I Think A Lot Of The Conversations (in Fandom, Or Otherwise) On Who Gets To Be A Good Victim As Opposed

i think a lot of the conversations (in fandom, or otherwise) on who gets to be a ‘good’ victim as opposed to a ‘bad’ victim fail at one point: the assumption that there is a way to be a ‘good victim’, when in truth, it’s a catch 22 situation, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

this is not about additional structural privileges or disadvantages that influence the experience and how people will react to you. if you are white, a lot more will be tolerated and kinder assumptions will be made. if you have money, this will guard and palliate a lot of the consequences. and so on. there are also certain consequences like psychosis or drug abuse that will get you discriminated against specifically, for that. all of that is real.

but for instance fighting back vs. passive submission, anger vs. obedience to the abusers or to their teachings, (re-)embracing of sexuality however messily vs. avoidance of sexuality/inabilty to be sexual, staying-with-the-abuser vs. messy-escape, going-on-with-life-quickly vs. being severely incapacitated, seeking professional help or not, (i could go on), for all of these i think it is very misguided to say that there is a way to “win” this game.

and yet it’s an argument i keep seeing made in both directions. “a is considered a good victim because they fight back and manage to rise above (how unfair)”, “b is considered a good victim because they don’t fight back and endure (how unfair)“. reconsider these! every reaction can and will be twisted to use against the victim.

there are here always three options: a) it wasn’t that bad b) your suffering is your fault c) this is unrealistic-i don’t believe it. usually, these same three logics will get applied to the same person, in a moving-the-goalpost kind of game. it is also usually the case that a person gets accused of “both”, so, of being too passive and too angry, of being too broken and too competent, and so on. in this way, there is in fact no such thing as a “good victim privilege” that is actually about how the victim reacted & acted (and not about other structural privileges, like whiteness or ability).