Hot Topic: Rape Culture

Have you heard of Marte Deborah Dalelv? If you haven't then let me fill you in. This 24 year-old Norwegian woman was in Dubai for a business meeting where she was allegedly raped. She filed a complaint to the police and then she was sentenced to prison. You heard me. She was sentenced to prison for sex outside of marriage. Alright first of all, she wasn't a citizen of the UAE, secondly, she was raped, third, what the actual fuck. She was bailed, obviously, after a huge media frenzy over this, and the attacker was sentenced to 13 months in jail. Get this though, he was imprisoned for sex outside of wedlock, not because of rape. I didn't even know that it was illegal in the UAE to have sex outside of marriage, and I think that it's ludicrous. It's literally illegal to be raped. Think about it.

Let's get to it: 

I've heard the term 'rape culture' bouncing around Tumblr and a lot of websites lately. It means that we are living in a culture where rape is perpetuated, validated, and sometimes condoned. Like jokes, TV, movies, songs, and all that. I'm pretty sure you've heard one of your guy friends joke around about rape as if it's no big deal. And if us girls get all defensive about it, they roll their eyes and tell us to calm down. Yeah, sure, let me calm down about the fact that you just made a masochistic joke about forcing your dick in a girl. Ha. Funny. Tell me the joke again and let me LOL and LMFAO. 

What's funny is how after years of watching How I Met Your Mother, I still haven't realized that Barney Stinson, the infamous player, has actually broken laws regarding rape. In several countries (maybe not in the U.S.), to give false identity to someone in order to sleep with them is considered rape. With that in mind, Barney has slept with hundreds of women, whilst pretending to be someone else. Either an astronaut, an entrepreneur, or a time traveler. It's ridiculous to think that we all laugh at his sexcapades when in reality, he has been raping girls for the past 7 seasons.

When I was in Jakarta, I heard an extremely disturbing PSA on the local radio. Two men on a bus were whispering to each other about a hot girl with the short skirt across from them. They continued to plan on sexually harassing her and possibly raping her. The PSA ended with a woman saying, "girls, please think about what you wear in public so you won't tempt others." I'm not even kidding. I was appalled to hear my own country's backwards take on this issue. But it's sad to say that this kind of thinking is instilled in a lot of people; boys and girls.

The fact that in court, people still need to ask the question, "so what was the victim wearing?" is just exasperating, and I long for the day when that question is not asked nor thought of. Why does that even matter? If she was wearing lingerie on the street it still wouldn't justify the rape, now would it? If she was walking buck naked in the middle of the night, it still wouldn't justify it. "Oh but she's totally asking for it!" some misogynistic asshole screams from behind his monitor. Nobody asks to be violated, physically abused, or sexually harassed. There is literally zero reason for you to forcibly stick your dick inside another woman's vagina, or another man's asshole, for that matter. Zero. If she says no, you stop. If she's too drunk, you stop. If she's under 18, you stop faster. If you need to get laid, go find an escort or a hooker that willingly opens her legs for your blue balls. If you feel a sense of schadenfreude when raping, then visit a shrink or chain yourself to a tree, ya sick bastard.

I'm tired of hearing the words, "be careful," whenever I go home late. How my older male cousin has to walk me home at night after an afternoon at his apartment. How I have to avert my eyes from male strangers. How my number one concern when traveling abroad is related to being sexually harassed. How my parents would warn me about the length of my dress. I hate being careful all the time. What does that even mean? How do I become careless? Does my carelessness mean I deserve to be assaulted? 

We've been given tips and tricks on how to avoid assault, and if we haven't been taught, we figure it out ourselves after countless unimaginable scenarios. Walking home in the middle of the night? Call a friend. Jingle your home keys so the attacker will think you're close to home. Carry a rape whistle. Carry pepper spray. Don't talk to anyone. There are even videos on YouTube on how to escape the grasp of an attacker. Nearly every girl will have had the displeasure of being sexually harassed at one point in their lives. If you haven't, then congratulations. Count yourself lucky. And those who say, "why not educate guys not to rape?" Yeah that isn't going too well now is it, ya disgusting optimist.

Some rapists don't even know they're rapists. They can be your loving boyfriend or your lovely husband. We've been conditioned to think that it's always the girl's fault, and that the men can't help it. You shouldn't have tempted him. Shouldn't have drank that much. You shouldn't have been so weak. At the end of the day, victims tend to blame themselves. "I shouldn't have said that," or "I shouldn't have walked there alone," or "I shouldn't have worn that dress." No. Giving someone a loaded gun does not give him the right to shoot you.

It seems redundant for me to be making a post about rape. Everyone knows it's bad, so why write about the obvious? Well, I just want to. It obviously hasn't come across to some men. There's even a club in Japan where guys rape girls. I'm completely serious. They'll rape one girl (at the same time, or one after the other) and take pictures or videos to make sure she keeps her mouth shut. There's a documentary about this. They're very proud of their work. If you think that's sick, go and check out the plethora of rape porn on the internet.

The harsh truth is that nothing is going to change, well, not any time soon anyway. It's awesome to see that this issue has been taken out of the brown paper bag; women and even men are finally speaking up. But rape has occurred since Biblical times, and no matter how persuasive articles are about rape, how often you educate men about how morally wrong it is, or how inspiring the Slutwalks are, we are never going to eradicate sexual harassment and rape altogether. All we can do is breathe, and hope that we won't become a statistic.