![]() “In other words, they’ve put the onus for rape on anything except rapists.” It’s not a ‘mistake’ but a deliberate decision to treat another person like a soulless object.” Later in the book she places a finer point on the misdirection of blame, noting that certain media commentators have long tried to blame various mitigating factors such as “binge drinking, the decline of religious values … bad parenting” for rape. Sexual assault, as Harding writes, is not “a failure of ‘normal restraint but of humanity. SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter > But the man who sexually assaulted me is the only person to blame, and the only person who could have prevented the crime from happening - by not doing it. ![]() After the piece was published, one of the now adult children from that family sent me a note on Facebook to express her indignation at having been outed as “the family that introduced you to a pedophile” she immediately assumed that I was blaming her for not stepping in to prevent this trauma from happening. ![]() I recently wrote a piece in which I recounted my experience of having been sexually assaulted as a teenager by a much older man that I knew through a family I adored growing up. ![]()
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