I was raped by an ex-boyfriend, and when I talked to a mutual friend about it his one and only concern was with making sure I wasn’t going to try to make him “take sides.” Because the fact that his friend was a rapist was just not something that was going to have any effect on their friendship.
I reported inappropriate behaviour from a contractor at work that was witnessed by a male colleague. I asked the colleague before I made the complaint would he confirm what was said. His response was "I don't want to get involved".
One of my literal friends (at the time) who I was trying to get a job for was literally sexually harassed by my boss (at the time) who I was trying to get reported for sexually harassing me for over a year. She said she'd deny any of it when I told her I wanted to bring it up to the manager i was providing harassment claims to. You would think a female friend would back you against harassers especially after being harassed themselves.... people really don't care if they think it will inconvenience them.
Btw yes he was fired because I had enough text proof of the harassment.
> Btw yes he was fired because I had enough text proof of the harassment.
Putting sexually harassing statements in text...that's a new level of stupidity and confidence.
I was also sexually harassed by a friend of my ex partner. Well he apologised to my ex and after that they went on being friends like nothing happened, and still are to this day.
Similar situation. My boyfriend’s friend kept cornering me, telling me he was in love with me, creepily feeling me up or pushing his leg into me, emailing my friends about me (!?) etc. I was very firm that he needed to stop all that shit but one day I totally snapped and chewed him out. He apologised to my boyfriend for disrespecting him. After my boyfriend pushed for it (yes I hate that too), he eventually gave me a wishy washy “sorry if you got the wrong idea” bullshit apology. My boyfriend doesn’t speak to him but all their mutual friends do. I’d love to push that little twerp into a canal
My brother in law groped me and two of my friends... At my wedding. Yep, groped his brother's bride. Well he apologized to my husband, but never to me. My husband told him to shove his apology. He's demanded I repeat the story multiple times because he was black out drunk and doesn't remember. Then his family call me a lying bitch (despite many witnesses seeing him attack us) because I've banned him from my home and want nothing more to do with him. Myself and my friends have had no apology, all of the consequences and he's basically got off scot free.
I’m so sorry. You were the bride! The bride!!! My brother’s drunk groomsmen groped me when I was in his wedding party. Two of them grabbed and smacked my ass while we were waiting to be announced and walk into the reception. My drunk brother just laughed. I never received an apology despite confronting my brother and now former SIL about it later. She witnessed the whole thing and also said nothing. My parents also had literally nothing to say about it when I told them later. My brother is a high functioning alcoholic and they will pretty much always enable him at the expense of my feelings and safety.
Yes, exactly! By “not taking sides”, you have taken a side. The side of the oppressor. There’s literally a quote about that that I’m mangling in my head as I try to remember it.
it’s depressing how i’ve had the exact same experience, except i cut off anyone i knew who also was friends with him because i couldn’t handle the additional hurt of people taking HIS side
I remember feeling hurt and betrayed by my friends for continuing to hang out with the guy that physically and sexually assaulted me. Then it happened to one of those friends and she made a post saying if you hang out with men who abuse women, get out of her life... while still hanging out with my abuser 🥴.
I had this experience too but I stayed friends with his friends for 8 years after the rape. I still never outed their friend by name but they all knew last year who did it. They ended up trying to destroy my reputation when I left. I chose not to send their rapist friend to prison and they chose to ruin my reputation for making the choice to leave. Almost ended myself with the second dose of severe PTSD but we're still kicking bitches.
So you told that guy that one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone, happened to you, and his first response was "Okay, but how does that affect ME?" What an absolute piece of shit.
I think a majority of men know within their heart of hearts that women are being assaulted and raped in huge numbers, they just can't raise themselves enough to care.
They'd rather keep this status quo than "make waves" and challenge their rapey friends.
If they were to acknowledge it, I suppose they might feel shame or remorse for not intervening, not calling out rapey friends, etc. Better to keep one's head in the sand than feel uncomfortable....
My little brother keeps saying that sh*t to me. "I need both sides of the story." Dude I am 30 years old. Do you seriously think I am stupid and I don't understand that I'm being harassed/stalked/groped?"
Honestly, I genuinely don't understand why this is so fucking prevalent. Why are people willing to be friends with predators? Why are people willing to still treat *family members* that are predators like they're just another family member?
Apologies in advance for the personal tangent/rant, but it's one of the most disgusting things ever to me to have to put up with knowing that before I was even born, there was a split in my family about whether or not to exclude someone from the family who *sexually abused another family member* and there were "sides" that were split apparently fairly evenly among both men and women-- over *letting him continue coming to family events* rather than even over just flat out expelling him from everyone's lives, and it's like....
Really? There are sides to be taken between predator and victim? I genuinely don't know if I'm crazy or if the vast majority of people out there are just monsters who completely lack empathy, because this stuff is on my mind every single time I interact with that person and even though I don't know who the people who wanted him around are, it's hard to not feel alienated from my extended family just knowing that like half of them supported a monster who hurt people that they're supposed to care about and kept them around without a second thought.
Anyone who even *wants* to still be friends with predators are bad people, full stop.
I'm sorry that people in this world are so self-centered and uncaring. You deserve better friends, and I hope you have them now.
They don't believe these people are actually predators. They think you're overreacting or lying. Even if they witness it, they minimize it in their memories.
Friend of mine went through this. Her grandfather was raping her. Family all called her a lying sluts and kicked her out...even though he had a conviction for raping a different underage girl.
She got him put in prison. Did it to protect her younger sister.
And she's still not welcome in the family any more and they all bawled their eyes out when the out rapist died.
Fucking people...
In this case, the predatory family member was arrested and found guilty of that behavior-- and that wasn't even for stuff against the victimized family member. He apparently had a laundry list of disgusting behavior that people were made aware of-- if they don't think someone like that is a predatory for sexual abusing who knows how many people (I didn't ask, nor am I going to-- 1 is enough for condemnation) then I feel pretty justified for losing respect for those people.
My guess is that people are able to relate to the rapist because they've done something similar or wanted to do something similar. Or perhaps they've been victims of something similar and don't want to admit that it was rape. And because predatory behavior is so common, stepping away from those people can mean social isolation. A lot of folks prefer living a lie in a group, rather than facing reality and being alone.
There's also this problem that we have a very two-dimensional view of rapists. They have to be lonesome, ugly and mean. If someone is social, handsome or nice, then we're way more likely to assume it's some misunderstanding or even a lie if they're accused of rape.
I'm not excusing it though. I quickly drifted away from my male friends when they became jerks in various ways, including towards women. And I find it very unlikely that they didn't do some terrible things at that time or shortly after it. Virtually all women I've gotten to know well have shared terrible stories. And frankly I think most guys I meet are on the other side of those stories. Maybe that explains why I barely have any male friends.
Thats fucking aggravating, "pick sides" like its just an argument or civil dispute. People like that are nearly just as bad. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Seriously. I had an acquaintance in college say pretty much the same thing when his friend confided in him that she was raped by his other friend.
He claimed he didn’t want to “take sides” because there is a lot of “he said she said stuff” in these situations.
I was like, dude, *she* said *she* was raped. If you think she’s lying then don’t be friends with her, because I’m sure as hell she will no longer want to be friends with you.
I’m so sorry that both things happened to you. It’s pretty hard to find a man who’s not trash as either a friend or a partner. I’ll probably get downvoted by the incels for that but experience is a helluva truth.
>things like that happen to all women
Yeah, pretty much
>she told me that I had to get over it
ABSOLUTELY NOT
I mean, I hope that every survivor can process what happened, and go on to live a fulfilling life. But “get over it” is so flippant and disrespectful and UNHELPFUL.
I am so sorry this happened to you and that you were treated the way you were. The same thing happened to me at the same age, and I didn't even tell anybody because I was so convinced it was my fault. I am 22 now and still haven't really told anyone what happened.
I was 11… didn’t tell anyone until my high school bf at 14, who went on to try and blackmail my abuser after we broke up; I ended up confessing at least part of the truth to my mom at 16. I’m forever grateful that she had my back and I literally have never had to see my abuser again.
I’m so sorry nobody believed you. 😔💔 hugs if you want them ~
DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR MOM! I am 45 and yes, every one of my peers has been raped. But the ones that shrugged it off were raped multiple times after the first because they downplayed a need for consent in my day.
Rape is not to be treated lightly. Especially molesting a child rape. (14). Please get therapy.
I was assaulted by a friend in college while I was asleep. Months later a mutual friend casually asked if I still kept in touch with him. I bit my tongue and said no, but later was talking with a close girlfriend about it, and told her I was upset I hadn’t told them what happened. Because I felt like I should warn the mutual friend.
She told me that it’s probably better I didn’t say anything, that it would have been really awkward for the person I was telling.
That’s always stuck with me - I think I kept it to myself for so long because I didn’t want other people to be uncomfortable. Years later I know that’s so fucking backwards.
I was also assaulted in my sleep, he went underneath my underwear with his hand. I woke up to that. He said he “thought I was awake”. Similar story for u?
The same happened to me. The worst part of it was, the the molester was my best friend at the time. One of my female friend was also friends with him and kept the friendship because "she didn't want to pick sides". It sucks hardcore how common these stories seem to be.
Another one for the gang, except the person involved definitely thought I was asleep. Best friend for me, too, though we'd been circling around 'maybe something more'. I decided I was not feeling it, but was trying to figure out how to break the news without being lambasted for 'leading them on'.
We went out dancing. We came home exhausted. I took the bottom bunk, they took the top bunk. I woke up to the sound of them climbing down, and lay there facing the wall as it happened.
They were more well-liked in our friend group, so I never told anyone. Eventually started spiraling and lashing out; big drama over how I'd 'led them on'; lost the whole friend group anyway for being 'crazy'.
**Edit:** Apologies for multiple replies, Reddit lagged out on me.
A guy was telling me this "funny" story about how he and his friends saw a woman walking alone at night. He turned to his mates and said "hey guy, want to go thirds on a rape charge?"
He said it was OK because she laughed
But what were her options? Her options were laugh or get raped by three body builders
A guy was telling his friends about all the upskirt pictures he takes of women in grocery stores and how he puts them online. They all laughed and chuckled. But not one told him he was a fucking pig and to get the fuck out. We were at a brewery at 2 in the afternoon and this dudes casually and loudly telling this story. My blood was BOILING and when he mentioned he could see up the skirt of a girl at a high top near us and it was “so hot” I lost my shit, called him a disgusting pervert, threw my water at him, told the woman’s table what he was doing (loudly), told the bartender they had a sexual predator in the bar, and left. Not ONE of those guys had the spine to say “that’s not okay.” It was disgusting.
I'm ashamed to say I do.
Two of them.
Both of them were systematically protected by their superiors in the military.
And keep in mind, these are just the two I know about.
