Rape FAQ
New submissions to this section are closed.
Alternative title: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rape But Knew You’d Be An Asshole If You’d Ask
This section will be dedicated to creating a collaborative novel that does what it says on the box. We live in a culture that eroticizes, excuses, encourages, and commits rape at an epidemic proportion. Despite the very best of intentions, intelligence, compassion, or personal experiences, every single person raised in this culture develops a laundry list of things they “know” about rape, even if they think these things might really be wrong.
Because our culture also silences the direct victims of sexual assault, those that may have the greatest insight and experience to share are unable to express themselves to those who would most want to learn. Compounding this, the language we use to discuss rape is a language of silence and shame. A well-intentioned person honestly seeking to educate themselves still runs the risk of causing unnecessary and insensitive pain to a victim by asking the questions they are trying to resolve. It’s a vicious form of cognitive dissonance — one believes what our culture tells us about rape as natural, appropriate, and correct, but at the same time must live with the knowledge that to voice these things out loud will hurt those we may love. Thus, chances to correct fucked-up beliefs about rape are missed. Your friend tells you she was raped, you want to ask her why she was drinking and if she believes that contributed to her attack, but you know that to do so would hurt her even more. So you continue to believe that drunk women cause rape, even when you know this is wrong, even when you know this is hurtful, because there is no place to address this belief without making yourself sound like the biggest asshole on the planet.
This isn’t an alien experience among rape victims. All the questions that run through everybody’s head — why was she drinking, why was she wearing that, why didn’t she have a gun, why didn’t she divorce him, why didn’t she call the police, why didn’t she cry more after — run through the heads of victims as well. To say these things aloud is heartbreaking — when was the last time you voiced aloud the greatest fears you have about yourself? To keep them inside allows them to fester. The third option — to critically examine these long-held beliefs and come to the conclusion that there was nothing you could have done to stop the rape — isn’t always available. A victim may be ready to address these beliefs, but if all her friends and family members are not ready to address them with her, she is the only one saying it is not her fault among a Greek chorus of “SHORTSKIRTDRUNKSLUT.”
The Rape FAQ will attempt to address these questions, beliefs, thoughts, and concepts. The purpose is to allow survivors and others to critically examine this intensely painful issue in a safe space, among those who have done the legwork. If you ever wanted to ask, “But why didn’t she scream?”, you can find the answer in this book. If you ever wanted to ask, “Can prostitutes be raped?”, it will be discussed here. If you ever wondered, “Why would it hurt boys to have sex with older women?”, we will address it.
I haven’t yet decided what the format of this book will be. Suggestions are welcome. I want to include as many voices as possible here. Rape has been supported by many walls, and I can only describe my little corner. I know what insensitive questions I have been asked, by others and by myself. I know what I have experienced and what I have feared, and how I have come to cope. But I need to know the experiences of others. I want this book to be accessible to as many people as possible, and the questions they may have.
To begin with, if you want to participate, you can help by leaving an FAQ in the comments. What are some common questions you have heard people ask about rape? Your rape, other rapes, rape in general? I will start with the one that ended my closest friendship, after my rape:
“If it was really rape, why didn’t you call the police?”
One of the questions asked to me, that I’m never sure how to answer: “Why don’t you just get over it?”
And another: “You know, it must be hard for him too. You’ve totally messed up his life. Why can’t you just drop it and let us all move on?” (with “him” referring to evil, creepy rapist type.)
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One I hear a lot, how can a man be raped by a woman?
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One I’ve heard: If you’ve been raped, why do you still wander around the city alone in the middle of the night all the time? Wouldn’t you want friends with you for safety? Wouldn’t you not want to go out?
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If you ever wondered, “Why would it hurt boys to have sex with older women?”, we will address it.
That’s one I’ve heard a lot. When a grown man seeks to sexually engage teen aged girls, he’s seen as a skeezy creep (except not really because responsibility will always be shifted to the girl. (Example: How Lolita is commonly perceived), but when a grown woman seeks to sexually engage teenaged boys, the boys should be totally stoked about it and unharmed by the whole thing. I have difficulty verbalizing an answer to that one actually.
Another one that won’t die is “what’s wrong with telling girls and women to take common sense precautions?”
I thought of an analogy for that one, but I’m not sure about it because comparing racial oppression to sexual oppression can be dodgy, but it goes like this:
Telling women and girls that they need to do X, Y, and Z to avoid getting raped is kind of like telling black and Hispanic men that they should be careful not to do anything suspicious in front of cops. Black and Hispanic men are already quite familiar with the threat of police brutality, TYVM. And no amount of being careful on their part is going to keep a racist cop from beating the piss out of them if that cop really has his heart set on doing so.
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This is a question that I can actually understand pretty well – I sometimes have to ask myself about stuff: “But if you were raped, don’t you feel uncomfortable [insert flirting, having sex, dressing with skin exposed, engaging in S&M, being alone with men...etc]”
And it’s a fair question. I even got it from one friend who had been raped herself – she couldn’t understand how I could have sex, because every time she tried, she would have flashbacks. It took her a few days to understand that it wasn’t because I was okay with the fact that I’d been raped.
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The ones that bothered me the most were “Why didn’t you just leave?” and “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I was assaulted while in a relationship by the guy I was involved with, so I guess that kind of overlaps into abuse narratives rather than rape narratives, but those were the questions that bothered me the most. I hope that doesn’t make it off-topic, but feel free to delete if it does.
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Abuse narratives rarely have the luxury of not becoming rape narratives as well. Victim-blaming has a wide umbrella, and the justifications for blaming abuse victims are either the same, very similar, or supported by the justifications for blaming rape victims. If it wasn’t somehow reasonable to ask an abuse victim, “Why didn’t you just leave?” it wouldn’t be reasonable to ask a rape victim, “Why didn’t you just say no?”
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Comment removed at user request, due to privacy concerns. It was a good comment, though!
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This is something that still isn’t easy to talk about gracefully or articulately, (as evinced by my tendency to repeat myself in that last comment), so I may wind up making a few little comments as I figure out how to word things, if that’s OK.
Something else which isn’t really a question, but has nevertheless been a problem coming from other people who had found about my history is the tendency to try to view me and my life entirely through that lens of “person who was sexually assaulted.” So in the few years following the abusive relationship, everything about me was somehow “explained” (for some ass hats) by what I’d gone through. Flirting with other girls? Clearly my experience had made me try to become a lesbian (never mind that I’d known I was bisexual since I was in high school). Rejected hugs from people who were “perfectly harmless”? Clearly I’d been broken forever – it’s not like any woman ever would reject having people she barely knows invading her personal space.
And now that most of the weird behaviors that did crop up as a direct result of the experience have died down (panicking when being touched/grabbed from behind, tendency to lash out or bolt across the room without time to think when surprised), if I get outed as someone who went through that, some people assume that I’m exaggerating, or lying, or oversensitive and it couldn’t have been that bad, because “everyone knows” that assault survivors are broken completely and forever.
I suppose the implicit question there would be “shouldn’t your rape be and stay the defining moment of your entire life?” Thankfully, no one has ever been thoughtless enough to say that to my face in so many words – but I’ve still felt it hovering there from time to time.
You are the best!
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Just wanted to comment that it’s interesting that some people tell people who have survived rape that they should get over it/stop complaining/stop making such a big deal about it. At the same time it seem that some people expect it to be, as Isabel put it, “the defining moment of your entire life,” and analyze everyone you do as something that has been shaped by rape.
Now that I think about it, I guess I’ve experienced both. When I’ve had my fifth flashback in a day, people ask me how long I think it’ll take before I get over this. I guess that they’re really asking is, “how long will I have to deal with you being like this.
At the same time, people don’t think that the reason I don’t let random people who I’ve just met get all touchy-feely-huggy with me is because I was raped when, in reality, lot of non-raped people don’t like that either. How can we know what is a product of rape, and what is just us being us? Is there a difference? Once you’ve been raped is it an intrinsic part of you which reaches into every aspect of your life?
