Action, Reaction, and Consequence

*DISCLAIMER*
This post deals with really sensitive issues and I understand a lot of people will probably be very upset with me for writing it.  My goal was not to upset anyone, but rather to work through my own thoughts in writing and give others a chance to share their own opinions and experiences.  Also, primarily the situations I am referring to are a limited sample.  That is, I understand that there are plenty of times when the things I'm talking about are completely irrelevant--instances where there is a clear-cut right and wrong and a man very clearly forced himself on a woman against her will.  Please don't think that I am, in any way, trying to dismiss the seriousness of rape or attempted rape or the repercussions it has on its victims.
*DISCLAIMER*

A few weeks ago I had a really intense discussion with my roommate about women's rights, specifically this campaign against the so-called "victim shaming" that sexual assault victims so often experience.  Summer, my roommate, is very passionate about this topic while I had given it little thought, and our conversation really made me stop and think.  Today I read this article by Katie J.M. Baker about why it is important to pay attention to rapists telling their side of the story.  It also presents some very interesting ideas, and, at the risk of painting a target on my back, I would like to share some of my own thoughts.

Over and over throughout the article the point is made that rape isn't just something that happens to modest, virginal girls walking innocently home from class by scary strangers.  It happens to girls with some cleavage showing and lots of leg.  It happens to girls who flirt and tease and fool around.  It happens with guys that girls know.  The point is, even if a girl isn't a demure model of blushing femininity that does not mean that she deserves to be raped.  That word, "deserve," is the key.  No one ever deserves to have something so precious taken from them against their will.  This is the foundation of the fight against victim blaming.  No one deserves to be assaulted, thus your behavior shouldn't matter because no matter what it is...you get the point.

So the fight has been to turn the blame back on the men who are doing the assaulting.  It doesn't matter how "slutty" she dresses or acts, or how convinced you are that really she wants your big bad manliness in her life, the decision to assault her is yours and yours alone.  Women shouldn't have to moderate their behavior because you cannot moderate yours.  It is time for men to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.  No matter what the situation was--no matter what--in the end you were the one who imposed your will on hers, answered your wants above hers, valued your person-hood as being greater than hers.  And don't pull out some bull about how men just "can't help themselves" once they get going.  I think the most surprising part of these men's stories were the men who saw their victims' faces, saw the terror or the pain there, realized what they were doing was wrong, and stopped.  Ms. Baker chooses to focus on the disgusting fact that so few of these attackers even bother to look at their victims in the face, but I'd rather focus on the ones who did and the fact that, too little too late though it may be, these men were able to realize what was happening and stop themselves.  I think there is no stronger argument against the "it's just my nature and I can't help it" than that.

Everything that I have said thusfar I completely agree with.  I stand by it.

And yet...

Having established all of this, I can't help but feel that there is something missing.

The first comment that I saw at the end of this article was from a woman who told her own story of...she didn't want to call it rape.  She explained that she and her friends got drunk and stoned and one of them led her back to the bedroom and they had sex.  She says that she was thinking "no" but she never said it, never did anything to let the man know she wanted him to stop, and even followed him back to the room of her own free will.  She writes about how she doesn't know who to blame--him? herself? her friend who sat by and watched?  She doesn't know.

I think this woman is incredibly brave.  The very next comment is someone assuring her passionately "it's not your fault! It's not your fault!" and telling her to talk to an assault network for support.  They explain that she was not in a state to give consent, and even if she had, since she was so inebriated it wouldn't have "counted," so to speak, anyway.  They are assuring her, essentially, that wherever the blame lies, it is not with her.

But she is not expressing the guilt of a terrorized victim.  Rather, she is looking at the situation, taking all the variables into account, and she is expressing regret that it happened.  And that is why I think she is brave.  Because in a society that is virtually demanding that the blame be heaped upon the head of the man, this woman is willing to say that she shared a part in what happened.  She acted in a certain way, and then she experienced the consequences.

Consequences.  That is what is missing in this story of rape that we have created.

Remember, I do not believe that anyone ever for any reason deserves to have their agency taken from them by another person.  They do not deserve to be treated as an object of gratification rather than a feeling, thinking human being.  No one deserves that.

But actions do not exist in a vacuum.

The fact is, I have always felt uncomfortable with the terms of the fight against "victim blaming".  Women should be able to behave and dress however they want?  I would ask why?  Why should they be given a luxury that no one else has ever been given?

