A really unpleasant topic

So, not like I'm completely obsessed with her or anything, but I get emails with Jenny Trout's updates and I check my emails when I wake up on my iPad every morning. And her latest one touched upon the whole Football-player rape case and how societal perceptions actually back up the defence they put together about how they didn't even know it was rape because the girl had not said no ( You can read that here http://jennytrout.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/i-didnt-know-exactly-what-rape-was.html).

That touches a real nerve with me, for a few reasons. Like, back when I watched Hollyoaks (and as I plan on linking this to Jenny's blog in a comment, Hollyoaks is a soap in England geared towards teenagers, it comes on at 6.30pm after the Simpsons. Occasionally, with the darker storylines, they have to put it on at 10pm. It follows life in a small village in which a university is placed. I don't know why there's a university in a small village where there's only one pub, bar and nightclub, but there we go. No wonder there's so many murders in the programme, there's sod all to do), anyway, back when I watched Hollyoaks there was this awful storyline with this guy who drugged and then raped girls. He got his friend involved, and the moment I stopped watching was when they were raping twins in front of each other and not thinking anything except how wonderful it was they were finally having all this sex (yes, they were complete losers). Why put that into the world, Hollyoaks? I mean, yes it sparked debate but I don't know what the pro side of that debate would have exactly been.

I admit, I'm writing about rape, and it is an awkward thing to write about tastefully, without undermining actual victims. One of my main characters was raped (you can call it statutory, since she was thirteen, or you can call it intentional, since she was put into a compromising position by someone she trusted) and what I'm aiming for is to show how victims do blame themselves, because she does, but also that these people are people, they have aims and thoughts and feelings. I don't want to undermine the situation, or act like it can serve as part of a fairy tale, and I hope that comes across. But Jenny's post reminds me just how balanced you have to be in thinking how you would cope if someone took advantage of your body regardless of your expressed thoughts, and how the "no means no" culture doesn't work. Because how many times have you been in a situation where you say no but you really do mean yes? Someone who just gives up fighting isn't saying yes either (I know Jenny didn't mention it, though she came close with being worn down) it's them realising that you are stronger and you have no regard for their feelings and this is going to happen whatever they want.

You know what? The rest of this post is going to be pretty freaking personal. Don't read anymore if you're easily offended. And if you're a friend reading ... don't do what some people have done, and stop talking to me as a result of this.

I always thought, first of all, that it was weird how, in a new relationship, you negotiate your way to the first time you have sex. It happens, unless you're interested in one night stands or something, because you're taking an emotional connection and making it physical and yes, you do need to spell out what you do and don't like and compromise. It's no different from the other aspects of a relationship. But then the second time you sleep with your boyfriend/girlfriend, why is that a given? Why is the first time automatic consent to the next however many times? Maybe I just have weird sexual hang-ups since I'm not that big on it (or the only two people I've ever slept with in my entire life are the only two slightly disappointing people on the planet) but I just never got it. I said 'yes' once so that yes lasts for every occasion and not just once? I'm not saying there needs to be verbal agreements every time, but a proper understanding of the person you're sharing bodies with, that should happen.

And on a slightly darker level, rape has kind of been present in my life, for my whole life. From things that have been said by my mum, I'm not altogether sure I'm not the product of rape ("oh, we only wanted three children, and we got number four" - I'm number four, yes), and my biological dad did one of the most depraved things ever. I'm not very vocal about paedophilia, because it's just too much for me sometimes, but he raped my brothers and sister. The three they wanted. Apparently, when I came along my mum realised what he'd been doing, and divorced him before he could get to me too. You might think that's a wonderful thing to be, the only family member not raped by your own father, but it's horrible. First, my mother didn't tell me what had happened, my stepdad had to (I had passed my high school entrance exams, and was rubbing it in as kids do to my older brother, he hit me and my dad had to explain why he would be so pissed off, as if intelligence can be damaged by rape), second off, I was immediately told not to tell anyone, ever (oops), because my mum had a lot of pride in her decisions and my dad was clearly a Bad One (also, she's in a certain position in life which I won't go into, but she thinks it Looks Bad) when all I needed was to talk about it, to try and understand why at eleven, I was being thrown into a position where I had to understand absolutely everyone else in my family but no one would understand me and third, the really, really disgusting outcome of this kind of situation? I wished it happened to me. You read that right, there's no typo. I said that a few years ago in an argument and my stepdad stuck up for me, saying it was a common reaction actually (so thanks for that, because that was the first time I didn't ever feel alone in this situation, and it only took what, fourteen years?) - I just didn't want to feel different, or have the us vs you situation that came up so many times. I wanted my mum to not use "he was raped and you weren't" as an excuse for every bit of bad behaviour my brother indulged in. I wanted her to stick up for me because of what was happening at the time and not because of something I had no control over before I was even born. Of course I didn't want to go through what they went through, of course not, but I wanted her to remember that I wasn't there, that I couldn't be there, and that blaming me was not going to help. If it had happened to me to, I wouldn't have gotten the blame as much as I did. So it's not even the victim who gets blamed sometimes Jenny, it's the innocent bystander.