It’s hard sometimes to see where the rape ends and the person begins.
You are the best!
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Here’s two I was asked, in rapid succession, by another survivor once. I was completely unprepared to tackle these.
“Why do we have internet rape support forums? The victims there should be talking with the people in their families who love them instead of random people on the internet. ”
“How does anyone know that they really have been raped and their not taking something that in their own mind is rape?”
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: Oof, those are some questions. Thanks for contributing.
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Something I get a LOT from people with happy, non-abusive families when my rape comes up:
“But he’s your family! Why can’t you just forgive him?”
And let him drag me back into that hell pit so they can abuse me some more? No, thank you.
“Why did you cut off contact with all your family members, instead of just him?”
Because they ask all the same questions as you, and most of them would give up my address, phone number, etc. in a heartbeat, no matter how many times I asked them not to.
You are the best!
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: High-five! We’re members of the “no, seriously, fuck off ENTIRE FAMILY” club! Not that it’s always the happiest club on earth to belong to, but goddamn it can come in all sorts of handy when you, you know, are looking to not be abused!
You are the best!
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-fives- My sister and I have cut off our entire family, and it constantly baffles me how many people simply cannot conceive of the reasons why we would do this! It is a known fact that familial abuse and rape happens; it is a known fact that this is generally considered Very Bad/Unforgiveable, especially when perpetrated by parents on children, as in our case; and yet somehow, the disconnect remains… xD
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I was raped (many times, not just once) by my boyfriend at the time, and thankfully, I have a dozen or so people I’ve told who all believe me. (Although it is kind of sad that I depend so much on their belief in me.) But the close mutual friend of my rapist and me didn’t react too well when I told her: “Didn’t anyone hear you screaming? Tell me exactly what happened and give me all the details!” I wouldn’t give her the details, so she refused to discuss the matter any further with me. Then she told him everything I had told her.
I really think her reaction was lack of education, not malice. I’m hoping sites like this one can help put up a block on the road to hell that is paved with good intentions.
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The two I hear most often are:
“If you were going to sleep with him eventually, how can you call it rape?”
(my answer – I was not ready to take that step with him, I was not comfortable with it, and he knew it.)
and
“Why did you not stop it?”
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A couple of my favorites:
Anything containing the phrases like “boys will be boys,” “why weren’t you more clear,” etc. Those should be referred here http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/another-post-about-rape-3/ .
Also, “Why aren’t you in therapy/on drugs?” Not all of us have access to supportive medical professionals. While this one sounds good in theory, it often ends up denying the experience of women who cannot obtain these services.
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Two that have lingered:
“Can it be called rape if he thought you were enjoying it?”
“Can it be called rape if he didn’t use his penis?”
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I’ve been assaulted in a lot of different situations by a lot of different men, so my PTSD made me fearful in any situation with men, including very public ones. My favorite well intentioned, but totally ignorant advice/question, “Well, what about self defense classes?”
Burn. As if I haven’t spent hours painstakingly obsessing over how I could keep myself safer and what I could do. I’m trying to get away from that! Also, I FOUGHT OFF two men who tried to rape me. Isn’t that good enough? I’m only 5’3 and 125 lbs and I’m sorry, if dude is 6’2 and 250 how is it fair to expect me to fight him? Also- so many things I’d prefer to do more in the little free time I have- like dancing or sitting at my computer twiddling my thumbs.
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I recently explored in one of my posts the epidemic of what I call prevention blaming. Clearly, a woman could’ve taken steps to prevent her rape, and therefore it is her fault that the rape happened. Which in my mind is a little like saying you know, if you never took money anywhere in your wallet, no one could beat you up and take your money. Except that’s a flawed metaphor because you get the ability to not have money. Women don’t get the ability to stop being women.
Of course, it’s all bullshit on top of that because such a high percentage of rapes are acquaintance rapes. Which means that Rapedude was going to rape even though he saw his intended target on that Thursday after finals, you know, the day she wore that horrid side-ponytail and sweatpants to class. Rapists don’t need a reason. If rapists were given an invitation, well, it wouldn’t be rape. That’s a key thing. Unless and until the woman says, “Yes, please do rip my clothing and do horrible things to my self worth and view of humanity and while you’re at it would you mind viciously injuring my sexual organs? Sweet!” it’s rape. It’s still rape if she wore a short skirt, it’s still rape if he was her boyfriend, it’s still rape if she was drunk, and it’s still rape if she walked down That Alley.
The other sad truth, which I have pointed out again and again and very few of these fucking ‘prevention’ mongerers seem to grasp, is that you get jive to how rape works because it happens to or near you. Seriously. Until someone twigs you to the reality of how fucking dangerous the world is, you’re seriously a sitting duck. Rape is something that happens in Lifetime movies with swelling music and some stunning title like, “She Said No!” with a sickeningly hyped up and glorified rape scene that hey did you know they could show that on the commercial because it’s not SEX, it’s RAPE – HA. I see what you did there.
Is it possible that I won’t be raped if I don’t drink that much/walk down That Alley/wear a tight skirt/flirt/etc? Uh, yes. It’s also equally possible that he’s got every intention of claiming a victim and it doesn’t matter if I’m in a burlap sack with lederhosen.
Thing is, there are -some- things women can do to prevent rape. They’re just not things you think to do until someone scares the shit out of you. You can go to a party with a buddy who will never let you out of her/his sight. But why would you do that if you’ve been raised to think people aren’t fundamentally evil? You can set up a call system with a friend after dates with new men so if you don’t call she calls the police. Think on that one. An emergency call system in case a stranger rapes you. That’s fucked up. Who the hell goes through life like that? Oh wait, someone who’s been raped (or had someone near them suffer a rape).
All these fucking prevention methods are not only bullshit, but they’re fundamentally useless and theoretical until you get just how much danger you’re in. Rape is on the perpetrator, because the rapist doesn’t give a shit what you’re wearing and he doesn’t care how pretty your hair is or if you flirted with him that one time. When a person has decided to go that far, nothing’s really going to stop them or deter them and it’s not about you at all anymore. It’s just about being there while he does what he wants to.
Which is really what it comes down to. All that post-rape “You should have prevented it” talk amounts to “you were there”.
You are the best!
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Last week there was some hidden camera set-up on our local news with the tagline, “You’d be surprised what people would do in this situation!” The situation was seeing a young, pretty, skimpily dressed white woman, alone in a bar, get completely inebriated to the point where she could barely walk. Then a predatory-acting (putting his hands on the girl and acting obviously attracted to her) young, affluent-seeming white male comes along and sweeps her out to his car.
My male friend asked, “What are people supposed to do, then? Stop the drunk girl from leaving with that guy? How do we know he’s going to do anything to her?”
My answers were: Stop her from leaving. You should call her a cab or ask the bartender to do so. How do you know he’s NOT going to do anything? She’s too drunk to give consent; if he has sex with her, THAT IS RAPE.
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“But why did you fall asleep in his apartment?” or “Why did you put your trust in him?”
Because he was my boyfriend, you assholes.
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The one I get a lot is: “It’s been a few years now….why haven’t you just forgotten about it already?!?”
What really bothers me is I have been getting variations of that question since the week my rape occurred, in the form of “It’s been a few [days, weeks, months] now…[forget about it, move on, live your life,etc]“
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when I got raped, I was compared to another rape victim in our community. She had gotten severly (and visibly) bruised and scarred, while my rape “didn’t show”. People either told me to be greatful he didn’t beat me up to badly, or they told me it was wierd I wasn’t completely destroyed as a human and more disfunctional, “like one would if you really got raped i mean”. Everyone had an oppinon on how i was suppose to deal with it, and weren’t late to tell me I was doing it all wrong.
I was raped after a party with people sleeping in the other room, and that seem to aggrovate people more than anything, why didn’t I scream for help? They were right there! I’ve asked myself that very same question over and over again, believe you me. But I just couldn’t bare the fact that someone would see me in that situation. Naked, crying, over powered, defensless, ashamed. I couldn’t bare the thought of a group of people storming in to look at the enoying slutty girl who gotten herself raped and were too drunk to fight him off, and too stupid to predict what would happen if she goes out dressed like THAT.
