I am from a country where dating is taboo. I was not in a relationship till my early twenties. The following may be hard to understand but I need to talk about it and know why I let this happen to me. It was my first relationship and I had little idea what to expect. Things were fine till my bf learned another man was interested in me and I might be interested in him too. That was the first time he told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. A torrent of emotional abuse followed. He started to tell me things like I was fat (I was not...I was 5'3 and 113 pounds) and not as pretty as his exes. He tried to tell me what to do with my life and how I was not that intelligent. I tried to break up but he wouldn't let me.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut) the joke is that it is equally likely to see a woman in a mini skirt as it is to see a woman in a hijab.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), European tourists feel at ease that the Lebanese still speak a post-colonial French, and let Beirut be called the Paris of the Middle East.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), tourists and Lebanese alike flock to the beaches and the nightclubs, openly drinking alcohol, smoking hookahs, and belly dancing to both popular western and Arabic music, creating a strange moment that many see as cultural influence, and many others see as cultural infiltration.
Still—despite the post-colonial familiarity and acceptability of Lebanese culture—Lebanese women remain in many ways decorative objects, openly ignored, slighted or discriminated against in legislation. In Lebanon, a woman cannot pass on her Lebanese nationality to her children. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from domestic abuse—because the law does not recognize domestic abuse as a crime. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from marital rape, because the law explicitly states that a married man is entitled to have his wife sexually whenever he pleases.
In Lebanon, if a man rapes an unmarried woman his crime is absolved so long as he proposes marriage to the victim. If she rejects his proposal, his prison sentence is shortened to six months.
If she is not a virgin—or her hymen happened to be previously broken [editor's note, see: My Corona: The Anatomy Formerly Known as the Hymen & the Myths That Surround It] through a myriad of non-sexual means—this is not even an option, because it her rape cannot be proven and counted as rape.
If she is a perfect victim—which in Lebanon means virginal, religious, and focused on either being or becoming the perfect wife and mother—and if that rape case is even reported, the media obsesses over the ethnic and religious identity of the victim and perpetrator, detracting from the universal, horrific nature of the crime itself. In one instance at the end of last year, a young woman named Myriam Achkar was tragically sexually assaulted and then murdered in a Lebanese suburb of Beirut, and though this was the story—an innocent woman was the unfortunate, undeserving victim of a violent, horrible crime, the story that was conveyed through Lebanese media was different. As Lebanese journalist and feminist collective organizer Nadine Moawad wrote at the time,
That’s what the story is: A young woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home in the suburbs and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a man. But that’s not the story we’re hearing everywhere. What we’re hearing is: A young, Christian, virgin woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home to a church to pray, and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a Syrian worker.
As rape is conflated with ethnic and religious identities, a rape myth that only the lower class, non-Lebanese Syrian can rape a virginal, Christian Lebanese woman as she is coming home from praying at the church is perpetuated. If he were a wealthy Christian Lebanese man, and she was at a nightclub in Beirut—or worse, his wife–the crime would still be rape, but the story would not be told.
Lebanese women (and men) are beginning to stand up. Last week, the feminist anti-violence collective Nasawiya organized a march through the streets of Beirut, demanding that marital rape and domestic violence be addressed, and that women receive greater protection in the law.
I care about this deeply—because not only am I female and an anti-rape and sexual violence activist, but I am Lebanese-American. I have never been to Lebanon—but I know what it is like to stand up to Islamophobic and Arabophobic people in both France and the United States, and tell them that I am Lebanese. I know that after an awkward moment, they typically tell me that being Lebanese is "good Arab" and "not really the Arab world" and then there is an awkward sentence about how much they love hummus or how Lebanese women are notoriously beautiful.
I want to tell them that there is no such thing as "Good Arab" and "Bad Arab," and just because Lebanon is characterized by colonial influence and has lower rates of visitor warnings, doesn’t mean that we/they do not have heinous political problems. I want to tell them that we/they can solve these problems with the just way, not the be all and end all, hideously flawed western way.
I know what it is like when a cab driver asks me where I am from, that he is curious because I am brown like him, and might share a common culture or common language. I know that no matter how much I would like to simply say, "San Francisco" and have my cultural loose ends tie themselves behind me, that with being questionably brown on American soil invites a series of questions on just how brown you happen to be.
