responding to productive criticism and harassment

This past weekend has been overwhelming. After the release of the website and my personal essay, I have received an incredible amount of loving and vulnerable messages from other survivors who resonated deeply with my experience - especially the parts where I talk about my friends’ role in my silence. 

Yesterday was significant for two reasons. First, I received a hate message. One that I can’t say I was surprised by, but that attempted to shut down every factual and unemotional claim I make in the essay. Second, I received an extremely important message of constructive criticism from an anonymous user. They described feeling let down by the current outlines of the project, how it is advertised as being a place for overt rage, but ends up outlining ‘killing my rapist’ as metaphorical. They described their disappointment in the lack of description of what it feels like to desire violence as a victim and asked if there was space for overt anger and submissions falling outside the realm of storytelling. They asked if this space was safe for them to be truly honest.

I resonated deeply with this message. My essay serves a purpose mostly for myself and victims who have experienced similar circumstances. The thing my essay doesn’t do is talk about the realities of the rage I feel. Since this paper had my name on it and wasn’t an anonymous submission, I approached the writing with a more objective or ‘sanitized’ lens than I actually feel. This messenger described feeling unable to submit to the project because the realities of their assault make people uncomfortable. They asked if there was space for overt anger, for the less digestible realities of anger. To this, I say absolutely.

I want to thank this messenger for not only bringing their interpretation of the project to my attention, I am certain they are not the only person who feels similarly, but also for giving me the power to talk about the reality of my rage. Though the hate message was an awful thing to receive, I got to read a reflection of my own experience immediately after. The issues this person had with my project thus far come from feelings I know better than any other. The hate message reminded me of how I felt at school. This messenger reminded me that silencing and uncomfortable rage are common amongst survivors, but there is no place to put that rage. This website needs to be that space. 

Here, I want to reiterate the openness of this project. The writing submissions do not have to be constrained to any form or feeling. If writing down exactly how you’d kill your rapist if you could - let’s say (hypothetically) cutting off their penis and hanging it in front of their face while they bleed out and starve in a dark basement with no help - or something along those lines, please do. 

My personal essay is only the first piece of writing I will contribute to this space. This project doesn’t work without openness and the acceptance of all experiences. No singular experience is representative of rape because rape is everywhere. The reality of a rape culture is that no matter how much regular citizens say they hate rape, they tend to run right back to patriarchal standards of silencing the second anger comes into play. The second a woman says she wants to kill her rapist instead of sending him to prison, she is labeled hysterical. The messenger brought up another great point which was the second we know the rapist, the rapist is a family member or the rapist is abusing a sex worker, the victim blaming heightens. 

Intersections of marginalization must be represented. We must hear stories from survivors across the spectrum of gender, sexuality, race, religion, location, etc. It is not beyond me that my experience occurred in a privileged space, that part of my privilege as a young white woman is to be supported in creating this website in the first place. I am safer in spearheading this space than others. Ensuring that space is encouraging diversity is my job. None of this is to dilute my experience or that of any others, too. Rape hurts everyone, but some are empowered to speak more than others and that cannot be ignored. 

Rape is uncomplicated. What it does to victims is extremely complicated. This website is a space for every experience to be uplifted with ferocity and for survivors to voice their most repressed and shamed feelings.  

Art and writing give us the tools to express ourselves without the eyes and mouths of the people who try to silence us. Anonymity gives writers and artists the opportunity to be as honest as possible safely. It is obviously less safe for me to submit writings under my own name, but that does not mean survivors submitting work should take those precautions. I am here as a tool for getting your stories on a web page safely and anonymously. Really, that’s my only role. Everything is submitted under my account, copied from documents I own. I am a middle man facilitating a space for those who can’t safely share otherwise. 

The more submissions we have and the more diverse they are, the more we change how people view the myth of ‘perfect victims’. My greatest hope is that this website reaches younger people, especially girls in the ‘red zone’ of college, where they are most likely to be assaulted and told they asked for it. That children, adults, teenagers, the elderly can hear the nuances of their experiences in someone else’s words. So they can finally believe themselves - stop blaming themselves. 

If I had this website or a tool similar to it when I was 18, I would have recovered a long time ago. I probably wouldn’t have been pushed to want to take my life, I probably would have separated myself from the people who were hurting me most. When the dialogue around rape is ‘don’t talk about it’ or ‘talk about it, but only if you are considering the feelings and comfort of everyone around you’ victims don’t speak up. Why would they? If you are given parameters for how you’re allowed to feel about something that was done to your body without permission, why would you feel anything but at fault? 

It’s also imperative that bystanders are activated, that we as citizens take responsibility for other people’s safety. My assault happened because my rapist is a rapist, but also because other people let my rapist drag me from a party incapacitated. So many people could have stopped it. All of those people didn’t. That must change. Rape happens in environments where it is allowed to, where rapists feel safe to take advantage of victims. Rape happens in environments where rapists are given supreme power. Fraternities, churches, schools, parental/child dynamics, militaries, police forces, etc. 

