"You Asked For It": Why Victim Blaming Keeps Survivors Silent

Content note: this post discusses sexual assault and victim-blaming. Please read when you feel ready, and take care of yourself.

I have been following the Cornell case. A young woman came forward about being assaulted by seven fellow students at a fraternity house in October 2024. I believe her. I won't go into the details of the case. What I'd like to do here is honour her, Jane Doe. And along with her, all the other women who have experienced sexual violence.

From my own experience, I notice something most men seem to miss: the conversation is all about what she drank or took. What she agreed to earlier that night. And somehow, that places the guilt and shame on her. Some people call her a slut. Her character is on trial. Those boys? Their character barely comes up.

Consent? No woman consents to being raped. By anyone. Let alone seven.

I feel her. I also feel the need to speak up for Jane Doe, and all of the other women who had the enormous courage to do the same. And for all of you who could not.

I'm going to share some of my own story here. Not because this is about me. It isn't. I share it because so many survivors carry a version of the same story, and because I know from the inside what this kind of judgment does to a person.

"You're asking for it"

It was Sunday. Piano Bar night. I looked forward to those hours all week long. I took my seat at one of the bar stools around the piano. Frank Affolter played. He sang. I felt safe. And that particular night, I felt emboldened.

So when a man came over and struck up a conversation, I didn't shut him down. He was tall, handsome, and sexy. We talked and laughed. We had a great night. And by the time the bar closed, I heard myself inviting him over to my apartment.

Yes. I invited him in. I want to be honest about that, because this is exactly what people are now using against Jane Doe. She agreed to something earlier that night, so whatever happened after must be her fault. But saying yes to one thing is not saying yes to everything that follows.

The man followed me home in his car. We rode the elevator up to my apartment and I let him in.

And that's when his demeanour changed.

He overpowered me. He raped me. Over and over. And I did nothing. Just froze. Couldn't say anything. Not even "no".

This time, unlike when I was raped at age twelve, there was no confusion. I knew exactly what had happened.

By the time the sky turned pink, I found myself alone. So he must have left at some point. I taught my usual Monday morning aerobics classes in Leiden and got in my car after my last class. I drove straight to my parents' home.

I rang the doorbell and fell into Mom's arms. The inner strength I'd used to get through the morning as if nothing happened, disappeared. My body went limp now that I could finally give in. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to think. I just needed to be held. I needed to feel safe and protected. To hear someone say it would all be okay. More than anything, I needed my Mom and Dad.

Instead, Mom froze. And I was met with an accusation from Dad.

"If you go out alone on a Sunday night, you're asking for it."

I collapsed. My spirit broke. I cried from a place within me I didn't know existed. Harder and deeper than I'd ever cried in my life.

But my spirit didn't break from the assault.

It broke when my father looked at me — almost with disgust — and said, "It's your own fault."

What victim blaming does

Notice what my father's sentence did. The man who raped me disappeared. My father never asked who he was or what he did. Neither did my mother. The only question left was what I did wrong.

That is what I see happening to Jane Doe now.

When you are blamed for your own assault, it confirms what you already fear. What you were probably already telling yourself, long before anyone else said it. That it was you all along. That something's wrong with you.

So you stop telling. You carry a shame that was never yours to carry.

It would take me decades to understand how abuse distorts your sense of self-worth—how it hard-wires you to judge and punish yourself.

Raped at twelve, I was confused and did not tell anyone. I blamed myself. In my twenties, I was certain, and did tell. Then my father did the blaming for me. So why bother telling anyone? Why risk being victimized a second time?

What gets left out

In the Cornell case, the police summary sent to the district attorney reportedly left out parts of her account: her state of mind, her history as a survivor, how she came to understand what happened. Those are not side details. They are the essentials. Leave them out, and almost any woman can be made to look like "she asked for it".

I recently saw a meme on Instagram. It said, more or less: if a drunk, incapacitated man were surrounded by seven women, he'd be in the safest place he could imagine. We laugh because it's true. Then it stops being funny.

Who gets protected?

This week I heard it again on the news. The university keeps citing the privacy of the men involved. Meanwhile, people online are working to expose who she is. And hardly anyone asks what all of this is doing to her.

Apparently, we are not even supposed to call her a survivor, because that word implies she was raped, and that those seven frat boys are perpetrators. Without a conviction, she doesn't get the word.

What is wrong with this picture?

Everyone deserves a fair trial. Innocent until proven guilty matters. But somehow that protection only seems to go one way.

They get the benefit of the doubt.

She gets the doubt.

Her trauma doesn't wait for a verdict. Her body doesn't need a court ruling to know what happened. Every headline, every comment, every debate about what she drank or what she agreed to can pull her right back into that night.

The freezing.

The shame.

The questioning of her own memory.

In my work with survivors, I see it again and again: what happens after is often what breaks a person.

So I will call her what she is. She is surviving this: the headlines, the comments, the threats, the doubt. That makes her a survivor.

Speaking up takes a special kind of courage

When a woman tells you she was raped, she risks not being believed. She risks having her whole life picked apart. Every choice she ever made. She speaks up anyway. That deserves the utmost respect, not just an investigation.

If someone ever trusts you with their story, you can be the person I needed that morning. The person they need. They come to you because they trust you. So start here:

• I believe you.

• It wasn't your fault.

• What do you need right now?

  
  

To the young woman at the centre of this case, Jane Doe: we see you. And to every woman who was ever told she was asking for it: you weren't. You never were. It was not your fault.

If you need support

If this post brought something up for you, you are not alone. It is never too late to reach out, no matter when it happened. You can contact me, or find a dedicated resource in your country.

If you are in crisis, please use one of the lines below first:

• Canada: find a sexual assault centre or crisis line in your province through the Ending Sexual Violence Association of Canada. In Alberta: One Line for Sexual Violence, 1-866-403-8000 (call, text, or chat; daily, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mountain Time).

• United States: RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline, 800-656-HOPE (4673), 24/7. You can also chat at rainn.org or text HOPE to 64673.

• Netherlands: Centrum Seksueel Geweld, 0800-0188, free and 24/7. Without a Dutch phone provider, use their online chat.

• England & Wales: Rape Crisis 24/7 Support Line, 0808 500 2222, for anyone 16 and older.

• Australia: 1800RESPECT, 1800 737 732, 24/7.

If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.