In every abuse of power perpetrated by a male authority figure, you will find the falsehood that the female victim is a salacious seductress who not only got what she wanted, she wanted what she got.
This is utterly ruinous rubbish.
This narrative is so entrenched that we see the same falsehood play out in sacred and secular texts with equal enthusiasm. Dig just a little… even the most egalitarian among us can fall into this victim blaming trap — victims not withstanding.
I can’t count on how many times I have heard this narrative about myself personally and about female victims in general. The first time I heard it, I was 10. These words came from my then 30 something father about my sister. She asked for it. She was 4 when he started raping her.
I met this recently with a male cleric/advocate. We discussed this very thing among other things. He reportedly respects my work and I his. Even he stated that in the back of his mind, “I guess I will see for myself if she (me) really is a temptress.” And he’s a good guy.
One of the most dangerous things to be is born female. Add minority status, poverty, disability, and the outcomes of being born female is worse. I cannot communicate the full extent of my outrage. Not at this advocate, for he is true, but at the oppression of one whole sex.
Every female victim alive has been gaslight and DARVO’d — many to literal death.
The names.
The public flogging.
The humiliation.
The flesh eating bacterial blame.
Let me say it again…
Utter rubbish.
Persuasive predators (the majority) groom their victims who grow to love/trust the offender implicitly. Any indication of love/trust/attachment is part of grooming the victim — it is NOT an indicator of consent.
That’s why sexual abuse is a BETRAYAL TRAUMA.
In the persuasive predatory dynamic, offenders DEPEND on the love/trust/attachment of the victim to successfully complete their sexual abuses. The same thing used to entrap the victim is also used to blame the victim and exonerate the offender.
Devastatingly diabolical.
Don’t bring the same potion used to poison the victim to pollute public perception of the facts.
I’m too outraged to say more.
These victims are not whores.
They. Are. People.