Don't "Ask Amy": She's a Rape Victim Blamer

Some choice victim-blaming masquerading as advice is making the rounds this week via “Ask Amy,” a syndicated column by the Chicago Tribune’s Ann Landers successor, Amy Dickinson. In the Hartford Courant, the column ran under the title “Sobering Advice to Rape Victim,” which is offensive in and of itself. [This version no longer accessible.] In the L.A. Times, it’s “Bad Choice, Yes, But No is Still No.”

Dickinson was responding to someone who wrote in asking if the nonconsensual sex -- the sex that she did not consent to -- was in fact rape.

The advice-seeker says that she got drunk at a frat party and went up to a guy's room. She clearly and repeatedly told him she didn't want to sleep with him. Despite promising that he wouldn't, he then went ahead and had sex with her anyway. "Victim? in Virginia" felt that surprise and the influence of alcohol kept her from reacting, and asks Amy whether it still counts as rape if she didn't try to physically fight him off,

Dickinson’s response?

Straight out the gate she tells the writer that she is indeed a victim -- of poor judgment. Dickinson essentially claims that a woman has a good chance of getting raped if she's drunk at a frat party, so Victim? is to blame for the assault. Oh sorry -- Dickinson doesn't even call it rape. She euphemizes it as "unwanted sexual contact."

There are several things deeply wrong with Dickinson's statements, the most glaring of which is that she makes it her first priority to blame the writer for what happened, instead of the guy who had sex with Victim? against her will. Dickinson never once acknowledges that what the guy did was wrong. In effect, she's equated getting drunk at a party with "asking for it."

Dickinson later adds insult to injury by implying that whether the guy was drunk or not qualifies his level of culpability. When she finally offers the writer information from RAINN’s website about how alcohol and drugs are not an excuse for rape, it comes off as a begrudging formality, given that it directly contradicts her previous statements.

Instead of assailing Dickinson’s response further (I could go on and on), I’d just like to rewrite it, as her editor should have done in the first place:

Dear Victim?:

First, if you don’t consent to sex, it is rape. There is no second.

Whether you were drunk or sober is irrelevant.  Although there's the possibility that being drunk and agreeing to go to someone's room could make a rape case more difficult to prosecute, it doesn't make what actually happened to you any less of a violation.

All the risk reduction measures in the world could never amount to risk prevention. In the end, the person responsible for rape is the perpetrator; they are the only ones who can 100% prevent it. Whether you consider what happened to you to be rape or not, it was his fault, and none of yours.

The most important thing now is for you to get whatever help you need. You know what’s best for you. I would encourage you to speak to someone you trust, or to reach out to a rape hotline or referral service that can direct you to medical, psychological and legal assistance.

Were you violated? Yes. And then you were revictimized by Amy Dickinson who blamed you. But I would call you a survivor before I'd call you a victim.

If you’re as disgusted by Amy Dickinson’s response to “Victim? In Virginia” as I am, please let her know by signing this petition, which demands that she correct her advice in a forthcoming column.

Photo Credit: bookgrl