Thread by @pixielauren

Support for survivors of sexual assault on a day a rapist has died, a thread:

[Content Warning: This thread uses the r-word, and deals with aftermath-related issues, but does not contain detailed descriptions of assault.]

1/18

I'm not going to type his name or use any hashtags, lest I be accused of being an insensitive monster. I'm not. Losing a father or a spouse so suddenly is a pain I can't imagine. Not to mention his daughter on that helicopter too. Devastating. I can't imagine. 2/18

But ... Isn't it interesting, how survivors are always asked to think of the rapist's family?

Is that right, or fair? WHY IS IT OKAY to ask this of survivors?

I'm so tired of EVERYONE being prioritized over survivors in this world. I'm so tired of being SILENCED. 3/18

I mean, that's what "rape culture" is, and does. It shames and silences survivors of assault. It allows rape apologists and rape enablers to control the dialogue.

I'm a NOBODY on Twitter. I have 20 followers. There is NO way his family is going to see my tweets. NO WAY. 4/18

And yet, people are all "HOW DARE YOU BRING UP THE RAPE TODAY OF ALL DAYS!? THINK OF HIS FAMILY!"

Many of those saying this on twitter are supposedly #feminists -- the hashtag-believe-women types.

And yet they are shaming survivors. 5/18

I don't get it. I guess they just really like basketball?

Whatever.

What I do know is this: The minute I heard the news, I panicked. I knew what was coming. In the first HOUR after the news broke I saw tweets calling his victim a "whore," a liar, and crazy. 6/18

Isn't that how it goes? Survivors are ALWAYS called whores, liars, crazy. It's a universal experience.

THAT is why days like today hurt: We know that a rapist in the news means heaps of abuse for his victim. Witnessing that abuse is enormously re-traumatizing for survivors. 7/18

We feel powerless to stop the avalanche of abuse and name-calling, the victim-shaming, all of it. And we are reminded of the times we heard those things about ourselves: You're lying. You're crazy. You're a whore. 8/18

Every time an infamous rape story gets re-litigated, survivors are re-traumatized. This is why, for years after my assault, I could not hear or see the word "rape" without having a panic attack. I was bracing for the inevitable tidal wave of victim-blaming bullshit. 9/18

Which brings us to today. Survivors, like me, hearing the news, then bracing for what comes next. Knowing that he is about to be memorialized, lionized.

Imagine if that was YOUR rapist, being HONORED?

And knowing that if any of us had the courage to mention the rape ... 10/18

... We would be PUNISHED. On top of the trauma of remembering what he did.

Remember: He slut-shamed his victim.

Remember: There was a TON of evidence. Physical evidence of assault! Witnesses! But that didn't matter.

It NEVER does. 11/18

Brock Turner. Steubenville. Kavanaugh. Weinstein. Cosby. In all these cases, witnesses and evidence don't matter. We know what the victims are in for.

It NEVER ENDS, and for survivors, the injustice of it very literally feels INTOLERABLE.

I literally can't stand it. 12/18

Before I finish this thread, I'm going to have to deal with the trolls who will say he didn't do it.

Let's look at some facts, together. 13/18

thedailybeast.com/kobe-bryants-d…

The evidence against him was compelling, and the only reason there was not a criminal trial is that the victim was abused in the media so badly that she became unwilling to go through the trial. 14/18

deadspin.com/why-the-fuck-i…

He did not even dispute the facts. He admitted that he restrained her violently. He admitted she attempted to leave. In his "apology" he admits that she didn't consent. 15/18

thenation.com/article/archiv…

If his case, with this evidence, had happened after #MeToo, would you think differently about it?

How was he so easily able to rehabilitate his image? 16/18

Do you think his victim has ever been able to free herself from the memory of the rape? To live fully, free and clear of it?

As he has done?

And while you're policing survivors who dare speak up, what do you think SHE -- his victim -- is doing, and feeling, today? 17/18

SO MAYBE:

DON'T tell survivors to shut up about the fact that he's a rapist, that it's "too soon" to bring that up. Don't silence survivors!

DO ask your friends if they're okay.

DO challenge people who call survivors "whores," "liars," or "crazy."

DO believe survivors.

/END