Nothing to laugh about: excerpt from Someone You Already Know

It's sad and disappointing when people you once respected make jokes about things that just aren't funny. It's even more unfortunate when they defend such jokes, despite being told about their offensive nature. I wish these incidents didn't bother me so much, but I wouldn't want to be a rape crisis counselor if they didn't. So today, I think it's appropriate to share a similar scenario depicted in Someone You Already Know:

I take my usual seat at lunch by the vending machines and wait for Elisabeth when I hear a male voice behind me say “Man, I really got raped by that Algebra exam today.”

There are a million different reactions I could have to an ignorant statement like this. On one hand, I can ignore it. The kid is an idiot. He doesn’t know. But I can feel the blood pounding in my veins, rushing swiftly in my ears, and what I really want to do is turn and scream at the little fool. 

But to scream…to fight…to make any sound in my defense, that’s something I just don’t know how to do. Something I don’t know how to do well.

How does a word like rape, loaded with stigma and designed to shock, manage to get reduced to such common, blasé terminology to describe something as mundane as an Algebra test? Whether he meant to offend or not, just how stupid can some people be to not realize the full impact of their words?

I don’t have to say anything in my defense. A voice that sounds remarkably like Trevor’s calls out: “Hey! You think rape is something to joke about? You wouldn’t if it happened to you.”

I can’t not turn around now to see the looks on those guys’ faces; I think they feel genuinely remorseful now, seeing me sitting only a table away, but they also look shocked to hear a guy rebuke them in such a way. I can see the confused looks on their faces now: why would a guy speak out against a rape joke? After all, they’re probably thinking, it’s not like guys can be raped. 

If it was me who yelled at them, or some other girl, the sad reality is they’d probably have laughed and said something along the lines of “Lighten up.”

Someone You Already Know: on assumptions and careless words

Another excerpt from the book:

     I have learned a few things from Katherine’s reaction to my story. As a victim herself, I know she meant well by insisting I needed to tell someone what happened. But honestly, I would have preferred she just tell me that she’s there for me. I would have rather she not inserted her own story into mine, as if hers is the only valid one.

     Granted, Katherine did not realize she was doing this. I was blamed once for being “too hot” for a guy to keep his hands to himself -- the last thing I need is to be told I am to blame if the same thing happens to someone else, because I refused to talk about it. I have no control over the choices other people make. 

     Furthermore, what if I’m not ready to talk about it? What if I still need time to make sense of things, and by the time I come to a conclusion and formulate a plan of action, another woman is harmed? What if sharing my experience is enough to trigger a flashback for someone who just wants to repress her humiliation and act like it never happened? Maybe it would be a mistake to bring it up if it means shattering someone’s carefully constructed illusion of normalcy. But would that really be my fault? Will the cycle of blame ever end?

     You know, it’s not so much the backlash from people who have never been assaulted that worries me. It’s expected for them to be ignorant about something they have never experienced for themselves. Rather, it’s the potential of backlash from other victims, victims like Katherine, which will be the most damaging to me. I fear being told once again that my experience is not as tragic, not as damaging to be counted as legitimate: that invisible scars don’t matter. I fear that more than anything. I fear never being able to know what is real, what is true, and being dictated the truth from people who weren’t there, who don’t know me or John.

     If nothing else, this much I know is true: I am not to blame for John being the way that he is. I’ve tossed and turned late into the night trying to come up with reasons: was he abused as a child? Did he never learn right from wrong? Is he a sex-addict in denial? A sociopath? An ordinary, ignorant college guy who got his signals crossed?

     We are so deeply entrenched in a culture that puts pleasure on a pedestal, it's no wonder there are people who see coercion as just a means to a self-gratifying end, nothing more.

     As much as I long for answers, the only ones that matter are the ones I can answer. If I am to blame for anything, it’s for having too positive an outlook on people. All my life I’ve tried to believe the best about everyone; the crazies you hear about on the news always seemed too far away to affect my view of people around me. Certainly I wanted to believe the best about a guy who told me he loved me. I wanted to believe that a guy who studied my quirks and silly habits for several months would pick up on the hints that I just wasn’t ready for anything sexual. In many instances, I honestly didn’t think I had to say no; doing so would be admitting there is something happening that shouldn’t be. 

     What girl in love wants to admit that? 

     None that I know.