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So I�ve been thinking long and hard about the question raised on the Hissyfit boards yesterday.
It�s not the question the person who started the discussion thread meant to ask, but it�s the question I came away from there having in my head.
Carla said to me yesterday, �I too agree that a rape is a rape is a rape. Period. However when it comes to the law, if a person kills 50 people and another kills one-should they get the same sentence? According to the law-no. The one who killed 50 people will most likely always be in jail. The other just may see the light of day again. Is this right? That�s a bigger question. Ask the parents of that one person killed and they would say no.�
It�s not a question of the crime, I don�t think. Someone else on the Hissyfit board mentioned that while �stranger� rape is a question of power, �date� rape is a mix of sex and power. I entirely disagree with that.
Rape isn�t about sex. It�s about power and control, and that�s true, no matter who is the assailant and who is the survivor. It�s about one person taking action against another despite that person�s lack of permission for that action. If I say no, I am not going to have sex with you, that should mean you and I are not going to have sex. It doesn�t matter if you just bought me dinner, or if I�ve had sex with you before, or if I�m married to you (married rape is still rape�don�t kid yourselves), or if I kick and scream and fight until it�s over, or if I don�t fight back at all because you have a gun to my head. If I say no, or try to stop you, or you don�t give me the opportunity to say no because I�m too drunk to consciously make a decision or because you put a drug in my drink, and you force me to have sex with you anyway, that�s rape. Period. You made that decision for both of us, despite my stating that I didn�t want it. That makes my date who decides I �owe� him for dinner a rapist just as much as the man who grabs me as I�m getting into my car in a dark parking lot.
I don�t believe there are degrees of horribleness here. The motivation may be different, but the result is the same. Whatever makes the �date� rapist cross from �okay, I thought this was going to happen, but it�s not, oh well, maybe next time� to �screw that, we�re going to do this NOW� makes them cross from �date� to �rapist.� End of question.
Rape is such a hard topic because of the sexual part involved. People get stuck on the �sex� half of �sex crime,� to the point where the �crime� half gets very lost. Proof is difficult at best. Survivors are made to feel like they did something to invite the crime. Being friendly isn�t an invitation to violence. Dressing provocatively isn�t an invitation to violence. Making out with someone for an hour and then deciding that�s where the sexual contact ends isn�t an invitation to violence. Getting drunk at a frat party isn�t an invitation to violence. Having sex with someone one night and then not wanting to do it again is not an invitation to violence. No woman invites rape. And yet, these are things held up in court as evidence that what happened to a survivor wasn�t rape, but consensual sexual contact.
The �date� rape survivor is left with the same trauma after-effects as the �stranger� rape survivor, and then some. Trust is shattered. The foundations of healthy relationships are shattered. Nothing makes sense, because her (or his) whole world has been turned upside down. And people question left and right whether she�s telling the truth about what happened. People she relies on. People in authority. People who will do whatever necessary to discredit her story.
I didn�t tell anyone for a long time what had happened to me. I was deep in denial. How could I tell someone else when I couldn�t believe it myself? Consequently, I didn�t need to deal with that questioning. But the rest of that bad feeling was very much a part of my life. In some ways, it still is.
Do I think he should have been thrown in jail? Sent away forever? That�s hard.
I don�t believe that he understands what happened that night to be rape.
I believe that if you asked him, he would tell you about the night we both lost our virginity, tell you about a night we shared something he sees to be good and right.
That frightens me an awful lot. Because there was nothing good and right about what happened in that room.
I don�t think it�s out of the question that he could be, or could have been, made to understand the truth about the situation, �rehabilitated,� if you will. Education is a powerful thing. For that reason, I�m sorry I kept my mouth shut. I�m sorry, also, because I don�t think that his non-comprehension at all means he shouldn�t have been punished for what he took away from me that night. I let him walk away without repercussions. But I was uneducated then, too. I didn�t have the information to fall back on that I have now.
Instead, I floundered through my relationships for years, never quite understanding why I held people at a distance, never able to let anyone in. Instead, I fell in love with a man whom I let walk on me for years without complaint. I lost my self-confidence in so many ways. I made bad decisions. I flunked out of school. Several times.
On the other hand, I survived. I survived, and now I�m going to do my best to be sure that somewhere out there, maybe some girl will stand up after an assault and be less afraid to tell someone what happened to her and stand her ground through the questions and the accusations and the ugliness that follows a declaration of rape. Maybe somewhere, some boy will understand the boundaries in his relationships and realize that he can�t force himself on anyone without repercussions. Maybe I can do that for someone else.
And if I can, he didn�t win.
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