Have you ever wondered why people are so quick to blame what the woman was doing, wearing, being when she is sexually assaulted? It is like if she breaths wrong, she was clearly asking for it. Never can the man be blamed. The word "no" can be said a million times, the guy could clearly hear it, but her low cut top was just saying "yes."

People every day receive phone calls from friends who are crying and hard to understand. Women share for the first time of their traumatic events of themselves being raped. Women, even men, call their friends or loved ones, and while they may receive support, they generally receive criticism. Women are essentially told that she was asking to be raped because of what she was wearing, or lack thereof. How as loved one or friends can we ask or say certain things to someone who was willing to trust us? Rape culture is 100 percent the fault of the rapist but the victimizing doesn't stop at the rape itself.

So why as love ones do we question the person who reported rape? Women, no matter what they wear, do not deserve to be raped or be told horrible things after. Do we not see the damage that women do to other women with rape? The person who were raped not only lose their sense of comfort but can also lose people close to them. We talk about rape culture and generally, it is about the rapist getting away but we hardly talk about the people close to that individual.

But, why does she get the blame? She did what were all told to do. If we don’t want to do something, we say "no." We were all trained to say no to things we didn't want and that "no" shouldn't change when it comes to sex. Even with the "no" people still continue to say that if you wouldn't have done this, he wouldn’t have been tempted to do that. Where is the blame on the male’s part? She said no. He didn’t care and did it anyway. He was not criticized, told that he just had worn different clothing that night, he wouldn’t have been so inclined to rape a girl. That she was secretly hoping that this would happen because she is secretly a slut. None of these things are said to those who are the rapist. This type of careless talk objectifies women. It makes the actions that men commit permanent. When we question the woman we forget to question why the man thought it was okay to rape a woman. Why do people forget to ask what the man was thinking about how the girl might feel?

The way society tells women to do dress and act suggests that unless we want to be assaulted, we might as well only wear overly baggy turtlenecks that we pull half way up over our faces, non-fitting pants, and the ugliest pair of shoes if we don’t want to get raped. Also, don’t even think about doing anything fun, because people who are having fun are begging to be assaulted. Alcohol? Just the thought is just a woman’s way of screaming that they are waiting to be taken advantage of.

There seems to be a rape culture bigger than what we see, normally, and it is not just from the men but also the close loved ones or friends. The person doing the assaulting is the only person who should be blamed for what they were doing in the events leading up to the assault. They should be the only person blamed for doing something, like well if you didn’t want to face rape charges, then you should not have gotten so drunk that you raped someone. We all should be like, “Well Peter, I feel for you, but maybe next time you’ll learn not to get black-out drunk. Then you wouldn’t be facing criminal charges. You were asking for it by raping her.” Yet that is never the case because it is always the victims fault. And then people wonder why so many assaults go unreported. Maybe this has a factor in it? Not having our friends back, but having their judgement.

Thankfully, women do make huge strides to moving past that night she has to relive all the horrible emotions all over again. Because one person that she turned to in a time of need, months later decided to stab her with her harsh, selfish, and just outright mean and horrible words that she was asking for it because of XYZ reasons.

We as people need to start backing up the victims and not questioning. The only people who should be doing the questioning is the police, doctors, and lawyers. Not allowing those horrible comments to be muttered to the victim. Sometimes the words we say can be just as bad as the actual assault itself and all we’re doing to picking the scab to a wound so that it can never truly heal.