Invited by author Kelly Oxford, woman are using Twitter to share their own sexual assault stories. Within a remarkably short time, Kelly was receiving 2 assault stories per second. That means people give a damn. Kelly wasn’t so sure they would. She posted her own assault story to test the waters. If no one discussed it, she said she was planning to end the conversation by taking down her tweet.
Women care. Men care. And people are definitely discussing it. The hashtag #notOK is capturing a lot of this conversation. Another one #NotGuilty was started by Ione Wells and you can find her part of the story in her Ted Talk, How we talk about sexual assault online.
The impending election is precipitating a lot of feelings. One tweet highlighted the hushed truth that few have been willing to say out loud. We are dealing with sexual assault, a whole lot of it, experienced by pretty much every woman out there at least once.
Tweet: Oct 9 My favorite part? @andersoncooper pointing out that Trump’s comments describe sexual assault. #notok #debate
Assault is pervasive
We are dealing with cultural, systematized assault. On some level, we’ve been ok with keeping it quiet it until now. Each woman, after being assaulted, regained her composure, quietly folded her hands back in her lap and went on with her day. Each time. She didn’t blow whistles. She didn’t call police. She didn’t run home to tell her mother. She kept it to herself. But she didn’t let it go and now we have, together, lifted the cover off this boiling cauldron.
Tweet: Oct 10 Show of hands: who’s had jittery, paranoid, hopped-up-and bummed out PTSD feelings since last night? #rapeculture #debate #notok
The outpouring of each experience is filling us in on what’s been going on behind closed doors all these years.
Tweet: Oct 9 .@kellyoxford My 1st assault: coming up stairs at Oxford Circus, middleaged man “grabbed my pussy” from behind. I was 21. #notokay #allofus
Tweet: Oct 9 @kellyoxford @Venice311 @xeni 6yrs old. Nextdoor neighbor pre-teen boy babysitting. Put it in me & told me it would make me have a baby.
Tweet: Oct 9 @Venice311 @kellyoxford @xeni from the age of 6 I was afraid I was going to become pregnant once I got old enough. Stole my childhood.
Tweet: Oct 9@kellyoxford A drunk family friend in his 40s pinned me against the door @ my granny’s & pressed himself on me. I was 15. Never told anyone.
I could go on. There are countless stories in Kelly’s feed and many more that haven’t been told. This next tweet says it all.
Tweet: Oct 9 It can basically be summed up as: almost every woman you know has experienced something like this in her life. Fucking unbelievable.
I’ll argue that the word almost is unnecessary here. Every woman you know has experienced something like this in her life. If it isn’t actual sexual contact, it’s verbal sexual intimidation.
Tweet: Oct 8 @SophiaBush @kellyoxford And let’s not forget the non-physical sexual assaults, e.g., creepy man at the bar saying “I bet you taste great”.
The next realization you may have is that the girl children in your life are not immune to sexual assault. If you are parenting them yourself, or you are simply looking on the next generation as a symbol of hope, it’s a short stretch to realize that these girls are facing future sexual assault or they’ve already experienced it. Just typing that makes me feel like I’m going to throw up and I’m not even a parent. Wow. I need a moment. Also let’s recognize that this is happening to boys and men too. No one is immune.
The aftermath
When someone comes forth with a story about their own sexual assault, we call these people survivors. I sincerely hope that, with the recognition that so many women have had a sexual assault experience, that we can stop using the word survivor. That’s a word that singles people out as victims. Do we all have to be victims now? Please say ‘no.’
There’s a natural desire to seek retribution when something seems unfair. Some jerk says something or touches another person in an unacceptable way, and we all rally to destroy the jerk. When we focus on the jerk, we are missing a prime opportunity to make a soft place for the recipient of the assault to land back on her feet.
When a person is assaulted, they experience a complicated and unique set of feelings. There’s anger, sadness, fear, and let’s not forget disgust. These feelings are simply what happens when someone crosses your boundaries. Without meaning to do so, we’ve created a culture where the recipient of that assault wakes up the next day, not only swirling with emotions that she has to deal with, but also with a new identity. She’s now a victim and a survivor. When we tie a ribbon on her to show our support, we paint her in a new light. We change who she is at her core. This survivor label is not helping.
