When It’s Not Always Clear That It Was Rape

Before you lynch me and burn me at the stake, let me explain first, please.

Let’s make something clear: I don’t want to argue about definition of rape or perform victim blaming or excuse perpetrators. It’s not about claiming that “well, if she kissed him than she really wanted to have sex with him” or “she shouldn’t have wear that” or “she brought it on herself” bunch of crap. I really applaud the modern day definitions of rape and sexual violence and the more inclusive of some sexual acts (not necessarily penile – vaginal), the better.

If it includes rape on men, than it’s really great. I’m all for clear definition and swift and punitive actions when the rape gets reported. I would really love to see more prosecution for the rapes when victims speaks up and more of society’s support when rape survivors are at their lowest.

I really dream of a day when I wake up and see in the news that some rape victim reported a crime and EVERYBODY is like: “what a brave woman” or “I really feel for her” or simple “I believe her”.

But if we look at the statistics, it’s hard not to be pessimistic. What, around 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men experienced sexualviolence in their life? The numbers vary from country to country, depending on definition of rape and who asks the question. But one thing is usually clear: false reports are scarce and yet few percentage of rapists get prosecuted. And that EVERY rape statistics is an underestimation of the total number of rapes. Because majority of sexual violence goes unreported.

Humanity is slowly learning about dynamics of violent and abusive relationships, the circle of fear and violence. That sometimes it’s more dangerous to leave abusive partner than to stay and try to endure. That there is so many ways that an abusive partner can tie the victim to himself – by economic means, fear, children, desperation, addiction, etc.

Also in terms of prosecuting of rape we came a loooong way. It’s acknowledged that rape can be committed by a partner, on a date, by a stranger or a member of a family. It doesn’t necessarily involve the use of force, because as it’s known, one of the fear response is to freeze. Simple “no” is enough as a proof that sex is unwanted or, as California went a step forward, a “yes” is required for sex to be considered consensual.

And again, I’m cheering and I am happy with every improvement on this ground, every small step towards seeing rape as it is – a grave violation of somebody’s integrity; and every step back from victim blaming and slut shaming is an incredible achievement.

And that brings us to the key point: some victims do not speak up. They do not report their victimisation. Heck, they don’t even mention it to their friends or families.

Sometimes it takes time to report rape. Sometimes victim needs to handle her own emotional issues connected to trauma, before she exposes herself to another danger. Mostly, the biggest deterrent is that “nobody will believe me” or “everyone will blame me”. Which is actually a real threat, considering that rape victims are treated awfully in criminal proceedings.

However, the point I’m trying to make (but haven’t even started yet) is that we have a problem with narrative that we create around rape. There is this damaging tendency to view sex and sexual violence (and therefore rape) as an extreme, as either black or white: either it did happen and therefore it is the crime that have to be reported and prosecuted; or it didn’t happen and victim is simply lying.

When we speak about rape, we highlight it’s disconnection from sexual pleasure and it’s actual roots in power and will to dominate. Many feminists portray it as a crime that requires harsh punishment. Some of us try really really hard to persuade the misogynist world that victim is never to blame (hail to that). And I believe that if the victim reports this crime, all of this facts are really important. And if we can get the work done soon, that would be just great.

So come on, let’s get to work.

Buuuuut…

What if the victim does NOT want to report the crime?

That’s when narrative radically changes. If rape is a crime and therefore rapist is a criminal, why wouldn’t anyone want to report rape? Unless he is threatening her or controlling her. Well, that’s an excuse. But if he isn’t? What if there is nothing standing in a way of reporting a crime except victims willingness to do so?

The extreme narrative somehow vilified the perpetrators of rape to the point that if someone we know (and like) is accused of committing rape, we automatically turn against victim and towards victim blaming, because it’s impossible that such a great guy can do such a bad thing.

So here is a brain-picker: what if some men who commit rape are actually a good guys who just did a bad thing? What if some men who commit rape actually love the women they raped?

And one more thing: What if victim did not report a rape, because she doesn’t want him to get into trouble? Because, well, she actually loves him?

If the victim has a feelings towards the perpetrator or is a relationship with him, there might be another thing happening: she will not admit to herself that it was rape. Because if rape is so bad and we are together and he loves me, than he couldn’t have raped me, could he?

And somehow we all aren’t allowing for this narrative to happen. We hardly see stories when rape happened in the scenario of consensual relationship. Because rape is bad and need to be reported or if the victim doesn’t report it, then it didn’t happen. And that’s it.

