By Susan Esther Barnes

According to CNN,Vanity Fair recently interviewed Johnny Depp, who compared having his picture taken to being raped. Below is the quote:

“It is obvious that being photographed all the time hasn't gotten any easier for the actor. ‘You just feel like you’re being raped somehow. Raped. The whole thing. It feels like a kind of weird—just weird, man,’ Depp says of getting his photo snapped. 'Whenever you have a photo shoot or something like that, it’s like —- you just feel dumb. It’s just so stupid.'"

Let me clear this up for you, Johnny, since you’re so gravely misinformed.

Being raped isn’t like standing around in a nice warm room with makeup artists and hairstylists helping you look good while a photographer snaps your picture and tells you how talented you are. It isn’t like being in a place where you can reach for a bottle of water or your cell phone on a whim. When you’re being raped, nobody listens to you when you say, “No, stop, I don’t want to do this.”

It isn’t just weird. It doesn’t just feel dumb or stupid.

Being raped is more like thinking your life if going along like normal, and then suddenly, and without warning, knowing your life is about to be irrevocably changed for the worse. It’s about being thrown onto the cold, unforgiving ground by someone bigger and stronger than you. It’s about there being nobody, nobody at all, who can possibly help you.

Being raped is realizing, for the first time in your life, that you have absolutely no control whatsoever over what is happening to you and your body. It is knowing that no matter what you say or do, you cannot stop what is happening to you. It is about having your clothing and your dignity literally, and I do mean literally, stripped away from you by a complete and utter stranger.

Being raped is painful, mentally and physically. It is, above all else, a brutal act of violence. Being raped is not knowing whether you will live through the next hour. It is not knowing whether you will ever see your family and friends again. It is not knowing whether your dead body might be dumped someplace where nobody will ever find it.

Being raped is knowing, even if you survive, that you may never get over it. It is fearing you may have contracted a deadly disease. It is being scared that you may become pregnant from the seed of this monster who has attacked you. It is suspecting you may never be able to have a normal relationship with a man ever again. It is the complete loss of your ability to ever walk down a street alone again without fear.

Being raped means sitting in a hospital room, feeling violated all over again, as you describe the incident to the doctors and the police. It is spreading your legs to yet another stranger so they can gather evidence from within your body.

It is the beginning of years of struggle, of trying to make sense of how such a thing could have happened to you, of blaming yourself for what was, without a doubt, not your fault. It is about looking into the eyes of others and seeing their pity. It may mean reliving the incident over and over again, for lawyers, and in front of the public for a judge and jury.

Being raped is the end of life as you knew it, and the beginning of a life you never asked for.

So no, Johnny, I’m sorry, being photographed is nothing like being raped. Get over it.