Here's another commenter's very important contribution to the discussion:
As a rape survivor I hate when people refer to rapist as monsters/villians. Rapist are just the guys next door who do an evil act. But until society stops trying to see them as “monsters/villians” we won’t change the culture and survivors will not be believed. My rapists were normal guys. Quite likable actually. The only problem I had with them was they raped me. It’s made me quite leery of white dudes who are my friends/family as those have been my rapists. Not some big scary monster but the guy in my house, regular customer where I work, co-worker.
Please stop calling them anything but what they are RAPISTS. Otherwise it’s hard for you to listen to the women in your life when they tell you they were raped. One out of five women are raped. Yet most people don’t know which women in their life were raped. You don’t believe us because you need a villain, a monster, not the guy next door who is “simply” a rapist.
There are probably a lot of people who like, even love, the guy who raped me those many years ago. He was like-able, even then. I thought he was kind of cute. Maybe attractive, even. I thought it was worth getting to know him a little better.
He thought I was worth raping.
I shall never call him "my rapist," though. He is NOTHING of mine. I will own the rape and the damage. I will not own him.
I have no idea whether he ever raped other women. I think, since he totally got away with raping me, it's likely he did.
But I bet there's still plenty of people who think he's a nice guy, maybe a good Dad, a competent doer of whatever work he's chosen, a fun golf partner, a talented amateur whatever-his-hobby-is.
He lives next door to someone, in a nation in a town in a culture that enabled what he did, and keeps on enabling it.
wearily,
Bright
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