Open Letter to a Rape Apologist

(excerpted from an actual letter that I sent to an actual person)

I feel that you and I are on two sides of a fundamental ideological divide that is very, very important to me. I am not sure that it's something we can reconcile, because I don't anticipate changing your mind. It isn't even really my goal to do that.


I do want to explain where I am coming from, though.

I believe that survivors of sexual violence can be, and often are, legitimately harmed by flippant and/or humorous references to sexual violence. This belief is consistent with my own lived experience, with the experience of many of my closest friends, and with my understanding of feminism and human psychology.

That belief works together with my belief that in order to create and maintain effective community, it is beneficial to refrain from doing unnecessary harm to people within that community.

I believe, also, that it is my right and my responsibility to create safe spaces in my personal life for myself and for my friends. I cannot control what happens in all of the world. I can't prevent myself from being constantly exposed to racism, or homophobia, or misogyny, or Christians who want to convert me. I can, to an extent, control the kinds of things I allow into my psychic and social world. I can do my best to create spaces to in which I feel that I can let down my shields a little bit and not worry about being harmed by the people around me.

I understand that you do not necessarily agree with all of these things. I understand that you, from what I can tell, feel that refraining from making light of sexual violence amounts to "coddling" survivors. I do not expect to change your mind on that topic, but: having that particular argument voiced and defended repeatedly is incredibly upsetting to me, whether or not you believe that to be true. I know that you said you were only playing Devil's advocate, but the fact that you felt this was an OK topic to debate in that fashion automatically means that you discount the harm that debating it could do.

From my perspective, disagreeing with this fundamental idea involves believing one of two things: 1) That real harm is not done by those kind of jokes and comments. This, to me, is the same thing as saying, "I do not accept your experiences as valid - in fact, I believe that I know more about your experience than you do, and I know that you have not been harmed." 2) Even though harm is done, that harm is not your concern or responsibility.

I do not know which side of that particular line best explains your position. What I do know is that either of those positions creates space in which I feel unsafe, and which my friends and loved ones are at risk.

when a friend isn't an ally (trigger warning)

A friend is not an ally on humid, house-party Saturday night.

A friend is not an ally when, two or three or four glasses of wine in, they open debate on a latest controversy, when they lean in, primed for A Rousing Debate about whether or not rape culture is a thing that exists, when they expect you to defend your position with the same charm, intelligence, and passion that you do when you're talking about school reform.

A friend is not an ally when they think this is the kind of conversation you're willing to have at a party, when they think that an intellectual discussion of rape goes nicely with a front lawn and an evening breeze and a beer. A friend is not an ally when you wish they were wearing a trigger warning t-shirt.

A friend is not an ally when several acquaintances, one of whom is a comedian, enter the conversation preaching "Nothing is sacred, everything is funny," and the friend doesn't disagree. And those acquaintances smile at their own cleverness, their edge, when they claim loudly against the silent opposition, "There's nothing that can't be made light of," meaning, of course, that they really believe it's harmless (in which case they're hopeless) or that the harm it does, the harm it does to you, is a non-issue (in which case they're fucking assholes).

Because you're non-verbal at this point. You're absolutely incapable of saying anything about this.

A party is not a party once the rape apology avalanche begins, once you start to feel claustrophobic even though you're outside, once you begin to feel afraid of everyone around you and your thought process is panicked, repeating, "I have to leave I have to get out I have to leave I have to get out." A party is not a party when the stifling Midwestern night air feels just a little like someone holding you down, when you start to wish you had something sharp and metal because holding it in your hand would calm you.

A party isn't a party when you leave in the middle of this conversation, telling everyone you're tired. You are tired, but that isn't the reason you leave.

A friend isn't an ally when it doesn't occur to them to follow up and make sure you're OK. A friend isn't an ally when it doesn't occur to them that someone might be made less than OK by this series of events.

A friend isn't an ally when they are too invested in their own privilege to admit it exists.

7 Obvious Signs That Your Relationship Isn't Total Crap

There is a lot of bullshit in the world, floating around, killing my buzz. One example: gender-essentialist dating/relationship advice. It makes so very little sense, and is so divorced from my particular concept of the way People and The World function, that I can't imagine how the authors even come up with this shit.

It's as if someone took a list of things that they have found unpleasant or problematic in their personal relationships, then ran that list through some sort of automated stereotype enhancer fueled by sitcoms and really terrible commercials.

(Oh, wait, I think we call that overculture.)

It's not about milk.

My mother said, "If Ron Paul is president, at least you'll get your raw milk."

She was trying to be funny, a little, and sad, which is the best you can do when talking about politics right now.  A little funny, mostly sad. I find that I've lost any taste for laughing over the latest ridiculous thing that anyone was caught saying. I've lost any desire to follow this primary. The perverse rush that comes of tracking down sources for the latest terrifying promise or the next apocalyptic Dominionist wet dream scenario? It's gone.

All of the blitzy front-page HuffPo stories about Republican shenanigans fall flat, now. As if our laughter could insulate us.

As if raw milk were some kind of consolation.

Yeah, I'm one of those hippie-foodie types. I don't think the Feds ought to be raiding natural foods co-ops. I think there are bigger threats. Trying to keep up with the news in this arena puts me in contact with some pretty fucked up ideological circles. (Yeah, I am all good with that article until the Ron Paul endorsement. And the comments are scarier than many one sees on the internet at large.)

Identity politics is a powerful force. I'll admit that I had to do some research on the whole Ron Paul issue before I really understood how terrifying he was. I'll admit that I had some vague, theoretical conversations about interventionism with (generally white, male) friends of mine in which Paul was portrayed as a possible solution.

And some of those friends, when confronted with more evidence, will admit that he's got "problematic ideas." They'd never, you know, vote for him or anything. But...there's this sort of wistfulness about them when they say it.

Because the fear that he inspires (in all fairness, all of these candidates terrify me) is visceral and cannot be ignored. It is not a theoretical downfall. These are not problematic ideas.

I don't have the luxury of weighing the hypothetical moral benefits of a progressive social platform vs. a non-interventionist foreign policy. His anti-choice stance is not hypothetical to me. His religious agenda is not an interesting theory. It's real, and terrifying, and something that will affect me directly.


I don't know what this post is supposed to be, exactly, maybe An Open Letter to Fauxgressives Who Belong to Too Many Privileged Classes to be Scared of Ron Paul.

If you're not truly, personally frightened of the guy, let's just not fucking talk politics until after the election, OK?  Or maybe ever.

If I want my milk that bad I'll go live on a fucking farm. No way in hell does that even rate. I am sick of people pretending like it does.