Nay Sayers Just STOP! 

TONI EDWARDS |

Until you have walked in the shoes of a victim of sexual violence or rape, stop sitting on the “comforts” of the side lines dictating how a victim would, could or should have reacted after being victimized. For example “when” a victim decides to confront her offender is strictly her decision.  More specifically, whether its immediately or 20+ years from the time the crime took place has no bearing on the validity of her story, nor does it minimize or nullify that a crime took place.  Moreover, the mere notion that a women is confused about the identity of her rapist or assailant is as insulting as it is ridiculous . I can attest that you NEVER forget your offenders face or the incident itself.  It is a traumatic experience ingrained in your brain forever. There’s no such thing as getting over it, but merely learning to cope and overcome.. Additionally, allies of the offender who claim that the offender is a “really nice” guy and “incapable” of committing such a  crime simply because they “think” they know them..  My response is, is there a defined way a rapist is suppose to act or look? Does the perpetrator go around with a rapist label on his forehead? Who voluntarily admits there a rapist?  Did Bill Cosby, Jerry Sandusky and DC Cardinal Donald Wuerl, numerous Catholic priest look or act like a rapist.  To take it a step further did Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, look or act like murderers?  My point is, how can anyone outside the court of law emphatically claim or determine  whose a rapist and whose not merely by “there” relationship with the offender.

Lastly, after centuries of silently enduring the shame, helplessness and fear associated with the aftermath of a sexual assault or rape, many women are putting there  perpetrators on notice, “ you will no longer determine how the story ends regardless of your status or power- a movement and a determination which we hope will be mimicked all across the world (me too#).

Franklin D. Roosevelt — ‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.’

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