vile rape apologist and rape culture perpetuating conduct in these comments, to the point of effectively accusing rape victims of being “man hating lesbians” or specifically it’s male equivalent – the only position you are in to criticise the shaming and silencing of rape victims from, is an utterly hypocritical one.
Are you being serious? Someone is a rape apologist if they share a view that isn’t the same as your’s and which advocates for a suspension of belief on a complicated matter where we don’t know the truth?
It’s very serious to call someone an apologist for rape. Don’t use it flippantly. It’s offensive and demeans the discussion.
I agree with others in this thread. We don’t know what happened. We know there is one story. I just can’t move to complete condemnation yet.
I’m going to have to look up the exact situation you’re referring to but, I have to say, as a victim of rape and molestation from a very young age by an adoptive parent (then foster parents later on) THIS is the exact reaction. When a child or adult reaches out for help in this situation, everyone assumes they are simply lying, manipulative bitches (had a state case worker call me that verbatim).
Blame and guilt are saddled on the victim while everyone just ignores the evil the rapist/molester committed.
Makes me fucking sick. Our society turns its back on those that need it most, they shun the hurt/molested/raped/abused and lift up the perpetrators.
as a survivor of statutory rape, I thank you for writing such a candid piece. what happened to me effects me to this day and I’ll never really be over it, God is still working on me 20 years later. it’s a shame how victims keep getting victimized. I too stand with Dylan….
Reblogged this on The International Blogspaper.
Reblogged this on The Social Mirror.
Beautifull
Coming out to tell this story in such vivid language must be had for her and at the end of the day, she is the one being called a liar and is mocked because her father who produces such great movies can do no wrong. What a world.
seven years imprisonement
I think it’s sad that we’ve even developed the term “rape culture”. Has such a terrible act become so prevalent that we’ve developed a term for it? Such a thought is profoundly disturbing to me. Even more disturbing, though not surprising, is the fact that modern “royalty” or similar people refuse to take responsibility for their screw-ups. It’s not too different from the incident with the young man who drove drunk, killed four people, then blamed “affluenza” for his actions.
Reblogged this on This title is a work-in process and commented:
This post captures all of the grave faults society exhibits in addressing rape culture. I don’t think there are enough words and adjectives in the world to express how disgusting I find victim blaming– how the burden of proof in cases of rape and sexual assault lies with the victim. Rather than accepting a person’s claim that they were raped at face value, society demands that she (or he) prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were in no way complicit in said rape, and that the behavior of their attacker should not be excused, forgiven, or justified for any reason. Victims of rape/sexual assault should never be doubted and scrutinized so fiercely while society openly and readily expresses pity toward the accused.
Reblogged this on Stay Positive.
This is an incredibly thought provoking post, people do need to be more sensitive on the subject and how they discuss, or refuse to discuss, or avoid the topic of, rape.
Reblogged this on sudarshandatta and commented:
Not that Woody Allen is the chief villain of mankind, for there have been worse, hordes of criminal gangs, successfully plying their trade from centuries in grab of religion, the point is that their can be no justification for Allen, he is guilty of misconduct.
It is a breath of fresh air to hear more and more voices admit to the rampant rape culture and how this impacts women and the people who love them.
I enjoyed reading your piece. You might also like a blog that recently went live: http://enteringandbreaking.wordpress.com/?p=21&preview=true
Let’s stand together…
Ironically Off Duty Mom, your response here by implying that rape is only a serious issue affecting women is both blatantly gendered rape apologetics and pedophile apologetics and a textbook example of why the biggest purveyor of “rape culture” in addition to to chauvinism is none other than conventional feminist theory itself.
The fact is that regardless of the intentions of your post, your response is a classic example why the prison rape of men (what the term actually referred to before it was hijacked by feminism) is still viewed as either a comedy trope or “[just] men doing it to each other” and why male victims of rape, especially at the hands of female rapists, are pilloried in a manner which would never fly if a female rape victim were subjected to it.
Under the vilely hypocritical dogma you refer to, if the victim isn’t penetrated or “forced to envelop” then the victim isn’t a ” ‘real’ rape victim”.
