MAY 15 — It’s like a bad dream that never ends. The sequence of events went on like this; first we have Ridhuan Tee and his remarks that women’s bodies invite rape, then we have marital rape deniers, after that the menutup aib crowd and he-has-a-great-future sponsor of child pornography criminal Nur Fitri Azmeer Nordin, and recently the acquittal of a 60-year-old man of raping a 14-year-old.
I wonder what happened to the concept of consenting age—do we still have it? — since we feel 14-year-olds can consent to sex, and manipulate a 60-year-old man while she’s at it. You would think it’s the other way round.
The common thread in all these stories, apart from sexual predators who get away (or almost) with it, is how unexceptional is the belief that girls and women are walking temptresses constantly on the prowl to seduce and ruin innocent men.
This is the underlying assumption of Ridhuan Tee’s remarks, as well as the constant reminder for women to cover up as if clothes on their bodies are sufficient to protect them against sexual assaults.
I came across many who were apologetic towards Nur Fitri, under the pretext that it is normal to look at pornography, even the ones involving children, because that’s what women (and disturbingly, children) do — arousing and tempting men into sex.
The defence lawyer in the case of the 14-year-old girl in Sarawak successfully argued that she had “demonstrably lied” about being raped, fitting the description of a Jezebel hell-bent on ruining this virtuous old man.
But what is wrong with this assumption?
This assumption prioritizes the male gaze that sexualizes women and girls, seeing them as objects of pleasure. Society accepts that men do view women that way, and for some odd reason women are burdened with the responsibility of covering their bodies and restricting their movements in public places in the hope that this will deter sexual crimes such as assaults and rape.
It is disturbing to think that a woman’s consent is of little consequence — because she is an object — and her clothes do more damage than the rapist, who is after all, tempted.
Which brings me to Facebook page of a local celebrity, where a lot of child sexual abuse survivors wrote their stories in light of Nur Fitri’s conviction of child pornography possession.
It is heartbreaking to read that so many women have been sexually abused as children and are still afraid to come forward.
There is a lot of shame and stigma surrounding rape survivors, all of them refuse to be identified, while citing abuse at the hands of fathers, brothers, cousins, neighbours and teachers. Not surprisingly, as often cited in statistics, rapes are committed by people known to the victims.
One would have thought that comments would be sympathetic and lauding the bravery of survivors, but I still come across those along the line of menutup aib as well as protecting the image of Islam as the cases mostly happen in the Malay Muslim community, not to mention a few who think that these are just lies to tarnish pious men.
Mitigation is limited to “cover up” the children, which is I think not as useful as paying closer attention to children and listening to what they are trying to tell us, to scrutinise the adults we trust our children with and bring them to justice should they ever commit a crime like this.
Other crimes such as robbery and murder require the perpetrator to defend his innocence against a mountain of evidence, while in rape cases the responsibility falls on the survivor to prove she had been raped against the defence that she was asking for it via what she wears, or she’s manipulating and lying against an innocent man; it’s no small wonder that perpetrators get away with it.
However I am more concerned with the way that society itself protects sexual predators though a variety of ways — by prioritising male sexuality over women’s, by shaming rape survivors with flimsy excuses like the clothes she wears and devaluing her experience as lies, by excusing criminal behaviour with the excuse that boys will be boys or we need to protect the image of Islam (insert any religion) when sexual predators can easily hide behind appearing as religious or authority figures.
As a rape survivor myself, I hope more women will write about their experience to the media to the point that this can no longer be brushed aside as mere figments of the imagination or something that needs to be hidden for the sake of family or religion, because for far too long sexual predators have gotten away with it, and quite easily too.
While we are too busy to protect a predator’s aib, think of the lives he robbed because he thinks he can have a little fun and won’t be punished for it.
For a rape survivor, the bad dream never ends.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
