About this blog and posting rules

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Welcome to the Aphrodite Wounded Blog

This is a blog for survivors, supporters, professionals and others with an interest in Intimate Partner Sexual Assault. The more voices we hear about this common but underreported and hidden crime against women, the better. I hope you’ll feel free to share thoughts, opinions, resources etc. about Intimate Partner Sexual Assault on this blog. I look forward to hearing from you. Please see ground rules first:

Posting Rules:

Be respectful – posts are on moderation because this isn’t a place for silly accusations about “male-bashing”, for stats pulled out of your hat about the “hundreds” of women who lie about rape because they don’t want their partners to get custody of children, or how relationships imply unlimited consent. You may also share thoughts about partner rape against men, but please, no howls of “what about the men” and “feminists don’t give a toss” diatribe. “Men’s Rights” promulgators are definitely not welcome and will fall under the banhammer without mercy. If this seems defensive, it’s because I’ve seen it all before and don’t want to provide yet another space for it. This is a safe feminist and survivor space.
Have a nice day/evening :)

Rape Norms and the Support of Perpetrators

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I have a lovely new friend, “Sarah”, who is a survivor of partner rape, and who is presently undergoing the legal process. She is pushing ahead even the police have cautioned that she is less likely to have success because she remained with her partner after the fact of being raped. And everybody knows, don’t they, that a “normal” rape victim, a “good” rape victim leaves the scene straight away and reports the crime, right? The overarching social belief here is that remaining with the rapist and delayed reporting, mean that the rape complainant is, in fact, lying about being raped. Complaining about rape belatedly is seen to denote a (usually) spite-fuelled “changing of the mind” about legitimate sex or, among other things, to get back at a man for leaving the relationship. There is thought to be secondary gain of some sort.

I am an old fan of the band Status Quo, and as such subscribe to several Facebook pages concerning the group and members past and present. Due to this, I became aware that a member of a Quo tribute band had lately been charged with rape. John “Jackie Quo” Ambler was sentenced to jail for the rape of an intimate partner some years ago (he is also found to have sexually assaulted her daughter). The rape was reported well after it had occurred, but Ambler was found guilty. Here is an article on this case.

I mention this case specifically because there is a Facebook group disseminating a petition trying to have Ambler freed. There is that tired old usual view that the victim has undoubtedly lied. Some of the self-righteousness and hysteria seems to be predicated on the fact that this man was a member of a Quo rock tribute group; some fans are a bit disgruntled. Loyalty to a band is a silly reason to assume that somebody didn’t do something (and we see the same phenomenon repeated with sporting celebrities), but the main ace in the hole seems to be a letter written by Ambler’s wife. There’s a bit of a convoluted backstory: The victim was a woman with whom Ambler had been having an affair behind his wife’s back for many years. His wife, however wronged, still wrote this on his behalf. Anybody with knowledge of partner rape will see the myriad myths about it at play in this letter: The victim remained; she didn’t complain of rape at the time, she invited him to live with her after said rape, she only complained about it after he dumped her. And all that which we know so well, and which people automatically take to mean that the complainant is a liar.

Personally, it is amazing to me that Ambler’s wife could be persuaded to write such a letter on behalf of a man who abused her trust so appallingly. Okay, but let’s be fair – does a cheat equal a rapist? Perhaps not, but in this case the court saw enough evidence to decide otherwise. It is most unusual for courts to even try a partner rape case. So while the “Free John Ambler” group is bleating about the lack of evidence, it would need to have been fairly compelling from a legal standpoint. Isn’t it often the way that, with rape, the public gets to hear about what evidence there wasn’t and not what evidence there was?

One important aspect of partner rape is that it is often not possible to apply the “norms” that apply to stranger rape. The fact that those norms do not fit does not mean that rape did not occur. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – an act of rape does not – cannot possibly – unbecome an act of rape because somebody remained in the relationship with her rapist – or because she did not know at the time, what was happening to her.

Ambler, like many perpetrators of violence, gets the benefit of the doubt; excuse me, but I’m going to give the victims the benefit of mine. It is nothing new for women and children to experience rape and other violence and then have people band together to support the perpetrator, and it is horrifying. I am not of the belief that women never lie about rape. I believe, however, that they rarely do so and I’m wearied of the way four fifths of society are automatically prepared to swear on a stack of bibles she’s a liar, and take pity on the perpetrator. I prefer to level things out a bit. Obviously, Ambler himself was quite proficient at telling lies over a long period of time, and I imagine that it must have taken immense courage for these women to take this to the courts. They have my support.

