Somewhere that was leading

[andrewducker]

There was much amusement this morning when I checked my email and discovered that some people thought that I was trying to do some kind of scientific research via an LJ poll, or thought that I was trying to make a point about how many people had been raped (which was clearly not data you could extract from the question I asked).

Um.

No.

This was all kicked off by the discussion a few days back about the feminism backlash - and specifically by the discussion of how it must be ok to just _say_ things to women - after all, it's just speech, how could it be dangerous?

To which my response was:
You wouldn't make the kind of statement in a rape survivor's group, after all. But the stats seem to show that if you're around more than 4 women then you _are_ in the middle of a rape survivor's group...
("The Stats" and much more can be found here on liberal conspiracy - a site I very much recommend. I don't intend to discuss them further, you can do your own damn reading.)

But anyway - the point is that pretty much everyone knows someone who was raped. Of the nine people currently asserting otherwise on the poll I personally know that three of them are wrong. Someone else commented saying that at least one other one was wrong. I'd like to think that there was at least one person on my friends list who didn't know any sexual assault victims, but I wouldn't care to place money on it. And this raises fear levels - because it makes it much more real than if you didn't know people who are involved. I don't know anyone who's been stabbed (at least I don't think I do), so the stuff in the papers about knife crime kinda bounces off, but sexual assault is much more personal, because it's happened to people I care about deeply.

And it's a crime more likely to be committed by a person you know. With all of the people I know, for instance, about it was friends, or friends of friends. Which leads to mistrust of _all men_. You can't tell from a distance, and so you lost trust that you can open up to anyone.

I was once hanging out with a woman at a convention - we'd met a few times before and got on well, friended each other, exchanged the odd email, etc. And this time, we arrived at the hotel with bags of chips in our hands and needed somewhere to eat them where the staff wouldn't get upset. So I suggested my room. And she gave me an odd look - and it took me a moment to realise that that look was suspicion of my motives. So I reassured her, and we got the lift up. And when we got out she thanked me for not trying to kiss her. Because a _lot_ of men she'd shared lifts with under similar circumstances with had tried something like that. She's in a relationship. She's never shown any interest in me.

And she thanked me. For not trying to kiss her. And I've never been so astounded in my life.

It's insane. It makes me weep for what many women have to go through every sodding day.

I work very hard to make sure people I know feel comfortable around me. I'm naturally huggy and touchy-feely, and it took me a long time to realise that it made some people feel uncomfortable, because I came from a background that _was_ very safe. But eventually I realised that I had to back off. So you won't see me making the first move when it comes to hugging most people, because I do _not_ want to fall into the category of "sleazy man who hugs people to get close to them." And I only have to worry about that because of complete dick's who do that.

There are, if you're lucky, two categories of men in women's head - ones that are safe to be around, and ones that aren't. And you can, if you like, be blunt about sex, and not worry about people's previous experiences, and whether they jump slightly whenever people make any connection between them and sex, and whether they know you well enough to open up to you at all. But you're very likely to be places into category B.

And no, I'm not telling you what to do, or how to speak. Just saying that the world is _not_ a Safe Space, and that we all need to be aware of the consequences of what we say and how we act around people.

Comments

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

Regarding that last point I'd like to quote a piece of writing. It's kinda about the way abuse 'victims' are treated:

"I dislike the word ‘victim.’ When you read about car accidents or plane crashes in the newspaper, the victims are always the people who died. Those who live, no matter how grievously injured, are called ‘survivors.’ That’s a much better word. I find that when you treat people like victims, they start to act like victims, but if you treat a person like a survivor then they’ll start to act like a survivor. I am a survivor and I certainly don’t feel dead! I survived my childhood. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, would you? Even after 15-20 years it’s still difficult to talk about because I find that once I tell people about it, they start to treat me differently. I can’t understand it - I’m the same person they knew before I told them! I’m expected to be fragile and depressed but that’s not how I feel. I’m generally an upbeat and happy person. Sometimes they don’t know how to act around me, afraid to say or do anything in case I take offence or get upset. Sometimes they become overbearing, telling me what I should or should not do, as if they can protect me from something that happened so far in the past. It rather angers me that people would think I am so weak as to have not come to terms with it after all this time! Usually I don’t bother telling people at all. After all, it’s not something that affects me on a day to day basis. I hardly even think about it any more and the memory has been so dulled with time that now when I think about it I feel like I’m remembering a memory rather than the actual events.

I have, however, told my partner as it is very important to be able to trust your partner. One of the fantastic things about him is that it hasn’t changed the way he treats me at all. After I’d told him, he simply asked me if it bothered me any more. When I said it didn’t, he accepted it. Now, before you jump to any silly conclusions I’d like to point out that it wasn’t my parents. It doesn’t really matter who they were and to be perfectly frank, I don’t even know all their names. Of the four, three of them were people in a position of responsibility who took advantage of their authority. It’s been too long to feel anything like anger towards them. Instead I feel a rather condescending contempt at their weakness. It is an ignoble soul who preys on those smaller and meeker than themselves. With the fourth, it may surprise you to learn, I now have an amenable acquaintanceship. He explained what was going through his mind at the time and he himself was young at the time. While I cannot condone his actions, I can at least understand his motivations. We have, as they say, made our peace. It is a cliche but I have to say that I would not undo it if I could, for it has helped shape me into the person I am today ... and I quite like the person I am today! I may be a little more cynical but I am also much stronger than before."

