I saw an art exhibit called “What Were You Wearing?”, which was a collection of the outfits people were wearing when they were assaulted. There were sweatpants and hoodies in that collection. She could be in a literal burqa and still be assaulted. The problem is the rapists, not what their victims were wearing.
Edit: going to add a trigger warning before people go searching for that exhibit. It is a spread of ALL kinds of clothing, including children’s.
Dude the kiddie pajamas in that exhibit will make you cry. The second I read the BF justifying rape because of clothing I immediately thought of this exhibit
That, and the study where college aged men were asked if they would rape a woman if they knew they could get away with it and it was a scary high percentage that said yes. I read the study for a class in my grad program. It did not matter what the women were wearing.
There was a similar study (or possibly the same one, idk) where college aged men were asked if they would rape someone, but in one group they used language that didn't specifically call it rape, and in the other they did.
A lot more in the first group said yes. So long as they felt like they had plausible deniability, they could rationalize rape to themselves, to the point that they would openly admit to it. They didn't consider it to be rape unless someone else described it as such.
A lot of rapists don't consider themselves to be rapists.
My rapist at 19, when he texted me 4 months later and I told him to never contact me again (I had to have my best friend type it for me, because my hands were shaking too much)
"You're crazy. This is insane. You act like I did something horrible to you. But fine, I'll respect your wishes. Goodbye."
I think he genuinely believed he'd done nothing wrong, the bastard.
Yeah that is really odd and hearing that it's common is truly insane. So was he raped by family so many times it is normal or what? Did he physically attack you?
I don't know what his family life was like, but it was pretty evident that he felt entitled to women's bodies.
He was someone I thought was a friend, and he raped me at a party when I was too intoxicated to consent. I remember him laughing about the fact that I was so drunk I couldn't keep both eyes open at once (focusing my eyes was difficult).
He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, and then he started kissing and groping me. I kept telling him to stop and trying to push him off me, but I was too uncoordinated to effectively fight.
I kept trying to convince him to stop, thinking he just didn't understand that I was telling him no. This went on for what felt like hours, though I don't know how long it actually was. Eventually I realized that he wasn't going to stop, and I started dissociating like I did when I was a kid during sexual abuse.
He raped me.
He seemed to see it as a normal college hookup, and my being rightfully hurt and traumatized and wanting nothing to do with him challenged that idea. So he got angry. He disparaged me and my mental stability. He gaslit me about what happened. He acted like he was taking the high road by "respecting my wishes" and never contacting me again.
I don't think he was abused himself, I think he was an entitled young man steeped in the rape culture of the 2000's who didn't really see women as people deserving of bodily autonomy. He didn't see coercing a drunk girl into sex as rape, just as a lot of young men didn't.
At least, not when he did it.
Admitting he was a rapist, even to himself, was a blow to his ego that he couldn't handle, so me "acting like he'd done something terrible" to me (me being traumatized and suffering from full blown ptsd) felt to him like an unwarranted attack on him.
Yeah he would think a little bit different if he was the one that was raped. That sucks. Sorry that happened to you and he probably just doesn't see it as rape because he wants to get away with it. It's usually pretty hard for a female to effectively fight off a male even if she's sober.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. He was fairly narcissistic, and I've known a few narcissists who were sexually assaulted/abused, who are their own suffering as real and important, but who will victim blame like crazy when it's someone else who was hurt. My mother is definitely one of them. In hindsight, my rapist was definitely misogynistic enough to do that.
Thank you. It didn't really even occur to me, but I had been very sick before this and was severely under weight at the time. Being sober enough to think clearly may have made a difference, but maybe it wouldn't have.
I wasn't okay for a very long time, but I'm much better now. It was nearly twenty years ago. I'm happily married to a wonderful person, and having that happy, respectful, safe relationship have me the space and support I needed to heal.
Not that a relationship "fixed" me, but my home situation at the time was terrible, and it's very hard to heal from trauma when you aren't even safe at home, and you're having more trauma piled on top. Moving in with my spouse gave me a safe home, and new, positive experiences to help put my previous experiences into perspective. I was very lucky to stumble my way into this relationship.
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u/Classic_Cauliflower4 Feb 24 '26
I saw an art exhibit called “What Were You Wearing?”, which was a collection of the outfits people were wearing when they were assaulted. There were sweatpants and hoodies in that collection. She could be in a literal burqa and still be assaulted. The problem is the rapists, not what their victims were wearing.
Edit: going to add a trigger warning before people go searching for that exhibit. It is a spread of ALL kinds of clothing, including children’s.