A few weeks ago, a university student posted this photo of him holding a sign reading, “This is not what a rapist looks like.”
And since then, many people have pointed out how ridiculous and inaccurate this was – so I don’t want to talk about his situation specifically, but I do want to talk about what a rapist actually looks like.
There’s this common idea that rapists are scary, sketchy people that hide in bushes. They don’t have friends. They are malicious, terrible people that plan their rapes and only go after conventionally attractive women.
But, in fact, 82% of rapes are committed by someone the survivor knew beforehand, and 25% are committed by an intimate partner.
So a rapist absolutely can look like someone you know. Rapists can seem kind and charismatic and charming. They can be students in college; they can be your co-worker; they can be your friends. And with 68% of rapes going unreported, I wouldn’t be surprised if these statistics were actually higher in reality.
That’s not meant to scare you. I’m not trying to say that everyone you know is a rapist. It’s just that when we pretend that rapists live by themselves on some other evil planet, we hurt the survivors who have to live with the fact that their rapists are very much in their presence and in their circles.
Only 2% of rapists ever spend a day in jail. And since so many survivors knew their rapists beforehand, it’s likely that they’ll run into them again – when meeting with mutual friends, or going to class, or even going to work.
So when we pretend that our friends, co-workers, and family members can’t be rapists, we do a disservice to survivors. We unconditionally defend people who may very well be rapists, and we alienate survivors who just want to tell the truth and find a safe space.
Not only that, but 25% of rapes are committed by an intimate partner. However, there’s a common misconception that you can’t rape your partner. When Donald Trump’s ex-wife said that she felt violated by him, Trump’s lawyer said, “By definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”
But this is absolutely not true. Consent is not given indefinitely. It’s given every single time you do something sexual. Just because you’ve consented to sex once, that doesn’t mean you’ve consented to sex in the future. People can (and do) rape their partners, and this form of rape generally involves some kind of coercion or manipulation to the point where the survivor might question whether they were raped or not.
So we have to acknowledge that partner rape is a legitimate problem. We have to acknowledge that rapists can be friends or family or loved ones.
And there’s another part of this that we have to talk about. That white kid from the beginning who thinks he doesn’t look like a rapist. I feel like there’s an implication about race. I feel like the unspoken assumption is that white people aren’t rapists. I feel like this image only gained popularity because of how our culture connects whiteness with innocence – like he can’t possibly be a rapist because he’s white.
But that’s some bullshit. At least 52% of rapists in the US are white. People of all races can be rapists. But actually, some people are in situations where they’re more likely to be rapists.
Men in frats are three times more likely to commit rape than their peers. One in four women at college will be raped. Colleges have a sexual assault problem, and its college men (particularly men in fraternities) who are the problem. In fact, 99% of rapists are men. So that college student from the beginning really could look like a rapist.
And finally, I also think that a lot of rapists don’t know that they’re rapists. My freshmen year of college, we had to attend a presentation called “drunk sex or date rape” where we listened to a story and decide if it was sex or rape. The audience really wasn’t sure.
And that’s pretty fucked up. We should be able to tell if something is sex or rape, but many college students honestly can’t. That’s because you cannot consent to sex while drunk. So men out there who intentionally get women drunk and try to sleep with them might just think they’re being players, but they’re legitimately being rapists. If we can’t even recognize that having sex with a person who is drunk and unable to consent is rape, then we can never start to rid our college campuses of serial rapists.
So what does a rapist look like? They look like white people. They look like college students. They look like men, and they look like boyfriends and husbands and partners. And we need to recognize that so that we can actively address the problem. Ignoring it and trying to act like rapists don’t exist won’t solve anything.
Well, that’s everything I’ve got for you. This video is a part of a series I’m doing for Everyday Feminism, a website dedicated to helping you stand up to and break down everyday oppression. I’ll put some links in the description so you can check out my previous videos in the series.
I hope you have a great day. I love you all so much, seriously, and I’ll see you next week. Bye!