No is always no, wheter you scream or whisper. It shouldn’t matter what you wear. It shouldn’t matter if so your tits are hanging out. It shouldn’t even matter if the guy is already friggin’ INSIDE you. When someone says “stop”, you stop.
You are the best!
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I was raped many times in the course of a three-year abusive relationship that started when I was 16. I have heard, like several others on this thread, “Why did you stay?” and “If you enjoyed it [whatever the sexual activity was] sometimes, what was so bad about the times you call assault?” I’ve also heard, because the boyfriend who raped me had a history of verbal/emotional abuse in his childhood, “Well, how can you blame him? He really couldn’t help being the way he was.” From my own mother, I heard, “Say what you want about him, but he always took such good care of you.” (By which she meant, I think, that he drove me to school and work, picked me up from school and work, bought me expensive gifts and never killed me in a car wreck — apparently his not drinking and driving was her only criteria for a “good” relationship and she can’t see that his dropping me off at and picking me up from everywhere I went was a means of making sure I spent every possible second with him and no one else.) This all happened a long time ago — I’m 38 now, so I also hear sometimes, “Why does this still bother you so much after all this time?”
You are the best!
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I don’t often tell people about what happened to me because, most of the time, they have absolutely no idea what to say. I don’t blame them though, I probably wouldn’t know what to say either.
I was molested and raped by my father for about eight years. When I finally told my mother (who had divorced him a few years before and suspected something bad was going on) she was understandably devastated. When some of my other extended family members found out, a common question was, “Why didn’t she say anything sooner?” They never actually asked me and so I’ve never offered them an answer. If I did, it would be, “He was my father and he told me he loved me. He told me we had a ‘special’ relationship and he told me that he would make me a woman. He told me that if I ever said anything to anyone about our ‘special’ relationship, he’d abandon my brother, my sister, and I, and it would be all my fault. I was a kid and kids are supposed to be able to trust their parents.”
Another question I got, from a friend, was, “What did it feel like?” What did it feel like? Like shit, that’s what.
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I would like to see something on the topic of ‘not taking sides.’
I was coerced into sex by a male friend, I said no, repeatedly, but he acted like he couldn’t hear me and kept going. He told our mutual friends I was bad in bed (“she just lay there, not moving, like a dead fish”) I explained that was because I hadn’t consented. Doesn’t matter. It could apply to any circumstances of rape, the point is: our friends said they were friends with both of us, they were not going to take sides, they did not want to get involved
I think people need to understand, that not taking a side IS a side. If our friends really believed it was non-consensual, then they would not be able to maintain friendships with that guy. So not taking sides meant taking his side. Sometimes you are forced into a position where you have to choose, and pretending you can avoid that decision means deciding on the status quo, which is how things were previously, before one of your friends raped another of your friends, which means the rapist’s version of reality.
Sorry for the verbosity, I really had to resist the urge to talk around this even more than I actually did
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I have not been raped, but I know a question that has flashed through my mind until I knew better, was “Why did you put yourself in that position?”
This was before I grew up and realized that there’s no such thing as “being in that position”. A rapist is going to take what they can get, whether you’re “SHORTSKIRTDRUNKSLUT” as Harriet pointed out, or if you’re sleeping on the couch at your cousin’s house in jeans and a sweatshirt.
I think the problem is there is an “SSDS mentality” where people, women especially do not ever think it could happen to them because only certain people get raped and if you fall into that classification somehow then you’re not a victim, you merely brought it on yourself.
I know that when I was in junior high and high school, we did discuss sexual assault, what qualified and the theory of “No means No.” It’s a nice idea to pass along, but the real issue is that No Means No rarely works, and there are usually many other factors that come into play when a woman is raped. Psychological factors, physical factors, even emotional factors can provide huge barriers for women who have been, or are in the process of being groomed for a rape.
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I recently had a post on sexual assault that got a huge influx of people, so some common questions/comments that stood out from that one:
-”But he didn’t mean ‘I never want to have sex with you.’ He just meant ‘I don’t want to because you’re getting married,’ it wasn’t that big of a concern.” (i.e. if people give reasons for saying no the important thing is to find ways their reasons are bad.)
-”Why do you have to call it sexual assault? Yes, that’s what happened, but it’s such an emotional word. Don’t you think it’s emotionally manipulative to call it sexual assault when all that happened was [kissing/touching/groping]?” [Or it was "just" five/ten/thirty seconds/minutes.]
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I was sexually harassed by a boss who wanted me to sleep with him. I said “no,” but he kept trying to put his hand up my skirt and trying to talk me into it. He finally left without doing more than that. Also, an ex-boyfriend often talked or pressured or guilted me into doing more than I felt comfortable doing or sometimes doing something I was okay with, but wasn’t in the mood for.
I’ve often thought of myself as sexually harassed, assaulted, or molested, but never raped. So, my question is: Is rape only sexual intercourse or does it apply to a whole spectrum of things? I’ve never wanted to think of myself as a rape victim, because even though I’ve been dealing with guilt and shame and anger over these events, it seems that calling them rape would be to lessen or diminish the experiences of women who have had forced intercourse.
Thanks for your help.
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Down near the bottom of this post, I address a little bit the concept that rape can be lessened or diminished. I think rape, as a concept, can only be diminished if one is willing to believe that rape is less than serious, that there are some situations where one rape is worth less than another, or some situations where a rape isn’t really rape-y enough. If one is willing to believe that, it doesn’t matter what happens to the victims, what they believe, or what they say — that person is already willing to buy into the idea that some rapes aren’t bad enough to be considered a horror. That’s where the problem lies, not with the victims.
I would say, with your boss, that you experienced an attempted rape. Your boss was trying to force you into having sex without your consent. The line between that and a completed rape is a matter of degree, but not a matter of a separate concept entirely. We’re not comparing apples and oranges here: the difference between an attempted rape and a completed rape is perhaps the difference between an apple and a wormier apple.
As for your boyfriend, I would consider that rape. However, it probably wouldn’t fall under the legal definition of rape. This is why there are terms like “rape culture.” Our society has created laws to address some kinds of rape, and those laws are enforced haphazardly, based on the status of the victim rather than the status of the crime. But outside of law, we have a whole culture that supports and enforces the idea that women must give sex to men, that men must acquire sex to be men, and this is just a natural way to be. Your boyfriend may not have forced you. He may not have used a gun or a threat. But his actions clearly demonstrated that he wasn’t interested in your consent. Your consent was an obstacle to overcome to acquire the sex he believed he deserved from you. Whether or not you wanted that sex wasn’t his concern. Whether or not he acquired sex was. Rape, fundamentally, is sex without consent. Your boyfriend proved he was willing to rape, because he found it acceptable to continually push for sex when you made it obvious you did not want it. He wasn’t trying to change your mind, wasn’t trying to find something you could do that you did want, something you could participate in equally as a couple — he was trying to make you acquiesce, whether you liked it or not. He did not care whether you wanted it. He cared whether or not you would stop fighting him.
There is a world of men who think that is acceptable sexual behavior, not because they are fundamentally evil, but because they believe that is how men and women interact. There is a world of women who think that is acceptable sexual behavior, not because they are fundamentally weak, but because they believe that is how men and women interact. And we believe those things because we live in a culture that cheapens rape, that believes only some rapes are really rape, and only some rapes deserve to be punished, sanctioned, or outlawed. You didn’t do those things by identifying that men have attempted to acquire sex from you without your consent. This was a structure that was in place long before you began wondering what to call the things that happened to you. It was that structure that allowed your boss and your boyfriend to justify what they did to you as something that wasn’t wrong, wasn’t repellent, wasn’t rape.
