\u201cRape is not miscommunication. It is a crime.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Women are usually the victims of this crime. Men are usually the perpetrators of this crime.\u00a099 percent of the time, it is women who are victims\/survivors of rape. 85 percent to 99 percent of the time men commit the crime of rape.<\/p>\n Some issues are gendered. Rape is one of them.\u00a0And so, in large part, are our\u00a0reactions.\u00a0To some, rape is a conversation.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t, of course, speak for all<\/em> women.<\/p>\n So for myself, I say, that\u00a0how men feel in or about\u00a0conversations about rape is not high on my priority list. I don\u2019t even think it\u2019s close to important when addressing the reality of\u00a0rape. Not compared with staying safe.<\/p>\n Women are disproportionately injured by this act of violence\u2014and almost always\u2014by men.<\/p>\n One\u00a0percent of the time, it is men\u00a0who are victimized by rape. That is\u00a0100 percent horrible. Rape is always a crime.<\/p>\n The vast majority of rapists are male.<\/p>\n The vast majority of humans who are raped are female.<\/p>\n This is why, I believe, the gender divide is so vast when it comes to the ways men and\u00a0women think, feel and experience the violence of rape.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s why,\u00a0when comedian Sarah Silverman re-Tweeted Ten Rape Prevention Tips<\/em><\/a>\u00a0a few months back it went viral. It was satire but it\u00a0hit a nerve. However, it wasn\u2019t the same nerve that got hit by\u00a0everyone.\u00a0Many women loved it. Many men were offended by it.\u00a0Many women saw it as putting responsibility entirely on men not to rape women, rather than women being advised\u00a0how not to get raped.<\/p>\n Men wrote on Twitter that they felt it implied she was saying\u00a0all men are potential rapists.<\/p>\n All men are not<\/em> potential rapists.\u00a0Does this really need to be said? Men are disproportionately the gender that rapes.\u00a0That’s true. Gender matters. That’s true. This is not male bashing to say.<\/p>\n Race is significant as well.<\/p>\n According to the Rape and Incest National Network, the percentage of women raped (or attempted to be raped) varies some to make up the one in six women statistic many of us have heard:<\/p>\n Each statistic is\u00a0staggering,\u00a0alarming and terrifying.<\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0mind boggling to see the percentages of\u00a0women who have survived rape or attempted rape.<\/p>\n Race and gender impact some human experiences. This is not racist or sexist to acknowledge.<\/p>\n When it\u00a0comes to rape, we women don\u2019t\u00a0see ourselves as hosting the\u00a0conversation party as is implied in the title of the article by Elephant Journal founder Waylon Lewis, entitled: How (not to) Bring Men into the Conversation about Rape<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many of us see ourselves as threatened, unsafe and with experiences of violence which are life-threatening and altering. From the female perspective, women are not hosting a rape conversation. From the female perspective it can seem some men are having a\u00a0SuperBowl rape event\u00a0and women are too often forced to be the half time show.<\/p>\n I realize this makes me sound angry.<\/p>\n I am<\/em> angry.<\/p>\n And like a feminist.<\/p>\n Guilty again.<\/p>\n My\u00a0anger does impact my ability to be generous with and compassionate toward men who venture into the rape conversation.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because I don\u2019t want to waste precious life-force energy worrying about\u00a0being raped or recovering from\u00a0rape.\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want to live in fear that\u00a0my daughter, sister, mothers and friends will be raped or raped again.\u00a0I don\u2019t want men to be raped either.<\/p>\n I\u2019m tired of seeing\u00a0loved ones shattered by this crime.\u00a0I\u2019m tired of rapists doing the shattering. Half of women raped will suffer from\u00a0post-traumatic stress disorder. Rates of depression, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide go up after rape.<\/p>\n This is why many of us don\u2019t\u00a0want to have conversations about rape. We just want men to stop raping women and other men. Not all men\u2014the men who rape.<\/p>\n And yes, of course, for the women who rape to stop raping as well.<\/p>\n Women are not waving cheerleader banners for good effort or giving thumbs up likes to men \u201cbrave\u201d enough to think\u00a0out loud about rape.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason. We are\u00a0busy.<\/p>\n We\u2019re in martial arts, or self-defense or reaching for pepper spray or going to a yoga class for sexual assault survivors.\u00a0We\u2019re turning down jobs where we don\u2019t feel safe traveling and doing therapy for post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not triggered or oversensitive or failing to appreciate gentle-souled men.<\/p>\n We\u2019re sick of being raped, recovering from rape, worrying about being raped, supporting others who have been raped, preventing rape and writing articles to trying to educate others about rape. I know elephant journal <\/a>isn\u2019t exactly known as a feminist press. I don\u2019t agree with everyone here and have strong reactions even to Waylon\u2019s writing<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0his video<\/a>\u00a0touching on the topic.\u00a0But I love elephant journal because writers and humans can express widely dissenting views, if well-written, factual and vetted through the editorial department. That’s pretty amazing.<\/p>\n But rape isn’t a conversation.\u00a0It\u2019s a one-sided monologue\u00a0almost\u00a0always spoken by a man who is silencing a woman or another man.<\/p>\n Maybe we need to keep having conversations? I’m honestly no longer sure. I’m honestly tired of talking. It’s not like a lot new needs to be discovered about rape.\u00a0It needs to stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If it seems women like me don\u2019t have a lot of patience for listening to how men think, feel and talk about rape it\u2019s because, well\u2026. it\u2019s true. Listening to men talk about a topic you have experienced at least as much as them, if not more, say\u00a0menstrual cramps, labor pains and hot flashes can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[192],"tags":[196,113,197],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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<\/p>\nSometimes it feels like men act as though women need invite them to the rape conversation and if we\u2019re not nicer they\u2019ll just not come anymore.\u00a0Sometimes I resent feeling women\u00a0are responsible for the tone of the rape conversation. Even with people I really respect or admire or write for<\/strong>.<\/h4>\n
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