No Pity. No Shame. No Silence. No Excuses.
Aug. 4th, 2004 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanightingaleOk. Lots of interesting things posted about this meme.
Interestingly enough, I haven't felt a desire to post. Just didn't feel like I had a lot to say.
And you know, it's not a huge secret that I was sexually assaulted. I'm pretty open about it.
Various people have posted interesting, thoughtful opinions about why this meme makes them uncomfortable, or about what it'll accomplish, or whether it trivializes sexual assault.
And lo and behold, I found I had things to say. So in the name of not spamming other people's journals, I shall say them all here and have done.
And the first thing I am going to say is this:
Please do not comment to tell me that you are sorry this happened to me. At all. I assume you are a decent human being, so let's just say I know that. And I am not at this time in need of any help.
And that's the first thing *I* am going to take from this meme: please. Don't use this thread to tell me how you feel about any sexual assault except, if you want or need to, your own.
Yes, it's painful finding out someone you love, or like, or just know, has been assaulted. If you need to talk about that, find someone who can be there for you -- someone who isn't struggling with their own load.
But ideally? If you have never been assaulted? Especially if you are one of the people who is AMAZED at the size and length and complexity of this meme's run, if you really can't believe how huge this thing is? If you have just found out through your friend's list that numerous friends of yours have lived through this and at this very moment you feel exactly as if you had been whacked several times with a rock?
Don't post and tell me that. OK? I don't want to know.
Just -- sit with it. Just sit there and take it in and experience exactly how much rage and shame and fear and pain it is possible to feel about this and still get up and make yourself a cup of tea and go on to do something positive with that emotion.
Cause it's great that this meme has been of use to survivors. But really, WE KNOW WE'RE HERE.
The primary use of a meme like this is not very warm and cuddly. The primary use of something like this is to shock the shit out of anyone who can still be shocked by this, cause if you haven't been shocked before?
It's SO TIME YOU WERE.
So, with that out of the way, some other thoughts.
Do I think this trivializes sexual assault:
Assuming such a thing to be possible, more than it is trivialized every damned day. Really, there is little worse than the status quo; I think we're fairly safe.
Ok, what, exactly? The fact that there's a lot of it about? It's not diamonds, folks.
The fact that there are people who can just calmly say "yeah, happened to me once" and continue the conversation they were having?
Sorry, if the fact that it happened isn't all you need to know, you're on your own.
I will not bleed on cue for anyone.
That it's a sort of bumperstickery meme, not some clever original artistic statement?
Oh, PLEASE.
"But will it change anything?"
It already has. Look, if you thought there was an easy solution, if you thought there was some other thing we could all do instead that would work, you ARE new. It's a thing. Lots of things will be needed.
"Why do people need something like this to speak out?"
Cause they do, some of them. So? Sexual assault survivors are not monolithic. Or all brave, or cool, or hip, or whatever the hell you were looking for here.
Some of us wear clothes you think are really funky and and listen to music you think is stupid and take comfort from poems you think are awful and and hold opinions you think are juvenile, and yes, find lj memes really cool and WHEN those things are the topic, feel free to debate those things, but if this is about sexual assault, and you're one of the concerned, the caring, the wanting to make it stop --
You could start by just backing up and paying some respectful attention, here, instead of explaining why THESE survivors are not the cool enough survivors.
And then instead of lecturing us about going out and doing more?
You could go do something yourself. If even a tenth of the people on lj who have NOT endured an assault do that, go out and get involved in some way?
All the activists who HAVE been assaulted could, like, take a year off and tend to our own healing.
Now, THAT would be cool.
Interestingly enough, I haven't felt a desire to post. Just didn't feel like I had a lot to say.
And you know, it's not a huge secret that I was sexually assaulted. I'm pretty open about it.
Various people have posted interesting, thoughtful opinions about why this meme makes them uncomfortable, or about what it'll accomplish, or whether it trivializes sexual assault.
And lo and behold, I found I had things to say. So in the name of not spamming other people's journals, I shall say them all here and have done.
And the first thing I am going to say is this:
Please do not comment to tell me that you are sorry this happened to me. At all. I assume you are a decent human being, so let's just say I know that. And I am not at this time in need of any help.
And that's the first thing *I* am going to take from this meme: please. Don't use this thread to tell me how you feel about any sexual assault except, if you want or need to, your own.
Yes, it's painful finding out someone you love, or like, or just know, has been assaulted. If you need to talk about that, find someone who can be there for you -- someone who isn't struggling with their own load.
