It is not your fault

So, say you’re walking down the street, minding your own business.

Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1610

Dressed for work in a knee-length skirt, a blouse and high heels. You get catcalled.

Some people, men and women both, will say this was your fault for wearing a skirt and high heels. Slut.

Say you get groped in a club, then a man you were dancing with attempts to penetrate you.

Some people will say this is your fault, for wearing sexy club clothes, dancing with a man, or being in the club at all. Slut.

Say you’re out on a date, playing pool in a room with a lot of men. They gang-rape you.

Some people will say this is your fault for being a lone woman in the presence of men at night. You must have really wanted all these random people to stick their dicks in you, just because you like having fun. Slut.

Say you’re a teenage girl, trying to figure out who you are and how you fit in the world. Since you are a teenager, you are confused about your sexuality — you know you’re attracted to boys, but you don’t know exactly what you want yet. A boy who used to be your friend starts writing you nasty, sexually demeaning notes. Then he starts making vile remarks to you. Then he starts spreading rumors about you. (The most bemusing is the one in which you are a frigid lesbian who has had sex with half the boys in school.) You try to ignore him and it doesn’t work. You try being “nice” and it doesn’t work. You try telling him to go to hell and it doesn’t work. You go to the school authorities and it doesn’t work. You wear baggy, thick clothes to cover up your blooming body. It doesn’t work. It persists for months, then years. You grow terrified of your own sexuality, thinking there’s something inherently wrong and dirty about you. You feel ugly all the time. Even over a decade later, after you’ve had sexual and romantic relationships with a lot of great guys, and one of the best men in the world is in love with you, you sometimes feel shame connected to your sexuality. You can’t believe you’re physically attractive, but you also can’t believe a man would want you for anything other than sex.

Some people, even some of your friends, will say it’s your fault for not being nice enough, for not keeping your mouth shut, for not having a boyfriend, for having male friends, for being too smart, for being too pretty. Slut.

Say you’re a female artist living in 17th century Florence. And you’re raped.

The only reason the perpetrator is convicted is because you were a virgin at the time of the rape. Otherwise he would not have been considered to have committed a crime. People would have blamed you. And called you a slut, in 17th century Italian.

We haven’t changed that much in 400 years.

Anyone who thinks they can use someone else sexually when the other person has not given enthusiastic and clear consent to the sexual act is not just wrong, both in fact and in morality, they’re criminally wrong. Anyone who defends these people is a rape apologist, a slut-shamer — and scared. Scared of the fact that we can’t always control what happens to us. Scared of the fact that often bad people do bad things to other people for no reason, and get away with it. Terrified of the fact that they could be victims. Because they could. You could. Someone could do something to you over which you would have no control whatsoever, not because of anything you did or didn’t do, but just because they felt like it.

And it wouldn’t be your fault.