John Kasich Confused About Why Women Objected To His Sexual Assault Victim-Blaming Comments

[screamingintune]

Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said on Sunday that he does not understand the criticism over his comments Friday suggesting that college women should prevent sexual assaults by avoiding parties with alcohol.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, the Republican presidential hopeful noted that his own daughters will someday go to college parties where there

Comments

[londonsquare]

I learned about sexual abuse the hard way when I was 4 (my neighbor, a girl a few years older than me, touched me inappropriately in a way that was not kids having a curiosity about each other's bodies. So much so that my parents only found out about it after I complained that my privates hurt really bad. Turns out this girl was living with her grandparents because her parents were abusive pieces of shit and she had actually done things like this before to her brother and other children. They didn't want to disclose to my parents because they didn't want their child to lose out on having a friend. So they basically said they would never leave her unsupervised with other kids. Well the grandpa was at work that day and the grandma ran to the corner store really quick so that's when it happened) and from then on I knew all about inappropriate touching.

My parents were really straight up with me after that happened - 'if ANYONE touches you in a place you aren't comfortable you come tell us. If it's someone you/we don't know or if it is someone we know, you say something. Even if that person says that we won't love you if you tell, you tell us, we will never stop loving you no matter what.'

But I totally agree. If we're able to teach children about sexual abuse and they're able to grasp that concept, they'll totally be able to get boundaries and autonomy. I mean, we teach kids to share and to 'not cut in line,' and teaching them manners. It baffles me how some of that gets misconstrued into the whole 'boys will be boys,' trope, thus excusing their shitty behavior.

[spyral_out]

I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm also really glad your parents were so supportive and direct.

[londonsquare]

thanks, bb. It's really interesting when I tell people nowadays that that happened to me, it can go either of two ways either supportive and non dismissive like you or, 'oh, well you were both so young, it was probably just her experimenting.'

Looking back on it, yeah I feel really bad for the girl, but she couldn't be left alone with other children and her grandparents knew that.

It was so long ago that I remember bits and pieces, but my mum and I were talking about it recently and she said that the thing that affected me the most was them telling me I couldn't see who I considered my best friend and I thought I did something wrong.