Tito Sotto, no one’s asking for it
By insisting that she had it coming, you’re saying that if you have a penis and a woman in your periphery is drunk, it’s fair game as long as you can hold her down. You are saying that men are all impulse and no reason.
D ear Ti t o Sotto, Myname is Gabbie, I’m 30 years old, and I have a huge problem with you.
Let’s start with the fact that for some reason, a huge chunk of the population trusts in your ability to legislate, apart from the fact that you split time between public service — a job that demands most of one’s time when elected — and being a television presenter. Now, on this show you seem unable to leave, a woman shared that she was taken advantage of by a man she knew, a man whom she was drinking with immediately before the incident occurred. And of all the things you could have said to this woman, you chose this: “Kasalanan ng lahat ng ‘yan ang pag-inom... Kababae mong tao pa- shot-shot ka.” Your colleague Jose Manalo was quick to add on, “Anong suot mo? Naka- shorts ka, ‘ no?” The aftermath was ugly, and people threw all the proper terminology your way, describing exactly who you are and what you represent: a pig, a misogynist, a propagator of rape culture. And yet, you were indignant and surprised. You responded to the backlash in a local news outlet, saying, “It was a simple reaction saying that a married lady should not be out at night having shots (or drinking) with men other than her husband. Talagang mapapagbintangan ka. That’s [the] context. What’s wrong with that?”
Oh, honey. While you must be entirely daft for even asking, I’m so glad you did.
Rape Culture
First of all, rape is rape is rape is rape. Molestation and any other acts of lasciviousness are similarly so — there is no justifying, there is no blaming anyone other than he or she who committed the crime. Amy Zeiring, producer of the campus rape documentary The Hunting Ground, in a panel with the New York Times, says it best: “I want this to be thought of as a crime like any other, because statistically, it acts exactly, it reads indentically as any other crime. But it’s the only crime where, when it happens to you, people say, ‘Are you sure you didn’t mean to give him the television set?’ ‘What were you wearing when you said he took the TV?’”
Let’s be honest. When you say things like what you said to that poor woman, you aren’t protecting the sanctity of mar- riage and you know it. What you are telling this woman is that she has her place society and that she shouldn’t step out of line. That once she is married, she is the property of one man, and she is no longer allowed to socialize with members of the opposite sex that she trusts, if it’s after dark and her husband isn’t present. So you are telling her, rather explicitly, that having a couple of shots with friends is an invitation for any and all men to reach into her shorts and take what she hasn’t given.
But what you are also doing is telling men that they are equally allowed to take advantage. Because by insisting that it’s her fault and that she had it coming for defying some archaic convention, you’re saying that if you have a penis and a woman in your periphery is drunk, it’s fair game as long as you can hold her down. You are basically saying that men are all impulse and no reason, that they possibly can’t be held accountable for anything once their penises lead the way. You’re insisting that because this is the case, the simple equation of liquor and male friends (an equation so many of us find ourselves handling on the weekends, married or otherwise) means she was asking for it. Newsflash, Senator Sotto: She wasn’t. And I can sure as hell tell you, that of the millions of people who’ve ever been assaulted sexually, no one ever ever ever does.
Personally, I love whiskey, and I have no intention of apologizing for it. I wear shorts all the time, because guess what, we live in a tropical climate. And yet the way I’ve had to deal with sexual assault my entire life has had to do with neither. A boy I went to school with tried to rape me while I was completely sober and covered neck to ankle. I’ve had men grope my butt on the MRT and pretend it was accidental. I’ve walked down the street only to get comments from men who say they’d like to do things to me. But this is what it means to live in a place that so casually promotes rape culture and victim blaming, that you accept that certain things happen as soon as you step outside, and it’s time that stopped.
It’s Never Okay
The one thing you, Tito Sotto, need to understand when it comes to the nature of assault is this: A rapist or a molester doesn’t do it because women are scantily clad or because women drink with other men apart from their husbands. They do it because they’re sick, because they think they can, because their actions are consistently pre-rationalized by men like you: men who persist that there are circumstances in which it’s understandable that unwelcome advances should occur. There are never any.
Even if I, or any woman for that matter, walk down the street completely naked, drunk as all hell, and holding a bunch of sex toys, a man taking what I do not choose to give still cannot be justified. Women will wear what they want, people will drink together, and life will go on as it does, but under any circumstances, there is no excuse for a man or a woman to force themselves on someone who clearly doesn’t want it. Where there is no consent, there is a crime, plain and friggin’ simple. It is wrong, it should be criminally prosecuted, and that I even have to explain this to an elected legislator makes it all the more depressing.
It’s because of you, and people like you, that just being female comes with so much fear. Being born female already constitutes some sort of crime, because we are raised to keep our knees shut, our skirts long, and our mannerisms in check. We are raised to apologize for our bodies. We are made to apologize for carrying such a temptation for men, to keep the sexuality of our nature hidden so as not to tempt what we cannot fend off.
But whose fault is it that men have been enabled to look at us, no matter how young or old we may be, as something they can own and take? Why are we meant to make that adjustment, when our sexual parts — our breasts and vaginas — aren’t intended simply for man’s pleasure? They’re designed to give and sustain life, and so demand infinitely more respect than you and the idiots you surround yourself with are willing to give. We’re openly taught how to “avoid” getting raped, but the easiest way to do so is to actually tell people, “Hey, that’s considered rape and assault. How about you don’t do that ever?”
It’s easy to make judgments when you weren’t there, and when you’re not the one who has to live with the aftermath. But here’s an idea: take a look at all the women in your life, the ones you treasure, the ones who are still young and the ones who have grown in wisdom. Tell me what they’re worth, and tell me if there’s any circumstance where you would stand for someone putting his hands on any of them and violating them from the inside out. Tell me if that’s what it means when daughters wear shorts or bikinis, or when wives pour a glass of something strong, that a man can do whatever he wants with them. Yeah, I didn’t think so. But that is exactly what you’re condoning, and that, my dear, is exactly “what’s wrong with that.”