I know that when I say, "Part of my mother’s family is Lebanese"—because that’s what seems to make the most sense—the next question is, "Your mother’s family, are they Christian?"
I know what it is like almost three full generations later to wonder why the hell this even matters—but I know for many Lebanese women (and men) it can matter very much. I know that three generations later, through the fault of my unquestionably ethnic spice rack, the family recipes that I grew up with as "normal" (but are far too characterized by generous helpings of lamb, bulghar wheat, parsley, and cinnamon to be considered "American"), big eyes, and skin just brown enough to beg the question, "what are you?" that I have a personal, selfish stake in these women’s lives, well-being and daily bull shit—because it is just an accident that I am not one of them.
As Lebanon moves forward, and Lebanese feminists like the members of Nasawiya begin to stand up, rejecting the decorative role that society has imposed upon them and demanding that anti-violence legislation is written and implemented into the legal and cultural code, I am following half a world away with baited breath and excitement, wishing that I could also close my computer and take to the streets of Beirut. I hope that I finally visit Lebanon soon—and that when I do, I don’t have to take to the streets because Lebanese women are protected by the law and treated as equals, not because of the colonial savior of western influence or infiltration, but because women everywhere, around the world—regardless of race, religious affiliation, or ethnicity—deserve their issues to be addressed and respected in the law.
In Lebanon, the women and men—regardless of ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation—are fighting for this right.
This piece was originally published at:http://www.annalekasmiller.com
(This post contains candid discussion of rape and sexual violence.)
As some of you may know, I experienced two different sexual assaults when I wasn't yet in my teens within just one year of one another. The second time I was assaulted, my experience ticked all of the boxes there currently are in our culture for what is so often -- now, anyway, easily considered a "real" or "bonafide" sexual assault, or what Whoopi Goldberg, to my great disappointment, would call "rape-rape."
I was a girl, and one with body parts universally recognized as "girl parts." My attackers were guys. Even worse when it comes to the rape cliché all too often (misre)presented as universal truth, I was a white girl raped by guys of color. I did not know any of the perpetrators: they were all strangers. It was violent. It was forceful. I said no, I yelled, I tried to run, and I fought, but I lost. I was conscious until I was knocked unconscious. I hadn't been drinking or doing recreational drugs, nor had I ever even tried either. I sustained physical injuries. I wasn't a sex worker. I didn't have mental illness or a developmental disability. I wasn't dressed "provocatively," (despite a police officer's notion that any length shorts were provocative), I wasn't wearing lipstick or high heels, I wasn't on a date or at a bar, and beyond some very rudimentary, fully-clothed juvenile fumbling, I hadn't been sexually active.
The first time around was different: I was much more confused about what had happened. I knew the person who assaulted me: he was the "sweet old man" who cut our hair. I froze in fear and shock: I wasn't able to move or utter a sound, including "no," despite feeling no loudly in my skin. I was wearing, that day, an outfit I thought was a "pretty" outfit. My attacker told me I liked what he was doing, and he said "nice" things to me, rather than calling me names. He told me how pretty I was. I didn't get any injuries. It wasn't violent. I threw up several times when I walked home: I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't know it was wrong, or why. Nor did I know it was sexual violence. I didn't even try to tell anyone.
But shortly after the second assault, it was clear what had happened, both times. I still didn't have and wasn't provided any sound words (nor help) for it at the time, but I knew that first incident was just as wrong as the second; knew they were the same at their core. Once I tried again to tell someone about the second assault a couple years later, I got the information and words I needed to better start to understand I had been raped, and all that could mean. I then realized what should have been obvious: I was raped that first time too, not just the second.
If that second rape had been more like most rapes, and if I had been anyone but someone with a vagina, given so much of the messaging out there then, and, though to a lesser degree, still out there now, I might not have figured out what happened to me until many, many years had passed, something which would have set me back immeasurably, and to my great detriment, in my healing process. I meet survivors like that, any of us who work in support for survivors do: it is so, so much harder for them to heal than it could be, than it should be.