But ideally? If you have never been assaulted? Especially if you are one of the people who is AMAZED at the size and length and complexity of this meme's run, if you really can't believe how huge this thing is? If you have just found out through your friend's list that numerous friends of yours have lived through this and at this very moment you feel exactly as if you had been whacked several times with a rock?
Don't post and tell me that. OK? I don't want to know.
Just -- sit with it. Just sit there and take it in and experience exactly how much rage and shame and fear and pain it is possible to feel about this and still get up and make yourself a cup of tea and go on to do something positive with that emotion.
Cause it's great that this meme has been of use to survivors. But really, WE KNOW WE'RE HERE.
The primary use of a meme like this is not very warm and cuddly. The primary use of something like this is to shock the shit out of anyone who can still be shocked by this, cause if you haven't been shocked before?
It's SO TIME YOU WERE.
So, with that out of the way, some other thoughts.
Do I think this trivializes sexual assault:
Assuming such a thing to be possible, more than it is trivialized every damned day. Really, there is little worse than the status quo; I think we're fairly safe.
Ok, what, exactly? The fact that there's a lot of it about? It's not diamonds, folks.
The fact that there are people who can just calmly say "yeah, happened to me once" and continue the conversation they were having?
Sorry, if the fact that it happened isn't all you need to know, you're on your own.
I will not bleed on cue for anyone.
That it's a sort of bumperstickery meme, not some clever original artistic statement?
Oh, PLEASE.
"But will it change anything?"
It already has. Look, if you thought there was an easy solution, if you thought there was some other thing we could all do instead that would work, you ARE new. It's a thing. Lots of things will be needed.
"Why do people need something like this to speak out?"
Cause they do, some of them. So? Sexual assault survivors are not monolithic. Or all brave, or cool, or hip, or whatever the hell you were looking for here.
Some of us wear clothes you think are really funky and and listen to music you think is stupid and take comfort from poems you think are awful and and hold opinions you think are juvenile, and yes, find lj memes really cool and WHEN those things are the topic, feel free to debate those things, but if this is about sexual assault, and you're one of the concerned, the caring, the wanting to make it stop --
You could start by just backing up and paying some respectful attention, here, instead of explaining why THESE survivors are not the cool enough survivors.
And then instead of lecturing us about going out and doing more?
You could go do something yourself. If even a tenth of the people on lj who have NOT endured an assault do that, go out and get involved in some way?
All the activists who HAVE been assaulted could, like, take a year off and tend to our own healing.
Now, THAT would be cool.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 05:57 pm (UTC)I like your way with words.
I also feel better, which took some doing given that the day started off with me reading 'Lord Hornblower,' finding out they kill Bush dammit, forester, you can't kill off every single sidekick. if brown dies, i'm going to...i don't know, fic massive au or something, and then got progressively crappier.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:01 pm (UTC)See, this is why I just find it best not to take the books seriously at all.
*cuddles you*
Look! Pyramids! Palm trees! Archie and Bush over by the Sphinx, snogging!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:07 pm (UTC)Now I'm kind of hoping that the movies never get that far, or at least change that bit.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:03 pm (UTC)*more hugs*
Am about to go and read your last post, and being both a non-American and an Incandescently White Anglo-Canadian Chick, probably put my foot in it, so, slack all 'round?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:02 pm (UTC)"Why do people need something like this to speak out?"
Personally, I have seen three kids on my friendspage (yes, persons under age 16) see this meme, and FOR THE FIRST TIME admit that sexual violence happened to them, and it was a bad thing.
And they were introduced to the idea that it was possibly not their fault.
That fact has made me see this as something more that just a "bumper-stickery meme". Three people, taking that first step for recovery.
This meme did not make me feel uncomfortable, annoyed, or trivialized. However, I'm willing to tolerate a LOT of personal discomfort for a Result as Important as those kids hearing the truth.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:07 pm (UTC)Yeah.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 06:28 pm (UTC)Anybody who thinks it's not revolutionary for all these women and men to say "this happened to me and I won't be silent about it" isn't living in the same world I am. I don't identify myself by my status as a survivor of sexual violence. It's not something that haunts my life or keeps me up late. I'm about as over it as I can be. And yet, I recognize that there are lots of folks who need to know that they're not alone, that it *is* possible to get over it, and that it's not their fault. If this helps even a few of those people understand that, it's worth it.
GAH, I'm hormonal and tired and cranky and not even a little bit articulate. . .Sorry to be so rambly. . .
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 10:44 pm (UTC)What. You. Said.
We've bumped into each other a bit.
I shall now friend you if that's alright with you.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-05 06:50 am (UTC)Ruby
Who is definetely joining the Consent Challenge, and pimping it in her journal.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-05 10:14 pm (UTC)