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I resent society for telling me that my sexual trauma is too triggering (for other people) to be casually disclosed in public. Based on what is popular in entertainment, I don't believe it's the concept of sexual abuse that most people find intolerable. (Thread.)
The more books about rape that I read that were written in the 90s, 80s, and 70s, the more that I find references to famous rapes I never had heard of. And the more that I realize pretty much every rape scene I've ever seen on TV was inspired by a real-life event.
That movie with the ghost who was a cognitively disabled girl trying to tell the story of her sexual assault and murder? Google "Glen Ridge". That scene in the Magicians where a woman hiding under the bed is the only one to escape the rapist-killer demon? Try "Richard Speck."
It works with literature, too. *Lolita* was inspired by a real girl's tabloid-dominating abduction and murder. G.B. Shaw's *Pygmalion* was based on a dude who adopted teens hoping to mold one into his fantasy woman. Richardson's *Pamela* has a real backstory too.
When I am feeling kind, I think, "These rewrites reflect a human impulse to erase the suffering of others, which nonetheless only manage to comfort the privileged." Then I think about Law and Order, SVU. The fictionalizing impulse may not put a positive spin on what happened.
Often it's not even a subtle reference to real-life events. So what about the fiction makes a rape story, ripped in its every detail from the headlines, suddenly tolerable, suddenly palatable? What is the magic element that makes a rape fictional at all?
I think what it comes down to is the name change. It comes down to the fact that people are scared of *survivors.* Our stories, told from our mouths, are damaging, disturbing invasions of public space. Our stories told by others are just entertainment.
Most importantly, the stories told by us are *about* us. The crucial, lacking element in our telling is the hero who is not like us - the untraumatized cop, the unharmed lover, the newspaper reader who imagines that he Will Not Stand for this and then votes Tough on Crime.
It's not that people don't want to hear about rape. It's that people don't want to hear about *us.* Our disability as traumatized persons is ugly. Our problems are annoying. Our ideas for solving those problems are complicated and participating requires serious thought.
People resent us for not being fictional and easy to dismiss. People resent that we exist and have rights and may be asking others to show effort and support. And if they do make an effort, they will eventually resent that we have not made them the heroes of our show.
