Rape Culture: When Do We Let Bygones Be Bygones?

Yesterday I asked when we can talk about reputation following a tragedy. The answer was, per Sam Klein, "At least wait till the families have been informed." Today I want to talk about grace and letting go — and how damn hard it is to do so. WARNING: Controversial content.

The flip side

Rape Culture isn't just about enabling abusers and silencing victims. The other vultures pecking at the corpse are "woke" and wearing safety pins, frantically signalling their victim-supporting virtue — and woe betide anyone who doesn't join in. Imagine you're grieving the death of a loved one and they've done something awful back in the day. Before the body has been recovered, people with no connection to that event are holding forth about how horrible it must have been for the victim; stop deifying the bad guy now. But this "bad guy" was someone you cared about and was, at the very least, part of your mental furniture. And you're seeing something you believed was consigned to the past plastered all over social media.

Rape Culture is a pathogen that harms and corrupts everything around it, and ultimately the blame for all of this is solely on the abuser. That said, can we move on from this or are we stuck with it forever?

Social pressures or amazing grace?

So yesterday as I was going through Twitter I saw a post by a woman who tweeted, "I was sixteen when I was raped. When he died I felt sorry for his family." Assume she's telling the truth: the comments that followed! Basically, she was patted on the head for being a Good Girl and not saying anything bad about her rapist. Isn't that what they want? Silence? To keep their good name? Whether she intended this or not, the tweet came across as virtue signalling to tell other women and girls to shut up. It really creeped me out.

What makes rape and sexual abuse unique as crimes

The impact of sexual abuse is manifold and can take a lifetime to process because it affects you in ways you can't express in words. This is because it's the only crime that has "contributory conduct" affixed to it; if someone beats you with a baseball bat, at no point does anyone ask what you were wearing, question you about other bruises, gather information about other times you sustained an injury (and speculate about it in the media), or effectively say you were asking for it. Ditto burglary or mugging. Victim-shaming is part and parcel of rape and sexual abuse and rape culture aims to lock it down.

The point of victim-shaming is to force the victim to accept their abuse without complaint and never speak of it. The cumulative affect of being abused, then denied justice, then silenced and made to feel guilty for another person's choices and actions is to completely warp your perspective on everything. While there is indeed life after rape you're never quite the same afterwards; the loss of agency and sense of personal value — where you fit in to our society — can result in self-destructive or controlling behaviours (sometimes both) as you strive to get them back. You're never the same afterwards. Media speculation and exposure amplifies this a thousandfold. You just want to crawl beneath a rock and hide until it's died down. So, bearing all of this in mind, how the hell do you recover and move on — and what about the bad guy?

Healing hurts

When I broke my ankle back in the day, I heard a crack and felt a sharp, sickening pain jolt up my leg. I lay down, unable to move much, then was taken to hospital. Once there, they treated me and put me in a plaster cast. I spent about six weeks on crutches and needed physiotherapy to get me back on my feet and walking again. I wear sensible flat shoes these days.

The aftermath

Rape and sexual abuse leave mental injuries as well as physical ones (as well as the bruising, etc., you worry about being pregnant and have that to deal with), and in the same way, survivors need to heal before they can move on and make decisions about their future in a beneficial way. What actually happens is if they decide to bring a complaint they get put through the mill and healing is delayed if not denied. If they decide to stay quiet, they internalise the pain as there's no resolution. In such a case, they can only try to move on as best they can and take each day as it comes. In each case you can try to act like nothing happened knowing that it absolutely did. Reporting it is fraught with concerns about being believed and getting justice — and being torn apart in court by the abuser's counsel if he won't admit to what he did. This is why most victims don't report rape or sexual abuse. So, after the shock, the suffering, and the crossroads, what then?

Healing is a process

The most personally devastating thing I've had to deal with is emotional and psychological abuse (my #MeToo stories are mostly about creepy men being creepy or copping a feel). This was meted out by someone close to me, who also isolated me by turning my friends against me. I crawled to Manchester with my reputation in tatters and had to rebuild my life. This is how I did it.

• I got out of Dodge. If you can't put distance between yourself and your abuser, the abuse will continue and the effects thereof compounded. You need to retreat to a safe place and process what happened, then make a choice to forgive and move on. It's the only way to truly heal.