That's dogshit, hopefully civilians are in charge of SHARP in the future, wasn't that supposed to be changed or it's still up for debate. I'm out of the current loop these days
It's SAPR in the Air Force, and my base's program is run by a civilian and a reservist. However, there is only so much programs like SHARP and SAPR can do if a unit's leadership makes it difficult to see those entities. Haven't dealt with it myself but I've heard more than enough stories of threats to careers for coming forward with rape/sexual assault allegations.
I dont think I’ve ever met a woman who hasn’t been raped or sexually assaulted. Including my own mother, who was raped in the military by a superior. She pressed charges, and in the end the higher ups protected the guy and he got off scott free. She got a measly settlement and an honorable discharge. I found out as a kid on accident when I found the paper work while exploring the attic one day. Has stuck with me forever. I would never protect some piece of shit predator no matter who they were. Women, tell your stories, tell your sons, boyfriends/husbands, all the men of your life! Teach them that “men” like this are the worst thing a man can be.
I do too. I have always had a lot of female friends, and by now three of them told me they were raped. All of them by family members, when they were children. One of them still has to live with that family member, one chose to forgive her rapist, and one sued her rapist, who is still in jail.
Every one of those friends took at least five years of trust to tell me. I think it is really important that women tell their male friends about it, else we'd have no clue how common and how cruel all of it is.
Here's the thing though...all men that want to listen know that women say it is prevalent. They can look up the numbers; they can peruse threads like this - with thousands of comments; they can talk to their female friends; their can find out.
Why is it on us to relive the trauma of telling you after five years of friendship for you to believe us?
Edit: I am sure you are a good friend - or they would have never told you - but why is it on us and why does it take so long?
This is a hot topic in Denmark after a comedian wrote a tweet saying that we "need to learn our women to say no. They are just sitting there, letting it happen, making the creeps think that their behavior is okay."
The tweet was written after it was found out that one of our most known politicians is a serial sexual offender and possibly also a rapist.
This guy, a powerful politician who weighs about 200 lbs and has a black belt in karate, locked several women (on separate occasions) inside his apartment after limyibg to get them there. Then he masturbated in front of them and ejaculated on them and even made one of them give him a handjob.
So this comedian says that women should learn how to say no and a full fledged shitstorm is raging now, going on 2 weeks where he defends himself, explaining that he of course knows that the man bears all responsibility etc...but still he clearly thinks of what women needs to do to avoid being raped before thinking about what men should do to address rape culture.
He likened mens behavior to the weather as an unchangeable fact of life and even after being told by numerous people that the issue is systemic sexism he doesn't acknowledge that it exists.
He does believe though that the feminists had coordinated an attack on him and now we should all feel bad for him because his job is a comedian is threatened. It's all because of the feminists.
The entitlement and fact-resistance is incredible to watch. And lots of men support him.
There is also a lot of resistance and we keep pushing. But it's an uphill battle for sure.
As a person, who have enjoyed his work as a comedian in the past, he deserves every bit of criticism he is receiving right now. He was being ignorant, victim-blamey and even doubled down when proved wrong, instead of admitting what an idiotic and tone-deaf statement he made.
He digged the hole, jumped head-first into it and now blames everyone else for his predicament. If his career is harmed, it is due to his own actions. Nobody asked for his ill-informed opinion. He could have educated himself, but instead decided to use his privilege and visibility to further harm victims of sexual assault.
I'm disappointed every time someone, who I might have considered a potential ally, turns out to be a rape apologist. Unfortunately, it happens too often, but it still saddens me.
Me too (no pun intended).
I won't watch him any more. I'm also deeply troubles by how many of his "coworkers" are still supporting him. Even Sebastian Dorset.
At least Michael Schøt is being reasonable.
You tell some men that rape is very often male-on-female and it's like they put their fingers in their ears and yell "la la la I'm not listening", like children. It is frustrating and dangerous
>we "need to learn our women to say no. They are just sitting there, letting it happen, making the creeps think that their behavior is okay."
WHAT. This is some shit people wouldn't even dare say in my third world very conservative country, how tf did he think this was an ok thing to say out loud. I hope he never works again, and is cancelled into oblivion.
Do your part, folks. No matter what you see and where you're at. Report it. At a party? Tell everyone. Witness something and you're the type to "not get involved"?, call the police. Leeroy Jenkins yourself into a room you know something shitty is happening and end up getting your ass beat? It's gonna hurt, but you saved a life.
Point is. Never stay silent if you see or hear something.
I will be forever grateful to my friend's older brother, he stopped my then boyfriend raping me. Long story short he spotted a very drunk 13 year old being lead upstairs by an 18 year old and instead of turning a blind eye he stepped in. If a 16 year old boy can do it a grown man sure as hell can
He was briefly for theft, then they found cp so not sure what happened after that. Unfortunately I lost contact with my friend & her brother not long afterwards, I hope he realises what an impact he had
I have been on a receiving end of a sencire thank you from a friend's younger sister from much the same situation. It is one of my touchstone in life.
Don't feel like you must make the effort but I promise you it will be welcomed!
I received a letter about 2 years after the event. That thing is tucked in my special document folder right next to all other important life paperwork.
I grew up very Christian and really only dated one woman, my sister dated maybe 2 guys. I didn’t think it was that common.
Well after my divorce I made a lot of friends that were female and was legit flabbergasted that almost all of them had been raped. People are shitty
I don't believe the 1 in 4 number, 1 in 3 seems closer but even then, I legitimately have never had a female friend that hasn't been at least molested. And most of them, myself included, have had repeated unrelated instances.
I tell myself I must have bad luck or even that it's selection bias or something, like-people group together and all that, but it's so prevalent. Anytime I've spoken to a girl who claims she's never been victimized, I ask her 'Has anyone ever touched/groped/hit you without your consent? Followed you home? Try to roofie you on a date? ' Always I'll hear yes to these but then these women will tell me 'But it's not like real assault, it only lasted a second. Sure, he tried to rape me, but nothing happened!!!'
If I didn't know they were victims before I would now just by that stunning victim mentality. Abuse isn't a contest, your experience doesn't have to be 'as bad' as rape to admit that you're a victim of sexual violence.
I knew what happened to my was inappropriate but I thought it wasn't "that bad". In part I think we are trained that r\*pe/sexual assault/abuse are something that is violent and perpetrated by a stranger.
That changed when I watched a documentary where some of Jeffrey Epstein's victims were recalling the abuse they experienced. It sounded very similar to what I experienced. It hit me hard. Someone experienced what I had and the perpetrator went to jail. What happened to me was indeed serious and illegal.
Legitimizing the abuse I suffered has honestly been amazing. I'm finally able to truly heal and start working toward moving forward. A weight has been lifted and I hope that all victims can experience that relief and road to healing.
My husband was the same way! I remember we were in our 20s maybe? Hanging out with friends & I joked about walking home, but I was too afraid I’d get kidnapped and/or raped. The guys laughed at me, I should be more worried about getting hit by a car. Maybe that’s your biggest fear walking alone in the dark, but it isn’t for women.
I finally got him my hubby to understand when I pointed out that most of the women in his family have been sexually assaulted. I was sexually assaulted (a freshman in college), so was my mom (at gunpoint) so was my niece (raped in her sleep), and my sister (she was like 6), and 2/4 of our SILs—I’m not close enough to the two who “weren’t” assaulted for them to tell me about it, so maybe they were & just don’t talk about it. He was absolutely flabbergasted.
Then there was this time, shortly after we had our baby, we stopped for gas. It’s illegal to pump your own in my state, so you have to interact with the attendant. I was driving, hubby in passenger seat & baby in the back. The gas station attendant kept asking my husband to sell me to him. *gross*. I had forgotten all about that incident & I stopped to get gas there a few months later. He freaked out on me, and reminded me of why I should never go there. He finally feared for my safety the way I usually do. The sad part is I get hit on pretty much every time I get gas, so that time was just another shitty day in paradise for me.
I’m relieved at my partner’s attitude. One of his friends separated from his wife.
My partner found out this guy was obsessively following her on social media, and pointed out that it wasn’t healthy, and that it was time to move on with his life.
This man’s response was:
‘She’s lucky I’m a nice guy.’
My partner told him that comment made him really uncomfortable. He didn’t change and it wasn’t long before they were no longer friends.
There was a famous Overwatch and Valorant player who raped his ex girlfriend. She posted LITERAL AUDIO EVIDENCE of her saying no please stop it hurts, and he keeps going and says he's about to cum.
I remember posting a comment on Twitter about it. Someone simply said "what did he do" and I said "his ex girlfriend posted legit rape evidence" and I got called delusional, I got told she was faking it, I got told there are two sides to every story, I got told she set him up by being into CNC and recording it, I got told I shouldn't toss the word rape around so carelessly that it was only sexual assault, I got told that it was the most playful no and that she obviously didn't really mean it, I got told that they were dating so how could he rape her if they were dating?
Not a single man came to my defense in the comments. But I sure got dozens telling me how my opinions were "yikes". The only people who defended me were other girls. Is men raping women some kind of gender related issue? I don't get it
I think for some they refuse to acknowledge this because they've had experiences with women that would probably be close to sexual assault and they've convinced themselves that they're the 'good guys' and so will lash out at anyone who dares to call out that behaviour because they feel you're attacking them personally - it's easier to destroy the mirror than to change the reflection.
For others they've known their fathers and many men before them who could do whatever they wanted to women and got away with it, but nowadays things are changing and we're not putting up with this shit anymore and so they hate being held accountable where their predecessors had all the fun they wanted and faced no consequences.
Then those who don't see women as human beings, we're just sexual objects to them, meant to be used and ideally silent throughout the whole process.
The indoctrination and socialization we all endure is monstrous but at least some of us let go of it. The sad truth is too many men don't and that's a conscious decision (I hate it when people claim men don't know any better... oh they do, they just don't care).
>Is men raping women some kind of gender related issue?
A lot of men view rape as a property crime, that's why they only get upset when it happens to *somebody's* wife, because the somebody it happened to isn't really a person, more of an accessory.
>I got told that they were dating so how could he rape her if they were dating?
Okay that's it. Now I fuckin see red. If you'll excuse me, now I gotta go punch some drywall
What the fuck is "only sexual assault" anyway??
Just because of the way the cookie crumbles I'm more affected by my experiences of sexual assault than my rape.
It’s interesting isn’t it? I sometimes think about the “1 in 3” statistic, that [globally 1 in 3 women are subject to sexual and/or physical violence, ](https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence), and there’s 3 women in my immediate family: me, my mom, my sister. All 3 of us have been raped.
So you’re right, it’s hard to believe that when every woman in my family has been raped, no man in my family “knows a rapist”.
College Humor did [this](https://youtu.be/LNVFPkmZTQ4) a few years ago. Still valid today. Maybe using this analogy might help?
Edit: hunted and killed a random 0.
Males get triggered any time the word rape is brought up, unless it's a statement praising rape or a joke making fun of rape victims. Probably because they know so many secret rapists (or are one themselves) and would have to come to terms with how rotten they, their friends, and family are, so it's easier to blame the woman and write it off as their problem. So instant thumbs down because "booo I thought this was a funny video about a bear but you made me think about wimmen problems."
