Can my Body be Taken Advantage of?
A Gay Man’s Reflection on Sexual Assault
It is difficult to talk about sexual assault. Personally, it is not difficult to discuss sexual assault because of its emotionally heavy nature. It is difficult because I personally do not see my body as a “rape-able” body. Recently in my personal life, thinking about my body as a “rape-able” body has become relevant more than ever in the 21 years of my life.
In February 2018, I was telling my friend David about a time where his friend and I hooked-up when I was wasted out of mind, drunk, at his party last December. The only details that I remember (and I am willing to share with the world) are that I kissed his friend first, making the move, and we completely stopped when his friend said stop. After telling David this, he was mortified because the way he saw this was that I was taken advantage of that night, essentially sexually assaulted. He was telling me how he saw that his friend was completely sober to him right before he left the two of us in the room together. To quote him:
Two gay men cuddling on the floor is going to lead to something, especially when one of them is drunk.
After talking to David, I decided to talk to his friend. His friend was telling me how he was actually trying to not to show how drunk he was because he did not want to hurt his pride. He was telling me how he could not really remember the timeline of what happened that night, which makes sense because this conversation took place two months after the event.
Even after all of our discussions with the two of them, it is hard for me to see the situation as his friend sexually took advantage of me. It is hard for me to see it especially for the fact that I am 5' 11" tall and over 200 lbs and his friend is like 5' 5" and significantly smaller than I am. In my experience, it is difficult to pinpoint a blame, assuming that there is someone completely at fault in my situation.
One way to look at rape is through gender studies scholar Mary E. Hawkesworth, which Sharon Marcus sums up as:
…rape is real; that to be real means to be fixed, determinate, and transparent to understanding; and that feminist politics must understand rape as one of the real, clear facts of women’s lives.
According to Hawkesworth, rape is real, which is a great start because it is something that happens every day. She also believes that it is something that is black and white as if it is easy to be able to pinpoint who is always at fault. Then there is the problem with Hawkesworth’s, the fact that she says that rape is a “clear facts of women’s lives.” What is wrong with this assertion is that it reiterates the fact that women’s bodies are rape-able, if they have not been raped already. These assertions have been in the United States legal system for years. Hawkesworth is putting rape into something that discredits women and their words in United States rape culture.
With the focus of women in Hawkesworth’s eyes, my body can never be raped, but it is able to rape. Since I am a man, being raped should be the last of my issues, which is true to a certain degree. It is through this framework that makes me confused as to why David saw my story with his friend as a sexual assault, as opposed to a drunk hook-up story.
In order to turn away from seeing a woman’s body as something that is inevitably going to be raped, Marcus says that to “understand rape as a language and use this insight to imagine women as neither already raped nor inherently rapable.” In United States rape culture, the rapist’s story is usually the one that is highly regarded, and there is a blaming on the victim, and the rapist is usually a man and the victim is usually a woman, even statistics describe that rape is not gendered. During the trial, the victim is normally asked: “What are you wearing? How much did you have to drink? Did you lead him on to believe you wanted to have sex?” These questions are normally to discredit the accusation that the victim went through a traumatizing rape or sexual assault. Typically, the rapist will normally get the questions of whether or not he could have gotten consent to the forced act of sex. So, when women’s bodies are seen to be the only bodies to be rapeable, women are to be blamed to have known better to protect their bodies.
Rape as a language means that it is the “political decisions to exclude certain interpretations and perspectives and to privilege others” in regards to rape, according to Marcus. Instead of having criteria that will have a set of rules of what rape should look, it will look at rape on a case by case basis. This can de-gender rape, and it can be possible to have a language that will include all people as bodies that can rape and be raped. The reason why this is a productive idea is that it can give everyone a language for their experience. Since everyone will have a universal (in terms of including men, women, and everyone in-between) language of rape, it makes everyone to be accountable to prevent rape.
Since talking with my friend David, reading Marcus’ article, and analyzing an episode of Law and Order SVU, I tried to read my experience as a case of sexual assault. I can understand my friend’s reading of my situation, but I cannot have the same conclusion. But, through reflection, I can see how it was wrong of me to believe that I have a body is unrapeable. Having this shift is important because it can make all bodies capable of committing sexual assault, which will make everyone want to prevent sexual assault.
