"You're not like a rape victim"

[BasilBabyEater]

That's what someone said to me years ago, when I pulled him up on some shit he was saying about rape.

I can't remember what shit he was saying exactly; it was probably some rape myth stuff and I pointed out to him that I might be a rape victim for all he knew. And he came back with that. He dismissed out of hand, even the possibility that someone like me could be a rape victim. I was obviously so far from what his idea of a rape victim was, that he could dismiss the idea that I might be one, with no hesitation.

I decided to write something about this - the public perception of a rape victim - and then realised that I didn't have the faintest idea of what it is so decided not to bother. But I wanted to pursue the question.

What is a woman who is "like a rape victim" like? What did you think she was like before you came across feminist ideas? What do you think the general public think a rape victim is like? Do they still have a fixed idea of this? Was this bloke an unusually neanderthallic specimen or was he voicing quite a common perception? Wossitallabaht? Any ideas?

What is the victim of any crime suppose to look like?

I don't usually post on this board, but, i am in my 40's, when i was growing up 'rape victims' were women that were 'moral', everyone else was 'asking for it', or being raped, for them, wasn't really a great hardship.

I meet men of my age group that still believe that and will perpetuate that myth.

BlackOutTheSun, do you think if I'd said to this guy that I had been burgled, he would have said "You don't look like a burglary victim"?

That's what I'm getting at. In order to tell me that I didn't look like one, he must have had a very strong (if subconscious and not particularly carefully examined) idea of what a rape victim was like.

Do you think people have a strong image of what burglary victims look like? Do you think they have a strong image of what rape victims look like? And if not, what was this guy on about?

That's what I'd like to discuss here.

I think that before i had a real understanding of DV, i would have made the same stupid statement about that as his 'rape' comment, tbh.

I've actually been told by a useless male 'psychologist' (I use the term loosely for the incompetent twit) that the reason I was attacked a second (and third) time was because of my appearance and demeanour. Meaning that, according to him; the way I dressed and walked told potential predators that I had been attacked before and was thus vulnerable.

I have a very unique style as like to wear designer shoes and salvos clothes I patch together. According to him by trying to be different (AKA being myself) in the way I dressed was a red flag to rapists that had suffered attacks?
Needless to say at the tender age of fourteen I sad words to him I have never since repeated.

Sorry Basil that post was erm, a bit short

What I meant to say is that you wouldn't say that to a victim of another crime, so I do think it is linked with the myths.

L&L - interesting. So a rape victim is extra vulnerable in this boy's opinion?

I was also thinkig of that appallng episode of Question Time where some of the panel went on about how we have to raise our girls to have high self-esteem so they don't get raped. It was as if they thought that having high self esteem, would stop a rapist raping a woman - so in their confused thinking, they must think that rape victims have lower self-esteem than women who are not raped.

I think people expect rape to devastate you and make you unable to function with the assumption that if you function normally then it mustn't have been rape, it couldn't have been that bad.

What a disgusting comment.

I'd look back to the attitudes towards female 'chastity' and 'honour' having to do with being a virgin (or in a monogamous marriage where you belong to your husband). In that society, a woman who is raped is supposed to be ashamed of it. I think that attitude is actually what's ultimately behind comments like this one - he thought you were too 'nice' to be a rape victim, or he thought it was somehow a compliment to say you didn't seem like one of those shamed women ... as if you would somehow be pleased to find yourself dissociated from that group.

I also really dislike the attitude some people have, when they say you don't seem like a victim (of rape or DV, and DV is the context in which I've heard it but it could underlie this comment you got about rape too): some people seem to think that they are being complimentary by saying you don't seem like a victim. As if the norm is to be weak in some way, or part of a disadvantaged class. That is really nasty because it completely ignores the fact that women are a disadvantaged class. Women are vulnerable to these things.

Basically I think these comments are so appalling because it shows that person's first thought was you, the victim, and how you measure up to his picture of victims. And the first thought shouldn't be about victims at all, it should be about the person who did it.

Oh yes definitely linked with the myths BOTS, but am trying to get a handle on what myths.