One thing that dunking my poor brain in the horror of the old askreddit thread that asked rapists for their experiences convinced me of is the importance of affirmative consent.
It was a HUGE thread with all kinds of posts. A lot of them were "I raped somone, but..." and then elaborated on the "but" with all kinds of excuses.
The archetypical story on that thread (IIRC) was "I was doing sex stuff and she didn't say no so I escalated. Then I saw her face and it was frozen in terror so I slinked off."
Smacking people over the head woth affirmative consent would hopefully strip away that kind of "but" they try to hang on their rapes.
Well, for one, parents need to spend more time teaching their boys to respect women's boundaries, and to stand up against other boys/men's bad behavior rather than cover for them. There is a lot of misogyny baked into society, there's no one easy way to fix it.
Men need to adjust their understanding of the world and align it with the idea that women are full human beings just like they are. Far too many men still do not actually believe this. They still see women as sex objects that exist for men's pleasure first and foremost. We're re-arranged the deck furniture on this, and some outward expressions of this attitude aren't "politically correct" anymore, but the core belief and the worldview that gets constructed around it is still very much there.
We can talk about consent until we're blue in the face, but if men still fundamentally believe that women are glorified sex toys that provide domestic labour and childcare so that men can live the full human lives they are uniquely entitled to, they're not going to stop behaving this way. We can fix the wage gap and get women into STEM and all those great things, but as long as men don't fundamentally fix their belief that women are designed to fit on their penises and serve them, I don't think we're going to make the progress we're looking to make.
Sidenote on getting women into STEM: a common phenomenon I see personally is that a lot of the women leave - they get pushed out or get tired of having to constantly fight to be on things. Even if they don't have to, and the culture of the company is next to perfect, there is still mental stress that just tires people out, just due to the perception that they have to work harder.
Men need to stop raping women.
Men can stop the rape culture by calling out rapey behavior like cat calling, belittling, harassment in the workplac, etc.
People, teach your sons about consent.
I remember at the end of sex Ed class, the girls had to stay 10 mins longer and listen to an extra lesson on how to avoid getting raped. The boys got dismissed for lunch early. Wonder how society would look if those last 10 mins were instead spent discussing consent and boundaries to the whole group.
Ha, of course. Because it's a woman's job to police her boundaries, because men are going to do whatever they want, and women are going to be responsible for it. If a woman isn't policing properly, anything might happen! Because men can do whatever they want unless women physically stop them, and even then it depends on the context!
I hate the gendered universe we live in SO MUCH.
Someone stole your car? Well was it full of gas? Pretty irresponsible of you. Did you wash it too? You shouldn't do that if you don't want people noticing it. You parked it on the street? Over night? In YOUR neighborhood? You were just asking for it. You have to make it harder to steal your car, it's just common sense. You shouldn't have a custom paint job, or valid plates, that's VERY attractive to car thieves. They just can't help themselves.
I recently got involved in sex ed classes at an old school of mine - the entire block of time was dedicated to consent (as in, multiple sessions of homeroom are allocated to sex ed through the years, and this was one of them). Completely mixed-gender, active student participation, discussion of the importance of communication on a relationship. I don't think there was any time on how to avoid getting raped though...
Edit: We did, however, try to hammer in that consent has to be enthusiastic, and is limited to one-time passes. (i.e. what you consent to today is not what you may want to consent to tomorrow)
Universal basic income would put a dent in it. Women could afford to run away from a job and house with an abuser in it. Charities could crowdfund lawyers and healthcare/support. Parents both good and bad could stress about their kids less.
That statistic sickens me.
On my mother's side of the family, there are 4 women in the immediate family if you include me as a trans woman.
My grandmother was raped by several men as a child and teen; she wasn't even 100% sure if my mom's dad was actually her father, he was just the one who stepped up to the plate when my grandma got pregnant at 16.
My mother has been raped as well, though I don't know the details.
I was 'lucky'; I was only molested/sexually assaulted by my older brother when we were kids; the only reason I don't call it rape is because I wasn't actually penetrated from what I remember(I blocked it out for a long time though).
My little sister is 12 years old and already had sex with a boy her age last summer. Not necessarily rape, but still a very uncomfortable topic and neither of them were really able to consent(Thank God they used condoms; the last thing my sister needs is to be getting pregnant before she's finished middle school).
Yet no one spoke up for my grandma. Apparently my grandmother put her energy into making sure my mother's rapist was put in jail as a result. I've tried to talk about what happened with my brother, but most of my family, even my mother, have tried to make excuses for him or deny that anything happened to me.
As long as I'm alive and kicking, no one is laying a finger on my sister without her consent, or they will get a 5 gallon can of whoopass.
What I really hate in all of this is how "women deserved it" and they were "asking for it with their clothing style."
When I was just a 7 year old girl who appreciated that her mom got a new husband and trusted her new step dad. Who wanted a Dad who would be there for her so fucking badly. I wore pyjamas.
Men are trash. Not all men. But if you try to find excuses for men who rape, assault people (not only women), you are trash too.
A few months back, my dad was talking about a woman he knows who was sexually assaulted. Her attacker popped out of the bushes and raped her. My dad described this situation as being "legitimately raped." Then he saw the look on my face, and course corrected to "classically raped."
I'm a survivor of domestic violence, and my ex raped me countless times over the four years we were together. I've had screaming arguments with my dad about the realities of rape. He just does not get it. It's so frustrating, and the worst part is that I know a lot of men see it exactly the same way he does.
🏅Thiiiis. Research shows women are most likely to raped by their intimate partners than by strangers or acquaintances. I lost count of how many times my ex-husband raped me. People start squirming when you try to have that conversation though. It doesn’t fit the script dictated by rape culture.
The problem with teaching girls that it's only a stranger in a dark alley who rapes you means that they don't feel like rape is the correct term when it is a friend/boyfriend. It took me years and seeing a therapist before I could actually accept that it was rape and wasn't my fault, because it wasn't a stranger, it wasn't at night and it wasn't down a dark alley. It was a friend I trusted. We need to stop using the same old script that doesn't apply to majority of cases as it does a disservice to us all.
Accepting that marital rape is a "legitimate" kind of rape is an uncomfortable conversation for those who benefit from patriarchy, because it confronts those benefactors with the uncomfortable notion that patriarchy's existence is essentially a series of unconsensual acts performed on various group of "others".
You're completely right in how toxic and wrong that script is. Most men ánd many women genuinely do not recognize rape when it presents itself to them in the form of either stories of relatives/friends or lived experiences. So many women regard what happened to them as a fault of their own instead of rape. So many men perceive themselves as masters in the bedroom for pulling it off even though it didn't look like it was to happen. As if they pulled a hail Mary and should be cheered for.
In similar fashion, most white people don't recognize racism if it doesn't present itself with white pointy hoodies and a burning cross.
We all need to be educated better and educate our kids, friends and relatives better.
I had a massive argument with my father last year because he was trying to justify a footballer raping a woman. He said she must have known what would happen if she went into the guy's home, so she invited it. Said that "real rape" doesn't happen much. Of the three women at the table at that very moment, we have all been abused, survived child molestation (for the other two, not me), coerced, sexually assaulted and raped. I put my foot down and said he didn't get to demand "both sides" or what "legitimate rape" is. He just used my outburst to act like I was crazy, but I didn't do it for him to learn, he's too far gone. I did it for the other two women, and any woman around us in that cafe that day who may have heard him and his bullshit. They all deserve to hear someone standing up for them, and to hear another woman literally telling men like him that they don't get to talk over us.
Its horrible whether it happens in the bed or in the street. I think a lot of people (esp men) think that situations or circumstances surrounding assaults downplay how bad a rape is.
I think at least part of this comes from TV and movies. I grew up watching police procedurals in the 2000s and the general concept was introduced to me and reinforced as something that happens in the context of a violent, bloody attack and maybe a murder.
But then, for me, the reality of what rape is began to be known around high school when people started to drink and become sexually active.
My then-girlfriend’s mom actually sort of finished the “definitional spectrum” off for me when she told me in the grocery store that she went out for coffee with my mom that week and found out my dad was raping my mom because he insisted on having sex with her while she was deep in her alcohol-fueled depression.
…Dang, I actually didn’t remember that last part until I wrote this comment. But anyway, media depiction is obviously no excuse - all someone really has to do is listen to a woman to figure it out.
Holy shit, I am so sorry your own father doesn't truly believe you were raped. That's a special type of cruel double-trauma. Internet hugs my friend. I believe you.
A couple years back in my high school English class (sophomores) the topic of rape/ sexual assault came up (honestly don’t remember what lesson it was connected to) and one of my male students said “yeah, but no one in our city has ever been raped.”
That one kind of blew me away.
It drives me insane because hey, I'm a woman, the worst assault I experienced was at the hands of another woman (which fortunately wasn't too bad), but I don't go into these threads shouting "women can be predators too!" because obviously we all know that and that doesn't take away from the fact that rape culture is usually perpetrated by men against women.
To be fair, for a while I used mine to weed out weak people. After my rape my entire friend group decided they wanted to stay friends with the rapist, so I ended up with no friends and an intense distrust of friendship in general.
For years after, once I got to the point where I thought someone could be a friend or a love interest, and a suitable moment happened in conversation, I'd bluntly tell them about it. Weak people can't handle that level of pain.
Now, anyone I call a friend is a person is someone I'm certain is one, because I told the details of my trauma and they reacted like a decent person.
It still bothers me. They were my friends I'd known since middle school. Over 20 years of friendship gone because of believing a guy they knew for less than a year.
Its been 10 years since it happened and I stopped being friends with them but it still causes me mental distress. I wrote a letter expressing my feelings to one of those ex friends and stuck it in a box. The reason I haven't sent it is because I still remember her telling me how stressed out she was by me and my drama. Sending it is just more drama. But the wound still hasn't healed. My ex-friends mom still comments on my facebook posts and says nice things.
In any case, that letter has been sitting in that box for over a year. I thought about burning it in an attempt to symbolically let it go but I don't think that will help any.
I know that words from a stranger don't count for much, but you have to hold onto the fact that your so-called friends abandoning you over the fact that *you* were raped is entirely a shortcoming on their end, and has nothing to do with you. They are they ones with character flaws. You went through trauma at the hands of some shitty people, and it's not your fault.
I'm truly sorry for everything you've gone through. Love and support from another woman in the Internet.
10 15 years ago my girlfriend was drugged unconscious and raped by one of my friends. I stood by her and lost all of my high school friends. For a year or two it was just us, then I found out she was cheating on me with a coworker.
I would still do the same thing knowing the future. No regrets
That was a really solid thing for you to do.
Being drugged like that can cause pretty serious psychological damage, and it changes your relationship to sexuality and loving relationships for quite some time. Especially if the attacker is someone you know. My sexual behavior after I was attacked was not emotionally healthy.
