This was very factual, for me.

Nobody expects a car accident victim to remembre exact details and sequence of events. Nobody who escaped a burning house is asked to remember when a fireman showed up. Nobody who is held at gunpoint during a mugging is told they're wrong b/c the restaurant closed an hour later than they recalled it as. (How many of us know the closing times of places we visit???)

Yet if you bring any sexual element into it.... The societal programming is opposite.

I have memory gaps/skips and I've doubted myself for decades even in cases where there were other witnesses to events. Why? B/c I must be wrong, or I'd remember it as perfectly as my name or birthday!

A local case recently featured the defense strategy that if the victim (woman) couldn't remember number of shots fired at her by defendant (domestic male partner), then she made up the story. The jury more or less laughed at that idea, and the case was settled by plea bargain.

So.... I'm meant to remember the exact date, time, cologne worn, etc.? I'm meant to have "invited" the assault-er b/c he offered a ride hom like had been done dozens of times, without harm, in the past?

Yes. B/c that was rape. So if I didn't imply sexual interest, and regret it, then ... What the what?!

Most murders are committed by someone who knew the victim. WHy is it so hard to accept that for sex crimes? Stranger-on-stranger crimes are far more often property crimes, not *person* crimes.

Rant over. Argh. BTW, the link worked for me:-)

Thanks for sharing. Great article and I like Leo's response too. Makes total sense. I was gang raped very young and I cannot remember all their faces or the exact age of 6 or 7. If I reported it now I would be torn apart on what I do and do not remember.

I am glad the NY times wrote this and I hope it brings light to the subject. The link worked for me too. I wish it was highlighted in blue.

I am happy you both found value in it. I always think that one reason people don't want to believe survivors is because they want to think it can't happen to them. But there's a lot more to it than that. I grew up thinking we were "supposed to" know how to handle sexually aggressive men. Now I'm finding out that nobody actually knows how to handle them. I am so glad all this is coming out and hope it makes a permanent change.

Once women are believed, maybe we will start believing kids. Too many people would rather believe kids make stuff up than confront the reality of sexually aggressive adults that too many unprotected kids have to deal with.

After I read your article, I found this one in the NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/the-metoo-moment-how-to-be-a-good-bystander.html?mabReward=ART_ACTM1&recid=0xeJEOCnLziddqbD1FBHZ7GqnoT&recp=2&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

Thank you. That was very useful.

Being a guy who was molested twice as a kid by a pedophile who was a guest in my family's home, I got a dose of not being believed when a teacher at school encouraged me to go home and tell my parents a year later. What I got was "why didn't you call out to us?" (I was in the apartment over the garage at the other end of the house at the time). And "why didn't you say something at breakfast the next morning?"

Anything to exonerate them from reaching out. I was beaten regularly after that by my mother to make sure I didn't become gay and became a man, too, as her extreme homophobia conflated being homosexuality and pedophilia.

The most extreme recent myth about rape I've heard was the Todd Akin campaign trail story he told about "legitimate rape." Also from the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html

Ugh, I remember that.

What's astonishing about your story, Muji, is that you were both NOT believed and then effectively punished for the thing that couldn't have happened.

I have met a few boys on here who couldn't speak up about being raped by men because their dads would have beat them up for being "gay". As if getting raped makes you a rapist. All that aside from the fact that being gay is a normal variation on human sexuality and in no way bad, abnormal or sinful.

I'm paywalled out of the NYT (over the limit for free views).


My analogy.

Dealing with this stuff is like "taking out the garbage". No one wants to do it.

But if you don't do it...you live with garbage. Worse...your kids live in garbage.

Morals...the most simple, most basic, like you don't give a damn about anything ELSE kind of morals...would not leave anyone being sexually abused.

And I don't care what label you plaster on yourself, what religion you believe OR don't believe. Which side of the political aisle you're on... Being liberal doesn't redeem you. Nor does being conservative. I don't care if you're a fire fighter, police officer, teacher, preacher, president of the PTA, major, have volunteered at the food bank for 842 years and baked chocolate chip cookies for the bake sale....you're SCUM.

I'm another one that can't remember all of the details of the rape. I spent many years keeping it buried as deep as possible. I had flashbacks but denied anything happened because I'm male and I didn't want to be labeled as gay. I was raped by 3 men. 2 held me while the other did the penetration. Sorry that might be a trigger for some of us. I don't understand a lot about all of this. I need to stop TW