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How to Rape-Proof Your Son

Practical advice for the "Me Too" era

By Symbliene E GriffinPublished 3 years ago 12 min read
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Yes, you read that title right. This is for all parents who want to protect their sons from the trauma of being accused of rape. And no, I’m not just going to say, “Teach them not to rape, Assholes!” This is some real, serious, and practical advice.

When is a rape not a rape?

Many years ago, I was in a sexual relationship with a man. He lived out of town. He would occasionally come up on Saturdays to see me, because that was his day off. It was really kind of terrible for me, because I was a waitress, so always had to work weekends, and my ONE regular social ‘thing” was an all-nighter on Friday. (I got together with some other nerds and played games until sunrise.) It was the ONE regular thing on my calendar…. And this guy – let’s call him Bill – couldn’t seem to grasp that it meant I was dead on my feet, come Saturday. (He didn’t mind, as he spent most of his time hanging with my brother, anyway.)

So, one Saturday night, he was over. We got into bed. He… asked for sex. I was sleepy, told him, “Try me in the morning” before passing out.

Sometime way too soon the next morning, I woke to him rubbing his dick against my ass. I was tired. I shoved him away. He pulled me closer. I shoved again, trying desperately not to let my precious state of sleep get so far away I couldn’t reclaim it. I’m prone to insomnia, so waking up all the way when I’m tired is a really REALLY bad thing.

I continued to struggle away, while he used his superior size and strength to pull me close. So I upped the ante, and began digging in my elbows, to cause pain. He let me go, and I managed to go back to sleep, until the alarm went off.

I couldn’t believe Bill had done this. He was, as far as I was concerned, one of the good guys…. Not a GREAT guy, but he meant well. We were friends. He could be a little crude sometimes, and I had no desire to have a serious relationship with him, but I would never have believed he was capable of the kind of assault I’d just been through. I’d never in a million years have believed I’d ever need to defend myself against him. I was trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.

I got up, showered, put on my uniform…. Bill got up, threw on some clothes, made ready to drive me to work. (That was our compromise: He’d take me to work, so that I didn’t have to take the bus…. So HE didn’t have to get woken by my early alarm.)

If I remember, we were in the car, waiting for a train at the railroad tracks, when he finally spoke up. “You seem upset about something…”

“Which part of, ‘No means no, you asshole’ were you unclear about?”

And I watched his jaw hit the floor.

Want to hear it from his perspective?

He woke up, wanted sex, I turned him down… then I started having a bad dream. So he tried to comfort me.

Now, this COULD be called several layers of self-serving bullshit. If I was awake enough to turn him down, how was I ALSO asleep enough to have a nightmare?

Thing is…. He knew me. We were friends. My friends know certain things about me…. One is that I AM, in fact, incredibly prone to nightmares – always have been (and today my son is, as well). Another thing is that I knew him… and that’s really what he’d believed.

I had truly had the experience of being sexually assaulted by someone I’d trusted…. And he had never intended that.

This was in contrast, to another man I knew – a former roommate, in that very apartment. Archer and I had taken a 2-bedroom together because we each needed a place to live, and couldn’t afford the rent on our own. We’d formed a friendship, but he knew I was spoken for. We had martial arts in common. I’d recently moved back to the big city, after spending years in a nearby college town. I couldn’t find my preferred form of ju-jitsu, so was taking a Korean art with him, that used both hard and soft- style techniques. Archer was 6’4”, so had reach on me for punching and kicking, but if I could get inside his guard, and lay one little hand on him, he was toast. I terrified him in close-quarters combat.

Archer and I had a lot in common, and his lack of girlfriend made him occasionally think he ought to try for me. It was a dynamic that I was sadly very used to. I’d tell him no, remove his hands, and we’d go on with our lives as if nothing happened.

One day…. I don’t remember how it happened. I’d been in bed, in my room. Archer had walked in, climbed into bed with me, and started kissing me and groping me. With the enthusiasm of a boy barely past drinking age (which, to be fair, he was) he kept trying as I ordered him off me, trying to cover my mouth with his, so I couldn’t protest.

Finally, I got some air, and a hand on his.

“I swear to god, if you don’t get off me, I’m going to defend myself. Which part of, ‘no means no, you asshole’ are you unclear on?”

Like I said – he knew EXACTLY what I could do to him if I chose, in the kind of close quarters we were in, and it he was terrified of it. I was, at that moment, in a position to make him wish he’d never been born, and he knew it.

So he answered me.

See, he’d come in planning to have sex with me. (Although he knew I didn’t want it, in his mind, this would have been sex, not rape.)

When I told him to stop, in his mind, I was telling him that we couldn’t have sex, but that what he was doing was fine, despite my struggles.

He actually explained this to me, like it was quite reasonable.

“So, when would I have had to tell you ‘no’ for you to have not done THAT? Half an hour ago? How far ahead would I have had to read your mind to make it ‘count’?”

Archer, Bill, and I all met and moved in the same social circles. That “No means no” was part of an ad campaign at the time, and the “you asshole” was affixed by the MEN in these very social circles (Bill and Archer included), who claimed to believe in consent.

And yet, both these men had, to one degree or another, violated me. And both were surprised when I slapped them in the face with those words.

How did this happen?

Acquaintance Rape and the Meaning of “No” Both of these incidents have, I think, a single source. We pounded “No means no” into everyone’s heads, but we didn’t bother spelling out how to respond to “No”.

