Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault, and cisheterosexism
Friends,
We fucked up.
Here’s the story: We were given a bunch of zines to distro by a comrade and we were grateful because they all seemed like really cool, informative zines. The thing is, though, that we didn’t make time to read all of the zines before putting them on our merch table and that’s 100% our fault. Most of the zines were up to our standards, but we read this one zine we had, called Supporting A Survivor Of Sexual Assault, and we were absolutely appalled that we had already given copies to people. Because we had already distributed copies of it as a band, we decided that an apology was necessary.
This is going to be long, so here’s some main points if you don’t want to read our whole essay. This zine:
Upholds the myth that transgender people can’t be men or women
Upholds the myth that rape has to be physically traumatic to count as rape
Contains lazy, surface-level analyses of race and gender
Ends on a note that implies that rape can be inspirational and a source of growth
This zine, according to the first page, was a collaborative effort between a men’s group (MARC: Men Against Rape Culture) and a women of color group (UBUNTU), and the first red flag was that the men’s group was listed above the women of color group, indicating that the former had more of a hand in writing this zine.
The first problem is in the intro, one sentence in; the phrase “women, men, and transgender people (people who don’t fit neatly into the male/female gender binary)” is used. This constitutes an erasure of binary transgender people, invalidating the identities of transgender people who identify as women and men, and implying that they are in a separate category from women and men, who are presumably cisgender. If they wanted to include people who are not women or men, they could have easily used other terms, like “women, men, and people who don’t fit neatly into the woman/man gender binary.” It’s pretty much right there. Also, this does nothing to validate the identities of non-binary trans people because the language is inclusive at the large cost of alienating binary trans people and there’s no point to inclusiveness if it doesn’t include everyone.
Along the same vein, there’s an aside that says, “Throughout this document, the pronoun ‘they’ is used instead of ‘he/she’ and the possessive ‘their’ instead of ‘his/her’ in recognition of the fact that not all people identify themselves strictly as either women or men.” This part is a lie and seems to only be there so that the authors can score ally points; gendered language is used throughout the zine.
The zine is broken down into numbered principles, and Principle 1 starts out promisingly; they remind the reader to make sure the rape survivor they’re supporting isn’t in immediate danger: “Protecting their lives is your first concern.”
However, they go on to say that “Rape is a physically traumatic act of violence,” which upholds a dangerous stereotype. Rape is not always physically traumatic. Rapists can be polite. They can be gentle. They’re still rapists. It’s not okay and it’s not healthy to invalidate survivors’ experiences by telling them that their rape wasn’t violent enough, as if there needs to be a certain level of violence and physical trauma for what happened to them to count as rape.
Principle 2 is Restore Choice. This is the section in which the authors forget what they said about not using gendered language. But that isn’t the main problem. They clearly mean well and have a lot of theories about how rape is a theft of choice, but their solution is to badger someone who has just been raped about whether they want to sit, stand, drink soda, drink orange juice, or drink water. Maybe being peppered by questions is helpful to some people who have just gone through significant trauma, but it’s not helpful to everyone. Sometimes, after being raped, a person doesn’t want to make so many little choices when they have to already make big choices about whether or not to go to the hospital or the police.
Not everything about this zine is bad. For example: “Hospital visits and police reports can often be just as violating as the assault itself, and may not ever be a safe option for people of color and trans people.” If a person doesn’t learn anything else from this zine, we hope they learn this bit of information. It is important to support survivors, regardless of if they seek the help of authorities and medical professionals or not. Also in this section is the recommendation that one doesn’t assume a hug or physical closeness to the survivor, which is essential.
In Principle 3: Believe!, there is much surface analysis of race and gender dynamics when it comes to society’s interpretations of survivor’s stories and identities, and this is a really dangerous place for them to gloss over details. This section presents itself as a primer in such things as slut-shaming, cisheterosexism, and racism, and it does more harm than good. For example, in the section about men who have been raped, there is talk about homophobia, but it’s within the implied context of men being raped by men, as if men cannot be raped by women. The dynamics of structural oppression and rape are not things to be lightly discussed in a zine and then moved on from in a few paragraphs.
Principle 5: No More Violence is a complicated section because it is aimed at men whose loved ones have been raped by another man, and the narrative slides into bro language when explaining that violence against the rapist is not necessarily the right move. This section is especially complicated because rape is such a gendered crime, perpetrated by cis men against people who are not cis men. But the language of “kicking a rapist’s ass” and “chill out” seem out of place and much more like posturing than anything that resembles something helpful.
Principle 6: Know Your Limitations is the section with the most inappropriate, offensive line of the whole zine: “If a person that you love has been assaulted, realize that, in a way, you have been assaulted too.” NO. FUCK THIS. This is a really baffling section because it talks about taking care of yourself as a support person, but it also frames the trauma the survivor is facing as somehow a direct wound to their support person. It’s not okay to put that kind of burden on a survivor and it’s not okay for a support person to make someone else’s suffering all about them.
Principle 7: Stay Committed & Stay Flexible raises some complicated points about sticking around and being supportive because what if the person reading this zine truly isn’t the right person to be supporting the survivor at this time? What kind of questions should support people be asking themselves to determine if they’re not being helpful?
Principle 9 is Work To Understand The Process Of Survival, and it contains good information about PTSD, triggers, and empowering survivors to approach sex in whichever way feels healthiest to them. This would have been an adequate note to end on, but then they go on to fuck it up on the final page.
The final page is a disclaimer, and it contains this sentence: “It won’t be easy, but in the long run, both you and your friend will have grown more and learned more than you can ever imagine.” Don’t make rape inspirational. Just don’t fucking do it.
We’d like to conclude by telling the authors of this zine something that might sound familiar, because they wrote it themselves: “If you start talking a whole lot in your conversations, you are bound to say something unhelpful.”
Thanks for reading. Again, our apologies.
- Charlie, Blair, Elle
P.S. Let us know if you've read this zine and what you think of it.
P.P.S. Let us know if we should tag this note with any more trigger warnings.
