Sunday morning rape apology

Good afternoon, hypothetical readers!

This morning I learned something that I wanted to share. My family includes at least two antifeminist rape apologists!

I know you're jealous, and would love some rape apologists of your very own, so that you might also be berated and screamed at for your ignorance. In hopes of sating this desire, I present some of the highlights of our exchange.

The setting is my parent's living room, in which just moments before my mother and I had discussed cuticle maintenance. Just riveting, I know. The conversation migrated, slowly, as pesky conversations are wont to do, and we ended in the realm of bars.

Dark, until recently smokey, loud, crowded establishments in which people interact and sometimes those interactions are less than pleasant, right? Sometimes some asshole will, for example, touch other people in a way that is invasive, rude, inappropriate, etc.

"Well, that's to be expected, I think," my mother says, in her way of being so much wiser than I am because I am after all just the ignorant spawn.

Red flag. BIG ONE. In my face, flying about. "Oh, no." I say. "Let's not go here. This is a hot button issue for me."



(This is one of about five attempts for me to shut down the conversation. Believe me, my darlings, I tried.)

My mother does not respond well to boundaries. No one in my life really ever has, which might be why I have such a hard time exerting them. So she continues, and I do as well.

"That's like saying that if you are drunk and on Spring break you should just expect to be raped," I say.

Well, OK. First of all, my mother contends, being touched and raped are so different that it really doesn't apply, and second, it does apply, because - well, of course the rapist is LEGALLY responsible, but that doesn't mean one ought to be stupid.

This is a dangerous idea, I say. Taking the culpability away from the rapist is dangerous, I say. Having lists of things one should and should not do is not acceptable.

Well, both my mother and brother contend, one ought to just have common sense.

"It's like walking around with hundred dollar bills hanging out of your-" I interrupt her. I have to. I can't bear it.

"NO. We are not going there. NO."

"What? What's wrong?"

"You can't equate stealing money with rape. You just can't. How are they the same?"

"Who said that?" my brother asks. "Who is talking about rape?"

Of course, we are all taking about rape.

"Where is the line?" I ask them. "Where is the line between telling a woman not to walk naked down the street in the city (my brother's example) and telling a woman to never drink alcohol, or telling a woman to not look through her purse, or to always carry an umbrella, or to not use public restrooms? Or telling her that wearing jeans and a hoodie is asking for it?

Common sense, they all say, common sense. Which, of course, is complete and utter bullshit. Because your common sense is not the same is someone else's. You telling me not to get drunk might seem obvious to you. Telling me not to wear pants might seem obvious to someone else.

And, I'd like to point out, IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

The idea that the perp is 100% responsible, but the victim is a little responsible, too HAS CONSEQUENCES. Not the least of which is your inabiltiy to do basic math.

It is simple, basic logic. If you blame the victim, even a little bit, even a smidge, if there is anything that you think makes it even a little bit their fault, then that little thing makes it LESS than completely the fault of the rapist.

And the minute there is any excuse that can make the rapist a little less responsible, a judge can get away with locking a guy up for two years, instead of life, because of the mitigating circumstance of his 10-year-old victim's clothing.

"But you can't be stupid," they say. "Why should you be stupid?"

And I didn't get to the point where I ask force them to lay out specifics of what women should and shouldn't be allowed to do. I didn't get to the point where I advocate making those things laws, in order to show how absolutely ridiculous the logical path they are pushing really is. I didn't get to the point where I tell them that maybe we should stop focusing on what women do and start focusing on what men do.

Actually, I tried that one. "Why is it that rape prevention is all the women's responsibility?"

My mom and my brother, both, at the same time, (they must be rehearsing this) demand to know what I'm reading, because these ideas aren't normal, because most people have common sense.

But I didn't tell them that rape isn't a force of nature. I didn't tell them that it doesn't just "happen." I didn't get to dismantling the "most women are raped in dark alleys by crazy people" myth. I didn't get any farther than that, because the "what are you reading?" trigger is so easy that they've got to know by now. They've got to know. I go from calm to enraged/sobbing/dizzy in 0.1 seconds, without fail, every time. Everything slows down, I'm dissociating now, I have to leave.

Because if I have an idea that they don't agree with, it must have come from somewhere. It must have come from somewhere that they don't approve of. I am simply not allowed to think for myself. I am not granted enough agency to have my own opinions, or my own thoughts. By this point my brother is screaming at me. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" He is waving his hands around and turning red in the face. My father has woken up. He has come out of the bedroom. I am turning away from them. They are all in mid-sentence, maybe.

"I'm leaving." I say. I do not slam the door.