• I had to admit, express, and work through my feelings of helpless rage, copnfusion, and betrayal. Since there was no one to talk to, I had to write it down. If you can't admit you flat out hate the person who did this to you, it's impossible to fully move to the next step; forgiveness is a process that begins with honesty with yourself about where you're at now. You know those stories about people forgiving at once without going through the process? I think they're in denial and one day it'll all come tumbling out. It may be a control thing where they're trying to impose some order on proceedings, I understand that. It just seems inauthentic to me, but I could be wrong. It's not my experience.


• Once I was able to say I hated the abuser — which we're taught not to do as this is Mean and Nice Christians don't hate — I was able to talk and write about why and what it was that I hated. The enablers hove into my mental view; they didn't just allow it, they joined in. I worked through my feelings towards them.


• I took a sober look at my own role in the proceedings; I was too accepting of the situation (and the abusers' behaviour and attitude) and had denied what was going on until it reached a point wherein I could deny it no more. Predators and abusers take advantage of our social conditioning; awareness of this fact gives us the tools we need to protect ourselves and to see patterns of behaviour and attitudes that can warn us of trouble ahead. This restores the agency we lost during the abuse and gives us hope that we can avoid a repeat — but we need to learn the lesson.


• Once I'd admitted I allowed myself to be victimised becase I wanted to be nice and seen as a good person I was able to look at the behaviour and attitude of my abuser. This took years because I saw an evil monster who preyed on me and got others to join in, then I went through the same thing again. I had layers of humiliation, rage, and confusion to work through. I understood I had finally forgiven when I waked into a shop one day and saw an outfit I thought would suit that person. I was able to see that person as human. It's easy to do this intellectually but since I'd had a hard time being emotionally honest it was a while before my feelings caught up. This is the impact of being silenced; you push everything down until it's all hardened and concentrated. Reinflating takes a long time.

Now that you've restored your sense of agency, taken the sting out of your pain, and seen the abuser as human (however messed up), you're ready to forgive. Forgiving is like when someone owes you money and you stop trying to get it back. Let it go. Stop chasing the abuser for signs of regret or remorse and don't try to influence them. If you're waiting until justice is done you'll be waiting forever. Drop the debt now. Forgiveness means you don't get repaid and you're okay with that. It doesn't mean you can't seek justice but it does mean you can move on if you don't get it.

I know it's hard, believe me, but it can be done. And every time someone reminds you of the abuse you're going to have to forgive the abuser over and over and over again until you've finally stopped mentally and emotionally chasing the debt.

Moving on

I resolved that, going forward, I would cut toxic people out of my life. Unfortunately my need for acceptance led me to make the exact same mistake again and I suffered a re-run of the kind of abuse I'd been through before, this time online as a member of a fandom community. My insistence on remaining, resisting, and chasing the debt resulted in a buttload of aggro and nothing to show for it. For the love of God, learn the lesson and put it into practice or you're at risk of being stuck in Abusive Groundhog Day until you do — as I was.

Social self defence

Years of social conditioning teach us to present ourselves as friendly and wanting to help. Predators and abusers take advantage of this so I've learned to resist it. This is what I do:

• I have a strict "No" policy. I block and mute online with gleeful abandon (my need for acceptance made me reluctant to do so before). In the same way, if someone acts in an over-familiar way with you, don't allow yourself to be alone with that person if you can help it. Don't go anywhere with them if they ask you to. If they're not listening to "No," move away or get someone else to come along. Enforce "No."


• If they won't accept "No" when you don't want to kiss or whatever, they won't accept "No" when they want to go further. Don't confuse a guy who thinks you're up for it: say no firmly and clearly and step away to show you mean it. If he reaches for you, push him away. If he pouts he can do without. You don't owe him anything so don't feel bad about it. If he feels bad, too bad. Enforce "No." I'm flippin' married and I enforce "No." Result: a healthy relationship because he knows where the line is — and not to cross it.


• Be firm about what you will or won't accept and enforce it with follow-up actions such as turning or stepping away and putting your hands out. If you're alone with a potential abuser make it clear that you are likely to report misconduct. I do that by speaking firmly and looking them in the eye. Body language must indicate confidence, not acquiescence. Better to be suspicious and protect yourself than to go along with it and end up getting hurt. If people call you a bitch or whatever for standing up for yourself, they're not your friends. Your body, your choice. Enforce "No."


• Separate yourself from people who don't stand with you when enforcing "No." Do not remain in a toxic environment, get out of there as quickly as you can. "No" sounds inauthentic when it's not accompanied by action.


• Find allies and keep them close. Stand with them when they're enforcing "No."

