I
’ve never been raped.
Why? Because I’m lucky.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
I’ve been groped on more than one occasion. I’ve been followed by men in a car late at night. I’ve been harassed on the street, and more than once not been certain it was going to end at “harassment.” A friend and I once found ourselves in a shared taxi with two men who tried to convince the driver (in a language they shared and we barely understood) to take us somewhere they could attack us (the driver physically pulled them from his car). I once discovered that my gynecologist was no longer in business – because he had raped several patients.
I am a woman, and I live in the world. This is what living in the world looks like, if you happen to be a woman. If none of that becomes rape? You’re lucky. Nothing more. Nothing less.
And while I might not have been raped, I know many women who were. Some more than once. Some when they were children. Some by people they believed loved them. Rarely, but occasionally, by strangers. And this is just the people I know.
I also spent five years as a rape counselor at the Tel Aviv Rape Crisis Center, where I learned just how tenuous my status as someone who had never been assaulted is. One of the most famous cases we handled involved a young woman and her date — a well-known musician. They got to his place, and after saying yes, she said No. She said no so vehemently, with such certainty, that he had to tie her up to complete his rape. And yet some people still wanted to blame her.
The other day, as all of Egypt poured into the streets to celebrate their victory over tyranny, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was separated from her camera crew, surrounded by a large group of men, and then brutally and repeatedly assaulted. She was saved by Egyptian women and Egyptian soldiers, and CBS reports that she is still in an American hospital.
When Twitter got wind of this, folks went nuts. Some want to blame Middle Eastern culture, or Egyptians generally. Some say the rapists were hired goons, unrepresentative of anything remotely related to those who participated in the Egyptian uprising. Some have actually managed to blame Logan, and one man who should have known better made light of her fate and suggested it would have been “funny” if Anderson Cooper had been raped, too (he’s since apologized, so I won’t link).
But the simple truth is that the only culture that is responsible for this is human culture.
In far too many minds, all over the world, a female human is little more than an outlet or repository for male wishes or power (take a look at ABL’s post, below). Rape is regularly and consistently used as a weapon of war. Rape is regularly and consistently used as a method of control.
But rape is also just regular and consistent. Men rape for no reason other than that they think they can get away with it — all the time, every day. Doctors rape, clergymen rape, husbands rape, boyfriends rape, employers rape, “dates” rape. Sometimes they employ tricks and ploys and intoxicants in order to convince themselves that what they’re doing is not (as Whoopi Goldberg so memorably put it) “RAPE rape” — but if she said no, or couldn’t say no, or was too afraid to say no? It’s RAPE rape. It’s all rape.
And lots of times, rapists don’t even bother to convince themselves. They wanted a vagina, and there was one in the room. They wanted to bond with their boys, and a vagina walked by. They wanted to show that bitch, or prove their worth, or relieve themselves, or take what any man in his right mind would take. RAPE rape.
Like most crimes, rape is a crime of opportunity. You don’t drive across state lines to pick-pocket — you go down to the corner. You don’t get on a bus to find women to attack — you attack the ones who are there and handy. Most of the time, those who commit sexual assaults do so within their own communities. Often within their own families.
Men and boys are also raped — every day — and that is at least one reason why that one tweet was so beyond-the-Pale wrong. No rape is ever funny, and the particular suffering of male victims is one with which we as a society have yet to grapple.
But men and boys, as a class, do not grow up and live with this fear, this threat, across the world and across cultures. This is women’s lot, and it falls on all of us.
Every.single.one.of.us.
I feel such pain and sorrow for Ms. Logan — not only did she survive this horrific attack, but her story is now public property, to be analyzed and picked over by all and sundry, people who have never met her and never will.
But her story is not as rare, or as easily dismissed as random violence, as so many would like it to be. Would wish it to be. And until we — humanity — admit that, millions upon millions of women and girls will be raped and assaulted year in, year out.
I’ve been lucky so far. I pray to God my daughter will be, too.
Crossposted at Emily L. Hauser In My Head.
UPDATE: Melissa Bell, a blogger at the Washington Post, wrote a very good, brief response to the reactions to the attack on Ms. Logan, including some important statistics. Please click through and read the whole thing.
A 2008 study by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights found that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women experience public sexual harassment, from groping to assault.
Here’s why this story is not just about Egypt, either:
In 2000, in New York’s Central Park, an assault similar to Logan’s occurred during a parade. Seven women were attacked. In the United States. Attacks occur everywhere, every day. Again and again.
The assault did not happen because Logan was a reporter in a dangerous country. It did not happen because that country happens to be Muslim. It happened because sexual assault occurs every single day to women everywhere in the world.
amazing, ee.
