DOLL PEOPLE

Submission by: Rachel Bamgbose

Mentions of sexual assault

Why do women suddenly lose all autonomy once a crime has begun against them? I can’t stop my mind from wandering to every rape or sexual assault case where a woman had an established relationship with a man, whether that means a friend, a family member, a boyfriend, a coworker, and when she gets to the point of her story where it was no longer funny, the autonomy is lost on her. What starts as harmless flirting becomes the worst violence known, but the worst violence is known by her alone. To everyone else, it was harmless flirting and too much alcohol. Alcohol was the main problem here. The alcohol that is deemed safer than marijuana and is accessible by just about every fucking person that can walk to a store.

Yes, she flirted. Yes, she drank. Yes, she danced on him and swayed her hips. Yes, she could feel the liquor pour getting stronger but not so much where his hands went. Yes, she laughed at his stupid joke. Yes, she wanted to. She thought she wanted to. Yes, she followed him upstairs. Yes, it felt nice to be desired. No, more than nice. It felt everything to be desired. Yes, she let him close and lock the door. Yes, she had one more drink when she didn’t want to drink anymore. Yes, she let him take off her dress. Yes, she batted her lashes and pouted her lips. Yes, she kissed him. Yes, she felt herself being lay down on the bed.

Right then, sudden and explicit, it was no.

As fast as one moment runs away from the last, the yes was no, no, no. No, she didn’t want his hands trailing down her thigh. No, she didn’t want him to push her head to the side so he didn’t have to meet her eyes and he forged on. No, she didn’t like the cold draft on her bare skin that was all too soon very apparent. No, she didn’t know whose room this was. No, she didn’t know how she got this drunk.

But she said yes? She said yes so many times before she said no. She said yes more times than she said no, more strongly. She wanted this. She asked for this. Maybe she regretted it or maybe I didn’t hear her, but she also said yes. She also said yes, so there was no rape. She said yes. She also fucking said no.

So again, I go back to my original question, why do women lose all their autonomy once the crime begins? Why did the few minutes she said no and cried or screamed or tried to fight you off not matter? Was she not a person, a human being with rights during those few minutes? Was she just an object during those few minutes that you needed to get your nut off? If she wasn’t real then it wasn’t rape, right? It’s like punching a teddy bear. Or taking candy from a baby.

“Your Honor, during the exact time the plaintiff is saying I committed this heinous crime that I’m sure we’re all very aware and guilty of at one point or another, she was an object. She claims that I stripped away her sense of self, thus ruining every attempt she made to find it again, but this is untrue. She claims that I stole from her, abused her, defiled her, spread her legs and split her open, but, Your Honor, this simply isn’t true. It can’t be true. During the specific time that this occurred, the plaintiff represented nothing more than a pair of open legs and an opening,

free for use. The plaintiff was an object. Rape is a disgusting horrible accusation, one that ruins so many lives because a woman can’t swallow her pride, but that’s not what happened here.”

“The jury finds the defendant not guilty and free to do anything he wants with this life whether that means making a name for himself or staying in the gutter and wasting his life away to cacao and cocaine, but who can blame him after this horrible accusation. To the plaintiff, we kindly say,

Go fuck yourself. Adjourned.”