You cannot cheapen rape unless rape is fundamentally cheap. I don’t believe it ever is. I don’t believe it’s ever a small thing, not worthy of our concern, not worthy of prevention or discussion. You may encounter people who believe that women who aren’t covered in bruises are cheapening rape, but there is a name for those people: misogynists. Anybody who believes a woman must be tortured to the extreme before we have to care about her is somebody who doesn’t care very much about women; they are likely somebody who cares very much about preserving the privilege to torture a woman right up until the arbitrary unacceptable point. Always note that if you are talking to somebody who thinks some rapes are “real” and some rapes aren’t real, or some rapes cheapen other rapes, that person is giving you a visible map of what they will do to you or let happen to you. If somebody tells you that forcing their girlfriend into sexual acts she isn’t comfortable with isn’t rape, that is somebody who is willing to force their girlfriend into sexual acts she isn’t comfortable with, or that is somebody who is willing to support, apologize for, and defend the man who is willing to do that.
You’ve had bad sex before, right? Bad sex that is just embarrassing or awkward or was kind of blah. How did you feel after that? Probably a little chagrined, irritated, bored, maybe ashamed or guilty. Compare the quality of those feelings to the quality of feelings you have about what happened with your boss and your boyfriend. I would guess that they are so fundamentally different that it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Those weren’t sexual experiences you had that didn’t go well — bad sex feels embarrassing, but it doesn’t feel like post-traumatic stress disorder. It doesn’t feel like coming to a blog about rape and identifying with what you’ve read. It feels like joshing around with your friends over drinks and laughing about the stupid things you’ve done. It feels like something you’ll look back on and laugh about. You can tell that what happened to you wasn’t right, because it feels different than the feelings you have surrounding other kinds of sex in your life. That’s because it wasn’t sex. It wasn’t wanted, and that means it wasn’t sex.
All that being said, whether or not you want to call this rape is up to you. For some people, that helps them understand and process what they’ve been through, and helps them seek out appropriate services to assist them (such as talking to counselors with experience in sexual assault, or rape crisis centers). For others, it doesn’t help. It makes them into a “victim” that they don’t want to be, and it provides more obstacles to moving on and dealing with the problem than it provides relief. That’s entirely up to you. You are not obligated to call what happened to you rape. You are not obligated to call yourself a rape victim, or survivor. You are obligated to do whatever is healthiest for you at any given time.
You are the best!
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Harriet, thank you so much for such a thoughtful reply. You gave me a lot to think about. The post you linked to about cheapening rape made a lot of sense and helped a lot. The part that really c licked for me is when you mentioned the difference between rape/abuse and just bad sex. There is a huge difference in those feelings. I fooled around with a friend once and while it wasn’t that great, he tried really hard. He asked what I wanted and if I was okay with everything before he did and immediately stopped if I wasn’t. We talked about it before and after. It was overall a good experience, even if not the most satisfying sexually.
When I compare that to my boyfriend and the way he made me feel there was something wrong with me if I didn’t go along with me. Or that he had been so patient and understanding and that this was what supposed to happen in a relationship. He even said that guys are supposed to push and girls are supposed to say no, so it’s unreasonable to expect him to not keep pushing. He kept telling me that he didn’t care only about the physical, it was just that he loved me so much, he wanted to do these things. It took a long time to realize that if he really loved me that much he wouldn’t push me.
I definitely felt that I was taken advantage of manipulated, but I was never able to call it rape, because we never had intercourse or oral sex. And even female friends of mine told me I owed it him to let him see me topless or French kiss him or whatever. But this was my first relationship and I really wasn’t ready to do those sexual acts that seem like no big deal to other people. I haven’t called it rape, because I was afraid of the response from others, especially women who have had forcible or unwanted intercourse. I still am nervous about it and that’s why I’ve always used words that somehow seem milder. Though perhaps, as you said it’s part of the rape culture that surrounds us that says it’s ok that he pushed for those smaller acts of sexual interaction, because he never forced actual sex. Or perhaps it’s part of the culture that places intercourse and virginity on a pedestal as the only true forms of sex.
I’m sorry if I’m rambling, but you’ve given me a lot to think about. I understand if you don’t have time to respond again. Just writing it all out there helps a lot. It’s hard to talk to other friends about it, because after all, “he was a good guy and you met him at a Christian college.” Thanks again for this space.
You are the best!
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: I like to view things on a continuum instead of as discrete concepts. It helps me view myself as part of a wider community, and keeps me from viewing other people as somehow completely different from me. For example, you will find that with almost any definition of mental illness, there are behaviors that everybody engages in sometimes, to some degree. What separates “ill” from “healthy” is the frequency and duration and intensity of those behaviors — but there is virtually nothing a mentally ill person has felt that I can’t find some way to empathize with in my own experience. Viewing mental health on a continuum helps keep me from viewing mentally ill people as somehow “other,” beyond understanding or connection.
Likewise, I view sexual violence on a continuum. There are things every woman experiences every day that fall on this continuum — being ogled, being catcalled, being brushed against purposefully, being forced to talk to somebody who is creepily hitting on you, being viciously insulted for not smiling at strangers. The way women feel in those circumstances are less intense versions of the way women feel when the attacks escalate. Women feel the same fear, the same shame, the same freezing up or running away or wondering about their own culpability, if this really just happened, if it was that bad, if she should tell somebody.
Being molested in public by a drunk stranger isn’t necessarily the same thing as being raped by your best friend, but they are both examples of sexual violence. The victims, in both cases, will probably experience many of the same reactions (freezing up, fear, shame, anger, flashbacks); the people they disclose to will probably say the same stuff (“Well, why didn’t you…” “I don’t see why you’re upset…” “Did you lead him on?” “Just get over it”); the attackers probably used the same set of justifications to rationalize why what they were doing was okay, why it didn’t make them rapists or bad people (“She liked it” “I want it” “She deserved it” “Nobody cares” “She only pretended to say no”). There are more similarities than differences in those experiences, so they belong as part of the same group of events.
You may find you don’t need to call it “rape.” For some people, hitting on the exact right word is what gives them relief. For me, I knew my ex-husband was mean to me sometimes, that we had a rough relationship, but until I could use the word “abuse”, I couldn’t understand that what he was doing was wrong and I didn’t deserve it. Until it was “abuse”, it was “well maybe if I was just nicer sometimes.” But abuse is something that is wrong and bad and not the victim’s fault, and using that word finally freed me and allowed me to consider leaving him instead of just “trying harder” until I died. I really needed that word to stop blaming myself and start moving away from him, because I didn’t have enough self-worth at the time to believe I deserved to just plain be treated nicely, regardless of whether or not I was being abused. Today, I can set boundaries with people who have not approached anything near a level of abuse, and I feel like that’s okay. I deserve to be happy and have happy things in my life, and I’m under no obligation to let people treat me badly, no matter to what degree. But back then, I let people treat me obscenely horribly, because if it wasn’t outright abuse, then I somehow didn’t have the right to drop them as friends. Only if somebody started calling me a worthless bitch did I have the right to be angry. If they just called me worthless, well, they were just being honest, right? I should just try harder to be more worthwhile.
You may find that “rape” is the word that helps you understand it was not your fault, that it was wrong, that you didn’t deserve it. Or you may already know those things, and be more comfortable with the phrase “sexual abuse” or “sexual violence.” You may want to encompass your boyfriend’s other behaviors (because if he was sexually abusing you, I suspect that wasn’t all he was dishing out) and just label the whole thing as “abusive.” Or you may just want to call it a “bad experience.” Whatever works for you. None of it is wrong, and none of it hurts other rape victims. You don’t have a responsibility to describe things in a way that makes sense to others, or in a way that makes others believe you, or in a way that furthers a cause. You only have a responsibility to describe things in a way that makes sense to you, that helps you believe your own feelings, that helps further your own needs. If other people can’t understand that what your boyfriend did was wrong and heinous and not your fault when you use the word “abuse,” or the phrase “he made me do things I didn’t want,” that’s their personal bag. You don’t have to be the one who explains it to them, or makes them understand or believe you. You just have to be the one who decides if you want to deal with people who think abuse isn’t that bad, or that what he did wasn’t abuse.