I also offer Sarah hugs, support and a comrade x

Women and Resistance to Sexual Assault – Is the Message Getting Through?

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Hi friends,

This post has been churning away in me for some time now. It is born partly of interactions I have had with a new online friend, Gaz Black, of The Best Defense Program.

You’re going to get a bit of stream-of-consciousness here. Being somewhat tired, this may not be the most organized post.

I have observed that the issue of women and self-defense is problematic for several reasons. Some of my sisters in feminism think that it should not be incumbent upon women to do something to stop rape; men need to stop raping. I agree with that, it is a most worthy ideal. Yet, while we are busy pursuing this ideal, are not we, our daughters and all of the women we love, worth having information that may stop a rapist from violating us? I believe that we are.

Raising the issue of resistance in rape situations may also be troubling for some survivors, who feel that it somehow condemns them for whatever they feel they didn’t do to stop the rape. So many of us survived by freezing or acquiescing because we were very naturally afraid of being harmed “worse” – as if rape isn’t being harmed badly enough.I did this too, for what were very good reasons at the time, and I don’t think any woman should feel a moment’s shame over what she feels she “should” have done to stop a rapist. Certainly, I no longer do – even as I understand that the dreadful syndrome “If only I had done this, that, or the other”, is something that plagues most survivors. Unfortunately we get plenty of help in that from a wider society that insists we must be beaten senseless to prove we didn’t consent. This is rubbish, of course. I do believe strongly though, that talk and activity around self-defense and resistance can be something that we use to empower us for the future – because we are worth defending.

Several years ago, I had occasion to read some studies on women and resistance strategies to rape, and their findings were, to say the least, compelling. It is a fact that many women fear fighting a rapist back, because they are afraid of being hurt “worse” (and in the words of Gaz, “Worse than what?”) or even killed. The studies were saying over and over again, however, that fighting back did NOT correlate with greater injury. Using strategies such as fighting and screaming also led to less rape completion, whereas strategies such as crying and pleading were far less successful. Women can statistically be more successful in thwarting rape if they are more worried about being raped than they are other forms of violence. Further, women who did actively fight back, tended to be less traumatized than women who did not, even if the rape was completed 1, 2. (See below for a list of studies).

Could I share something with you? The very last time that my ex-partner attempted to rape me, he had held me in my room and tormented me for two hours. We had broken up for good, and he didn’t want to accept it.He abused me in numerous ways, including digitally raping me. Then he threw me into the garish purple beanbag I had in my room, straddled me and started trying to pull off my underwear. Something in me snapped, it was like a point of critical mass. Having been raped again and again by him, and acquiescing because I knew he would beat me if I didn’t, I knew I could not stand one more time. I truly felt like I was teetering on the edge of a precipice. I screamed “no!” but silently because my children were in the house. And then my knee came up and smashed him in the nose, and my fist shot out and punched him in the balls. He staggered away from me, and I could not believe what I had done. I had really hurt him. I didn’t run, because I didn’t want to leave my babies. And he recovered, and beat me so badly he eventually had to help me to bed. But he did not complete the rape. It was terrible, absolutely, to be bashed. But I have to say that those studies resonate with me, because to this day, while I would acknowledge it was horrific to be beaten that way, I am still glad that he did not rape me in what I perceived then to be the fullest sense. I derive at least some triumph from that experience, and I do feel that it is somewhat less traumatic. I don’t know, maybe it’s all relative.

It feels really important and fair for me to say at this point that I am not suggesting that battered women let themselves in for more severe beatings. I am sharing one experience I had, and even so, I am not ashamed of other times where I didn’t fight because I knew for a fact he would beat me badly. It is just that with this one experience, it was being raped that I was more frightened of. Yes, he might have killed me. But he didn’t, and I feel lucky to be able to share this. 

