Dear Media: Please Call Amy Schumer’s Rape What It Is
Amy Schumer talked about some sexual experiences that are troubling. (Photo: Getty Images)
Unapologetic It Girl Amy Schumer pulls no punches when it comes to responding to sexism in the media. She’s embraced her “belly” and “cellulite,” posing nude for the 2016 Pirelli calendar while rejecting the plus-size label, since she doesn’t want young girls looking at her size 6-to-8 frame and thinking that’s what plus size looks like. She’s hilariously called out the TV and film industries for fetishizing youth and pushing out older actresses in her “Last F**kable Day” sketch.
And now she’s talking about sexual assault in her cover interview for August’s issue of Marie Claire. The Huffington Post has an extended preview, which includes the quote: “My first sexual experience was not a good one. I didn’t think about it until I started reading my journal again. When it happened, I wrote about it almost like a throwaway. It was like, ‘And then I looked down and realized he was inside me. He was saying, “I’m so sorry” and “I can’t believe I did this.”’
She later says that this wasn’t an isolated incident, adding, “I had another time with a boyfriend where I was saying, ‘No, stop,’ and it was just completely ignored.”
Related: 1 in 4 Women Face Sexual Assault In College
While it’s not clear if Schumer uses the word “rape” to describe her experiences (the preview says only that she “doesn’t consider herself a victim), what she’s describing is clearly non-consensual sex. By and large, that’s the term media outlets used when referring to Schumer’s experiences. The problem with this is that non-consensual sex is rape, and avoiding the word makes it seem as if these experiences don’t quite fit the bill.
In the late 80s, Ms Magazine conducted research on campus sexual assault that became the contents of the book “I Never Called It Rape.” The resulting statistics showed that while 1 in 4 of the college women surveyed had experienced rape or attempted rape, 27 percent of women who reported an experience that met the definition of rape did not identify their experience that way.
And although most studies put the percentage of rapists who know their victims at 80-90 percent, the presiding cultural narrative still says that real rape is when a stranger with a weapon jumps out of the bushes and violently assaults a woman. In actuality, the vast majority of sexual assaults are a lot more like the situations that Schumer describes.
Schumer goes on to talk about culture of victim blaming saying “You know, with the rape survivor, it’s not just shaming, it’s fury. It makes people so mad if you’re not a perfect victim.”
The idea of the “perfect rape victim” also keeps women from categorizing their experiences as rape. After all, they were drinking, or they were out late at night in a short skirt, or they “led the guy on,” or they didn’t fight hard enough, and on and on and on. There’s always a reason to excuse the actions of rapists, which keeps women from recognizing rape when it happens.
Related: Kesha Asks Court To Not Make Her Choose Between Her Alleged Abuser And Her Career
When we don’t call instances of “nonconsensual sex” what they are – rape –- we perpetuate the idea that some rapes count more than others, and we keep women blaming themselves when they are sexually assaulted.
Most of all, we let rapists off the hook. Because if we don’t recognize rape, we certainly don’t prosecute rape. And worse, we send the message to men that sexually assaulting women in their lives is OK. After all, it’s hardly even rape.
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