Apparently fandom is talking about consent and victim-blaming this week!
Here is an actual conversation that took place during a discussion of victim-blaming. It was several years ago now, but I guess you will be able to see why it's kind of stuck with me. (I talked in this post about what happened to me and my experience with mental illness especially as it relates to my history of sexual abuse; be warned that it is pretty graphic and may well be triggery.)Me: (sarcastically) So when I was nine, and my coach was raping me every now and then, that was my fault because I didn't say anything?
Them: (in seriousness) After the first time? Yes, it was. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but if you didn't tell anybody, you have no one to blame but yourself.
impertinence has talked about why people might not go to the police. Let me talk a little about why someone might not go to anyone. No -- that's disingenuous. Let me talk a little about why I didn't tell anyone what happened to me until I was an adult.
My abuser did enough of a number on me that I never told anyone until more than ten years later. I barely remembered, and when I did, I wondered if I was going crazy. I was afraid to tell my parents when I happened, I remember that much -- I remember how sure I was that I would get in trouble, that there would be a big fight and it would be all my fault. I was terrified that they would find out and -- the most awful nightmarish scenarios a child who was lucky enough to have loving parents could come up with -- they would stop loving me, they would be disgusted by me, they would punish me.
I know now that they would never have done anything like that, that they would've been horrified. But there would have been anger and yelling and police and a lot of attention, and all of it would have been centered on me, and I was too young and too traumatized to understand that it wouldn't have been that the anger was directed at me.
The fannish community can be incredibly warm and positive and loving. But it is not a monolith (which, often, is one of the things we love about it, after all -- the variety of opinions and experiences means that everyone brings something unique to the table), and as a lot of people were more than happy to point out during last year's AbilityFail, it is not a safe space. It can also be a place where women are viewed in less-than-great ways -- last year, after all, the most popular character in fandom was the one who throws gendered slurs around every chance he gets, the one who said a few weeks ago that "on a good day, you get to kill a whore"...and the Final Four consisted of the guy who tried to rape the heroine of his source text, the guy who makes jokes about his boss's breasts every chance he gets, and the guy who, by his own admission, "actually sold a woman". Fangirls have accused me of lying about my experiences, have called my issues "bullshit", have told me I am to blame for what happened with me. Sometimes this was to my face, sometimes it was behind my back. People can be jerks, and no one lives in a vacuum, and fandom is made up of people, and an awful lot of us are products of a rape culture.
Look at the responses that thenyxie and her friends have made, the accusations they've thrown about -- and those are "just" words on the Internet. Look at the fact that last year, fandom collectively decided that an attempted rapist was one of its favorite characters of all time. I honestly can't say that I blame anyone for not feeling comfortable about speaking up about the situation except under cover of anonymity.
We've discussed (but not, I would say, established, because after all, we're still having the discussion and people are still arguing otherwise) that silence before the event is not consent to the event. I feel it's at least as important that we establish -- or at least, if that's too much to hope for, discuss -- that silence after the event is not an admission of guilt or an indicator of dishonesty.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply there with Dreamwidth ID or OpenID.
Them: (in seriousness) After the first time? Yes, it was. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but if you didn't tell anybody, you have no one to blame but yourself.
impertinence has talked about why people might not go to the police. Let me talk a little about why someone might not go to anyone. No -- that's disingenuous. Let me talk a little about why I didn't tell anyone what happened to me until I was an adult.
- Maybe you're not entirely sure what happened. Maybe you were drunk. Maybe you were high. Maybe someone drugged you. Maybe, like me, you dissociated a lot, and you weren't entirely aware it was happening until it was over, and it took years for you to remember it at all. Maybe you barely understood what it was, or you didn't realize until later (maybe much, much later) that this was not okay.
- Maybe you don't have anyone to talk to. I don't just mean that there are no physical conscious bodies around you. I mean maybe you don't know if this is something you should talk about. Maybe you should be ashamed of it. He singled me out, after all -- what if it was because there was something wrong with me that nobody ever told me about? You're not supposed to have sex until you're a grown-up, Mom's going to be angry at me. Everyone will be mad at me for getting him into trouble. Maybe you blame yourself. And even if there's someone you think you might be able to tell...
- Maybe you don't have the words. Try talking, in detail, about the most horrible thing that's ever happened to you. The scariest. The most humiliating. The most confusing. Or, no -- often we're blaming ourselves on this, even if we know we shouldn't be, so how about you tell me in detail about the most horrible thing you've ever done? Sometimes, I can talk freely about what happened to me. Sometimes, it's more like what I just described.
My abuser did enough of a number on me that I never told anyone until more than ten years later. I barely remembered, and when I did, I wondered if I was going crazy. I was afraid to tell my parents when I happened, I remember that much -- I remember how sure I was that I would get in trouble, that there would be a big fight and it would be all my fault. I was terrified that they would find out and -- the most awful nightmarish scenarios a child who was lucky enough to have loving parents could come up with -- they would stop loving me, they would be disgusted by me, they would punish me.
I know now that they would never have done anything like that, that they would've been horrified. But there would have been anger and yelling and police and a lot of attention, and all of it would have been centered on me, and I was too young and too traumatized to understand that it wouldn't have been that the anger was directed at me.
The fannish community can be incredibly warm and positive and loving. But it is not a monolith (which, often, is one of the things we love about it, after all -- the variety of opinions and experiences means that everyone brings something unique to the table), and as a lot of people were more than happy to point out during last year's AbilityFail, it is not a safe space. It can also be a place where women are viewed in less-than-great ways -- last year, after all, the most popular character in fandom was the one who throws gendered slurs around every chance he gets, the one who said a few weeks ago that "on a good day, you get to kill a whore"...and the Final Four consisted of the guy who tried to rape the heroine of his source text, the guy who makes jokes about his boss's breasts every chance he gets, and the guy who, by his own admission, "actually sold a woman". Fangirls have accused me of lying about my experiences, have called my issues "bullshit", have told me I am to blame for what happened with me. Sometimes this was to my face, sometimes it was behind my back. People can be jerks, and no one lives in a vacuum, and fandom is made up of people, and an awful lot of us are products of a rape culture.
Look at the responses that thenyxie and her friends have made, the accusations they've thrown about -- and those are "just" words on the Internet. Look at the fact that last year, fandom collectively decided that an attempted rapist was one of its favorite characters of all time. I honestly can't say that I blame anyone for not feeling comfortable about speaking up about the situation except under cover of anonymity.
We've discussed (but not, I would say, established, because after all, we're still having the discussion and people are still arguing otherwise) that silence before the event is not consent to the event. I feel it's at least as important that we establish -- or at least, if that's too much to hope for, discuss -- that silence after the event is not an admission of guilt or an indicator of dishonesty.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply there with Dreamwidth ID or OpenID.