While we are talking about women who fight back in some way to resist rape, how does that apply to partner rape and domestic violence? Finkelhor and Yllo, in their study License to Rape, 3 looked at strategies women use to avoid marital rape. These strategies might involve sleeping with children – or other ways of avoiding going to bed with the perpetrator. Some women made threats to kill the perpetrator, or to leave him, which were perceived by him as credible. But these researchers were very cautious, because while they mentioned the compelling study findings of the like of Pauline Bart, 4 it was also evident that battered women who fought back did actually quite often sustain high degrees of injury. We also know that partner rape tends to occasion the highest degree of physical injury 5. So, perhaps this is a whole other area that, in my experience, few self-defense programs are scoped to take into account, focusing as they generally do on stranger, date or acquaintance rape. It’s okay that they have a specific focus, but perhaps other contexts and possible limitations could be acknowledged.

And now on with the generalities of women’s resistance.

According to Brent Sanders, facilitator of Winning Edge Strategies, rapists have a script. They expect you to be intimidated by them; when you are not – when for example, you scream and fight rather than freezing – you change their script and it confuses them. Evidently, some rapists are apt to decide that a fighting woman is not worth the trouble, because they’re basically cowards who prefer easier prey.

Anyway, all of this reading was enough to cause me to check into a self-defense course, where I found out I could hit really REALLY hard.

And is resisting sexual assaults all about physical fighting? No. The best programs will teach us that our minds, or instincts, and listening to them, may just be our best weapons. I have witnessed the terrible pain of countless women who have said to me “Louise, I knew there was time where something wasn’t quite right. But I ignored it because he hadn’t actually done anything.”

Society teaches us that women are overly hysterical about rape (and that we are wishful thinking, yuk yuk) even when rape is a goddamn fact of life for too many women. We should avoid it at all costs, because if it does happen we’ll be blamed for not avoiding it, but if we do confess that we are afraid of it we get sneered at! It is typical for women to ignore and discount themselves precisely because that is what we have been taught to do, emotional non-rational little flowers that we are (snort).  So, many of us, when we sense something is wrong, ignore it because we are afraid of over-reacting and being silly. But really, if we think somebody may be following us and we summon help, so what if we’re wrong? It’s a lot better than having been right and having feared looking silly. Women should feel much more free to take care of themselves on the grounds of what might happen to them. Rape is a reality that we live cheek-to-jowl with.

One of my favourite feminists writers, Diana E.H. Russell, makes the point that women need to spend more time taking care of their safety than they do men’s egos 6.  And the thing is, we are socialized to be nice, aren’t we? We will dance with that creepy guy at a party instead of telling him to piss off, because we don’t want to be seen as an unpleasant bitch. It is rooted so deeply in us, when the fact of the matter is that his feelings matter far less than OUR rights, OUR integrity.

Sisters, if you feel something is wrong, it doesn’t matter if he hasn’t done anything. Please, put yourself first and act on that feeling. Our minds, our instincts and our power are a lot more switched on than we may think they are.

A problem I have observed in many survivors is that they tend to think they’re being “paranoid about what happened” if they feel uneasy with certain people or situations. But our experiences can be guides; that is not paranoia – it is a good thing for us to learn to listen to ourselves.

Resistance to rape may also involve how we use our voices. Studies also show that women who are okay with being “rude and unfriendly” to men who approach them stand a good chance of not being assaulted 7. Sharing again: Some ten years ago, I was approached by a man in a car-park who asked me for a cigarette. I gave him one, and he immediately put it in his pocket. This, coupled with the intense stare on his face made my instincts go crazy. And I was right. He said, “I’ve been watching you inside the shopping center. You’re really beautiful. I want to fuck you. Can we go somewhere?” I told him he had to be joking, and ran around my car and jumped in. But before I could slam the door, he wedged himself between me and the car door and said, “At least let me touch your breasts.” At this point I was terrified and whimpered “Please don’t hurt me.” Then all of a sudden it occurred to me that my new training and knowledge was going to waste. I thought, “Louise! You sound like a victim!” And I straightened up and yelled, “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, YOU ASSHOLE! RIGHT NOW! How DARE you threaten me like this? You have no right!”  He backed off as if I had produced a blowtorch and threatened to set fire to him. He even said sorry! I went to the police and warned them about a man accosting women in this way, because I was afraid of what he might to to a woman who didn’t yell.

How do I know my actions saved me from something worse? I don’t. The best self-defense courses will never promise any guarantees, because there are none. I just know that what I had learned, and the growing self–respect that came from healing, did help me that day. I’m glad I did it.