What I see in these debates about rape is a passionate wish to find someone to "blame".  People want something so horrible to be someone's fault.  But blame is a tricky thing.  It is rarely black and white, one or the other.  Nothing happens in isolation, there are always circumstances surrounding it. Women do not ever deserve to be raped, but the fact is that we live in a society.  The way we interact with others tells them how to interact with us.  That is the way it is.  Thus, if a woman behaves in a way that is understood to be encouraging she should not be surprised that men are encouraged.

There is so much that I am thinking and that I want to say, but I think the ultimate point that I want to make is that people seem, more and more, to want their world to exist without consequences.  Women should be able to go out and have a good time without worrying that some slobbering ape of a man will take advantage of them while they're drunk?  But look at it this way--if you are so drunk that you either cannot express your dissent or that you don't even realize that you don't want to, then why is a drunk man supposed to be more responsible?  Pull it even further back--if we, as a society, have embraced a passtime that depends entirely on the lowering of inhibitions and the stripping of our ability to make rational decisions, how can we then be upset when we wake up the next morning to realize that we made stupid decisions?  If we, as a society, reinvent sex as a fun recreational activity shared by friends and strangers, how can we be surprised when some people aren't sure how to take signals and don't know where other people's limits are?

So what am I trying to say?  That we should go back to shaming the victims of assault and assuming that if a girl got "raped" really she was just asking for it and she should stop being such a dang slut?  No.  That's not what I'm saying.  I'm saying, in the end, very much what Ms. Baker was saying.  This is an issue that needs to be discussed.  So many of these men's stories refer to his belief that really she was into it, she wanted him.  We need to find a way to help men understand issues of consent and a way for women to understand issues of communication.  Men: sex is never a given, she can always change her mind, and she has the right to say no.  Women: you are responsible for the situations you put yourselves in, your behavior has consequences, and you cannot expect a person to know anything you do not tell him or her.

One last time, I would like to reiterate that I do not mean to imply that rape is something deserved, or that a person who rapes another person is not ultimately responsible for that decision.  That is the whole point.  We are all responsible for our decisions, no matter how badly we don't want to be.  No matter how much we want events to exist in isolation, they are a part of a whole.  There are actions and there are consequences to those actions.  No matter how badly you want to "blame" someone, to make everything one person's fault, doing so oversimplifies the issue and ignores the real problems.  Everyone needs to take their own responsibility.

Dancing holes in the soles of my shoes...

Ages back my mom and I concocted a plan.  In this plan I was going to go home for a weekend sometime towards the end of summer and I was going to teach a dance workshop to the youth in my home stake.  Then I was going to DJ a dance for them and suddenly the kids would go to stake dances and they would dance and everything was going to be awesome.  It seemed like a good plan except for the part where we completely ignored that we're talking about a bunch of kids between the ages of 14 and 17 and who are we kidding? The day they dive into a dance workshop and learn to dance is the day Snooki buys herself some pearls and joins the DAR.

so much class happening here!
(photo courtesy of People.com)

That is what I thought about during the bulk of the two hour drive up to Pine Valley.  Lured with the promise of a good time (yes, sometimes I lie to people...I had no idea if it actually would be a good time), I had convinced my friend Mike to come with me to help teach.  As of our arrival in the parking lot that was to be our dance space we still hadn't agreed on what style of dance to teach.  I wanted to teach west coast so that the kids would be able to dance to the regular music that would be played.  Mike was doubtful that was going to happen.  I was forced to agree with him when I was finally confronted by over 150 kids huddled in front of me.  There was no way we were going to teach these kids west coast.  Blues it would be!

I then proceeded to give the most rushed, un-inclusive, non-helpful lesson of my life.  In my own defense, it was enough of a challenge just getting the kids to alternate boy/girl/boy/girl and touch each other.  But Mike and I, in about 25 minutes, went over very basic connection, pulse, and taught them how to do a basic, a right turn and a left turn.  With my mother gesturing me to hurry up every few seconds in the background, we wrapped up the pathetic excuse for a lesson and got the music started.  

The rest of the evening, however, was great fun.  Though I played almost every request I got, I also tried to gently broaden musical horizons.  Of course, this had mixed results as, towards the end of the night, a girl pleadingly asked for a "fast song".  Bemused, Mike and I questioned her what sort of fast song she wanted since we had played quite a few fast songs, including two lindy hops, several country swings, and even some line dances.  She looked at us like we were slow and said "I mean some normal music!"  