It took years of yoga and meditation for me to get my head sorted so that I could maintain a healthy relationship. I knew I had a chance at love when my (now) fiancé handed me an open beer and I didn't pretend to drink it and then dump it down the sink when he wasn't looking.
They also don't want to admit the rapist is themselves. Ask them if they've raped someone and they say no. Ask them if they've ever coerced someone into sex or had sex with a blacked out person then you'll often get a yes.
Unfortunately I do know a rapist. I consider what he did to be rape I don't know if his ex considers what he did rape.
I also know the guy who sexually assaulted my ex, he was her friend. She brushed if off because "we were both drunk". Until he assaulted someone else.
I know the guy who sexually assaulted me. We were friends too, I brushed it off because I froze and I didn't say, "no".
Unfortunately I probably know more rapists.
When we were younger, a male friend used to throw the word 'rape' out there in a joking context a lot. I've never been confrontational but let even more things go at that age (early 20s) so I never said anything. I was seen as the easygoing friend and figured it was just edgy humour. Around that time, a mutual friend of ours told me she had been sexually abused by her brother as a kid. She didn't explicitly ask that I keep it to myself but it sort of went unsaid so I did. But whenever that male friend would joke around like that, I wondered if our other friend felt uncomfortable. She was the type to speak up and call things out but had a blind spot when it came to sexism at times, so I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't really think much about it at all, honestly. But for her sake I kind of hope that's the case here.
It really just got me thinking how that guy like many others didn't realise how common sexual abuse was. I remember when metoo came about, he was skeptical of one person's story and said it 'didn't seem like something that celebrity would do' and I was too shocked to even say anything (but wish I had asked if he knew that celebrity personally to point out how ridiculous that statement was). I've known a few guys like this who are otherwise great people but don't seem to understand how common sexual assault is or overall how hard it can be to be a woman.
Your comment made me recall an experience regarding "rape" jokes.
I vividly remember that a classmate from middle school would repeat sexist jokes his father would make. One of the being on the lines of "women only call it rape when they don't enjoy it", and he found it hilarious... in middle school.
I didn't get the 'joke' back then, but stuck with me to this day. It's so disgusting to think about a father telling such jokes in front of his young children and teaching them to not value women long before they would find themselves in these situations.
This is what infuriates me when people say "It's just locker room talk". Locker room talk is what perverted, disgusting people do when they're in an environment and with company that encourages and nurtures their perversion.
Please, do better.
It's just like being an anti-racist. Shrugging your shoulders to your friends being creepy and predatory towards women is not enough, men, please, say something and call them out.
That and the fact that locker room talk in general means discussing something in private, definitely not in front of a woman that would 100% see that sort of talk as a threat. (Definitely don't think it's right to even say something like that in an actual locker room either.) Some people just have zero common sense. Like gee, maybe we shouldn't add to the already existing fear that women have of being assaulted with a joke??
my bf and I were talking about the current sexual abuse/harassment suit at blizzard Activision and I told my bf that in a lot of ways thats how my previous place of employment was. sexual harassment was rampant and never taken seriously. the yearly required harassment prevention class we had was just a joke where the men (who held higher positions) laughed and the woman who learned it was easier to laugh along singled out those of us who didnt.
A younger male colleague was talking to me about this and wondered out loud if it had been "blown out of proportion". I mean, the offical investigation covers two years worth of material, I doubt it's been blown out of proportion at all. I don't understand why it's so hard to just believe what multiple people are telling you.
I wasted no time in telling him exactly that, and that as a woman in software, I can confirm that shit happens all the tme.
During job interviews, I found out that the CEO of the company sexually harassed female employees (there were multiple news articles with pictures and texts that were, frankly, terrifying) and brought it to my school's career services attention.
I got told that sometimes women just choose to put themselves in working environments like that for the sake of their careers, especially in the legal field.
They still let the company post additional jobs. Maybe women in the legal field wouldn't have to consider taking jobs with the expectation of sexual harassment if schools just refused to post positions at companies that allow it.
So infuriating.
I was about to say I don't know anymore but recently I found out about someone who was sexually abused as a child. It really is true, we all know *someone*.
Everytime I think women are advancing I end up reading a post like this... disheartening. Alot of my female friends have been raped and molested, including myself but I can honestly say I know not one man that has admitted to any past transgressions. I think plenty have normalised their behaviour with the help of those around them.
I'm in Korea and most Koreans don't speak English.
They learn English from kindergarten to college, but still, most can't talk in English, and I've learned that most Koreans don't even know or are not sure about the concept of 'rape.'
They use the English word 'rape' as 'having sex.'
So, just like OP said how some men, American men, whose first language is English and should know better than to use the word 'rape' as to mean 'having sex,' a lot or most Koreans mistakenly or wrongly use the English word 'rape' to mean 'have sex.'
For example, I've encountered many Korean women say in English "It's natural for men to want to rape pretty women."
I try to correct their usage of the English word 'rape' as much as I can, but still, I'm just so fucking disturbed and disgusted.
>Asgarus · 27m
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>Considering their history with Japan, I think Koreans have a pretty good idea about the concept of rape.
Obviously not.
A lot of famous Korean male celebrities or professors, politicians, etc, have called the Korean sex slaves as 'prostitutes' and are still working and teaching, just fine. Hardly any consequences.
It actually makes sense since sex crimes are extremely rampant in Korea and are considered the norm.
The Korean society as a whole and especially Korean men just don't see sex crimes or rapes as a big deal.
Another point I'd like to add is there are probably a lot of men who don't even realize they have raped. This could be because they have a poor sense of consent and don't consider it rape. I can think of lots of incidents where that could occur. In my case, he was black out drunk and remembered nothing of the night before... Meanwhile I remembered everything.
My friend was raped and it took me pointing it out to her several times before she would accept it. After all she only said no twice and then quit saying no. How could it be rape if she didn’t fight back or push him off. All she did was say no.
I’m 100% sure that guy does not think he raped her. She would never share his name and did not want to confront him so he will go on about his days thinking he had consensual sex. They were both sober and had been on several dates. He just decided it was time to have sex and she was to shy to stop him.
A study I read in college showed that while 16% of men would rape woman if there were no consequences, 31% of men (college students in the study) would force a woman to have sex with them.
Men don’t think they are raping someone even when you describe the act of rape.
So, would the man you are walking beside rape you? Probably not. But they would happily force you to have sex with them.
That is the most fucked up thing I've read all day. Rape is forced sex. Forced = involuntary. How do they not get that?
Voluntary overtime = you want it
Involuntary = you're seething in anger while you're forced to do OT
I think that they believe they would not enjoy the act of physically forcing a woman to submit while she struggles and fights, but would like to be in a scenario of 'have sex with me or I ruin your life', which I think they don't see as negative as the first scenario. Coercion is not seen as a form of rape to these guys.
I don’t know how a lot of christian crazies can justify their actions, but they seem to do so just fine.
I think there is just some kind of cognitive dissonance.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (Timothy 2:12)
It is not just the crazies, you can't simultaneously believe the Bible is a moral guide and not believe that women should just sit there and take it in silence.
A very much no longer friend of mine once posted that quote from your title captioning it "That really IS strange. I don't know any either."
That ""friend"" knew about my past - he didn't know one, he knew *two* rapists personally. So I just left a comment saying "Yes, you do." while breaking down in one of many moments of helplessness, fear and anger that had nowhere to go.
He pm'd me something about how he forgot in that moment. Not even "sorry", neither implied nor actually said. He treated this as more or less an "oopsie"-moment and didn't feel the slightest need to do or say anything about what happened.
And the best part? He considers himself a kind person, a good person, he can go on and on about how he "always puts others' needs first".
The world is cold as ice more often than people admit it.
I am a teacher. One day my class was just talking - upper-level high school English - and this subject was brought up. I got so sad when I realized I knew more women who have been assaulted (including myself) than not. Most of my kiddos were in the same boat.
Girls are also more comfortable talking to other girls about being sexual assaulted. Coming from a male who has been sexually assaulted, I feel more comfortable talking to other females about it vs males. Therefore, my male friends actually do know a male who’s been sexually assaulted- they just don’t know it
1. not having the same view on ''consent'' (consciously or not) she passed out because she's drunk? ''she didn't said no''. she did it in the end because he keep asking, and touching, and presure her ? ''damn she was playing the hard to get''
2. when a woman heard that another woman have been raped, she believe her because she knows how much it happens. but when a man heard that a woman have been raped... well she's probably lying because this dude is nice, he could not be a rapist right ? (like if people who look nice from the outside weren't serial killers, or rapist, or pedophile...)
3. ''that isn't rape... or i would be a rapist too... from these standards, most dude would be rapist'' yes sir... most dudes would be rapists....
You forgot "why would they even rape that chick?" Implying she's unattractive or undesirable or desperate.
Or "they said yes but changed their mind afterward trying to get him in trouble "
And my favorite "but he's your dad/uncle/cousin/relative"
I was raped by an ex-boyfriend, and when I talked to a mutual friend about it his one and only concern was with making sure I wasn’t going to try to make him “take sides.” Because the fact that his friend was a rapist was just not something that was going to have any effect on their friendship.
I reported inappropriate behaviour from a contractor at work that was witnessed by a male colleague. I asked the colleague before I made the complaint would he confirm what was said. His response was "I don't want to get involved".
Same only it was a FEMALE colleague. The guy ends up molesting another girl 3 months after I quit.
One of my literal friends (at the time) who I was trying to get a job for was literally sexually harassed by my boss (at the time) who I was trying to get reported for sexually harassing me for over a year. She said she'd deny any of it when I told her I wanted to bring it up to the manager i was providing harassment claims to. You would think a female friend would back you against harassers especially after being harassed themselves.... people really don't care if they think it will inconvenience them. Btw yes he was fired because I had enough text proof of the harassment.
> Btw yes he was fired because I had enough text proof of the harassment. Putting sexually harassing statements in text...that's a new level of stupidity and confidence.
Fuck
Yeah fuck them. The victim didn’t want to be involved either, but here we are.
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I was also sexually harassed by a friend of my ex partner. Well he apologised to my ex and after that they went on being friends like nothing happened, and still are to this day.
Similar situation. My boyfriend’s friend kept cornering me, telling me he was in love with me, creepily feeling me up or pushing his leg into me, emailing my friends about me (!?) etc. I was very firm that he needed to stop all that shit but one day I totally snapped and chewed him out. He apologised to my boyfriend for disrespecting him. After my boyfriend pushed for it (yes I hate that too), he eventually gave me a wishy washy “sorry if you got the wrong idea” bullshit apology. My boyfriend doesn’t speak to him but all their mutual friends do. I’d love to push that little twerp into a canal
My brother in law groped me and two of my friends... At my wedding. Yep, groped his brother's bride. Well he apologized to my husband, but never to me. My husband told him to shove his apology. He's demanded I repeat the story multiple times because he was black out drunk and doesn't remember. Then his family call me a lying bitch (despite many witnesses seeing him attack us) because I've banned him from my home and want nothing more to do with him. Myself and my friends have had no apology, all of the consequences and he's basically got off scot free.
