Rape culture is real

Rape culture is one that normalizes and advocates rape, and rape should be in no way a social norm or an everyday thing. We should be creating words and phrases that go against it, instead of words that encourage it to become routine in our culture. Thanks to non-profit organizations like #RedMyLips and Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April (SAAM), more and more young people are getting to know what it’s really like to be a victim of rape.

One in six.

17.7 million.

Nine out of ten.

What do these numbers mean to you? According to Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), they mean that one in six American women were victims of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime, 17.7 million American women have already been victims of attempted or completed rape, and nine out of ten victims were female in 2003. Three percent of men (1 out of 33) have been victims of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes.

So, what’s the cause for this number? We may never know. Why, you may ask? Because most rape cases don’t get reported due to embarrassment and fear of being judged and wrongly accused of  “asking for it.”

Although we may never know the real cause, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in the 25 percent of rape cases reported, one half of those cases involve consumption of alcohol by the victim, perpetrator or both.

When people are convicted of a crime, they are the accused. Rape, however, is the only crime where the victim is the accused. There should never be an excuse to rape. It doesn’t matter if the teens are out partying, exposing their bodies, or any other lame excuses people use to victim-blame, they were not asking to be sexually assaulted and emotionally damaged for the rest of their lives.

Look at it this way; the rapist is the predator and the victim is the prey. The prey goes about its life, and then out of the blue, gets attacked by a predator. The prey didn’t see it coming and if they had, they would have done things differently had they known the outcome. This is the same for rape victims. No one wants to be sexually assaulted and attacked.

Ladies, get yourself together and keep it together. Don’t let yourself become part of a statistic involving sexual assault.