What we don’t realise is that through this extreme narrative, not only we prevent victims from speaking up and getting support, but automatically we are committing another violence on them: determining what happened to them based on their actions. We are deciding what it is that they should do, regardless of what they would like to do.

By this extreme narrative, we are stripping victim of choice, because in order to be considered raped, she needs to report it and name the rapist. By this extreme narrative, we are silencing their mixed emotions of having some warm feelings towards rapist and at the same time feeling totally betrayed and violated.

Now the big what if: What if we start to concentrate on what victim wants and needs instead of categorising her response to the act as an indicator of crime occurring? What if we suddenly decide that the well-being of the victim is an upmost priority and therefore whatever she is comfortable with, we just accept it? And if she said that she was raped and doesn’t want to report it, then we will offer her simple: “I believe you. Is there anything I can do for you?”.

There is an actual story behind the point I’m making. I have a personal story to share.

My boyfriend, whom I love dearly and we are together couple of years now, did rape me and did sexually harass me at some point in our relationship. I never told anybody, because a) I refused to call it sexual violence; b) the acts where in such a grey area that by many it would be deemed nothing; c) if someone would believe me, I was shielding myself from listening to insults towards him. Because by the end of the day, he is still my boyfriend and I love him.

Two of the situations happened when we were both drunk. In a fervour of emotions and alcohol, he decided that he would love to pleasure me. And he continued to do so, regardless of the fact that I really didn’t want him to. He hold me down, until I really struggled myself out of his embrace. His response both time was that he would never hurt me and he only wanted to please me. So you see, not really the terrible rape/sexual violence nightmare scenario.

The third situation happened when we had sex after amazing foreplay, in my favourite position, in a way that I always liked it. But this time I wasn’t liking it. I was hurting and asked him to be more gentle and slow down, but he didn’t stop until he was finished. So again, very ambivalent situation and not really a great prosecution material.  

There was no bruises, there was no violence, there was no screams or threats. It just sort of happened that way.

Regardless of their triviality, those events did leave a mark. I still sometimes cry at the memory of those events. It paralyses me, when I smell alcohol from him, even if I know that he just had two sips of beer. Once he came back home drunk and all he could manage was crawl into bed and fall asleep. But I still lost it. I couldn’t sleep entire night, I was crying half terrified, half furious that he could be in such a state when I’m most afraid of him. 

Sometimes, when I have too much to drink I’m flushed with negative feelings towards him and all I want is to hurt him, as if somehow it would alleviate the pain I’m feeling.

So why I stayed with him? Well, because I love him. And since that time he changed a lot. It took me loads of time and effort, to explain to him why the things that he did were bad and how did it make me feel. He worked long time for his understanding that sometimes I will just have a flashback and get from “I’m horny, just f*** me” to “don’t touch me and get away from me” in a second, but he allows me for some space and comforts me when it happens. He is more perceptive towards my responses during sex, and flinches at every sign of discomfort. Sometimes it’s a downer on a passion part, but at least I feel safe with him that now he won’t do anything to hurt me.

I am the total contradiction to the prevalent rape narrative. I was sexually violated by my boyfriend and no, I didn’t report a crime and yes, it was still a sexual violence. Yes, he is a good person and yes, he still committed the act.

But even if the rape survivor is a person like me, with feelings towards rapist and absolute unwillingness to call it rape and report it as a crime, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t leave a mark. It doesn’t mean that the victim is not having flashbacks, trauma, nightmares or avoids situations that serves as a reminder of that time.

Sexual violence, ANY act of sexual violence, be it rape, harassment or some minor acts like street harassment always affect victims one way or another. Most of the times there will be no tears, no screaming, no shock and no severe mental illnesses and traumas. But there will be this sinking feeling that something has been stolen from you, something that impacts on your sense of security, ability to trust and willingness to “be normal”.

And I think it’s another step that we need to take – be more understanding towards victims. Be better listeners. Be more perceptive of how the situation did affect the person. Be more understanding that it takes time to deal with the situation. And most importantly, we need to stop measuring situation by our own perception of how the rape victim should act like and what she/he should do and just simply accept that rape is one of this crimes that it’s never black and white, but it’s in every shade in the colour pallet. That the dynamics of relationship that the victim is in, her state of mind, age, social background and familial ties all impact on the sexual violence scenario, on the ability to handle the situation and on the victim’s behaviour after the act.