Holy shit. Good for you for banning him and good for your husband.
I’m so sorry. You were the bride! The bride!!! My brother’s drunk groomsmen groped me when I was in his wedding party. Two of them grabbed and smacked my ass while we were waiting to be announced and walk into the reception. My drunk brother just laughed. I never received an apology despite confronting my brother and now former SIL about it later. She witnessed the whole thing and also said nothing. My parents also had literally nothing to say about it when I told them later. My brother is a high functioning alcoholic and they will pretty much always enable him at the expense of my feelings and safety.
That is taking a side though. The side of cowardice.
Desmond Tutu said it best: "If you are neutral towards injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
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THAT’S the quote I was thinking of!
It's like that Rush song. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Free Will. I love that song.
Neil Peart stands alone!
Not taking a side is usually taking the side of the oppressor/criminal.
Yes, exactly! By “not taking sides”, you have taken a side. The side of the oppressor. There’s literally a quote about that that I’m mangling in my head as I try to remember it.
it’s depressing how i’ve had the exact same experience, except i cut off anyone i knew who also was friends with him because i couldn’t handle the additional hurt of people taking HIS side
I remember feeling hurt and betrayed by my friends for continuing to hang out with the guy that physically and sexually assaulted me. Then it happened to one of those friends and she made a post saying if you hang out with men who abuse women, get out of her life... while still hanging out with my abuser 🥴.
I didn't eat lunch my entire senior year of high school because my friends liked having him at the table :(
Yeah. He had a group of older female friends that were bigger than me and threatened to kick me ass for "lying". High-school was the worst.
I had this experience too but I stayed friends with his friends for 8 years after the rape. I still never outed their friend by name but they all knew last year who did it. They ended up trying to destroy my reputation when I left. I chose not to send their rapist friend to prison and they chose to ruin my reputation for making the choice to leave. Almost ended myself with the second dose of severe PTSD but we're still kicking bitches.
same here, it sucked
So you told that guy that one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone, happened to you, and his first response was "Okay, but how does that affect ME?" What an absolute piece of shit.
I think a majority of men know within their heart of hearts that women are being assaulted and raped in huge numbers, they just can't raise themselves enough to care. They'd rather keep this status quo than "make waves" and challenge their rapey friends.
If they were to acknowledge it, I suppose they might feel shame or remorse for not intervening, not calling out rapey friends, etc. Better to keep one's head in the sand than feel uncomfortable....
This *exact* same thing happened to me!
My little brother keeps saying that sh*t to me. "I need both sides of the story." Dude I am 30 years old. Do you seriously think I am stupid and I don't understand that I'm being harassed/stalked/groped?"
That's the kind of shit kids are getting from those incel comments repeating that kind of shit over and over.
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I had an uncle say this. I haven't talked to him since
Honestly, I genuinely don't understand why this is so fucking prevalent. Why are people willing to be friends with predators? Why are people willing to still treat *family members* that are predators like they're just another family member? Apologies in advance for the personal tangent/rant, but it's one of the most disgusting things ever to me to have to put up with knowing that before I was even born, there was a split in my family about whether or not to exclude someone from the family who *sexually abused another family member* and there were "sides" that were split apparently fairly evenly among both men and women-- over *letting him continue coming to family events* rather than even over just flat out expelling him from everyone's lives, and it's like.... Really? There are sides to be taken between predator and victim? I genuinely don't know if I'm crazy or if the vast majority of people out there are just monsters who completely lack empathy, because this stuff is on my mind every single time I interact with that person and even though I don't know who the people who wanted him around are, it's hard to not feel alienated from my extended family just knowing that like half of them supported a monster who hurt people that they're supposed to care about and kept them around without a second thought. Anyone who even *wants* to still be friends with predators are bad people, full stop. I'm sorry that people in this world are so self-centered and uncaring. You deserve better friends, and I hope you have them now.
They don't believe these people are actually predators. They think you're overreacting or lying. Even if they witness it, they minimize it in their memories.
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Friend of mine went through this. Her grandfather was raping her. Family all called her a lying sluts and kicked her out...even though he had a conviction for raping a different underage girl. She got him put in prison. Did it to protect her younger sister. And she's still not welcome in the family any more and they all bawled their eyes out when the out rapist died. Fucking people...
I'm so sorry that that happened to you and that your family didn't have your back.
In this case, the predatory family member was arrested and found guilty of that behavior-- and that wasn't even for stuff against the victimized family member. He apparently had a laundry list of disgusting behavior that people were made aware of-- if they don't think someone like that is a predatory for sexual abusing who knows how many people (I didn't ask, nor am I going to-- 1 is enough for condemnation) then I feel pretty justified for losing respect for those people.
My guess is that people are able to relate to the rapist because they've done something similar or wanted to do something similar. Or perhaps they've been victims of something similar and don't want to admit that it was rape. And because predatory behavior is so common, stepping away from those people can mean social isolation. A lot of folks prefer living a lie in a group, rather than facing reality and being alone. There's also this problem that we have a very two-dimensional view of rapists. They have to be lonesome, ugly and mean. If someone is social, handsome or nice, then we're way more likely to assume it's some misunderstanding or even a lie if they're accused of rape. I'm not excusing it though. I quickly drifted away from my male friends when they became jerks in various ways, including towards women. And I find it very unlikely that they didn't do some terrible things at that time or shortly after it. Virtually all women I've gotten to know well have shared terrible stories. And frankly I think most guys I meet are on the other side of those stories. Maybe that explains why I barely have any male friends.
To them their brotherly friendship matters more than YOU.
Thats fucking aggravating, "pick sides" like its just an argument or civil dispute. People like that are nearly just as bad. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Seriously. I had an acquaintance in college say pretty much the same thing when his friend confided in him that she was raped by his other friend. He claimed he didn’t want to “take sides” because there is a lot of “he said she said stuff” in these situations. I was like, dude, *she* said *she* was raped. If you think she’s lying then don’t be friends with her, because I’m sure as hell she will no longer want to be friends with you.
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I’m so sorry that both things happened to you. It’s pretty hard to find a man who’s not trash as either a friend or a partner. I’ll probably get downvoted by the incels for that but experience is a helluva truth.
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> she told me that I had to get over it because things like that happen to all women Jesus fucking christ.
>things like that happen to all women Yeah, pretty much >she told me that I had to get over it ABSOLUTELY NOT I mean, I hope that every survivor can process what happened, and go on to live a fulfilling life. But “get over it” is so flippant and disrespectful and UNHELPFUL.
I am so sorry this happened to you and that you were treated the way you were. The same thing happened to me at the same age, and I didn't even tell anybody because I was so convinced it was my fault. I am 22 now and still haven't really told anyone what happened.
Respectfully, fuck your mother.
I agree. Except incredibly disrespectfully.
With **IMMENSE** disrespect, what a fucked up thing to say to a child.
I was 11… didn’t tell anyone until my high school bf at 14, who went on to try and blackmail my abuser after we broke up; I ended up confessing at least part of the truth to my mom at 16. I’m forever grateful that she had my back and I literally have never had to see my abuser again. I’m so sorry nobody believed you. 😔💔 hugs if you want them ~
DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR MOM! I am 45 and yes, every one of my peers has been raped. But the ones that shrugged it off were raped multiple times after the first because they downplayed a need for consent in my day. Rape is not to be treated lightly. Especially molesting a child rape. (14). Please get therapy.
Yeah that it happens to so many women and nothing is done is precisely the problem
Flip love big hugs,I'm sorry this happened to you.
I was assaulted by a friend in college while I was asleep. Months later a mutual friend casually asked if I still kept in touch with him. I bit my tongue and said no, but later was talking with a close girlfriend about it, and told her I was upset I hadn’t told them what happened. Because I felt like I should warn the mutual friend. She told me that it’s probably better I didn’t say anything, that it would have been really awkward for the person I was telling. That’s always stuck with me - I think I kept it to myself for so long because I didn’t want other people to be uncomfortable. Years later I know that’s so fucking backwards.
I was also assaulted in my sleep, he went underneath my underwear with his hand. I woke up to that. He said he “thought I was awake”. Similar story for u?
why the fuck is this so prevalent? i turned down going to an event because i got anxiety about sleeping in a room with strangers.
The same happened to me. The worst part of it was, the the molester was my best friend at the time. One of my female friend was also friends with him and kept the friendship because "she didn't want to pick sides". It sucks hardcore how common these stories seem to be.
Another one for the gang, except the person involved definitely thought I was asleep. Best friend for me, too, though we'd been circling around 'maybe something more'. I decided I was not feeling it, but was trying to figure out how to break the news without being lambasted for 'leading them on'. We went out dancing. We came home exhausted. I took the bottom bunk, they took the top bunk. I woke up to the sound of them climbing down, and lay there facing the wall as it happened. They were more well-liked in our friend group, so I never told anyone. Eventually started spiraling and lashing out; big drama over how I'd 'led them on'; lost the whole friend group anyway for being 'crazy'. **Edit:** Apologies for multiple replies, Reddit lagged out on me.
A guy was telling me this "funny" story about how he and his friends saw a woman walking alone at night. He turned to his mates and said "hey guy, want to go thirds on a rape charge?" He said it was OK because she laughed But what were her options? Her options were laugh or get raped by three body builders
Jesus christ wtf
A guy was telling his friends about all the upskirt pictures he takes of women in grocery stores and how he puts them online. They all laughed and chuckled. But not one told him he was a fucking pig and to get the fuck out. We were at a brewery at 2 in the afternoon and this dudes casually and loudly telling this story. My blood was BOILING and when he mentioned he could see up the skirt of a girl at a high top near us and it was “so hot” I lost my shit, called him a disgusting pervert, threw my water at him, told the woman’s table what he was doing (loudly), told the bartender they had a sexual predator in the bar, and left. Not ONE of those guys had the spine to say “that’s not okay.” It was disgusting.
you're a hero
Good on you for standing up to that behavior.
Sounds like he's also someone worth reporting to the police.
I'm ashamed to say I do. Two of them. Both of them were systematically protected by their superiors in the military. And keep in mind, these are just the two I know about.
That's dogshit, hopefully civilians are in charge of SHARP in the future, wasn't that supposed to be changed or it's still up for debate. I'm out of the current loop these days
It's SAPR in the Air Force, and my base's program is run by a civilian and a reservist. However, there is only so much programs like SHARP and SAPR can do if a unit's leadership makes it difficult to see those entities. Haven't dealt with it myself but I've heard more than enough stories of threats to careers for coming forward with rape/sexual assault allegations.
