One of the more eccentric if not morbid aspects of my late grandmother’s personality was her penchant for true-crime novels which she left lying around the house for any pair of young eyes to see.

When I was about 12, I stumbled across one with the title “The Perfect Victim” about the abduction of a young woman in CA who was imprisoned for years  in a custom-made box and used as a sex slave for a married couple.

I remember being chilled to the bone by the story which was also discussed at length on various popular news and talk shows at the time.

What struck me the most was how it was emphasized that the victim—who was 20 at the time of her kidnapping—was a “good girl.” She was not an addict, a runaway, and had accepted a ride from the couple because she thought they were safe. (They had their then-infant child in the car with them at the time.) The story, which would often appear from time to time in the media, stayed with me for a long time. However, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I took issue with the term “perfect victim.” Frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if the young woman hadn’t been nice. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had been a prostitute, an addict, and/or a criminal.

The truth is, no one ever deserves to be treated like she was treated…period.

On the surface, such a statement seems so obvious it isn’t even worth saying.

However, when it comes to how the media portrays rape victims, it seems that only “perfect” ones deserve to be taken seriously.

For example, last fall, Christy Mack was subject to a brutal physical and sexual assault at the hands of a former boyfriend that left her with injuries so severe she required hospitalization and corrective surgery on her face. The fact that Ms. Mack was a former porn star was mentioned often even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the assault. However, judging my various comments left on social media, many seemed to think that Ms. Mack’s chosen profession somehow “justified” the assault on her.

Also last fall, Rolling Stone ran it’s now infamous article “A Rape on Campus” which had at it’s centerpiece the now de-bunked story of “Jackie.” Unlike Ms. Mack, Jackie was portrayed as a “good girl” who endured a horrific attack by a group of sociopathic individuals. In fact, it was even noted that the night of her so-called attack she didn’t even drink. Considering that an estimated 90% of all college acquaintance rapes involve alcohol, one would think that we would be past the idea that somehow being drink makes it okay to sexually assault someone.

Sadly, though, it isn’t the case.

As someone who lives in Charlottesville and witnessed the blow-up over the article up close, I couldn’t help but wonder if this could have been avoided had the author chosen a main subject who wasn’t as “perfect.”

Likewise, in the case of the Columbia University student who carried her mattress around as part of a protest/performance art piece as a protest for what she claimed was the administration’s lack of response for her alleged rape, there were nearly as many comments about her appearance as there was about what supposedly happened.

(In this case, both the accuser and the accused spoke extensively to the media.)

In any case, while there needs to be an open dialogue about the very real problem of rape both on college campuses and society is large, we are never going to make any strides until we get rid of the notion that only certain people deserve to be taken seriously as rape victims. The fact is, people of all sorts are raped: the very young, the very old, men, women, prisoners, and even people who may not be very “likable.”

It’s long overdue that both society and the media recognizes that if we are ever going to move away from “rape culture.”

 

 

 

Relephant: 

Myths of Rape: 3 Episodes in One Woman’s Life.

 

 

Author: Kimberly Lo

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: cascade_of_rant at Flickr