If you were to speak to a “real” rape survivor (whatever that means to you), I think you would find you have a lot in common, that you share many feelings and thoughts, that you got similar reactions from friends, that you heard all the same excuses from your attackers. I don’t think you could say anything to a “real” rape survivor that she hasn’t heard in her own head, and vice versa. For that matter, I doubt you could speak to a single woman on this planet and not find you share the experience of having been made sexually unsafe by men.
You are the best!
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I was raped over three years ago. I’m finally getting to a place where I can call it what it was. After it happened, I was asked a number of questions ranging from absolutely absurd, mildly obscene, to numbing. And the bulk of them revolved around my sexual orientation.
When trying to spill my soul to someone about my attack, I could watch the sympathy drain from their face and contort into pure disbelief. No one would acknowledge my rape because no one would believe that a woman could rape another woman. One internet forum I joined concentrated more on “Oh, was this your first experience with a woman? (No, it wasn’t)” and “Well, maybe you’re not really gay. (Nope. Still gay)” even “Maybe you just need to find yourself a man. (I shit you not)” I decided that the fewer people I told, the fewer people who could hurt me (at least until all of that bottled up rage manifested into a burst of drunken hysteria). My problem was that no one believed me. I didn’t believe me. Hell, I initiated, begged almost, for this woman to take me home. Once it began, I realized I’d made a mistake and wanted out. But she was much stronger than me.
Finally, I was able to find a wonderful counselor who not only believed every word I said, she helped me fill in the words I didn’t have the courage to say and gave me the tools I needed to pick myself up. I began to tell more people about it and was surprised by the support I received. Your comparison of bad sex v. rape was very inspiring for me. I’ve never really looked at it from that point of view. Yes, I’ve had terrible sex before and been able to laugh it off. But no “bad sex” experience left me bedridden for two weeks and unable to hug my parents goodbye when I had to leave for college again.
I guess I didn’t really answer your question about a rape FAQ. In my experience, almost all of the literature and resources at my disposal have been heteronormative. I understand that far more than the majority of rapes are committed by men against women; however, the invisibility and silence that followed mine was heart wrenching. If we ignore the fact that, even if it’s less than 1% of the statistic, women can and do rape, we are giving these monsters license to continue to rape at will and without any worrisome consequences. I suppose I’d like to see a resource that addressed this.
I also wanted to thank you for your blog. Your writing has helped me immensely and I sincerely thank you.
You are the best!
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I was raped by two men – once by a guy I’d dated 10 years before and hadn’t slept with (which meant I owed him something, apparently), and many times by a man I was married to after the first rape.
My mother’s question was, “why were you with him in the first place?” in reference to my first rape.
My husband’s/second rapist’s question was, “why do you keep accusing me of rape? It’s not rape, I love you. When are you going to stop punishing me for what somebody else did to you?” I married him after the first rape, he routinely blamed the first rape on me thinking he was raping me (rather than um, the fact that he was raping me.)
I can’t be the only woman who has been raped by a partner after a rape, with the new rapist blaming the old one for their “issues”. Right??? I haven’t met anybody thus far, and granted my husband was a psychopath so I’m sure it’s relatively rare, but I can’t be THE only one…
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Exchange between me and my ex-husband:
Me: What do you mean you don’t know anyone who was raped? Your ex-fiancee was raped!
Him: Well, she says she was, but she’s said that before and I have it on good authority that she was lying.
As such, some of what I would like to see discussed:
Does it “count” as rape if:
The perp is the victim’s SO
The victim is promiscuous and/or has a high libido
The victim has already been sexually traumatized before
The victim has been accused of having “made up” a rape/assault/etc before
I’d also like to see discussions of the intersectionality of race, class, gender presentation, sexual orientation (etc etc etc), and rape culture:
Who is Rape Culture defining as “more” or “less” acceptable to rape. Or, for that matter, more or less likely to commit rape?
Does it count as rape if:
The perp is the same sex as the victim
The perp is a woman
The victim is trans
The perp is trans
The victim is a man
The perp is Asian (when Asian dudes are stereotyped as being effeminate and Asian chicks are stereotyped as being meek)
The victim is Black (when Black dudes are stereotyped as being super-aggressive and Black chicks are stereotyped as being hyper-sexual)
How does race intersect with gender in terms of who Rape Culture is willing to accept as a “real” victim or a “real” rapist
How does “she was asking for it” change when the victim is queer (E.G.: Is a bisexual woman “asking for it” because she’s “obviously a slut”? Is a lesbian “asking for it” because she’s “playing hard to get” by “waving her sex(uality) in everyone’s face” while refusing to say Yes?)
How does “she was asking for it” change when the victim is trans (regardless of sexual orientation) – E.G.: A cis woman is said to be “asking for it” based on how she dresses, where she was, whatever-is-convenient. A trans woman is said to be “asking for it” (much more honest in this case, eh) purely by virtue of being a woman at all.
How does the perceived masculinity of the rapist or the femininity of the victim effect whether or not the victim will be believed or taken seriously? How is this further effected by the gender and/or sexual orientation of the perp and/or the victim?
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Oh. And some more “Does it count as rape” questions:
The victim is older than the perp
The victim is visibly physically disabled
The victim is visibly developmentally disabled
The victim is invisibly disabled / has a chronic illness like firbromialgia
The perp is visibly physically or developmentally disabled
The perp is invisibly disabled / has a chronic illness like fibromialgia
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“Why didn’t you let anyone know what was happening?” This is the most complicated question for me to answer, given the various reasons and the young age at which the sexual abuse was going on.
and then there’s the question that isn’t really a question but more a way to voice guilt
“How did I not see it?/Why wasn’t I there to protect you?”
and the question I spent so long asking myself before coming to terms with it
“Why didn’t I just run away?”
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Two and a half weeks ago I got this from – I kid you not – my psychiatrist, having just told him reluctantly and under duress about being raped by an ex: “And did it mean much to you? Was it important to you?”
I stopped, stared, and couldn’t say a damn thing. And he sits there, waiting for an answer, no caveat, no nothing.
I’m still reeling. I mean, how the fuck do you begin to answer that? Particularly when your reason for not wishing to tell the guy in the first place is because he makes you deeply sexually uncomfortable?
And could we maybe add the: “Why won’t you let me tell someone / report it for you / make a fuss / take over your life” query, while we’re on the subject?
I’m sorry if this is incoherent or comes across as full of anger. I’m not angry. I feel the way I did the morning after the rape. So that’s a year and a half worth of trying to deal with this straight down the drain.
You are the best!
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An issue I’m concerned with a lot–and one I’ve yet to pin down into an FAQ form–is how to identify rape or coercion when they occur. I imagine the front sections of the book would be deeply concerned with that, from several different perspectives. So I’ll just share a story that contributed to my concern about this subject.
A female friend of mine had a long-term friendship-with-sexual-overtones with a male I didn’t know. She and I were both in our teens, as was he–though he was a year or two older than we were. She was attracted to him but simultaneously made nervous by him–this was a consistent theme in the stories she told me of him. (She and I lived cities apart, and I never met the man in question.) The final chapter of their interaction involved a time when they spent an afternoon and an evening together. She drunk unprecedentedly, disrobed somewhat, and considered but did not engage in intercourse.
I had trouble with the story. It made me uncomfortable, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Part of that was the fact that I was interested in my friend, and jealous of what had happened. Part of that was a persistent discomfort with drinking in general. But, some time later–I can’t remember when–I switched perspectives and the whole problem came into focus. In her narrative, she spent time with and pushed some boundaries with a guy in a way that made her uncomfortable.
But if you asked yourself what /he/ was doing, he had gotten her alone, gotten her drunk, and taken off most of her clothes. I don’t mean to deny her agency through this perspective switch. And it’s true, of course, that without sex there was no rape. But the mix of her confusion and discomfort, the clear purpose his actions seemed to demonstrate, and his sexually aggressive persona and use of alcohol, upset me. And . . . well, I don’t really know what to do with this story, except for tell it. And I did that. So there it is. Hopefully I’ll be back later with more concrete stuff.