So infested with this gendered rape apologist dogma that the vast bulk of studies never even bother to examine just how prevalent the rape where the victim is “forced to penetrate” might be, and in the rare cases studies do ask about rape survivors who are “forced to penetrate” like in the 2010 NIPSVS, the data reveals that half of all rape victims are male and that 40% of all rapes are perpetrated by women. Likewise when we start looking at the experiences of male victims of domestic violence at the hands of abusive women, such as with the study by Edith Cowan University in 2010, we start to find that rape by abusive women against their male partners is experienced almost universally.
But according to feminist dogma, those 40% of rapists are really the victim because they have a vagina between their legs and their male victims must have been lying predators because they have a penis between their legs.
This attitude even extends as far as pedophile apologetics. I’ve heard feminists vehemently object to the notion of underage female rape victims being denied abortions for rape pregnancies, yet I have yet to hear any feminist objections to the fact that it is enshrined in law that if a male child rape is caught up in a rape pregnancy (ie a female pedophile rapes them, then falls pregnant and subsequently gives birth to a child), that that child rape victim is legally required to pay their rapist child support.
Funnily enough, what I have read and heard, are feminists in cases were female child sexual predators are charged with child sex offenses, treated like the victim, while the real victims of the case are treated like they’re the predators that raped the adult rapist. It’s no different to someone responding to the Dylan Farrow case by claiming that she raped Woody Allen as a child. Would such a response ever even remotely fly in society? Of course not, and why should it. Yet that is exactly the type of message which the claim that rape culture is something which only affects women, sends to every single one of us who are male rape survivors at the hands of either female predators or abusive ex-partners.
Is it any wonder that studies have found that children preyed on by female child sexual predators are far less likely to be believed when disclosing their abuse to even police, than children preyed on by male child sexual predators.
In short, the next time you and others decide that you want to oppose rape culture while claiming it only affects women, I suggest you start with combating rape culture by beginning with your own preconceived gendered notions of sex and sexual abuse.
Andrew is an MRA, I see. That explains his position.
Auntie Alias, your response here, has been to respond in a manner which is no different to arbitrarily dismissing a female rape victim as a “man hating lesbian” – all because I, as a male rape survivor:
A) dared to bring up not only the stereotypes we face that generally do not have to deal with (last I checked, there wasn’t an automatic presumption on a female rape victim that she was really the perpetrator and her rapist was really the victim), or where they do, it’s at a far more fundamental level (ie women are blamed because of how they dress; men are blamed because they have a penis); and
B) dared to call feminists and chauvinists equally to account for their part in perpetuating said stereotypes.
Not only is your response rape apologetics of the most vile kind, but your response here is a textbook example of the types of behaviour that the blogger was referring to when they made the following blog post on the 19th January: https://bellejar.ca/2014/01/09/do-we-have-to-be-offended-by-everything/
Funny how my comments are now moderated for daring to raise deeper issues of rape culture in our society because they dare to be inconvenient in terms of the feminist narrative. It would appear judging from my moderation for simply speaking the truth and expressing my completely justified offence at the hypocritical claims that rape culture is something which only directly harms women (which is in and of itself a part of rape culture) that the blog owner believes that feminists are exempt from her own advice in the above linked blog, the moment the truth becomes too inconvenient for the person reading it.
Highly telling indeed…
bowspearer aka Andrew,
You use classic MRA talking points, most of which are unrelated to the topic at hand. If your comments are now being moderated, good. I for one, don’t appreciate seeing rank misogyny here.
Auntie Alias, dismissing my talking points because of who you might have heard them from before iss irrelevant. I happen to be an MRA because I believe in justice for all and I believe that can only happen when we start treating all people as human beings regardless of gender and treat all abuse and all abuse victims seriously regardless of gender (for the record, I oppose any and all forms of chauvinism and vehemently oppose a return to how things were because that was a society where people were utilitarianly treated based entirely upon their sex).
Considering I am a male survivor of rape, domestic violence, rape and child abuse (primarily at the hands of women) who has experienced many of the social stigmas raised in said talking points, why wouldn’t I take a stand on those issues and demand that all male abuse survivors be treated as seriously as female abuse survivors- just as female domestic violence, rape and child abuse survivors would naturally want to take a stand on issues preventing them from being treated seriously.
Yet your response did nothing but engage in blatant victim blaming and blatant victim shaming. As you have just confirmed, when you accused me of being an MRA, what you really meant was “misogynist” aka, the male equivalent of “man hating lesbian”.
