Rape Culture in a Few Stunning Sentences
The father of convicted rapist Brock Turner (Stanford student, varsity swimmer with the sweet, white face) stated the following in a letter to the court opposing his son’s six month sentence (more on that, later):
As his father, he knows that Brock has “never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th.” (Italics mine)
And what were those actions, exactly? According to rapist Brock Turner, in his statement to the court prior to sentencing,
“Being drunk I just couldn’t make the best decisions and neither could she….I stupidly thought it was okay for me to do what everyone around me was doing, which was drinking. I was wrong…. I want to show people that one night of drinking can ruin a life.”
Here are the facts of the case, as summarized by the district attorney in a press release expressing the horror of the sentence:
“After midnight, on January 18, 2015, Turner was seen by two witnesses sexually assaulting the unconscious victim, who was laying on the ground behind a dumpster on Stanford campus. When they called out, Turner ran away. The two tackled him and held him until police officers arrived. Evidence showed that the victim was so heavily intoxicated that she did not regain consciousness until hours later.”
Brock Turner’s victim demolished his pathetic rationalizations for his behavior, and made an incredibly powerful statement about the impact his actions had on her, detailing the events of the night he raped her, and what followed. Her statement, heartbreaking and a clarion call, should be required reading.
In case you can’t quite see the display of rape culture in Brock’s and his dad’s statements, allow me to shed some light.
Rape is inherently violent. The act of penetrating a person without consent constitutes violence. Brock was convicted of penetrating the victim while she was unconscious, behind a dumpster, after they left a party together. Brock’s dad, like too many of us, still believe that it’s not violent if…what? There’s no broken bones or weapon used? This belief is a big part of rape culture.
The victim did not make a “decision” or have a choice. To see equivalency in their actions, holding her at all responsible for his actions because ‘we were both drinking and didn’t make the best decisions’ is rape culture in action. And it’s much, much worse that these words convey, when you consider that his attorneys went for a tactic that works surprisingly well in cases where the victim was unconscious while she was raped. In her words:
“I was not only told that I was assaulted, I was told that because I couldn’t remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, almost broke me.”
Relatedly, Brock seems to feel that his real crime was getting drunk. “I stupidly thought it was okay for me to do what everyone around me was doing, which was drinking. I was wrong.” I’ll let the victim school us about the fallacy of this belief.
“Again, you were not wrong for drinking. Everyone around you was not sexually assaulting me. You were wrong for doing what nobody else was doing, which was pushing your erect dick in your pants against my naked, defenseless body concealed in a dark area, … Peeling off and discarding my underwear like a candy wrapper to insert your finger into my body, is where you went wrong. Why am I still explaining this.”
Brock’s statement that he’s starting a program to raise awareness about the dangers of the “campus drinking culture and sexual promiscuity that goes along with that” would be surreal if it didn’t reflect what many in our culture believe: If the victim hadn’t been drinking and wasn’t so ‘promiscuous,’ he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. The victim addressed this absurdity best in her statement.
“You realize, having a drinking problem is different than drinking and then forcefully trying to have sex with someone? Show men how to respect women, not how to drink less.”
There’s more. Judge Aaron Persky — running unopposed for re-election this year but the subject of a recall effort because of his horrifying ruling in this case — rejected the prosecution’s recommendation of a six year sentence for Brock Turner. Instead, the judge sentenced Brock to six months, which means he’ll be out of jail (not prison) in a few weeks. His reasoning? He agrees with Brock’s father that it would be awful to make Brock feel bad. “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him … I think he will not be a danger to others.”
How the judge can know that Brock will not be a danger to others in the future is beyond me. The only way you can conclude that he will not be a danger to others is to believe that raping someone is not a dangerous, violent act. Because if sad, depressed Brock drinks too much in the future, around women, it’s entirely possible that his future will look like his past.
And that’s it in a nutshell.
To review the clear evidence of rape culture: rape isn’t violent, because no bones were broken nor were copious amounts of blood spilled. In fact, it was merely “20 minutes of action.” The rapist was only guilty of drinking too much, and his victim is equally (or more?) responsible for his attack on her because she’d been drinking too. (Never mind the fact that she was unconscious when he attacked her.) And God forbid we should punish Brock for his actions or “ruin” his life because, as one reporter noted, “…the ex-swimmer has a record of real accomplishment.”
On the other hand. In all this horror it is important to recognize that very many people behaved well, and by all that I can see, carry the kinds of values we would like to see in a culture that is not a rape culture.
The two Swedish men on bicycles who intervened, stopping the ongoing assault, tackled the rapist and held him for authorities.
By the victim’s account, several hospital personnel were kind to her.
Law enforcement treated her well, and didn’t judge her negatively.
The victim was provided with advocates, who advocated for her and supported her.
And this victim had family members who believed her and stood by her, supporting her in the best possible ways, including provision of chocolate at important moments.
Her boyfriend didn’t accuse her of being a slut. He didn’t abandon her. On the contrary, he, too supports her.
Even her employer appears to be understanding enough to be patient with all the time off she needed to deal with healing and the legal proceedings.
This is what all victims deserve, and too few get.
