Ever since I’ve been talking about all this sexual assault stuff, I’ve been asking myself (and to some extent, some people have been asking me) things like, “Well, why did you go to his house?” Or “What were you wearing?” And stuff like that.
And I know we all talk about how ridiculous those questions are… But have we ever stopped to reeeeally consider how ridiculous they are? Why did I go over to his house?
Why did I go over to his house? What on earth?
Since when would going over to the house of someone you’re kind of involved in ever be the kind of decision that makes you think twice? That couldn’t be more normal!
But because something bad happened, now we have to open an investigation into why I went. Why? Why do we do that?
(I mean, I know some of the reasons… A desperate clinging to the hope that we are all deeply and fully in control of our destinies and if only we can prove everyone did everything to themselves, we can keep believing that, or also a chronic disrespect for women [who aren’t the only victims of assault, but sure are often asked these questions]…)
And so, since we have covered a lot of this before, I’m gonna go ahead and stop this blog post here. But I would just advise that maybe the next time you ask a person something about the night they were assaulted (or you ask yourself about the night you were assaulted, believing you could do more, if that’s something you struggle with), think about that behavior on any other night, and think if you’d ask the same question.
(‘Cause, to me, at least, in that context, some of them seem ridiiiiiiculous)
[This is from the sexual assault series.]