[chuma.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna split my response into 2 parts. This one deals with the mathmatics of the subject, which piss me off as they are misleading. The 2nd part I will make more general as a comment to Andy at the bottom of the rest.

I've been in 2 car accidents. Neither of which I would describe myself as a "survivor" of. The seriousness of each car accident has to be taken on its own merits.

Rape is a pretty clinical term. Yes you can have degrees of seriousness of it, but anything that can be termed rape is already pretty fucking serious to begin with. Sexual molestation however is not. If were talking about someone grabbing someones arse, than the poll is 100%. Period. Hell I would even say that given that definition, I've been sexually molested. Basically for this reason the poll is bad.

Further more, I answered no to the question, because he said "know of" and I'm pretty sure at least one of my friends has been raped, statistically speaking, due to the number of people I know. Let's change the question to how many people have been raped, and suddenly that 90%+ becomes 1% or 2%. This is because we know a lot of people, simple as that. I dare say if the question was how many have been assaulted the percentage would be 100%, though the actual percentage of people would be much lower.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics someone once said. How true this is.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure what your point is about the stats. I deliberately said in my post that I wasn't looking for figures on how many people had been assaulted - but on how many people knew someone who had been - to show that _that_ was pervasive. I even linked to a site with _actual_ stats on rape in that paragraph, for people that were interested in that.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

My point is that if you know a fair number of people then the chances of that small percentage being amongst them is fairly high, so the poll is always going to return very high figures. I'm sure if you pick another subject like "people who have visited australia" then the poll with again be very high, even though a small minority of us actually have. Would you then conclude that visiting Australia is prevelent?

[andrewducker]

No - I'd conclude that _awareness_ that visiting Australia was something that people did is prevalent. Which is exactly what I was doing with rape - showing that most people knew that rape was something that happened to people they knew.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

So do a great deal of other things. We discussed this briefly yesterday and I agree with some of what you have said, I just maintain that the original poll is largely meaningless.

Can I also ask what you wanted to achieve from this post? You're drawing attention to the fact that people can be sexually assaulted within our friends group, but to what ends really? I would like to think noone in my group of friends would be guilty of sexual molestation on someone else, so is there some other goal you were trying to get? Or was it just topical, in which case *shrug* It's your LJ! :)

[andrewducker]

I just maintain that the original poll is largely meaningless.
It _means_ that pretty much everyone I know knows someone that's been raped or sexually assaulted. It seems like a fairly simple and easy to understand meaning. I'm not sure why there's confusion over it.

The point of the post was:
1) Nearly everyone knows people that have been assaulted.
2) Therefore there is widespread fear of it, because it happens to people connected to us, (unlike say knife crime, which doesn't tend to).
3) Therefore you need to be careful when being loudly sexual in conversation with women, because rape/assault is something that's frequently in their consciousness.

It wasn't complicated, and all three of these points are clearly in the post. See paragraghs 4,6, 7,12 and 13.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Then I disagree with your conclusion, which you have made point 3.

There are women who I know I can make jokes and sexual references to and those I wouldn't dream of. Similarly there are people I will discuss religion with and those who would take offence. I don't really see that knowing other people have been raped comes into it, it is all about the individual person. An all encompassing statement, especially for half the population, just seems overly P.C. to me and frankly incorrect.

It stands to reason that if someone has been sexually assaulted, you tread carefully where sex is concerned as a topic. This is true of a host of other topics too be it sex, religion, death, illness, politics etc; it is simply being considerate to those who might find something upsetting or awkward. I don't believe it needs to become a general rule.

[andrewducker]

There are women who I know I can make jokes and sexual references to and those I wouldn't dream of.
Then you are following the advice in my conclusion - you're being careful.

By "being careful" I don't mean "Don't do anything at all, ever." - I mean paying attention and taking care, which is what you seem to be saying you do.

Is your tendency to start from "I can say anything" and then be more circumspect if it turns out you need to be, to be cautious and then relax when you discover they can be joked around with, or something else?

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

This is The Right Way To Do It. All of my friends know that I have been raped. All of my friends also know that I have an absolutely filthy mouth and will talk about pretty much anything! [grin] The trick is to be *careful*, not put some sort of blanket self-ban on ever saying anything remotely sexual - quite apart from anything else, the latter can get supremely irritating if one is not the sort of person who needs such behaviour around them :-)

[andrewducker]

Oh - and to quote from one of the other comments here:
"there are so many, many people who make off-colour jokes that align them with the obnoxious men to their listeners, even if /they/ know they'd never actually do X, Y, Z."