Here’s the problem. The assault itself creates emotions. The survivor label creates an identity shift. Emotions can be processed through discussions with a counselor, emotional expression, acceptance of the emotions and the pain, and through a recognition that life as you know it doesn’t have to change. An identity shift seems so permanent. Some jerk couldn’t keep his hands to himself and now I have to be a different person. I have to wear a ribbon. I have to be a survivor. That’s unfair.
Instead of pinning a label on the recipient of assault and calling her a victim and a survivor, can we support her physical and mental health in a way that doesn’t change her identity? Can we deal with the pain, anger, and other feelings in the present, and then let the horrible experience fade off of her permanent record?
What is something else horribly unpleasant that happens to every single woman, maybe only once or twice in her life, but maybe more than that? What is something that, when she sees it happening, she says, “Oh shit, not again!?”
How about influenza? Stick with me here.
Getting the flu sucks. You might stay home from work, you feel awful, maybe you even end up in the hospital. For some, the flu can be life threatening. The flu and sexual assault can both range between mildly annoying to deadly. However, the flu is something that just happens. It’s nobody’s fault. The flu is a crappy chance occurrence and sexual assault is a victimization.
You don’t need a reason to get the flu. People seem to need an explanation for assault. You were dressed too sexy. You were out too late. You were too drunk. He was too drunk. Your parents shouldn’t have left you alone. Or you have to blame the assailant. He was creepy. He was evil. He was crazy. Hell, maybe she was creepy, evil, or crazy. Let’s not forget that women can be assailants too.
We talk about sexual assault as being an act between an attacker and a victim. The person assaulted is the victim and when it’s all over, they are heralded as a survivor. If sexual assault is happening to everyone, does it still make sense to turn us all into victims and survivors?
I’m in no way suggesting that we legalize sexual assault. It’s deplorable. It’s injustice. It’s inhumane. But if we’ve learned anything in the last week or so, haven’t we learned that receiving sexual assault is part of the human condition? It’s right up there with the other horrible things that we have yet to figure out how to eradicate from the world. So, doesn’t it make sense that we treat it as a terrible and normal part of life? Can we keep our non-victim identities when something seriously crappy happens to us?
You get the flu, people bring you soup and check on you. Everyone accepts that you are going to be gross and vomiting and snotty and miserable for a while. Eventually, you recover from feeling awful and you go back to work. You don’t get PTSD from the flu. You don’t have to hide it from your friends and family. You don’t have to feel guilty or shameful because you put yourself in harms way of those germs.
You get sexually assaulted and it’s a whole different story. You tell no one because you don’t want to be a survivor or a victim. You don’t want to deal with the police. You don’t want to be shamed. Was that your fault? What just happened there? You bottle up every last feeling that might be part of that deplorable experience and you lock it deep down so it only comes out when you really don’t want it to. You keep going to work. You pretend nothing happened, but you die a little inside holding it all back.
Tweet: Oct 8 @kellyoxford @xeni Was a microfiche camera operator. Worked nights 2 pay 4 school. Manager handcuffed me 2 my desk. 2 hrs to talk my way out
Tweet: Oct 8 @xeni No tears. I learned. Scratch a motherfuckers eyes out & kill if I have to. #HurricanePussyLives
If anything good can come out of a recognition that sexual assault is widespread, pervasive, common, and happening, it’s this. We can all learn how to talk about sexual assault in a way that doesn’t victimize the recipients. We can learn to process the emotions that come with the realization that a terrible thing happened and another terrible thing might happen again in the future. We can support our family, friends, and coworkers in a way that feels good by getting through it together.
We can stop singling out new recipients of assault as marked, victimized, changed, damaged people because we will be strong enough to say that it also happened to me. Women don’t just have one assault story, we have many.
(Tweet author identities have been removed from tweets for the sake of ethical anonymity.)
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