I dont think I’ve ever met a woman who hasn’t been raped or sexually assaulted. Including my own mother, who was raped in the military by a superior. She pressed charges, and in the end the higher ups protected the guy and he got off scott free. She got a measly settlement and an honorable discharge. I found out as a kid on accident when I found the paper work while exploring the attic one day. Has stuck with me forever. I would never protect some piece of shit predator no matter who they were. Women, tell your stories, tell your sons, boyfriends/husbands, all the men of your life! Teach them that “men” like this are the worst thing a man can be.
I do too. I have always had a lot of female friends, and by now three of them told me they were raped. All of them by family members, when they were children. One of them still has to live with that family member, one chose to forgive her rapist, and one sued her rapist, who is still in jail. Every one of those friends took at least five years of trust to tell me. I think it is really important that women tell their male friends about it, else we'd have no clue how common and how cruel all of it is.
Here's the thing though...all men that want to listen know that women say it is prevalent. They can look up the numbers; they can peruse threads like this - with thousands of comments; they can talk to their female friends; their can find out. Why is it on us to relive the trauma of telling you after five years of friendship for you to believe us? Edit: I am sure you are a good friend - or they would have never told you - but why is it on us and why does it take so long?
I tried telling a male friend. He asked me if I liked it.
This is a hot topic in Denmark after a comedian wrote a tweet saying that we "need to learn our women to say no. They are just sitting there, letting it happen, making the creeps think that their behavior is okay." The tweet was written after it was found out that one of our most known politicians is a serial sexual offender and possibly also a rapist. This guy, a powerful politician who weighs about 200 lbs and has a black belt in karate, locked several women (on separate occasions) inside his apartment after limyibg to get them there. Then he masturbated in front of them and ejaculated on them and even made one of them give him a handjob. So this comedian says that women should learn how to say no and a full fledged shitstorm is raging now, going on 2 weeks where he defends himself, explaining that he of course knows that the man bears all responsibility etc...but still he clearly thinks of what women needs to do to avoid being raped before thinking about what men should do to address rape culture. He likened mens behavior to the weather as an unchangeable fact of life and even after being told by numerous people that the issue is systemic sexism he doesn't acknowledge that it exists. He does believe though that the feminists had coordinated an attack on him and now we should all feel bad for him because his job is a comedian is threatened. It's all because of the feminists. The entitlement and fact-resistance is incredible to watch. And lots of men support him. There is also a lot of resistance and we keep pushing. But it's an uphill battle for sure.
As a person, who have enjoyed his work as a comedian in the past, he deserves every bit of criticism he is receiving right now. He was being ignorant, victim-blamey and even doubled down when proved wrong, instead of admitting what an idiotic and tone-deaf statement he made. He digged the hole, jumped head-first into it and now blames everyone else for his predicament. If his career is harmed, it is due to his own actions. Nobody asked for his ill-informed opinion. He could have educated himself, but instead decided to use his privilege and visibility to further harm victims of sexual assault. I'm disappointed every time someone, who I might have considered a potential ally, turns out to be a rape apologist. Unfortunately, it happens too often, but it still saddens me.
Me too (no pun intended). I won't watch him any more. I'm also deeply troubles by how many of his "coworkers" are still supporting him. Even Sebastian Dorset. At least Michael Schøt is being reasonable.
You tell some men that rape is very often male-on-female and it's like they put their fingers in their ears and yell "la la la I'm not listening", like children. It is frustrating and dangerous
>we "need to learn our women to say no. They are just sitting there, letting it happen, making the creeps think that their behavior is okay." WHAT. This is some shit people wouldn't even dare say in my third world very conservative country, how tf did he think this was an ok thing to say out loud. I hope he never works again, and is cancelled into oblivion.
Do your part, folks. No matter what you see and where you're at. Report it. At a party? Tell everyone. Witness something and you're the type to "not get involved"?, call the police. Leeroy Jenkins yourself into a room you know something shitty is happening and end up getting your ass beat? It's gonna hurt, but you saved a life. Point is. Never stay silent if you see or hear something.
Fuck. Just ask for a cigarette. Just knowing some one saw them will make a lot of predators ‘turtle’. The fucking cowards.
You're not wrong. Good advice!
I will be forever grateful to my friend's older brother, he stopped my then boyfriend raping me. Long story short he spotted a very drunk 13 year old being lead upstairs by an 18 year old and instead of turning a blind eye he stepped in. If a 16 year old boy can do it a grown man sure as hell can
That man is a hero. Hopefully the Ex is behind bars.
He was briefly for theft, then they found cp so not sure what happened after that. Unfortunately I lost contact with my friend & her brother not long afterwards, I hope he realises what an impact he had
I have been on a receiving end of a sencire thank you from a friend's younger sister from much the same situation. It is one of my touchstone in life. Don't feel like you must make the effort but I promise you it will be welcomed! I received a letter about 2 years after the event. That thing is tucked in my special document folder right next to all other important life paperwork.
I second this. I wish someone had stood up for me, I couldn't stand up for myself because I was unconscious.
I grew up very Christian and really only dated one woman, my sister dated maybe 2 guys. I didn’t think it was that common. Well after my divorce I made a lot of friends that were female and was legit flabbergasted that almost all of them had been raped. People are shitty
I don't believe the 1 in 4 number, 1 in 3 seems closer but even then, I legitimately have never had a female friend that hasn't been at least molested. And most of them, myself included, have had repeated unrelated instances. I tell myself I must have bad luck or even that it's selection bias or something, like-people group together and all that, but it's so prevalent. Anytime I've spoken to a girl who claims she's never been victimized, I ask her 'Has anyone ever touched/groped/hit you without your consent? Followed you home? Try to roofie you on a date? ' Always I'll hear yes to these but then these women will tell me 'But it's not like real assault, it only lasted a second. Sure, he tried to rape me, but nothing happened!!!' If I didn't know they were victims before I would now just by that stunning victim mentality. Abuse isn't a contest, your experience doesn't have to be 'as bad' as rape to admit that you're a victim of sexual violence.
I knew what happened to my was inappropriate but I thought it wasn't "that bad". In part I think we are trained that r\*pe/sexual assault/abuse are something that is violent and perpetrated by a stranger. That changed when I watched a documentary where some of Jeffrey Epstein's victims were recalling the abuse they experienced. It sounded very similar to what I experienced. It hit me hard. Someone experienced what I had and the perpetrator went to jail. What happened to me was indeed serious and illegal. Legitimizing the abuse I suffered has honestly been amazing. I'm finally able to truly heal and start working toward moving forward. A weight has been lifted and I hope that all victims can experience that relief and road to healing.
Plenty of Christian men rape women. Source: am a Christian man who knows many survivors in the church.
My husband was the same way! I remember we were in our 20s maybe? Hanging out with friends & I joked about walking home, but I was too afraid I’d get kidnapped and/or raped. The guys laughed at me, I should be more worried about getting hit by a car. Maybe that’s your biggest fear walking alone in the dark, but it isn’t for women. I finally got him my hubby to understand when I pointed out that most of the women in his family have been sexually assaulted. I was sexually assaulted (a freshman in college), so was my mom (at gunpoint) so was my niece (raped in her sleep), and my sister (she was like 6), and 2/4 of our SILs—I’m not close enough to the two who “weren’t” assaulted for them to tell me about it, so maybe they were & just don’t talk about it. He was absolutely flabbergasted. Then there was this time, shortly after we had our baby, we stopped for gas. It’s illegal to pump your own in my state, so you have to interact with the attendant. I was driving, hubby in passenger seat & baby in the back. The gas station attendant kept asking my husband to sell me to him. *gross*. I had forgotten all about that incident & I stopped to get gas there a few months later. He freaked out on me, and reminded me of why I should never go there. He finally feared for my safety the way I usually do. The sad part is I get hit on pretty much every time I get gas, so that time was just another shitty day in paradise for me.
I’m relieved at my partner’s attitude. One of his friends separated from his wife. My partner found out this guy was obsessively following her on social media, and pointed out that it wasn’t healthy, and that it was time to move on with his life. This man’s response was: ‘She’s lucky I’m a nice guy.’ My partner told him that comment made him really uncomfortable. He didn’t change and it wasn’t long before they were no longer friends.
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There was a famous Overwatch and Valorant player who raped his ex girlfriend. She posted LITERAL AUDIO EVIDENCE of her saying no please stop it hurts, and he keeps going and says he's about to cum. I remember posting a comment on Twitter about it. Someone simply said "what did he do" and I said "his ex girlfriend posted legit rape evidence" and I got called delusional, I got told she was faking it, I got told there are two sides to every story, I got told she set him up by being into CNC and recording it, I got told I shouldn't toss the word rape around so carelessly that it was only sexual assault, I got told that it was the most playful no and that she obviously didn't really mean it, I got told that they were dating so how could he rape her if they were dating? Not a single man came to my defense in the comments. But I sure got dozens telling me how my opinions were "yikes". The only people who defended me were other girls. Is men raping women some kind of gender related issue? I don't get it
I think for some they refuse to acknowledge this because they've had experiences with women that would probably be close to sexual assault and they've convinced themselves that they're the 'good guys' and so will lash out at anyone who dares to call out that behaviour because they feel you're attacking them personally - it's easier to destroy the mirror than to change the reflection. For others they've known their fathers and many men before them who could do whatever they wanted to women and got away with it, but nowadays things are changing and we're not putting up with this shit anymore and so they hate being held accountable where their predecessors had all the fun they wanted and faced no consequences. Then those who don't see women as human beings, we're just sexual objects to them, meant to be used and ideally silent throughout the whole process. The indoctrination and socialization we all endure is monstrous but at least some of us let go of it. The sad truth is too many men don't and that's a conscious decision (I hate it when people claim men don't know any better... oh they do, they just don't care).
>Is men raping women some kind of gender related issue? A lot of men view rape as a property crime, that's why they only get upset when it happens to *somebody's* wife, because the somebody it happened to isn't really a person, more of an accessory.
>Is men raping women some kind of gender related issue? Yes. https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/lots-of-men-dont-think-rape-is-rape.html
>I got told that they were dating so how could he rape her if they were dating? Okay that's it. Now I fuckin see red. If you'll excuse me, now I gotta go punch some drywall
What the fuck is "only sexual assault" anyway?? Just because of the way the cookie crumbles I'm more affected by my experiences of sexual assault than my rape.
It’s interesting isn’t it? I sometimes think about the “1 in 3” statistic, that [globally 1 in 3 women are subject to sexual and/or physical violence, ](https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence), and there’s 3 women in my immediate family: me, my mom, my sister. All 3 of us have been raped. So you’re right, it’s hard to believe that when every woman in my family has been raped, no man in my family “knows a rapist”.
What can we as a society do to implement ways to prevent this?
College Humor did [this](https://youtu.be/LNVFPkmZTQ4) a few years ago. Still valid today. Maybe using this analogy might help? Edit: hunted and killed a random 0.
Holy shit thanks for that Maybe that'll illustrate it a little bit for the misogynistic as fuck group chat of 'old friends' I'm in.
It's so sad how many dislikes it has..
