(TW: Discussion of Rape) I don’t doubt that standards of sexual consent are necessarily higher than those for other activities

(for example whining when your friend doesn’t want to go out to Karaoke a little bit is usually not going to result in trauma) but what I want to understand is what the mechanism of this difference is?  Is it a social thing about the value/intimacy/etc of sex?  Is it hardwired human nature? Is it not actually and we’re just excessively blasé about violations of consent in other areas?  Why is having sex you’re not particularly into so much more harmful than going for burgers to keep the peace when you really wanted pizza?

I’m not trying to be flip.  As most of you know, I’m a survivor myself, I’m just trying to understand what makes it different?

As A Rape Survivor

thepeacockangel:

I find it really icky and uncomfortable seeing people who aren’t survivors get super into the whole like “vengance porn” thing.  I don’t want to be your vicarious “I Spit On Your Grave” thrill.  I don’t 

I don’t like it when people take up their torches and pitchforks without asking the survivor what they want and need and the way stringing up the person the mob is mad at (is relatively simple and emotionally satisfying to people) often takes precedence over caring for the person who’s been traumatized (which is hard and kind of a bummer)

And yeah I dunno when people are like “Awww yeah” to a rapist getting killed or whatever I’m like “…” because like I’m glad the they can’t hurt anyone else but like ultimately the thing is, there’s still this profoundly traumatized person out there and it still *happened* and it feels like IDK people sometimes almost like that there are monsters like that so that they can enjoy watching them get their comeuppance and that feels icky to me.

Vengeance doesn’t fix PTSD, doesn’t heal trauma, doesn’t undo what’s been done and so like I wanna see you cheer for survivors getting what they need on their own terms.  I wanna see you cheer for efforts to prevent this shit from happening in the first place.  I want to see you cheer for breakthroughs in the treatment of trauma, but people don’t cause it doesn’t satisfy them as much as seeing the villain getting thrown off a cliff.

I don’t like my pain being used as a justification for other people’s violent catharsis, an excuse to indulge in their worst impulses 

And sometimes I wonder if because rapists and so on are the current acceptable outlet for all those repressed aggressive impulses if at least some of those people who’ve never been raped, cheering on the beheadings and disembowelment of rapists and what have you, sort of tacitly approve the existence of rapists and/or on some level oppose or refuse to support the prevention of rape or don’t believe in the possibility of prevention because for them it’s emotionally inconvenient not to have a group that it’s justifiable to torture.

As A Rape Survivor

I find it really icky and uncomfortable seeing people who aren’t survivors get super into the whole like “vengance porn” thing.  I don’t want to be your vicarious “I Spit On Your Grave” thrill.  I don’t 

I don’t like it when people take up their torches and pitchforks without asking the survivor what they want and need and the way stringing up the person the mob is mad at (is relatively simple and emotionally satisfying to people) often takes precedence over caring for the person who’s been traumatized (which is hard and kind of a bummer)

And yeah I dunno when people are like “Awww yeah” to a rapist getting killed or whatever I’m like “…” because like I’m glad the they can’t hurt anyone else but like ultimately the thing is, there’s still this profoundly traumatized person out there and it still *happened* and it feels like IDK people sometimes almost like that there are monsters like that so that they can enjoy watching them get their comeuppance and that feels icky to me.

Vengeance doesn’t fix PTSD, doesn’t heal trauma, doesn’t undo what’s been done and so like I wanna see you cheer for survivors getting what they need on their own terms.  I wanna see you cheer for efforts to prevent this shit from happening in the first place.  I want to see you cheer for breakthroughs in the treatment of trauma, but people don’t cause it doesn’t satisfy them as much as seeing the villain getting thrown off a cliff.

I don’t like my pain being used as a justification for other people’s violent catharsis, an excuse to indulge in their worst impulses 

One Of My Male Friends

Is being accused of assaulting the woman who assaulted him.

And seeing him breaking down because no one will believe him sucks.  Her behavior has been consistently predatory.  She habitually pursues men who are too intoxicated to consent and there are other victims who can confirm this.

And people still won’t fucking believe him.

I’m so sick of the idea that drunk women are incapable of consent but it’s just fine to take advantage of drunk guys.

Fuck that.

Real life is complex.  Predators will accuse victims to cover their tracks.  My abuser did that to me.

Also Please Protect Men Who Have Been Victims of Sexual Violence By Women

It happened to someone very dear to me recently, and people are saying all sorts of horrible shit to him (and these people call themselves feminists and would never dream of saying this shit to a woman in the same situation) “Well you shouldn’t have been that drunk” “why didn’t you push her off” “why did you keep talking to her after” “why didn’t you confide in someone” (he did, the day after) and now people are accusing him of being the aggressor when the perpetrator has a pattern of taking advantage of seriously intoxicated men and it’s just really really fucked up.

Admit women are human and capable of doing the same evil shit as men please.  We’re not perfect just cause we’re oppressed.