My daughter went to a party recently where she was the only girl. Allowing her to go was a tough call for my husband and me because she is just showing interest in boys and, well, we know things can get weird quickly when you're the "only" at any gathering. However, the friend who invited her is a great kid she's known since preschool. She went to the party and had a great time. It was only when she was noting a few parts that weren't fun that I grew concerned. She said sometimes the boys would play "boy games," and she felt left out.
This is the first event she's been to where it mattered whether you were a boy or a girl. Ages 9 and 10 are tough. Kids are gearing up to enter puberty, and pre-pubescence means absorbing everything you can about the social constructs of your culture.
Not the kids I'm writing about.
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For a minute, my daughter started crying. "I really didn't like their games. They're so stupid."
Hmm. "What games?" I asked.
"Games boys play. Like raping."
I work with men and women who have been raped. I have been raped. Rape is not a game, but there sat my daughter saying nonchalantly that "raping" was a "boy game." That her peers would drop on top of something or someone and dry hump them while saying they were raping it/them.
No.
No no no no no no no. This is not okay.
Rape is not a game.
If this seems like it shouldn't be a big deal to you, you are wrong. The fact that kids who have no sexual experience at all are pretending to rape people for fun is a Really Big Deal. Kids are normalizing rape. They are making it casual. Acceptable. Silly. Fun. Through play. And what this means is they are buying toxic masculinity wholesale and selling it for a profit.
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There are reasons we can't let our kids play rape. For example:
It will never be okay for them to rape someone. But also. . .
If they are playing rape and then they are raped, how will they process their experience? Treating rape as a joke means they shouldn't feel bad about it. If rape is silly and fun, shouldn't they have enjoyed being denied the right to choose what happens to their bodies? And shouldn't they be ashamed if they are processing it otherwise?
That's what happens. When rape is treated as no big deal, that means if it happens and feels like a big deal, it's the fault of the victim. What we have here is rape culture.
What my daughter witnessed was the birth of rape culture from toxic masculinity within her peer group. Rape is a game that boys play because boys will become men and men have power. Boys pretend to rape girls and inanimate objects as a fun demonstration of power centered on their masculinity. Boys grow into men who do not take rape seriously.
We've seen this countless times. Consider Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who was caught in the act of raping an unconscious woman by a dumpster. Media portrayals of him as a competitive swimmer contributed to his meager 6 month sentence and ability to return to life post-jail (after only three months) while the woman he raped struggled to be taken seriously by the campus where the rape happened.
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I know you already know about Brock Turner, but let me say that again: He was caught in the act of raping an unconscious woman by a dumpster, sentenced to six months in jail, and was released after three all the while being commended for his academic and athletic prowess while the woman he raped was repeatedly silenced.
Is it any surprise boys think rape is a game?
I wish I had been surprised to hear that boys were "playing rape" at a birthday party. I wish my daughter had been surprised, or at least disturbed beyond the fact she wasn't included in the game because she isn't a boy.
~~~
When I was raped, I was 14 years old. I said no. I was scared and probably drugged because I was awake but unable to move my lower body even though I could feel the boy repeatedly jabbing me with his penis. He was hitting the wrong spot and not stopping so I finally shifted his penis so it would all end. It hurt. A lot. I bled. I recovered my mobility. I left.
When I tried to tell my mother what had happened, I was genuinely confused. It didn't help that she was yelling at me because she suspected I'd been "loose." We were in the car heading home. She pulled over on the side of the highway, locked the doors and shouted "Did you have sex?" at me until I said yes. Because I wasn't sure. Because I wanted her to stop. Because I was scared and hurting and I didn't know that he should have stopped when I said no. It should never have gotten to the point that I let him finish what he started simply so I could leave. I should never have been made to feel that helpless.
And as soon as I said yes, I knew it was rape, but didn't know if that still made it sex. So I suffered the consequences of my "looseness" by being heavily policed over the next three years. To the point I created false diaries with admissions of guilt to things I had never done because my mom needed something to punish me for. And, at least, if I made up the thing I was being punished for, I had some control over it.
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Maybe this strikes you as odd, but I didn't really break rules and the view of me was that if I weren't getting in trouble, it's because I was hiding something. So I fed the expectation. It had the odd result of helping keep my shame for being raped at bay. It also reinforced my identity as a writer.
~~~
I didn't tell my mother it was rape until I was in my late twenties. By then I had been through therapies and was on medication and she had grown enough as a person to hear me. She was horrified, but it only took her a year to turn my admission around into a different story which other members of my family were fed. My history was altered, including the moment my mom drove me over to that boy's house. I sat in the car while she told his mom "what these kids have been up to." The boy exited the house, smirked at me (and consequently I loathe that word), then went on his way while his mom heard out mine.
Would my mom have blamed me for my rape if she hadn't been indoctrinated by rape culture? Not a chance. The moment when I shared with her what had really happened, she was there for me. It was such a relief to be living in the truth for once. And even though she has again altered my narrative, it is because she has not yet reached the point where she is capable of living with my truth. That's okay. I have.
I also live with the truth of many other survivors, male, female and otherwise identified. I hold space for it and teach how to write about it. I honor individual growth. The saddest part is I never run out of people to help. Because rape is common. Rape is acceptable. Rape is a game. A game little boys play on trampolines in their back yard. A game that makes rape the fault of the victim.
We need to teach our boys not to play rape, and not just because boys get raped too. We need to teach them so they can become survivors if they are raped and so they do not become perpetrators as they grow. And we can do this by making sure our girls know "playing rape" is a dealbreaker, and by sharing with our fellow parents what has happened when it does without judging them. After all, it's no one person's fault this is happening. Rape culture and toxic masculinity are social constructs. We are all part of society. We are all responsible for speaking up.
In fact, let's begin right now:
What would you say to a parent whose child was playing rape? What would you say to your child about being part of the game or witnessing it?
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