On being a woman and fighting back [trigger warning]

[Mordechaj]

Thanks, your alias suits you well.

[Kishi]

Um. Wow. Okay.

 

While you guys are busy arguing over who has the right to argue in what way and how, I'm going to ask that we look at the story of the person who was freaking raped.

 

 

 

Ok so I haven't read all the post but I've read enough and I wanted to put my 2 cents in.

 

Rape is about power.

 

I was rape a few years ago by a friend of mine... Well I thought he was anyways.

At that time I couldn't defend myself because I wasn't in a good mental place. I had just gotten out of my first real relationship and he had been mentally ripping me apart for a year and some change. 

When it happened I blamed myself (still do) because I could have stopped it if I had done something anything but I was so scared and in disbelief that another terrible thing was happening to me. As soon as he got really forceful I froze. Up to that point I had made it very clear I didn't want this and had pushed him away repeatedly. I just broke. 

physically I could have gotten away if I hadn't frozen up.

 

I'm in a better place now and I know that no one who attacks me will walk away alive if they don't take my warnings.

but that's just me.

 

I want you all to take a really good look at this story, because it illustrates something that hasn't really been touched on very much in this conversation.

 

Violence is a mental thing. Yeah, you have techniques, yeah, you can apply them. But it's another thing entirely to have to apply them. And it's a completely separate thing to apply them against someone you know and trust.

 

From the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (USA): 

Approximately 2/3 of rapes were committed by someone known to the victim.¹
73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger.¹
38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.¹
28% are an intimate.¹
7% are a relative.¹

 

Look, y'all, I don't mean to mansplain, but here it is: it's one thing to say that you can rip somebody's ears off, break their arms, spray them with Mace. But you're not dealing with an archetypal shadowy figure. If it happens, the odds are it's going to be your neighbor. It'll be the guy you've been dating a while. It'll be the male friend who's decided he deserves your body. It could even be your spouse.

 

Bottom line is, statistically, when this despicable thing happens, it's gonna come from someone whom you are absolutely conditioned to trust.

 

Okay, fine. Talk up all the awful things they deserve, all the awful things you will do to them, and how awful they are.

 

Are you willing to talk up all the awful things your husband deserves, all the awful things you will do to your best male friend, and how awful your boyfriend is?

 

Because until we're willing to have this discussion in those terms, this is all posturing and emotionalism.

 

@crockagator: I'm sorry if this was a crass usage of your story to make a point. But I think you told your story for a reason, and I think that reason needs to be addressed.

[Maris Stella]

First: Crockagator, thank you for sharing your story with us. That was brave, you are brave. I know you've probably heard this before and it's hard to process, but please don't blame yourself. Just because you didn't respond to violence with more violence does not make you less of a victim, at all. What you described happens to so many women. I know most of my friends that have been raped, were raped by friends or boyfriends or ex-boyfriends in moments of vulnerability. None of them reported the incident, for exactly the reasons you described.

 

Second: To Kishi's point, while I think it is important to encourage women to fight back and make it ok for them to fight back, even in cases where the rapist is/was a trusted person, making it so black-and-white is not the answer. Twentythree, I'm going to be honest, I can't imagine ripping off someone's ear, especially someone I know and used to trust. I can't imagine gauging out someone's eyes. I'm sure that's mostly because I haven't been trained to think that way -- in fact, as a woman, I have been trained to be very physically non-confrontational. If anything, I have been taught for years that my body language and physical interactions with people should always be inviting, warm, and nurturing. That is very hard to overcome, especially when your attacker is someone you are used to being friendly toward....and you don't have much time to flip the switch and summon those feral instincts you are describing. 

 

Of course, as I said before, I think it's my responsibility to myself to be physically strong and to hone my defensive abilities in case of a situation like this. But having the physical ability and having the mental ability are very different. I got out of my situations with moderate physical aggression, but I am also bigger than most women. I don't know what would have happened if those situations had demanded more violence from me. I think I could bloody a stranger, but I just don't know about a former friend or loved one. In light of that:

 

"But I will not stand for any "I can't do anything b/c I'm a 120lb woman." It's bullshit, a lie, and a guaranteed way to make one's self into a victim. And if anyone has a problem with that I don't care. Nothing will ever get me to budge an inch from that position."

 

This was very hard for me to read. Please understand that the only way anyone becomes a victim, is if someone is there to victimize them.

[MariahSnow]

Crockagator: again, thanks for sharing. Your story, unfortunately, is really common. I had a friend in college that was in a similar situation. Luckily the guy stopped, but not really after the damage had been done. Don't blame yourself, please. Every moment of our lives comes with "coulda, woulda, shoulda" but if you let that run your life, you will never move on. 

 

I had the same thoughts as Kishi when reading this thread. It's not like some big dude is cornering you in a dark alley. It's a friend or a lover pressuring you to do something you are uncomfortable with. And maybe even manipulating you by saying, "if you loved me, you'd do this". I wouldn't consider myself a victim of rape, but I'd definitely say that I've been abused, verbally, emotionally, and sexually by partners in the past. And it never started with being grabbed from behind. It started with emotional abuse and manipulation. And maybe they didn't even know they were doing it because their sense of a relationship was so warped. This issue speaks to a much larger problem involving how we are conditioned as children, modeling ourselves after the relationships we are exposed to (my parents have the most dysfunctional relationship ever), etc.

[Kishi]

 

Second: To Kishi's point, while I think it is important to encourage women to fight back and make it ok for them to fight back, even in cases where the rapist is/was a trusted person, making it so black-and-white is not the answer.

 

You're right. I hope I wasn't disrespectful in framing my point that way. Statistics can't say what will happen, only what has happened.

 

Still. What has happened is generally a pretty good indicator of what could happen, and they point to a scenario that I thought hadn't really been addressed.

[Maris Stella]

I think my sentence was pretty unclear, because I was actually agreeing with you, and didn't think you were being disrespectful. 

 

What I meant was, I think we need both. I think we need to make it ok for women to use violence to defend themselves, and I also think we need to understand why they might not. 

[Kishi]

Oh! Um. In that case. Carry on.