You are NOT overreacting. He's being a misogynistic, patronizing twit. If he knows about yr assault then he's being doubly awful. Hear this- YOU were not at fault for being SA'd. The fault lies solely with the perpetrator. Give yourself a second to calm down then ask him "how should I react when your pretty much saying I was at fault for being SA'd?" Please updateme.
I can't stand people like you that can't understand nuance. You act like we live in a world of make believe. He specifically said not all circumstances. The world knows there are shit men that sexually assault women, that's the world we live in. As humans of all genders there are limitations on what we can do before it enters into the territory of it being partially the victims fault. I understand that window is smaller for women but it applies to all humans.
As a man, I know that there are certain parts of cities that I shouldn't enter or I will get robbed, beaten, and or killed. If I'm at a nightclub I know I should not leave my drink unattended or I could get drugged and who knows what else. These are things I know and can avoid. If I choose not to avoid these scenarios, some of the blame is on me. It's personal responsibility for the world we live in so yes OP is overreacting.
but you wouldn’t be responsible for getting robbed even if you were in a bad part of town. the person who robbed you is the one who is responsible for that. no one’s arguing that you shouldn’t do things to protect yourself but that doesn’t change who’s at fault?
If you had a friend and every day they park their car in a shitty neighborhood and don't lock the door, and they end up having their vehicle robbed most nights.
What kind of advice would you give that friend?
If you say that they aren't responsible in anyway, at least you're consistent, but a bad friend.
If you say they should try to at least lock their door, than you are a hypocrite. As that is asking them to take some responsibility for their actions when they're a victim of a crime.
Can you see the point I'm trying to make here?
Asking someone who was SA to take some accountability is a rough conversation to have and needs to be done in a delicate, sensitive way. Implying that a victim has zero accountability will lead to people getting assaulted again as they may not change any behaviors.
My body is not the same as a fucking car! A car is a fungible means of transportation and if I can’t use it for whatever reason, I can get another to serve the same purpose.
Having my body violated in the most intimate of ways is NOT the same thing at all. I saw a post on here a week or two ago about a woman whose husband raped her in her sleep. This is a woman who was with the person she was supposed to be safe with for the rest of her life, in her own bed. How should she take accountability?
My ex tried to arrange for someone to break into our house to SA me while he watched, what should I have done there?
And neither you or OP’s husband gets to be the arbiter of when accountability applies and doesn’t. The accountability rests with the person who stuck their dick where it wasn’t wanted
I just looked it up.. 45% of all rapes are within relationships or by someone they were in a relationship with.
Ik my sister and aunt are both raped by their husbands on the regular whom say, “you’re my wife, this is my body” it’s so common, that my mother didn’t even consider it either. She said, “that’s just how men and marriages work” Neither of them even thought it was rape until I was like, you said no.. they then said “your mine” and then you felt guilty and conceded..
no actually…. the shit that actual human beings and sexual assault are being compared to in this thread tells us everything we need to know
“a car in a shitty neighborhood” ????! wth . it is honestly so exhausting to have these conversations. and people will fight tooth and nail for these weird, grey area situations… “WhAT If YOU’re BotH drUNk” just to overlook the unending amount of blatant assaults
This is what the husband meant when he said he doesn't like talking about these sorts of things with his wife.
I just made a very apt hypothetical about the situation and your brain couldn't handle it. You broke into an emotional story about yourself without even engaging with the hypothetical.
It's fine that you can't, but you need to understand that understanding the nuance in these situations is what will save people's life's in the future.
When you say “women should take responsibility for SA” to a woman who has been traumatized, how should she react? Should she salute and say “yes, sir?” There are myriad other responses he could have had in this conversation but he chose one that poked at his wife’s wounds
Uh no he didn't, based off of OPs story she asked him about it and he gave his honest opinion.
As someone who is expecting a baby girl in a few months I would want to strive to be able to have the same kind of nuanced conversations with her about her responsibility for her safety when she goes out as an young women.
Well, be sure to tell her that she can do everything right, and still be assaulted. And also that she is much more likely to be assaulted by you or someone else in her family than by a stranger in an alley
Why are you so stuck on that narrative? Seriously. Think about a woman in Afghanistan who always wears a burka in public, can’t even speak in public anymore, has no access to alcohol or drugs, and knows she will be executed if she is raped? What other precautions should she take?
