An Uncharacteristically Serious Entry

I just finished reading an article in Time magazine by terrorism expert Jessica Stern where she discusses the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex offense case, and her own sexual assault when she was a child. The one thing that ties the two stories together is the double standard that you encounter when you try to report a sex crime. 

Two years ago I was raped, while unconscious, by someone who I thought was a friend. I didn’t report this crime because A.) his parents are both police detectives with the NYPD and B.) because I blamed myself. I was drinking, and I drank far too much. Eventually I woke up and realized that no one deserves to be assaulted, and just because I was passed out drunk didn’t mean that I was asking for rape. I still battle with feelings of shame, doubt, and self hatred. 

To this day, very few people in the community where I grew up believe me. I’ve been accused of not being scarred by the event because "Well, you keep telling people about it". I’ve only told my closest friends, but still the story go around. I’ve since reevaluated who my "close friends" are. I lost the luxury of feeling home in my hometown, because I chose to speak out, even to "friends". The worst part? I suspect that even the few friends I have that I consider myself close to doubt me, or don’t see "date rape" as a serious crime. No one would associate with this monster if he had murdered me. Sometimes I wish he had. 

All of this brings me back to my childhood, when I was repeatedly sexually abused by my step-grandfather. When I finally found the strength to tell my grandmother (these people had raised me) I was told that I must be "confused" (I was 12). Eventually I recanted, after being convinced that I was mistaken. Years later his own daughter, my aunt, has come out to say that she, too, was abused. Most of my family pretends that this episode in our personal history never happened. 

I’m tired of the double standard that comes with sex crimes versus…let’s say, armed robbed. 
If someone breaks into your house, and robs you, then you have every right, according to society, to report the crime, and be outraged. Even to go public, if the case warrants, and speak your peace. When a sex crime is involved, and a woman chooses to speak out, people assume she just wants publicity (such as in the DSK case) and if she doesn’t remember all the details of her attack, then she’s straight up lying, or hiding something (as in the case with Stern). There is an epidemic of victim blaming when it comes to sex crimes, and if you try to make the point that rape is caused by rapists, and not drunk women, or short skirts , or thong underwear, then you are labeled a "man hater". 

I commend women like Jessica Stern, who risk their careers and their public personas to speak out against the double standards, and I commend the men who refuse to participate in an environment where the victim is put on trial more than the accused is. 

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