Creating a Sense of Safety Is Easy: Just Pretend Bad Things Never Happen

Did you hear Lucy was violated in public at a play party? And that Gerard’s been stealthing people at swingers’ parties in the next suburb? And Jackie says she was just injured in a scene.

The fear will get to you eventually. You just can’t go anywhere anymore.

You make decisions to stay safe, but the violations creep in on you no matter what you do. Someone was killed in a choking scene last year. Someone else was abused for years. Someone was murdered a few years back by a man on Fetlife.

You become good at ignoring hundreds of “someones” until that “someone” lives in your community, until they’re your friend, until they were assaulted at a dungeon you use every weekend. Then “someone” becomes “maybe me next time,” and so you add spotters and safe calls to your routine. You download a safety app. You attend different events. You carry pepper spray. You know none of these things are sure things because Juliette had pepper spray, too, and Lerato couldn’t use the safety app because her phone was stolen, and Jenny was screaming for hours and still, nobody came.

Eventually, though, you learn to retain your sanity. You can’t live in fear, so you figure out how to forget Lerato and Juliette. You tell yourself that you would know a rapist before you played with him. You decide it won’t happen to you. Fear doesn’t paint by numbers and statistics. It will get to you in the end because you are a woman; because you are too young, too beautiful, too solitary to be safe in this world.

Some people are unafraid because their friend hasn’t been affected. Their party has never been hit. Their body has been used as revenge porn. The stories creep in, though. Maybe your community gets targeted. It’s okay. Just tell yourself lightening doesn’t strike twice. Two crimes are a little harder to ignore, but life goes and goes, and the violence stacks up, so you build a rape schedule and start double checking the locks on the doors.

It's easy to forget: Focus on the victims' irresponsible negotiation tactics instead. Focus on their far-too-revealing dresses. Focus on having more fear, or having less fear. Focus on the parties that usually get hit. Whatever you do, never, ever focus on the abuser, especially when you're assigning blame.

They’ll tell you your fear doesn’t matter because your statistics aren’t reliable. Don’t you know that study they did back in ‘02 was badly designed? Don’t you know it’s weak to live in fear? Are you really going to let a few bad people change the way you kink? Are you?

You owe them your complete absence of fear because those kinds of feelings make them feel uncomfortable, so here are three cliches: Take it on the chin. Don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Stop getting bent out of shape. Live as though there is no violence. Yes, that’s the only rational response…