The frenzy followed by the case of Brock Turner has slowly tapered out of the media in the last few months. Brock Turner's case started in the middle of March of 2016, over a year after he was found behind a dumpster penetrating an unconscious woman. Brock Turner was sentenced to a six month jail sentence in June of 2016. The hubbub of his case reached its maximum when his sentencing became public due to the unrighteous amount of jail time he would be serving. It took only a matter of weeks before his mugshot was absent from all social media sites just like any other pop cultural news which fades into the dead of the Facebook feed whenever it stops getting shared. Although I kept up with the case for the months leading to Turner’s sentencing, it wasn’t until his mugshot stopped disappeared when I found more concernment in the case's conclusion. Right off the bat I found his jail sentence unfair and troubling. Within a month of the sentencing, I too became a victim of sexual assault. And I was furious.
Becoming a rape victim myself in the midst of Turner’s sentence opened my eyes to a perspective most people cannot see from. I didn't think Brock Turner's actions were unsettling anymore, I thought they were traumatizing. I didn't think his sentencing was unjust, I thought it was patriarchal, ludicrous, and, for lack of a better word, idiotic. His actions and his reasoning behind them became unjustifiable to me. But above all it gave me a clearer insight to the victim’s viewpoint. I saw his victim’s stance more vividly and read her letter from a new perspective. I focused less on his actions and more on her retaliation. I did not take pity on her as I did before, I sympathized with her and looked up to her courage and strength.
It seems to me in today's society as though if the rape victim was highly intoxicated, it was her/his own fault in the eyes of the court. This is made clear in Brock Turner's victim's letter when she explains how she was inundated with questions about her alcohol consumption and her actions due to that alcohol consumption and what she was consuming the alcohol from and what kinds of alcohol she was drinking and so on and so on. It seemed to me the authorities were attempting to peg her alcohol consumption to his justifications. The truth of the matter is, drunk rape victims are rape victims. No matter what the circumstances, it is not okay for someone to undress and expose someone else and take advantage of her/him if they do not comply. In kindergarten the punishment for taking something without permission is the deepest of humiliations of a time-out. Some countries chop hands off of the criminals that steal. So why should taking the innocence of someone without authorization be taken so lightly?
I commend Brock Turner's rape victim for coming forward and fighting against her assaulter with all patriarchal odds seemingly in opposition with her. Being a victim of sexual assault is a pain incomprehensible until you yourself have gone through it. As much as any one person following the case can be against Brock Turner’s actions, they will never truly understand the torture that his victim has gone through and will go through. I do not think that a six month sentence and registering as a sex offender will ever compare to the pain, distrust, and humiliation this girl has and will endure. I do not think that it will make up for her sleepless nights or her fear of walking alone at night. It is hard to fathom the struggle she has to go through to deviate herself from that night. Brock Turner will never be able to feel the agony he put on his victim or anything near it.
It is merely impossible to sympathise with a rape victim, especially one who has to watch her assaulter “get off easy”. A six month sentence may seem unjust to some, but to a rape victim it is insulting. There is no time limit on the victim’s recovery, it is a weight that will forever be carried on a victim’s shoulders. But Brock Turner’s anguish will be over in six months time. Try justifying that to a victim of sexual assault.
