All right, yeah, you know what, I’m fucking sick of watching these news stories scroll past. I’ve kept my mouth shut for a while now and I am fucking DONE.
Fun story about me that you may not know: I’ve been sexually assaulted six times. That number might be one up or one down depending on how you want to quantify sexual assault. Is it a forced kiss? Being held down? Being poked and prodded? Being felt up? Where do you want to draw the line at “I didn’t say yes to this”? According to the statistics, it’s not an ‘if’ for me on something like this, it’s a 'when.’
And let me be perfectly fucking clear. Not one of those occasions happened when I was wearing less than my usual uniform of a t-shirt and jeans. These were guys I knew. More often than not, this happened in public, at school, with more witnesses than I could shake a stick at. In front of peers, friends, teachers, whatever. The first time it happened, I was in the fourth grade. I was eight. I punched the kid in the face and I was the one who went to detention. From a teacher who had watched the entire thing, every day for a month. I was the one who was punished, and the boy was taken to get an ice pack for his cheek.
Because “violence is never the answer,” right?
Because “boys will be boys,” right?
Because “well, sweetie, he just has a crush on you,” right?
Because hush, honey, this is the price I pay to live in this world. Because being pretty is the rent I pay, because if a guy doesn’t think I look “damn fine” at any given moment, then I’m not a person to them, but if I do look good, then I was asking for it. Because when I take a guy to the ground for laying hands on me in an unwelcome way, I’m taking it too far, and he’s the victim. Because it’s all about how “he’s a young man with such potential” but “well, see, she’s had a lot of boyfriends,” so it’s all okay. Because boys are all about their sparkling future, but girls are all about their past.
Because this isn’t about some hypothetical situation, when you say things like “well, but is it really all HIS fault?” It’s not. It’s about a human being whose life was destroyed, and it sure as shit wasn’t the rapist.
Because, hey, let me ask you a question.
If it’s me–in two, five, seven years, if it’s my picture under a headline with the work RAPE in bold, are you going to blame me? Are you going to ask me if I was 'dressed slutty,’ or if I was drunk, or if I was walking alone? Are you going to be asking if it was my fault, and talking about how the person who attacked me was 'such a nice boy’?
Because if your answer is yes, I don’t trust you now, and I sure as hell won’t trust you then.
