- Have you ever heard of the girl who cried wolf?
- Yeah, how do you know she's not faking it?
- Crap therapists say that's terrible, mended light.
(upbeat music)
Hello everyone, and welcome to Crap Therapists Say
where we poll you, the viewer to ask
for a terrible advice that you got from a therapist.
Trigger warning,
we're going to be talking about sexual assault.
We won't go into graphic detail
but the idea that a woman who claims
that she's been sexually assaulted is crying wolf.
- What were you wearing?
- Yes, the whole, the whole she was
she was dressed a certain way
so she was asking to be assaulted, right?
- Right, and it's the only form of assault
that we ever even seek to pose that question right?
- Right.
- If someone gets mugged, we don't say, oh, well were you
- What were you wearing?
Were you waving around your wallet?
Did you keep it hidden?
- Yeah, and I think you were telling me we've got a video.
- Yes.
- Alicia's seen this.
I've never seen it, so let's see.
- If wearing a low cut top means you're asking for it
I wonder what else we could ask for.
Depending on what we wear, we wear, we wear.
(upbeat music)
- Hi, can I help?
- No, you're good.
- Sorry, you can't do in there.
- I'm sorry, what are you doing?
- Just here for that promotion?
- What?
- You know, just asking for it.
- She doesn't even work here.
- Right, I'm off.
- Karen, why are you going?
It's two o'clock.
- I'm going on holiday Allen.
- Did you clear it with HR?
- Didn't need to, look at what I'm wearing.
- You could have just asked.
- Hello.
- That one's a bit like you.
(upbeat music)
- I do.
- Just waiting for my free Ferrari.
- I just really want a dog.
Damnit.
- Chocolate cake.
- Oh yes, please.
Oh, if you are playing for Arsenal
you're not gonna wanna eat this, are you?
Better get back to training?
- I'm not a footballer.
- Well what do you expect us to think
when you turn up wearing that?
- Asking for it.
- Rinsed.
- I contributed a movie clip.
- You did
- High five
- Levity aside, which is fun, right?
And to joke about, but it makes such a serious point, right?
There is not a situation where you can ask to be assaulted.
Like it just doesn't exist, right.
And the fact that as a culture in some way, shape
or form that has been accepted is terrible and it's tragic.
- Well, you know what it is like as a man, it's insulting.
It's insulting
because this is the standard that we hold men to in society.
And then men follow suit
because we just think boys will be boys.
It's the idea that if I smear myself in honey
and go to the Yukon, a bear's gonna eat me.
Like that would be, that would be, I was asking for it.
But are, what are we saying about men?
That if a woman's dressed a certain way
we have no self-control.
We are literally telling men
it's not your fault if you sexually assault somebody.
- Well, and also at that point
- And that's insulting.
- It is insulting, but at that point
you are no longer responsible for your own behavior.
- Yes.
- Which is completely not true.
But these are the cultural lies
that have been bought into to give men an excuse.
- And in order for this to change
it can't just be women who change it.
Men have to take a look and say
I'm not gonna accept this narrative
about what men are and what men can be.
We are going to be something different.
We're gonna hold ourselves up to a higher standard.
We are responsible for our thoughts
we are responsible for our behaviors.
And the victim blaming means
that women are in a place of vulnerability
both physically when it comes to physical danger
but then psycho emotionally and socially.
That not only are they the ones
in danger of being assaulted,
they're also going to be blamed, not believed
and despised for it and judged for it.
Which leads us to our next movie clip.
This is from Promising Young Woman
which is the most pointed film I can think
of on this subject.
Carey Mulligan plays a woman whose friend was
sexually assaulted and then because of the judgment
and the scorn and not being believed and just being
- And the, the domino effect
of everything that happens
after a sexual and physical assault.
- And what it meant for her in her graduate studies
and all these things that her friend took her own life.
So now Carey Mulligan is out to
basically teach everyone a lesson
and she's going to confront one of the, one of their peers
from school who enabled the shame and the judgment.
- You know, I actually wanted to meet you today
to talk about something in particular.
- I did wonder, no one's heard from you in like forever.
- I wanted to talk to you about why I dropped out.
- Okay, sure.
- You remember what happened, right?
- Such a long time ago now.
