Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... Without Getting Raped

OK, so clearly I've been more active with the movie reviews, but sometimes life gets so hectic that the thought of ranting about what pisses me off just exhausts me. But I am here to continue on with another thing that makes me oh so angry.

I don't know if any of you know (or care) about this situation with Ben Roethlisberger, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but here's the gist: He was accused of rape, the girl decided not to continue pressing charges, and there's a whole bunch of dirt kicked up about the NFL sanctioning him or whatnot. Honestly, I don't know the full details of how he's being "disciplined", and I do not care. What I do care about is how people talked about what happened with this girl, and how they talked about girls and drinking, in general. Allow me to show you what has been happening...

Susan Reimer, who writes Commentary pieces for The Baltimore Sun, wrote a piece about two weeks ago called "Old rules don’t apply in Roethlisberger case". Within this piece, she shifts the blame to the victim of Roeth's (I am abbreviating his name, dammit!) attack because of her drunkenness, and proceeds to talk about how certain girls act with their rampant drinking and, perhaps, an item on their person indicating they are "DTF" (down to fuck). The fault is on THESE girls, because one can only assume that if they did not want to be raped, they wouldn't be out drinking a lot or wearing silly things that allude to them being sexually promiscuous.

Reimer ponders:

"When does it become rape? The rules have changed so fast and to such a degree that the law and the older generation are without a clue, and it has become tougher to assign blame, much less criminal charges, which in Georgia come with a minimum 25 years in prison.

Remember when "No" meant "No," even if she had said "Yes" 10 times before or 10 minutes before? That doesn't work if both parties are so drunk they might not be able to identify each other the next day, let alone remember whether permission was granted the night before."

Allow me to clarify, Ms. Reimer: rape is when the victim says no, or is unable to consent. Yes, that includes being too drunk to consent. If someone spiked her drink and she got so wasted that she couldn't say no, would that not be considered rape? Does it matter if she was the one who dictated how much alcohol she knowingly put into her body? No. If she was unable to give consent/said no, she was raped.

Reimer continues: "Remember when a woman's character or sexual history was not relevant? But what does a "DTF" button say?"

It says that she has class and taste issues. It doesn't say she's looking to get raped, nor does it excuse the man's behaviour in this situation.

The supposed details of the story indicate, in every way, that a rape occurred. Whether or not it did is clearly important, but it doesn't matter in this rant. The way that Ms. Reimer talked about the woman has nothing to do with her believing the girl was full of shit, and have everything to do with victim-blaming, which is revolting and, sadly, rampant in this country.

A few months ago, NPR did a horrific piece on rapes on college campuses. The rape of intoxicated women on college campuses is hardly rare, but what is surprisingly rare is how often the men accused of said rapes are held accountable for their actions. What is even more alarming is that these men are often accused numerous times--same for Roeth, by the way--by different victims, and nothing is done about it (or very little). And it seems to be because of the way our culture views women who "party".

Jaclyn Friedman, a very vocal feminist, was asked to comment on a CNN piece about living in a "dirty girl" culture. The piece describes the "scary" trend that seems to be on the rise, described as, "Young women who are rude, crude and sometimes very, very drunk. Are we living in a “dirty girl” culture?" The piece questions if the adoption of frat-boy behaviour is a form of "female empowerment", which they apparently found some 20 year-old girl to validate. But when they quoted Jaclyn, I was appalled at this supposed-feminist:

CNN anchor: "She says women having fun and making stupid mistakes is one thing, but adopting destructive, raunchy behavior is, well – scary."

Jaclyn: “When it comes to sexual assault, most rapists use alcohol to facilitate sexual assault.”

This was the first time I had ever heard of Jaclyn, and I was appalled at what she seemed to be saying. Little did I know that it was CNN framing things to better suit their story. Jaclyn wrote in to CNN to set the record straight, and I whole-heartedly agree with her.

Our culture is still trying to hold onto this idea of women as dainty and fragile. Women are not supposed to act like frat boys, and if they do, they are clearly asking for trouble. There are all sorts of things women are told throughout their lives, starting when they are pretty young, about how to 'protect' themselves from getting raped: don't go out alone, watch your drink, don't get drunk, don't wear slutty clothes, etc. These are good tips, and are certainly important for anyone's safety, not just women's. But that also puts the fault back on the victim if she does not comply.

To quote directly from Jaclyn:

"Every woman is going to sometimes choose short-term fun – even "bad" fun – over the abstract risk that someone might do something violent to us. We're all human. We'll inevitably take risks to have fun sometimes. What's not inevitable is that men will do violence to us while we're at it. If you want to keep girls safe, holding men responsible for their behavior is the place to start.

For example, did you know that, according to one study, if alcohol is involved in a sexual assault, the assailant is slightly more likely than the victim to have been drinking? And yet where are the messages telling boys not to get so drunk they can't tell if their partner is consenting?"

Why isn't it troublesome that young men are getting so trashed that they pass out or do things like force themselves on women? Why aren't people focusing on the rise of "rowdy" men who are targeting drunk women? Why are we even talking about women drinking, partying, and "being raunchy?" Are women only allowed to accuse someone of rape if they are angelic? This double-standard is ridiculous.

This relates directly back to the NPR piece. And, furthermore, Jaclyn refers to a terrifying situation that NPR has covered in other discussions about rape:

Psychologist David Lasik from the University of Massachusetts asked 2,000 men over a 20 year period questions like this: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?" He also asked: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn't want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn't cooperate?"

About 1 in 16 men answered "yes" to these or similar questions. None of these men had ever been to jail or formally accused of rape.

This is the rape culture we face these days. Women are to blame because they put themselves in danger of being attacked, but why does that absolve the men? Alcohol doesn't rape women--rapists rape women. Each person has a responsibility to their partner to make sure sex is consensual, regardless of the situation. And excusing rape when alcohol is involved is something that is so disgustingly common that rapists actually count on that reaction when they target intoxicated women. I'm not saying that women shouldn't be at all accountable when they get so trashed that they become easy targets, but that hardly makes it their fault, nor does it excuse the people who decide it's appropriate to rape them. If a woman is drunk and making bad decisions, her body is a free-for-all playground? She no longer has control over it and cannot dictate who can have sex with her? This is how we treat these sorts of rape, and it has to stop.

I hate to keep stealing from Jaclyn, but she describes rape culture so well in this blog entry:

"Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is already suggesting she may be a lying golddigger. That’s rape culture. As this woman’s case proceeds, her body, her actions, her mental state, motives and her history will be put on public trial in a way that would never happen if she were accusing someone of kidnapping or attempted murder. That’s rape culture. When women are too afraid of being re-victimized by the courts and the media to come forward, and when the public gets the message that women who accuse men of rape are lying or did something to deserve it, the cycle continues."

This needs to stop. I'm not saying that every time a woman screams "rape" that we have to assume it is true and automatically imprison the accused. But dismissing the seriousness of rape just because alcohol was involved is abhorrent. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes someone gets too drunk and passes out. It doesn't give me the right to do whatever I wish with their body. It doesn't give me the right to take advantage of them. And, if I'm drunk, and I decide to do something to that person that I wouldn't do if I were sober (and the person is either incapacitated or clearly says no), I am still responsible for my actions. Drinking so much that you do something silly or cannot keep your head up is one thing--drinking so much that you rape a person is entirely different. And failing to appropriately handle young men after they engage in that sort of activity only encourages them to continue to victimize other women using the same tactics. It's time to change the way we think about rape and start holding people accountable, drunk or not.