I really like that knife...
obtained here

For me, however, the entire experience of the Stake Dance was redeemed.  

When I was in mutual I would go to dances and awkwardly sit off to the side.  Rarely, some intrepid young man would tremblingly approach and ask me to dance.  We would rock back and forth, one sweaty hand slipping embarrassingly between shoulder and waist whilst the other encircled my own in a clammy whisper of a grip.   For three minutes, as our eyes circumnavigated the ceiling, the walls, the floor...anything but look at our partner, we would tamp down a tiny circle on the dance floor.  At last the music would end, releasing us, and we would mumble thanks over our shoulders as we hurried back to our respective places. 

Some intrepid boy just like this one...bless his heart
photo from here

But there I was, on a Saturday night, back at a stake dance.  Only I am now 26 years old.  I know how to dance now.  And best of all, I had a partner there with me who was both willing and able to dance with me.  And dance we did.  To the insufferable and eternal Cottoneye Joe we danced the Polka.  When Open Arms was requested we waltzed.  We even threw in some Cha Cha, though I don't remember which song that one was.  And of course, there was blues and west coast (and some very westified lindy).  It is amazing what a difference those small changes can make in the same event...

We danced the whole night and our post-dance energy buzz completely confounded mom.  I think just listening to us talk was making her and dad tired.  

The next day me, dad, and Mike drove up to go shooting.  Walking across the rock pit to set up targets I realized the full extent of my fun the night before.  

Yes.  That's right.  I danced a hole in my shoe.  

Happiness is in the little things...

In my blog post about the Descendants I mention at the end how I sort of created this future memory for myself.  That is, after watching that scene at the end I decided that I would have such a moment in my life someday, and I became nostalgic for a memory that has not yet happened.  The thing is, I have a lot of these future memories.  I look forward to the rest of my life avidly and I have so many ideas about how I want it to be.  Does anyone else do that?

Last night I had this beautifully displacing moment where I created a future/present memory that fulfilled that anticipatory nostalgia.  I was driving to the airport with Matt to pick up his roommate.  It was late at night, the windows were down and my hair was blowing like crazy, my feet were up on the dash, and Matt was, in his words, "indoctrinating [me] in some of the best music on earth".  That is, he was playing me his favorite songs by New Model Army, telling me how he felt about them when he was in high school.  It was warm outside and there was a great big, orange, half moon rising over the mountains.

Are you ever in the midst of a moment and, just for a flash, you slip outside of yourself and look at where you are and what you're doing and realize that everything is perfect?  Sitting in that car, listening to Matt talk about how much he loved this song and the next song and the next song, with the warm wind....it was a perfect moment.  I was absolutely happy.

And then, it was like I slipped even further back and looked at my life like a story rather than a living breathing series of events.  This moment I was in, it was the sort of moment that people write about in stories or try to depict in movies-- a sort of Platonic Form of a College Memory.  The sort of fabricated "memories" that you almost resent in stories because they're too perfect and too staged and they make you long for things that aren't really even real.  And yet, here I was living in one.  I knew, in that second, that this was the sort of thing that I would look back on, when I have kids getting ready for college, and I would tell them about it to explain to them why college is such a wonderful place and they should be so excited to go there.  And they wouldn't really understand, but I would glow a little bit within myself remembering how happy I was.

After that my night continued to be utterly lovely.  On the way back from the airport we progressed from New Model Army to They Might Be Giants, and then to Nickel Creek.  Matt and I both love this song and we sang it with enthusiasm.  Then, because Matt's roommate Brenden wanted to thank him, we tried to find a Wendy's that was open.  We succeeded at the third one.  Over salted fries and vanilla frosty...

Then we came back to my beloved Campus Plaza and we sat in front of my apartment in the twilight glow of the lamps and we talked.  Matt is leaving soon.  In fact he is leaving on Friday, though he will come back a few times before he leaves forever at the end of the month.  I can't begin to explain how much I will miss him.  He's been my best friend, one of the best I've ever had.  And I'm sure we will continue to be good friends, but it won't be the same.  He won't live 30 feet away.  He will live two thousand miles away.  So when we stay up till 3:30 talking I appreciate every second of it.  And I guess that's how I want to end this post.  With a dedication to Matt (though he'll probably laugh at me for this) and a thank you.  I know it's rather wretchedly sentimental.  But thanks, Matt, for listening to me whine, and for trusting me so much, and for introducing me to Avatar, and for laughing at Frasier with me, and talking to me, and just for being you.