This should all be so far past obvious to anyone by now. Even though some folks still lazily, callously, dangerously and sometimes even maliciously cling to and broadcast myths about sexual violence -- plenty will likely do so in reaction to the terminology change I'm going to talk about -- this should all be clear by now, especially from federal justice agencies who are supposed to support victims, not render them invisible.
There's a lot that's changed for the better around sexual violence and victim advocacy since I was assaulted in the early 80s, and plenty that's changed since I started actively working with survivors over the last ten years. The mere fact that what happened with my second assault would now so readily be classified as assault, and most likely treated so differently than it was by police and everyone else around me speaks volumes. But one thing that really hasn't changed, especially in lowest-common-denominator attitudes, attitudes which were very unfortunately still reflected in the longstanding definition of rape from the FBI, is the notion that only assaults like the second one I experienced were or are "real" rape; that only victims like I was then are "real" victims. That's a strange and hurtful notion for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that that kind of assault is the LEAST common way rape occurs, not the most common. And that's not late-breaking news: data and information has been gathered which makes that clear for decades: millions of survivors have bravely told their stories over the years which illustrates this clearly. And yet.
At the very least, our justice departments should be clear and inclusive about what rape and other kinds of sexual abuse are, and at the very least, those definitions should include and privilege the most common ways and contexts per how rape occurs, not just the least common to the exclusion of all else.
And now, we've finally got some of that important, needed clarity. The FBI finally dumped a definition of rape which had over eight decades of dust on it, and adopted a new, far sounder definition. To say I'm elated and deeply grateful is a pretty serious understatement.
Before you look at the new definition, take a look at the old one: The previous definition was "The carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will." "Carnal knowledge" is a term that expressly and exclusively means penis-in-vagina intercourse.
Who didn't that include? Often, people assaulted by those known to them, even closest to them, which accounts for the majority of sexual assaults of all people and most commonly doesn't involve physical force, but coercion and other kinds of manipulation. Men and boys. Women who were not assigned female sex at birth. Women sexually assaulted by other women. People whose assaults did not involve vaginal intercourse. People who were assaulted sexually in such a way that did not involve a penis. People who were not conscious or fully conscious when assaulted. People who did not give their consent, or whose nonconsent was ignored. All of these victims and survivors and more were not included in the previous definition. That old definition didn't include the majority of people who have been raped.
As someone who educates, counsels and supports a wide range of rape survivors every week, I all too often hear from survivors who can't even get started healing because they feel they have "no right" to call their assault what it was, mostly either because they fear they'll invalidate the experiences of "real" survivors and victims, because they do not want to hold someone else responsible for something they are not responsible for, and/or because one or both of those concerns dovetail all too nicely with victim-blaming, rape-enabling mentalities the world is plastered with. I'll sometimes pull out my own experiences and say that I believe them, that I don't feel invalidated because we did not have the same experiences with rape, and as someone who has experienced rape in different ways, I know all too well rape is rape is rape. But I shouldn't have to do that, and no one should need me to, especially when I'm saying what I am to counter not just what they hear from uneducated people, but from justice agencies, who know all of this better than anyone.
Now it seems I just might need to have discussions like that a lot less, or have them only when backing up what our federal justice bureau says themselves.
The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
As the FBI explains (bolding mine):
The revised definition includes any gender of victim or perpetrator, and includes instances in which the victim is incapable of giving consent because of temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity, including due to the influence of drugs or alcohol or because of age. The ability of the victim to give consent must be determined in accordance with state statute. Physical resistance from the victim is not required to demonstrate lack of consent.
"The revised definition of rape sends an important message to the broad range of rape victims that they are supported and to perpetrators that they will be held accountable," said Justice Department Director of the Office on Violence Against Women Susan B. Carbon. "We are grateful for the dedicated work of all those involved in making and implementing the changes that reflect more accurately the devastating crime of rape."
The new definition is more inclusive, better reflects state criminal codes and focuses on the various forms of sexual penetration understood to be rape.
"These long overdue updates to the definition of rape will help ensure justice for those whose lives have been devastated by sexual violence and reflect the Department of Justice’s commitment to standing with rape victims," Attorney General Holder said. "This new, more inclusive definition will provide us with a more accurate understanding of the scope and volume of these crimes."
