To honor Prata om det’s #talkaboutit initiative, is that I wanted to consider the things we actually do not talk about when referring to rape:
- When we are growing up, we are rarely told that rape is not just a random occurrence inflicted by strangers. We are almost never told that you can be raped by friends, acquaintances, family, etc.
- When we did get to hear about rape, it was almost always as if it was a by product of the boogie man; a scary stranger lurking in an alley ready to jump on distracted women.
- We are also rarely told that most of the women we come in contact with have also been raped. We are rarely told the numbers are staggering and that punishment rarely follows the crime. We are almost always silenced in the stories, shamed and hidden because it is a “crime against honor”.
- We are almost always discouraged from telling we were raped or even calling whatever happened to us as “rape”. Instead, we are told to call it “bad sex”, “a bad night out”, “drunk sex” or any of the other million euphemisms used to describe what is, actually, rape.
- If we do attempt to talk about happened, we will be told to “get over it”, subjects will be changed and any attempt to continue the conversation will most likely end with awkward silences.
- We are told there is only one clear definition of rape and anything outside this definition will fall into the grey area where it was just the victim’s fault.
It is time we do talk about it. And it is time we do not give in to the mandate to “get over it”.
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