Thank you, boss — I have to say, I thought to myself as I hit “publish”: “This post fits the ‘angry lady’ description to a fucking T, doesn’t it?”
I was on a tear that just kept getting bigger. I think this post = the rage of 30 years.
and to think, i was sitting here — in this very spot — procrastinating (per the yoozsh) and thought “this needs to be widely read; i’m gonna post this on Balloon Juice.” the post had about 49 views then. more than 1K now.
you really spoke to people. btw, folks on facebook are praising you too, but you wouldn’t want to know anything about that. ;)
Thank you so much for this post. Just…thank you.
tremendous.thank you.
Thanks for writing this, Emily.
Yes, rape can occur within any culture; however, your comments would seem to give the impression that it happens as frequently in the western/civilized culture countries as it does in the islamic countries. It does not. In the west people plant bombs in restaurants so that innocent people will be killed but the number of times that happens is small compared to what happens in islamic countries. That is just one example of the difference. One, just one, of the many problems of islam is the sexual repression of its followers which leads “frequently” to sexual attacks. These sexual attacks are not just men against women but, also, men against men. It simply amazes me the extent and length to which writers/reporters/coumnists go to make excuses for the islamic culture. It is as if the bar of acceptable behavior is lowered in discussing anything islam/muslim. Stop it!! In the 21st century islam should be held to the same standard as the modern/civilized cultures.
did we read the same post or are you hopping blogs and pasting the same comment?
honestly. go away.
farther.
farther.
you’re still too close.
Amongst my friends, 90% have been raped – we aren’t as civilized as you assert.
Where are you living: Detroit, East LA, projects in NYC, etc. etc. ?
You get my drift. It is a cultural thing. In the poor, black, uneducated, projects/slums of inner cities the chances are much higher than in the more educated higher income neighborhoods.
In islam it is magnified because as a whole the islamic culture is terribly uneducated in comparison to the western/civilized world. Then you have the koran which teaches the submission and second class nature of women and you have the recipe for disaster. That is why you see often times when a girl comes forward and says she has been raped then her father or brother kill her instead of going after the perpetrator………..madness, sheer madness, but its their culture. She has “dishonored” the family. It is a comedy of madness in a culture that has gone mad and literally has not advanced much in the past 500 years.
The media for some strange reason gives islam a free pass and hardly ever confronts it.
There are probably people out there in this country that still don’t realize that those “pirates” off the coast of africa who are raiding ships are muslims. They have been raiding ships for hundreds of years. How about those “youths” rioting in Paris and other parts of France……..muslims, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on and the media is silent or covers it up by not using the words islam or muslim.
wow, i hadn’t even read this one.
you’re the biggest fucking idiot on the internet.
congratulations, because that’s a really impressive achievement.
your comments will henceforth be deleted.
go set yourself on fire, please.
thanks.
I was date raped by a white, Christian, educated man in a wealthy part of Los Angeles. So, maybe you need to shut the fuck up.
thank you, danielle.
Thank you so much for saying this here. This is the biggest hurdle I think that we face — convincing those who want to feel otherwise that rape is not a thing that’s far away or Someone Else’s Problem — but is rather right here, wherever we are.
Thank you for telling your story. I know that every woman who writes or tells their story gives another ten the opportunity to say: “Damn, that happened to me, too” — and that is very powerful.
Butchc, thank you for posting and exemplifying EXACTLY what Emily’s post was all about. Your comment was all about YOU and your need to vent your bias against followers of Islam, and had absolutely nothing to do with being angry about rape or angry for the victims of rape, and that just exposed you as having the same sorry piece of crap mentality that leads to rape in the first place.
I have been on the recieving end of rape, butchy-boy, and it doesn’t matter that the offender called himself Christian. Religion has NOTHING to do with it. Get off your political soapbox and get in the real world. I would suggest that you spend some time volunteering at a Rape Crisis Center to get some perspective, but victims need voices of reason and comfort, not condescending asshattery.
Seriously, butch – go f*** yourself.
You and several others are just not getting the point. Yes, a rapist can be any religion or any color, etc. However, some things contribute to a culture where rape is almost accepted. Islam is one of those contributing factors. When a woman is raped under an islamic culture she is considered to be the one at fault. Do you get it now?
Under islamic sharia law, in order for a woman to prove rape she has to have 4 men (repeat “men” not “women”) testify that she was indeed raped. ROFL that is ignorant and stupid. If you think otherwise you have got a serious problem.
Don’t get mad at me, I am just the messenger. The facts clearly support my position. The media has been covering up for islam for years. It has now become the “trendy” thing to do.
