part 64

I have begun to notice that the perspective of the victim of rape and/or other sexual assault and abuse is constantly nudged to the side when it comes to addressing what happened to them.

Obviously, the person who committed the assault would almost certainly dismiss the victim’s perspective, if that person even considered that the victim had a perspective to begin with. People who are close to the person who committed the assault would also naturally align themselves against the perspective of the victim.

But what about everyone else? The abuser and people close to the abuser are not the only ones detrimentally affected when a victim tells on them. The victim’s own family often considers how this accusation might impact them personally, and this deters them from supporting their victimized loved one.

People do not want this kind of thing to be true, especially when it applies to someone close to them. It is yucky and uncomfortable and awkward to deal with. Mentioning it to any third-hand party culls gasps and instant scrutiny of the person spreading the information. Who wants that kind of attention?

The first thing most people hearing this information from the victim do is to question 1) is there a reason the victim would be making this sort of accusation up; and 2) is this victim mentally sound enough to know if something like that really happened to them. There are no black and white answers to these questions, so a denial is automatically easier than a consideration of credibility for the victim.

One of the things I personally heard when I was telling people about the neighbors is that I shouldn’t say anything unless I was 150% positive it really happened, because once this type of label gets applied to someone, it never goes away regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Another consideration when the revelation of sexual abuse occurs is what impact it might have on relationships if the accusations are considered genuine. When a child tells their parent that the parent’s husband or wife sexually abused them, how is that going to impact the relationship the parent has with his or her spouse?

It is not socially acceptable to acknowledge that your spouse has abused your children in any way, but especially sexually, and then stay with that spouse. The only thing short of a denial would be accusatory, and accusing a spouse of doing such things is a pretty big relationship problem, and so the search for ways to discredit your child begin immediately.

Is it fair to the accused’s family and friends and reputation? If word gets out that this person is even in any way associated with an accusation of child molestation or rape, it does tend to stick in peoples’ minds regardless of guilt or innocence.

Is it fair to come out and accuse someone of sexual abuse and risk that person’s lifestyle and reputation and standing in the community if you don’t have hard evidence to back it up? What if your memories are not reliable? What if your memories are of something else you have seen and then mistakenly applied to your own past experience?

Does a victim need to have irrefutable evidence of not only the assault, but of the exact person who committed the assault, and a clean bill of health from a psychiatrist in order to responsibly and fairly put anyone else’s name out into the public eye in such a negative and permanent way?

No.

My answer is no. Why is my answer no? Because the effect any of it may have on the accused is completely irrelevant to the victim’s rights to express what happened.

I have really struggled with all of these questions A LOT. Will I be hurting others in telling what happened to me? Will I be irrefutably damaging and ending relationships as a result of doing something I feel is very important for me? Is what is important for me significant enough to risk putting anyone’s reputation on display? Am I only being selfish? Vindictive? Histirionic?

Who gives a shit?

My next door neighbor did not consider my reputation and my ability to have relationships and my very existence in the world when he molested me – why would I have any concern for his reputation now?

The neighbor across the street did not have any concerns for my reputation when he raped me, so why should I have any concern for him in any way at all now?

The neighbor on the corner had no consideration with how I might be able to just function in life when he molested and raped me, so why should I care what trouble I might bring his way now?

It is easy to forget the perspective of the victim when the fallout is so awkward and damaging and uncomfortable for everyone else. It is what drives us to deny that these things can happen. It is what every parent fears will happen to their child, but also what most parents would refuse to believe happened to their child. There must be some way it could be presented as to not be true so that everyone can go on living their lives the way they always have been.

After all, false accusations are believed to be at the heart of most – if not all – of alleged instances of rape and child molestation. Instead of a perpetrator being investigated, a victim is scrutinized for any signs that she or he might be anything other than virginal and sinless.

The victim is already on the losing end of things because the person who raped her took care of any questions of virginity, and the social scrutiny took care of any sense of innocence. In telling on the abuser, the victim has made a case against herself merely by saying it happened in the first place.

I am going to try to not be afraid that people won’t believe me when I say what happened to me. I know what happened to me, I know who did it, and the people who did it know it, too. I am going to really try to keep my perspective in perspective. It is really difficult, though, because my perspective as a victim is about something that happened in the past and the consequences for the abusers are happening now.

But it is getting easier every day to keep my perspective aligned with the truth, because I don’t have to prove the truth to anyone – it does it all by itself. It’s the truth.