Womanist Musings: Dan Savage Attacks A Rape Survivor While .

I recognize that I am a small later to this one, but having only read Dan Savage's advice to a rape survivor, I felt compelled to respond. Let me just set it up for you and so we can go over the grounds that Dan Savage is so the queen of doucebaggery. A woman has been in an open marriage for two days and was pillaged by a previous lover.

She found that she could not resume a sexual relationship with her husband because it triggered her. The relationship with her boyfriend changed for the better, in that the sex improved and she felt safe with him. This caused her husband to be disturbed and he demanded that she end her relationship with her boyfriend and focusing on the marriage. Seems pretty simply right? Well it should be, unless of course your call is Dan Savage and you thrive on assholery. Would you think he thought the better road to share with this woman was to pity her in an effort to induce her deny the little bodily autonomy she has recovered? I know - why did I require any better from Dan Savage? For my own sanity I want to give this down.I'm sad that you were sexually assaulted-that's awful, PTSD, and Ihope you went to the law and I hope you're pressing charges. But Ialso hope you acknowledge that being the dupe of sexual assault is not a GetOut of Being a Man Being Free card.Rape is one of the most dehumanizing things that can happen to someone, but somehow, not lacking to know her husband makes her inhuman.And how dare he suggest that she needs to press charges. After being violated in this way, the final thing you need is somebody telling you what to do, let alone a misogynist asshole who has all the predisposition and caring of a drive time shock jock. If a woman chooses not to press charges that is her right and how dare he sit in mind of her decisions when the criminal justice system regularly puts rape survivors on trial rather than the rapists themselves.

Just because you've been victimized doesn'tmean you go in an alternate moral universe where you're notobligated to bring other people's feelings intoconsideration-particularly the feelings of people you pretend to loveand happen to be married to. Your first priority in the heat of yourassault had to be your own physical and emotional safety, of course, butyour behavior toward your husband is both brutal and selfish.

If you really loved your husband and valuedyour marriage, PTSD, you would've put the fellow on guard and gottenyour ass into therapy without having to be told. It looks to me like youwant out of this marriage. But rather of taking responsibility forwanting out, you're playing the victim card while slamming both handsdown on your marriage's self-destruct button.

Did you acknowledge that it is savage and selfish not to wish to get sex with someone? The minute you get married ,your body belongs to your husband and you take no real right to refuse him sex. Where is he alleged to go for pussy? Will the distress of men never get to an end? She has further multiplied her sins by ignoring her power to fix it all, if she would exactly hold her ass to counseling. We leave simply forget that this whole matter is a summons and that it takes time to make up the force to directly confront a trauma like rape. Why is this all around her husbands needs and not her own, when she was the one that was assaulted? Why is she the one who has to raise her love, but her husband's feelings are rude and right? Nope, no sexism there. Obviously, there is something about her husband that she finds triggering. It is not rare for rape survivors to experience difficulties articulating what they find upsetting or even why. What triggers a rape survivor can vary from day to day and the way to genuinely help is to pass that person what they need. In her case, it obviously means space and understanding, but yet at their most vulnerable times, women are expected to supply to men. To make certain that this woman understands that her character is to put aside whatever conflict she is feeling, he ends by calling her a "total shit" Yep, you read that right - "a total shit".It kind of gives a new twist to the words Savage Love doesn't it? Reading Savage's advice once again affirmed many of the negative attributes I trust to be true about Savage. He is not a big social justice fighter. He is just a fat phobic, racist, disableist, transphobic, misogynist, that simply managed to earn a big readership When we consider that an immense piece of mainstream media exists to reaffirm many of the negative isms that have become socialy normalized, I think one could say he is doing a sound job.Editors Note: I came across the Savage column at Shakesville, on a post written by Deeky, please ensure it out.