One of the patriarchy-approved rape victims who was mentioned on one of these idiotic Ched Evans' sites that I've seen, is Jill Seward, the Ealing Vicarage rape victim. She fits the profile of "good" victim - attacked in her own home by strangers, other violence inflicted, no prior contact with the attacker, giving up her anonymity, campaigning for rape victims to be treated like human beings. The idiot on this particular site contrasted her to the woman Ched Evans raped as the sort of rape victim he approves of and believes, versus whatever all the other rape victims in the world are like in his mind.

Am wondering if there is a Madonna / Whore dichotomy in rape victims.

I'm guessing with the rape myths is that Jill Seward was the 'good' girl and the Ched Evans victim, well she was drunk what did she expect sort of thing...

Makes me

I agree that a lot of people, men and women alike, have a mental image of "clear cut" rape, and that includes a victim who is distraught, beaten down, someone who can't deal with life any more. A person who is able to say "I was raped" without bursting into floods of tears is looked on as a faker I think.

BasilBabyEater

"Am wondering if there is a Madonna / Whore dichotomy in rape victims."

If I'm misunderstanding this comment, I sincerely apologise. But I completely agree. I've had too many boyfriends (and sadly, even girlfriends) who view me as this pure white vase that has been shattered and they simply MUST pick up the pieces because I am a walking tragedy..Yet somehow 'above' other women? Oh so delicate.
I've also had the exact opposite..Partners who assumed I was a whore because I was unfortunate enough to suffer extreme childhood sexual abuse followed by two attacks in my teens. For whatever reason this made me a whore.

All of those attitudes are linked to our fucked up relationship with sex I think Lurking. The idea that children should be kept "innocent" (ie ignorant) by denying them basic knowledge of sex subtly puts out the idea that a child who does know about sex, particularly through abuse, is "guilty" or "dirty." The pure white vase thing is the other side of the same coin - there is no way they could see you as a normal woman with normal sexual feelings because that would suggest that you were a sexual being and that doesn't fit with the idea of an "innocent" child who suffered abuse.

I think there's absolutely a Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

There's a description of the (literal) Madonna narrative pointing out that it is a story about a very young girl whose home is broken into and who is terrified and left pregnant. It is obviously not a parallel that stands up to pushing but it is a really powerful demonstration of how much the patriarchy's spin on events is held to matter much more than the woman's actual experience.

lurking that is awful.

What horrible men - very glad to hear these were 'partners' in the past and not now.

Yes I remember absorbing the idea when I was a teenager, that women who were raped, would never enjoy sex again.

So obviously, anyone who did ever enjoy it, hadn't really been raped.

People see sexual abuse of a child as destruction of their "innocence" and "purity." It's a horrible way to look at it because it implies that someone who has been abused is somehow permanently damaged, and set apart from their peers, by the fact they have access to knowledge that is taboo for their age group. It's one aspect of attitudes towards abuse that causes victims huge amounts of shame and forces them to be secretive about what happened.

God it does show how totally fucked up people's ideas on sex and rape are doesn't it. Sorry Lurking that you came across men like that but I wonder how unusual they are. I just wonder if these sorts of idiots are particularly stupid or actually quite bog-standard.

Bog standard in my experience Basil.

Cailin - it's so bound up in Adam and Eve and loss of innocence isn't it?

To be fair I think it's that a lot of men, and women too, have attitudes that they've never been forced to examine. Those attitudes slip out when they're talking about rape and abuse and once you challenge them on it a lot of them are really shocked at what their attitudes really mean, if that makes sense?

Please don't pity me, I'm well over the bastards! (Well..Getting there. )

To your question as to how common it is, for me it was actually incest followed by a group of my father's friends when I was a very young child. I'd rather not go further into it but sadly I think family sexual abuse is faaaaaar more common than the disastrous 'stranger danger' bull I was taught at school.

I wonder why it isn't taught in schools that girls are significantly more likely to be attacked by people they know (aka the bus driver) than the whole 'paedophile in a white van' stuff?

Because people like to pretend that sort of abuse doesn't exist Lurking.

I was abused by a two family friends BTW.