A young rape victim recently asked for counsel in an advice column. Instead, the writer behind Teenage magazine’s ‘Dear Kelly’ section basically told her she deserved everything she got for being ‘naive’ — the exact victim-blaming response one should never carry out when someone’s gone through the trauma of rape.
The backlash that Teenage received from the public was swift, firm, and most of all, justified. Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) came out and publicly slammed the magazine for being insensitive to the victim of sexual assault, who Kelly “berated and judged” throughout the column.
Hours after Sara Janelle’s post went viral, Teenage finally responded. Apologising for the controversial column, they explained that Kelly Chopard is an experienced youth counsellor and her column has always been her outlet for no-nonsense advice and tough love since ’96.
“We did not have the intention of playing a role in victim-blaming or to lead to the impression that we think that rape is acceptable. It is not.”
That was just the pre-apology apology from Teenage magazine though:
The real banger lies in the official response from Chopard herself. She apologised that her advice to the rape victim came across as harsh… and then denied any victim blaming.
“There is no intention of “victim blaming”, just an attempt to point out that one’s actions have consequences and the sad fact, for me who really cares for everyone writing in, is that many young people today take risks and put themselves in precarious situations resulting in unhappy outcomes.”
Welp, she must have missed out the memo about the definition of victim blaming:
“Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them.”
Read Chopard’s whole apology here. Many, many holes can be poked in her argument, but we’ll just point out one. Take for example, this part:
“I tried not to highlight what was going through the guy’s mind. I was careful to downplay his point-of-view so as to spare her additional pain.”
Madam, let us list down the sentences that you did exactly that:
- “You can’t blame him for thinking a sexual connection was all right with you.”
- “I don’t blame him for thinking you were not a virgin.”
- “Frankly, I understand why the guy misunderstood your acceptance of the invitation.”
- “As he said, you agreed to stay over even after he told you there was no one else in the house. His point is that he never misled you”.
Hoo boy. You can see where this is going next. Angry Facebook comments screenshot time!
But really, all the context we need to know why Chopard reacted so harshly to the rape victim lies at the end of the Dear Kelly column:
“Teenage DOES NOT condone pre-marital sex.”
You see, in an effort to not normalise sexual activity among young people, Chopard HAD to make it seem that the victim only had herself to blame. If Chopard had done the opposite (as she should have) by consoling the victim and putting all the blame on the rapist (as she should have), it would send a message that pre-marital sex is okay. By shaming the victim through pointing out that the sexual assault was self-inflicted, it would scare other teen girls reading the column into thinking that pre-marital sex will lead to Bad Things.
Also, come on man it’s bloody 2016 — premarital sexual behaviour IS the new norm, despite everyone’s restrictive views. Kids should be educated about how to go about protecting themselves and practising safe sex instead of scaring them silly into pure abstinence. Don’t shame them for their choices; just teach them how to keep safe.