If a female rape victim raised legitimate issues facing all female rape victims in response to a statement which effectively regarded those issues as non-existent, only to be dismissed as a “man hating lesbian” in an attempt to shame and silence them, would that be acceptable? Of course not, and neither is your vile chauvinism here. After all, by using the “misogynist” slur here, you are in effect, attempting to shame me into resuming the traditionalist “protector of women” male role and as such, it is no different to telling a female rape survivor to “get back in the kitchen/bedroom” for raising the same issues). In fact it is entirely reasonable to compare such a response to that of Sheik Hilali when he made those vile and ghastly comments about female rape victims a few years ago in Western Sydney. You wouldn’t tolerate a man treating a woman, let alone a female abuse survivor that way- so at least have the decency and the egalitarianism (you do stand for gender equality don’t you) to hold yourself to the same standard.
As for the issues at hand; your response that they are unrelated is a barefaced lie. This blog post was about issues facing rape culture and barriers to disclosure for sexual assault victims. The article might have used Dylan’s Vanity Fair article as a launching pad, but it was dealing with the issues which all rape victims face when disclosing their abuse. To claim that issues relating to male rape victims (which must be addressed in addition to those of female rape victims if we are to ever truly eliminate rape) are unrelated to the topic at hand, is to effectively claim that male rape victims aren’t “real” rape victims (something which you appear to be strongly drawn towards the moment a definition of rape encompassing all male rape victims goes beyond one which is convenient for your constructed narrative). As such is it a blatant example of both victim blaming and the perpetuation of rape culture.
Ergo, if anyone out of the two of us has been guilty of gender based hatred here, it is you. I suggest you take the advice of the previous blog post made by the author I linked you to and reflect upon it.
Wow.
By the way, you’re welcome for the extra reader coming to your blog. And you’re welcome for the complement I paid your writing.
What I find vile is the use of pompousness and a platform thinly-veiled in righteousness as a guise to help us overt our attitudes about the dogma about which you preach and guide us instead to your own agenda.
If your goal here was to piss me off, it worked. And, in the arena of blogging, it seems as though one’s goal might be to gain readership to perpetuate an important message. Is it any wonder that I will no longer read your “art” and I will doggedly dissuade others from reaching your platform as well? Because, frankly, you are kind of an asshole.
My post did not even hint at a suggestion that only women are impacted by rape. I did not even come close to anything that in any way alluded to a wisp of an idea that only women can be raped or that rape only takes one form.
In fact, I make absolutely no political claims in my response to you whatsoever when it is you who take this commentary to another level.
What seems to be a blatant perpetuation of rape culture is when men attempt to use power over women to assault, shame, and perpetrate violence even if the weapon is an arsenal of arrogance and 50-cent vocabulary.
An attempted mind-fuck is still an act of aggression. To use your pulpit of so-called virtue and honor to “school” a complementary reader of your post is a blatant and vitriolic misuse of this forum.
Spit your venom on someone else. I will not be subject to your bullshit.
I am a feminist. And I am a rape survivor. You are a dick. And your carefully-chosen wordsmithery smacks of yet another entitled man swinging that dick up against any potential victim he can find.
Go fuck yourself.
And the next time you think you can use a blogger’s nom de plume as a reason to pigeon-hole her as “just” a mommy-blogger who couldn’t possibly have anything valuable to offer to your pretentious pile of bullshit, realize that you are also guilty of having preconceived notions of your own.
Incidentally, while my sentiments about Andrew’s chauvinism and vacuous commentary still stand, I see now that WordPress misled my e-mail filter to believe that Andrew was the original author of “How to Undermine A Rape Victim 101.”
I see that I was mistaken in that.
But I was not mistaken that Andrew is an asshole.
Oh and Off Duty Mom, as for your “yet another entitled man” crap, I’m going to set the record straight.
I have a learning disability and from the age of 6 to 29, the female members of my family decided to “discipline the disability out of me” to the point where the psychological abuse was so severe that I was left feeling like not only would noone miss me if I was gone, l but that my family would dance on my grave if I committed suicide. It only ended when I broke free of the abuse resulting in the majority of my family turning on me and one of them pushing me to within inches of slashing my wrists.