Bystanders are extremely uncomfortable with this reality. The hate message I received yesterday is a prime example. This person was stupid enough to put this harassment in writing, perfectly illustrating exactly why it wasn’t safe for me to say everything I did in my essay during my years at school. This person is attempting to silence me again. Trying to gaslight me into thinking the things that happened to me didn’t happen, that the bullying and degradation was all in my head, that no one had ill intentions. To that person, I say FUCK. YOU. To that person, I say, thank you for making an embarrassing example of yourself for everyone who has been in my position. You are the problem. The message has names and identifying information redacted, but is otherwise exactly as I received it. 

Hi Maren, it’s X. I am reaching out regarding your new website. At first, I was amazed by your strength and artistry in dealing with such a horrific incident. Then I was a bit shocked when you shifted the blame from your abuser to your friends? I, of course, validate your situation and empathize greatly — but I do not see a world in which anyone other than that ill-excuse for a man is to blame. I cannot speak for Y but I can say how dare you do that to Y. How dare you put blame on anyone else. How dare you publicly write words so clearly about Y and your resentment towards Y, but never confront Y about it for the 4 years you **** ******. I personally see this shift in blame as letting your rapist off the hook. You are calling Y insensitive and a bully, both of which are absolutely untrue. The thesis of your essay should have been “for a long time I blamed my girlfriends and myself for not stopping it but I’ve come to understand that he is the only one to blame.” Maren, I wish you well, but leave Y out of your narrative and instead focus on the person who assaulted you.

Now that you’ve read the text as a whole, let’s break it down. I think the meat of this message is easier to absorb when the qualifying clauses are removed, and the writer's points made are clearer. 

Hi Maren, it’s X. I am reaching out regarding your new website. I was a bit shocked when you shifted the blame from your abuser to your friends? I do not see a world in which anyone other than that ill-excuse for a man is to blame. How dare you do that to Y. How dare you put blame on anyone else. How dare you publicly write words so clearly about Y and your resentment towards Y, but never confront Y about it for the 4 years you ***** ********. I personally see this shift in blame as letting your rapist off the hook. You are calling Y insensitive and a bully, both of which are absolutely untrue. The thesis of your essay should have been “for a long time I blamed my girlfriends and myself for not stopping it but I’ve come to understand that he is the only one to blame.” leave Y out of your narrative and instead focus on the person who assaulted you. 

How dare I simply list the actions of my surrounding peers. How dare I list the impacts of decisions I did not make. My favorite part is a tie between ‘letting my rapist off the hook’ and ‘the thesis of your essay should have been’. I don’t know how someone could read my essay and tell me they hate what I wrote and that they empathize with my experience all in the same breath, but they did. 

I want to show this message because of the amount of women who said they were shut down by their friends. I am sure I’m not the only one who has received a text like this, if anything this drives home the purpose of this website being open to anonymous submissions and why people don’t want to go to court and gather witnesses to testify on their behalf.  

The person being referenced in this text is not the only one referenced in my essay. In fact, they are only alluded to singularly once. My own sister, who was with me when I received this text, is alluded to multiple times throughout the essay and instead of cowering and becoming defensive of decisions she made when we were young, has been accountable and apologized. I was also with some of my other best friends when I received this text, other friends who are also alluded to directly in this essay. The same applies to them. I am lucky to have friends and family who can self reflect and mend mistakes made as we enter a new chapter in our lives. Clearly - that does not apply to everyone. Not everyone is as lucky as me. Many could expect this kind of harassment from everyone involved in their lives. I rest my case. 

To the person who messaged me yesterday about their concerns. Thank you for having the courage and insight to share your thoughts. I hope I’ve answered your questions and have reassured you or anyone else who felt similarly that this is a space for you to express anything, for you to be empowered to feel, think, write, or illustrate anything - no constraints. As we can see from the reaction to my own essay, it doesn’t matter how cautious you are, those who victim blame will do so until the end of time - so why not throw caution to the wind and say how you really feel. 

Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive, and especially the person who wrote me such a thoughtful critique about how this space can be improved. If anyone else has feedback, I would love to hear it. This is a space for everyone, not just me, not just for one type of experience. 

Though ‘killing your rapist’ is framed metaphorically in my personal writing, to me it means not letting the people who try to silence us win. Not just the rapists, not just ourselves, but every bystander and every asshole who perpetuates the idea of a ‘perfect victim’. 

‘Killing your rapist’ is so much more about finding outlets for empowerment, for letting ourselves serve our own justice as much as we can, for leaning on each other, for having each other’s backs when no one else does. This invites all forms of anger, overt or covert, all forms of every complex and fraught emotion and thought rape burdens its victims with.

This world is hard and unfair, the more we can do to embolden voices that have been quieted, perspectives that have been ignored, the better. I don’t care how gruesome or unpleasant your story is, how ashamed you’ve been made to feel about yourself. I, or someone else looking at this work has undoubtedly felt the same way. No one's experience is ‘too much’ for this space. Everyone is welcome here. 

Thank you.