I’ve got a piece up on Patreon that I wrote last week in response to the Kavanaugh interview, by which I’m thoroughly disgusted.
When will we get to the point where we believe women?
They say “1 in 6,” but I don’t believe them. The numbers are much, much higher.
I believe that because almost no woman I know who has been raped has pressed charges. Maybe they went to therapy. Maybe they wrote about it. But none of them – zero – reported it or pressed charges.
When or if they talk about it one or two things is true: (1) they didn’t know it was rape at the time – and maybe even don’t while they’re talking about it, and (2) it had been years since it happened.
That’s why we believe her.
Because women all know the women who were groomed, the girls raped as children, the so-called slut in high school who was raped (which was, of course, what made her a slut, because that’s how this shit works), the woman who went to an interview before or after regular business hours, the woman who went to a male friend after being raped by a boyfriend, who was then also raped by the friend (or vice versa), the woman who told her dad and who was punished for it, the woman who.
Later in the piece, I talk about what it’s like to be a woman who has not been raped.
So let me make it clear to the doubters, for the men who don’t believe, for the men who think all rape is caused by boys who are “too drunk” to hear the word “no,” who think most men are good men who don’t communicate well, and that men want to protect their mothers and daughters and wives, and for the women who think it’s something other women are bringing on themselves: Not so fast. Rape is such a common experience of women that I have spent most of my life feeling categorically different from other women because I never was.
Let me repeat that: Not having been raped makes me feel like I’m not the same as other women. The only other thing that makes me feel categorically different from other women is the desire to have children (whether or not they have) because I never wanted my own.
Please call your senators and tell them to vote against this rapist.