Rape is not being normalized. Its a horrible act that no sane man would think of doing. Saying you raped someone in a videogame is not bad, I sometimes say I will murder my opponent in Fifa, but I don't mean actual murder or that murder is ok, just that I'd beat him/her. It really doesn't make sense to me how words are becoming a big problem when the problems themselves are what should be solved.
Considering the stats here it's pretty normalized, people just don't talk about it. They talk about how they know rape is bad but some don't even know what rape is. So many people think of some strange man popping out of the bushes who snags a woman and rapes her in an alley when the biggest amount of rape is done by an acquaintance who forces himself on another. It is quite normalized despite the idea that "rape is bad" when 1/6 women is raped and around 1/3 is sexually assaulted in her life time.
The idea that words, phrases and jokes our society uses are a means to keep rape victims silent and the act clouded in ambiguity is a thing whether people want to acknowledge it or not. Consider how it's reported in an article. So many articles go the route of victim blaming or passive language if you'd read it carefully enough. A woman or girl (or boy) "gets raped" rather than is raped by someone. Notice the erasing of the perp? Even I do it subconciously sometimes and catch myself. People don't "get raped" someone
rapes them. It's not some sort of weather phenomenon like "she got stuck in the rain." And yet there are tons of things like this and other more malicious kinds of language and victim blaming that basically render victims silent and keep rapists from feeling like they did anything wrong. The onus is constantly on
us to keep ourselves safe, to wear magical rape proof clothing, to trust the right guy, to defend ourselves when the time comes, to not lead men on, yet at the end of the day none of these things will necessarily prevent a friend, boyfriend or relative from cornering me, pinning me down and raping me. I've come to terms with it. It's not even paranoia. It's just a thing that if and when it occurs, as it might, since the statistics are nothing to scoff at, I'll be powerless to stop it.
When I met Timedog he could have easily raped me in the motel he was staying but at some point one has to take risks and trust men. Which is what I do but it never truly means I'm out of the woods. How many men in my friends who were victims lives were trusted associates? One never knows. Then to hear all of the bullshit rhetoric about prevention or what
we women can do when the only real solution is to dismantle the culture that tacitly encourages rape when it insults victims, puts the onus on women to avoid rapists (as if we know who they are) and makes snide jokes about the whole affair it's a wonder any victims of rape come forward or live to see another day. Some of the strongest women in my life are rape victims, they have to hear insipid jokes and try to renew their sex life all the while having PTSD and yet most of them make nary a peep because then they'll be called sensitive, whiny or bitches/cunts because that's how it works.
