After the fact

the whispers begin

“she asked for it”

they judge

after our flesh

was broken in

our reputation

a smudge.

Why would anyone

ask for this

they poke fun

our innocense

they dismiss

our wilfulness

they insist.

No one

asks for this.

–

(Poetry By Charlotte Farhan)

She Asked For It – By Charlotte Farhan

This piece of art and poetry is the first in a series of art pieces confronting the rhetoric that surrounds victims of sexual abuse, violence, assault and harassment.

At 15 years old I was told by most “you asked for it” when I was violently raped, also at 15 – when admitted to a psychiatric unit (after being raped); I was sexually assaulted twice by two different inpatients, I was told “you provoked that”.

I believed them all, I believed this was true, that I was to blame because  my body was sinful, provocative, shameful or just fair game.

Doctors, nurses, parents, friends, they all said it.

It took so much time. growth and learning to eventually be where I am today; to be able to tell you all, that it’s not your fault, that it wasn’t mine either. That we are not to blame for another person taking advantage of us and violating us.

Consent was not taught in the 1980’s and 90’s. Socialised as girls we understood from an early age that society deemed our bodies to be “of service” to men, children, free labour…

I was told boys and men “only want one thing” and if I wanted a boy or eventually a husband, I had to give it to them, to keep them happy and myself relevant.

It is very easy for those unaffected to judge, they can continue their naive ideas that rape and sex are the same, that rapists and abusers are monsters – not “normal” everyday people. Never challenging the simplistic ideas we have carried through from a time when women were considered property everywhere and that their fathers owned them, eventually being given to their husbands.

No autonomy – just a body.

For anyone reading this, male, female, non-binary or trans. You didn’t ask for it – not literally, subtlety or subconsciously. You didn’t cause this, nor deserve it, this was done to you by a criminal who broke the law and broke every decent moral code there is. They did this. NOT YOU!

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