We need to talk about the R word...

[Matt]

T/W - discusses sexual assault, rape and suicide.
tl;dr - not a joke.

Hi all,

In light of a few recent 'jokes', I and a few other TC regulars feel there needs to be a bit of a line drawn in the sand. I am somewhat unfortunately today having to discuss the subject of rape.

To make it entirely clear, I won't be naming names here, nor will I be actively targeting any specific group or individual, please see this more as some kind of education into the serious and very real connotations of triggers, PTSD and other such issues that can be the result of what some consider to be a joke, some of which I will be discussing in this post.

I'm going to start this off by saying that I'm a 23 year old man who was, around 10 years ago, groomed online. As a result I've spoken a few times (in darker hours) about that, the affects it had on me through my years growing up and, as a result, I've spoken to a number of women (and men) who have experienced similar things, or even much worse - I've also been through CBT for anxiety and depression, quite a lot of which was due in part (or entirely) to the events of my late childhood. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this and hearing of the experiences of others has made this a bit of a touch subject, definitely not just exclusively for me but it's often the case that victims do not want to talk about it for fear of judgement, especially not within a community of people they've never met.

I'm going to try and keep this reasonably educational and simple for a reasonably quick and easy way of educating yourselves, where required of course, on quite why this isn't a subject to joke about.

So, what is rape?
Rape, according to the Metropolitan Police website, is when a person intentionally penetrates another's vagina, anus or mouth with a penis, without the other person's consent.

How does rape affect people?
This is an incredibly difficult subject to discuss without talking to a victim. The thing you really need to look into here is a thing called RTS, or Rape Trauma Syndrome. RTS is a number of psychological and physical symptoms that follow a rape, predominantly starting immediately after but also recurring for a number of weeks, months and often years after it happens.

This, I should stress, is not exclusive to women, men who have been raped have also exhibited these symptoms.

Rape is generally attributed to making people (generally women), feel uncomfortable with the slightest physical contact and communication, sometimes with anyone but it also is commonly responsible for such common psychological disorders as GAD (generalised anxiety disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive) and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

It is commonly found that rape leads to the above along with severe depression, something I'm sure we all probably know ourselves, eating disorders, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts, also known as thoughts that they, the victim, might be better off dead.

A few moments, with just one word describing them, commonly lead to a lifetime of these issues, along with hypervigilance, anxious tendencies, persistent fear, flashbacks, poor health, insomnia and disturbed sleep. That is no life to live, rape is devastating.

The feeling of personal security, the feeling of comfort in their own privacy and not to mention their future sexual relationships, are commonly completely destroyed, if not incredibly damaged. Having been through a lot of these myself as a result of a much less severe event, I cannot even begin to imagine what a rape victim feels.

The fact of the matter is a good friend of mine very nearly ended it all because she felt like she couldn't cope. A good friend of mine almost wasn't here because of the actions of another human (if you can consider a rapist to be a remotely human being). She isn't alone in that and whilst people (not just women) are still falling victim to rape, or other forms of sexual abuse, a 'joke' could well be considered to be a severe trigger for a permanent solution to what is often a very real daily struggle.

So, let's cut to the chase here.
Rape is not a joke, please can we stop making these 'jokes', as they are frankly potentially doing more damage than you could even believe.

Whilst there is a common stigma that people with a female name in online video games aren't always female, it is not always the case, for a number of years women have been playing LFS, some of whom using none-descript nicknames to hide this to avoid any kind of special treatment and some people are acutely blind to that, or so it seems.

As, statistically, women are more likely to be raped than men, it's alarmingly likely that what somebody may see as a joke could trigger a whole number of aftershock type events to what was originally life changing trauma. What you consider to be a joke could lead to, at a minimum, a dark few hours for somebody who's been through it.

I'm not looking for apologies here, I'm not looking for anyone to be punished for their joke, I'm asking for one thing - it stops here.

Thank you for your time - hope you all have a good week.

Cheers,
Matt