Shame on rapists

This is for all the nameless victims of sexual assault – including the 15-year-old girl in Murrells Inlet, S.C.: It’s not your fault.

You didn’t deserve what happened to you. You have no reason to feel shame.

I can’t print any of your names. It’s the policy of my newspaper and most throughout the country to withhold your name, in most cases. The policy is meant to protect you, to assure that we wouldn’t add to the “stigma,” to make it easier for you to report such crimes.

I’m not sure it’s working, though. According to “Rape In America” by the National Victim Center, as few as 16 percent of you come forward anyway, making me wonder whether the anonymity we insist upon isn’t making it more likely for you to remain alone in the shadows. Does it seem we don’t want to be bothered by your pain?

Are we spending too much time trying to hide you from the public and not enough time beating back a stigma born of insanity? How insane must we be to let stand the perception that a victim should be ashamed of having been attacked?

I’m not quite sure just who would be doing the stigmatizing if more people knew your name.

Not people who loved you. Not people with any sense of decency.

Not a real man. Because a real man wouldn’t hurt you, no matter the circumstances – even if you got drunk and naked at a fraternity party or at the local bar. A real man wouldn’t take advantage of you.

He would find you a big, warm blanket, buy you a pot of black coffee, put you in a cab and send you home to your family – after reminding you that you are too beautiful, too precious to resort to silly antics solely for the attention of a man.

He would protect, not hurt you.

That’s why I’m confused about just who is doing the stigmatizing. The rapist? If that’s true, then why are we allowing monsters to set the rules, allowing them to attack you once and impugn your integrity for all time?

That’s the sense I got from a couple of college friends. I knew them for almost four years before I knew they were rape victims. And when they told me, there was shame in their voice.

They said family and friends questioned their stories and accused them of being promiscuous. They said that response made them wonder if they had sent signals to the attacker.

I’ll tell you what I told them.

It’s not your fault.

Because a real man wouldn’t do what that monster did.