triggered

It’s my birthday today, or it was when I started writing this. I’ve been reflecting a lot on a recent podcast I put out with a friend of mine, Lynda, and the conversations this episode and the topics within it brought up in me and in others. For those of you who haven’t listened to it (you obviously should), it’s focused on Lynda’s recently traumatic experience where she was sexually assaulted by her ex-partner, then forced to endure the horrific injustice of having the tables turned and her children taken from her care and left with a manipulative abuser. Lynda’s story is incredibly heart wrenching and difficult to hear. I was really honored that Lynda chose to share her story with me and on the podcast, and we both received a great many messages of support that were much appreciated.

As expected though, there’s always going to be a few of the other kind of messages. The kind that trigger the fuck out of you and make you realise we are somehow still living in a society that blames victims and offers perpetrators pathetic excuses for inexcusable acts. The thing I found the most troubling about these messages were the jokes about spousal abuse and queries as to the legitimacy of ‘rape’ claims within a relationship. Here’s the thing, there’s no excuses that make rape a legitimate action. Ever. Whether someone is or was your partner does NOT give you ownership over their body, someone being under the influence does NOT give you the right to decide for them and whether they’re wearing track pants or a fucking G banger their body is THEIRS. End of story.

I was ridiculously triggered by these comments and even more so by the (well-meaning) advice I was given to ‘not waste my energy’ on people with these kinds of opinions. The alternative was that I should just ignore them and not respond to ignorant comments that, in my opinion, fuel this dangerous sort of thinking; that it is the responsibility of the potential victim to prevent these acts from occurring, rather than the perpetrator from committing the act in the first place. Something I keep hearing is that everyone is entitled to their opinion…whilst I do get that this is normally a valid argument, like you’re entitled to prefer smooth peanut butter to crunchy (really though?) I think that opinions which minimise sexual violence are, for want of a better word, fucked, and that if everyone thought it was a waste of energy to correct this misinformed bullshit then we as a society are in a pretty dark place. Whilst I agree that you can’t argue with stupid or crazy, I still think it’s worth a try. I genuinely don’t feel that there is any reason good enough to force yourself on someone, and if your opinion is any different, then I cannot emphasise anymore that you are unequivocally wrong, and I will never feel it a waste of my energy to inform you of your wrongness.

The notion of a faceless attacker in a dark alleyway needs to be corrected, when statistically (yes, I research things) it is far more common for sexual violence to be inflicted by a person known to the victim, which makes supposed cautionary methods such as ‘avoiding bad neighbourhoods’ and ‘dressing less provocatively’ both condescending and simplistic advice. An analogy that was ‘helpfully’ relayed to me via DM was that if a person left their wallet on the seat of their car, wouldn’t they sort of be inviting theft, which is basically an elaborate way of saying a victim of sexual assault is asking for it. I’m good at analogies too, so here’s one: If your fence is vandalised, do you blame the tagger for committing the act? Or the fence itself for being too inviting? I’m not saying I have the answers, but surely a start is to call this bullshit when we hear it, rather than accepting lame excuses like clothing and location as being anything but irrelevant.

Probably don’t keep reading if you feel this is already dark/ triggering enough.

I’m gonna share a tale from my past which is probably why I get so fucking enraged by these idiot comments and why I deem it necessary to put people with these opinions in their place. It’s not just because I enjoy being a ballsy bitch with a bone to pick (although I do), but because I genuinely believe that these opinions are fucking dangerous and are on the same sliding scale as the acts themselves. I also think that unless you’ve experienced the sheer revulsion and terror of someone forcing sex on you, then you should actually just shut the fuck up about people asking for it. No one, ever, is asking for it.

When I was in my early twenties I was pretty much on a mission to get as fucked up as I could as often as I could. I had a job and did the grown up things but I also just loved getting wasted. There’s maybe something head-related in that (I’ll leave that to Ash to figure out), but basically to me getting drunk and high was fun and obviously fun was good. I dated people on and off but they were all pretty crash and burn, generally beginning / ending / both in a blur of intoxication. I don’t know what if anything I was trying to forget, I was just a bit of a train wreck and that’s a pretty easy thing to take advantage of if you’re that way inclined, which the other character in this tale happened to be. Also, using the word ‘tale’ tends to take the edge off the fairly horrible story I’m telling. You’re welcome.

Anyway, I had been dating a guy from my neighborhood for a brief while. He was fairly well known and not in a good way, but that was kind of my thing back then so I was all for it. I had met him out with some other friends and after a few drinks went back to his place with him. He was a lot more sober than me and as we proceeded to get into some fairly consensual action I started to feel like something wasn’t right. He was super aggressive and forceful and I got a bit freaked out so I asked him to stop. He ignored me and had turned me over so that he was on top of me, with his weight pinning me down and rendering me vulnerable. I can’t bring myself to describe the rest of this in detail, but without getting all S.V.U on it he forced anal sex on me. (I just had to type those last five words so fast so I wouldn’t bitch out of finishing that sentence). Anyway, it was terrifying. I wasn’t strong enough (mentally or physically) to do anything but sob into the pillow the entire time, which, weirdly, didn’t put him off. The whole experience made me feel like a disgusting and worthless piece of shit. I felt that I only had myself to blame for being in the situation which ‘allowed’ him to do it, and I didn’t have the resilience to fight, both during and after the incident. I had such low self esteem I even kept seeing him, excusing his behaviour away, as I couldn’t feel anything but self-loathing and deserving of that treatment.

This was a guy I knew, who I was in some semblance of a relationship with. I had willingly accompanied him back to his house and had consented to some level of sexual encounter. The act that took place was 100% against my wishes and I voiced this prior to and during its occurrence. Regardless of our relationship status, my state or intoxication and what I was wearing, he should have stopped when I said no. It took me years to realise that there isn’t a “grey area”, he just shouldn’t have done it. If I’m strong at all now it’s because I’ve realised that whilst I was an idiot who should definitely have taken better care of herself, I didn’t deserve to be treated like a fucking blow up doll. Regardless of the situation, I wasn’t ‘asking for it’.

This incident was a long time ago, and I’m fucking proud of the person I have grown into, namely my strength and resilience; and that I can use shitty experiences like that one as fuel to give me the energy to put ignorant fucks in their place, and share stories like Lynda’s, because I truly believe that standing up for something worthwhile is never a waste of energy. I read this awesome quote recently about how it was a good thing to have enemies, because it meant you had stood up for yourself or for something at least once. So I’m going to take every un-follow after I publish this as a fucking win.