[TW for victim blaming, rape and sexual violence]
I began engaging in actions of a sexual nature at age 15 and lost my virginity when I was 16 years old to a guy I dated for a month and a half. I've had four other sexual partners since then in the span of four years, including my current boyfriend. I have had sex on the first date just about every single time. I have had sex with people with whom I did not intend to enter into a relationship. I have had a one-night stand. I am what many people would call a "slut" because of these behaviors.
Many people will probably question my decision to post my entire sexual history on the internet, but my reasons are crystal clear in my mind: it is because I want to make the point that I do not deserve to be raped and/or murdered, and neither does any other woman, regardless of her sexual behaviors (past, present and/or future), her occupation, the way she dresses, etc. It is because people have taken to throwing around the word "slut" to degrade and dehumanize women for decades now in order to make them "other than" so that when institutionalized and gendered acts of violence happen to them, such as rape, the general public can brush it aside with the simple statement that "They deserved it."
Most of the common conceptions of a slut seem to be a woman who dresses in an overtly sexual manner and/or is blatantly open about her sexuality and her sexual behaviors. There are plenty of women who do dress in a sexy manner, engage in sex frequently and are indeed blatantly open about their sexual activity. There are plenty of women who dress in a sexy manner and do not engage in gratuitous amounts of sex, but will still talk about sex with their friends. There are women who do not dress particularly sexily, but will have sex with the entire neighborhood and will broadcast it from the rooftops. There are women who dress in a sexy manner who engage in sexual activity so frequently that you'd wonder how they got anything else done during the day, but they keep it to themselves. There are so many different types of women who are a combination of all these factors, but the point is that it does not matter how you dress, how much sex you have and with whom, or how open you are about it. YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE RAPED OR KILLED BECAUSE OF IT, and you are NOT a bad person or a bad woman for being sexual!
The wonderfully patriarchal society that we live in (/sarcasm) has made it social suicide for women to be sexual in any way, shape or form. When women step one toe out of line in terms of what's acceptable sexual behavior for them (which changes on what seems like a daily basis), they're termed "sluts" and are given Other Than status. When women are raped, they are often put on trial in place of their attackers. The defense seeks to prove to the jury that the victim deserved what she got. Victim blaming is so rampant in this country that it's sickening. We are not told not to get robbed, not to get murdered, not to get run over in a hit and run accident, and yet authority figures tell us not to get raped instead of telling rapists not to rape. When those poor women's bodies were found in Long Island, victims of a serial killer, I heard so many people saying how their deaths weren't worth investigating, that the killer was doing our society a favor. Why was this? Because they were sex workers.
Anyone who believes that women are lesser than or deserve to be raped and/or killed is fucking sick, and while I'm willing to make concessions on just about everything else I believe, this is not one of them.
I'm tired of the patriarchy, too. But know that humanity as whole opted to try it out. Mama Gaia is being raped by an alien corporate system, and so are women. It helps to see the bigger picture. In Germany and other countries, prostitutes work legally in special hotels, have health care and all the rights of any employee. In earlier times the Vestal virgins were not literally virgins but reserved sex in temples for sexual healing for the good of the whole community and were honored and retired at 35 with a plot of land. But people in our time and culture are mesmorized by media and the cultural myths and standards they were brought up with and it's all fear (not love) based.
ReplyDeleteA victim needs someone to blame, but an adventurer is street smart and takes responsibility. I applaud your outspokenness and appreciate and respect women. It's not easy for men like me either, but I have to follow my truth. Also, I read your profile. It's cool. The worst sin for me is "boring" and that you are not!
[TW for patriarchy, rape apologia and victim blaming]
ReplyDeleteHello Keltickelton, and welcome! :) I forgot to mention this, and I will try to find someplace to put it, but if you are going to post a comment with any material that might trigger someone, i.e. a reference to victim blaming, please put a trigger warning [TW] beforehand. Thank you!
"I'm tired of the patriarchy, too. But know that humanity as whole opted to try it out."
I don't know that I agree with this one. First of all, history tells us that patriarchal societies used, and continue to use, force, violence and fear to perpetuate their ideals, so I can't say that I agree with the idea that we considered it as an option and decided to test it out. Of course the people who agreed with the patriarchy decided it would be a great idea, but the people who didn't probably didn't think so! I think that if we had a choice as a collective society, e.g. men and women having equal say in how our society is run, that things would be much, much different.
"A victim needs someone to blame, but an adventurer is street smart and takes responsibility."
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. One of the things that I will be posting about later is victim blaming, and this honestly sounds like it to me, unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. Victims do need someone to blame: their attackers. It's not as if rape victims are pointing fingers at arbitrary people and playing Russian Roulette with them; most rape victims know who their rapists are, and even if they don't, scientific evidence can and will prove it.
To separate victims from "adventurers" and saying that the difference is that the latter takes responsibility when the former doesn't perpetuates the idea that rape victims somehow deserve it because they weren't careful enough, they weren't modest enough, they weren't sober enough, etc. As I mentioned earlier, our society is the only society where we are told as women not to get raped instead of them telling rapists not to rape. It is not my clothing, my state of sobriety (or not), my sexual history, etc. that determines whether or not I will get raped. However, the presence of a rapist does.