My Friends and I Beat Up My Rapist, And I Will Never Apologize for Getting Revenge

[KamaAina]

http://www.xojane.com/issues/i-got-revenge-on-my-rapist

When Sean raped me, I knew my survival depended on creating an alternate ending. After years of wearing shame like a self-fastened straight jacket, I finally trusted that the assaults were not my fault....

I was inspired by stories of women who sought vengeance. There was Lisbeth Salander, the fictional hero of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, who tattooed "I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST" on her abuser. There was the pregnant woman in Turkey who decapitated her repeat rapist and brought his head to town. There was the woman who set her daughter's rapist on fire outside of a bar. And there was Lorena Bobbitt, who cut her rapist husband's penis off....

We walked through snow flurries to Sean's street. I approached the front door and knocked. Sean answered. Before he could say anything, my ex-boyfriend punched him twice in the face, picked him up, and threw him into a glass coffee table. The four of us ran to where he fell and administered blind punches and kicks, as though button-mashing in Street Fighter. I bludgeoned Sean's pudgy body with a sock-n-lock as my ex-boyfriend screamed, "You don't rape our friends and get away with it!"

Sean said nothing throughout the attack, just looked at the ceiling. Maybe he knew he deserved it. Maybe he was busy learning how it felt to be violated.

[Maedhros]

1. Sorry, rape is horrible and never to be condoned,

but mob justice is not welcome in a functioning democracy.

[Odin2005]

8. Maybe the justice system should be prosecuting the fucking rapists, then?

Vigilantism thrives when people percieve that they are not getting justice through official channels, it is a symptom of a government failing to do one of government's basic jobs, keeping people safe and preventing crime.

[TipTok]

16. She chose vigilantism...

... because she didn't want to have to bother providing evidence.

"I would have to see Sean in court. And if I wanted to be taken seriously, I would have had to go to the emergency room for a rape kit, subjecting myself to further violation."

She and everyone involved deserves jail time.

Assuming all of this tumblr-esque story is true, she couldn't even begin to mitigate the circumstances because she just bucked the system.

[backscatter712]

11. Maybe they should bring back public whippings.

Technically, that wouldn't be mob justice, it'd be sanctioned by the state...

[closeupready]

2. You don't need to apologize to get sent to prison for aggravated assault.

So, no worries there.

That said, I doubt this actually happened; it's likely some imaginative feminist writer lying about an experience that never happened to her or anyone she knows.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

17. If it is fiction, it could also be a REAL victim, working through real problems in fictional revenge

Why did you label the writer a "feminist?"

[yewberry]

24. Or some imaginative MRA. nt

[cali]

3. I feel like puking from this revenge porn.

Sick. Rape is sick and so is this.

[Marr]

4. +1

[linuxman]

5. Is there a creative writing forum?

The revenge porn fantasy was just a little too textbook hollywood/comic for me. That and you know, nobody with half a brain would admit to conspiracy to commit assault (attempted murder? Lock in a sock would fit the bill), felony breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, etc...

[closeupready]

13. Right. From the "Wouldn't It Be Nice...?" files.

There's something poetic (if way too simple) about the plot here, but 3 unrelated people aren't going to jeopardize their own lives in this way.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. "He deserved it" must never be an admissible defence in a court of law.

Yes, it's quite possible that he did. But, even so, if this is true, the author and their friends should be prosecuted.

[Brickbat]

7. If only people took rape reports seriously, and recognized their own behaviors as rape.

[Orrex]

9. Wait... She and a mob hunted him down years after the attack?

I read stories like this in my freshman year Intro to Fiction Writing course.

[KamaAina]

12. "Two weeks after the assault, we were ready."

I called my ex-boyfriend, a relative, and a friend, told them I had been raped, and asked the three of them to come to Rochester.

Not exactly a mob.

[Orrex]

23. Thanks--I misread it on my phone

Still, two weeks after the fact, it's difficult to justify an assault on any legal grounds.

Even if she can make a credible case for her own involvement, the other three have no legal basis for participating.


Revenge fantasy is fair game, but acting it out is still vigilante justice and is a crime in its own right.

[Shrike47]

15. Two and a half weeks after the attack. She waited years to write about it. If it's true.

Sadlly, it reads like revenge fantasy to me.

On the other hand, weird things do happen. 30 years ago, a bunch of people decided to help a woman get revenge on her abusive husband by blowing up his car with him in it. Essentially, these were strangers to the abuse victim.

The plan worked.

[Orrex]

22. Thank you--I misread it on my teeny-tiny phone

Nothing wrong with revenge fantasy. It can be quite cathartic, in fact.

[Odin2005]

10. I have fantasies of doing this to the subhuman scum who raped my best friend.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

18. That was my point in a previous comment...

Real rape victims do write fantasy stories, which could be therapeutic, if readers here were not so quick to judge others, without having complete evidence of anything. People are weird animals, capable of almost any kind of violence against each other.

[Iggo]

14. A lot of criminals have good reasons for committing the crimes they committed.

The writer is one of them.

[Captain Stern]

19. Sounds like fiction to me.

If for no other reason than this excerpt:

Over the next three days, we held private discussions in my bedroom, met up with Sean's roommates, and talked to his friends. The consensus was that our plan was fair.

So Sean's roommates and friends agreed that it was "fair" to beat Sean up......without even hearing their friend's side of the story? That's total bullshit.

Anyone that believes this story should feel a little embarrassed.

[smirkymonkey]

20. Maybe if the justice system worked for rape victims there wouldn't be a need for vigilante

justice, but it rarely does. I can understand the rage behind this mentality. Too many men get away with a committing a vicious, violent crime and too many women have to go through life not only with their souls destroyed, but with the knowledge that their rapist will never pay for their crime and will probably continue to rape other women.

[Nevernose]

21. I know people who did this in real life

Things didn't go as planned.

One's serving life, another was serving life before having his sentence commuted, and the two girls both served several years for kidnapping.