Comment by juneee on BeautyIsPain

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juneee
juneee·1 year ago
Ch. 75
@BeautyIsPain i work with survivors of sexual assault. i’ve spoken to them, held space for their stories & listened to what it actually means to lose your autonomy in a moment when you’re most vulnerable. let me be absolutely clear: what jo did to ian, using his unconscious body for his own gratification, is rаpe. consent must be given willingly, consciously & clearly. an unconscious person cannot give consent. i’m honestly sorry that at 31 you still don’t understand that.
as for david kim, no one is out here defending him & that’s the difference. people aren’t excusing what he did because he isn’t attractive or tragic or obsessive in a way that appeals to certain readers. but jo? jo gets defended because he’s “pretty” & “in love”. this happens all the time in real life that abusers get romanticized when they’re palatable enough, when they’re framed as misunderstood or passionate. that doesn’t make the violation any less real.
you can spin it however you want. you can bring up lawyers, cops, even the author, who frankly doesn’t get to rewrite the ethics of consent just because she wants her plot to go a certain way. but none of that erases the fact: what happened was non-consensual. if that makes you uncomfortable, maybe sit with that discomfort instead of trying to rationalize the irredeemable.

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BeautyIsPain
BeautyIsPainMember·1 year ago(edited)
@juneee I appreciate and respect you advocating for victims. It's very respectable, especially if you haven't experienced it. But being in that line of work, and being a victim myself, can sometimes put you in an "all or nothing" state of mind where your reasoning around these situations is so rigid that you can't see beyond it. I was like that until what happened to my family member.

I would never defend a r*pist. Ever. Not now. Not then. However, I helplessly watched as people spread the word of a false allegation and stigmatized an innocent person. I watched as everything he worked hard for in life was taken away from him within days. I watched everyone turn their back on him and treat him like the scum of the Earth. I watched everyone berate and shame him anytime he tried to defend himself. And when he was proven innocent and the girl admitted that she lied, I watched everyone turn away with indifference, rationalizing that he still must have done something wrong for her to make up those allegations. You may not get it. Prayerfully, you won't have to experience any of what I did to understand where I'm coming from 

Labeling Jo a r*pist doesn't make me uncomfortable; it's just not the right thing to do. Like I said before, your understanding of consent is correct; but your refusal to acknowledge the entire context of the situation is where your reasoning is skewed.

It seems like a whole army of professionals, victims, or whoever could tell you that, given these specific circumstances, what took place was not r*pe and you would tell them they're wrong too. You need that type of firmness for the work that you do, but in spaces like this, maybe you should try to open your mind a little more. Things aren't always as black and white as we want them to be.
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