And yes, the people inviting me know he raped me

Written by Amanda Briggs | Originally published on Medium on August 2, 2023, now updated and archived here for ongoing access

Topic disclaimer: Sexual assault & strong language

I got invited to go hang out at a party with my rapist. Get this — everyone knows he raped me, and it went to court and everything after I reported him. But people who know about it keep inviting me to events where they’ve also invited him and telling me they hope I choose to attend.

Hopefully, that little paragraph got your blood boiling. How dumb, right? Like, we should all know not to do that kind of shit, right? People aren’t stupid enough to knowingly invite a rapist and their victim to the same party, right? That’s sociopathic or something, right?

For me and countless other survivors of sexual assault, the answers to the questions above are as follows:

Yes, it is dumb. Super dumb.

Yes, we should all know not to invite rapists and their victims to the same party.

Yes, people are stupid enough to do it. They do it all the time.

Yes, it sure feels sociopathic to the victim.

In the past 10 years, I have, in fact, been invited to four weddings to which my rapist was also invited — always with a note from the couple acknowledging that my rapist will be there and stating they hope I will attend anyways. And this week, I was invited to a celebratory event to which my rapist is also invited. This time, I was told how much the hosts wanted me to attend, but wanted to give me the heads up that my rapist is also invited. They wanted to “give me the choice” regarding my decision to attend based upon this knowledge. So generous, huh?

Ready for the plot twist? The rapist is my older brother and the people who keep inviting me to these events are members of my immediate and extended family who all know my brother raped me throughout my childhood, watched it go through the judicial system, and watched him admit to what he did to me in court. Yeah, they know. They know all about it.

I have one uncle who went and got himself some help after I spoke up and reported 10 years ago. He disappeared for a while, then circled back after the legal process wrapped up to apologize for his absence and explain to me the ways in which he had learned and grown and how he wanted to do better. For the past approximately five years, he has been back in my life in different capacities as he rebuilds trust.

Other than this uncle, the only members of my biological family with whom I am in touch are my maternal grandparents. They haven’t exactly met my standards for returning to my life in a safe manner, but they remain linked to some of the only good memories I have of my childhood, so I made the executive decision to allow them back into my life in a limited manner.

I haven’t participated in or attended an event with this family system in over a decade. They also haven’t taken any steps to hold my brother accountable, participate in the judicial process, or acknowledge the profundity of the harm he perpetrated through his crimes. He remains in good standing with the family, is invited to all the family events, and stood up as a groomsman in all my younger brothers’ weddings (after I reported him and he was released on bail — funny, right?).

So, when I got a call from my grandparents inviting me to a party at which my rapist brother would be in attendance, I politely thanked them for thinking of me and told them I would let them know. I was a bit shocked by the invitation because I haven’t received as much as a Christmas card from my relatives in ages. I wondered in passing what had made them decide now was the time to start inviting the errant grandchild back into the fold for family gatherings.

Not that I have any intention to rebuild relationships with my family since they continue to shove their heads into the sand regarding my brother. Best to let my grandparents down easy about the party, right? I felt the familiar, family-driven tension set into my belly as I texted my uncle seeking some commiseration about the family just not getting it, something he and I have discussed ad nauseam.

My uncle and I have had many opportunities to discuss how the family handled and continues to handle their knowledge of the incest. Back in 2021, I released a book of best practices for having a healthy and helpful response to someone who has experienced sexual assault. The book went through a lot of test groups as I wrote it, and my uncle was part of the test group comprised of people who know both the perpetrator and the victim.

Through the editing process, my uncle and I spent a lot of time talking about healthy and helpful response to sexual assault, best practices regarding family interactions in cases of incest, and my views regarding how my family handled the entire thing after they found out and I reported. It has been nice, over the last few years, having someone who knows me and knows them with whom I can vent.

Imagine my surprise when I found out it was his idea to invite me. “You’re strong now,” he said. “You could be there and be like ‘fuck you’ to all of them — ‘I love Papa and Gram and I’m here for them!’”

