Speaking Up: Breaking Men’s Silence on Rape Culture

This past April, fashion stylist and Yeezy model,  Ian Connor, was accused of rape by a woman named Malika Anderson, who wrote a blog about her experience which I really encourage checking out. According to her, Connor had met Anderson through social media when he asked for her number. They had hung out three times; each time Connor would repetitively attempt to make sexual advances towards her; she refused each time and they would continue hanging out in a normal fashion. During the third time they hung out, Connor, as Anderson describes, was practically begging to perform oral sex on her. She finally gave in and, after two minutes of oral sex, Connor forced his penis inside of her and was quoted as saying “Your pussy is wavy.” To further make this situation worse, Anderson had caught gonorrhea from Connor; luckily it was curable. After a year, Anderson was courageous enough to file a police report against Connor. Since Anderson has come out with her story, more women have provided stories of being raped by Ian Connor.

When Anderson made her story public, the reception was appalling. She was called names by multiple Twitter users, who were accusing her of making the story up or seeking attention. This escalated to the point where Anderson actually deleted her Twitter account. She even stated in her blog that a boy she was talking to blamed her for the assault since he didn’t believe she was raped. Ian Connor himself took to Twitter and called Anderson “a walking trash can emoji”.

But some interesting, and very big, accusations have been made recently. On June 23, Connor got into a fight with Trinidadian rapper, Theophilus London, who, after the fight, called Connor a rapist and that this had been known for a while. This is where the problem comes in; only after London’s accusation have people been taking this more seriously. There’s up to six women that Connor could have possibly raped and only now are the people closest to him saying anything.  These people could have protected these girls from harm or could have, at the very least, backed up their testimony in order to prevent any further rapes from happening.

This isn’t true to just Anderson’s situation though; many rapists could have friends who know about their acts but choose to ignore it. Possibly it’s out of fear, out of “respect”, or possibly out of the same twisted view as their friend; either way you look at it, us as men should be willing to do something if someone is being harmed. Twitter user @MichelleHux retold a story of how her friend in a fraternity warned her of whom not to speak to because he had a reputation for being a rapist. Her friend was guilty too, instead of alerting police or head of the school; he decided to only warn women who he deemed worthy.  This behavior is all too common in fraternities where many times rape is expected. Their brothers do all they can to protect these rapist. Disregarding the feelings of the victims. Rape is rape; there is no thin line. Rape is forced intercourse; yet many guys don’t like to speak up when they know it’s clearly happening. Incidents like these should never happen and it shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of the victim to act as their one and only defense. If you see something, confront it or call the police. Don’t break your silence because you have beef with someone. Again I encourage my readers to check out Miss Anderson’s blog; it’s incredibly heartbreaking what she went through after her ordeal and provides an insight on how a rape victim thinks after being assulted and the male misperception as to what rape is. We must all work together to create awareness about rape and the definition of it. Just because a girl likes you doesn’t mean she wants to have sex, just because she said yes two days ago doesn’t mean she still wants to have sex with you. Consent is the most important thing and I emphasis this highly. Let’s keep the conversation going.