And that sometimes for the victims it is not always clear that it was rape.

Written by Khutulun

P.S. If you experienced sexual violence and you don't know how you feel and what to do with this feelings, have a look at Nina Burrowes book. It's amazing. It helps.

Teaser!

We are very happy to have Mawada joining our team! She's super busy at the moment, but here a small teaser of what she will be writing about...

Mawada, stage is yours!

I have always had a problem with sexual harassment in Cairo, Egypt. Where a woman could get harassed anywhere anytime in the presence of witnessing public who normally choose to keep silent. Sexual harassment in Cairo happened to me in public transportation, streets, university and unfortunately even once in a mosque. Normally I take action speak out and shout, though shouting never made me feel satisfied or in peace. I have always felt as if I was ripped off.

Public witnesses never intervened to help; on the contrary they intervened to keep me “the victim” silent. I remember once I was on a public bus in Cairo I got harassed, started shouting, looked right into the harasser eyes and scolded him. He kept his eyes shut and pretended to be sleeping. I kept shouting… people looked at me as a source of disturbance & turned their faces away. I even kept asking women not to sit close to the guy because he is a harasser. The only response I got was from a girl who was sitting next to me... She asked me to keep silent because it happens every day & because my complaints annoyed her….

Written by Mawada

That little freakin’ devil that’s always around…

That little freakin’ devil I’m talking about is everyday sexism, obviously. However, today I would like to talk about acceptance of everyday sexism. We as a society are slowly starting to be sensitive to open and hostile examples of sexism – domestic violence, hateful comments,  etc. but we are still either ignorant or passive towards these small displays of sexism that seems like nothing. But they are something. Something actually quite big. And very serious.

Because even the smallest example of sexism, such as jokes or remarks indicates that there is prevalent tendency for treating women with contempt and at the same time undermining their circumstances, successes, achievements, themselves.

The worst thing is that we’ve learned to ignore the exhibits of sexism so not to be perceived as uptight or, even worse, feminist! Especially women are quietly putting up with all the jokes, pinches and insults delivered by men in a “non-serious” fashion, because we are conditioned that women and their issues are perfect subjects to joke about.

So we are told to lighten-up when we hear a joke about rape (because obviously it’s the best subject to joke about) or domestic violence (“taming your woman”) or vaginas (because something that gives a men so much pleasure and holds so much power needs to be laughted at) or lack of professionalism (“If you were a man it would be done better”) and being overly emotional in a conversation (“Control your hormones”). Jokes are a part of everyday interaction, so we should just accept them and come to terms with this sad reality.

Sometime ago I went with my boyfriend to hang out with his friends. At one time it became apparent that there was a feminist in a room (Oh my God, it’s me!) and sexist. I bore some of the remarks (even though those wasn’t really sophisticated), but I cracked up in one point. The abovementioned sexist ask my boyfriend a question:

“What would you prefer: to be with very sexy woman who cheats on you or with a normal good girl who is faithful to you?”

My boyfriend at first had no idea what’s the deal, so he said that basically he is with the sexiest and bestest woman ever who is faithful to him, so it’s no brainer (Awwwwww, he’s a sweetheart!). But the sexist pressured him to give an answer, so my bf replied that of course he would prefer to be with a girl who is faithful to him.

Than the friend asked again: “Well, but would you prefer to eat cake with friends or eat shit alone?”

WTF?!

I was shocked. For me it was like a slap in the face. With a chair. How could ANYBODY feel entitled to compare another human being to shit? How full of yourself (or shit) you have to be to even allow yourself to make this kind of comparison of another people? And feeling that you are in a position to make distinctions between “pretty” and “shitty” woman and subsequently have a real power over validation which women belong to which category.

I’m embarrassed to say as a result of shock I said few stupid misandrist jokes (I hate those, but I really wanted to make him shut up in a most belittling way possible). I achieved my goal (he shut up), but I still feel bad for saying insults towards men (it’s really not my style).

But that’s not all. The situation got even more shocking when, after all of this, I got to talk with other women in the room. They told me to not care about him and his jokes, because it’s just the way he is. Their solution is to just ignore his jokes and then everybody will be happy (because we don’t want to create a tense situation, because somebody might get offended).

If you don't want to listen
to me, then listen to
Ryan Gosling

Why people are so reluctant to object when another person displays sexist and misogynistic attitudes? Why is hardly anybody ever standing up to this kind of jokes and let others know that it’s not funny? Why we keep accepting sexist jokes, even though these are hurtful, offensive, prejudiced and most of the time absolutely unfunny?