Police departments submit data on reported crimes and arrests to the UCR. The UCR data are reported nationally and used to measure and understand crime trends. In addition, the UCR program will also collect data based on the historical definition of rape, enabling law enforcement to track consistent trend data until the statistical differences between the old and new definitions are more fully understood. The revised definition of rape is within FBI’s UCR Summary Reporting System Program. The new definition is supported by leading law enforcement agencies and advocates and reflects the work of the FBI’s CJIS Advisory Policy Board.
It's still not perfect, but it is so, so, very much closer then we have ever had before, and fine-tuning it from here should be a lot easier than it was getting from the old definition to this new one.
Not knowing something has happened to you when it has is often awful, especially with something like rape where feelings of confusion on the part of a victim are so often used to dismiss or deny assault. Feeling like you can't even voice what happened to you or express what you're feeling because your assault, compared to the rarest kind of assault so often seen as the only "real" kind is a horrible way to feel. Healing from abuse and assault is often a long, demanding and challenging process, but you can't even really get started until you have some basic words for and sense of what was done to you, a clarity that what someone chose to do to you was a serious crime, a crime where you were a victim.
I really cannot express how grateful I am for this change: grateful to FBI Director Robert Mueller and to the many individuals and initiatives (like The Feminist Majority Foundation, Ms. Magazine and Change.org) who pushed and kept pushing tirelessly for more than ten years for this positive, important change.
Thank you. Thank you.
By all means, how the FBI defines sexual violence can't control how everyone does, nor magically erase myths and misrepresentation of perpetrators and victims. We're still going to all have to keep doing a lot of work to turn around the dangerous and damaging mythology about sexual violence, its perpetrators and its victims. We're still going to have to do a lot of work to keep holding the line when it comes to consent and the necessity of real consent, and for everyone, not just certain individuals or groups: for everyone. We still have a lot to do to address and change bystanding and victim-blaming and a whole bunch of other stuff that's going to take time and the efforts of everyone, not just one big agency or advocacy organizations, but absolutely everyone, to rid our world of rape culture.
However, I think having a standard set like this is going to make all of that much easier. This change is powerful for those who will report and seek justice. It's powerful even for those who do not, but can know that if they choose not to report or press charges, it's not because a crime wasn't committed, but because they are making a choice not to pursue justice for that crime. Powerful because survivors can see, in clear language from a major justice organization, what what has happened to them as exactly what it is, not what those who want to deny it would call it. They can have a sense of what rape is which is current and based on all we know now, not an archaic relic from an era decades before the civil rights movement, and a time when women had only had the right to vote for less than ten years (and when raping a woman you were married to -- including violently -- was legal in every state of the union and not acknowledged as "real" rape at all, because wives were very much considered, legally and socially, the sexual property of their husbands). It's powerful when it comes to doing a better job collecting data on sexual assault so that everyone can begin to have a very real sense of how big a problem rape is and what we need to do to most effectively keep working to end sexual violence. Powerful for anyone, as well, who needs to know how very important and integral consent is, and how very much harm it can do to suggest it's irrelevant, or say nothing about it at all.
And having these words from an authority as powerful as the FBI? That has serious power. The power to answer statements like, "But I didn't say no," "But I didn't fight," "But I was drinking," "But she didn't have a weapon," "But it was my boyfriend/coach/teacher/parent," "But I'm a guy," "But I was wearing a short skirt," "But I froze and didn't do or say anything," and other common statements reflective of a wide range of victims and survivors with a so-about-time definition that makes perfectly clear how none of those things mean that someone who was raped was not.
I'm 13 and I really need some help. I have been talking to this guy for ages on my phone and texting him. We have Skyped, and I know he might be 'one of those older people who have random children acting for them and they have voice filters' etc, but he has Facebook and I know loads of people who know him, but I just haven't met him. He is really nice and we both wanna meet each other... We decided we were gonna meet and I'm really excited. He says he wants to finger me, and he want me to give him head, that's fine because I have done it before so all's cool. Then when he asked if I wanted to have sex with him, I got creeped. Just need someone to say if I'm doing the right thing or not.
