Yes, it IS your fault!

[beandelphiki]

So, endogenousardor made a post here about a debate he got into. (Um, I use the word "debate" rather loosely...)

The debate is ostensibly about whether or not a woman who goes home with a strange man, makes out with him, gets naked, and then changes her mind has more to do with getting raped than a woman who is simply abducted off the street and raped. (Did that make sense? Well, I'll try to be clearer.)

Mostly, it is really about whether or not a person who chooses a line of action that puts them at greater risk of danger has more personal responsibility if something happens than a person who did NOT choose a line of action that was dangerous.

So, endogenousardor's position seems to be that you are responsible for stupid actions that result in your injury/death UNTIL you are somehow violently attacked, and then this absolves you of all responsibility you had for putting yourself in harm's way. BullSHIT, I say.

I thought part of the problem here is that he has the impression that someone who holds my position perhaps is not looking at the situation from a particularly "human" point of view, but a logical one, and he is right, but...would it help if I said I do not hold myself exempt from my own rules? That's what the first part of this post (behind the cut) is about.


The second part is trickier...somehow, the question of "sympathy" got into the debate...and it fucked things up royally, if I do say so myself. I'm sorry I ever got drawn into discussing sympathy.

But last night, I read one of his comments in which he asked about how society's view of sexual women ties into a lack of sympathy for the club-hopping rape victim. And when I responded to that comment last night, I had a very visceral, very defensive, very ANGRY reaction. (I don't know how much of that is apparent in the comment, but I did indeed get very angry.)

This morning it occurred to me to ask myself what that anger was about, and how that relates to my answer to the "sympathy" question...and that's what the second part of my post is about. I'll give a heads-up though, since this part is going to get very personal, and you probably don't care.

---

PART I

When I was nine, I was molested. [Feel free to exit if this is triggering.] This wasn't the only time in my life I've been sexually abused, but I feel I had personal responsibility in this case, which is why I am using this example.

There was a teenager in our neighbourhood that all the little kids thought was SO COOL...I'll call her P. P told me often, that I was "special," unlike the other kids, and that I was always welcome to hang out with her. She told me she thought I was cool, even though I was only 9. I'm sure she told all the little kids in the neighbourhood that.

One day, very bored, I went over to her house, and found her in the trailer in her backyard. I knew there were a ton of little kids in there, because of the row of itsy-bitsy shoes. I knocked on the door, and P first unlocked, then eased open the door a crack...I KNEW something was very wrong right then, because that trailer door was not supposed to be locked...everyone knew the rules in P's family.

She told me right at the door that if I wanted to come in, I had to promise never to tell an adult what went on inside. I had a million clues something was wrong...but I went inside anyway. Because I wanted to be cool. And I was molested in some very disgusting ways.

I consider myself HEALED of that experience, now. (The "healed" part has bearing later on, it's important.)

Was it my fault I was molested? NO. I was not responsible for P's actions, only my own.

So what was I responsible for? Walking into that fucking trailer in the first place. I KNEW to run away, get an adult, say no...P even gave me that choice. But I didn't take it, and that it is MY fault, and no one else's. I have a personal responsibility for putting myself in a position that was dangerous.

I think the fact that I was violated is irrelevant, and doesn't absolve me of responsibility for my actions. I think the fact that I was a child is irrelevant.

I see you all staring in horror at the slippery slope. This is where healing comes in.

It is part of the healing process to accept responsibility for those actions you took that lend to your abuse. And then...forgive yourself. "Forgiving yourself" is a very large part of becoming a survivor (as opposed to a victim.) But you cannot forgive yourself for actions you don't first take responsibility for.

I would never suggest anyone take responsibility for those actions until they are mentally in the place to do so.

---

PART II

Now we come to the second part...ugh. If you thought it was heavy before... Gets very personal ahead.

This morning I was asking myself...if I can forgive MYSELF of actions that led to my molestation...why can I not forgive the club-hopping woman? Why does this make me see red?

After a great deal of thinking, these are the conclusions I have come to...