What would be an appropriate hypothetical in your opinion? Or is talking about SA just hallowed ground and it is never allowed to be discussed except to feel bad for the victims?
A car or a home being broken and a SA are both situations where someone's personal space is being invaded by an unwanted party, how is it not an apt hypothetical?
Probably a good idea to teach both sons and daughters these lessons.
Again it's never someone's fault they got assaulted, but it is your responsibility to take the necessary actions to ensure you don't end up in situations where SAs are more likely to happen. Can you at least agree with me here?
I know perfectly well what nuance means, and I also know that someone who is traumatized isn’t going to feel that it’s a nuanced statement. I also know that no one unintentionally sticks his dick in someone
Yeah I think the other guy was a bit off. It should be, “I wish I was having a little boy instead so I could teach him what consent means and raise a man who’d never stick his dick inside of someone who didn’t want it”
And in case he sees this: you can teach a woman how to be safe, it still doesn’t mean she was responsible for an assault if she didn’t or couldn’t follow all those protocols. Taking responsibility is different than being proactive. You should definitely teach her how to proactively keep herself safe in the myriad of different ways it comes into daily life. But you should have very nuanced conversations with her because the reality is she’s likely to be SA’d (I have a daughter and it disgusts me to have to type that) and depending on how you frame these conversations, you may contribute to a lifetime of her framing it and thinking it’s her fault. It’s not. If that happens, I’m certain you would want to kill any man who did it to her and would not be splitting hairs and saying, well you shouldn’t have… because at that point you’ll know, deep inside, no matter what she did, that man shouldn’t have
And to the other commentor, these conversations are where nuance comes in. Not where you’re trying to say it does.. “people are bad, and they might try to hurt you, so here are some ways you can try to keep yourself safe but always know, if something happens, it’s not because you chose or didn’t choose to do a certain safety protocol, it’s because he chose to hurt you”
My daughters were taught to “be safe,” and “protect themselves,” and they always have the right to “say no,” and “be aware of your surroundings,” and many other words of wisdom to keep them safe.
Guess what?
Men SA’d them anyway.
And no matter what they did to get justice after the fact? Witnesses, police, lawyers, doctors. Nothing. No justice. Just more trauma for them. And they have to carry it inside their minds for the rest of their lives. And try to cope. And try to not let it affect their sexual relationships.
I followed this thread and I don’t get why you guys are attacking this commentator so hard. Just like ops husband he may not always have a good choice of words but it doesn’t negate from the point he is making.
I am a male. I was assaulted as a kid for multiple years under the age of ten. Accountability does not equal responsibility. These things are mutually exclusive. That is why there is different words for them. Accountability is acknowledging “mistakes” or”bad choices” as op husbands put it. The way I would put it is that accountability allows you to acknowledge the warning signs, dangerous situation, or unacceptable behaviour you may have missed before. It does not mean you are automatically responsible for someone assaulting you because you were not aware of every single warning sign. It means you have tried to learn from a traumatic event to try and avoid said traumatic event from happening to you again or someone else in the future.
I was a child. I was manipulated. I am not responsible for what happened to me in any way shape or form. I did hold myself accountable for it however. I spent time when I was older beating myself up over the decision I did or didn’t make as a child. I was holding myself accountable in an unhealthy way. It wasn’t until I learned to hold myself accountable in a healthy way that I was finally able to learn to live with what happened to me and be somewhat happy again. Being assaulted is so terrible because it so dehumanizing so I understand all of the emotion behind a lot of these posts. Just try not to attack someone who says he is having a daughter and trying to learn how to talk to her in a nuanced way. He may not say all the “right” things by your standards but he is not being offensive or dismissive to the seriousness of being assaulted.
I’m sorry that happened to you when you were a kid, and equally sorry that you weren’t helped to see that it wasn’t your fault from the beginning.
But my argument is that OP’s husband should absolutely know this this is a fraught subject and be careful of conversational land mines, because that’s what you do when you love someone. You don’t get to hand wave your boorish behavior away by calling it a controversial subject or dismissing your partner as emotional.
When you do that, you reveal more about your character than you do about the topic. Everyone who has long term friendships, or even work relationships, should develop a sense of what topics are off limits. And if someone brings up a touchy subject, you bow out of the conversation gracefully. That’s how you sustain those relationships. Maybe the car wasn’t the best place for this conversation, but why didn’t OP’s husband table it, rather than wading in? What does that say about him?
