Brilliant and Indispensable: What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali

Series: Standalone

Release Date: October 25, 2019

Format: Paperback

Rating: 5/5 stars

Trigger Warning: This review discusses topics that can be triggering for some. Please read the ‘Possible Triggers’ tab above for details.

Note: In the ‘Possible Triggers’ tab, I note that r@pe will be heavily discussed in this review. The censored r@pe is used to break up the word as the whole word can be triggering for some survivors. However, for the rest of the review, I will not be using the censor as the title of the book does not censor the word.

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is the most important and powerful book I’ve read this year… and probably in my entire life. Rape is such a hard topic to talk about. Its causes are embedded in cultural traditions that are rooted in sexism, racism and classism. Yet, rape is also rationalized and excused by the people and institutions that should be the protectors of victims and survivors of rape.

It’s a straightforward yet complicated subject. On the surface, conventional society understands that rape is forceful sex against a person’s will: yes means yes and no means no. But, our understanding of consent is so complicated that suddenly no means no has an asterisk beside it, some valid and some not so valid. In some countries, marital rape is not something that exists; they believe once a woman gets married, she cannot say no to her husband. In other situations, a woman doesn’t have to verbally say no for it to be rape. Already, it’s becoming evident how convoluted the topic is. There’s also the narrative that rape is very different from and separate from sex. However, as many know, what starts as consensual sex can end up as rape if someone doesn’t stop.

Overall Impressions

I was interested in the nuances of bad sex and how it relates to consent. In the article, the author, Ashleigh Leuthard, summarizes her experience: “I said yes to sex with him. But if I had known how it would make me feel after, I would have said no.” Ashleigh talks about how she wished she was brave enough to ask him to stop, which circles back to positioning bad sex under the umbrella of consent.

Rape and it’s Stereotypes

The beginning chapters of What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape are grounded in Sohaila’s experience surviving gang-rape at seventeen. Sohaila’s reason for writing this book is assigned to her journey after having her essay she wrote as a recent survivor go viral thirty years later after the 2012 fatal gang-rape in New Delhi. There are so many stereotypes about rape survivors in mainstream media, which Sohaila is quick to address. And, by looking at how rape is framed (and not talked about) in society–that people are raped by strangers, in a dark alley at night–she unpacks why rape is the only crime where the victim is treated as the criminal.

Why is society so quick to protect the perpetrator? Sohaila uses examples from all over the world to emphasize her point: that rape culture is insidious and permeates all cultures. And, the solution is, decidedly, to teach men not to rape. Women (and girls) need to stop being told by society to take responsibility for the decisions of rapists–if only I didn’t drink that much, or wear that skirt, or walk home by myself, or invite him into my house. It goes on.

“Of course accused abusers should get due process–I love and respect many men, and if one of them were accused I would want him to get a fair hearing. But look around, people. Just look around. Where in the world is it pleasant to report a rape? I find it very hard to believe that droves of girls and women are rushing to say they’ve been assaulted when they haven’t. Women still don’t generally have an easy time reporting sexual assault. In fact, the opposite is too often true. Ask all the women who’ve had to eat their words.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali

The Umbrella of Rape Culture

Sohaila’s novel got me thinking about so many things; it’s impossible to cover them all in this review. Off the top of my head, here are a few that stayed with me:

“There’s a subversive little thread that often weaves itself into any discussion of women actually speaking out and taking space to claim their histories of sexual violence. It’s an insidious thread that has choked us for far too long. I call it the Lose-Lose Rape conundrum. It unwinds like this. If you talk about it, you’re a helpless victim angling for sympathy. If you’re not a helpless victim, then it wasn’t such a big deal, so why are you talking about it? If you’re surviving and living your life, why are you ruining some poor man’s life? Either it’s a big deal, so you’re ruined, or it’s not a big deal and you should be quite.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali

My biggest take away is how society talks about rape has to stop centring the survivor in the why. By this, I mean rape should never be about the choices the survivor made. Instead, discussion of rape should be about the men who choose to rape.

Affirmative consent

I’ve never heard of the term affirmative consent before this book. Sohaila articulates how affirmative consent as sex education can be the foundation for rape education. If consensual sex is grounded in the pleasure and enjoyment of both (all) its participants, then it becomes normalized for individuals to check in with their partner(s) that they are enjoying themselves. People will be taught to seek out visible and verbal cues that their partner is enjoying themselves. Can you imagine if you’re having bad sex and, because of affirmative consent, your partner checks in with you: do you like x? Do you want to change things up or slow things down? Or do you want to stop? With affirmative consent, communication becomes the foundation for consensual sex. It gives a voice to people who want to stop as well as the education for people to read and understand when someone isn’t enjoying themselves.

What’s interesting is that the “sides” are comprised of both sexes. The scenario results are, also, demonstrative of the lack of understanding of what consensual sex is and Sohaila does a convincing job of demonstrating it’s because American teenagers are taught about sex as if a woman’s (and girl’s) pleasure is negligible. Pleasure, in this case, is synonymous with enjoyment.

The assumption in sex education is that boys enjoy sex but the narrative for girls is that it’s painful and that you have to suffer through it. But, if the narrative was shifted to centre mutual pleasure and enjoyment both parties are invested in ensuring their partner(s) are enjoying (and consenting) to the experience.

Succinctly put: “If we leave pleasure out of sex ed., we normalize sexual assault.” ~ Jaclyn Friedman (Unscrewed podcast)

“Jaclyn’s stark example:

I think of the two men who intervened when they came upon Brock Turner assaulting an unconscious woman at Stanford–they knew instantly that something was wrong, because she was clearly not participating. Contrast that with Evan Westlake, who in high school witness two friends raping a semi-conscious girl at a party in Steubenville, Ohio. When asked why he didn’t intervene, he told the court, “Well, it wasn’t violent. I didn’t know exactly what rape was. I always pictured it as forcing yourself on someone.”

I’m sure there are many differences between Westlake and the two men in the Turner case–and these cases are different from the Ansari situation–but the one that stands out to me is that Westlake was raised here in the U.S. The two men on bicycles in Palo Alto were Swedes, raised in a country that teaches healthy attitudes toward sexuality and gender in school, starting in kindergarten, including lessons on not just biology but healthy relationships, destigmatizing taboos around sex, and, yes, affirmative consent. They knew that a woman who is lying still and not participating in sex is a woman who isn’t consenting. And it prompted them to take action.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali (Page 91-92)

In Conclusion

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a book I think every person needs to read. Rape culture has permeated society to such an extent that it has socialized people to defend accused rapists–who they do not know–just because they’re an actor they like. The book helps to deconstruct the reality of rape, as well as what society has socialized people into thinking about rape, consent and sex.

“Rape in any context is sex that you grab, not sex that you negotiate and mutually enjoy.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali

I also appreciated that Sohaila thought to include brief chapters that reminded the reader of the reality of rape. Chapter 12 is literally titled, ‘A brief pause for horror.’ Up to that point in the novel, many of the chapters were discussing rape in a “level-headed manner” to the extent that the reader could rationalize rape is ‘not that bad.’ But, Sohaila is quick to catch the reader before they fall into that pit of rationalization. Rape is unimaginable if you have not survived it. The trauma is felt long after the violation.

However, Sohaila’s resounding statement throughout the novel is that rape is survivable. What surviving looks like is different for each person.

I’m seriously so impressed, and so glad I read What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape. In a world that prefers to silence rape survivors and ignore how institutions are complicit in the normalization of rape, this book is an excellent resource to address the complexity of rape and why it needs to be talked about.

Buy What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape

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