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If “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” Then When is a Girl or Woman Grown Enough to Better Bear Male Rapists?
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Sisters: We were turned out to see this as “normal.” Rest in Peace, Aaliyah Dana Haughton.
This is for my sisters, of all ages, who have been victimized by men and boys’ anti-female violence. This is for my sisters, who not only have to endure the male predators’ violations, but also the denial, the dead-insideness, and the misplaced shock of the bystanders. No matter what age a girl or woman is, a raper’s violations are just as disturbing and affecting. Together, we can fight men’s thought-terminating hierarchies that are meant to tell us we don’t have a right to name, process, and live with what males have done to us.
Do you catch yourself playing his game of which rape victim has it worse?
Do you catch yourself playing his game of believing what happened to you, “doesn’t count” because “it wasn’t that bad?”
Male parasitism has corrupted our logic, sis. We have to shake off his myths.
His violations, his predation: it happened, and naming him and his actions matters.
One day we will kill all the rapers, and no longer be punished for being the truth tellers. Stop calling it violence when it’s self-defense. It’s time to bear arms, sisters. We are pacifists for female liberation from males’ violence.
If “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” Then When is a Girl or Woman Grown Enough to Better Bear Male Rapists?
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
The youngest of girls raped by men, by boys.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6,
Do the numbers sit better, when they’re further from her beginnings?
11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16 going on 17,
Countdowns to her 18th birthday.
Do the tween and teen girls hurt less in your head?
When she’s 20,
30,
40,
50,
60,
70,
80,
90,
do those numbers add up to lesser pain in your ledger?
Why don’t numbers seem to matter to me?
Men and boys raped me at 3,
at 15,
at 20…
Did that make you apathetic or uncomfortable?
Don’t worry, unlike him, I won’t keep going.
Don’t for a second think I’m special,
that I’m an anomaly.
That I had it better, worse, or some other hierarchy.
I know you’re wishing for his silver linings.
But I’m just a woman, once girl,
A target of males’ anti-female violence.
Tell me, do I now get to rest,
since I’ve crossed 40?
How much exactly should I be fearful or hurting?
Please, do teach me your male-raper-hierarchies.
Can you weigh my traumas on your manmade scale?
How many men and boys must violate women and girls,
before any of you admit that the male sex-class makes a choice?…
And that choice says he doesn’t fucking care.
I’ve been facing his truth since I was 3,
surely, you’re brave enough to join me?
Or will you leave me out on a limb?
Because now I’m too grown,
I should be over boys and men raping me.
I’m an old lady now, right?
Nevermind the choices he has made,
to violate me,
to violate my sisters.
I am the one who should be over it?
But when will you point and say,
HE: not some faceless system.
HE created this female-hating.
Or will you neutralize his sex,
his age,
his name…
just as he tries to do to me?
He neutralizes me just enough,
so that I’m not quite dead,
but I’m not quite living.
Just a lost woman-lost girl,
turned out, targeted…
in a world that protects the male rapers.
A world that sacrifices the girls and the women.
He spreads this story that “it’s all in my head.”
He spreads this story that I’m an “unreliable witness.”
Then along comes the crowd full of denial.
Like acid being poured on top of his raper-lies.
Excuse me Sir, Excuse me Ma’am,
can you teach me how to know the numbers,
and still be able to sleep at night?
Without needing a tranquilizer to quiet my head?
Or fearing I’ll put a bullet there instead?
Can you teach me how to trivialize that which has fractured my life?
Can you teach me how to pretend men and boys who rape,
are not the ones to name and blame?
Can you teach me how to go back to sleep, even while I’m awake?
Source: “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” by Aaliyah (Writer/Producer: Robert Sylvester Kelly aka. R. Kelly); an example of the sexualized adultification of girls and the intertwinement of the adultification of African American children. Aaliyah was a 15 year old girl when she made this song.
Did you know, that “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number” was produced by a man who grooms and rapes women and girls? Did you know how old Aaliyah Dana Haughton was when Robert Sylvester Kelly targeted her? Did you know how he openly flaunted his violations in public, on TV, in front of everybody?...just like is done by countless males who target girls and women. Did you contemplate the message me and all girls and women received, watching this unfold in males’ culture, in our lived realities? We saw even famous girls were raped by men, and no one seemed to be able to save them. We saw that there was no self-defense for a girl or woman, even if she stood under a spotlight. Then years later, we saw another girl, now woman, Reshona Landfair, be violated by this rapist and the documentation of his violence widely shared; as if a girl child’s filmed rape was just the male media’s punchline. #MalesSexualizeOurGirlhood…or should I say males rape our girlhood? I’m starting to wonder if “sexualize” is just another semantic coercion that he and his anti-female culture forced me to parrot.
