It’s Time to Stop Making Excuses for Rapists
Men’s livelihoods should not be prioritized over women’s mental and physical well-being.
This week, a New Jersey appellate court overturned the 2017 decision of Judge Troiano not to send a rapist to grand jury for consideration of indictment. Troiano’s reasoning for granting leeway to the boy, who had sent videos of the act and actually used the word rape in the caption, was as follows:
[Troiano] wondered aloud if it was sexual assault, defining rape as something reserved for an attack at gunpoint by strangers. He also said the young man came from a good family, attended an excellent school, had terrific grades and was an Eagle scout. Prosecutors, the judge said, should have explained to the girl and her family that pressing charges would destroy the boy’s life. So he denied prosecutors’ motion to try the 16-year-old as an adult. “He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college,” Judge James Troiano of Superior Court said last year in a two-hour decision while sitting in Monmouth County.
Rapists families’ and the judges they face choose make excuses for rapists all the time.
Men choose to protect the lives and livelihoods of fellow men who rape over the women who have had the traumatic and life-changing experience of being assaulted.
They cite that these men are from good families, or that there are “levels of rape,” or that a rape charge or registration as a sexual offender will affect them for the rest of their lives. As if they don’t deserve to be held responsible for the bad choices they made. As if their victims won’t have to deal with the aftermath of their violent choice for the rest of their lives.
There was a warning at the beginning of Rad Fatties, the 8th episode of Dietland, so I knew at some point in the episode it would come. Somehow, the thing that burrowed deep during that scene wasn’t the rape itself. It was the complete matter-of-fact, mundane, quiet everydayness of the whole thing.
She says no. He says yes. She says no. He says yes.
It happens so fast, so easily you almost miss it.
A no ignored, a sexual assault. Over in seconds.
Afterwards, he asks her if she wants to sleep over.
He pushes her, she says no, he backs off just enough to make her feel listened to. He pushes her and I know what’s going through her head.
Is she crazy? Is this okay? Is she being stupid?
He’s telling her he likes her and the deep down longing to feel desired, worthy, even just enough is making her unsure. He’s telling her she’s stunning, and how can that not feel good?
She says no, and he’s telling her he’s sorry, but he’s not. He’s telling her it will feel good, and it does, does that mean she wants it? She wonders if she is overreacting.
But she ISN’T.
That rock inside her stomach, that floor-dropped-out nausea telling her to run, it permeates the screen and settles inside me as I watch. The look on her face as he takes what he wants… it’s not pain. It’s not fear. It’s not shock. It’s resignation. That thousand yard, half lidded stare says, for a moment I forgot, but now I remember. I am an object.
The lack of obvious struggle as he tells her he loves her fat ass is a clear indicator the light of hope that this one was different has been snuffed. The deadness in her eyes says, oh. This again. Because it happens again, and again, and again.
What is worse than fathers making excuses for their sons, schools making excuses for their star athletes, judges defending men they don’t even know brought before them in court? Women make excuses for the men who rape them.
All the time.
We talk ourselves down from self-righteous worthiness. We convince ourselves that what is happening to us isn’t that bad or that lots of people have experienced worse. We bury our real, very valid feelings under a pile of things we “should have” done to prevent someone else’s abhorrent behavior.
And why wouldn’t we? When every day, there is a new story about a rapist being let go with a lenient sentence or no sentence at all? We are constantly reminded by news stories and Facebook posts that the world we live in values men’s lives and reputations over our physical and mental well-being. So of course we make excuses.
Because the alternative is nearly unfathomable.
The alternative is that as women, we walk in a world where the monster under the bed isn’t imaginary after all, it’s your date, your boyfriend, your father, your pastor, your brother, your friend.
The alternative is that we have been conditioned to believe that we owe any man a reason why we don’t want to have sex with them. That we as women bear the responsibility for making sure that someone doesn’t accidentally ruin their entire life by raping us.
It is hard to explain the emotional labor of judging every man you meet and trying to decide how likely he is to be the one who will rape you. It happens every moment, every day. This is not hyperbole. This is just…. reality.
Jack was like a red flag factory, but he wanted me, you know? -Plum
We ignore our instincts, gut feelings cast aside by hundreds of years of programming telling us that we are meant to be grateful to be the object of a man’s desire. If you are fat, you can add the extra pressure of years of being told no one will ever want you, that the idea of someone desiring you at all is a joke.
How is it possible that we can simultaneously be so used to something that it doesn’t surprise us, yet unwilling to share what happened because speaking it aloud shrouds us in a shame so heavy it might suffocate us?
Let’s follow the example of the appellate court’s ruling from last week. Sexual assault shouldn’t be something we expect. It shouldn’t be something written off as boys will be boys, it shouldn’t be something we are resigned to.
We have been trained to put our own well being behind that of our male counterparts, and society continues to push this idea on us. It’s time to stop making excuses, and hold people accountable for their behavior. If you make the choice to assault someone, you get to face the consequences, full stop.
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