Have any of you ever had a chance to read D.A. Clarke’s essay, Justice is a Woman with a Sword: Some Thoughts on Women, Feminism and Violence? 8 This wonderful, worthwhile read pleads the case for women to stop being socialized as we are, and be prepared to use whatever violence necessary against those who would do us violence. Clarke says

It’s interesting – amusing in a bitter kind of way – maybe even liberating – to envision a slightly different world. The man limps into the emergency room with one ear half torn off and multiple bruises. As he gasps out his story, the doctor shakes his head. “You mean you grabbed at her breasts ands tried to pull her into your car? Well I mean, dummy, what did you expect? And he gets no sympathy, not a shred, from anyone.

Catharine MacKinnon once said that it is women’s inability to respond to sexual assault with anger, that ultimately destroys them. In my twenties, I felt only fear and terror around the possibility of further sexual assault. Now, I feel rage. I know what it is: It is somebody wiping his backside on me. It is not because I did the wrong thing by wearing a miniskirt, by being at home alone, or by existing. Rape means that some bastard wants to literally take a figurative shit on me. And my patience and my self-blame have given out – I’m so over that shit. It has given way to fury at the thought of being raped again. I am not some bastard’s garbage bin. Will that save me? Is it wise to rape-proof yourself with fantasies about a well-aimed kick to the nuts, or even killing the fool silly enough to try, appealing as that is? No, because we are all vulnerable. But that rage, and that knowledge that I don’t deserve to be somebody’s victim is a much better place to be in than the fear.

The title of this post asked if the message was getting through. I do hope so. I know that it is still so common for women to fear what would happen if they dare stand up for themselves. I know this is natural but it is also what too many rapists are banking on. Damn them.

Citations:

  1. Bart, P. B. (1981), A Study of Women Who Both Were Raped and Avoided Rape. Journal of Social Issues, 37: 123–137.
  2. Fry, P., and L. Barker. ”Female Survivors of Violence and Abuse: Their Regrets of Action and Inaction in Coping.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 16 (2001)
  3. Finkelhor, D.and Yllo, K., License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives, The Free Press, New York 1985
  4. Bart, P. B. (1981), A Study of Women Who Both Were Raped and Avoided Rape. Journal of Social Issues, 37: 123–137.
  5. Myhill & Allen, Rape and Sexual Assault of Women: Findings from the British Crime Survey
  6. Russell, Diana E.H, The Politics of Rape, Stein and Day, USA (1975)
  7. Brodsky, S. Prevention of rape: Deterrance by the potential victim. In S. Brodsky Victim and rapist. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1976, 75-89.
  8. Clarke, D.A, Justice is a Woman with a Sword: Some Thoughts on Women, Feminism and Violence http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/Porn/Justice.html

Studies:

  • A 10-Year Update of “Review and Critique of Empirical Studies of Rape Avoidance”
  • A Study of Women Who Both Were Raped and Avoided Rape
  • Challenging Despair Teaching About Women’s Resistance to Violence
  • Female Survivors of Violence and Abuse: Their Regrets of Action and Inaction in Coping
  • “I Can Take Care of Myself”: The Impact of Self-Defense Training on Women’s Lives
  • Latent Profiles Among Sexual Assault Survivors Implications for Defensive Coping and Resistance
  • Prediction of Women’s Utilization of Resistance Strategies in a Sexual Assault Situation -  A Prospective Study
  • Resistance to Sexual Assault: Who Resists and What Happens?
  • Self-Defense Assertiveness Training, Women’s Victimization History, and Psychological Characteristics
  • Self-Defense or Assertiveness Training and Women’s Responses to Sexual Attacks
  • The Effects of Resistance Strategies on Rape
  • The efficacy of  resistance strategies in rape situations
  • The Roots of Resistance to Women’s Self-Defense
  • Victim Responses by Rapist Type : An Empirical and Clinical Analysis
  • Women’s Use of Physical and Nonphysical Self-Defense Strategies During Incidents of Partner Violence

Good Self-Defense Resources:

Speeding up terror to get to the other side…

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Dear friends,

Recently, I was thinking about another part of my experience of domestic violence. Here’s what happened:

My abuser had beaten me one day, and I decided I’d had enough. So I fled to my mother’s house and called the police to come and get him out of my flat. Unfortunately my abuser was not at the flat when the policeman took me back there. So, the policeman dropped me off at a neighbour’s house. I guessed where abuser would be, so I rang him, and told him to come and get all of his stuff out of my place. I told him where I was, and that I would involve the police again, if necessary. He showed up at the front door with a knife, swearing that if he could get at me, he would kill me. I made for the phone to call the police, but the neighbour dissuaded me on the grounds that she didn’t want to engender the embarrassment of police cars outside her home (!?) It was very easy back then to help me feel selfish and thoughtless. She said she could talk him into surrendering the knife, which she went out the front, and did.