In addition to the severe bullying I copped at school due to my disability, I was sexually assaulted on my year 10 school camp by another male student and when I dared speak out about it, my female year coordinator hauled me into her office, blasted and shamed me into silence – amongst other things, comparing me to “women who cry rape” while I had to deal with whispered rumours behind my back that I was gay. Meanwhile my weasel of a male school principal told my mother over the phone, who was in tears about it, that they were doing it “for the good of my reputation”.
In my late 20s and in a vulnerable state after a girl I was forced to break up with due to her not believing I’d been abused as a child, died in a head on car crash 5 days after I broke up with her, I was preyed on by an abusive woman and endured 18 months of hellish domestic violence where I lived in constant fear of being “punished” and was severely abused, including being regularly raped in the most self-deprecating ways. The only reason it ended was because at some point something in me kicked in and I briefly broke away, until she lured me back in- which turned out to be so she could end things on her terms. When I disclosed the abuse, many people I thought were friends turned on me, one even responding to me as a rape and domestic violence victim at the time with “you can’t go through life hating everyone with a pair of ovaries” (which is ironic as my support group now includes many amazing and wonderful women who I love and deeply respect).
As a result of all that, I was left with depression and PTSD – which only compounded when I was beaten to within an inch of my life by a violent drunk who at the time was serving weekend detention for assaulting police and had a long history of violent assault.
As a result, I’ve only recently been able to resume full time study and am only now reaching a point here I can begin to look at working full time.
So tell me again, how my life, as a survivor of heinous psychological child abuse, as a child sexual assault survivor which my school covered up, as a domestic violence survivor, as an adult rape survivor and as a violent crime survivor, has even remotely been that of “yet another entitled man”- without it being anything other than blatantly gendered and chauvinistic abuse apologetics (where I am effectively given a blanket, gendered response of being blamed for being abused because I have a penis between my legs).
Off Duty Mom, give the victim playing a rest and own your vile, victim blaming chauvinistic hypocrisy here in the same way you would expect a man to if the genders were reversed.
Let’s review exactly what you said here:
“It is a breath of fresh air to hear more and more voices admit to the rampant rape culture and how this impacts [only] women and the people who love them.”
In other words, [only] women are the victims of rape culture – which completely falls in line with the old feminist trope of “women are [only] victims; men are [only] perpetrators”.
In fact you’ve confirmed that is exactly what you meant when you further went on to say:
“In fact, I make absolutely no political claims in my response to you whatsoever when it is you who take this commentary to another level.
What seems to be a blatant perpetuation of rape culture is when men attempt to use power over women to assault, shame, and perpetrate violence even if the weapon is an arsenal of arrogance and 50-cent vocabulary.”
In other words it’s, by your own argument rape culture is solely a phenomenon involving [exclusively] male power [exclusively] over women. In short your argument is that rape culture in no way shape or form involves female power over males.
As such, it denies the reality that rape culture is also the abuse of female power over male victims. Such chauvinistic rape apologetics are so widespread, that even the vast bulk of academia has virtually ignored the prevalence of female on male rape the moment it ceases to be compatible with the model of female-on-male vaginal rape (ie where the victim is forcibly penetrated or “forced to envelop”).
It is so perverse that there is still an enormous cloud over even the legal recognition of female-on-male rape victims here the victim was “forced to penetrate”; while it is legally enshrined in multiple US states (and this is only where it has been confirmed) that child rape victims, must pay their female child rapists child support, when a rape pregnancy results from said child rape; the reverse would never fly where the perpetrator was male and the victim was female.
Such a status quo has nothing to do with ending parts of our culture which normalise and condone rape and shame and silence rape victims; it is about maintaining the feminist narrative of “[only] men are pretators]; [only] women are victims”.
Such a status quo, does nothing but treat male rape survivors like myself as perpetual liars and pieces of meat and gives our abusers a free pass. Regardless of your intentions, that is precisely the line of argument you took.
You accusing me of chauvinism when your entire line of argument treats myself and other male rape survivors as essentially penises on legs, is the height of hypocrisy- only made worse by your own admission that you are a rape survivor yourself and should be all too keen to remove any and all barriers to disclosure, as opposed to further entrenching them.
