--{ some words on date rape }------
So Sherry Colb has a new column on Writ (this on-line legal commentary page I read) called The Problem with Mainstream Attitudes Toward Date Rape. Because the column's written for a general legal audience, and not for a bunch of theorists, it's fairly simplistic on the discussion of attitudes. Still, she has some stuff I want to quote:
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The kind of rape that most people take seriously involves a man who attacks a woman he neither knows, nor has reason to believe has any interest in him. When it comes to date rape, however, people are skeptical of victims' allegations and dubious about the weight of the offense, even if it did occur. . . . [But studies] have shown that rape victims who previously knew their attackers take longer to begin to recover from the psychological trauma of the crime than those who were raped by strangers. . .
. . . When someone we love, someone in whom we trust, hurts us, it is uniquely damaging because it shakes the foundations of our sense of security. When we would normally retreat to the familiar for comfort, it is the familiar that frightens us most.
We also come to doubt our ability to distinguish between friend and foe, between safety and danger — because after all, we were the ones who chose the company of our own enemy. (This further aggravates the insidious tendency of women to blame themselves for their own date rapes, on the logic that after all, they should have known better than to date such a man, or to dress provocatively, and so on.)
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So imagine having your trust shaken, not only in friends (as a categorical entity), but also in other women. Yes, it's simplistic, this solidarity that we (as feminists, or even as women in general) sometimes feel (because who's to say that it exists? and who's to say what such an existance would entail? and who can pack all of the various complications into a single parenthetical?), but it's there, sometimes. Imagine that disappearing. In fact, imagine all of it disappearing -- trust, safety, comfort, even your whole sense of yourself as an impervious, strong individual.
And then imagine not realizing it for two years, or maybe kind of realizing it, but not really, because you're awfully, awfully good at submerging, because you have a ton of stuff to do, because you don't think of yourself as an emotion-type person, because it's not really your thing, not really the Pressing Societal Issue you've chosen as your focus. Imagine it fucking up your relationships (with friends, lovers, etc) in ways you don't even realize.
I still find it hard to tell what's safe and what's dangerous. It all feels the same to me. Fear only exists with its opposite, safety. And honestly, I rarely feel either anymore.
(Physical-wise, that is. I still feel intellectual safety and fear.)
But, as I keep reiterating, I'm getting better. My return to this city has been pretty good so far, and I'm hoping it'll stay that way.
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