If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
And we want to believe that we’re reading every signal correctly, and we’re all on the same page, and we’re not pressuring anyone, and we’re not being threatening and on and on and on.
And I think the vast (vast) majority of the time, I go out of my way to try to make sure I’m doing all those things to the best of my ability… But when there are teeny tiny things that you could see how oof, with some slight tinkering that could be a bad situation for someone, so I guess, maybe, maybe, maaaaaaaaybe I could sort of see how someone could accidentally get caught up in a situation they don’t mean to (maybe)…
So, then I think the though process for some people goes something like, “well, maybe, just maybe, it could happen to me somehow – I could be the ‘bad guy’ potentially.”
And if it even could maybe happen to us – that we could maaaaaaybe misjudge a situation and become an “assaulter” of some kind. well, then perhaps our brains are a little bit like “maybe we need to invent a world in which nobody can be one. ‘Cause if no one can be one, we can’t either…”
I *think* that’s why some are so quick to dismiss assault because we’re afraid of a situation gone wrong – of trying to be fun, or adorable, or silly, or sexy, or carefree, or something and accidentally being abusive, somehow.
And I know it feels odd that abuse could be accidental. And it feels like “no, this should all be clear.” And for the most part, it probably should be clear. And it probably should be hard to accidentally cross the line.
But I know it’s a fear (as I’ve heard many people talk about it). I think people maybe give empathy to the perpetrator, because people want someone to give empathy to them.
And I get that. I’ve done that(!) – given empathy where it’s maybe not really quite warranted. And that’s kind of kind, and human, of us to be empathetic…
And I understand the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” (even though sexual assault is so hard to prove) .
But my goodness, from the other side now, I understand in this visceral way how hard it is to hear people (especially your perpetrator) get the benefit of the doubt over, and over, and over (and over) again… especially when oftentimes I’m not given the benefit of the doubt at all. “Well, you must be exaggerating… lying… crazy” “Why would you be alone with a man?” etc., and the never-ending barrage of accusatory or ridiculous questions. So, it’s nice I guess that we want to be human and have empathy, but why do we often only have it toward the perpetrator? Can we not see ourselves in the victims? Are we that sure it couldn’t happen to us – that that would never be us? Or are we so afraid that someday it could be, that we must take this super strong stance that the victims must’ve done something wrong? Because if it’s their fault, and they made some fatal error that weeeeee would neeeeeever do, well, then maybe we’re safe…
And everything I’m saying is revolving around how we relate to the people in the situation. But should we maybe stop trying to have ourselves at the center of our thoughts and just think about the people involved? Does it matter if it could happen to us or not, if it happened to some other human? Can we just be empathetic, no matter how it relates to us?
I’m tangenting (shocking, I know), but back to my original point… When I’m saying that potentially we go pretty easy on most perpetrators, I’m not trying to say we lose empathy for people, or we bathe in skepticism…
I’m just saying I have no idea what the answers are… But this is a little hypothesis I thought I’d kinda just raise for discussion here.