There is a difference between playing the victim and being the victim. When you were raped (and as a fellow survivor, you have my deepest sympathises for what you endured) you were a victim. However in this instance, you stated a chauvinistic, rape culture perpetuating myth and a fellow rape survivor whom it intrinsically targeted by its very nature, was understandingly offended and triggered by that and called you out on it. Yet rather than simply own it, accepting that the nature of the response was entirely predictable, and learn from it – you instead chose to respond by playing the victim.
Whether you continue to maturely own your error and learn from it is upto you. However I refuse to stay silent as a survivor, simply because it happens to be convenient for a gendered rape apologist and pedophile apologist narrative which only further marginalises, shames and silences myself and other male rape survivors whose ordeals do not neatly fit into the “forced to envelop” model of rape- regardless of the personal cost involved.
Thanks. I needed a laugh today.
Off Duty Mom, all that response does is dig the hole deeper and deeper regarding your chauvinistic, rape apologist, child abuse apologist and rape culture perpetuating argument. The fact that you would choose to respond that you find a male rape survivor taking issues with double standards affecting all male rape victims and which perpetuate rape culture, with mockery and laughter is nothing but rampant hypocrisy from someone who as a self-confessed rape survivor, should know far better. Of course let’s not forget that your entire response to me here has made a complete mockery of your supposed concerned for people with disabilities.
Still I should thank you. Your shaming tactic prompted a jarring, thought provoking piece of writing (juxtaposing your slur with what I have endured) which has been positively recieved and commended by everyone who has read it- many of whom are women who are survivors of domestic violence and rape. Funny about that.
So feel free to continue your chauvinistic, rape culture perpetuating stance. The only ones who will side with it are those as blind to what egalitarianism actually is as you have clearly proven yourself to be.
Reblogged this on on a spectrum and commented:
I with you!
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Thought some might be interested in this book (a Times bestseller in the UK) about this issue. http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Hurt-inspiring-nightmare-ebook/dp/B004XIVP4A
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http://wordpress.com/read/post/id/36315372/3409/
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What a thoughtful, well-written post! Thank you for your insight. It is tragic that victims of rape are treated this way.
Reblogged this on Thekynegro29's Blog and commented:
The #victimblaming and misogyny I see springing up over this omg
Isn’t it interesting that even years after the alleged incidents, that no one seems to doubt the testimony of the victim when they accuse a Catholic priest. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they doubted that the priest was guilty, even without knowing anything about any of the parties involved.
It doesn’t matter who the victim is, what her mothers personality is like or what role the accused plays in the community.
That being said, remember the boys that were recently released from prison after the girl that accused them of rape recanted.
a very sad but true reality of that ‘rape culture’
thanks for sharing.
Reblogged this on Me. For Your Consideration. and commented:
Strong words about a harsh topic. It’s hard to talk about and that’s why we have to, because saying nothing is being complicit. I stand with Dylan Farrow.
I would need more information before condemning the accused.
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Here’s Woody Allen’s rebuttal~: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?_r=0
nice article
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Reblogged this on jadeyhamidon's Blog.
It’s very true – media scrowing minds in the name of news culture.
Awesome post. Thanks for sharing.
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We don’t know for sure what happened but we can’t convict people without good evidence. If we did then we wouldn’t need the police and courts. Instead of blindly siding with any party, let us for once try to see the truth. When Woody Allen was about to get married to another woman, his ex tries to ruin his life. If it was true that he had molested Dylan, then the doctor would have said that she had in fact been molested. But the doctor didn’t find any evidence. So we should not try mob mentality and ruin either Dylan’s or Woody’s life. Let the case run its course and see what happens. Till then read the other side of the story and then see what the police have to say.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html
There will be no investigation because the statute of limitations has passed. The only court Mr. Allen will be tried in is the court of public opinion; and we have found him wanting. Instead of jumping to believe the words of the accused over the accuser (as our society is so prone to do when the accused is a) a man, b) famous and c) the accuser is a woman) look at the facts and “for once try to see the truth,” for yourself.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts
I mean….Hello People, he married his daughter!!!! Disgusting.
Sadly there is no way to know , tho their might be a trace of truth in the wounded look in her eyes . Also his personal choices may be telling .
Thoroughly written.
Reblogged this on makemoneywiththewinters and commented:
Rape Victims
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