(Privilege check: Male het white cis non-victim. I try to check my baggage at the door, but if I’m carrying any, please do point it out.)
PS. Wrote this, then thought of a concrete and very important FAQ: What is the relationship of rape to mental illness?
It’s a huge question, and not one I feel safe tackling on my own, so I’ll just throw it out here.
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@Erl
In the UK at least, knowledge of mental illness in the victim is considered to be an exacerbating factor in the rape, and may result in increased jail time for the rapist (if it ever gets that far). In my own case, the guy with whom I was in a quasi-relationship knew that I was depressed and possibly bipolar, and that the only reason we were together at all was because of that. And he used it to ensure that I wouldn’t report him.
The reverse case, however, when the man committing the rape is mentally ill, is really, really complicated. I’ve known a couple of men who have sexually assaulted women, one very seriously, after prolonged abuse in their own homes, and while I am in no way suggesting that what they did was excusable, it makes much more sense to tackle the root problem – the illness – AS WELL AS trying to achieve justice, so that sometimes mandatory counselling might be appropriate. Of course, the primary factor is to keep women safe, but if one can do that by also helping another person, why shouldn’t we try?
(Not that it’s so simple, of course. Mental illness is never, ever simple)
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: Sometimes, in my line of work, you have to deal with really evil people. I use “evil” as a shorthand way to sum up the feeling of it — I don’t actually believe in evil — but it’s the only word that seems to adequately sum up having a conversation with a child rapist.
It’s not easy to deal with. Sometimes a very appropriate, normal level of hatred and disgust comes bubbling up. But usually, I try to keep in mind that hating a rapist after he has raped does nothing to stop him. Punishing people after the fact does not prevent anything. Making a sick person better — and anybody who does these evil things has something sick within them — is the only thing that can ensure there are no future victims. Which means that you must be kind, polite, compassionate, and empathetic with evil, because that’s the only way to untangle it. I find it very difficult to care about abusers, but I care very much about their victims, so I think, “If I really care about victims, I am going to give this person all the help and care I can — I’m passing this to him, and he can keep it for the future victims that will hopefully never be.”
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@ Sheherezade
Those are both excellent points. I, however, was considering a third–rape as a causal or risk factor for mental illness. (Primarily with victims, though, I suppose, there’s a risk with perpetrators as well–soldiers who commit atrocities have staggering PTSD rates.) Given the stigma associated with both rape and mental illness, it seems to be a fertile ground for dangerous assumptions, e.g. “oh, she’s just crazy cause she got raped,” “you didn’t get raped because you’re not medically depressed,” etc. etc.
I guess that one might fall under a larger heading: what are the long term consequences of rape? The answer being, of course, “it’s complicated, but here are some things to remember.”
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My feeling on this is yes and no. Meaning that despite the fact that people are complex and emotions are complex, we have this tendency to try to create false dichotomies around just about everything. With respect to rape, sexual assault, and abuse, I feel like society tries to apply one of two extremes to victims: either you’re totally, permanently destroyed; or you can “just forget about it” and move on unfettered. Perhaps there are people who do fall within these extremes, but there are a great many who fall somewhere in between on the spectrum. To “complicate” things further, I think you can bounce around on the spectrum from day to day, or hour to hour, or minute to minute depending on myriad factors (the prevalence of triggers, years out from the trauma, the evolution of your support system, etc.) It’s also possible to feel seemingly contradictory emotions at the same time!
I think everything – both good and bad – that happens in our lives shapes us and marks us; rape, sexual assault, and abuse are no different. I think for victims, however, accepting this can be terribly difficult because to admit that you are “marked” by such a horrific thing is to be pigeon-holed into that “totally, permanently destroyed” extreme. I believe you can be deeply affected by something without that something defining you. Unfortunately, that’s not a nuance that society seems to recognize.
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“I am going to tell my story”… Please forgive that chant in my head. Because you see, I for the first time ever, just typed one of my stories & clicked submit… and got an error! Then of course I lost my comment. I was so proud of myself for finally getting out of my head. I’ve never been diagnosed with .. awwww mannn … I think?.. it’s DIS.?? In case that’s wrong, I’ll just say multiple personalities. My point was that although never medically diagnosed, I call a certain voice in my head Agatha. She is the one who beats me down all the time. “See, they don’t want to hear your crap” “It’s a stupid story anyway”. But I’m going to do this.
I have been on a marathon blogroll for the past few days mainly to seek knowledge for my daughter. But hey, I have a story too. Maybe my search for knowledge is for both of us. I know that it should be and I hope that I finally allow myself to be honest.
I have a FAQ about rape that I think is so ironic considering the circumstances. It’s not a frequent question .. has only been asked once. But once was plenty for me. I have been raped more than once, but the most traumatic experience is the one that I cannot remember. Back in college, right after the birth of my oldest daughter I went to visit a male friend of mine in his dorm. I was 18 at the time and had known him for at least 5 years. I pretended back then that we were really good friends .. you know the kind —- random sex in the afternoon after school. That half hour visit .. then, oops .. he has to go. Yes, he was a really good friend of mine. Any way, I wasn’t going there for sex this particular night. I definitely would have changed out of the HUGE prego panties with the way too sexy extra large maxi pad. Yes! It was that soon after the birth of my daughter; I was still bleeding/discharging a bit. This was my first social event…first time out of the house for something recreational in months. So there I am, sitting in his dorm room and honestly, I think we were smoking a joint. Two guys come up to his door and ask for a ride to the liquor store. I offered. Why??? I have no idea because I wasn’t drinking. I really just came to smoke a joint and chill for a minute. Kinda escape my reality for just a little while. I don’t remember anything remarkable happening on the way to the store. But the last thing I remember is walking up the stairs in the dorm thinking, “I’m am about to pass out… what is wrong with me?” There were 3 guys .. one on each side of me and one behind me. Then … BAM!! I woke up the next morning in a strange dorm room. I was fully clothed .. but alone. And I hurt. I hurt so bad. My WHOLE body hurt. I immediately felt shame & embarrassment. I could barely get off of the bed and walk. And I didn’t really know where I was. I was dizzy and nauseated and ashamed and hurt and scared. I almost forgot about scared. It took me what seemed like forever to find my car. All I could do was just walk around the parking lot, but I finally found it and drove home. Then my ‘best’ friend calls. He had called her and told her the story. It seems that he heard this commotion down the hall. Lots of cheering & yelling, etc. So he walks down there … a few guys standing in the door of a room… and he peeks over & sees me getting fucked by some random guy. He said at first he thought I was all about it & into it (like really? with the whole floor cheering? I was promiscuous .. but not THAT promiscuous!) He looked closer & saw that I was completely passed out. He stopped everything .. got me dressed .. blah blah blah.
Now the crazy thing is the very next weekend my best friend is at my house. I hadn’t seen her since before I had the baby because she was off at another college. He picks us up & we are going to his dorm. I am about to jump out of my skin from pure panic. But I don’t want anyone to know this bothers me. As a matter of fact, I had only had the one conversation with her about it. I walk to his room .. I make it. I sit over in the corner .. I remember grabbing pillows & going to the corner that was farthest from the door and sitting with my back against the wall. I was maintaining .. not ok …. but maintaining UNTIL a couple of guys came to the door. I freaked out … I couldn’t breathe and knew that I was about to lose it. I whispered, “Please get me out of here. I wanna go home.” My best girlfriend looks at me strangely & says, “What’s wrong?” I hated to say it .. made me feel so much more shame .. but “I don’t know who fucked me.” She says, “But I thought you didn’t remember it; why does matter .. bother you? That’s when I finally cried. I couldn’t hold the tears anymore. And I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me that it did bother me cuz obviously, it wouldn’t bother her if it happened to her. When we had spoke about it, she had asked if I was going to the police. Of course not! I don’t remember it. I wouldn’t be able to identify anyone. And instinctively, I knew that I couldn’t ask him to identify anyone. That is so fucked up that I went back there just a week later. It’s crazy to me now. And then about a year ago, he found me on good ole facebook. I had pretty much disappeared after that night. I didn’t talk to him until last year & her was probably like 10 years. I just ran from it. I’m 43 now & was 18 then. Many years.. So he contacts me and the bullshit starts, “I worried about you.. wondered where you were … you know you were always so special to me .. you were a huge part of my life .. blah blah blah” And then it hit me … It hit me sooo hard. This is crazy but something about that night just didn’t feel right .. aside from the obvious!! But I guess I just couldn’t let my self admit the truth until last year. I finally said, “If I was so special, then why did I wake up ALONE & hurting & in some strange dorm room after being raped by I don’t know how many guys?” I don’t have any proof that he did anything. But that doesn’t matter and isn’t the point. Not only did he NOT call the police … he stuck me in some random dorm room to wake up & face this alone. Great rescue buddy!! I never could understand why I felt more violated by the two of them than by the strangers that raped me. I understand now… finally … I get it. I really was alone.