She came back inside with the surrendered knife, and gave me a scornful, cold look, saying “He says you TELL him to hit you! Don’t expect sympathy from me if you’re asking for it.” Even after she had witnessed me in danger for my life, she took his side. I was used to that happening; it was not new for those I turned to for help to blame me. He and I went home together…

The main thrust of this post though, is “He says you tell him to hit you.” I felt the most terrible shame.

Because it was true. I did indeed, sometimes, do this.

Why? Well, I could not find the words to say to her then, and frankly I don’t know that she’d have cared, to understand that I did this because it was going to happen anyway. He was always going to hit me, he knew it, and I knew it, and the terrorism involved in the build-up to violence was so dreadful that it was actually preferable to me to hurry it along a bit. Then we could move into the aftermath…which generally involved “make-up” sex that we both knew I was too frightened to refuse, and which would become more overt rape if I did…but after this came relative, if short-lived, peace.

I did not mean, “Hit me because I want you to.”
I did not mean, “Hit me because I get off on it.”
I meant, “Hit me because you will anyway and I can no longer tolerate the anticipatory fear so get on with it.”

And what were my options? “Don’t hit me”? (Yeah, THAT worked, like, never). “Fuck off?” (a sassy attitude to be sure, but guaranteed to bring it on anyway and possibly worse). Or how about, “If you hit me I’ll leave you, you bastard?” We’ve seen what sort of behaviour talk of breaking up was apt to bring on – it was the most dangerous topic of all. And I have a feeling my sisters who have survived battery will know just what I mean.

Here’s the thing: I am no longer the least bit ashamed of what I did to try and ensure some measure of psychological survival under those circumstances.  And, is he not responsible? Was he left without any choice but to comply with a terrified young woman’s “hit me, just get it over with”? Bullshit. 

Hugs and empathy to any sister who relates. If you are still living under these circumstances, I hope you will find the freedom you do deserve. If you are still ashamed, you don’t need to be

Oh and sod that ignorant neighbour too.

RINJ Victim-blamer a fake

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Dear follower,

If you have read my last two posts, you will have seen some execrable victim-blaming by So Nya/So Yoshiki, member of the RINJ group. And you will see that in the first post, I attempted to embrace a modicum of empathy for her, because I considered that appropriate at the time. I no longer do, and I want to thank the terrific CRINJ group, who is fighting to undo some of the damage done by RINJ, for uncovering this liar, faker and coward. How RINJ can claim to have a shred of credibility left is beyond me, and possibly sociopathic.

If you are interested in knowing more details, please see Just Who is vocal RINJ member So Nya/So Yoshiki?

For more on the completely unconscionable lies and tactics engaged in by RINJ, the leadership of which is doing very real damage to survivors and the anti-rape cause, please follow CRINJ on Facebook here.

Alert: RINJ Group blames victims of domestic violence and by extension, partner rape.

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Update: (23/92/12): While you will see in the post below that I attempted to mantain a compassionate tone to the person attacking survivors of domestic violence partner rape, see this post to find out why that is no longer appropriate.

Short update (12/02/12): While I was not going to publish comments by any RINJers coming in here for a bawww at me, I have elected to do so as yet another piece of the mounting evidence of how they uphold each other in their odium as well as the silly accusations/threats they level. You will note that one replier tells us he/she is not, in fact, a RINJer, but as the old saying goes, “If it looks like it and smells like it…” Anyway, to the post:

Some time ago, there was a move to have appalling pro rape-joke pages closed down on Facebook.  Many individuals and groups were involved, myself included. Out of this, the Rape Is No Joke (RINJ) group was formed. At first, I supported this group. It seemed comprised of gutsy women and men who were uncompromising in their quest to have these pages removed. They appeared to enjoy a measure of success persuading businesses whose ads were linked to these pages, to withdraw their sponsorship.

All good, right?

