Luz Collective

For those who have wondered what it’s like to run into your rapist, unintentionally, years after assault, my latest in Luz Collective is for you.

I’m glad English speakers took the word schadenfreude from the Germans. Adopting it was an emotionally intelligent move. The affective vocabulary English speakers rely on is slim and I look forward to the day that we develop a language abundant enough to articulate our internal hellscapes with precision. 

Until then, we’re left fumbling, unable to name so many crappy states, including one that’s been on my mind since watching a TikTok video by anti-rape activist Wagatwe Wanjuki.

As Wanjuki lip syncs, “Actual goals, AF!” her TikTok performance unfolds to the tune and lyrics of Eva Gutowski’s Literally My Life. Clad in athleisure, Wanjuki flashes a grin and a thumb’s up sign. Glitter splashes across the screen and she imitates a victory dance while this message hovers overhead: “Me finding out my rapist graduated law school and became a lawyer.”

Wanjuki’s video spoofs the inverted schadenfreude to which rape culture subjects sexual assault victims. I’ve experienced variations of this state. It’s an absurd horror, well-suited for satirical or parodic interpretations given that rape victims living in the United States navigate a two-faced society. This duality comes into focus when the supposed illegality of sexual assault is juxtaposed against criminal justice data.

According to the nation’s penal code, rape ranks among the worst of crimes, a felony whose perpetrators deserve to be locked in cages. Criminal justice statistics, however, tell a much different story. According to RAINN, “perpetrators of sexual violence are less likely to go to jail or prison than other criminals.” In fact, “out of 1000 sexual assaults, 995 perpetrators will walk free.” These numbers underscore that rape is more accurately described as a theoretical crime. The volume of perpetrators walking among us shows that the ability to commit sexual assault free of repercussions is anything but rare. Instead, rape is a commonly exercised privilege.

Those of us who are the victims of rapists experience the ramifications of sexual assault across our lifespans. One of the ugliest and most painful dimensions of rape’s aftermath is exactly what Wanjuki so brilliantly communicated through TikTok. Rape culture requires the majority of sexual assault victims to co-exist in a society where our rapists do more than move freely. In a rape culture, our attackers thrive.

December 9, 2020. Read it at Luz Collective

In my latest for Luz Collective I discuss Jeffrey Toobin, the myth of the “accidental assault”, and the pervasiveness of the ‘oops’ defense.

“I taught high school for over a decade and my years spent working with U.S. teenagers taught me that many girls’ first experiences of sexual assault now happen through screens. One way that boys assault through the screen is by sending their female classmates pictures or videos of genitalia, and I’ve seen various male teachers, staff, and administrators treat such assaults as if they were child’s play. These enablers and apologists fail to acknowledge the power asymmetry that exists between a male sender and his female target, an imbalance that includes the recipient’s inability to unsee pornography intentionally placed in her line of sight.

These optic violations constitute a form of visual rape and these problems bring us to a now-infamous October 19, zoom meeting attended by employees of WNYC radio and The New Yorker. Vice became the first outlet to report on the aftermath of the notorious call, announcing that The New Yorker had suspended Jeffrey Toobin, one of its staff writers, for masturbating on video. Toobin claimed that he was unaware that his camera was on and The New York Times further reported that Toobin was participating in a secondary phone sex video-call when he exposed himself.

Media men and everyday men moved quickly to defend Toobin and a survey of their defenses suggests that these men spent minimal time contemplating notions like consent, boundary, or incursion. Their defenses also sounded much like the excuses I’ve heard trumpeted when adolescent boys ambush female classmates with homemade pornography.