Thanks for letting me share that story. I can see how much I have grown when I take the time to remember these fucked up times of my life.
You are the best!
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This is more a question about rape culture than the act of rape or rape victims’ problems. My question: it’s clear, to those of us reading this blog or other feminist blogs or with any awareness of issues of women in media, that the whole presentation of rape in film
and television is extremely problematic. What can individuals do to fight it? For example: I’m watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent right now. As a crime drama, it’s rife with portrayals of women making ‘stupid decisions,’ going to clubs and getting drunk, leaving with strange men, being attracted to men with a dark/bad/creepy vibe… then getting raped and being found mutilated and dead the next morning. It creates a whole idea of ‘clearly these stupid women should be able to see the signs, girls wouldn’t get raped if they were just smart and avoided the psychos!’ How can I combat that? How can I remind the people I’m watching with that these violent stranger rapes are such a small percentage of sexual assault? How can I combat this strong conception that these shows slowly, implicitly, insidiously build in my friends’ minds that the victims could have avoided the rape and thus have some level of responsibility? I love crime dramas but I’m
getting sick of this.
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I have an actual, non-rhetorical rape-related question, if anyone can help me:
I’ve recently found myself in a position to prove, to an extent that I think is convincing enough to sway a jury, that my rape actually took place and that the perp was who I said he was. It’s a long story involving some resurfaced letters that I won’t go into now; suffice to say I think I can prove once and for all that I’ve been telling the truth all along and that he should be locked up for a very long time.
So, I’ve been preparing to bring this to the police again (I tried once before but failed due to lack of evidence) for about six months now. I decided to wait until some important stuff in my life was over before I thought about doing anything drastic. Long story short: I’m now able to go to the police again…but I just can’t. The reason behind this is a big, complicated, messy one but boils down to one point: I just can’t bring myself to. I don’t have a good reason; I’m in no danger, I have people to support me, I’m in a much better place emotionally that I was a while ago. But I still can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to bring it up again.
There are many reasons why I feel I should do it; the most compelling of which is that the man who abused me got access to me through his work in a position where he is around children all the time. He still works at this place. With children who are at risk from him. Children who I don’t want on my conscience should anything happen.
My question is this: am I morally obligated to bring this new evidence forward, even if I don’t personally want to, in order to protect potential future victims? Does being probably the only person with any power to stop him oblige me to try? Do I have a responsibility towards those children? Legally, I know I don’t, but morally it seems a slightly different matter.
I talked today to the person who has been helping me prepare for this thing that I found out at the last minute I am unable to do, and she was the one who told me that I’m “morally obligated” to come forwards. I realised that, on some level (admittedly quite a self-destructive level), I sort of agree. I do feel responsible for those children, and if I were to ever find out he had raped one of them because I hadn’t used this new evidence to stop him…well…I don’t know if I could live with myself.
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: Your comment triggered a couple of spam filters I had up for some banned folk. It may happen again, but I keep my spam folder pretty clean, so I should be able to catch it in a day, at the most.
I don’t feel comfortable answering this question for you. It’s so personal, and I don’t know if I can be the kind of support I think you need to work through the various complicated bits and pieces of this. I will give you the two things that popped out at me:
That’s some bullshit right there. “I don’t want to” is a good reason. You don’t need anymore reason than that; this is your life, man. Whatever’s good enough for you is good enough for you. You may want to dissect your “I just can’t bring myself to,” see if there’s more to it, more that you can vocalize, because, I don’t know, you want to understand your own self better. But you are under no obligation to provide a reason that others understand, accept, or agree with. If “I don’t want to” is good enough for you, that’s the only person it has to be good enough for.
If it were me, this would be what compels me to go through with it. I’m not telling you that’s what you should do. All I can do is share with you my own experiences and feelings, because this is really a decision that nobody can advise you on. Nobody else has to live with it, one way or another.
I have made decisions based on this idea in the past, the idea that were the worst-case scenario to happen, I could not handle it. That, again, is making a decision based on my needs, my life, my feelings. I know what I can and can’t handle. Your worst-case scenario for not reporting is that something happens to a kid and you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. What’s your worst-case scenario if you do go forward? Can you handle that? Can you handle that better, or worse, or the same?
I can understand why that person who told you that you were obligated feels the way they do. I’m sure you can understand, too. Nobody wants to see a rapist get away with it, and nobody wants to see a rapist free to rape again. But you do not have a moral obligation. You do not have a moral obligation. You can choose a moral obligation. But the only person in this scenario who has any obligation to make a change here is your rapist. I mean, what a sweet fucking deal for him, huh? All he has to do is torture some people, and like magic, they acquire all his responsibility to clean up after him. That’s a bunch of bullshit. You have no obligation to anybody but yourself. Being raped does not somehow magically make you the fall guy here. That’s still the rapist’s bag.
You didn’t deserve this. It’s not your fault. That applies to the rape itself, and anything your rapist does afterward. You don’t deserve to be in this position. What he does is not your fault. You may have a chance at stopping him. But you are not the only chance. Rape doesn’t happen — and it doesn’t become legal sport — without dozens upon dozens of people letting it go by, for whatever reasons they have. The rapist has the first and most effective opportunity to end rape. After that, there are friends and family members who watch the way he acts, hear what he says, and say and do nothing. After that, there is a whole culture that depicts rape in media as fun and exciting, or depicts certain rapes as not really that bad, or depicts certain rape victims as deserving. When you go all the way down to the end of the line, there is you. You have an opportunity to do something, but as the victim, you are the one who has the least obligation to do anything, because you’re the one who will experience the worst consequences if it all goes bad (and you’ll experience some of the worst consequences no matter what, because for christ’s sake, you’re the one who got raped).
I would like to see rapists in jail. I would like to know that you feel safe, and that you feel those children are safe. If I could wave my magic wand and have the world the way I wanted it, I would like to see you prosecute. But the world is not the way I want it. And I am not a good judge of who you are or what you need. You’re the only one who can judge that. Don’t take shit from people who tell you that you’ve got an obligation. You don’t. You’ve got a life that nobody else is going to lead for you, and that’s what you’re obligated to care for first and foremost.
You are the best!
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Thanks . Whereas I know you can’t tell me what to do (although Christ, I wish someone would!) I really appreciate your input. It was exactly what I needed to hear. I guess it wasn’t really the being told what I should or shouldn’t do that I needed, but rather the justification that if I do decide not to go through with it I’m not totally morally bankrupt.
It’s actually given me a lot of strength to make my decision. Turns out it wasn’t absolute morality that I needed; it was choice. Thinking that I was morally obligated took away my choice, which just reminded me of another time I had the choice taken away from me. If I had done it because I felt obligated then it wouldn’t have been a free choice. Escaping from that trap allows me to weigh up the reasons for and against without that big black shadow of morality hanging over me, and come to a more balanced decision about what I want and what I need. If only I knew what that was…!
You are the best!
