I remember when I first was challenged by a therapist to define the word “consent” and “sexual assault” and “rape” and she gave me therapy homework to really think on them and write my own definitions.
At first I tried to find the legal definition, but the thing was it was different from state to state. The definition to prosecute perpetrators was different than the definition to collect statistics. Definitions had been changed/updated within the last few years. They were extremely variable and prone to changing.
Then I started to read the book Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation, by Estelle B. Freedman. This book traced the United States history of definitions of rape and sexual violence, and how often they changed, and how those changes were influenced primarily by power structures. So much about how rape has been (and is) defined legally is to enforce systemic misogyny against black, indigenous, and poor women. Early definitions didn’t acknowledge that non-white and/or married women even had a legal right to refuse consent in the first place, and therefore their violation did not fit the definition of rape in their era, despite that being exactly what was happening to them.
When I read Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, she summarized this concept with a line I have underlined in my copy: “Women quickly learn that rape is a crime only in theory; in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women’s experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.”
In Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft, he has a section on violence in abusive relationships. He speaks at length about how abusers rarely define violence as including their own behavior, and instead always move the line so that it’s a step further than he’s personally gone.
He states that: “To steer clear of these distortions, we need to wrestle the definition of violence out of the hands of abusers and implement a proper one of our own.”
And I realized that sexual violence functions in the same way. There are so many distortions in our culture that only abstract hypotheticals are– across the board– considered rape. But real life women in actual violating situations? No matter how violent, no matter how much evidence of refusal of consent, there will always be apologists who don’t believe it counts. They will shift the definition so that no violation is ever truly rape.
I had originally set out in my research to learn what the ‘official’ definition of rape was so that I could compare my experiences against it and find external validation for my trauma. Instead I discovered that the official definition of rape is often created by rapists themselves, and is inherently dismissive of pervasive sexual trauma. Rape culture is, after all, systemic and material- not just a matter of interpersonal violence between individuals.
And so, months later, I finally had a definition of “consent” and “rape” for my therapist. Despite my research, it wasn’t found, it was created. And I created it deliberately to be set at the level of a victim’s experience of violation.
It was a worthwhile phase of therapy in that it allowed me to process the trauma I experienced, but it was also a worthwhile piece of activism.
I remember reading an article called “Cockblocking Rapists is a Moral Obligation” and there was a line that stated bluntly: “The thing is, rapists absolutely need one thing to operate. They need people to believe they are not rapists. Stranger rapists do that by trying to hide that they are the person who committed the rape. Acquaintance rapists do that by picking targets who won’t say anything about what happened, or by using tactics that, if the survivor does speak up, people will decide don’t really count as rape.”
The definition of rape, and how we allow it to be defined, is absolutely a conflict between perpetrator and victim. And, as Judith Herman says, “It is morally impossible to be neutral in this conflict.”
Reclaiming the definition of rape is essential to supporting survivors and ending rape culture.
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