The truly disgusting thing about pro bono work is that nobody pays for it. Greed is good, dontcha know?

These are the people who can tell you with a straight face that the best way to deal with orphans is to auction them. The highest bidder, after all, is the party who values them most.

There are definitely not enough lawyers doing pro-bono work. I know this for a fact.

Citizens are entitled to trial by a jury of their peers. The original point of this was that the jurors would be more able to understand the circumstances of the defendant (or parties to a civil suit) than the judge. Specialist juries were formed for specific trials (e.g. a jury of merchants, a jury of neighbors, a jury of women).

Well, perhaps officials who are accused of misdeeds are also entitled to a hearing before an adjudicator who is his peer, and for the same reasons?

Of course, our modern practice of selecting juries is 180 degrees away from this — rather than selecting juries of people who know the accused, or are familiar with the factual matters at issue, we systematically eliminate such people from juries!

Make with split red lentils: definitely good.
With diced tomatos instead of paste: not as good.
Skip the jalapeño: acceptable
Blenderize some cilantro into a paste and toss it in towards the end: definitely good.

Risk mitigation is still important, but it is a preventative measure, not something you bring up when someone is trying to recover afterwards. Still, it is my fond hope that people will make themselves more aware of risks, and at the same time, refuse to allow fear to keep them doing what they ought to be able to do. A world full of people who trust nobody and do nothing is no solution and liable to only compound matters in the long run.

You are absolutely right in saying that no victim needs to be reminded to blame him- or herself. It is the first, and most insidious, and longest lasting of any victim’s reaction to rape. I thought the CUPD and TC DA’s office handled it well in my case — the defense counsel was not so kind in his insinuations — when they began to question me about what I was wearing or if I’d been drinking, or what I tend to wear, or how many people I tend to sleep with. They framed it as a set of questions they had to ask because the defense was bound to bring it up (which was true) and because as wrongheaded and bizarre as such questions were, they are the kind of things that influence jurors in a country where blaming the victim is part and parcel of how people explain away terrifying statistics about the prevalence of rape. A desire to avoid feelings of guilt is certainly part of the mentality behind victim blaming, but so is a desire to maintain the illusion of safety.

I was (lucky enough to be?) a hard victim to blame. I was in my house. I was sober. I did not let the defendant in. I said no, then I screamed it, then I fought. But my illusions of safety were shattered that night.

Victim blaming is absurd not simply because it is obvious that the perpetrators of violence should be the first to be blamed for their violence (although that is only the beginning of understanding a crime, and I do hope someday our criminal justice system will try much harder to understand and help even the truly guilty– I’m a big believer in assholes– but very few people are born sociopaths or anything– and it’s important for our future to understand how assholes got that way). Still, the burden of dealing with and explaining a violent crime belongs to the perpetrator of that crime. That’s not the only reason why victim blaming is silly.

I have traveled the world and been in all kinds of crazy situations for someone so young. I’ve lived on my own many times, in dangerous neighborhoods and devastatingly poor countries. I’ve been in some tough situations, and done all kinds of incredibly stupid things, sometimes because I needed to, and sometimes just because I was (even) young(er) and really irresponsible. Especially when I was a wayward teenager, I put myself in all kinds of serious danger. When I was traveling I relied all the time on the goodwill of strangers to keep me alive. Partially through luck, and partially because the world is filled with many wonderful people, I arrived at Cornell fairly unscathed.

But when I got to CU I felt pretty safe. I was smarter, b/c I was older, and I never drank enough to lose my wits, or went anywhere with strange guys, or partied without a big group of friends, because I knew from my old school what happens to college girls who let their guards down. I was surrounded by kids with strict moms and bright futures - kids who didn’t fit my naive profile of a violent criminal. I was living in a town with a really, really low crime rate compared to what I’m used to. And one of those smart rich kids broke in to my house and attacked me, and I lived through the worst violence I ever had. I followed all the rules that victim blamers set out, and I was still violated.

It was terrible luck but I learned something from it. For the first time in my life I was playing it safe, living and acting like good little girls are supposed to act, and it was then that the worst happened. Violent people don’t care who you are, and rapists aren’t really after sex per se. Rape is often really about violence and power, not sexual desire the way most of us experience it, and anyone (men, the elderly, anyone) is a potential victim. There is nothing any victim SHOULD have done to protect him-/herself, because too often there’s nothing he or she COULD have done.

My point is this: We can keep ourselves completely cloistered, make a concerted effort to be unattractive, cover our bodies completely, refuse to meet anyone new. There will still never be a guarantee that we are safe. No study shows hotties or skimpy dressers are drastically more likely to get raped, and it’s far less likely to be a stranger that rapes us than someone we already know. The list goes on. We could waste our lives taking precautions to avoid something that, when it comes down to it, is out of our control.

I can’t think what a victim could do to make a rape his or her fault. I’m trying and trying here and I can’t think of one single thing. Sure, victims should talk and think about ways to be safer in the future, but the first way to make us safer, and the first priority in these cases, should be to make ensure that perpetrators are held responsible for what they have done.

Andy is right: Even the most well-intentioned friends and family members must be careful not to increase the already enormous psychological burden a victim carries.

Bryn is also right. We distance ourselves from victims by telling ourselves they just don’t have common sense. And it is affirming the rights of the perpetrators by saying we know better, we can tell they are sketchy, so they’re not a problem. It also assumes that most perps seem like perps– often they don’t! It’s rarely who you think it is. It’s not like people have big Rs for Rapist stamped on their foreheads! And similarly, that denial of community responsibility and that encouragement of self-blame to underreporting of rapes, and also to greater psychological isolation of the victim. In a country where 1 in 4 women will be raped no victim should feel isolated, but we do, because part of the “bootstraps” culture is that we’re supposed to just suck it up and deal with our shit, and deal with it alone.

Again, guys, thanks for writing about this! We need articulate people helping educate others about this issue. It’s very hard to talk about, and we need every voice we can find.

Solidarity,
Adrienne

PS Here’s my blog, it’s called Trouble Shared is Subversive. I’d be honored to have you as a reader, if you have the time! http://onlythingicandonow.blogspot.com/