For Black Nerd Survivors: When Self Care is a Trigger

Trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault. Trauma has a funny way of bringing out our individual personalities when it comes to self care. Maybe you temporarily suppress the event and keep it moving. Maybe you transform it into something creative like art or a joke. For me, I’ve often found it most helpful to give my emotions a break and just escape for a while. When it comes to being a survivor of rape or sexual assault, though, the nerd world’s oasis of fiction can often become a war zone fraught with triggers. Recently, for instance, I decided to finally sit down and marathon through the dated but still popular shoujo anime Ouran High School Host Club because it seemed like a simple, safe, and humorous respite from real-life stress. Those who’ve watched or read the series will be familiar with the infamous spoiler I’m about discuss, but after 8 episodes of school life hilarity and reverse-harem flirting, our main character Haruhi suddenly finds herself under threat of rape by the vice-president of the Host Club, Kyoya. The moment comes out of nowhere as a clumsy and misogynistic way for the creator to victim-blame Haruhi for attempting to defend herself against some drunk men when she was alone earlier in the episode (you can find a more in-depth analysis of this scene here in this analysis of rape culture in the episode and here in an ongoing series about Asian womanhood in pop culture). Perhaps if Kyoya had been made to apologize for this wildly violent behavior it would…