Personal Experiences with Rape Culture

This was submitted to me today and the submitter requested that I keep it private but I wanted to include it as part of my post because it makes some good points that I don’t want to be restating as though they’re mine.

“i’m so fucking sick of the whole elmo/kevin clash bullshit and i just…someone i know reblogged an “oh no, he had to resign? MY CHILDHOOD IS RUINED” as if the survivors’ lives haven’t been affected at all. and i made the mistake of going in the “kevin clash” tag and there is NOTHING in there about how fucked up it all is.

if you could make a post about it, it would definitely help me feel like all of humanity isn’t completely fucked up. if you don’t feel up to it, i understand…it’s just really weighing heavily on me, esp since i feel like we just got done regularly hearing about joe paterno and “oh no they are ruining our football team!!” *sigh*”

(that was the submission, from here on out it’s me talking)

So for those of you unaware this is what’s going on with Kevin Clash and it’s definitely tragic.  He has been accused of actively trolling for and engaging with sex with minors.  Obviously this sort of sexual assault is a very very serious problem and these victims/survivors/accusers deserve to be heard.  But it’s more than that, all these utterly selfish reactions speak to a larger cultural phenomenon where victims of any kind of abuse are routinely told to shut the fuck up for “the good of the community” and that is NOT ok under ANY circumstances AND doesn’t make any fucking sense anyway!  It’s an absurd sort of victim blaming, victim shaming, and apologism that I’ll try to break down here if I can…

So sure, when we find out that people we have or have had relationships with are abusers it tends to shake us in a serious way and I think that’s legit even when it’s a celebrity.  Those relationships are one-sided but I don’t really think they’re not legitimate or are less important personally, developmentally, cognitively, etc than two-sided relationships.  A person who feels a connection with Kevin Clash has a right to that connection and would understandably feel upset over having that connection shattered by the revelation that he’s an abuser.  It would be similar (though obviously not nearly the same) to me finding out a good friend that I had trusted was an abuser and I can understand why people are upset.  

But let’s make something very clear: THAT IS NOT THE VICTIM’S FAULT!!! I’m gonna say that a few times to help it sink in - that is not the victim’s fault, that is not the victim’s fault, that is not the victim’s fault!  Seriously, the person responsible for choosing to abuse is the abuser.  That’s it, that’s all there is.  Kevin Clash is responsible for any choices he made and any abuse people suffered at his hands.  Us all remaining ignorant of it doesn’t change what Kevin Clash did or who he is as a person and ignorance doesn’t actually help anything.  It’s not somehow better for everyone to just remain ignorant of all this abuse, all that does is put more people at risk and allow the abuser to keep on abusing consequence free.  

Additionally, victims are NOT responsible for everyone else’s feelings!  No, really, they’re not.  Victims are responsible for their feelings and they deserve to have people actually validate those feelings, not selfishly dismiss them because their feelings have been hurt by these revelations.  If you’re upset over what Keven Clash did then you need to fucking blame Kevin Clash NOT the victims who had the courage to come forward.  They’re not responsible for upsetting you just because they removed your ignorance, Kevin Clash is the ONLY person responsible for this because he’s the one who chose to abuse.

And that goes for every single solitary incidence of abuse ever in the history of the world.  When a “pillar of the community” is accused of abuse (like that judge who was filmed beating his daughter) people often get upset at the victim for “ruining” that person’s good name.  That victim didn’t “ruin” anything, that victim didn’t do anything other than remove ignorance.  The person who ruined that good name is that “pillar of the community” who chose to abuse.  People not knowing ze’s an abuser doesn’t make hir less of an abuser so any name ruining comes directly from the person who chose to abuse, not the victims who chose to come forward and seek justice.  

Stop being selfish and thinking that other people’s pain is about you, stop acting like victims are at fault for what other people chose to do to them, stop acting like abusers aren’t responsible for their actions and choices, and stop fucking acting like victims should be ashamed of coming forward.  That shit is so fucked up beyond all reason that I can’t even believe I have to explain it and it definitely doesn’t help anything.  All it does (once again) is let abusers continue to abuse consequence free and put more people at risk, more people in danger.  That’s damn sure not “good for the community” or in this case “good for your childhood.”

This is something I recently told one of my lovely tumblr friends and I think it bears repeating en masse…

Abusers abuse.  That’s what they do.  That’s what they do no matter what.  It’s important to remember that abusers abuse because that means that there is literally nothing you or anyone else can do to stop them or change them or make them do anything differently.  This means that anything an abuser does IS NOT YOUR FAULT! The only person who’s responsible for those actions is the abuser hirself, that’s it, that’s all there is to it.  

