Don’t Blame My Vagina : How “Slut Shaming” Legtimizes Rape

Editor’s Note : The views expressed below are not my own. Karen Lloyd (@Mz_Karizma) makes her debut on Veritas dealing with the issue of rape and the unfortunate perception that sometimes it is the woman’s fault. Read. Comment. Enjoy.

What did my vagina ever do to you? Yes I know my short skirt titillates your senses but that’s no invitation for sex. There is no invitation until and unless I explicitly engage you for those purposes. I am not inviting you for sex when I am skimpily dressed nor when I accept an invitation to your house after a date.

Slut shaming is the act of calling a woman a slut because of how she acts, what she wears and her choice and number of sexual partners. This is socially dangerous as it leads to the legitimization and acceptance of sexual offenses against women. It is much easier to see rape as acceptable when we deem the victim as ‘loose’.

Slut. Whore. Harlot. She called it on herself.

Allow me to make this explicitly clear : It is NEVER the victim’s fault that she was raped, no matter what you think of her lifestyle. If a woman chooses to sleep with multiple men concurrently that is her prerogative. Do encourage her to keep it safe but that’s as far as your input goes. The truth is, whether she has two, twenty or two-hundred sexual partners, it will not be a deterrent to a rapist. Rape is almost never about the victim’s choices but about the rapist’s need for power. Let us therefore put our energies where they ought to go. Let us teach boys and men that the bodies of women are not theirs to treat as they wish. Let us teach them that women are not property. Why not teach them that women are not merely sexual objects to be used and abused? Let us task the men in our lives to respect women.

I’ve had the (un)fortunate opportunity of witnessing a rape trial and it was one of the worst things I’ve experienced in my entire life. The victim, a young woman of 19 years old, was the one on trial. She was forced to re-live the horrible ordeal, detail by gory detail, and was made to feel like she deserved what happened to her. Details about how ‘bad’ of a young girl she was (based on the number of men she allegedly slept with) and what she was wearing when the incident happened, were at the centre of the trial. This is the number one reason why rapes are under reported and why perpetrators walk free. It is women who bear the burden to prove that they’re ‘chaste’ and don’t deserve to be raped. No one deserves to be raped. We must do better by and for our women.

As a regular walker of the Twitter streets, let me speak to tweeters directly. Twitter is the land of egos and people who live for RTs and a few laughs. To this end, we seem to take pride in ripping women to shreds about their sex lives, in calling them sluts and whores. We revel in slut-shaming and we need to start thinking about the consequences of our actions. It is easy to sit behind a computer screen and forget that there is a real world beyond it. A world where women are vilified for doing the same things that men do. A world where women are told that it is their duty to ensure that they are not raped instead of one that holds men accountable for their crimes. It is high time that we let go off the nonsense that “It’s just Twitter”. Twitter is as real as my gay friends (Get it?). Twitter isn’t and will never operate in a vacuum separate from real life nuances. We have to stop hiding behind this cloak and take responsibility for the things we say and do.

As a woman I am increasingly terrified of walking on the street, of taking taxis, of going out on dates – any situation that could result in me being raped (which is almost any). This is shameful in a world (and country) that boldly claims that I am free. I am not free as long as I have to constantly worry about sexual assault. I am not free as long as women face the task of proving why they don’t deserve to be raped. I am not free as long as I have to think about the douche bags who will call into question the clothes I wear, the number of men I sleep with and will call me a slut if I happen to be the next victim of a rapist.

Let us all pledge to be more socially conscious. If not for ourselves, for the women in our lives who deserve better than to be treated with the disdain that a lot of women have to meander every day of their lives. Let us do it for our mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts and friends. Let us do it to preserve the humanity we have in us.

Hands off my vagina.