Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Phillips Note to the Franklin Police: Everyone Can Be Raped
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:34 AM
Out & About has a scary story about a man who says he was raped by a guy he met on Grindr and how he felt the police handled his complaint poorly. The Franklin police told the paper only that they thought it would not be appropriate to comment. But even the Out & About site has gotten comments along the lines of, "But why was a guy with a boyfriend trying to meet someone on Grindr?"
So, just to reiterate: Everyone can be raped. People who meet someone on Grindr or Craigslist. People who don't use online services. People who are at the mall. People who are asleep in their rooms. People who are on dates. People who are not on dates. People who are married. People who are not. Etc., etc., etc. Being a man doesn't protect you from being raped. Being straight doesn't protect you from being raped.
There's always lots of talk about rape prevention — wear this, don't wear that; do this, don't do that; hang out with these people, not those; don't drink; don't do drugs. But really, short of everyone encasing themselves in plastic bubbles, the only surefire way to prevent rape is for rapists not to do it.
Everything else is superstition — "If I don't go out by myself at night" is a close cousin to "Step on a crack, break your mother's back" — or perpetuates the idea that rape is sometimes an appropriate punishment — as if people who wear short skirts should know and therefore deserve what happens to them, or men who meet men on Grindr should know.
No, the fact is that rapists should know that they should not fuck people who don't want to fuck them.
And if the details of the story are true, the police should damn well treat everyone who is reporting a crime with the same level of respect. I mean, please. Ask yourself this. Even if you read this story and thought, "Well, but he ...," would you, if your 15-year-old son came to you and told you he'd been raped, feel comfortable having him go to the police?
And if not, that's a real problem. Citizens should be able to trust that crimes against them are taken seriously.
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