One time, when I was younger, I had an unpleasant encounter with an (apparently neurotypical) older man who wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
Now, I was fine. But I was scared.
Not so much because I was afraid the man would come after me -- although given the statistics around violence against women who refuse men's advances, that would be an entirely reasonable fear -- but because I was afraid that someone would find out what had happened.
Because, you see, if someone found out that I had been assaulted, I would be a Vulnerable Young Girl.
And the thing about being a Vulnerable Young Girl is that it doesn't matter if you said "yes" or "no."
It's not necessarily that people would have sided with my assailant -- this is a different flavor of rape culture.
Most people would have agreed that what my assailant did was wrong. But they would have considered it equally wrong -- maybe more wrong -- if he were my chosen, consensual boyfriend I actively wanted to be with.
Because his crime was not disregarding my "no" and violating my bodily autonomy.
His crime was Taking Advantage of a Vulnerable Young Girl. Preying on a Vulnerable Young Girl. Corrupting a Vulnerable Young Girl.
If you're a Vulnerable Young Girl, you don't have the right to say "yes," which means you don't really meaningfully have the right to say "no" either. You need to be Protected, and, of course, you don't have the right to say "no" to that, either.
And, look, once again, I was fine. I'm making the specific assault sound worse than it was. That's not the point. I wouldn't mention it at all, except that The Discourse is such that if you don't disclose a relevant personal experience, you're assumed to Not Care About Real People.
But I am not alone in this.
I've heard multiple instances of the specific scenario "I was assaulted in college but I didn't report it because my parents would have made me leave school."
Or "I was date raped and didn't report it because then my family would have never let me go out again."
Or "I'm a psychiatric survivor and if I reported being assaulted I'd be put back into treatment."
These are real things I've heard or read assault victims say.
Framing assault victims as Vulnerable Young Girls actively discourages victims from reporting assaults.
Yet the people who use this framing seem to think it's somehow necessary to get assaults taken seriously, even though it does the opposite.
Feminists largely understand this when it's in the context of purity culture. When people say, "In purity culture, it doesn't matter if you say 'yes' or 'no,' sexual assault and consensual sex are considered equally bad, and that underlying premise minimizes the actual wrongdoing of sexual assault, discourages assault victims from reporting their assaults, and allows assailants to get away with their crimes," this is understood as a problem.
But the Vulnerable Young Girls framing comes from self-identified feminists. Who think they're helping. In the name of feminism and justice. They don't understand why being framed as a Vulnerable Young Girl would make a woman reluctant to come forward, because the coercive control she would be subjected to "isn't punishment". They're seemingly baffled by why young and/or disabled women don't want to be framed as Vulnerable Young Girls, even if they've been assaulted. Especially if they've been assaulted. Why are you so offended when we say that your wishes for your own body don't matter?
And... why? Why is this framing necessary? What is the purpose? What is the benefit?
If you hear about someone committing sexual assault against a young and/or disabled woman -- without her consent, against her will, disregarding her "no" -- what, exactly, are you trying to accomplish by jumping in and saying "Even if she said yes, that's still predatory! He's still Taking Advantage of a Vulnerable Young Girl!"?
What is the purpose of saying that?
If a young and/or disabled woman chooses a sexual and/or romantic relationship that you think is "bad for her," and you proclaim "Just because she agreed to it doesn't make it okay! It's still wrong!" -- well, I vehemently disagree with you, but at least you're responding to the actual situation that exists.
But if you hear about an assault, against the victim's will, without her consent, and feel the need to denounce the counterfactual scenario in which it was a consensual encounter... what are you even trying to accomplish?
Is the sole purpose just to convey to the victims (and any other assault survivors and/or young and/or disabled women in the vicinity) "I need to make it unambiguously clear that my objection to this assault has nothing to do with the violation of your bodily autonomy. I actively do not care about that."?
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