While some would like to deny that victim blaming exists in this society, that doesn’t stop the impact from becoming apparent. When I speak of victim blaming, I mean in cases of sexual assault and rape. There’s blatant effects it causes, such as saying someone’s clothing, past or behavior excuses or rationalizes rape as simply a consequence and not a choice. But some of the more sinister, long-term impacts are not as apparent, and can be rather counter-intuitive. One of these is the idea that rape, even just in certain circumstances, is allowable and justified.
Of course, this may seem ridiculous. Nobody sits there and considers assault or rape to be acceptable. Everybody knows it’s wrong. The people who don’t are clearly mentally ill.
Unfortunately that isn’t necessarily true. It is one of the most ugly sides of victim blaming. Even unconsciously, the act of taking some of the pressure off of the criminal and putting it onto the victim by focusing on how she/he should have done this differently, worn that instead, walked a different way home or had this new “anti-rape” invention is detrimental to how we view the act of rape itself. By implying that the victim in any way tempted or caused anyone to rape them is ignoring the fact that a rapist makes a choice. A conscious choice. It is never in any way able to be rationalized because it is utterly irrational. What the person was doing or wearing has little to do with it, mainly because sex isn’t about pleasure. It’s about power. And the rest of us can attest to the fact that it is possible to see physical features of the opposite sex and still not sexually assault them. Therefore, outfits or actions of the victim have so much less impact on the outcome than we would like to think. Our fixation on these things does not say rape is acceptable, but it doesn't send a positive message either. It perpetuates rape culture. And it leads to tangible, quantifiable effects.
I won’t say that mental illness never plays a part in the decision to violate another person, but it is much more highlighted in general discussion than is the reality. Rapists certainly aren’t psychologically healthy. Often they have several issues including narcissistic personalities, anger management problems and obsession with power, but they also aren’t often individuals who have no control over their actions. The choice is made, the act doesn’t simply happen. They are 100 percent responsible for a choice that they have made, and the victim is not.
These attitudes that focus on what the victim could have done differently instead of how we can make the streets safer for victims so that they do not feel anxious when walking anywhere alone in anything but broad daylight can seem reasonable and generally harmless. Directed out of care. Certainly, those who have these victim blaming attitudes are not responsible for the rape. They are not on the same level of the rapist. But their comments, for one, all imply the assumption that there will always be rapists and there’s nothing we can do about it. So why try? It won’t work.
This is where even subtle and seemingly harmless responses to rape cases can become problematic. If there is an inevitability of rapists, and all energy is focused on teaching girls what to do and what not to do, what to wear and what not to wear, how to regard their own sexualities and how not to regard them, that boys cannot be raped at all, then we risk giving these criminals even a little bit of social power, a tiny bit of unintended favor. If we do that, we can eventually have groups such as a recent pro-rape group trying to lobby for making rape legal when it occurs off public grounds, claiming the current laws on it oppress men. These people are not mentally incapable, since clearly they can unite together for a cause and so calmly and intelligently state their ridiculous beliefs. It garnered serious support and while they are radicals and we would like to believe them trolls as well, this group and its cause tell us a lot about the current society we live in. This society is poisonous to both women and men.
Much like Trump’s supported campaign tells us racism is still alive and well, this pro-rape group tells us that sexism and victim blaming are still alive and well. Rape culture is evident, so we’re messing up somehow. These seemingly insignificant actions and sometimes-unintended scorn by individuals have slowly warped and shifted the conversation about rape, and it’s not headed in a great direction.
The majority of people certainly look at this group and are disgusted, appalled and angered. What crazy radicals. Their cause will never go far. But the fact that this man felt comfortable enough being public about these beliefs, that people joined him and agreed with him, that events were planned to rally and that a group such as this flourished in the first place says that we can no longer pretend like everybody knows rape is wrong, nobody ever blames the victim or contributes to rape culture, or that rape culture doesn’t exist. Because whether we like it or not, the effects are staring us right in the face.