What part of DIAF and SHTFUP do you not get? No one fucking wants to listen to the fucking diarrea spewing out of your mouth. As ABL suggested you are still on the radar and you need to be gone. Bye…
Others have dealt with you handily, and so I will not.
I’ve been sexually victimized so many times that I can’t even count them anymore. I’ve been raped by men, boys, lesbian women, family members, members of my church, strangers, trusted friends, friends of friends and much-feared enemies. Was it because I was young? Small? Alone? Nice? Nice-looking? Sleeping? Hitch-hiking? Traveling? In the wrong place? Riding my bike at night? Walking through a park? Walking on the beach? Laying on the beach? Wearing the wrong clothes? Disagreeing? Complaining? Voicing my opinion? All of the above, evidently, because those are some of the places/reasons I’ve been told it happened to me. But after reading this insightful response to what happened to the CBS reporter, I can now sum it up simply, saying “I’m a woman who has been raped, because I’ve been unlucky.”
I hope that you have reached out for the help and support that you need. I wish you healing, and great peace.
Oh my I am so going to cry about the poooooooor Ms. Logan.
Homewrecker got what was coming for her – totally karma.
Brilliant commentary, Emily. Bravo.
And I am refusing to respond to several comments. The authors wish to draw attention to themselves or sincerely believe what they have written here. In either case, they are very sad examples of humanity.
Thank you for your kind compliment, and thank you even more for this!
: )
You know, butchc, your shell game of “Muslims are worse than us” is pathetic. Have you not been paying attention to the new legislation the new GOP-style Sharia law right here and now , if they have their way. Bills to call rape victims “accusers” instead of victims, bills to force women to have their rapists’ babies, nutjobs like Sharon Angle running around saying we should” make lemonade out of lemons”……..sorry, my uterus is NOT a beverage dispenser. Obama’s not the “secret Muslim”, it appears Republicans are – at least in their attitudes towards women, rape, and childbirth.
It’s not ignorant and stupid that defense attorneys regularly put the victims on trial? If you think Western law is somehow more angelic in its treatment of rape victims, you are sadly mistaken. Spend some time at rape trials and you will see we are hardly bette – we’re just better at getting away with our callousness, often because we couch it in religious rhetoric. You really need a dose of reality.
As for the comment by gocrymeariver…..trolling is not your strong suit. (What do you think, butch – Bible or Koran reader? Doesn’t matter, either way, COMPLETE ASSHOLE.)
I had no idea all of those Priests in Ireland, Canada, Boston, etc., were all poor Black people from Detroit, East LA, etc., That’s AMAZING!!!
Oh Denise please don’t forget all the men that have been wrongly accused of rape in the bad bad bad Western society, because as schizophrenic as it is, while on one side rape is the worst possible crime a woman could have to endure on the other side it isn’t so bad to destroy countless lifes of decent men because it is just such a nice weapon for a woman to scream rape when sonething doesn’t go as they expect in their lifes.
Be happy that you can play this vagina card – with Sharia Law you as a rape victim would be stoned to death.
An example of one of these vagina nutjobs? DEE!
“I’ve been raped by men, boys, lesbian women, family members, members of my church, strangers, trusted friends, friends of friends and much-feared enemies.”
Yeeeeeeeees. OF COURSE. BY EVERYONE. ALWAYS. EVEN while she is WRITING!
And OF COURSE it is accepted. It must be.
If this were my personal blog, I would delete this and ban you.
No one, in my presence, will get away with mocking women and their stories. I don’t know Dee — and neither do you. Many, many women are raped repeatedly, are used essentially as their familial/social circle’s dumping ground.
You are hereby requested to STFU and GTFO.
you, sir, are a misogynistic asshole. you know it. everyone who has read your comment knows it. your mother knows it.
my heart goes out to your mother who had to carry such a useless sack of cells in her womb.
now please fuck off. your fetid odor is stinking up the joint.
all future comments will be deleted. go back to whatever woman-hating excuse of a blog you came from and high five yourself for knowing how to zip up your pants without getting your dick stuck.
and after that? set yourself on fire and save us all the trouble.
seriously. fuck off. now.
ABL/STM
Dee, I’m sorry. Thank you for commenting.
Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow. I didn’t post her for sympathy, but I sure didn’t expect to be attacked for sharing my experiences.
Emily, thank you for enforcing this as a safe space for me to come to and express myself.
gocrymeariver, you must think that somehow you are forever immune to becoming a victim of an abuser. I sincerely hope that belief continues to somehow protect you.