Rehabilitating reputations

When Michael Jackson died there was a big showy funeral with weeks of public mourning. I expect the same for Bryant, complete with celebrity honour guard. It's unlikely to be any different for Roman Polanski. So then, a public figure has done something awful and whether he's* been punished for it or not, and whether he's alive or not, at what point do we let go of what he's done, drop the debt, and readmit him into society?

There are three schools of thought on this, and it applies to everyone from concentration camp personnel to child abusers to sex pests:

1. It was a long time ago, let's move on
2. The horse is dead, you can stop flogging it now
3. Persecute him with fire and fury to the ends of the earth, forever

Okay, let's dig in.

1. It was a long time ago, let's move on

This is the argument Polanski supporters rely on. It also applies to concentration camp guards and evil people of every stripe, as if there's a social statute of limitations on crime. It demands that victims shut up and suck it up because the abuser's age and current vulnerability elicits sympathy. People don't want to be mean to the elderly, so it's a contest to see who can gain the most sympathy and the most vulnerable looking person wins.

2. The horse is dead, you can stop flogging it now

People with no personal stake in a particular situation don't want to be mired it it forever and they don't want it in their news feed, particularly if there is no resolution that clearly puts a beginning, middle, and end to the narrative. This is the cruellest "Roll 'em up!" because it puts a time limit on discussion and doesn't allow all the facts to come to light. Where the situation is stuck recycling, it's because of the lack of resolution. Sometimes it's about attention seeking but mostly it's about the lack of resolution.

3. Persecute him with fire and fury to the ends of the earth, forever

The trouble with this is that people without a stake in the proceedings will isolate people who do until we arrive at one of the other schools of thought. Sometimes the long struggle for justice does work out and the bad guy goes to jail or is ostracised but that's all down to popularity. For every twenty Jeffrey Joneses who can't get arrested anymore there's a Polanski receiving awards from the hand of Harrison Ford. To get to justice, you have to wait for their fall from grace and that will only occur when they lose allies and their friends turn against them. Meanwhile, the justice seeker gets put through the media mill and I wouldn't wish that horror show on anyone.

Dropping the debt

So then, if someone does something awful and is popular, at what point do those of us who care about the victims let it go?

Well first we must consider why it's important to us to influence the narrative against a particular individual. What is your skin in the game? Where people who have suffered at the hands of others, or who know people who have, it's about them, not the actual victim. Be honest about this; Polanski's victim has let it go and hates having the story dredged up and chewed over again and again. It's why she won't pursue it. He's popular and his supporters have rejected any idea that she has a claim against him. It's not worth the aggro.

• Isn't it selfish to chase the debt (ostensibly on her behalf) if she doesn't want it chased?

Secondly, we need to inject some grace into the proceedings. Sometimes the people who do the awful thing experience remorse and regret. Kobe Bryant made a public statement apologising to his victim (without actually confessing his crime against her) for mistreating her.

• If they apologise and show remorse, should we not accept it?

The passage of time allows healing and lessons to be learned. If the abusive behaviour has ceased and the abuser has changed his ways, is it reasonable or fair to keep on bringing up something he has left behind, particularly when he is no longer a threat? Kobe Bryant was apparently a kind and loving husband and father.

• Should we not remember the good things about abusers who have passed, along with the bad?

• Should we even remember the bad if they have apologised and shown some remorse for it?

Let's get it said: it's horrible to be pursued with fire and fury for the rest of your life for something you did a long time ago and quit doing.

• Okay, how reasonable is it to let a life-altering act of cruelty and abuse slide because the abuser said sorry and changed his ways?

• Should a man who has abused be "radioactive" forever or can we, as a society, forgive him  without dismissing or minimising the harm he has done if he's not doing harm any more?

Conclusion

We have to balance the needs of survivors of abuse with the needs of our society and of the abusers' need for rehabilitation and for all of us to move on, but it's hard. A world without grace and forgiveness is a world without redemption that locks in bad behaviours and attitudes since offenders have nothing more to lose when they've already lost everything. Is this a world we want? Or can we find a way to enable both victims and abusers to move forward with their lives without compromising the dignity and rights of either? I'd like to think we can. I'll let Mr. Klein have the last word.

Not what I’m arguing. The man died in a tragic accident. We should tell hai entire story but not in the immediate aftermath of his death, you should let his family grieve and mourn first. The allegation is oft of his story, but the other part is his strive to be better than that.

— Sam Klein (@sammyclaws12) January 28, 2020

*Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it's a man. I know women behave badly.