April, as you may or may not know, is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. A whole month dedicated to educating people about the many forms of sexual assault with a focus on prevention. Prevention. I cringe at the word. Because April’s awareness initiative thrusts us into May, where my mind seems to continuously want to flash back to the memory of my assault on that summer like May night. And with the education lingering I often start to think about what I could have done to prevent my assault. The internal debate is brutal. And every year I tell myself I’m not going to go there. But I always find myself circling back. Welcome to victim blaming; where victims (survivors) are the biggest culprits for blaming themselves for their assaults. And who’s to blame them?
Ask a high schooler what they think someone should do to avoid sexual assault and one of the first answers you’ll get is “girls shouldn’t dress provocatively.” Interestingly enough, ask a group of adults and after “don’t walk alone at night,” “choice of clothing” is quick to come up. Advice and suggestions I’m not going to just write off completely, but what about the attacker? You never hear people respond by saying “men should respect women.” We don’t hear people say “men should control themselves.” It’s always about what women should do to prevent or lessen their chances of being assaulted. It’s infuriating! I’m proud of my body. I spend hours at the gym every day to sculpt the muscles that I have. If I want to show that off, I shouldn’t have to worry about being objectified because of my outfit choice. I should be able to show off that I have muscles. For example, last week at work I was waiting on a customer. He reached over the counter and without asking permission gripped my arm to feel my bicep while telling me what great arms I had. It took all self control not to lay him out flat. What made him think that it was ok to touch me? Just because my sleeves fit tightly over my arms isn’t an invitation to feel the muscles underneath. Nothing is an invitation to touch me other than me flat out saying directly, “hey it’s ok to touch me.” I wore long sleeve shirts to work for the rest of the week and sweat my ass off. This week I’m back to short sleeves and a hardened attitude with heightened awareness. I flinch. I dodge. I squirm. Whatever it takes to get out of the way from even an involuntary bump. I shouldn’t be going through my day afraid that everyone is going to hurt me. But I do. Because some asshole 7 years ago thought it was fun to do so.
I’m told over and over that it wasn’t my fault I was raped. And as much as I understand that it wasn’t, I still analyze that night and what I could have done differently. But the bottom line is I said no. Over and over. I did what was in my power to attempt to prevent my assault. But the pressure and the expectations shouldn’t be on the victims and what we could have or should have done or could do and should do in the future to prevent sexual assault. Perhaps we can all focus on being decent respectful human beings and we won’t have to have entire months dedicated to educating people on sexual violence. Until then the vicious cycle continues. In April we become aware. And in May it’s all a memory…
Kickass K.Hart 