Imagine a world . . .

Imagine a world where rape is legal. Perhaps even a world where, for some, rape is a rite of passage amounting to proof a man can assert control over his own destiny. Some who have already completed that rite of passage may even encourage others to do so, both as a means to validate their own actions and to consolidate the practice.

Imagine the victim of that rape, knowing she has been violated, being bewildered, hurt to the core, and convinced by any reasonable moral standard that it was wrong, trying to find justice and appropriate consequences for the perpetrator. At first she is treated with bemusement that she should have such temerity. Then the excuses, the brush-offs begin "I'm sure he felt he was doing the right thing", "You must have done something to deserve it", "You shouldn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time", "I've heard that you're up for it pretty much whenever", "He says you were asking for it". If you're lucky, you get: "Most men aren't like that."

It would be no surprise that most of these apologists are men, most women simply turn their backs, but an astonishingly large fraction are happy to back up the men. It must be sickening.

If you persist, the accusations start: "Why do you have such a problem with men?", "There's obviously something wrong with you", "You have to face up to your own behavior, you can't hope to get better if you don't".

You know that to concede any of this will destroy you completely, both from within and by validating this twisted logic for others. So you keep going. Then they say you're obviously a danger to yourself and to others, and they're taking your children away to make sure you can't hurt them. They might even give the children to your rapist. Then, devastated and unable to function you get fired, then get into trouble because you can't pay the man who took your children. Because you were raped. Because he raped you. Suddenly, everything that matters is taken from you because of something that someone else did to you.

This is what it is like for men who are removed from their family home by false accusations of abuse, perhaps by a wife who has been abusive for years, but you took it because, well, you're not sure why anymore. It's a rite of passage now, for the self-assertive woman, to rid herself of a man she's decided is holding her back and her divorced friends will happily help her build a case, from raw cloth if necessary. Any regrets will just fuel the fire.

Don't tell me it's not like rape until you've lived through having your world turned upside down, your reputation questioned by anyone who feels like it, taken from and kept from everything you care about by the one person who was supposed to stand by you.

You know it is wrong, but no-one will listen. They apologize for the mother, excusing her actions by arguing that she must feel you are a threat, that you must have done something to deserve it, that it's your tough luck for marrying the wrong woman. It’s all your fault, after all. Idiotically, they ask: "Why would she lie?" But you know it's not true, it's patently ridiculous, isn't it? So you argue.

Most of the people with the power to help, but won't, will be women, but, confusingly, some of them will be men, although most men will just look at you strangely and change the subject when you ask them to try to see it your way, that you have to do something.

Keep going, and they'll judge you to have a problem with women. "Why are you such a misogynist?" they'll ask, "What’s wrong with you, that you can't admit to what you've done wrong". Try to cut a deal, try to bargain an admission of something you know you didn't do to get a little mercy, and all mercy will evaporate, you've just sacrificed yourself on the altar they constructed.

But it wouldn't matter anyway because it's a Catch-22. If you won't admit to the accusations then you're in denial and therefore a danger to your wife and kids.You have to be kept from them. Fighting that just proves their point (so does giving in). They're taking your children from you and giving them to the women who did this to you. Then they make you pay. And God help you if you break down and can't keep your job. Everything that matters is taken from you because of something that someone else did to you. That's what it's like, there's no need for imagination, it's out there, right here, right now. Rape is legal, if you're a man and divorce is the tool used to violate.

(This post was inspired by a comment on another blog which I've since lost, I think it was at Dr Helen's.)