{ignorance is never an excuse}
Before I get started I am going to warn that I not only have I apparently found my high horse (and ridden in on it), but I have no intentions of getting off it in the next moment or two. This post will not be friends locked so if you want to spread the link, feel free to do so [however, if I get flamed or anything, I am shutting it down, stat].
I just have to say.
NOTE: BEHIND THE CUT IS A DISCUSSION OF THINGS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE. DO NOT CLICK IF YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: RAPE/SEXUAL ASSUALT, RAPE CULTURE, PROSTITUTION, FEMINISM, AND VARIOUS RELATED THINGS. THANK YOU.
Really, this all started because of Law & Order: SVU. Which in reality can probably take the blame for a lot of things in my life, but this one takes the cake. Tonight my roommates (two out of three of them) and I were watching said L&O, which happened to be about a male stripper who was raped by women (the exact number I can't remember as I stopped watching).
That was when the conversation turned ugly, as D (my male roommate) said this: "I feel like if you're a male stripper you kind of can't say anything if you get raped. You're kind of asking for it." J & I both stared at him, and then he continued, "Actually I feel if you're a prostitute or stripper of any sort, you're kind of asking for it."
That's when we both just stared at him, but J, who was sitting next to him starting speaking first. "No, I think if you're a stripper, you're not asking for it. But a prostitute...yeah."
That was when my mind just went blank. I lost all thought or reason. Here are two college-educated, reasonable individuals, both reasonably well-informed saying that if you're raped you can still be considered asking for it. I thought that sort of idea had gone out with the dark ages. Really, don't they know me? Haven't they listened to any thing we'd been taught in health class? In after school specials? On the news? But still, it was my turn. So I spoke up, and luckily, I kept my cool since that was really all I wanted to do aside from share my side of things.
"I don't think that rape deserves an excuse. Your profession shouldn't have anything to do with it if you're raped. No one's ever asking for it, male or female."
J naturally wanted to better defend her point, which I understand because I understand the angle she was coming from. "Well, if you're getting paid for sex, and then you get raped, I don't really see much a difference."
"Rape isn't about sex, it's about power."
We carried on back and forth like this for a little while, and D at one point interrupted to ask if J was on my side or his, before J said that I was getting "way to involved" and I left the room.
Anyways, all of this has a point.
That is rape (or well, sexual assualt I want to say, as rape is legally defined as 'the forcible intercourse of a penis into a vagina' and that really doesn't cover everything) does not have an excuse.
It's not funny. It shouldn't have a "clause" (oh I know that this is coming off extremely culturally biased, and I know that Western & Eastern cultures have different views on it, but what I am talking about it as a student who attends a co-educational university in downtown Milwaukee). No one's social status or gender or region or profession should make it "excusable" for their victimization and assualt. No one who is a victim of sexual assualt in our culture deserves it, be they an upper middle class suburban co-ed or working class sexworker.
I would like to be valued as more than what I do in society, as what gentilia I have, as where I live and where I come from, and what I look like and what happens to me. I believe that that goes for everything including times when I am at the height of my life and doing the best that I can, being judged my merits that I have earned based on skill not by someone trying to get into bed with me and also the opposite side, which includes times when I am at my very lowest, meaning if I was a victim of sexual assualt, abuse, violence. I donot want to be written off because I was "asking for it" since I am young and attend college and thus I must be wanting it.
Because no one male, female, and everyone in between is asking to be sexually assualted. It's not about the sex. It's about the power (it's destructive power), and it is a horrible thing. And the only way to make sure that we remember that, is to be informed about the reality that there are people who forget that, and to be there for those who are left after the crime has been committed.
I remember. Do you?
I just have to say.
NOTE: BEHIND THE CUT IS A DISCUSSION OF THINGS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE. DO NOT CLICK IF YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: RAPE/SEXUAL ASSUALT, RAPE CULTURE, PROSTITUTION, FEMINISM, AND VARIOUS RELATED THINGS. THANK YOU.
Really, this all started because of Law & Order: SVU. Which in reality can probably take the blame for a lot of things in my life, but this one takes the cake. Tonight my roommates (two out of three of them) and I were watching said L&O, which happened to be about a male stripper who was raped by women (the exact number I can't remember as I stopped watching).
That was when the conversation turned ugly, as D (my male roommate) said this: "I feel like if you're a male stripper you kind of can't say anything if you get raped. You're kind of asking for it." J & I both stared at him, and then he continued, "Actually I feel if you're a prostitute or stripper of any sort, you're kind of asking for it."
That's when we both just stared at him, but J, who was sitting next to him starting speaking first. "No, I think if you're a stripper, you're not asking for it. But a prostitute...yeah."
That was when my mind just went blank. I lost all thought or reason. Here are two college-educated, reasonable individuals, both reasonably well-informed saying that if you're raped you can still be considered asking for it. I thought that sort of idea had gone out with the dark ages. Really, don't they know me? Haven't they listened to any thing we'd been taught in health class? In after school specials? On the news? But still, it was my turn. So I spoke up, and luckily, I kept my cool since that was really all I wanted to do aside from share my side of things.
"I don't think that rape deserves an excuse. Your profession shouldn't have anything to do with it if you're raped. No one's ever asking for it, male or female."
J naturally wanted to better defend her point, which I understand because I understand the angle she was coming from. "Well, if you're getting paid for sex, and then you get raped, I don't really see much a difference."
"Rape isn't about sex, it's about power."
We carried on back and forth like this for a little while, and D at one point interrupted to ask if J was on my side or his, before J said that I was getting "way to involved" and I left the room.
Anyways, all of this has a point.
That is rape (or well, sexual assualt I want to say, as rape is legally defined as 'the forcible intercourse of a penis into a vagina' and that really doesn't cover everything) does not have an excuse.
It's not funny. It shouldn't have a "clause" (oh I know that this is coming off extremely culturally biased, and I know that Western & Eastern cultures have different views on it, but what I am talking about it as a student who attends a co-educational university in downtown Milwaukee). No one's social status or gender or region or profession should make it "excusable" for their victimization and assualt. No one who is a victim of sexual assualt in our culture deserves it, be they an upper middle class suburban co-ed or working class sexworker.
I would like to be valued as more than what I do in society, as what gentilia I have, as where I live and where I come from, and what I look like and what happens to me. I believe that that goes for everything including times when I am at the height of my life and doing the best that I can, being judged my merits that I have earned based on skill not by someone trying to get into bed with me and also the opposite side, which includes times when I am at my very lowest, meaning if I was a victim of sexual assualt, abuse, violence. I donot want to be written off because I was "asking for it" since I am young and attend college and thus I must be wanting it.
Because no one male, female, and everyone in between is asking to be sexually assualted. It's not about the sex. It's about the power (it's destructive power), and it is a horrible thing. And the only way to make sure that we remember that, is to be informed about the reality that there are people who forget that, and to be there for those who are left after the crime has been committed.
I remember. Do you?