Who Deserves Shame?

I listen to people counsel victims of rape. And the one thing the counselors want to make clear above all else is that the victims have no reason to be ashamed. They have no reason to be ashamed because it was not their fault; they did not do anything to bring that tragedy upon themselves and therefore the shame is not upon them but upon the victimizer.

    As a child I followed current events, being the lifelong nerd that I am, and I remember the ideological campaign to take the phrase “she asked for it,” out of the minds and mouths of people when thinking or speaking of rape. I remember change in courts of law after judges stopped allowing defense attorneys to enter into evidence the rape victim’s sexual history or manner of dress to prove she “only got what she deserved,”  and thus she was not…