- I know, but you remember.
- I mean vaguely.
- Do you ever think about it?
- Why would I?
- Right, why would you?
So if a friend came to you now, came to your house
and told you that they thought something bad had happened
to them the night before.
- Cassie
- Something bad.
- It was years ago.
- What would you say?
What would you say?
- A little weird.
- Would you roll your eyes
behind her back and dismiss the whole thing as drama?
- I don't know why you're mad at me.
Okay, I'm not the only one that didn't believe it.
If you have a reputation for sleeping around
then maybe people aren't gonna believe you
when you say something's happened.
I mean, it's crying wolf.
- You thought I was crying wolf.
- I don't make the rules.
Look, when you get that drunk things happen.
Don't get blackout drunk all the time
and then expect people to be on your side when you have sex
with someone you don't want to.
- That's a shame.
I was hoping you'd feel differently by now.
- Sorry.
- For your sake I was hoping you'd feel differently by now.
- If you have a reputation for sleeping around
don't expect anyone to be
on your side when you get blackout drunk
and have sex with someone that you didn't want to.
There's the language and so much
of that when she says, I don't make the rules.
First of all, if you have a reputation for sleeping around
being sexually active is a choice.
And sleeping with people is a choice.
The issue is, her friend didn't get blackout drunk,
she was drugged and then men took advantage of her.
And yet they don't point the fingers at the men
they point the fingers at her.
Like, is there a truth of like
be as smart and as safe as you can in life.
- Absolutely.
- Absolutely, but that doesn't mean you're responsible
for the choices of other people.
Sexual assault is something that was so taboo
that everyone else just steps away from it.
- Right.
- And we don't want not only any complicity
but like anything to do with it.
- Right.
- And so we leave the victim holding the bag.
- Well, and the reality is, I mean, so it's victim blaming
but some people, even women will buy in and participate
in the victim blaming because if the reality
is there are dangerous people out there,
dangerous men out there who will do dangerous things
then I could be hurt, right?
- Yeah, it's so much easier to believe
that there are specific rules
that if you follow this won't happen to you.
And you didn't follow the rules so it's your fault
instead of facing the reality of.
- And in that situation
even though they're doing the victim blaming
it's really not about the victim, it's about them.
- Yeah.
- It's about them keeping their paradigm
so they can pretend to feel safe.
- Yeah.
- And this can take a lot of different forms
not even just this form, even though it's very valid.
I had a friend who lives
in a very predominantly Christian area, right?
And so the belief is like no sex out of marriage, right?
She was an adult women with adult children
and she was dating a man, a very prominent man.
And wouldn't you know it, that man had a temper
and he could be physically and sexually aggressive.
- And violent, yeah.
- And violent, right?
And she had people say to her, well, it's your fault
because you're sleeping with him and you're not married.
She was like the amount of shaming
and victim blaming that happened.
And she said that she lost friends about, you know
being vocal about the abuse that she was experiencing.
And she is a very measured person, right?
- Yeah.
- And so it wasn't a mud slinging,
it wasn't anything like that.
She left the relationship
and she drew very clear boundaries.
There was stalking issues
there was a lot of problems, right?
- Yeah.
- And because she was a single mother
and he was a predominant businessman
there was a power differentiation
and there it took years and some people came back
and apologized and told her they were sorry, right,
but she said she went through so much alone
and she lost so many friends
and it takes so many forms that's not just this.
- Well, and he presented, this man presented as
like you were saying, a very good person
and a very upstanding person
and so people didn't want to believe it, right?
- Right.
- And so we, we fall into this dichotomy.
It's a false dichotomy of we either believe the person who
is making the allegations or we stand up for the accused
and we, we feel like we have to pick one or the other.
- It's an either or.
- And it's not because the fact is there are many
many times that a person is assaulted
by someone who acts differently
in public than they are in private.
- Right, absolutely.
- There are also times for different motives
that people make false accusations
and completely destroy the reputation
of a person who did nothing.
And I'm gonna be candid here, like the scariest day
of my life was in college.
I've worked at a group home for at-risk teenage girls
and I showed up to work and I loved my job.
I loved because a lot of these girls had come from
from homes of sexual assault,
they'd come from abusive backgrounds.
