From bad to worse: trigger warning for rape-excusing bullshit

Last weekend, I was discussing with my parents and brother the reasons I find it hard to get along with him. A mediated discussion, if you will, to try and make our last fortnight of living together as smooth as possible.

I highlighted the difference between my values and his, and how these play out when he makes jokes about rape (along the lines of "well, she was asking for it, hur hur hur"). I don't think he actually *believes* that a woman wearing a short skirt is asking to be raped. The problem is that he thinks it's funny to joke about it. As I see it, the difference between me and my brother is that he thinks rape is an issue to be joked about, whereas I will fiercely, but calmly, challenge rape humour whenever I hear it. I would hope, on a basic level, he would agree with me that women never deserve to be raped.

BUT the gap between my dad's views and mine seems to be a lot wider. When I was giving the example of my brother joking about women "asking for it (rape)" my dad's response was along the lines of...

"Well to be honest when you have these young women who dress provocatively and go out and get completely drunk and then lead these young men on and get them all fired up, and then have a moment of clarity and decide they don't want to sleep with them, well I think those women need to take responsibity!"

WOAH.

To me, that sounds a lot like a reworking of the "she was asking for it". It sounds like in this imagined situation, if a woman was drunk, and wearing clothes that a man deemed to be worn to encourage him, if she had behaved in a way that he believed was leading her on, and he had then tried to have sex with her, he wouldn't need her consent because she has been behaving in a way that effectively gives consent. If he has sex with her against her will, that is, *if he rapes her*, she needs to take responsibility for that.

NO! If a man has sex with a woman against her will, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that he is a rapist. Anything else is victim-blaming, rape-excusing rubbish. And I can't believe I am having to have this argument with my father!

There are so many things wrong here.

• The idea that women who are drunk are at fault for letting their guard down (not the fact that after a certain point of drunkeness, a person can't legally consent to sex).
  
• That if women dress a certain way it automatically suggests sexual availability (rather than a woman wearing clothes she wants to wear for any number of other reasons. Those reasons may include attracting the opposite sex, but they are not an invitation to sex).
  
• That if a woman 'leads a man on' she has to expect to have sex with him. (This one really makes me angry. The idea that if you cross a particular threshold - flirting, dancing with, accepting a drink, kissing, getting naked with... that once that threshold has been crossed you lose the right to say no to sex.)

The most terrifying thing was that this wasn't someone joking about rape culture, dragging out the tired "she was asking for it, hur hur hur" formula. This was an adult, trying to to explain to me that in certain situations, women are responsible for being raped.
I raised the concern that my brother makes jokes about women being responsible for being raped, in the hope that my parents would back me up and agree that rape isn't an issue to joke about, but instead my dad went off on a tangent to explain how sometimes, he thinks it *is* a woman's responsibility that she was raped.

I was so completely floored by this comment that I could hardly respond.

I told him I completely disagreed about that hypothetical scenario, that I felt that two people could even be in bed naked together and a woman could still say she didn't want to have sex, and if the man forced sex upon her that would be rape.
But that also, we weren't talking about if it was a woman's responsibility that she was raped in any given hypothetical situation, we were talking about whether it was ok to joke about it!

I was shocked that my father held these views. Shocked and upset. What if I had been the woman in his hypothetical scenario? If I had had (what he deemed to be) too much to drink, if I was wearing (what he deemed to be) provocative clothing, if I had been behaving in way that (he deemed) was leading a man on, if I ended up in a situation where a man tried and/or succeeded to have sex without my consent, then would I be the one needing to take responsibility?

I didn't ask him if his point of view would still be the same if I was the woman in his story. Because it was bad enough hearing him blame this hypothetical woman for being raped. I didn't want to hear him saying he would feel the same if it was me.

To her credit, my mum did state that she didn't share my dad's views. But my brother said nothing.

I know that my father and I have different views on many things. I suspect I come across to him as a progressive who is so open-minded her brain is about to fall out. A woolly-minded guardian-reading liberal. We disagree about a lot of things, and I can usually cope with that. I put it down to the fact that we are from different generations, that we have very different life experiences. We generally have a good relationship, and I'm not holding up this one interchange as a representative snapshot of what he is like. I don't think he is a bad person.

I just thought he would share my view that women are never asking to be raped. I thought that was one of my less radical, progressive views. It would appear I was mistaken.

We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.

When I dyed my hair red last weekend, my brother commented, in front of his girlfriend, that "I never dyed my hair because I didn't feel the need to rebel against Mum and Dad."
The unspoken flipside of this is that I must have dyed my hair as an act of rebellion.

When I first dyed my hair (bright pink) it was after watching "All Over Me" with my first girlfriend. It's a film about growing up, coming out and loss of innocence, with a riot grrrl soundtrack. One of the characters (played by Leisha Hailey, from the band The Murmurs, and later the L Word) has the most adorable candyfloss pink hair. And we wanted hair like her. And we wanted hair like each other. So we bleached our hair, and dyed it pink. We were 16. I'm perhaps giving my teenage self more credit than she deserves, but I really don't remember it as an act of rebellion, any more than having a girlfriend was an act of rebellion. It wasn't the expected thing I would do, but that doesn't mean I did it for rebellion's sake.

I dyed my hair red again in my early twenties, again because I wanted to. I think I must have had a shop job at the time, either in a second hair record shop, or a fairtrade shop, I can't when it was exactly. But it wasn't a big deal. I was the same person as before, but with red hair.

And this time, almost ten years after first dyeing my hair, it is still not an act of rebellion. My parents may not approve of some of my lifestyle choices (my weight and nose piercings being the two big ones), but I hope they recognise that I didn't make them because they wouldn't approve.
I am holding down a full-time job in the public sector, with both my immediate line manager and overall manager telling me how fantastic my hair looks. They are not telling me that my "act of rebellion" isn't appreciated, or that it is inappropriate. I am good at my job. I have red hair. I am not rebelling against my parents, nor against "the establishment". I just like having red hair. And the colour of my hair is not affecting my ability to do my job. I know, incredible huh?

I do not fit the conventional ideal of "what is attractive" or "how people should live". I am overweight. I do not have shaved legs or armpits. I have two nose rings. And I now have red hair. I have relationships with men and women, sometimes (shock horror) at the same time. I don't watch tv. I have vegan aspirations. I can't drive yet but that doesn't bother me because I ride my bike everywhere.

My brother is, in my opinion, fairly conventional. He is conventionally attractive, slim, dresses in smart-to-trendy clothes. He has had a string of what appear to me to be fairly conventional heterosexual relationships. He is training to be a primary school teacher.

Sometimes I wonder if his comments and criticisms about my "rebellious lifestyle" are perhaps an expression of ennui at the path he has mapped out for himself. Are the people who criticise us for not conforming to the way they feel adults should live, are they secretly jealous that we are making our own rules whilst they feel trapped by having to do what society expects of them?

This is me, as an adult. I am not rebelling. I may do things that other adults wouldn't do, that don't fit their vision of what adults are supposed to do, but that doesn't matter. I am confident that I am living a life of which I can be proud.

This xkcd comic hits the nail on the head: We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means

I find the idea that I can create my own version of adulthood an intoxicating concept. I get to choose where I work, where I live, who I spend time with. I get to choose what I eat, what I spend my money on, and what I do with my free time. I can make all these choices whilst still playing by the rules of society's prescribed living, even if I am bending them slightly at times.

And if I start breaking the rules, there's an even wider world out there...