I know I sound bitter, and like I don't have a good relationship with my family. I have a complicated relationship with my family, but it's mainly a good one. It's just that there are some deep-seated issues that are never going to go away because we can't talk about it. Mum actually went for therapy a few years ago when things got really bad and it's been better since then, but there are still moments ... like, we'll go back to the "I was sick" bit (because I love kicking that when it's down), I had to get better, fast, because I had a baby to look after. I worked my ass off to be well enough to work again. And the brother I mentioned above? He stopped going to work, my mum said because he was so devastated by what happened to me (read the above and join me in a 'yeah, fucking right'). So I had to work my ass off to be able to once again provide for my son, seriously depleting the savings I'd been working on (I'd almost saved enough for a down payment on a mortgage) in order to provide for him in the mean time, I had to teach myself ways of tricking people into thinking I'm not mentally damaged by this (have two people talk different things at me at the same time, watch the glaze go over my eyes as NOTHING goes in. Or ask me something I'm not expecting, that shorts my brain out too) and it's okay for my brother to once again rely on the state because I had almost died? Does that make sense to anyone? I am bitter about things like that, how it then again always comes back to my biological father and how big a dick he is.

And coincidentally, friends who I've whored by blog out to, I went into this with someone we know. And she did the whole 'that sucks' bit without offering anything else. And then she told everyone we knew that her uncle had raped her. And I actually saw red (not just a description with artistic licence, my vision went so red I almost blacked out) - she had barely contributed to the private conversation we'd had, said nothing about how she had an intimate understanding of it when I just needed someone to understand, and then took her own pity party to you guys. I said some really unforgivable things at the time, but I stand by them. What we had been saying was private, and I thought I could trust her sense of empathy and what I thought was a close relationship, and she used it for her own pity party. I wasn't mad about what had happened to her (don't read that wrong, it's sick and depraved and I feel numb every time this situation rears its ugly head in any aspect of life because as you can probably tell, it's dominated a lot of my personal life, I'm saying that the rage I felt in this situation wasn't about her experience, but about her actions at the time of talking about it) but I was mad at her. So mad. If you think you know who I'm talking about then yes, this is how much worse she is than what you think. This is part of why I was going through such a bad patch at the time and left a place where I had previously felt safe, and loved, and understood in a way I hadn't in so long. She took that at that point in time. She is heinous. That's not me blaming a victim, that's me saying that she should have some understanding of how rape affects everyone involved, and even those who aren't, and she couldn't go there because it's all about her. For non-friends who wanted to read my two cents stuck on Jenny's thread, this girl is pretty fucking awful. She used to call me her best friend, and as you can see I'm pretty opinionated, but I try to come from a good place with it. She once asked me for advice, I gave it to her, and she started doing this sort of shit. Basically, her friends have to be yes-men and if you don't worship the ground she walks on, you won't last long. I went through a bad patch at university, the same one I'm referring to above, and one of my friends sent me a care package. It made me cry so bad, and I thanked her and said how wonderful she was to do it, and other people were also calling this friend wonderful. So the woman I've been talking to for most of this bit then starts whinging that we love this friend more than her, and why aren't we loving her as much, and no one else understands her. So you can see how I'm feeling, one person has seen me suffering and sent me a care package, and the other has seen me suffering and trashed my advice then used my pain for her own needs. But that's her all over.

So yes Jenny, society has a shit view on rape. Even the victims have a shit view. Even those who are blamed who have nothing to do with it. And when the fuck is that cycle ever going to end?

**I just want to edit and say, I know it looks there, despite what I said, that I'm blaming this girl when I should have been supporting her also, since she had gone through what my whole family had. It's not that I didn't empathise, or couldn't see her point. It's not that I ever thought she deserved what happened to her, because there's no way anyone deserves it. It's not that I thought because she had gone through it, and I had only been blamed by proxy, that I thought my situation was more important than hers. But I had opened a dialogue that was intense, that people don't discuss because I don't think people actually realise how much the blame gets passed on, when the only person to blame was the person whose actions caused it all. The rapist is the only person who needs the blame. I opened a dialogue with someone I trusted, and with everything she'd been through, you'd think we could have an open and frank discussion and come out stronger for that. She did something that I don't understand, she didn't share and seek understanding from someone who clearly could do that on an intimate level, she show-boated and left me hanging. She put a big fingers up to my trust, in order to use the ordeal to get more fawning from the people we knew. That's what made me angry, that it could have been a support system for the both of us. Do you know what she said when I finally tried talking to her about it? "I didn't want to stomp all over what you were telling me". I didn't want to stomp over what you were telling me.

Fuck you.

If there's one thing she absolutely guaranteed by her behaviour, it's that she ignored my feelings, in favour of her own, she turned that trust around for her own ends. Yes, she deserved sympathy, but why did she choose that time to tell everyone? Why turn a private conversation into a public parade? Because if I had then gone to any of my other friends and said what had happened, I'd be stealing her thunder and it's not like I had gone through it, and what kind of friend would I have been? That's what she was doing. What kind of person absolutely ignores a cry for help like that, especially with the experience they're saying they've had? I don't disbelieve her at all, her attitude to sex is something I've seen before in rape victims, but her behaviour as a friend is dispicable.