I’m Tired Of Abuse Being Denigrated
No, alimony is not worse than rape
I’m a pretty live-and-let-live kind of person. I hold my point of view passionately, but I also understand that other people with different life experiences or ideas might hold a different one. For the most part that’s OK. When it’s not OK, is when this veers into the realm of “My wounds count, but yours don’t.” That’s not a different point of view — it’s a definite (although possibly subconscious) attempt to shut someone down by denigrating their pain.
I’ve seen a couple of glaring instances of this lately and my tolerance for it is pretty much up. A couple of days ago I got into a conversation with a guy who was essentially defending Brock Turner. “They were drunk, and he didn’t know what he was doing.” As if that were either a legal or a moral excuse. Then he went so far as to say that rape wasn’t really that big a deal. “I mean, so someone puts his dick in you for a while. It doesn’t really change anything. You know, what’s really a lot worse than that? Having to pay alimony. At least rape is over after a few minutes. Alimony is like getting raped over and over.”
Needless to say, I blocked this guy and then a friend of mine reported him for violated the Medium rules minimizing or trivializing abuse or harm. Rather than delete or amend his comment, the guy chose to leave. Boy, was I happy to hear it! Because that kind of comment, besides being absurd and tasteless, does have the effect that he, no doubt, desired — the effect of making me feel upset with the hopes that this would drive me to silence. It was intended to shut me down. It made me feel that way, but fortunately, it didn’t actually shut me down. It just made me angry and fed up!
Something like 98% of people who are raped suffers from PTSD because rape is not about body parts touching; it’s about having your autonomy and will overridden, often by force. I’m sure that being ordered by a court to pay money to your ex is an unpleasant part of a divorce, but last time I checked, exes don’t write divorce decrees — judges do.
Every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.
And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.
- 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted).
- About 3% of American men — or 1 in 33 — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.
9 out of every 10 victims of rape are female.
Every single woman I know has had some kind of experience with sexual harassment, assault or rape — most of them multiple times over. Every. Single. One! Of every age and demographic, including Trump supporters and old women. I have no more room for the men (and a few choice women) who have no empathy for this.
First of all, sexual violence of any kind is horrendous and no decent human being should make light of it — against women, men or others. Secondly, it’s not a goddam contest! Everyone has pain. It’s not necessary to denigrate someone else’s in order to feel that yours is important. Don’t tell me that rape culture isn’t a real thing. Just look at the statistics cited above, which come from the Department of Justice and the CDC. They speak for themselves. Don’t be an asshole! I mean seriously…………..
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.