I'd like to talk about the way rape and sexual assault are perceived here in France, and how it effects the people I know. I'm not a counselor, or a sociologist, so this will be about my experience of rape culture.
Rape has been recognized as a crime in France since 1980 (you can get up to 15 years in prison). The legal definition is as follows: "Any sexual penetration
(otherwise it's categorized as assault and not as rape) imposed upon another person through violence, constraint, threat, or surprise, is a rape."
Marital rape was legally recognized in 1992. These dates tell their own story.
In the media, rape has two different contexts. "Rape in the suburbs" and "City rape". Suburbs in France are not middle-class havens: they are what I think Americans call the projets, or ghettos. Young people who come from the suburbs (especially the Parisian ones) tend to describe themselves as "ghetto members". A few years ago, gang bangs became the subject of many an investigation. Young Muslim girls who would not wear a headscarf had been raped by several young men (usually men they knew socially) or set on fire. This brought about the idea that only immigrant religious extremists would rape. Rape was the product of alienation and misinformation.
On the other hand you have the City rape. This is defined by walking home late at night and being assaulted in the street. Victims of City rape are mostly pitied, but sometimes you'll read an article describing how drunk/skimpily dressed they were.
This is what I would call mainstream rape. Everyone agrees it's rape. Voilà. You don't go alone at night in some areas, it's a fact of life. As a runner I avoid some parts of Paris if I'm running at night. It's automatic. You go against the rules, you will be punished.
Much more problematic is date rape. I'll take the Polanski example, not because I'm not tired of that polemic, because I am. Yet the reaction of French intellectuals to the rape was scary and illuminating. It wasn't a rape because the mother of the girl entrusted her child to a known womanizer to do nude pictures. (So she pimped out her kid, basically). It wasn't a rape because the girl was not a virgin. You get the idea.
If you know your rapist, good luck to get your rape recognized as such. You egged him on. You sent the wrong signals. He was drunk. You were drunk.
As a French girl, you're taught how to flirt, that is, how to go far enough without going too far. If you go too far, you might end up in a situation beyond your control. This will be your fault. Rape education is focused on girls. We can avoid rape. Little is done to prevent rapists from raping.
Do I feel afraid, threatened every day? No. Am I bothered every day by some random person in the street? Yes.
"Hey pretty girl, want to come over tonight?"
"No, thanks."
"Have a good day then!"
This would be the nicest version of the typical exchange. Usually it goes along these lines:
"Hey pretty girl, want to come over tonight?"
"No, thanks."
"You fucking slut, just die already."
When I complain about this, I mostly hear people telling me that I'll miss it when it stops. Middle-aged women sigh wistfully about how they enjoyed being complimented, how they feel invisible now. The same women who tell me that I would be asking for rape if I went to a man's apartment alone. That I'd be sending out the wrong signals. To me, rape is less about sex than it is about violence. When I ask these people if it would be my fault if I were beaten up by a guy in his apartment, they usually say no. Yet rape would be my fault, somehow.
What I can tell you about French rape culture is that regardless of how "good" I am, someone will blame me for being raped, if this terrible thing happens to me one day. It will always be partly my fault. If I'm not drunk, it's because I wore a short skirt in a dangerous area. And why was I out in the middle of the night, anyway?
One day I was explaining to X, who's Australian, that I was afraid of travelling on my own because of violence and assault. He looked at me as if I were crazy. I realized how much I had internalized the French message that I had to restrict the way I live in order to be protected.
It's my responsability never to be assaulted. Even if it means living less of a life than if I were a man.