It makes me furious to see endogenousardor absolving this woman of responsibility I think she should (eventually) take on herself. What better way to keep her a VICTIM, rather than a survivor!

But mostly, I think we get into my own fucked-up relationship to responsibility. In my family, you are to blame for everything, and nothing. This is because everyone in my family likes to blame someone else for everything.

Example: When I was 13, a man began sexually harassing me at my bus stop when I was was walking home. I ran away from him, he chased me home, and I hid around the side of my house. I discovered that I had locked myself out of my house. (Yay for latch-key kids...) I spent the next (miraculously few) minutes convinced I was going to be raped.

When my mother heard the story, she screamed at me, "It's your fault! If you were taking a school bus with a bus stop closer to home, it never would have happened! You're fucking stupid!"

So, I've realized, my problem is...I'm jealous. I'm jealous of that club-hopping rape victim I'm sure many people want to put in a bubble and coo over. "Poor thing!" (See my insane jealousy at work here?) I'm jealous she gets coddled when I didn't. I'm jealous that I had to DEAL with my responsibility, and some people think she SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. And it pisses me off royally that someone can say someone else should have their sexuality used as an excuse...I didn't HAVE a sexuality when I was nine, and I barely had one at 13, either.

What does this mean in terms of how much sympathy I have for her? I still don't feel sorry for her (although I feel BAD, if you see the distinction).

I now doubt this is as logical as I previously thought.

Comments

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I fail to understand how your mother could possibly blame you for having a bus stop that was not close to your home. You had no way to control that. She was wrong.

Speaking as a twice-happened rape victim and a repeat molestation victim (when I was four, thank you) I don't feel any need to take responsibility for stuff that happened *to* me in which I had no say.

Sorry, but I can't agree with your conclusions, Daniel.

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

I DIDN'T take responsibility for something that happened TO me. See, I said:

Was it my fault I was molested? NO. I was not responsible for P's actions, only my own.

That was my whole point. I'm taking responsibility for what I DID.

[danielray.livejournal.com]

so the whole thing is messy messy messy... the whole thing: responsibility, blame, sympathy, victims... i think it all means different things to different people, which makes talking about it all the harder...

i feel like i have a pretty strong opion on all of this, and the more i talk about it--it's not that my thoughts on it *change* per se, but rather that each time i get a little closer to getting at what i *mean*.

but here's my thought: you are saying that an integral part of your healing process was accepting responsibility for your actions and forgiving yourself for them. yes, you are right. heh--you're right not only because it was your experience and of *course* you are right about what worked for you in your experience, but i also theoretically think you are right.

but--i do not think it is, say, *my* place to look at the situation and tell you you to what extent i think you were responsible and that you have to deal with your responsibility.

i've never been assaulted or raped, but i have been in several iffy sorts of situations, where i should have said no or bailed out sooner than i did. not as extreme, but definitely some healing process from that. and yeah--a lot of healing from that is about learning who i was when that happened, why i did what i did, how i could do it differently in the future, what it means to do it differently in the future, accepting my actions then and having a sense of what sorts of actions i want to take in the future... but that's *my* process. i wouldn't want someone who isn't me--or whom i didn't explicitly ask to talk with about specifically this process--telling me to what extent they think i am responsible. only i know that--and, perhaps more importantly, only i know how i am best able to heal...

so.. is there an element of responsibility in the club-hopping thought experiment? i don't believe that it is my place as an outside observer to decide that. if the thought-experiment woman is to heal, she will need to form her own thoughts on what happened and how she feels about it and how much control she feels she has and what she needs to do in herself to heal and how that will or will not affect her future actions. but unless i am a close friend or therapist or something with whom she is explicitly talking about this process, i don't see how my assigning responsibility or not is going to help anyone... and i can see how my trying to convince her to accept resonsibility--at a time when she is maybe not ready to do so, or is just in an entirely different place, or if i am someone she does not know or trust, or if it is in a situation where my opinions will have a legal effect on her--can be actively harmful...

hmm... so maybe that's underlying *my* urge to shout NO NO OF COURSE IT'S NOT HER FAULT! maybe i really mean, 'who are you to think you have the right to make that call...??