I wish that were the case. In the months since the forming of this group, I have seen people attacked and banned for disagreeing even slightly (such as asking for trigger warnings), harassed, bullied and slandered. “Fringe lunatics” comes to mind as an apt term. I am a feminist and not always what you would call a “moderate” one; I too, have been called “extremist” for protesting that rape is not funny. I am also aware that any feminist activity is in some corners instantly derided as “extremism”, especially when that activity offends those in whose interest it is to keep degrading and subjugating women. Accusations of extremism often mean somebody is peeved because we won’t compromise – won’t, for example, be persuaded that we have no sense of humour because we don’t think a cartoon of  a rape victim shouting “encore!” as her rapist runs away is “funny”.  I support work that might be different from how I would proceed if a common aim is being shared. But RINJ is something different.

While, as followers of my blog will know, I do not think it’s inherently anti-male to focus on violence to women (and in this case the rape jokes were being made about women), this group has crossed far over the line of worthy discussions and focus on socially-accepted misogyny into violent misandry and ridicule of male survivors. This behaviour is exactly what feminism doesn’t need, as the more intellectually lazy, hostile or uninformed automatically believe that this behaviour represents all feminists. RINJ is becoming a joke, and not just among those whom it serves to slam feminist activism.

They have systematically alienated many people – some whom I personally know – who would have been worthwhile allies. Now, where is this going? Well, I had been worried about things like the above for some time, but the dizzy limit came for me when a friend showed me this, from the RINJ FB page:

Exit all relationships with men who abuse women. Some 42% of Australian women who had been beaten up in a previous relationship reported violence by the new partner which suggests there are a lot of really stupid, ignorant Aussie women who go back for more abuse from abusive men and seem to like it. Women who support Kyle Sandilands seem to be in that category. Save yourselves, sisters. Don’t accept abuse from men. Get therapy or other help but get out of all relationships with males who abuse women be it in your home or on your radio.

I won’t get started on the ridiculous assertions about Australian women (which I am) and those of us disposed to liking Kyle Sandilands (whom I detest). That silliness is entirely beside the point of this post. The point of this post is, oh, you guessed it clever-clogs, the odium levelled at women who have experienced domestic violence.

After seeing this and being incensed by it, I made a Facebook status update posting that paragraph, with words to the effect that any RINJ group member who supported that sentiment should feel free to unfriend me. Several FB buddies replied with statements of support and expressing their own concerns about this group.

However, one of RINJ’s most virulent adherents had this to say:

I said you would be stupid and ignorant to go back to an abusive relationship. I believe that any women would be stupid to go back to an abusive relationship. From the time I was 9 until I was 13 and escaped from the people who owned me in (place name) I and my sister were raped and beaten several times every week. I saw girls who escaped with a “customer” or potential buyer but they came back on their own because they were so scared of the world and didn’t know where to get food or simple medicine. Some say Stockholm syndrome. Nonsense. They stupid. We always thought they were stupid and ignorant for coming back. We did n’t trust. They were the ones who tattled too. They brought pain and death to their sisters. They never got any benefit from our abusers because they too had contempt for the simpering fools who were so much under control they came back for more. They were ignorant of how to survive on their own. They were stupid to come back. When I and three others escaped it was because for months we planned it and hid pieces of rope and stuff we needed–we put stuff everywhere. My sister was killed. You will never convinced me it is anything less than stupid and ignorant to deliberately return to the control of an abuser.

Yes I am strange and sometimes a little bit crazy. I hate myself all my life so it hardly matters that you do. My friends in RINJ dot Org treat me like one of them. Lovely misfits we are, one and all. Our stories we seldom share but when we sit for coffee or come to another at 3 in the morning for to comfort in a bad night, we know from the look in the eyes there is a story untold. I don’t care obviously about most hurting done to me because it is less than I know already and I have learned to numb my mind but it is no less true that if you go back ever to an abusive relationship you are stupid and ignorant in my eyes. And if you accept the abusiveness of anyone’s tyranny you are just part of the kindling that starts the fire. If the mosquito can only feed on blood and there is no more blood, there is no mosquito. If the abuser feeds on willing victims and suddenly there is no more tolerance for abuse, there are no more abusers. Don’t accept the abuse of women by any man. And don’t distort my words as you have done because you don’t ever know when some day you may be held accountable for the harm you bring by bulling one single girl.

Friends of mine politely but firmly challenged this woman on her statements; they also empathised with her ordeal but were met with more (completely unfounded) charges of “bullying” rape victims, racism and hatred. Who was it but this self-described “lovely misfit” calling other survivors “stupid?”