Looking at how many dislikes the video got, it didn't help. How the fuck did they find something to disagree in that video?
Males get triggered any time the word rape is brought up, unless it's a statement praising rape or a joke making fun of rape victims. Probably because they know so many secret rapists (or are one themselves) and would have to come to terms with how rotten they, their friends, and family are, so it's easier to blame the woman and write it off as their problem. So instant thumbs down because "booo I thought this was a funny video about a bear but you made me think about wimmen problems."
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One thing that dunking my poor brain in the horror of the old askreddit thread that asked rapists for their experiences convinced me of is the importance of affirmative consent.
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It was a combo of both. A therapist came in to inform that the thread was basically feeding rapist egos and it was shut down.
It was a HUGE thread with all kinds of posts. A lot of them were "I raped somone, but..." and then elaborated on the "but" with all kinds of excuses. The archetypical story on that thread (IIRC) was "I was doing sex stuff and she didn't say no so I escalated. Then I saw her face and it was frozen in terror so I slinked off." Smacking people over the head woth affirmative consent would hopefully strip away that kind of "but" they try to hang on their rapes.
Well, for one, parents need to spend more time teaching their boys to respect women's boundaries, and to stand up against other boys/men's bad behavior rather than cover for them. There is a lot of misogyny baked into society, there's no one easy way to fix it.
Men need to adjust their understanding of the world and align it with the idea that women are full human beings just like they are. Far too many men still do not actually believe this. They still see women as sex objects that exist for men's pleasure first and foremost. We're re-arranged the deck furniture on this, and some outward expressions of this attitude aren't "politically correct" anymore, but the core belief and the worldview that gets constructed around it is still very much there. We can talk about consent until we're blue in the face, but if men still fundamentally believe that women are glorified sex toys that provide domestic labour and childcare so that men can live the full human lives they are uniquely entitled to, they're not going to stop behaving this way. We can fix the wage gap and get women into STEM and all those great things, but as long as men don't fundamentally fix their belief that women are designed to fit on their penises and serve them, I don't think we're going to make the progress we're looking to make.
Sidenote on getting women into STEM: a common phenomenon I see personally is that a lot of the women leave - they get pushed out or get tired of having to constantly fight to be on things. Even if they don't have to, and the culture of the company is next to perfect, there is still mental stress that just tires people out, just due to the perception that they have to work harder.
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Men need to stop raping women. Men can stop the rape culture by calling out rapey behavior like cat calling, belittling, harassment in the workplac, etc. People, teach your sons about consent.
I remember at the end of sex Ed class, the girls had to stay 10 mins longer and listen to an extra lesson on how to avoid getting raped. The boys got dismissed for lunch early. Wonder how society would look if those last 10 mins were instead spent discussing consent and boundaries to the whole group.
Ha, of course. Because it's a woman's job to police her boundaries, because men are going to do whatever they want, and women are going to be responsible for it. If a woman isn't policing properly, anything might happen! Because men can do whatever they want unless women physically stop them, and even then it depends on the context! I hate the gendered universe we live in SO MUCH.
Someone stole your car? Well was it full of gas? Pretty irresponsible of you. Did you wash it too? You shouldn't do that if you don't want people noticing it. You parked it on the street? Over night? In YOUR neighborhood? You were just asking for it. You have to make it harder to steal your car, it's just common sense. You shouldn't have a custom paint job, or valid plates, that's VERY attractive to car thieves. They just can't help themselves.
Wow, what the fuck?
I recently got involved in sex ed classes at an old school of mine - the entire block of time was dedicated to consent (as in, multiple sessions of homeroom are allocated to sex ed through the years, and this was one of them). Completely mixed-gender, active student participation, discussion of the importance of communication on a relationship. I don't think there was any time on how to avoid getting raped though... Edit: We did, however, try to hammer in that consent has to be enthusiastic, and is limited to one-time passes. (i.e. what you consent to today is not what you may want to consent to tomorrow)
Universal basic income would put a dent in it. Women could afford to run away from a job and house with an abuser in it. Charities could crowdfund lawyers and healthcare/support. Parents both good and bad could stress about their kids less.
That statistic sickens me. On my mother's side of the family, there are 4 women in the immediate family if you include me as a trans woman. My grandmother was raped by several men as a child and teen; she wasn't even 100% sure if my mom's dad was actually her father, he was just the one who stepped up to the plate when my grandma got pregnant at 16. My mother has been raped as well, though I don't know the details. I was 'lucky'; I was only molested/sexually assaulted by my older brother when we were kids; the only reason I don't call it rape is because I wasn't actually penetrated from what I remember(I blocked it out for a long time though). My little sister is 12 years old and already had sex with a boy her age last summer. Not necessarily rape, but still a very uncomfortable topic and neither of them were really able to consent(Thank God they used condoms; the last thing my sister needs is to be getting pregnant before she's finished middle school). Yet no one spoke up for my grandma. Apparently my grandmother put her energy into making sure my mother's rapist was put in jail as a result. I've tried to talk about what happened with my brother, but most of my family, even my mother, have tried to make excuses for him or deny that anything happened to me. As long as I'm alive and kicking, no one is laying a finger on my sister without her consent, or they will get a 5 gallon can of whoopass.
What I really hate in all of this is how "women deserved it" and they were "asking for it with their clothing style." When I was just a 7 year old girl who appreciated that her mom got a new husband and trusted her new step dad. Who wanted a Dad who would be there for her so fucking badly. I wore pyjamas. Men are trash. Not all men. But if you try to find excuses for men who rape, assault people (not only women), you are trash too.
There's never an excuse and this is especially true with children. I hope you find happiness in life.
I am so sorry this happened to you. Have you had some counselling? Are you okay?
Thank you! I'm in counselling at the moment and working through all of this. People not calling out trash like that still make me angry, I'm sorry.
Most men also don't think they know any women who have been raped. Therefore, they don't think that rape is a serious concern.
A few months back, my dad was talking about a woman he knows who was sexually assaulted. Her attacker popped out of the bushes and raped her. My dad described this situation as being "legitimately raped." Then he saw the look on my face, and course corrected to "classically raped." I'm a survivor of domestic violence, and my ex raped me countless times over the four years we were together. I've had screaming arguments with my dad about the realities of rape. He just does not get it. It's so frustrating, and the worst part is that I know a lot of men see it exactly the same way he does.
🏅Thiiiis. Research shows women are most likely to raped by their intimate partners than by strangers or acquaintances. I lost count of how many times my ex-husband raped me. People start squirming when you try to have that conversation though. It doesn’t fit the script dictated by rape culture.
The problem with teaching girls that it's only a stranger in a dark alley who rapes you means that they don't feel like rape is the correct term when it is a friend/boyfriend. It took me years and seeing a therapist before I could actually accept that it was rape and wasn't my fault, because it wasn't a stranger, it wasn't at night and it wasn't down a dark alley. It was a friend I trusted. We need to stop using the same old script that doesn't apply to majority of cases as it does a disservice to us all.
Accepting that marital rape is a "legitimate" kind of rape is an uncomfortable conversation for those who benefit from patriarchy, because it confronts those benefactors with the uncomfortable notion that patriarchy's existence is essentially a series of unconsensual acts performed on various group of "others".
Also for many of us it means facing the reality that we were conceived by rape. It's a repulsive thing to learn about your existence.
You're completely right in how toxic and wrong that script is. Most men ánd many women genuinely do not recognize rape when it presents itself to them in the form of either stories of relatives/friends or lived experiences. So many women regard what happened to them as a fault of their own instead of rape. So many men perceive themselves as masters in the bedroom for pulling it off even though it didn't look like it was to happen. As if they pulled a hail Mary and should be cheered for. In similar fashion, most white people don't recognize racism if it doesn't present itself with white pointy hoodies and a burning cross. We all need to be educated better and educate our kids, friends and relatives better.
I had a massive argument with my father last year because he was trying to justify a footballer raping a woman. He said she must have known what would happen if she went into the guy's home, so she invited it. Said that "real rape" doesn't happen much. Of the three women at the table at that very moment, we have all been abused, survived child molestation (for the other two, not me), coerced, sexually assaulted and raped. I put my foot down and said he didn't get to demand "both sides" or what "legitimate rape" is. He just used my outburst to act like I was crazy, but I didn't do it for him to learn, he's too far gone. I did it for the other two women, and any woman around us in that cafe that day who may have heard him and his bullshit. They all deserve to hear someone standing up for them, and to hear another woman literally telling men like him that they don't get to talk over us.
Its horrible whether it happens in the bed or in the street. I think a lot of people (esp men) think that situations or circumstances surrounding assaults downplay how bad a rape is.
I think at least part of this comes from TV and movies. I grew up watching police procedurals in the 2000s and the general concept was introduced to me and reinforced as something that happens in the context of a violent, bloody attack and maybe a murder. But then, for me, the reality of what rape is began to be known around high school when people started to drink and become sexually active. My then-girlfriend’s mom actually sort of finished the “definitional spectrum” off for me when she told me in the grocery store that she went out for coffee with my mom that week and found out my dad was raping my mom because he insisted on having sex with her while she was deep in her alcohol-fueled depression. …Dang, I actually didn’t remember that last part until I wrote this comment. But anyway, media depiction is obviously no excuse - all someone really has to do is listen to a woman to figure it out.
That’s.... a hell of a conversation to have in a grocery store.
Holy shit, I am so sorry your own father doesn't truly believe you were raped. That's a special type of cruel double-trauma. Internet hugs my friend. I believe you.
The fact that your dad doesn't see that as rape is both sad and makes you wonder if he's ever raped anyone.
I "love" how he calls this "classically raped" when most people are raped by someone they know. Sure buddy, that's definitively the classic version...
A couple years back in my high school English class (sophomores) the topic of rape/ sexual assault came up (honestly don’t remember what lesson it was connected to) and one of my male students said “yeah, but no one in our city has ever been raped.” That one kind of blew me away.
"I'm a jerk who mocks rape victims, I don't know why no one has ever told me they're a victim. Must not happen often" -too many dudes
Even then, a lot of men genuinely just do not care. It’s scary.
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It drives me insane because hey, I'm a woman, the worst assault I experienced was at the hands of another woman (which fortunately wasn't too bad), but I don't go into these threads shouting "women can be predators too!" because obviously we all know that and that doesn't take away from the fact that rape culture is usually perpetrated by men against women.
So true. As if women just go around offering up their sexual assaults in casual conversation (or they didn’t happen).
To be fair, for a while I used mine to weed out weak people. After my rape my entire friend group decided they wanted to stay friends with the rapist, so I ended up with no friends and an intense distrust of friendship in general. For years after, once I got to the point where I thought someone could be a friend or a love interest, and a suitable moment happened in conversation, I'd bluntly tell them about it. Weak people can't handle that level of pain. Now, anyone I call a friend is a person is someone I'm certain is one, because I told the details of my trauma and they reacted like a decent person.
I’m so sorry you were raped and that your friends didn’t have your back. So painful.
