In a world where rape and domestic violence happened so often that it’s easier to believe it did happen than to believe it did not, I am curious as to why so many are focused on defending alleged abusers.

So Nick Carter’s name is trending, I check the hashtag and I am sick to my stomach. It’s not just fans defending this man I grew up adoring as a teenager, it’s all women. Literally women. White women in particular.

They don’t know this man.

They’ve never met this man.

They have no reason to believe him other than the fact that he said he didn’t do it, and he’s indicative of a much larger problem.

It’s not that men don’t rape and abuse. That’s not the fucking problem.

The problem is men rape and abuse, and too often women are vilified for coming forward.

No matter your economic status, your race, creed, color, nationality, size, or orientation, if you are a human on this earth, you have the privilege of being in a long line of people who never thought it would happen to them.

No one wants to believe that our celebrities – the people we lift up, cherish, respect, and support with our love, our hearts, and our dollars, are also someone who can be abusive, I understand that. No one WANTS to believe this is true or possible about someone they think matters, but the fact of the matter is that most women don’t make up lies about abuse.

We don’t have to.

Many of us have scars we hope the world will never see, but to prove our claims, the world demands that we rip open our hearts, minds, and souls, to prove that what we say is true, and even after we do, the same people claiming to be here to help, are often the ones doing the most harm.

From Cardi B, Kiki Palmer, and yes myself, we’ve heard all kinds of horrific stories of abuse and trauma and still the white female audience is so eager to suck the dicks of the ones we accuse, that they’re willing to throw us under the bus to do it.

The problem with these celebrity cases is that when you go online and defend these men before they’ve been proven innocent or guilty, you uplift rape culture.

“It’s okay I can do whatever I want because the fans will protect me,” is quickly becoming a toxic cycle in the #MeToo era and it’s very disturbing.

It’s heartbreaking to be focused on ending domestic violence, on talking about it as often as I do online and off, only to see that people – read white women – are more interested in protecting these alleged abusers, than they are the victims who have come forward.

Archives of Sexual Behavior (2016)Claire E. Ferguson and John M. Malouff conducted a meta-analysis of confirmed false rape reporting rates in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2016, and found the rate of false reports of sexual assault was 5.2%. – Wikipedia

5.2 percent.

That’s not very high, but it’s high enough that too many folks are too comfortable using that data to say that all women who come forward lie.

The problem with this theory is that we know it’s not true. When you take into consideration hospital visits, number of times women have reported to police, or number of times women have been reported as victims by police who used their disgression to help these women, the facts are there to say that women don’t lie enough for celebrity men to get as much protection as they do.

I don’t think folks understand how much joy women who have been abused get, when they are believed. It’s not the kind of joy we want, but it’s a kind that we need. It’s overwhelming when people finally believe you because it happens so rarely, especially in circles where money and power are equally flowing.

Women who live below the poverty line are the least likely to get justice, becaus the system is overwhelmed and because the system isn’t designed to protect us.

I remember once an ex boyfriend sexually assaulted me, so my mom called the police partially because she hated him and partially because she was tired of him leaving bruises on my body.

The cop told me if I went near him again I’d be arrested.

Even after they saw the bruises on my breasts and took photographs.

I had bruises in places I wouldn’t have had, if he hadn’t decided that my body wasn’t mine. Too many men and boys in my life promised me bruises and worse if I didn’t give in to their depraved demands, and so I did.

And when I came forward literally no one who had the power to make it stop believed me. I was stalked, harassed, and further abused, and still no one believed me.

I was and continue to be, largely alone, with the exceptin of a few close friends who have heard my stories and have decided to believe me.

I represent one tenth of the women who get abused every single day. As I write this, somewhere in the world, a woman is being raped, beaten, and murdered. As you read this, a child is being beaten, raped and murdered.

As this essay exists, women and children will continue to be raped, beaten and destroyed, by men, who swear our bodies, are their punching bags.

You have the power to make a difference in the life of a woman or child who is being abused, all you have to do, is believe them.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl

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