This may get a bit vivid. Be warned. I have a twisted sexual history. After being molested at age 5 and again at 14 I somehow allowed myself to get taken advantage of and used in regards to sex. It took me many years to heal and much pain to get to where I am now and I can have a healthy sexual experience with my current boyfriend. I stayed at his house when he was renting a room out of a bachelors pad and I understood and accepted that Playboy magazines were on every toilet and the toilet seats were always up. One day he came to the kitchen with a boner kissing on me and whatnot, a short while after I went up to the bathroom where he had been showering and found a Playboy open. Are you kidding me? How dare he have the audacity to come to me with a boner he got from a slut in a magazine? It was talked about and made clear I am not comfortable with that whatsoever, he should be loyal to me mind body and soul, and I should be enough for him; as it is likewise.
It's been months since then. I found some porn videos on his phone yesterday and it really repulsed me. I get dressed up for him, I go down on him, I put out frequently. We do get kinky. Now the reason this video offended me so much is I do let him [ejaculate] on my [breasts]: its a thrill for him. In this porn video there's a girl who looks like me, disturbing enough as is, and shes giving a guy a blowjob till he [ejaculates] on her [breasts], then she turns to the next guy and does it again. Screen changes and she's [having intercourse] from behind and he [ejaculates] in her, then she crawls forward and starts giving another guy head as yet another comes up to [have sex with her] from behind as well. TOO FAR. It's not your basic porn scene, and it bothers me that its a twisted repulsive obscene image of something him and I share intimately. We've just moved in together and I can't imagine ever letting him see me naked again. I feel like he twisted our passionate and beautiful sex into some perverted expression of his twisted fantasies.
I’m a woman in my early twenties and identify as a feminist. Last November I was raped by someone I had previously considered to be a close friend. However, the assault itself isn’t what I am writing about. I’ve read many of Scarleteen’s wonderful articles on sexual assault and I am quite comfortable with the idea that what happened to me isn’t my fault.
Shortly after the assault, I started up a relationship with a man (which includes sex). I realise that it’s not ideal to start a sexual relationship soon after experiencing sexual assault. I don’t regret entering into the relationship, though, as it has (overall) made me very happy and has provided me with support to deal with my assault. My partner knows about my sexual assault.
A few months into the relationship, my desire for sex (intercourse) started to drop.
I'm in an on again-off again type relationship with my "girlfriend." We get along and everything, but on some things we don't see eye to eye. We've had sex before, and that's kind of the problem. She keeps pressuring me into having sex! You don't really hear it this way with guys, but it's the truth. She knows what she wants, and she wants it now! It's not that I don't want to have sex with her, or that I don't LIKE having sex with her, but sometimes I just enjoy romance. Or just hanging out. Sex isn't everything. And another thing: she want's a baby! She's nineteen, and I'm eighteen. I've reminded her that neither of us drive or have jobs. I just graduated high school (at the time I was still IN school) but still, I can't change her mind. So I don't really know what to say. How can i get through to her that sex isn't everything, and that we're definitely not ready for a baby?
I am 17 now, and started dating this one fellow when I was fifteen. At the time he was 44. Of course, now he's 46, but that's not really the point. He's divorced and has two kids, one son 2 years younger than me, and a daughter the age of my own younger sister (12). I look after them for him sometimes. I feel like I really love him, but I don't really feel the same way about him. I think he's been seeing his ex-wife behind my back, as she is now pregnant and she's not in any other relationships, and Steve (my boyfriend) doesn't really want to talk about it, meaning he acts guilty. Our relationship has pretty much been sex, sex, sex, and me doing stuff for him from day one. I want to get out of this relationship, but I have never been able to stand up to him. I live with him, and I don't have anywhere else to go, as my parents kicked me out some time ago. I've kind of been seeing another guy, who is 19, but nothing really serious. This new guy is American, and he's making a life for himself (in a good university, etc.), so the choice is kind of obvious. But if I try to break things off with Steve, either he gets angry and hurts me (nothing too serious, just bruises) or he swears he'll spend more time with me. Which he doesn't.
Basically, I'm stuck with a man who has been my only sexual partner for two entire years, he's not the nicest bloke around, and he's nearly three times my age (older than both of my parents, too). I don't know what to do, and honestly, I'm a little scared.
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