rape and blame (again. and again. and again.)

trigger warning: rape

Must we go over this again? Must we? Dear humanity, you fucking suck. No love, me.

Let's break it down, as it were.

"A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened"

I just ... what? WHAT? WHAT THE EVERLOVINGFUCK?

Let me tell you something. It is NEVER a woman's fault when someone else lays claim to her body. EVER. Does not matter how drunk she is, what she was wearing, what she said two hours ago. NO IS NO. Period. No-one has the right to her body, and we shouldn't be okay with the fact that we live in a society that clearly seems to perpetuate this idea that there are times when a woman doesn't have a right to her own body, that victim blaming is okay, that women are somehow 'at fault' for their rapes.

I'm too tired, and too angry, and too sick of dealing with this to offer up my rapes again. I can't emotionally do it again, break them down, spit out all the pieces for the world to see. I just can't do it. But I've struggled over and over again with the idea that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't deserve it, and that no-one but me has the right to my body and what happens to it. This? This makes it harder. A majority of women in the UK, according to that survey, would blame me, in some part, for what happened.

I'm not going to sit here and defend those nights and my choices in them. Because you know what? IT WASN'T MY FAULT, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. I didn't consent and there is where it all ends. I didn't consent, game over. Period. End of conversation. There's no bloody fucking need to dig down and analyse what I was wearing, or what I said, or how I fucking existed inside of a space at any given time. Because to do that is to suggest that there exist circumstances in which I forfeit my body. And I refuse to accept that. Absolutely refuse to accept that. No matter what, I still retain the rights to my body.

There is no 'responsibility' to be had on me. Let's do this society, and a future society all a favour and start placing the blame SOLELY where it belongs. And that's on the men who did this to me, the men who do this, the perpetrators, and not the women. Not the ones who have had something stolen from them, but the stealers. I won't get into what was taken. I won't get into the devastation of my soul, the way I don't get to be made whole again. I won't, because I've done that, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of defending myself. I'm sick of the fact that it's with people that I love, and yes, some of them are women. I'm sick of constantly living in a world where it is my fault. BECAUSE IT'S NOT AND IT NEVER WAS! [Maybe if I scream it loud enough, people will wake the fuck up.]

I'm sick and sick and sick and sick. And the saddest part? I don't know how to change a thing. I don't know how to make the world see that someone who doesn't consent isn't at fault. I don't know how to end the cycle of victim blaming. I don't know how to stop men and women from perpetuating that how a woman dresses or acts is groundwork for what might happen to her. I'm sick of thanking men for acting like decent human beings, because to do so is to increase their power over me. I'm sick of how defining this is, of how it doesn't go away. I'm sick of all the little times I feel guilted into thinking something must have been my fault. I'm sick of screaming IT'S NOT MY FAULT, because that should be a given.

I don't even know what to say anymore, I don't know how to start. I don't know how to say Lara took Timothy's 'side' and my mother just blamed me without seeing red and wanting to punch walls and throw up. I don't know how to tell of how many people yelled at me after the rape at 18 to go to the police. And the number who blamed me, somehow, for being a scared 18 year old, who didn't go to the police, who kept it hidden for two years. I don't know how to fully understand the fact that there is no justice for that. Because there wasn't, and even with Timothy there wasn't justice, not really.

And every day that a woman thinks that I need to bear some responsibility for what happened is a day that justice continues to cease to exist. It's so terribly unfair, over and over and over again.

crossposted in as many places as I fucking feel like putting it