Tell me, butchc, how is your behavior here any different from the Sharia law Muslims you rail about??? If you had rocks in your hands you’d be stoning Dee right now, you clueless fuck. Your words betray your true intent….it is obvious, with your “vagina card” (oh, how CLEVER!)and utter disregard for people in general and rape victims in particular – it is quite obvious that you are EXACTLY the type of power-mad, inhuman, socially impotent man for whom rape is just a natural progression. It would not surprise me at all if it turned out you had a history of sexual harassment in the workplace, domestic violence calls to your home, and various restraining orders.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cro-Magnon man – live and in the flesh.
As I said earlier, THANK YOU for posting ……ugly as it is, sometimes you need to see the monster close up, so you remember the stench when it slinks up behind you in a 3-piece suit. A troll is a troll, no matter how you dress it up.
Denise, I thank you.
Not to take away from the serious crime against Ms. Logan but to give a larger context…She and her crew were in Cairo at the beginning of the Revolution and was arrested and held and ultimately deported back to the US by the Egyptian government. In an interview with Esquire she describes being ill (sounds like she had the flu) and throwing up all over her unknown detention place. In her role as CBS’s chief foreign correspondent she returned to Cairo days later and reported being followed by military/police/government thugs. All of this was reported before the assualt.
What’s the difference between sexual assault and rape? All of the reports say she was sexually assaulted. Is that different from being raped? Does that mean she was groped, but not raped? Or is the media just using the term “sexually assaulted” because they don’t feel comfortable putting the word “rape” in their reports?
I hope that doesn’t sound insensitive, because I am genuinely curious. Seems like if it’s rape they should call it rape and not try to avoid offending some unknown group of people.
From my experience of working at a rape crisis center, it can mean both less and more than standard-issue (if you will) rape. It’s used when there is no penetration, and when there is penetration by an object other than/in addition to a p enis. From the story, I’m sensing (without, I stress, actually knowing) that the latter is what happened to Ms. Logan. (The word “brutal” being a crucial piece of the code, here…)
Thanks. I had a feeling that there was a technical difference, and that the phrase was used for specific actions, but I had no idea what they were.
The latest reports are that she was gang raped while the lovely crowd was yelling “Jew Jew Jew”.
She is not jewish.
I will be surprised if the major media, abc, cbs, nbc mentions the yelling part as, again, islam gets a free pass…………;-)
oh aren’t you cute with your emoticons and your sweeping generalizations. you may also fuck right off.
go away.
islam gets a free pass — where, to the bathroom? are we living in the same universe where simply BEING muslim is tantamount to murder?
your idiocy is oozing through my monitor.
go. the fuck. away.
somewhere there’s a village and they’re wondering where you are. GO BACK TO YOUR HOME, jackass.
I love you. I thought you should know.
Only Fox News is reporting that “Jew! Jew!” story.
there it is. i knew there had to be a Fox connection.
Nellcote: Firefighting can be a dangerous job, yet women perform it admirably, every day. Police work can be dangerous, yet women do it admirably, every day. Soldiering. Truckdriving. Dog training. Martial arts. Boxing. You see where this is going. Does that mean that women working in those fields should expect to be brutally raped, Nellcote? Because they are already doing something that might, at some point, turn dangerous?
I’ve been wondering what we as society should tell women who put themselves in danger of being raped specifically for their profession. I’m not talking about the date-rapes and whatever else goes on in normal “civilized” society. Rather, what do we tell our military women who go to combat? What do we tell our journalists who go into chaotic places? Our aid workers? Women whose professions force them out of the safety zone.
While we might wish that women could walk around in a war zone without fear of rape (only murder) that doesn’t appear to be the reality of the situation. Anyone who puts themselves in a violent place has increased the odds of violence being done to them.
What do we tell them? If we can find the answer to that question, we might have a better answer for women who are raped in normal society, other than “you were unlucky.”
Considering the high incidence of rape and “sexual assault” in any circumstances perhaps the better question is how do we teach men and boys that this is an unacceptable way to deal.
Bingo. That is exactly the answer.
Until that happens, we’ll be managing the problem, not solving it.
That is an idea that doesn’t seem practical. As was mentioned in the original post, this is a human problem. Therefore it isn’t a “male” problem or a “female” problem and cannot be “taught” away. If it were so easy then civilizations past would have had the answers to give to us today.
Besides, your response avoids the real issue and trivializes the reality that many women face. What messages should we be giving young women today who choose to go into dangerous professions? Specifically those professions where they are more vulnerable than usual to a rapist’s attack? What would you tell your sister or friend?