Something in my brain flipped and suddenly I was mad. Mad, mad. My shoulders tightened as my brain whirled and I gave him a piece of my mind regarding the standard to which he could be held based upon his level of education around the topic of healthy and helpful response to sexual assault and the extent to which he had failed to exercise that knowledge.

But it wasn’t until I was off the phone that his words really struck me. I’m strong now? What the fuck?

Showing up at the party with my rapist would be strong? What the actual fuck?

That wouldn’t be a demonstration of strength, my man. That’s more like a demonstration of reckless self-hatred, atrocious lack of boundaries, and denial.

You don’t have to confront your rapist at a party to be strong. I can’t believe I even have to see my fingers create that sentence on my keyboard.

I am strong because I survived.

I am strong because I chose to live.

I am strong because I chose to heal.

I am strong because I went on to live a full and happy life.

I am strong because I use the hell I went through to help others.

I am strong because I am.

I have been strong from the beginning. I was strong to leave. I was strong to develop boundaries with harmful family members. There was never a time I was not strong.

The fact that someone with my uncle’s level of education around sexual assault response and time spent in discourse with me regarding healthy and helpful familial reactions to incest could still make such a statement or have such a belief sent me into an existential crisis that sounded something like this in my head:

How is it possible that I have put so much effort, time, blood, sweat, and tears into educating someone for half a decade and they still don’t get it? Most people only get me for a 90-minute presentation. Am I making any impact in that short amount of time if five years isn’t enough for some people? What am I doing with my life? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Toward the end of the phone conversation with my uncle, he said that I need to keep using my voice because people are clueless.

I disagree. People aren’t clueless. People are uncomfortable. People do not want to see or hear what they don’t want to see or hear, so survivors can stand up and speak out until we’re blue in the face and nothing will change because society isn’t willing to pull its head out of its own ass and pay attention to what will help.

Y’all — what is it gonna take? You want survivors to speak out and tell our stories courageously.

OK, we’ve done that.

You want us to teach you the kind of trauma-informed approach you need to have with a sexual assault survivor.

OK, we’ve done that, too.

You want us to hold your hand and help you not mess up helping us.

That’s where we have got to draw the line. We need you to start listening because we’ve been talking and educating and you haven’t been listening. It ain’t working. We’re tired. This work takes a lot of energy. And you, the folks in proximity to sexual assault survivors, are tough to educate because you’d rather not see or hear about something this rough. It’s too uncomfortable.

Guess what? Getting sexually assaulted is pretty fucking uncomfortable. Hate to break it to you. Get comfortable being uncomfortable because that is the only way you are going to learn the appropriate, healthy, and helpful ways to respond to someone who has experienced sexual assault.

I have built a career on my ability to have calm, polite, non-scary conversations around sexual assault. I have toned it down for you. I have softened it. I have used soothing, non-inflammatory language and been empathetic to the plight of those trying to understand a soul-shattering experience they have never been through. Tonight, I am trying to figure out if that has really gotten any of us anywhere.

Maybe I need to take a page from Gary John Bishop’s book and start telling people to unfu*k themselves. Apparently, it works if a man gets in your face and uses expletives. But what of us, the female sexual assault survivors who have to calmly and politely tell you that you are causing harm because you are not listening to our carefully crafted words? Our expertly curated lessons learned? Our stories of strength and survival written in a way that won’t give you the details you’re afraid to hear but somehow must also pack enough punch to get you to take us seriously?

When will you listen? When will you learn?

So yeah, people are dumb. Even when you’ve told them again and again how to not be dumb about sexual assault. Even after books, articles, talks, movies, and TV shows have tackled the “how to not be dumb” issue. And even when one of the books is written by you and the person saying the dumbass shit was part of a test group that had early access to this knowledge and provided feedback throughout the writing process.

Try to listen. Try to care enough to stay present and receptive when it’s hard. Try to retain what we, the survivors, tell you helps and hurts us. Try to take action on what you retain. Try to do better for the survivors of the world.

Let’s stop being so dumb, alright?

For the love of God — don’t invite rapists and their victims to the same events. Got it?

And for the record: I’ve always been strong.