An Open Letter To Brock Turner As He Is Released From Prison

Dear Brock Turner,

With your recent release from prison, three months early I may add, I have a few words to say about your privileged life. I am not normally one to play on the whole "white male privilege" idea but in this case I can’t help myself.

As a college-aged woman I like to go out. I enjoy going to Main street and I even enjoy wearing revealing clothes that make me feel good about myself. When I am getting ready for the night, and planning what I am going to do and what I am going to drink, it is shitty that I have to think “Is this outfit going to get me assaulted tonight?”

When you were getting ready for your big night out did you have to think about that? Did you have to watch how much you drank that night so you wouldn’t get raped? Did you have to wake up naked behind a dumpster? I didn’t think so. Women are worried about situations that they should never encounter because of privileged pieces of crap like you roam this world and think they are entitled to do whatever the hell you want. Let’s get one thing straight—just because she was clothes that made her feel hot that night or because she was intoxicated does not mean you can rape her behind a dumpster.

What really gets me is that you were sentenced to six months in prison...six months. The woman you raped has to live with what you did to her for her entire life. You were supposed to live with it for six months. What blows my mind is that you were released early. You physically and emotionally damaged a woman and all you have to pay is three months of your life. Three months where you couldn’t “eat a ribeye steak for only 20 minutes of action.” How does three months even begin to compare of a lifetime of torment?

Well, Brock, your “20 minutes of action” forever changed a woman’s life and it has forever changed rape culture. Because of people like you, entitled white-men who receive lousy sentences for crimes that should be taken more seriously, victims stay silent.

Your name was all over the news “Brock Turner: Stanford swimmer.” It was everywhere, and that is the problem. You are a rapist; you should not still be introduced as an all-American swimmer. You should not have been given only six months and then released after serving half that time because you are a rapist who ruined a woman’s life. You are the reason that victims stay silent because when you were released early and when the media neglected to identify you by your true title, “rapist,” you made it evident that society doesn’t take rape seriously.

You made it evident to women everywhere that if they speak out it will mean nothing because their rapist will be treated better than them. They will instead be ridiculed for speaking out and they will have to endure more hardship because of it. Rape-culture is so messed up and you have proved it.

This was your fault. An innocent woman was just looking to have a good night and you violated her. You screwed with her mind and her body forever; you treated her like she was no more than an object. And you are not the only one.

You make women scared to speak out when they have been assaulted and I hope that haunts you every day of your life. I hope that the thought of what you have done wipes that disgusting smirk off your face and that you realize the irreversible damage you have done.

When I was assaulted I kept quiet because of people like you, Brock. People like you who don’t understand the severity of their actions and who are entitled, privileged pieces of shit. So what I really hope is that more victims speak out against their oppressors and come together to fix rape-culture.

Sincerely,

Victims everywhere