Should we take the conservative route and tell women that they cannot do these things? Should there be rape-preparedness classes for women where they are taught coping skills before being raped? Is accepting rape as a risk and preparing for it a slippery slope to ignoring it?
“Does that mean that women working in those fields should expect to be brutally raped, Nellcote?”
Of course not. As I said in my post I was just trying to add context to her experience. Speaking only for myself, I think she was a specific political target and “sexual assault” was used as a politcal weapon. I don’t think it was random. I’m not trying to diminish the horror of the assault.
Nellcote: I totally got what you were saying. I appreciate the info. I think it goes to the larger point Emily was making. Rape anywhere in the world is used as a tool. Rape is used everywhere in the world to intimate the population. They’ve been doing it in The Congo for years. It’s happened in Southeast Asia….Vietnam anyone? American soldiers? I am sure Butch will have some way to defend the Americans of every religious background or none at all who rape. Rape isn’t about sex Butch. Rape is about power and humiliation and fear. That’s it. And as a ‘lucky’ woman, I really don’t understand why people, and men, don’t get that. (Is it because sex is all they think about? Serious question.)
Thank you to everyone who has spoken out loud about this. And to those who have been so completely violated, I offer positive healing thoughts.
You are correct; rape is about power. So is the demeaning of women, eg. laws/rules/religious doctrines that prohibit women from voting, driving, going to school, owning property, having equal rights as men, etc. etc. All of these are examples of power plays to marginalize women. Islam is the sum of all of these parts. Add to islam’s marginalization of women the fact, as I previously posted, that when they are raped often times the women victims themselves get killed for “dishonoring” the family. Yet where are the feminists who go crazy over the slightest hint of victimization in the western world. Yet, they are somehow totally silent about the biggest perpetrator of hatred and violence against women…Islam? Where are they? Why don’t they speak up? Why is islam constantly given a free pass?
Please go over to Debbie Schlussel’s site and mastrubate to your hearts content to all the Islam hating/victim blaming going on over there, will you?????
According to that c***nugget Schlessel ( and I HATE the C-word), “This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.”
I wonder if she got that snippy with Bush over Iraq – Saddam Hussein was doing a bang-up job of keeping Al Qeuda on a short leash, and then we went over there and set them loose. OOPS!!!!!! OUR BAD!!!!!!
Asshats of a feather don’t think their statements through together, hmmm? You and Schlussel deserve each other. Run along now, go play in HER filthy sandbox.
Now that we know that you are a Faux News tool, things are clarified:
This poor woman being raped is not the issue, it is that it was by nasty Egyptians – because it is the Faux News narrative (dark guys = muslims = evil) and not this woman’s story that concerns fucktards like you.
DIAF
Thanks, Nellcote. I still think she had the right to expect something less than sexual assault, but I can also recall Falstaff saying, “the better part of valor is discretion.” Peace.
I came over here to see if the mansplainers and victim blamers and rape apologists had followed us over here. Glad to see that not so much, but the hatred for the ‘other’ expressed here is equally depressing. Having said that, thanks so much for this post here & at BJ.
and that ‘intimate’ should totally have been intimidate
I would like to correct my earlier error, where I failed to thank Emily for a truly wonderful post. I got caught up in the moment, and in the outrage over how so many still manage to blame women for their assaults. Sexual assault is a lizard brain activity about control and power over others, even when it’s performed by women, which opens a totally different can of worms, for an altogether different discussion. Thanks, also, for every one of the compassionate, grateful, thoughtful commenters.
No worries! We all appear to be juggling a great many emotional balls today…! Thanks for hanging out and commenting & [in the other thread] sharing my Half Baked ignominy!
Damn Em, you and ABL are really my new best friends. You so often articulate exactly what I think…I remember hearing this story, and thinking of a reason why this would happen, and then it came to me…men all over the world don’t need a good reason to rape a woman.
the apologists and islamophopbic nuts here make me want to weep as much as the original story did.
Excellent, excellent post Emily. And thanks ABL for posting this on Balloon-Juice. This piece has stayed on my mind since I read it yesterday. Just wanted to come back and say thank you.
Thanks for this post, Emily, and thanks to all the kickass commentors here. Sounds like BJ best avoided until the weekend when there is beer. Brave post, thanks again.
ABL – Bless ya! You tell it like it is and I love it! And thank you, Emily. I wish I could be as calm as you.
I think that your perspective is deep, its just well thought out and really fantastic to see someone who knows how to put these thoughts down so well.
worms in children
The courage and bravery shown by lara logan is very much appreciable and the incident is not going to take her courage down
http://www.newscollective.com/blog/?p=3729