rue42

I was raped. I spent my entire life after trying to do something about it, trying to educate people and get over the absolute feeling of helplessness and the forced fact of knowing I was stripped of any control that followed me long after the event. And what do I get for it? I get called 'psychologically unbalanced' and when I bring up the topic in order to help someone understand that it is NEVER OKAY under any circumstance, I am again reminded that we live in a culture that breeds warped victim mentality and the negotiation of shame and guilt by its very discourse and socialization. It's even in the way we report things..."She was raped" instead of "He raped her", so that even in our writing we are blaming the victim. If I hear one more person say that a person shouldn't have worn that, or been there at that time, or that it's all okay if one or more parties are drunk, I will start screaming, and I don't think I will ever stop.