Comments on: Why Women Get Frustrated When Men Want to Be Thanked for Talking About Rape https://healwritenow.com/why-women-get-frustrated-when-men-want-to-be-thanked-for-talking-about-rape/ Writing & Inspiration to Heal Trauma Fri, 08 Jul 2016 22:01:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.5 By: Cissy White https://healwritenow.com/why-women-get-frustrated-when-men-want-to-be-thanked-for-talking-about-rape/#comment-66940 Fri, 08 Jul 2016 22:01:49 +0000 http://healwritenow.com/?p=3110#comment-66940 In reply to James Landrith.

James:
I’m sorry for the horrible comments that have been said to you trivializing and minimizing your experiences. Men (and women) do get raped and by women as well as men. That’s true. I’m sorry this was your experience. Sadly, it’s one I share. I was molested by a woman as well as men. I’m glad that the Department of Justice is finally including statistics that are more comprehensive. Thanks for your efforts doing sexual violence advocacy work. I stand by what I wrote in the original post and also am glad you wrote. I’ll continue to think about your words.
Cissy

]]> By: James Landrith https://healwritenow.com/why-women-get-frustrated-when-men-want-to-be-thanked-for-talking-about-rape/#comment-66869 Wed, 06 Jul 2016 18:28:56 +0000 http://healwritenow.com/?p=3110#comment-66869 As a male survivor of a female rapist (wasn’t even considered a crime when and where it happened), I don’t need permission to have an opinion and a voice. I’ve spent the better part of the last 10 years advocating as both a survivor, public policy working group member, non-profit board member, public speaker and rape crisis worker. As someone who is a stakeholder in sexual violence discussions, I did not “venture into the rape conversation”. I am part of the conversation by default of my own experiences and unwillingness to sit quietly in the corner like a child. I have as much a right to a voice as any other survivor. I spent 18 years in the dark hearing “men don’t get raped”, “women don’t rape”, having stats that don’t even count my experience as rape used to invalidate said experience, told in breathless tones that “it isn’t bad for you because you can’t get pregnant” and a plethora of other excuses, denials and victim-blaming bullshit from across the spectrum of gender and ideology.

Male survivors involved in sexual violence advocacy work don’t need women “waving cheerleader banners for good effort or giving thumbs up”. That trivializes the efforts that so many male survivors have contributed to this work, the networks we’ve been building, even while being told we don’t exist and until recently, not even being counted in most official stats by the Department of Justice and other data models built off their numbers. It mocks our own struggle and laughs in the faces of those of us who took our own lives when we couldn’t cope with both the shame of what happened that damned near universal mockery of our experiences by men AND women alike. It trivializes and denies our experiences in the face of outright hostility and even denial that men can be raped – quite often from second-wave, western, white feminists.

I lived it and earned the right to a fucking opinion and a voice. How exactly does trivializing that or expecting silence based solely on gender = feminism? I can’t puzzle that out.

]]>