Why is it brave for a woman or a man to say that that they have been raped?
None, however, made the same impact upon me as Niamh Ní Dhomhnaill.
The name will probably be familiar to most of you but to those who don’t know her, Niamh is the woman who discovered that her boyfriend, Magnus Meyer Hustveit, was regularly raping her while she was asleep.
He admitted to doing so via email and was given a seven-year suspended sentence, meaning that he was free to return to Norway without serving any time.
Thankfully, an appeal court has since handed down a 15-month sentence which, although still inadequate, is better than nothing.
So that’s it. That’s her story.
That’s who we have decided that she is now. A victim or maybe we will call her a survivor, if we’re feeling generous.
It’s not even close to encapsulating what sort of person Niamh Ní Dhomhnaill is.
She was incredibly funny, making me crack up with laughter many times during our two-hour conversation.
She was passionate, talking about the students that she encountered in her previous job as a secondary school teacher with such genuine affection that she brought tears to my eyes.
She was whip-smart, discussing issues such as consent and gender politics and feminism with a clarity and vigour that forced me to up my own game just so I could keep pace with her.
She was so much more than the horror that was inflicted upon her.
She is neither victim nor survivor, she told me, explaining that she refused to be defined by what happened to her. She doesn’t want to be indelibly linked to Hustveit in that way and I was struck once more by her strength.
“You are very brave,” I told her.
“Why?” she asked me “Why am I brave?”
“You’re brave because you waived your right to anonymity. Because you told your story in an attempt to help other women feel strong enough to tell theirs. Because you refused to be silent.”
“But why am I brave?” she asked again.
And I stopped.
Why I believe her courage was so noteworthy?
Would I have thought so if she had been robbed or beaten and spoke out about that?
Somehow, I don’t think I would have. Not to the same extent anyway.
I would have felt sympathy for her and anger that this had happened to her but I wouldn’t have been as astounded at her bravery.
Why is it brave for a woman or a man to say that that they have been raped?
Statistics say that it’s one in four women who have experienced sexual violence, one in 10 men.
With so many affected among us, why don’t we talk more about it?
Why is it still rare for a victim to release their name, to speak to the press, to show their face to the public?
Because rape is shameful.
Because rape is something to be kept a secret.
Because it was our fault.
Because what were we wearing and what were we drinking and did we give mixed signals and are we sure it was ‘rape rape’ and he’s a nice guy really, he didn’t mean to do all of this, he didn’t mean to break your heart into a million pieces and walk away, leaving you with your nightmares and shattered innocence. Because you know now.
You know that not all people are inherently good, not all people can be trusted.
You can never un-know that, as much as you would like to.
And you carry that beat in your heart of .
That is yours now, yours to keep.
I posted a caption on my public Facebook page a while ago that said “Rape is never the survivor’s fault. You had the right to drink. You had the right to go on a walk. You had the right to dress however you wanted. You had the right to trust him or her. You had the right to make your own choices, and you are responsible for them. But no one has the right to perpetrate abuse against another. No one had the right to rape you.”
The first comment underneath was from a faceless troll yawning, “I think 99.9% of people realise this.”
But do they?
Too often when I use the term ‘rape culture’, I am met by outright hostility.
“We don’t live in a society that condones rape,” I’m told. “Rape is considered the most horrific crime after murder and is treated as such.”
But this is it. This is rape culture.
Rape culture is me thinking Niamh was ‘brave’ to risk being stigmatised by telling her story.
Rape culture is watching Niamh facing prurient questions about the details of the case, the online comments and ridicule.
Rape culture is Niamh having to deal with people doubting the veracity of her story, having to listen to broadcasters questioning the plausibility of the story on national radio even though Hustveit himself confirmed it.
Rape culture is Hustveit admitting that he consistently abused the trust of the person whom he was supposed to love and protect and subsequently being described to Niamh herself as a ‘good guy’ and praised for his ‘helpful’ attitude in the legal process.
Rape culture is when you have an open and shut case, an admittance of guilt, and a judge decides that it still doesn’t merit the perpetrator serving any jail time.
Rape culture is every single survivor of sexual violence I have ever met, feeling guilty, blaming themselves for something that is not their fault, never their fault.
(But what were you wearing and how much did you have to drink and why did you walk home by yourself and why didn’t you wake up and why and why and why and why? Why?)
Rape culture is never asking those questions of the rapist.
