Ever since Todd Akin, Rush Limbaugh and a slew of other not so intelligent conservative old men opened their mouths to define rape, rape has been a hot discussion topic. You might think this is a bad thing, but actually it's a good thing. This means that maybe people will stop assuming they have a right to another persons body. Maybe if we talk about it enough boys will grow up understanding the difference between respect and rape.
The funny thing is, we still have, in this society, a culture of victim blaming. I see more re-posts of how women should prevent rape that I ever wished existed. Women should carry weapons or mase, they should dress like nuns and have short hair. Women shouldn't walk alone at night, they shouldn't park in parking structures, they shouldn't lead promiscuos lives. Women should refrain from things like one night stands, because it gives men the wrong impression and they might get raped. Women shouldn't go to frat parties, they shouldn't get drunk around men they don't trust. I could go on forever listing the ways women are supposed to cease enjoying their lives in order to prevent idiotic men and immature boys from raping them.
But why? Why do women have to be in charge of making sure they don't get raped? Shouldn't the rapist be in charge of NOT RAPING PEOPLE! I mean seriously, why are we not raising boys to be less ridiculous?
Just recently Jenna Marbles, a youtube famous vlogger, made a video of things she doesn't understand about women "sluts edition". This video talked about a lot of things, but skirted pretty close to the edge of victim blaming. Victim blaming, meaning that women who get too drunk, make bad choices, sleep around too much, or dress "slutty" in some way deserve the assault of the man who found her black out drunk when she couldn't make decisions.
A number of other less famous vloggers then made response videos about the slippery slope to victim blaming. This one is my favorite:
She does a really good job of articulating the problem with labeling date rape as a "bad decision". She makes the important and too often ignored point that being raped is not the result a bad decision on the part of the victim, but the result of a horrendous violating attack on the part of the rapist. Watching the video will do more justice than my description, so watch it and then continue reading.
The thing that really killed me was the comments section of this video. Of course there were plenty of people saying how proud they were and how much they like when this vlogger had to say. But naturally there were jerks also. Jerks that made comments like "How drunk does someone have to be for it to be considered rape?" and "people shouldn't intervene if they think they see someone being taken advantage of." Is that a joke? I can only assume those comments came from the same sort of jerks that edited this wonderful point made my this women into this totally rape-y version.
That is the original photo. This wonderful and amazing women took this photo of herself to make the point that no matter how a woman is dressed, she isn't there for you to have sex with. Some completely horrible people edited to this:
Seriously? They "fixed" it by erasing the words "still not" so that she is now asking for it. This is how much power people think they have over other people's bodies. A quick photoshop job and now they can have sex with that woman. These are the people you think don't really exist. These are the people that you get sick of "feminists" hating. This is pretty symbolic of the way women are treated by rapist types. And this is NOT ok. Ok, so whatever these are just stupid uneducated horrible men. Fine, then I'm going to educate everyone. I made this handy dandy flow chart to help you understand when it is ok to have sex with someone. I know it is small, I made it in a word proccesor and kind of quick but I tried to make it large enough to see. If your computer has a zoom feature use that.
Should I have sex with this person I think is cute?
So you see, most roads lead to no. This doesn't imply that women can't have sex all the time all day, but they have to say yes all the time all day. My point is that we need to get away from "no means no". That's insane. Instead, wait for a yes. It also answers the question that never needed to be asked about how drunk someone has to be for it to be rape. Doesn't matter, they can have had 1 beer or 20 shots. If they are too drunk, tired, unconscious, distracted, or whatever, to definitively say yes, then you can't have sex with them.
Let's think about it another way. You know how in football if the ruling on the field is not a touchdown, the only way to overturn it is with IRREFUTABLE video evidence? Meaning it was NOT a touchdown unless it can be irrefutably proven to have broken the plane. Think about sex like that, unless there is NO QUESTION in your mind at all, unless there is IRREFUTABLE evidence that the person said yes they want to have sex with you then you should NOT have sex with them.
Still not understanding? Ok, well how about this: if someone was about to do what you are about to do to your sister, mother, daughter, or best friend would you beat the crap out of them? If the answer is yes, then you probably shouldn't. (disclaimer: this doesn't include that fact that dads would probably like to beat up the people taking their daughters on dates and holding their hand).
Until we change this culture around rape, and until we make preventing rape the job of the rapist and not the victim, we are going to make women feel like bad things that happen to them are their fault. If women sleep around as much as men that DOES NOT mean they deserve to get raped. Even if you think their life is terrible, they do not deserve to get raped. Even if you think they are unworthy of respect, they do not deserve to get raped. When Daniel Tosh said that the audience member who heckled him deserved "to be gang raped by five guys" what he was doing was perpetuating the idea that bad women deserve bad things.
I will leave you with this: even if a woman makes the worst decisions ever, every single day of her life and dresses like a prostitute and walks along the streets at 2am without any weapons...she still DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE RAPED. Teach this to your children, that the rapist is the only one responsible for preventing rape.
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