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Well, I said:

I would never suggest anyone take responsibility for those actions until they are mentally in the place to do so.

...and maybe I should have expanded on that, but I felt the post was already getting horrendously long.

Yes, I agree with you, it is the victim's place to decide what was their fault and what wasn't...what bothers me is an attitude that AUTOMATICALLY, NOTHING is their fault...which ALSO takes the choice away from that victim, as much as having someone else assign it does, you see? (Maybe not so much?)

I am thinking of the "it's not your fault!" chant of the child-abuse/domestic violence prevention activists. Which I am VERY familiar with, as I'm one of those activists - been volunteering with the Red Cross abuse-prevention program for four years, now.

It took me quite a while to figure out why I felt there was something WRONG with that chant when I tried to apply it to my situation...

Now, I'm not trying to say "it's not your fault!" is a bad thing for people to be saying to abuse victims...it is a positive, affirming thing. Just a little oversimplified.

I just strongly disagree with the idea that you (collective you) should go telling abuse/rape victims that because it was a violent attack they suffered, they are absolved of whatever responsibility they might have had, it's okay, go home now. That cheats people. That doesn't help anyone sort out feelings of..."but, I did this, and I know that made a difference on the outcome."

[danielray.livejournal.com]

and now we reach a point where it feels to me like the form of the question is overdetermining the debate... although, looking back, i would have to say that the *assumed* question is overdetermining the possible answers.

it's not exactly clearly stated, but the question at hand in the discussion in debate seems to be, early on: "if a woman blah blah blah blah blah, is she partially responsible?"

to which we tend to assume there are two possible answers: yes, and no.

and you can raise a million objections to yes, and you can raise a million objections to no.

but there is no clear distinction between arguing 'yes, she is automatically partially responsible' or 'yes, she is not automatically not partially responsible'

or between arguing 'no, she is automatically not partially responsible' or 'no, she is not automatically partially responsible.'

makes me wonder how the debate would go if it were framed entirely in "i" statements.

Q: so say I'm club-hopping and blah blah blah--what is my sense of responsibility?

A: Well, if *i* were club-hopping and blah blah blah, i would feel X, and I would think Y...

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Now, I have to admit you lost me. Overdetermine? Whazzat?

And I'm confused as to the point of your comment, although maybe understanding what you meant by "overdetermining" would help.

And I thought with this post, I WAS framing things from an "I" perspective, to some degree...that was the plan, anyway.

But anyway, I came back to make an addition to the above comment...it ocurred to me that it could seem to contradict what I've been saying so far...I guess on one side, I look at the whole thing rather mathmatically... Person A performed action X, action X is a factor in outcome Y: corollary 1; personal responsibility for action X that may have helped lead to outcome Y. Pretty simple, right? I think that in the "real world," this doesn't work, and we respond from a different perspective, since the logic doesn't help with human emotion, at least not for most people (is that something you were saying earlier? in response to the original post?)

But whether or not Person A takes responsibility for her actions or not, and which ones she takes it for, although being none of my business in the "real world," is not something I'll budge on - action X is her fault. And I think it is her job to assess what responsibility she has, EVEN IF she decides she has NONE.

Jeez, am I STILL contradicting myself? I really can't tell anymore.

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

i feel like i have a pretty strong opion on all of this, and the more i talk about it--it's not that my thoughts on it *change* per se, but rather that each time i get a little closer to getting at what i *mean*.

No kidding. I'm choking this to death, aren't I?

I never got the impression that the argument was actually about how you'd treat a rape victim...maybe I'm wrong, but I never thought that the other guy would actually go up to a rape victim and say, "well, now you should take personal responsibilty for what actions helped get you in that position." Just that he (and I) thinks she does.

That's really the only point I think matters now - you are responsible for your actions, and nothing erases that.

And I'm not going to say any more, because I could keep going forever, and just get more lost.

I just don't care anymore.

