“if anything happened to you, i’d kill that guy”
I don’t want to focus as much on the assault itself, but rather the aftermath, which was equally as damaging.
It is so unbelievably jarring when you experience what is some of the most intense, irreparable, painful trauma of your life, and all the men who vowed, “If anything like that ever happened to you, I’d kill that guy” or whatever egotistical heroic comment they make, just to cower when the time arises. I’m not saying I need a man to protect me. Shit, if anything, I’m saying the exact opposite. But growing up in a community that genuinely felt like family, only to be snakes in the grass the whole time, is as deeply traumatic as the event itself. I expected the men in my life who loved me to fight for me. To be as viscerally enraged and disgusted as I was. But when shit hit the fan and the knight-in-shining-armor facade melted away—it was the women in my life that raged. It was the women in my life that were just as angry as I was. It was women who confronted him, who screamed viciously at him publicly, who didn’t let him into OUR events. Not all women responded positively—some actually responded just as shitty as the men did—if not worse, because you would expect women, if anybody, to understand what you’re going through. But the only people that actually did anything to fight for me, were women.
Most men when confronted with the fact that their peer committed such a heinous act of sexual violence said something along the lines of, “But that’s my boy”. I’d like to take this opportunity to tell any man that is knowingly friends with an abuser of ANY KIND: you are a spineless, lifeless, pathetic excuse for a man, and one of the most shameful, humiliating types of coward a human being could ever be. Stand the fuck up.
Every single man I have dated or been romantically involved with since being raped has always said the same thing. Something along the lines of, “If I ever see that guy, it’s over” (inferring they’ll beat up my rapist, or something of that extent). Every. Single. Man. Unfortunately, some of these men were actually met face to face with my rapist, due to the fact we were all part of the tight-knit Los Angeles skateboarding community. Guess how many did anything? Yea. It is so incredibly cringey and nauseating and pathetic hearing that come out of any man’s mouth anymore. It actually got pretty old pretty fast. Like, you’re some fucking white knight that’s going to actually do something about this disgusting, wretched, pathetic, demonic shit-stain excuse for a man? Fuck you. No you’re not. I actually think the next time a man tells me that I’m just going to punch them in the fucking teeth. When I was 18 years old, my ex-boyfriend who also happened to still be one of my best friends at the time, told me it was my fault I got raped. That was one of the most heart-breaking, betraying things to ever possibly hear someone say. Especially him. He had been a person of solace for me, who had helped me through that time when it initially occurred. Needless to say, I never spoke to him again. Oh, and he stole my dog.
The most recent man I dated told me something eerily similar. He said he could, “See why my ex told me it was my fault I got raped”. This was after calling me a slut, and a whore, and a cunt, and a bitch, and all sorts of lovely things he screamed at me for hours straight through the night while I was sobbing, curled up in the corner of my bed, begging for him to stop. What an awful, disgusting, terrible man that is.
This is not to say that all men are inherently bad. My dad is my best friend. I have five brothers who I get along with reasonably well. I have a decent amount of male friends. But when you’re 16 years old, and you’re screaming and crying and vomiting alone in your room, questioning your entire reality, religion, and relationships with others, you really think to yourself; where are the good ones? I want to put a bullet between his eyes, but not before castrating him with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors and making him fucking eat it. You know what he said afterwards? “This never happened.”. And then he walked away. Except it did happen. And I am so angry every single day because of it. I carry my anger around with me like a loaded gun, for protection. I’ve learned to let go of some of the anger during my healing process, because sooner or later the barrel of that loaded gun was going into my mouth. And I couldn’t do that to my dad. But I am still so, so angry. At men. At the world. At everything. At him.
