Wrong

One of my closest friends was raped.

Rape is always one of those things that I have always thought happens
on the news, in movies, in books. Not to us, not to people I know,
certainly not to people I love.

Getting that phone call from a crying friend two years ago was a shock
to my system. It wasn't real, that doesn't happen. I was scared, scared
for me, scared for her. I was angry. I wanted to find him and I wanted
to hurt him.

I convinced her to go to the police. It was a painful experience,
because apparently she had done everything wrong. She waited too long
to come in, the drug was out of her system, wrong. She showered after
because she felt dirty and wanted his smell gone, wrong. She threw away
her underwear because they were ripped, wrong. She hid in that room,
with her eyes closed, until he was gone, wrong. She drank at that
party, wrong. She danced with him, wrong.

What happened to her was wrong. What he did to her was wrong. How it
made her feel was wrong. The police officers treated her like a toddler
asking too many questions in the back seat of a car while mommy is
trying to drive. They were exasperated with her. She stopped trying.

Finally, they caught someone. He made the mistake of taunting her. He
remembered her name from before he put that drug in her drink. He found
her on facebook and made a fake profile. He sent her private messages
to remind her of what he did. He wanted to continue to hurt her.

The police found his computer. They found him.

But that isn't enough. His lawyers are making it her fault. Everything
about her is wrong again. The way she dressed the way she danced the
way she talked the way she smelled the way she smiled. She wanted it.
It was her fault.

They are bringing up her history. She is going to have to get on the
stand and talk about every man she has ever touched, every joint she
has ever smoked, every drink she has ever had. All of the things that
she has done that were wrong.

This is rape culture. We blame the victim. We make them defend
themselves and their past on the witness stand, something no defendant
is required to do. We say she was asking for it, we say maybe it didn't
happen, she just wants attention.

If she had been robbed, if she had been beaten, if she had been
threatened, if she had been a he, then it would be the criminal that
was in the wrong. But she was raped. It was horrible. And now they want
to make her prove it. Relive it. And maybe a jury won't believe her
because she wasn't a saint before it happened. But I don't know many of
those. And she was a good girl; an honors student, a republican, a
Christian, an upstanding member of society. She is a parent's dream.
But she is still not good enough for the court.

Is it worth it?

Andrea has every right to be angry, every right to not tell anyone what
happened to her. It seems that nothing good comes from it. My friend
could have spent the past two years forgetting, but instead, things are
just getting started. Two years of hell extended to three or four or
more if he goes free. She can't move on, they won't let her. They want
her to relive the worst night of her life, and then have people tell
her she is a slut and a liar.

This is rape culture. It's unfair how we treat a woman who has the
courage to come forward and admit what happened to her. We make it
shameful, we make it a fight. A fight too often lost.

That's wrong.