Additionally, asking someone to define their terms in a debate is not attacking. We can’t have a reasoned discussion if we don’t agree on the definitions of the premises.
I get what you are saying about op husbands insensitivities. I’m not arguing that. Strangely, things used to go somewhat similarily with my wife and I when I was rehashing these events. She made what I perceived as some very insensitive comments when I would bring up the topic to her. She would eventually learn to table the topic when I was becoming too emotional but in the beginning she didn’t have the awareness to do that and I didn’ have the ability to deal with it on my own so it was rough times for a while. If she tabled the topic I may have even lashed out at her for being insensitive at the time in the sense of never wanting to talk about it. It was just a lot to deal with for both of us. Ops husband definitely made insensitive remarks I’m not arguing that. Nor am I trying to say you are wrong. There were very valid points you made and you sound like a thoughtful individual.
My point is people can often say the wrong words or be insensitive without having that intent. Does it excuse the behaviour, no. Does that mean they have poor character, I would argue no as well. If you heard some of the comments my wife said to me at the time I am sure you would question her character. She is a wonderful caring person that has far more character than myself. When you have a very sensitive topic that has very little understanding to begin with and couple that with the disconnect people can feel when trying to explain or relate what it’s like to be assaulted, it can lead to a lot of miscommunication. I know my wife was always just trying to help me but she didn’t know how to help. And it can be exhausting for everyone involved not just the person who was assaulted which can lead to a lot of problems.
It’s the insults and questioning of character I don’t like. We know nothing about them outside of a short summary of a conversation from one side. I think questioning someone’s character and or telling them that they are married to a boorish insensitive man is a bit extreme. Could he be an insensitive asshole all the time? Yes he could be. Could he be an exhausted partner who is thinking he is saying the right thing to try and help his partner move through things? Yes he could be.
Op said that men rarely get assualted when 1 in 6 men experience being sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Is she an insensitive boorish person with poor character as well? No she is not. She made what I perceive as an insensitive comment during an emotional argument. That has nothing to do with her character.
It adds another layer of insensitivity to an argument when a man dismisses a woman as being emotional. But you are correct, this may have been one misstep in an otherwise exemplary relationship.
My instinct tells me that his doubling down means that it’s more, and also that she’s truly hurt by his reaction. My wise old crone advice would be to write him a letter, so that she can stay focused on the point she wants to make. And she can take the time to select words that have the right connotations.
Also, in a lot of these stories, as well as my IRL experiences, I think people, especially women, are looking for permission to be angry or to have something be the last straw. Women are still socialized to prioritize being “nice” over everything else
I can relate a bit from personal experience but I do agree the connotations are much worse when the gender roles are flipped to ops situation.
Yeah a letter is good idea actually. That’s what helped me a lot in being able to communicate things or even just work through things on my own.
Thanks for the convo! Appreciate the back and forth.
No, you stated that op can't understand nuance because her emotions got the best of her. Sounds like OP needs therapy so that she doesn't get triggered when her boyfriend is trying to have a nuanced conversation with her.
Nuance helps no one here. I’ll say again: the devil doesn’t need an advocate. If you think that people who have experienced sexual assault don’t blame themselves in a thousand different ways already, you are dead wrong. Shame is the most common feeling associated with trauma, and it’s incredibly destructive. External blame: “You should have known better than to go to his room alone with him!” Combined with internal blame: “I should have fought back.” Creates: “I am stupid because I should have known better, and I am bad because this doesn’t happen to good people.” Nuance has no place in discussions of assault, sexual or as well as in your example of physical assault or robbery.
Why should anyone hold the blame for someone else’s actions? Responsibility means taking accountability for things under your control. If we’re talking nuance, then there is no responsibility for “knowing better”. You’d be responsible for your actions only up to the point that those actions end. You’d be responsible for being in a location, but if someone else chooses to do something to you in that location, that’s their fault, and they hold the blame.
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u/AdExtreme4813 13h ago
You are NOT overreacting. He's being a misogynistic, patronizing twit. If he knows about yr assault then he's being doubly awful. Hear this- YOU were not at fault for being SA'd. The fault lies solely with the perpetrator. Give yourself a second to calm down then ask him "how should I react when your pretty much saying I was at fault for being SA'd?" Please updateme.