I've been reading a lot today about the two “promising”
students convicted of rape in Steubenville, Ohio, I've been reading the
comments and tweets people have written in support of the two young footballers
“with potential whose lives have been ruined”, about how the girl who got drunk
should be held accountable for her actions. How this Jane Doe should be
punished for getting drunk and “inviting” rape upon herself.
It sickens and terrifies
me, it makes me question in general our society… if Jane Doe had been a John,
if a sixteen year old boy had gotten drunk and been raped by the football team
would he have been asking for it? I
think not… and I think that’s even more disturbing. The fact we’re questioning
whether or not She is to blame is
indicative of our society where women are blamed for being just too tempting…
just too drunk… just too slutty. And men do what men do, because boys will be
boys and that’s that.
When I see these comments like the one above and the massive
slew of comments like it, I wonder if I’m odd for seeing right and wrong and not much in
between when it comes to rape. I wonder if maybe I should look more at the perpetrators
side of the story and not just the victims. Maybe it’s because I am a woman,
maybe it’s because I am a liberal, or maybe it is because I am the child of a
victim of rape.
Yes I understand the concept of self preservation, my
mother tells me to watch what I drink to keep an eye out for my friends, to
never walk down a dark alley alone or get into cars with strangers… not because
she thinks that if I don’t heed her advice I’ll be “asking for it” but because
she knows there are evil people in the world.
I know when I go out drinking that there may be a predator
lurking in some murky corner of a club waiting to attack me at my most
vulnerable but if I do get drunk, if I do get my drink spiked and that sick
individual does as one Twitter user describes as “what most people in their situation would do” am I wrong? No. I’ve been drunk and I’ve seen men I fancy passed out
lying on sofa’s in empty rooms at house parties and at no point have I thought “I’m
feeling springy, I’m going to hit that while the goings good” because I’m not a
fucking psycho! But for some reason when it’s a man and he’s determined to
shove his penis into a vacant hole and opts for the most stationary and least conscious
of the holes AKA an unconscious teenager, we somehow fall into some sort of a
grey area where we don’t know if it’s wrong or right. It’s wrong, it’s always
wrong.
We as a society use alcohol as an excuse, “They were drunk!”
people cry when the football team gang rape an unconscious girl… when the same
boys drive drunk and kill a child do we feel the same way? Was it still just a
silly drunken error?
yes I know that in very few cases there are grey areas,
there are those times where consent has been given and minds have been changed
and nobody really remembers what’s gone on, but let’s err on the side of
caution shall we? For the small minority of accused rapists who were in fact
just confused players of one big fucked up situation, lets not call all rape
victims sluts… let’s not assume all are innocent even when proven guilty
because they had potential… let’s not forget that Jane Doe had potential, did
Blondie mc white face the CNN reporter mention that in her impassioned post sentencing
report? No…
At the end of the day here is a good rule of thumb; if you
stick your penis where it is not wanted then you are a rapist.