It must be said that I have absolutely no wish to do further hurt  to somebody who has been through what this woman has. She is very young, and obviously damaged – hence I have not named her even if I have a sense that others burned by this group will know to whom I refer. What interests me is that she subscribes to the perpetrator’s contempt for women that the perpetrator has enslaved and broken. She is to be empathized with to a degree, for identification with the perpetrator can be part of the trauma experienced in a situation of captivity, and this woman deserves and could benefit from, therapeutic help.

But isn’t part of the problem we face with domestic violence and rape the fact that a large proportion of society (including those running rape joke pages) share perpetrator-sympathetic views? Also, the problem with partner rape is that survivors often don’t feel comfortable in a setting of general rape survivors, because while it’s understood that victim-blame for rape survivors is wrong, the same understanding may not be present for those women raped in a context of domestic violence. Thanks, RINJ, for upholding these problems.

Indeed, It seems to be a common tactic of this woman and other RINJers to to adopt perpetrator-ish – or certainly abusive – behaviour, and then hide behind victim-status when challenged:

Wow.You all really have such class. None of you would have the guts to say all this to my face, you hide behind computer screens. At least the gang bangers who beat me up and raped me had the guts to get in my face.

Um, we were saying it to her face, as much as the internet allows. And do we let DV survivor-bashing slide because the person doing it has been raped? Yeah, not on my wall. As well, I can guarantee you, my reader, that the comments made in reply to her were firm, some angry, but respectful. Which is more than can be said for RINJ. One of my friends went onto the RINJ page to challenge this victim-blame and was told by none other than this same woman to “Fuck off” before being blocked. Nice, that. To say nothing of “class”…

And RINJ, far from being embarrassed about how they’re being represented, upholds this behaviour! Regardless of her sad, sad story, it is an absolute disgrace that this woman is supported in these statements as the representative of an organization purportedly set up to reduce harm and insulting behaviour to rape survivors and women in general. NOT okay. Nor does her own story give her the authority to speak on a cycle and situation she clearly does not understand.

Consider this offering from one of RINJ’s affiliates:

“There is no excuse, no analysis, no justification. Exit all relationships with men who abuse women. Period.”

My (rapidly deleted) response:

No education, no clue, no excuse for victim-blaming survivors of domestic violence.

Quick rant: And I suppose this ignoramus will feed and house the 4 children of a woman who wants to escape but has no money, will she? Will she extract an effective restraining order and make an arrest if it’s violated? Will she do anything about threats to take children away? What will she do about threats to kill? And perhaps she neither knows nor cares that the most dangerous period for women in violent relationships is when they are “exiting” them; the danger of battery, rape and murder at this time increases dramatically. Must be nice to be her.

And this, after RINJ was challenged about victim blame:

The nuances of victim blaming escape you as you dart across the street with a Kalashnikov because in Somalia, if you are woman, to survive you must hide.

True enough, even if I’m not sure what their point is exactly, but my answer would be that the nuances of victim blaming escape RINJ as they put the boots into domestic violence survivors as many women in our own neighbourhoods also must hide in order to survive because their ex-partners will shoot them, stab them, set fire to them or beat them to death. Or rape them again.

RINJ – quite rightly – protests against victim-blame of rape victims. But  in blaming domestic violence survivors, they are THEMSELVES blaming what is one of the largest group of rape victims.  Or is it okay with them to blame some rape victims?

RINJ does not speak for me.

I urge anybody who doesn’t want to be associated with victim blame and other excessive behaviour to disassociate themselves from this group. They are doing very real damage in a number of ways. Otherwise, in the eloquent words of a friend of mine:

If you feel that a victim of DV deserves what she (or he) gets or is in some way to blame get the hell off my Facebook (Blog, Twitter, whatever) because you are no friend of mine. Thanks.

Finally, to my sisters who have survived domestic violence – those still living with it, those who escaped, those who returned many times: You are NOT stupid. You are some of the strongest, wisest and funniest women I have ever been honoured to know. I am glad you survived the best way you knew how. To those still living with it, I hope you will find the safety and freedom you deserve. There is no way I or others will stand by and see you called names and judged, and certainly not by groups or individuals who purport to champion the cause of women. Just remember that a mouse may live in a cookie jar, but that don’t make it no cookie.

Further reading: