[TW] I’m done with accepting that blame. It was not my fault. I didn’t do anything to make him do it. My fabulous blue velvet dress was not responsible. The fact that I’d had a couple of beers was not responsible. Even my abusive childhood, with its failure to inculcate self-esteem, was not responsible. Because I went out with him afterwards and had what society calls consensual sex with him a couple of times, doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape that one time. Because I didn’t behave the way rape victims are supposed to behave, doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape. Because I spent between two or three decades feeling unable to tell anyone in case they wouldn’t believe me, doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape. It was rape, he is a rapist and I am a rape survivor. Society keeps selling us the version of rape that rapists have invented: the one which enables them to carry on raping women and know that they will get away with it. We keep on making excuses for rapists, convincing their victims that they have no right to call it what it is.
(via howtobeterrell)
