On being "lucky" to make it home safely
**TW - this post talks about sexual assault and victim blaming
“Our bodies are our own to share or not to share with others as and when we please, there’s no grey area surrounding this. It is our choice, always. ”
I have struggled to write this out of fear of repetition. But then realised, it is repetition that is necessary for this topic of conversation. However, repetition bears the risk of desensitisation, rendering deeply sad and unforgiving stories somewhat monotonous and disgustingly ordinary. In order to avoid this, we must seek out personal stories whilst also taking in generalised statistics to understand the scale of this inhumane and immoral social flaw. Listening to real people’s stories accentuates the depth of pain caused by the perpetrators. The topic of conversation is sexual assault in all its grotesque forms, it is also the psychological abuse and manipulation that results in claimed “consented” sexual activity.
I recently had a terrible experience (admittedly self-inflicted) on a night out resulting in me losing control and relying on the help of complete strangers to get me home safely. And to these girls, I am beyond grateful. I woke up the next morning completely fine, despite the inevitable headache. Yet, all I kept thinking was how lucky I was that nothing happened to me. This was the same thing said to me by those I told about the night before and the same thing said by the girls who helped me get home. And by lucky nothing happened to me, we all meant lucky I wasn’t raped, lucky I wasn’t taken advantage of by some “creepy guy”, lucky I didn’t wake up in an unknown place after being taken home by said “creepy guy”. Despite my irresponsibility that night, the fact that I live in a world that I consider myself lucky to not have been sexually assaulted is hugely disturbing. Does that mean that by normal standards something should have happened to me that night? Are the odds really that high? The answer is yes. One in six women will be raped over the course of their lives, most likely to happen between the ages of 18-25. Even more women will be subject to sexual assault and I’ll got out on a limb and say almost every single woman will swat away undesired sexual comments by men.
“And by lucky nothing happened to me, we all meant lucky I wasn’t raped, lucky I wasn’t taken advantage of by some “creepy guy”, lucky I didn’t wake up in an unknown place after being taken home by said “creepy guy”. ”
If something were to have happened to me that night, I would never have been able to forgive myself. I’m certain I would have placed sole blame on my own irresponsible actions. This terrifies me in ways that I cannot even describe. That would have been the case until I read Not That Bad, a collection of personal encounters with sexual assault from various writers curated by Roxanne Gay. A difficult, upsetting read with powerful messages from these strong survivors intertwined with their own painful stories. One of the most profound messages being, despite how drunk you are, despite what you are wearing, despite any external factor whatsoever, no human being deserves to be taken advantage of. Under no circumstances should someone’s body or mind for that matter belong to someone else. In this seemingly modern and liberal society we have had the underwear of a rape victim being used as sufficient evidence for her rape case, claiming that SHE was giving the wrong idea to the man that assaulted her. This happened. This is real.
Despite the large number of men who have lived through this nightmare first-hand, this issue affects women on a far greater scale and has become intrinsically linked with what it’s like to be a woman. It has become commonplace for females to be subject to this kind of behaviour by men. We are taken advantage of physically because that is the only biological advantage men have over women. They use their greater strength to instil fear within us, as we all know and what is repeated often in Not that Bad, is that it is better to be raped than to be killed.
The #MeToo movement has led to huge progress being made, as more and more celebrities are using their social platforms to spur change. But the problem still continues everywhere every single day. It is not until we raise an entire generation of boys to respect women and the importance of enthusiastic consent, and girls to tolerate nothing but this utmost respect and to understand that love is not supposed to hurt, that we will be able to wake up from this nightmare and restore our basic human rights. Our bodies are our own to share or not to share with others as and when we please, there’s no grey area surrounding this.
It is our choice, always.