Whenever someone has their boundaries violated, whether sexually or otherwise, that person (male or female) has to decide whether a confrontation is worthwhile. In my extremely judgmental opinion such confrontations should take place if: a) the victim/survivor/experiencer-of-boundary-violation feels there is value in saying their side of the story OR b) the perpetrator can be stopped through the action of speaking up.

It is hard to get truly accurate statistics no matter what you do. In the areas of rape and sexual assault these numbers are extra fuzzy. There are a few studies but they are small and I feel weird about judging from those studies.

Almost all of the studies about rape and sexual assault I have read (and I’m pretty sure I’ve read every big-name one in existence) involve fewer people-who-have-been-victimized than I have talked to in my lifetime.

I go find these people. It’s not just women. I want to hear their stories. I truly do. So I’ve heard hundreds. Probably a few thousand at this point. Most of them on the internet–I haven’t met all of these people in person. I think about what they tell me with regards to their particular situation. Everyone has a slightly different circumstance to their assault.

Over all, near as I can tell, the number of successfully prosecuted rapes is around 3%. That means that if you have been raped you have around a 97% chance that your rapist’s rights are more important than yours.

Oh gee, why don’t more people try to press charges? I wonder.

I have confronted. I have pressed charges. I have spoken to police officers on multiple occasions. I have chosen to not confront sometimes. I have had people say, “Hey you didn’t want to confront so I went and told this person you have been talking about him so here, now you can talk to him about it!”

Uhm, what is there for me in this potential discussion? Confirmation that this person did a lot of drugs and alcohol so “can’t remember” and thus it isn’t supposed to matter what happened between us. Yeah. That will make me feel better.

I get to choose what I do with my time. I’m pretty sure that I should be doing things that make me feel better about myself and not things that confirm that in the opinions of other people I am a worthless whore who isn’t even worth remembering.

Yeah. I think I would rather shove rusty nails in my veins. But it could be just me.