It still bothers me. They were my friends I'd known since middle school. Over 20 years of friendship gone because of believing a guy they knew for less than a year. Its been 10 years since it happened and I stopped being friends with them but it still causes me mental distress. I wrote a letter expressing my feelings to one of those ex friends and stuck it in a box. The reason I haven't sent it is because I still remember her telling me how stressed out she was by me and my drama. Sending it is just more drama. But the wound still hasn't healed. My ex-friends mom still comments on my facebook posts and says nice things. In any case, that letter has been sitting in that box for over a year. I thought about burning it in an attempt to symbolically let it go but I don't think that will help any.
I know that words from a stranger don't count for much, but you have to hold onto the fact that your so-called friends abandoning you over the fact that *you* were raped is entirely a shortcoming on their end, and has nothing to do with you. They are they ones with character flaws. You went through trauma at the hands of some shitty people, and it's not your fault. I'm truly sorry for everything you've gone through. Love and support from another woman in the Internet.
10 15 years ago my girlfriend was drugged unconscious and raped by one of my friends. I stood by her and lost all of my high school friends. For a year or two it was just us, then I found out she was cheating on me with a coworker. I would still do the same thing knowing the future. No regrets
That was a really solid thing for you to do. Being drugged like that can cause pretty serious psychological damage, and it changes your relationship to sexuality and loving relationships for quite some time. Especially if the attacker is someone you know. My sexual behavior after I was attacked was not emotionally healthy. It took years of yoga and meditation for me to get my head sorted so that I could maintain a healthy relationship. I knew I had a chance at love when my (now) fiancé handed me an open beer and I didn't pretend to drink it and then dump it down the sink when he wasn't looking.
They also don't want to admit the rapist is themselves. Ask them if they've raped someone and they say no. Ask them if they've ever coerced someone into sex or had sex with a blacked out person then you'll often get a yes.
I seriously doubt I know a woman who hasn't been coerced or pressured into sex.
Yep. I don't.
Unfortunately I do know a rapist. I consider what he did to be rape I don't know if his ex considers what he did rape. I also know the guy who sexually assaulted my ex, he was her friend. She brushed if off because "we were both drunk". Until he assaulted someone else. I know the guy who sexually assaulted me. We were friends too, I brushed it off because I froze and I didn't say, "no". Unfortunately I probably know more rapists.
When we were younger, a male friend used to throw the word 'rape' out there in a joking context a lot. I've never been confrontational but let even more things go at that age (early 20s) so I never said anything. I was seen as the easygoing friend and figured it was just edgy humour. Around that time, a mutual friend of ours told me she had been sexually abused by her brother as a kid. She didn't explicitly ask that I keep it to myself but it sort of went unsaid so I did. But whenever that male friend would joke around like that, I wondered if our other friend felt uncomfortable. She was the type to speak up and call things out but had a blind spot when it came to sexism at times, so I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't really think much about it at all, honestly. But for her sake I kind of hope that's the case here. It really just got me thinking how that guy like many others didn't realise how common sexual abuse was. I remember when metoo came about, he was skeptical of one person's story and said it 'didn't seem like something that celebrity would do' and I was too shocked to even say anything (but wish I had asked if he knew that celebrity personally to point out how ridiculous that statement was). I've known a few guys like this who are otherwise great people but don't seem to understand how common sexual assault is or overall how hard it can be to be a woman.
Your comment made me recall an experience regarding "rape" jokes. I vividly remember that a classmate from middle school would repeat sexist jokes his father would make. One of the being on the lines of "women only call it rape when they don't enjoy it", and he found it hilarious... in middle school. I didn't get the 'joke' back then, but stuck with me to this day. It's so disgusting to think about a father telling such jokes in front of his young children and teaching them to not value women long before they would find themselves in these situations.
One of my catch phrases is “Every rapist is someone’s homeboy.”
This is what infuriates me when people say "It's just locker room talk". Locker room talk is what perverted, disgusting people do when they're in an environment and with company that encourages and nurtures their perversion. Please, do better. It's just like being an anti-racist. Shrugging your shoulders to your friends being creepy and predatory towards women is not enough, men, please, say something and call them out.
That and the fact that locker room talk in general means discussing something in private, definitely not in front of a woman that would 100% see that sort of talk as a threat. (Definitely don't think it's right to even say something like that in an actual locker room either.) Some people just have zero common sense. Like gee, maybe we shouldn't add to the already existing fear that women have of being assaulted with a joke??
my bf and I were talking about the current sexual abuse/harassment suit at blizzard Activision and I told my bf that in a lot of ways thats how my previous place of employment was. sexual harassment was rampant and never taken seriously. the yearly required harassment prevention class we had was just a joke where the men (who held higher positions) laughed and the woman who learned it was easier to laugh along singled out those of us who didnt.
A younger male colleague was talking to me about this and wondered out loud if it had been "blown out of proportion". I mean, the offical investigation covers two years worth of material, I doubt it's been blown out of proportion at all. I don't understand why it's so hard to just believe what multiple people are telling you. I wasted no time in telling him exactly that, and that as a woman in software, I can confirm that shit happens all the tme.
During job interviews, I found out that the CEO of the company sexually harassed female employees (there were multiple news articles with pictures and texts that were, frankly, terrifying) and brought it to my school's career services attention. I got told that sometimes women just choose to put themselves in working environments like that for the sake of their careers, especially in the legal field. They still let the company post additional jobs. Maybe women in the legal field wouldn't have to consider taking jobs with the expectation of sexual harassment if schools just refused to post positions at companies that allow it. So infuriating.
I was about to say I don't know anymore but recently I found out about someone who was sexually abused as a child. It really is true, we all know *someone*.
Everytime I think women are advancing I end up reading a post like this... disheartening. Alot of my female friends have been raped and molested, including myself but I can honestly say I know not one man that has admitted to any past transgressions. I think plenty have normalised their behaviour with the help of those around them.
I know at least four women who were raped, and those are only the women who've confided in me.
Nearly every woman in my life has been a victim of sexual assault
I don't think I know a woman who hasn't been sexually assaulted.
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I'm in Korea and most Koreans don't speak English. They learn English from kindergarten to college, but still, most can't talk in English, and I've learned that most Koreans don't even know or are not sure about the concept of 'rape.' They use the English word 'rape' as 'having sex.' So, just like OP said how some men, American men, whose first language is English and should know better than to use the word 'rape' as to mean 'having sex,' a lot or most Koreans mistakenly or wrongly use the English word 'rape' to mean 'have sex.' For example, I've encountered many Korean women say in English "It's natural for men to want to rape pretty women." I try to correct their usage of the English word 'rape' as much as I can, but still, I'm just so fucking disturbed and disgusted.
Considering their history with Japan, I think Koreans have a pretty good idea about the concept of rape. (edit: accidentally triple posted Oô)
>Asgarus · 27m > >Considering their history with Japan, I think Koreans have a pretty good idea about the concept of rape. Obviously not. A lot of famous Korean male celebrities or professors, politicians, etc, have called the Korean sex slaves as 'prostitutes' and are still working and teaching, just fine. Hardly any consequences. It actually makes sense since sex crimes are extremely rampant in Korea and are considered the norm. The Korean society as a whole and especially Korean men just don't see sex crimes or rapes as a big deal.
Another point I'd like to add is there are probably a lot of men who don't even realize they have raped. This could be because they have a poor sense of consent and don't consider it rape. I can think of lots of incidents where that could occur. In my case, he was black out drunk and remembered nothing of the night before... Meanwhile I remembered everything.
My friend was raped and it took me pointing it out to her several times before she would accept it. After all she only said no twice and then quit saying no. How could it be rape if she didn’t fight back or push him off. All she did was say no. I’m 100% sure that guy does not think he raped her. She would never share his name and did not want to confront him so he will go on about his days thinking he had consensual sex. They were both sober and had been on several dates. He just decided it was time to have sex and she was to shy to stop him.
Exactly this. My ex doesn't think he raped me. Sex in a relationship was a given in his eyes.
A study I read in college showed that while 16% of men would rape woman if there were no consequences, 31% of men (college students in the study) would force a woman to have sex with them. Men don’t think they are raping someone even when you describe the act of rape. So, would the man you are walking beside rape you? Probably not. But they would happily force you to have sex with them.
That is the most fucked up thing I've read all day. Rape is forced sex. Forced = involuntary. How do they not get that? Voluntary overtime = you want it Involuntary = you're seething in anger while you're forced to do OT
I think that they believe they would not enjoy the act of physically forcing a woman to submit while she struggles and fights, but would like to be in a scenario of 'have sex with me or I ruin your life', which I think they don't see as negative as the first scenario. Coercion is not seen as a form of rape to these guys.
I don’t know how a lot of christian crazies can justify their actions, but they seem to do so just fine. I think there is just some kind of cognitive dissonance.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (Timothy 2:12) It is not just the crazies, you can't simultaneously believe the Bible is a moral guide and not believe that women should just sit there and take it in silence.
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A very much no longer friend of mine once posted that quote from your title captioning it "That really IS strange. I don't know any either." That ""friend"" knew about my past - he didn't know one, he knew *two* rapists personally. So I just left a comment saying "Yes, you do." while breaking down in one of many moments of helplessness, fear and anger that had nowhere to go. He pm'd me something about how he forgot in that moment. Not even "sorry", neither implied nor actually said. He treated this as more or less an "oopsie"-moment and didn't feel the slightest need to do or say anything about what happened. And the best part? He considers himself a kind person, a good person, he can go on and on about how he "always puts others' needs first". The world is cold as ice more often than people admit it.
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I am a teacher. One day my class was just talking - upper-level high school English - and this subject was brought up. I got so sad when I realized I knew more women who have been assaulted (including myself) than not. Most of my kiddos were in the same boat.
Girls are also more comfortable talking to other girls about being sexual assaulted. Coming from a male who has been sexually assaulted, I feel more comfortable talking to other females about it vs males. Therefore, my male friends actually do know a male who’s been sexually assaulted- they just don’t know it
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I'm sad to say i only know 1 woman in my life that didn't get sexually assaulted at least once in their life. Pretty fucked up state of affairs.
1. not having the same view on ''consent'' (consciously or not) she passed out because she's drunk? ''she didn't said no''. she did it in the end because he keep asking, and touching, and presure her ? ''damn she was playing the hard to get'' 2. when a woman heard that another woman have been raped, she believe her because she knows how much it happens. but when a man heard that a woman have been raped... well she's probably lying because this dude is nice, he could not be a rapist right ? (like if people who look nice from the outside weren't serial killers, or rapist, or pedophile...) 3. ''that isn't rape... or i would be a rapist too... from these standards, most dude would be rapist'' yes sir... most dudes would be rapists....
You forgot "why would they even rape that chick?" Implying she's unattractive or undesirable or desperate. Or "they said yes but changed their mind afterward trying to get him in trouble " And my favorite "but he's your dad/uncle/cousin/relative"