Bridget Allison's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-collective-carry"
The Date Rape Boyfriend
I went to see a woman I will call Christy who is quickly becoming a friend, although we have actually only had two intimate conversations and one was about her house and finances.
Christy and I discussed our childhoods for a moment and I mentioned I had been molested as a little girl and how I look upon that as a moment when my parents became heroic. When I tell the story of who I am I have gone from never telling that story to sharing it quite freely. It was a pivotal moment in my development and defined my standards for truly noble and selfless parenting on the part of my mother and father.
When I finished explaining this, Christy blurted out: "I was date raped, well hardly that--it was completely my fault. I had too much to drink and I didn't know him well. He was the friend of my ex-boyfriend's and we got reaquainted at a party. He asked me back to his place and had sex with me even though I was crying and asking him to stop. But he was so apologetic and horrified by his actions I went out with him a couple of times afterwards. So it wasn't really rape."
"You were raped," I said. "Of course you were raped: you went out with him because you wanted to change your own narrative."
The strangest part of this was that I had just been wondering about this as I went about some mindless chore the day before. I wondered exactly that: "How many women are raped by someone they know, but in an effort to alter their own story they go out with that person afterwards?"
But if you look at the lead the truth is there. Before the disclaimers and qualifying remarks it begins "I was date raped."
It seems to me that by sequestering rape into "rape and "date rape" we are taking even more blame off the rapist and casting deeper shadows on the victim's actions. The women become somehow more culpable and room for "misunderstanding" is allowed.
That may not be true but it feels true.
I have listened to stories of date rape from the victims often enough that I have grown increasingly alarmed by the way they frame their own stories. It becomes an "I was sort of raped" story and often begins--"I was stupid."
It may have been three years ago, thirty years ago, they may have been initially attracted or the worse for drink or unconscious. But they didn't say yes. They struggled or they were unable to say no. They didn't want to have sex, they did not want to have been raped, and they didn't want to think of themselves as raped. They kept their own counsel or shared their stories immediately with people who asked questions they couldn't answer.
And so I think they sabotage their own defense. They try to stomach the story of "You are just so sexy I couldn't help myself" or "I thought you wanted me too," or like Christy's rapist simply "Oh my God I am so sorry."
It is troubling enough that young women get to campus security, their own "friends" or acquaintances of the rapists who dissuade them from reporting sexual assaults to the police. It is really disquieting that some find the prospect of being a rape victim in this society so abhorrent that they feel forced to collude with attackers.
Which leaves me to wonder not only; "What are the real numbers?" But, "When are we going to start supporting our daughters when they fight back? When will we stop being content with merely derailing a rapist's college degree?"
I suggest we begin with all the support we can muster for these women to be heard. We must talk to not only our sons about their responsibilities toward any young woman who seems to be in danger, but to our daughters about groups such as "The Collective Carry." We must teach them how to keep their friends from letting their own shock and unwillingness to see themselves as victims into a determination to replace the "Date Rape Boyfriend" with "Defendant."
Christy and I discussed our childhoods for a moment and I mentioned I had been molested as a little girl and how I look upon that as a moment when my parents became heroic. When I tell the story of who I am I have gone from never telling that story to sharing it quite freely. It was a pivotal moment in my development and defined my standards for truly noble and selfless parenting on the part of my mother and father.
When I finished explaining this, Christy blurted out: "I was date raped, well hardly that--it was completely my fault. I had too much to drink and I didn't know him well. He was the friend of my ex-boyfriend's and we got reaquainted at a party. He asked me back to his place and had sex with me even though I was crying and asking him to stop. But he was so apologetic and horrified by his actions I went out with him a couple of times afterwards. So it wasn't really rape."
"You were raped," I said. "Of course you were raped: you went out with him because you wanted to change your own narrative."
The strangest part of this was that I had just been wondering about this as I went about some mindless chore the day before. I wondered exactly that: "How many women are raped by someone they know, but in an effort to alter their own story they go out with that person afterwards?"
But if you look at the lead the truth is there. Before the disclaimers and qualifying remarks it begins "I was date raped."
It seems to me that by sequestering rape into "rape and "date rape" we are taking even more blame off the rapist and casting deeper shadows on the victim's actions. The women become somehow more culpable and room for "misunderstanding" is allowed.
That may not be true but it feels true.
I have listened to stories of date rape from the victims often enough that I have grown increasingly alarmed by the way they frame their own stories. It becomes an "I was sort of raped" story and often begins--"I was stupid."
It may have been three years ago, thirty years ago, they may have been initially attracted or the worse for drink or unconscious. But they didn't say yes. They struggled or they were unable to say no. They didn't want to have sex, they did not want to have been raped, and they didn't want to think of themselves as raped. They kept their own counsel or shared their stories immediately with people who asked questions they couldn't answer.
And so I think they sabotage their own defense. They try to stomach the story of "You are just so sexy I couldn't help myself" or "I thought you wanted me too," or like Christy's rapist simply "Oh my God I am so sorry."
It is troubling enough that young women get to campus security, their own "friends" or acquaintances of the rapists who dissuade them from reporting sexual assaults to the police. It is really disquieting that some find the prospect of being a rape victim in this society so abhorrent that they feel forced to collude with attackers.
Which leaves me to wonder not only; "What are the real numbers?" But, "When are we going to start supporting our daughters when they fight back? When will we stop being content with merely derailing a rapist's college degree?"
I suggest we begin with all the support we can muster for these women to be heard. We must talk to not only our sons about their responsibilities toward any young woman who seems to be in danger, but to our daughters about groups such as "The Collective Carry." We must teach them how to keep their friends from letting their own shock and unwillingness to see themselves as victims into a determination to replace the "Date Rape Boyfriend" with "Defendant."
