A rape case, which took place across the country from my small community, hit the national headlines this week. Let me catch you up, in case you try to avoid things on the Internet that you fear will kill your soul. A college freshman assaulted a girl behind a dumpster, and in return, he received a six month prison sentence. We’re already off to a rough start, and that’s just the beginning. The details are what will turn this tragedy into a horror story.
The rapist, one Brock Turner, is marketed as a clean-cut young man in a suit. At first, they didn’t bother to show you his mugshot, with his disheveled hair and his red-rimmed eyes. His defense team branded him as an accomplished athlete. A swimmer. He was given a six-month prison sentence, so as not to damage his fragile psyche. With good behavior, he’ll only serve half that. In a county jail. I’ve seen people label this as white privilege. I call it rape culture.
I call it rape culture, you see, because the girl was blacked out drunk. She does not remember the assault. If you read her statement (which will make you weep), you will know that she only remembers what came after. She remembers her vagina being prodded and examined and exposed at the hospital. She remembers pine needles in her hair. She remembers, later, seeing photos of herself from that night, sprawled out and mostly naked on the ground. Her panties peeled off and discarded. Her dress hiked up. She wasn’t moving. She was saved by a miracle: two Swedish grad students riding by on their bikes. They approached Turner in the act and tackled him as he tried to escape. It’s reported that one of those grad students was so disturbed by what he saw that he wept. I would weep, too. Yet, because the victim does not remember the night, the lawyers for the defense chose to argue that it was possible she consented. I noticed a cartoon on the Internet, commenting on her drinking: “Well, what did she expect?” “A hangover. She expected a hangover.” Believing she should have expected anything else is rape culture.
The girl admitted that at the party, which she attended with her sister, she drank too much too fast. She was having fun and dancing. But, you probably know how college parties are. There’s always one girl, or two, or three, or any number, who start to “lose it” just a little. You’ve seen them. They stumble and fall against walls, they slur so badly you can’t understand them, they need to be taken home by a trusted friend. Or else. Or else something like this could happen. You know it and I know it. I’ve seen that girl, the drunk one dancing with some guy who could easily over power her if no one is watching out for her. I’ve been that girl. Maybe you have, too. But someone I trusted took me home and got me to bed safely. This girl, this rape survivor that the Internet has been fighting for for a week now, was not so lucky. The fact that getting home safely is something I have to call lucky, is a sign that we are dominated by rape culture.
When I think of Brock Turner, I get a little sick. I picture him, perhaps as a scrawny middle-schooler, making comments to his friends as they watch the girls’ breasts bounce in gym class. I picture him as a sophomore in high school, maybe even a so-called blameless athlete by now, playing grab-ass with unsuspecting girls in yoga pants in the cafeteria. I picture him early in the fall of his freshman year, hiding an erection, hoping to “catch some tail,” or whatever it is gross college boys hope to do. And then I picture him at that party. In my mind, he is looking around, dancing with whomever he can, and when he sees a girl so out of her mind drunk that he thinks she would agree to anything, he chooses her. I don’t have to picture what comes next. The media has left no room for the imagination.
At first, when the story broke, I wondered if Brock’s parents were disappointed in him. I wondered if his mother was disgusted. And then his father said that a six month sentence was too harsh for “20 minutes of action.”
Since when is rape “action?” Since when is rape anything but a crime? Since when do we defend criminals, give them the benefit of the doubt, worry that prison will be too hard on them? You know what’s hard? Living with the knowledge that you have been violated. Knowing that your body was taken out of your control. Learning to call yourself a survivor because being called a victim seems to take away your power all over again.
That girl’s life was irrevocably changed that night. The unthinkable happened to her. She was turned into a statistic, into a lesson that girls should never go out, should never drink, should wear something less “provocative.” That girl was dehumanized.
So, yeah, forgive me for not caring if prison has a “severe impact” on Brock Turner. Forgive me for crossing my fingers and hoping that karma is coming, and bringing all her friends with her.