To have a male in their life who just cared about them.
And who didn't want anything salacious from them.
- A lot of unhealthy dynamics
- Yes.
- Between male and female
and you could be, you could be a healthy
- Yeah, it's something that they'd never had before.
And it was very healing for them
and I loved the work and I showed up to work one day
and was told that I was being accused
by one of the girls of coming onto her.
And I was floored.
- And you were in school to be a therapist
- And I was a school to be a therapist
and I hadn't done anything
and it was cleared up that afternoon.
- Right.
- I mean, 'cause because what had happened is
this was a new girl in the home.
- Yeah.
- And she had said to the other girls
Jono is so hot, I'm gonna sleep with him.
And the other girls laughed
because they said Jono, he's like our brother.
But that's the thing like so many of them
because they came from sexual trauma backgrounds
like sexualized me just because I was male.
And within a couple of weeks they
within a couple weeks or a couple days
they'd see like just a healthy caring presence.
- Right.
- With strong boundaries.
And it would, that, that sexualization would switch off
and they were like, this is safe and this is good right?
- Right.
So I'm, I was terrified and it was cleared up
up that afternoon when she said, yeah
I made the whole thing up.
Like, but that was the scariest day of my life.
And I have sympathy for the fact that there are
false accusations, but the point that I'm trying
to make is we can make room.
for if someone says I was sexually assaulted
like we don't have to take the accused and brand them
as guilty and say that it's that.
Like, let the evidence come to light
but we can still protect this person.
It's just like if someone in therapy says,
I'm going to take my own life.
A lot of times they're not,
a lot of times they don't mean it.
It's a cry for help.
You still treat it seriously, right.
And you need, and we need to do that in this case as well.
But you can make room for okay,
and my and my employer did a really good job about it.
They didn't just automatically say, you did this,
we're having you arrested.
They're like, you're on suspension
until we figure out what's going on
- Because we have to, to protect you, to protect her.
This is how we protect everybody involved.
- Yes and you know, and like the whole
and there was gonna be an investigation.
Fortunately there wasn't because
literally all the girls said to her
if this actually happened, then stick with your story
but if it didn't, please don't do this
because Jono is a good guy and she dropped it.
And it was, and I was like, oh
- Well, and in that situation, like it's like it's not okay
like her behavior wasn't okay.
But it was also coming from a place of trauma.
Which is not to justify the behavior
but it's to understand it.
And how do we support those people involved
that are acting from a place of trauma?
- I know there's a tendency when someone says
I was assaulted to respond well they're crying wolf
and to protect the person who is accused.
And we see that all throughout promising young woman right?
- Right.
- Okay, I mean it's every guy's
worst nightmare getting accused like that.
- Can you guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?
- I was falsely accused and I still feel
like the most important thing to do is
to believe the person when they say I was assaulted.
By all means innocent until proven guilty.
We can make space for that
while still protecting those who come forward.
'cause you, you were saying
it's a cry for help no matter what.
- Right.
- And so we need to make space
for both of those things, but always
always believe someone when they say this happened to me.
Because in the very small minority where that's not
what happened, it's still some other cry for help.
And far more often than not
it actually is what they said it is.
- Statistically the majority
of what's reported is not crying wolf,
and statistically only about 10 to 15%
of the assaults that actually happen are reported.
- Yeah.
If you enjoyed this video, we invite you to check
out how to overcome trauma from emotional abuse
which is the video that's gonna pop up here at the end.
And if you've been
through actual trauma and through actual assault
that's the purpose of what we do here.
- Yes, we have a incredibly supportive healing
program called Innate Healing.
You can go to mendedlight.com, you can check it out
and you can schedule an appointment to talk
to one of our therapists to see
if that program could be a good fit for you.
Now I know this is such a hard subject to talk about
and there's so many wounds wrapped up in this topic,
so be kind to one another in the comments.
So what support can you give
to someone who has experienced this in their life?
And what advice can you give to friends
and loved ones so they can know better how to support?
- And if you've been through this horrific ordeal
please get help, please get support.
And obviously the comments are not
an appropriate place to share specific details
but you can talk about what was helpful
for you in your healing journey to share
with the rest of our community.
Until next time, folks
keep shining because we need your light.
(soft music)