Chocolate tastes good.

chocolate is fabulous

[danielray.livejournal.com]

heh--so i am making overarching generalizations without being clear. how not surprising is that?

i don't mind being completely obscure and nonlinear, because my brain is obscure and nonlinear, but it's good to be reminded when i am trying to talk to other humans rather than just myself.

ok...

a) what was i saying when i lost you? in reference to the *whole thread* that was going on, rather than this specific thread in your own journal (and yeah, you *were* drawing from your own experiences, which does bring the whole thing to another, much more palatable level), i was thinking that the way people were asking the question was kind of limiting the possible answers--like a multiple choice rather than an essay test--and what do you do when the answer is none of the little bubbles?

...it's like, people were arguing as though there were 2 possible answers: yes or no.

some people were saying "yes she's definitely responsible" and "no she's never responsible." but other people were saying, "well, it could be possible that she might be responsible" or "well, it could be possible that she isn't responsible." but because of the way people were talking about it, these different responses ended up seeming like they were mushed into only 2 possible answers...

b) I never got the impression that the argument was actually about how you'd treat a rape victim...maybe I'm wrong, but I never thought that the other guy would actually go up to a rape victim and say, "well, now you should take personal responsibilty for what actions helped get you in that position." Just that he (and I) thinks she does.

but the argument was basically framed in terms of an uninvolved third party making an assessment of her responsibility. but i don't feel that it's the place of an uninvolved third party to make such an assessment.

(athough even this view of mine is flawed, because how are people going to know what they think about stuff unless they talk about it? but maybe that simply comes down to that i'd prefer if the questions were asked in a different way...)

c) one of the favorite things i ever heard anyone say was "all emotions are irrational, and all emotions are valid." i likewise feel completely good about claiming contradictory feelings.

Re: chocolate is fabulous

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Agreed to all points (I could clarify where I agree with B forever, but I won't), and thanks for clearing things up.

Whew! Are we finished?

[endogenousardor.livejournal.com]

Sorry to pop in late on the discussion. I've been with my family in Beaumont for my grandma's funeral and have not had access to a computer.

I think where things went awry in my original debate with jonfmorse is in the very subtle differences beteen the concepts of 'blame', 'resonsibility', and 'fault'. They're all very closely related and are sometimes used interchangeably.

I agree with you and Jon on the idea that every person is responsible for their actions, whether those actions result in good, bad or indifferent outcomes. But does that automatically make a person at fault or to blame for being a victim of violence? That's where I drew a line that made several people, including you, uncomfortable. I ventured the idea that no action, short of violence itself, justifies violence; therefore, one can't 'blame' or 'fault' a victim for any personal behavior that resulted in another person becoming violent.

There is a distinction in my mind between 'taking responsibility' and 'taking blame' when it comes to violence. I think a victim should take responsibility for placing him or herself in a situation that ultimately became violent without accepting blame for the violent actions of the other person. I know it's kind of hard to get one's mind around that concept, but I think it's a valid one.

A man or woman should be able to go out dancing, get drunk (or otherwise altered), go home with a cute stranger of the same or opposite sex, make out out on the couch, leave a trail of clothes from the couch to the bed, make out some more, and then say "y'know... I'm not comfortable going any further." None of those behaviors justifies a violent response, therefore the victim, while responsible for placing themselves in such a position, is not at all to blame, even partially, for the violent reaction.

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with that comment.

The victim is not to blame for the violent reaction, because that is not their actions.

I think a victim should take responsibility for placing him or herself in a situation that ultimately became violent without accepting blame for the violent actions of the other person.

Cuz, see, that's EXACTLY what I was saying. Were we just talking at cross-purposes or something? Because I take this comment to mean we agreed all along on the most basic point of the discussion. *scratches head*

Now I'm confused.

Re:

[endogenousardor.livejournal.com]

Well, where things got touchy was when I pointed out that, if both rape victims are 100% responsible for actions that led to the rape, and 0% responsible for the violent actions of their rapists, then there should be no difference in how we judge the outcomes of the two rapes.

By judging one of the women less sympathetic than the other, aren't we suggesting that one somehow is more to blame for the actions of her rapist?

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Oh, riiiiight, right, right, I 'member now.

Well, due to the conclusions I made in Part II of my post, I write myself out of the sympathy argument.