He Admonished Her For Saying We Have A Rape Culture
Until he finally realized it was true
Are you kidding? In the United States, we certainly do NOT have a rape culture. Let me repeat that for those in the back of the room: we do NOT have a rape culture.
That’s what he started out by saying. Several exchanges later, he concluded with this:
I think you might be correct. Perhaps we do have a rape culture in the US. I won’t argue with women again when they say the US has a rape culture.
This is not a story meant to lord it over someone that I got them to change their point of view. It’s a story that is meant to demonstrate how the myths around rape and how our society interfaces with it are still so prevalent that they often obscure the truth, which continues to harm and disempower survivors.
When someone says, “We’re suffering here,” and someone else says, “No you aren’t. You’re completely overreacting,” it impacts the ability of the suffering to be addressed. That’s what I want to impact.
There are still so many misconceptions about rape and sexual assault that it would be difficult to address each one in-depth in the course of a short piece on the topic, but here are a few of the major ones that contribute to an entirely faulty understanding of what a rape…
