#rapecultureiswhen

For those of you who are not aware of the Brock Turner case, the rapist received 6 months in jail. The victim, on the other hand, is left to deal with this traumatic event for the rest of her life. It is upsetting to hear people blame the victim. 

The victim may already blame herself, so it is truly sad when society suggests a victim “asked” for it or question why they waited so long to speak up. 

Rape Trauma Syndrome is the medical term given to the response that most survivors have to rape( Rape Crisis. Org). I can speak from personal experience that reading and listening to this letter makes me cry and it reminds me why people do not talk about rape and report it.

 While at church, I had to listen to a female speaker speak about the #metoo movement, not in a positive light though. She blamed the females. She said that we should all take note and dress differently. She said this was the reason why “we” as women should not drink. She suggested that it happens to women because we are doing something wrong. As she said all these things, I sat there shocked. I held back tears, but then I became happy for her. I was happy she had the privilege of never being raped. She was privileged for never having to be asked millions of questions. She was privileged for never having to stand naked while being photographed by nurses. 

Here’s something I wrote about the most terrible night of my life. You can find the original in my blog, in Portuguese. I know I don’t have many followers, but for the first time in my life, I want to be heard. And I don’t want to shut myself and swallow the truth. #RAPECULTURE is real. Fight against it.

Someone broke her. Someone picked her up, threw her into the air, and saw her fall – she smashed into so many pieces.

She got up and gathered the parts she could get. Swept the floor. Wiped her nose. She smoked six cigarettes. Threw up. Washed her face. She took a bath and washed her face again. Some of the patched pieces fled from her flesh and she tried, in vain, to put them back.

Someone broke her and some of the shards went under the bed. And she knows there are only monsters there. She didn’t catch them.

She moved out.

She changed her shell.

Shee did not change her skin. She couldn’t.

She took a knife and tried to draw an exit from her body.

She couldn’t.

She put on her coat and went to buy more cigarettes. Crossed the icy ground and fell and the snow seemed warmer than the night before. The snow brought her comfort.

She smoked six more cigarettes. And vomited. In the snow. Disgusting! She’s disgusting. The person who dropped her is disgusting. He dropped her.

Purposely.

And he was a son of a bitch. But she was drunk. Was she? She doesn’t know. She doens’t remember.

Slut.

She was asking for it, for sure.

...

Now she cries, she remembers. She already knows the smell you feel when you fall to the ground. She know how someone breathes throwing the thinnest piece of porcelain to the floor. She knows how soft, and guiltless, is the skin of someone throwing the thinnest piece of porcelain to the floor.

Purposely.

What guilt? If she was drunk... She wasn’t?

But she was asking for it, for sure.

From E

I think when it comes to this one, we have to acknowledge complacency with rape culture in America.

But like Leslie Knope, we don’t have to accept this: