"My Rapist Doesn't Know He's A Rapist"

[andsh3burns]

99. The Watering-down of the Phrase Sexual Assault

I know I'll get flamed for this, but please try to read with an open mind. I am a woman. I have been a victim of child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. I *know* what these experiences are, and what they do to a woman.

I don't know anything about the woman pictured above. I don't know anything about her specific experience. I don't know if she got violently raped or if she got drunk at spring break and had consensual public sex and suffered fallout as a result.

However, I want to address what I see as a harmful trend. There is a huge tendency to water-down the definition of sexual assault. There are initiatives and ad campaigns that try to convince every female that she has been sexually assaulted in some way. There is a tendency to call any sexual contact that a woman later doesn't feel great about assault.

We need to be clear on what we are teaching our children. Our culture is trying to indoctrinate that straight males are evil for feeling any type of attraction and that girls have to take no responsibility for their actions.

If a girl has sex, and later regrets it, it is NOT rape.
If a guy and a girl get drunk TOGETHER, and both feel desire at the time and make a bad decision to have sex, it is NOT rape.
If a girl feels used because she didn't say no, though she gave no indication that she didn't want to have sex, it is NOT rape.
If a guy dumps a girl right after sex and her feelings are hurt, it is NOT rape.
If a girl has sex, and everyone finds out and calls her a slut so she feels ashamed, it is NOT rape.

Being a jerk and being a rapist are not the same thing.

There are real cases where women suffer ACTUAL assault or rape. No, it doesn't always involve violence, but it does involve more than just regret. It requires either force or an actual imbalance of power (as in a child and an adult, a boss who coerces a subordinate-not when the subordinate seduces the boss, which does happen, a teacher with a student-cases like THAT).

It is not helping ACTUAL assault and rape victims to keep pushing the idea that any sex the girl at any point regrets is rape. It is insulting them and making a joke out of the horror ACTUAL victims suffer.

Most people at some point in their lives make stupid decisions they regret or experience unintended consequences of stupid decisions. This trend to say a woman who makes a stupid decision bears no responsibility for it is just insulting to everyone. Do you think males never regret drunk sex? The same people who want to call sex rape if the girl is drunk (even if the guy is also drunk) scoff at the idea that it therefore should also be rape if the guy is drunk but the girl is stone sober. They make empty arguments about imbalance of power, blah, blah, blah. I call BS. If a guy is falling down drunk and the girl is sober, SHE is the one with more decision-making power and with the ability to walk out. If a guy is drunk and USES FORCE on a girl who says no, then, and only then, is rape.

No, short skirts, being drunk, walking alone, etc are not reasons for rape. But, a girl's bad decision is not rape.

We cannot become a society that teaches our children that girls don't ever have to take responsibility for their own bad decisions, that boys who feel desire are all rapists.

Girls who cry "Rape" when what they mean is "Regret", and those who encourage this mentality, are doing just as much harm to actual rape victims as the rapists themselves.