This was originally published on Medium by Miss Wura Abulatan. We think the message she conveys here is important in light of recent events and sought her permission to republish on the Sexuality Blog. We hope it will be as enlightening for you as it was for us. 

---

If we don’t start telling/teaching people to not rape, they will always find a way to keep beating whatever protection we set up for ourselves.

• “don’t go and visit a guy in his house”

When I was 16 and taking JAMB lessons, my elder brother’s friend (who had never been untoward towards me and we’ve never had any reason to suspect of anything) told me to come pick up a purple bag to use instead of the small sling one that couldn’t take all my books. I was ecstatic, this bag was so fine and I was going to be a cool girl at the lesson center.

I got to the house and he went inside to ‘bring the bag’, let’s just say, he has a screwdriver scar he’ll never forget and like 2 hours later (which felt like eternity), I was running back to my house with my body intact, one leg of my slippers, but my life never the same. It was months later that I would tell about the experience and learn that he had been successful in raping my neighbor who he told to come ‘pick up some textbooks’ (she was writing her secondary school leaving certificate exams then).

Tobi Medal, a student of Federal University of Technology, Akure, shared his “game getting cheat” on a Facebook group with thousands of members. We don’t know how many girls he has raped using this ‘technique’ and I bet you they never thought going to borrow a match or accepting to help Tobi with something would lead to them getting raped.

• “meet in public for the first time”

My friend had been texting with this guy she met on the ATM queue and things were going well. On their first date, we girls chimed the ‘meet in public for the first time” mantra like a group of cuckoo birds and she came back with tales of how he was the perfect gentleman, we oohed, aaahed and teased her about being ‘Mrs his surname’ for days.

They would go on several romantic dates ‘outside’, if he suggested she come to his place, I can’t remember but he seemed content for them to hang outside and get to know each other properly. One their last date, he came to pick her from the hostel and on their way to the hangout spot, suddenly remembered that he left his wallet at home and would like to pick it up, she agreed without even thinking about it (I wouldn’t have too). When he got to his place, he called her to come chill inside while he searched for the wallet (he thought the car would be too hot for her). When my friend got in, this guy was holding a knife with a dangerous glint in his eyes and he told her to calmly undress and not make a sound else that’ll be the last thing she ever says in her life. (she told me it was like he was a completely different person).

When he was done, he apologized and dropped her at the nearest bus stop.

• “don’t go and visit a guy you don’t trust”

lmao, don’t even get me started on the number of trusted people who have raped their partners, spouse, friends, classmates, co-workers, younger ones, cousins, church members. etc. I have struggled with too many ‘friends’ over my body.

The only rape prevention that ever works is “don’t rape”

When you tout these excuses as ‘rape prevention techniques’, you forget the whole ass 50 or more percentage of people that weren’t raped or assaulted in these circumstances and provide loopholes that rapists can escape through. You also foster a breeding ground for victim blaming and shaming, that’s when people will say “shey be we told her not to visit the guy? what was she doing there?”, they will totally ignore the crime that has been committed and the person that committed the crime.

When we speak up about rape and sexual assault experiences, we’re doing it in hopes that other people don’t go through what we have gone through.

1 assaulter/rapist can destroy over 200 lives; Larry Nassar, the ex-USA gymnastics doctor assaulted 140 (the ones that have come out so far) women, most of them were minors. A couple of them had reported it to the board before but it was ignored, imagine if they had acted up on the first report and gotten this man jailed or at least fired, a large number of those girls might have escaped assault from him. This goes to show how normalized rape culture is everywhere.

Let’s say more of ‘DON’T RAPE’, ‘RAPE IS A CRIME’,

Let’s focus on the perpetrators, they should be the ones being stigmatized and shunned from society, they should carry on the blame on their heads.

Because not everyone can protect themselves, if we as adults can maybe fight, arm ourselves, avoid going to people’s houses etc. These rapists will turn to people who can’t. Statistics on child/minors and disabled people’s rape and assault is astounding BTW.

We have failed as a society if we can’t protect our most vulnerable.

Until all our messages say, don’t rape! Rapists will always find a way to beat or shimmy through whatever ‘rape prevention’ technique(s)we set up. When you teach a person to not rape, you’re saving a whole lot of people but when you teach 10 people these ‘prevention techniques’, you might be saving just one or 2 and exposing a whole lot of people to rape, sexual assault and even death.