u/absolutepeasantry

There is this special kind of grief that comes from being South Asian and the eldest daughter (I’m a trans man but that’s beside the point) with sexual trauma. Our cultures scream and throw up and cry every time a woman or AFAB people choose to be sexually active outside of marriage. It’s caused honor killings and all kinds of cruelty because people with the bodies we have are considered property, not people. We are things to be owned by our fathers and given to our husbands.

It’s FOR THAT REASON that people are also so weird about sexual assault and rape, where the violation is less about the victim/survivor whose right to their own body and personal space was snatched away by the perpetrator and more about how their father or family now has an item of lesser value that will be harder to give away to a husband of proper social standing and repute. But somehow, people (especially men including the father of the survivor) are more riled up because the person’s “virtue” aka virginity, was damaged and want to avenge them with violence, calling for the heads of the perpetrators.

However, if a sexually active person or a person with a romantic partner gets assaulted, there’s no support, no social or family calls for protection or avenging of the survivor. This kind of survivor doesn’t deserve protection because they gave themselves up, so society isn’t preserving this person’s value, since there is none. They can’t be given to a husband because they lost value since they got a romantic or sexual partner, and now they have none. Their fathers won’t try to defend or protect them from criticism or further violence because these people didn’t guard their virtue for marriage in the pure way a “good” survivor does.

This is me now. My parents don’t know about my assault because I know they would blame me, and I don’t want to hear that from the outside when it’s been my internal dialogue for years. And every time I watch movies where parents (especially fathers) get angry that their child was sexually assaulted in movies, I just feel so empty and angry because I will NEVER get that experience. All the anger of the assault will be placed onto me for having a boyfriend at all.

It’s just not fair that fictional people get support from their families, and I have to hold all of this in and be isolated from the support I deserve, all because my parents are so insane they consider me as their property to give to a man and not as a person who was hurt. And because I’m the oldest “girl”, I have to be the responsible one and the submissive one even when I’m the only one on my side. It fucking sucks

Sorry, just had to vent, but GOD. This rage won’t go anywhere. I’ll just have to live in it until I can go to therapy again.

Edit: Little addition. The reason this brings more rage out of me is because of the religious aspect as well, where Hindus in India (especially the loud right-wing ones) will claim to be the most feminist and woman-respecting society in the world and talk shit on sexually-liberated nations in the East and West as if they’re ruining women’s lives. They act like Hinduism is better for women because we just have goddesses and worship them, but that talk never translates into respect for women or AFAB people or even Hijras and Trans women.

It is infuriating to hear the bitching and complaining about how India has the best women (because they are forced to enjoy their subservient roles and abuse) and that other nations’ women are characterless for being independent and free, but then those same idiots are the ones to denigrate people who get sexually assaulted and fully support the assaults of sexually active people because “she was asking for it, that’s not the man’s fault that he assumed she was giving services”. This hypocrisy of claiming to treat women better than every other nation and then disrespecting SA victims for being assaulted truly makes me want to physically fight all of those fools, of whom my dad is one.