Don’t (Get) Rape(d)
                It was the kind of day where you could smell the rain in the air. Standing at the bus stop on the edge of the sidewalk having just hopped off the rumbling school bus, everything seemed to be happening through a theater screen. One moment I was fantasizing about the food I was going to scarf down on reaching home and the other I felt the unstable thumph thum thum thumph thumph of terror. It all happened in fast succession, the girl running to the crowd at the bus stop, green girdle tied around her school uniform unraveling around her waist, the man following her, big arms, big shoulders, big fists, big eyes alight with the red blaze of lust and anger, an anger shaped around the fact that the girl he lusted had the audacity to say no to him after wearing the school dress that barely covered her knees and the rogue behavior that led her to believe that she had any ounce of right over her own body, but it was all also painfully slow, each moment amplified with a new layer of fear.
              Thirty-two percent of sexual assaults are reported. Two percent of reported rapists are never convicted by law.
              When speaking of rape we often advocate the idea that victims should be held responsible for keeping themselves safe. While this is a good precautionary measure, we should focus more on teaching perpetrators not to rape rather than teaching victims how not to get raped. This will reduce the prominently of rape culture by not only blaming the perpetrator rather than the victim but also de-normalizing rape and allowing victims to speak forth without fear which will hence lead to the apprehension of more perpetrators and lessens rape rate.
              32% of sexual assaults are reported. Hence, 68% of sexual assaults are not reported. The question remains: why? There are an array of reasons that victims can provide to justify their complete inabiltiy to report assault: “I wasnt wearing a skirt long enough”, “I shouldn’t have acted so flirty”, “I was too scared”, “I thought it was normal.” There is a common factor to all these reasons – rape culture cultivated because of victim-blaming. In a rape culture, rape is considered a normal occurence, it is not designated as a negative thing because it’s barely talked about it at all. The absence of openness about rape inflicts fear in victims; they figure since its not talked about, it either normal or it doesn’t happen very much and its their fault. This leads to self-blame, since it was the victims fault they must have done something wrong, was the skirt too short, the personality too irresisitible, the body asking to be assaulted? Furthermore, society tends to invite the idea that rape is the victims fault.
                The first step to overcoming a rape culture is to stop victim blaming. Next time you catch victim-blaming, put an end to it. Next time you hear something on the lines of, “Barbara got raped”, stop and correct the sentence – “Bob raped Barabara”, it’s not Barabara’s fault. Next time you hear, “Your hair is too long, you’ll get raped.” Stop. Long hair doesn’t give you the right to rape me just like seeing you with not head gear  does not give me the right to hit you across the head. Next time you hear, “That test raped me.” Stop. Using the word ‘rape’ in simplistic sense normalizes a crime that should be treated to the extreme. Next time you hear them teach us, “Don’t get raped.” Stop. Tell them to destroy the cause of the problem, to teach us something simpler. “Don’t rape.”
               2% of reported rapists are convicted. That means, 2% of 32% of rapists go to jail. The question remains:why? The reason, evidently, lies in the complex laws instigated with rape. Rape is a complicated crime, entranced with labyrinths of “ifs”,“excepts” and “maybes”. However, every labyrinth has a destination, and it is in the judicial power to formulate the map to a decision. Undoubtly, this takes time. During this time, there is a slip-up: perperators are not convicted. The solution to this, though harsh, is rather simple: rapists should be deemed guilty until proven innocent. This sounds harsh, but it is the only way to lower rape rates. Just like you wouldn’t want a terrorist to go free, you wouldn’t want a rapist to either. Rape is close to terrorism, infact I would argue that it is exactly like terrorism, only it destroys a singular victim emotionally and physically. Ask yourself: would you want a terrorist in your town on the loose? Around your family? Around children? You? Instigating the “guilty until proven innocent” phenomena will do two things. First, it will inflict a greater fear in rapists, forcing them to rethink their actions. Second, it will make victims feel safer by giving them the assurance that the rapist will not be let free until it is proven you are wrong and this will raise the rate of reported rapes. These two things combined will, in all hope, lower rape rate and help obliterate rape culture.
            This topic hits me close to the heart.
            It was the kind of day when everyone wishes it would just rain, but not even a tear is dropped to quench the parched souls. Freshman year, I was walking home from musical rehearsal, Xanadu songs playing on repeat under my breath. A boy I’d barely talked to came up to me. He talked, I walked. I’d barely talked to him. All of a sudden, his hand snaked out and squeezed my breast. Now, I know this is no where near rape, but it is sexual assault (and it took me a surprisingly long time of pondering over it at 12am to figure out why I felt so uncomfortable about it to figure that out), and that is a pretty close equivalent. It took me six months to tell anybody what “had happened”, rather what he’d done to me. Why? I have an array of reasons. I was scared. I thought it was incredibly stupid to make a big deal out of. What if no body believed me? It was my fault anyway, I shouldn’t have been walking alone. This immense fear engulfed, and still does as I write about it, between the time he assaulted me and the time I told. A fear so irrevocable self-destroying that I hope, hope dearly that nobody has to go through that looming fear of the unknown. If I had known that it wasn’t normal, it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t stupid, maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t have let the fear entrap me whole.
  The first step to stopping rape culture is to stop victim blaming, stop normalizing of rape and implement laws that will help rape rates plummet.
                Next time someone confesses a crime made against them, listen, know its hard for them to tell you, tell them it isn’t their fault, tell them you’re proud of them for telling you the truth, tell them they should report the crime, tell them it shouldn’t be normal. Tell them it is not their fault. Remember, you are part of society. And with all the you’s out there, we can make an us. And united, we stand. United we conquer the world.