I know Brock Turner, but don't personally. I have met many men like Brock Turner. I was taught to be like Brock Turner.
Brock Turner raped an unconscious woman on Stanford University's campus behind a dumpster.
I've met Brock Turner before. Brock Turner is the slick white boy in charge of the frat where it was common at my college to "slip stuff in girls' drinks". Brock Turner is the guy that made a rape joke.
Brock Turner's have gone by different names, but all represent how cisgender white men can get away with raping their peers without consequences.
I loved college, but there was a common practice of calling "drunken sex" just "sex" and not rape. In fact, I was told by many of my cisgender male peers that the only way to get a girl home with me was to get her drunk.
I have been around men that have joked about violently raping women and then called me out for being too emotional when I call them out. They would say "oh he is just being too left liberal and politically correct". I would insist that my friends not go home with guys when they are drunk, and was just told "that sex is just sex". I shouldn't be so bitter about not getting any.
Brock Turner's have gone by Matthew, James, John, Mark, Markus, Kyle, and many other names.
I have seen many men who are quick to say that their frat, sports team, or other organization doesn't condone that "type of behavior" without ever using the word rape.
My first year in college it was actually quite common for men to get girls drunk, take them to their dorm rooms, and rape them. Except no one ever called it rape.
In fact, in one of my classes a professor asked us to debate about whether or not you can consent to sex if you are drunk. I watched as my male peers argued that if a girl is drunk, it isn't his fault. I've heard and not said anything when I heard an ex landlord look at the weather woman's "rack" and thank "the Lord" for finally having a "useful weather woman".
But I am standing up saying that is our fault. It is my fault that I didn't speak up for my peers my first year in college. It is my male mentors' faults for telling me that rape is just sex. It is my male friends' faults for making those rape jokes.
We can say what we want about Brock Turner, but if we don't stand up against these crimes we are no better than Brock Turner. The Brock Turner's of the world are no one's friend. To my fellow men out there, whether you are cis or trans, it is time we point this out. Because if a man is willing to rape anyone and doesn't see it as rape, he is not your friend, your teammate, or your mentor. He is a man who has fallen to his own aggression, and what is to stop him from taking that aggression out on you?
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