I’ve been in various social situations when some controversial jokes where said and somebody stood up to a joker. Those included racist jokes (Man, it’s racist, it’s not funny), jokes about dead foetuses (that’s disgusting, I don’t find this funny), jokes about handicapped people or with some illness (Sick people are no laughing matter, not cool, dude). etc. But I’ve never been a witness to man standing up to sexist jokes. As if those existed in some kind of realm of immunity – a person can be openly sexist in jokes and nobody says anything in fear of…

Yeah, of what? Being called uptight? A bore? Oh wait… a feminist? What’s so terrible about that?

I had this rule about the jokes that if they are about a group of people (men, women, blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, etc.), I find them funny only if you can substitute a certain group with any other (usually the main privileged one) and the jokes will still be funny.

Of course, there are some jokes where the main character cannot be exchange into anything else (jokes about talking parrot), but those are usually not insulting to the main subject of the joke. But that’s beside the point.

Let’s take the abovementioned joke and apply my rule (and let’s make it even more stereotypically womanish).

Vespertilio: Inanna, what would you prefer: to be with this sexy and super rich guy who cheats on you or with a normal, quite poor, but good man who is faithful to you?

Inanna: Well, Vespertilio, I would most certainly prefer to be with a faithful guy.

Vespertilio: Seriously? Well, but do you think is better to share caviar with friends in a posh restaurant or to eat shit alone in a shack?

(To be honest, I feel ashamed to even write this to prove a point). 

Ashamed lion to show you how ashamed I feel.

What are your feelings towards this joke now? Is it offensive? Too aggressive? Too man-hating? Does it treat men as objects?

Now the big question: How many men do you know that would feel offended by this joke?

And if you were a part of audience, would you say something to a woman who said this joke?

I know I would, but I did remark the first joke as well. How about you?

Let’s get back for a second to the deliverer of a joke. The sexist. I just don’t get it. Where does this masculine sense of entitlement come from? How can any man feel to hold the right to debase ANY woman?

In this case we have to spectrums: me, who never comments on somebody appearance, because I’m not a beauty and besides I feel that everybody is beautiful in way; and him, a man who feels that he has a right to judge.

If you want to have a woman that looks like
Victoria Secret model, you should look like
one of Calvin Klein models.

But after that joke, I looked at him and I saw him with critical eye and the situation just got hilarious and ridiculous at the same time. There he was, this almost middle-aged man, fat, bold, with questionable hygiene and not really pleasant appearance, who has been alone for a long time, unable to pick up a girl (I know it from his various stories), afraid of rejection, who has nothing special to offer to a woman (he was neither sexy, handsome, smart, witty nor well-spoken), and yet he felt that he has a choice of women and he can choose a porn star over a normal, but in his eyes “shitty” woman.

Well that’s just bullshit.

I remember once my friend said that equality between women and men will be achieved when this fat, sweaty, bolding, unattractive woman will be walking down the street and she will be convinced that every men on the street wants to have sex with her. Well, there is nothing wrong with high self-esteem, but when this self-esteem translates into certainty of privilege to somebody’s attention, body and integrity, then we are a witnesses of everyday sexism.

Everyday sexism is a phenomenon which disproportionally befall the women. Staring, catcalling, grabbing, harassing, stalking in public places and belittling, degrading and humiliating in workplace, schools, social gatherings. Just from the top of my head I can describe many situations where I’ve been grabbed, harassed, slapped in the ass. I’ve been a victim of frotters, voyeurs, stalkers and flashing. Countless of times I’ve heard that I’m less intelligent, vain, emotional and irrational – all judgements based on the fact that I’m a woman. And since I’m declared feminist, nobody values my opinion, because it’s perceived as distorted, irrational and overly aggressive (even though I didn’t have a possibility to speak my mind, not to mention raise my voice).

And above all of that I was put into the category “women like shit” by some insolent and half-wit sexist, who believed that he’s male privilege allows him to comment on women in any way he pleases, because it’s his "birth right".

Everyday sexist is serious not because of the level of harassment it implies, but mainly because it’s scope and prevalence. Every woman has plenty stories to tell. But the worst thing about everyday sexism is that it widely unrecognised, ignored and depreciated issue that all of the women of all ages are facing.

Written by Vespertilio