So if you’re out there and you’ve been abused in some way, raped, assaulted, etc… remember that it’s NOT your fault because there’s literally nothing you or anyone else could have done to have stopped it from happening.  Abusers abuse.  That’s what they do.  Even if for some reason you or someone else had done something to make it so that you personally weren’t in that place in that time the abuser still would have abused.  It just would have been someone else, because that’s what they do, abusers abuse.

When I leave the house, my parents check if I “look like a whore”. As in, am I wearing too much eyeliner, am I wearing a skirt instead of jeans. I find it ridiculous because they never check my brother’s clothes. Clearly, they don’t make any statement about his sex life.

CW - street harassment and victim blaming

A few months ago I was taking a walk in my neighbourhood. A car was pulled up to an intersection and I thought it was going to drive off. The car waited for me to cross and I said ‘thanks, bro’.

The car stopped and the passenger asked me to meet him at the end of the street. I said no and kept walking, they followed me for a bit but gave up after another offer and refusal. 

When I got home I was shaken up a bit. I decided to tell my family what had happened on my walk. My mom looked really concerned but didn’t say anything. I turned to my dad, whose expression hadn’t changed.

“You shouldn’t have called him bro.”

this anonymous ask has been made rebloggable by request

I have something to say about your V-day comment. As a beleiver in sexual freedom I think that in a situation where everyone is celebrating and everyone is so incredibly happy, men and women of an color or status label should have every right to grab someone and kiss them and that’s what makes that image beautiful. It was happiness. If someone does not want to be kissed and they push away, then you should respect that, but you don’t know that whole story, no one really does expect for them.

TW - apologism, victim blaming, rape culture

You just trivialized abuse AND made excuses for it.  This, folks, is a prime example of what’s commonly known as rape apologism (yes, I know we’re not talking about rape here, we’re talking about sexual assault, it’s still apologism).  There are literally NO circumstances under which it is acceptable to grab a random stranger and kiss them or do anything else.  NONE.  It’s just not something that’s ever ok ever ever ever ever.  Simply put consent cannot possibly ever be the default assumption and by saying it’s ok because people are celebrating what you’re doing is assuming that because those people on that street on VDay were in a happy/celebratory mood that mood translates into an assumption of consent as the default for anything that happens.  People should not be required to make their non-consent known after it’s violated.  That’s not how consent works and that’s damn sure not how it “should” work.  People should be required to gain clear consent from their partners BEFORE engaging in any sort of behavior with them.  If you don’t have clear consent before you take an action then it’s a violation.  End of story, that’s all there is to it, plain and simple.  

It’s NEVER ok to just assume that you have consent and it’s really fucked up to put the burden of that responsibility on the people being violated.  People should not be required to bear the sole responsibility for defending themselves from violations - that’s victim blaming.  Instead people should be required to bear the sole responsibility for obtaining consent to ensure that they don’t violate anyone.  It’s pretty simple and it’s incredibly fucked up that you’re actually sitting here claiming that people should have the “right” to sexually assault random strangers on the street.  

I’m going to say this one last time just in case it’s not clear - doing something to someone without their consent is a violation, it’s abuse, it’s assault, it’s not ok.  You’re right, I don’t know the whole story but I’d much rather side with the victims than the abusers in something like this. Assuming that because those people didn’t actively try to fight their attacker they were consenting is ridiculous and that’s definitely a rape culture attitude - that there is only one correct way to be a victim, that only certain kinds of behaviors make a worthy victim and everyone else must not have been bothered enough so they’re not victims.  It’s much more reasonable to assume that nobody is going to consent to being groped and assaulted by a random stranger UNLESS they make it clear beforehand that they’re consenting to something like that.  You can NEVER assume consent and by doing so you’ve just given an out to abusers everywhere.  You have told them that under certain circumstances (like when people are celebrating) it’s acceptable to assume consent which means that under those circumstances abusers will not be held accountable or responsible for the violations they force onto others.  You’ve told rapists and harassers that they will receive no consequences if in a moment of celebration they choose to sexually assault random strangers on the street.  You’ve directly contributed to rape culture by making a specific kind of sexual assault easy under specific circumstances.  

EDIT - it was pointed out in one of the comments that the idea of “if you don’t like it push them away” is utterly ableist.  I didn’t think about that and I apologize for the oversight and wanted to add that in because that shit’s important!  There are millions of reasons a person couldn’t or wouldn’t push someone away during an attack/assault and some form of disability is absolutely one of those reasons (or more accurately various disabilities would account for millions of those reasons).  Assuming that people are even capable of “fighting back” during an attack/assault is heinously ableist and I should have caught that earlier and pointed it out myself.  Thanks for bringing that to our attention, chassisbird!