Baseline: Believe.

I've been looking back at the amazing support I've gotten from my family, friends, colleagues and coworkers after someone tried to break into my apartment last Tuesday. I was going over the details in my mind, and I started to think about how lucky I was in the way I was treated post-event. Let's review the facts together.

1. No one blamed me for having transparent curtains. No one told me that maybe I could have prevented the whole thing by having solid curtains, that maybe the guy felt welcomed by the curtains and it was partially my fault.

2. No one questioned my story. Why on earth would anyone make up a story about a person trying to get through her fire escape at 3:30 in the morning? That's just ridiculous...it's extremely rare for any crime to be falsely reported.

3. No one asked if maybe I had actually invited the guy inside and just regretted it afterwards. Perhaps I'd been sleeping provocatively? Perhaps having a night light on was like a signal that I wanted someone to try to enter my home? But no, that's foolish, obviously. 

4. No one told me I should consider his side of the story, that maybe he made an honest mistake and there were some mixed messages about whether or not he could break into my apartment.

5. No one asked me what kind of pajamas I was wearing, or if I'd consumed any alcohol before going to bed. It was very clear that this was not relevant to whether or not someone was trying to get inside my home. Why on earth would that make a difference? After all, someone was committing a crime. The circumstances of my attire or sobriety aren't relevant.

6. No one tried to defend the actions of the guy. No one said he had a right to come in, no one implied that I should have somehow prevented this, or that it wasn't that big of a deal. No one said "boys will be boys".

Are you hearing me? No one said I was "asking for it". No one told me to "be more careful". No one told me to change my life to prevent this sort of thing. Why the hell are we doing this to rape victims? If I had been wasted out of my mind and had passed out naked in bed, would that have been reason enough for someone to break into my apartment? Of course not. Yet every day it's used as justification for rape. And I do mean that literally. Every. Day. 

I don't know how, as a culture, we decided that women are extremely likely to falsify a report of sexual assault but the fact is that false reporting is extremely rare. Even when analyzing false report data on sexual assault we can see that many victims withdrew their claims due to fear, intimidation, or simply trying to forget it or put it behind them (a common stage in recovery from sexual assault). I cannot say this enough: Leave the judgment to the court systems, the police and the lawyers. Baseline: Believe. Do you hear me? That's all you have to do. Extend that courtesy to anyone you know who says that they've been sexually assaulted. No one bat an eye at my claim that someone tried to break in. No one questioned my story. Do not question theirs. It's much harder to come forward about a sexual assault than my situation, so imagine the strength that person has to even tell their story to a single person. Baseline: Believe. That is all I ask.