The male raper is fully accepted by our manmade world. His actions are not natural or inevitable, yet men write libraries full of books spreading these lies. His actions are apologized away, celebrated, or denied. His actions receive no meaningful punishment. 90%+ of the men and boys who rape women and girls never face any punishment. Worldwide. Everywhere. There is no sovereign land for girls or women anywhere.
It is men and boys–their choices, actions, behaviors–that women and girls suffocate under. Not some other thing, not some other name. Just men and boys who target and violate women and girls. Why can’t men and women say that? Why is it always left to a handful of female victims-survivors to face the disturbing facts alone? Start asking, why are you holding up mens’ myths and blaming yourself and your sisters? Why does everyone and everything get named, blamed, and shamed, except the males who violate through the violence of rape?
📚 Resources to Explore:
Who’s Watching Shorty? Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse by Reshona Landfair
Reshona Landfair interview: ‘Jane Doe’ in R. Kelly
videofilmed rape (image-based violence) tells her storyThis interview by a victim-survivor of a violent man, hits the heart. It also brings about rage, that yet another woman will share her story, and the male rapers will continue to get away with their crimes. This particular line from the interview stuck with me:
Tia Ewing of Fox 32 Chicago: “Why are you getting emotional? What are you feeling? (as she takes Reshona’s hand in hers)
Reshona Landfair: “So many people still blame me for what took place. If you look at my 14 year old picture, think about your daughter, your friend, your goddaughter, your niece, and put yourself in that person’s shoes and understand that that’s a lot of weight to carry at such a young age. But I’m here today. I’m alive and present.”
I found numerous interviews of Aaliyah that had disturbing and insightful information. I went with this video because it did the best job of encapsulating most of the story in a short video, while also showing several examples of how males’ culture is one of apologizing away, celebrating, or denying men’s violence against women and girls. You can hear the exasperated frustration of the woman interviewer before she ends the clip, fully tying together the layers of rape culture connected to Aaliyah’s musical career. She was the only adult who I could find, who said the word “rape” even if she was forced to preface it with the word, “statutory.” After her segment, the male hosts of “The Word” make rape “jokes” (threats) that the audience is meant to laugh along with. The video is a reminder of what it means for women and girls to be within males’ rape culture. It pushes us to face the difficult reality that you can’t save a girl or woman from male predators, if men’s entire lives are built on Males’ Violence Against Women and Girls. We can call it males’ rape culture, males’ culture, or male parasitism (or for the deeper in denial “male supremacy” or “the patriarchy”), but the most direct truth is that males inflict violence on women and girls, and there’s no where to run to, to hide, no safe place away from males, and that’s why no one saves the girls or women. Where is it that even the mother who cares can go, so she and her daughters are safe from males’ violence? The predator is him, and he is the civilization, the government, the culture. We all know this truth, yet it is the only one we deny fervently. And when radical feminists try to discuss female separatism, we are named as “unrealistic” and “extreme.” I have a draft of an article on Aaliyah’s story. But to write it means I have to go deeper into 1994, when I was an eleven year old girl getting turned out since three, watching a fifteen year old girl get turned out on national TV. I’m trying to write, but I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to travel that path to the past. And they wonder why it takes so many years for a woman to share her stories of males’ anti-female violence.
I have been following this group’s organizing efforts for years. They have consistently worked to uplift the voices of the women and girls victimized by Robert S. Kelly. They’re a great example of the power of online organizing via information dissemination.
✍️ Journal Reflection Prompts:
Note: The questions below are best discussed with a trained professional, who can support you through any difficult emotions (trauma responses) that arise.
Imagine this Scenario: A woman discloses that she was raped many years ago, that she doesn’t remember the event because she was drugged by the man, but she now lives with many outcomes of rape trauma syndrome.
Would you tell this woman that there are other women who went through worse?
Would you tell this woman that her rape wasn’t as bad since she can’t remember the specifics?
Would you tell this woman that her rape doesn’t count compared to other disclosures you’ve heard?
If you found these questions to be insulting and ridiculous, then that’s a good sign that you’re still able to access empathy for victims-survivors of rape.
Now I want you to reflect on if you have ever had such thoughts towards yourself or other victims-survivors in your past?
Try your best to not self-flagellate and gently question why you have had these thoughts toward yourself or others.
Do you struggle to blame the perpetrator? If so, why do you think that is?
What does it mean to you, if you name and blame the perpetrator(s) of anti-female violence?
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