“Have you heard? Shia LaBeouf is claiming he was raped.”

“What??”

“Yeah, he was doing some art show or something and he says some chick raped him.”

“That’s absurd.”

“I know, right? He could of just stood up. Such bullshit.”

I remained seated at the table for a few more minutes, telling myself to breath. I didn’t want to run out of the room. I wanted it to look like I was going to the bathroom, or to go get a book. I didn’t want to cause a scene because the only thing I could imagine being more uncomfortable than sitting there silently, was the idea of them trying to comfort me by saying “We didn’t mean that about you.”

When I got to my room I laid down on my bed, trying to slow down my racing heart rate. Next, I messaged my friend who was still upstairs.

“That just made me really uncomfortable. Taking a moment.”

“What did?”

“Ragging on Shia Whatever for claiming he was raped”

“Well first off I’m sorry. That was insensitive. But all I meant was, he consciously let it happen for an art project?”

“Don’t really feel like debating it on here. I just need a moment and was letting you know.”

“I’m sorry”

About 30 minutes later, after making a significant dent in a chick-flick on Netflix, I returned to the room, sat back down at the table, and forced a smile.

The thing about being a survivor of sexual assault is that, no matter how much you’re “over” it, there are still things that strike a nerve. Listening to a group of people whom I respect as friends and professionals say things that are so profoundly clueless smacked the air out of me. Mostly, I think, because I didn’t expect it from them. I expected more.

The awarding of the label “victim” is complex, especially in a society that has trouble seeing women as powerful and men as anything but. My status as a victim was never questioned. I didn’t have to argue with my family or friends about whether or not I was sexually assaulted. I was saved that fight and the additional layer of bruising that comes with not being believed.

While I was embraced, men like Shia LaBeouf, are forced to prove their pain. Their status as a victim is contingent on meeting a set of standards for what a victim should look and behave like.

As Shia LaBeouf fights to be recognized as a victim of sexual assault, a young female student at UVA has had her title stripped away and replaced with “Liar.” In a deft move of “cover-our-ass-ery,” Rolling Stone has claimed that Jackie, a student at UVA, misled them and that they no longer trust her as a source. Along with scrutiny of her story has come a wave of public opinion about false rape accusations and manipulative women, mostly based on as little fact as Rolling Stones original article.

When, I asked myself after sitting back down at the table, did we decide that we have the final say in whether or not someone is worthy of victimhood? If someone, even a man who makes movies you cringe at, claims he was raped, why would you immediately think that he’s lying? If chinks were found in a woman’s story of assault, why would you suddenly assume that everything she has said must be a falsehood?

The courts of public opinion, it seems, have even more power in shaping pop culture than those that make legally relevant decisions. Those who seek help, or speak out after a traumatic incident, often become targets of this opinion. Sides are created, teams are formed, and cover stories are written. Even those who support the individual sometimes seem to be waiting for a crack to form so that they can say, “I always knew something was fishy,” and help with the hurling of stones.

It is entirely possible that the UVA student was never raped and that Shia LaBeouf is lying. Possible, yes, but is the mere existence of that possibility enough to condemn them as liars? I think not.

I know what it feels like to want to fudge the facts, because it’s easier to share a twisted truth than the real thing.

I know what it feels like to be frozen, wanting to scream for help, knowing that my friend one room over would hear me, but having the words get jammed in my throat with no way out.

I know what it feels like to be a victim, but I don’t know what it feels like to be doubted, questioned, and scrutinized. A process that seems almost as invasive as the original assault.

It is good to question what we are told by the media, and it is important to hold journalists and news outlets accountable for what they publish. However, there is a difference between questioning a story and undermining an individual. Policing rape victims doesn’t help anyone. While false reports do happen, they are a minuscule percentage of cases. More than anything, please remember that while you might not have trauma associated with a certain issue, others might.

Sexual assault is not a joke. Rape is not a joke. Violence in general is not a joke.

Let’s not make it one.