In both of these cases, I’d clearly expressed my lack of consent, and my partner had – in his own mind – heard and respected it.

And yet neither had stopped. Despite hearing my “no” (whether verbal or not) and understanding it, and despite believing that they would never touch a woman without her consent, both men had continued their actions.

They knew no meant no. But they didn’t know what to do about it

In both cases, I had grounds to file sexual assault charges, though I did not choose to.

But let’s imagine, for a moment, the consequences if I had. Archer…. Well, he sort of had it coming. But let’s take a look at poor Bill.

I’ll be honest: It was hard for me, coming out of that. My emotional experience was of attempted rape. I had had to struggle, while he actively used his superior bulk and strength to keep me from getting away. I cannot begin to properly describe how horrifying, how traumatizing it was.

His emotional reality, of course, was very different. For him, the idea of sex was gone the moment I’d pushed him away, and then he’d just (in his own sleepy mind) been showing concern.

Sadly, he’s completely failed to communicate this to me.

And therein lies the problem, which was really the same one as Archer’s. He changed his mind, but not his actions.

I sit here, today, looking back on those days as my glory-days. I was young. I was gorgeous, and at times I even knew how gorgeous I was. I was free, and strong, and independent.

Today, I’m older. I’m happily married, with two children rapidly approaching puberty, and it’s been a long time since a stranger has flirted with me in person. I’m a million years from the force of nature I was back then.

And yet.

And yet, I have a daughter, who I do not ever want to be in a situation like the ones I’ve described. And I have a son, who I do not EVER want to be in the situation of Archer or Bill.

It is my job to raise them. It is my job to give them the tools that will keep them out of those situations. So what is the answer?

A few years ago, my son was 8, and his sister was 5. They were play-wrestling on the floor, giggling so hard.

And then she said no.

And he didn’t stop.

What’s worse, he explained (between giggles) that he had stopped, as his sister cried and screamed.

Flashbacks, anyone?

I got in there. I broke it up. I held her. And I explained to them the rules:

“When you are doing something to someone else’s body, and they say no, you STOP. You do not argue.” But that’s not all. (Bill and Archer both thought they’d stopped, after all. But their idea of stopping hadn’t been enough – not nearly enough.) You stop, and you move away. Since I was dealing with my own children, I told them, “When someone says ‘no’ or ‘stop’, you move away. You teleport to the other side of the room. No ‘but’s, no excuses. You get as far away from them as possible. Then – and only then – you ask if they are okay. You apologize. And you ask if there’s anything you can do. And you don’t move towards them again without asking permission first. No excuse, no exceptions, and the very first time. You stop, and move away.”

While this was appropriate instruction for two children, I wasn’t sure if it was the right answer in all situations. Was this the thing I wanted to train into them, to keep them out of trouble when they were older?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed right.

I thought about the incidents with Archer, with Bill. In each case, it wouldn’t even be a memory now, if he’s stopped and moved away when I asked.

I thought about some other scenarios, like those very real nightmares of mine, that Bill had thought he was saving me from. In that, too, moving away would have worked, because I could (and would) have cried, “Hold me!”

I thought about my ex, who was with me while dealing with the after-effects of some previous abuse. Who would sometimes suddenly panic over things that had been enjoyable, even requested just yesterday. And I remembered sitting across the bed, amidst tangles sheets and tears, saying, “What can I do? I want to comfort you, but I’m not going to hold you if that makes it worse…” And again, moving away had been the correct call. Even though – or maybe because – that situation was fraught with emotion, and frustrated desire, and sudden, spiking fear, and a desire to comfort, stopping and moving away had been the correct thing to do.

And I realized that, in almost any scenario that involves bodies, this works. Stop and move away. Because until you move away, it is still happening. Until then, the only place you’ve stopped is in your head. Your victim has no way of knowing anything has changed, of knowing this is more than a momentary respite to reclaim breath before continuing to struggle free.

When you stop, and move away, and speak, it changes the dynamic. And when you leave it up to the victim, whether they want to be touched at all, you give them the chance to stop being the victim. Maybe they said “Stop!” because you were accidentally kneeling on their hair. Maybe they have sudden shooting pain not caused by you. Maybe, something you were doing right then was not OK. Moving away and speaking lets you find out. “Stopping” (whatever that may mean to you) but not moving away means they still have to guard – actively – against you, lest whatever made them say “stop” in the first place gets worse.

How do you rape-proof your son? How do you guarantee that you never have to face what Brock Turner’s mother faced: the sure, stomach-sick knowledge that you raised a child who could do this – or worse, one who could do it accidentally? How do you make sure that no one even has the opportunity to “falsely” accuse him?

You teach him. You teach him from a young age, not that “No means ‘no’”, but that “No means ‘back off now’”. You explain that by moving away when someone says, “No”, he is protecting them, in case whatever he thinks is OK is causing harm he doesn’t know about. You explain that by moving away when someone says, “No”, he is protecting himself, from charges of inappropriate action. If she says, “No”, and you are suddenly on the other side of the room, it’s a lot harder for her to claim you raped her.

It’s a simple solution, that applies, effectively, in almost a parts of our lives.

The other week, my daughter was in the dance studio, goofing off with some other children before class. And I heard a boy yelling, “STOP!” at my daughter. I kicked off my shoes, walked in, and reminded her (and everyone who could hear me) of the rules: “When someone says ‘Stop!’, you STOP and move away. No excuses, no exceptions. You stop, and move away.”

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