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I am not sure how to phrase my question, or the question that I have transitioned into, but it has something to do with figuring out where do I go now. I was molested by my older brother as a young girl and then raped by a stranger a year later, all before my 13th birthday. I transitioned from female-presenting to male-presenting at age 35, almost 14 years ago. What kind of rape am I a survivor of? On the one hand I am a man who was raped–to the degree that I “am a man” now, which feels variable from day to day–but I was raped as a girl and for a time after that I was a woman who was raped as a girl. Who when she was younger thought she was a boy but after being molested and raped thought that this pretty much confirmed that, no, she was a girl. And then later in life remembered a six-year-old’s dream of one day turning into a boy, like magic.
Where is my place in the survivor community? Given the choice between support for male survivors of rape–which is sparse–and for women who have survived rape, and who may not feel safe talking about it with an apparent man in the room, where do I go? The feelings I deal with around the abuse and rape are not those that you’d find in a FAQ for male survivors of rape: I am not concerned for my masculinity, I don’t think I must bear it in solitude because men are supposed to be “strong,” and I don’t blame my sexual orientation on what happened–I don’t think my sexual orientation is in need of that sort of forensic effort.
Because I am a textual sort rather than a verbal sort, I have tried joining internet support groups for queers and/or trans survivors of abuse and rape, but we are a notoriously quiet bunch–possibly because we don’t know where to begin with who we were then and who we are now, although I could be projecting there. Searching for face-to-face support for trans survivors of rape usually results in no results. If I were better put together myself I would think about starting one, but I can barely remember to leave the house to get food. I am literally disabled by PTSD and depression.
I suppose I would sort of like to know if it is ok if I hang out here, especially since I imagine there is no ready answer as to where I might find the support I’m looking for.
You are the best!
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: As you already seemed to guess, I don’t really think I have an answer for you. I’d rather leave this unanswered than give you an unqualified assumption of an answer.
You are very welcome to hang out here and seek support. You’re also welcome to check out the Discussion group as well — there are lots of discussions going on over there about rape and abuse, people are plenty supportive, and there does appear to be more than a few self-identified trans members.
Before you do decide to hang out here, though, I want to make a full disclosure about a few things that you might want to know, so you can make an informed decision about whether or not this is a healthy place for you to be seeking support.
I am not always the best with trans stuff, and have screwed up in the past. Here’s a history of that:
Original Post
Original Follow-Up
Second Follow-Up, a year or so later
I don’t want to scare you or discourage you, but I do want to be honest. I don’t know if I can say that this blog is necessarily a safe space for trans folk. I do not make a special effort to make it unsafe, and I don’t want it to be unsafe, but I’m pretty privileged in this area, and very ignorant, so I may not be doing enough to make it safe. I don’t think I can be the final judge of how safe a space it is, because I’m not the one who has to walk through it. I can say that I’ve gotten better, and I can say that I’ve certainly seen worse, but that’s about all I can say. I don’t want you to choose this as a place to try and get support and then be surprised and hurt later by things you didn’t know. I would like this to be a place you can get support, and I hope it can be, but I don’t feel comfortable giving you a straight “yes” with the history that has existed here. So, you can check out those links and judge for yourself.
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Thanks for responding so quickly! And thanks for the warning. Really, after reading those posts and the comment threads, I can say I’ve gone through much the same thing regarding white privilege and trying to decide how to handle angry reactions when I fuck up. I also deal with a crippling social anxiety, which is one reason my own blog has turned out to be more about art and poetry than anything else, and also why I keep a very low profile on the blogosphere. I have opinions, even strong opinions, but I hate to argue because it almost always sends me into a PTSD flashback of one kind or another, so I keep them to myself except for those moments when it simply hurts too much not to speak up. You may be familiar with that.
What matters to me as a trans person is that you are willing to examine your own assumptions and that you are willing to listen to trans voices. I think you are right that you can only write about what you know, either from your own experience or from some degree of intimate knowledge of another’s; there is a difference, though, between locking yourself up in your tower, never to listen to anyone unlike yourself, and actively seeking out the voices of those whose experience you would like to be able to honor but for which might not yet have all the tools you need.
So, yeah, I’ll hang out for a bit. I don’t know that safe space, especially on the Internet, is ever perfectly achievable. This space looks inviting enough, though.
You are the best!
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The ones I hear most ,especially when people find out one of my rapists was my father, is “Well, why don’t you go to family therapy?” (right, and hang out with the people who defended him and poor-man-no-one-understands for him). After that, “Did you like it to let it go on for so long?” That one makes me want to vomit. And commit acts of violence.
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Lately, with all the court stuff related to my rape coming up, I’ve had my boss irking me about a few things.
First, I don’t like my rape being referred to as “That…whatever it was” that happened to me. Second, no they don’t just use sworn statements in court. I actually have to appear and testify. Third, just because he was on parole when I was attacked doesn’t mean that he “didn’t have a girlfriend on the outside.”
My boss is a special form of asshole.
The question I get the most is “why do you work overnights if you’ve been raped?” It’s hard to explain to people that you just like being awake at night more.
The only other one that I’ve gotten and had to resist the urge to beat someone over is “why would you tell people about that?”
You are the best!
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Hi–I just discovered your blog. Very thought provoking. Certainly opened my eyes on a lot of issues. Here’s my question:
There is a definite culture of rape, where it is not only passively condoned, but sometimes outright agitated for. I’m thinking specifically of prison rape. When and why did it become acceptable for rape to be a sanctioned (even if unofficial) form of punishment for those who are incarcerated?
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My rapist wore a condom. Someone told me once,”hey, at least he was considerate”.
How could someone think that, let alone say it?
yeah, he didn’t get me pregnant, but at the was time, he protected himself. If he hadn’t worn a condom, I might have actually reported it. But, no, I thought, I have no proof, no phsyical evidence, who will believe me? If I take him to court without evidence, it will be my word against his.
My rapist also had a girl-friend, they had been together for a few years. I knew her, I told her what he did, and she broke up with him. Becuase of this, his friends would call me a whore or a homewrecker. HEY! I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS TO HAPPEN! I DIDN’T ASK TO BE RAPED!
THIS IS NOT MY FAULT.
Until we can make our society one that doesn’t blame the victim, nothing will change. Girls and women will still not report or share for fear of being prosecuted by their peers. The system needs to change. Yes, there are some situations where you are more likely to be raped, but there is no preventing it. Before that night, I thought I was being catious. I made sure other people were around, I wore pants and a belt. I thought, hey that’s enough, but, he was my ride home. He stopped in a church parking lot, I didn’t know where we were, and honestly, I was so scared, I didn’t even think to run, but if I had, it probably just would have been worse.
There is nothing you can do to stop a rape once someone has it in their head to rape you.
Now, I carry mace everywhere I go. On top or that, if I go for a walk, I always make sure I bring a glass bottle of Arizona with me. Doesn’t look to odd for a girl to be walking with a drink, but at least I know if something happens, and I can get my assulter once or twice in the head, I stand a better chance of getting away. It’s something, but it’s useless at the same time. It makes me feel safer, but it really doesn’t protect me.
I want to be able to leave my apartment and feel safe. Shit, I mant to be able to stay in my apartment and feel safe.
When will that happen?
You are the best!
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If a person lies to someone in order to have sex with them, is it still considered consensual sex? Should it be considered consensual sex or not?
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“But you are dating… If you have had consensual sex, how can you call this rape?”
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Hello Harriet, first my best wishes for this great blog you have. I see a record number of comments here, and that makes me realize how much people appreciate when someone blogs what she really feels and completely free of complexes.
“If people wouldn’t hide their real thoughts, the world would be a better place for all”
Just a few months ago, while I was browsing some public chat rooms (to kill some time), I come across a young girl and she said only a few words: “I wanna kill myself” then left her email and logged out. Being curious for the reason, I sent her an email and and the reason was, she was being raped regularly by a bastard and was afraid to tel to anyone…
Since then, we often talk by emails and upon I found your blog, I remembered her. I’m suggesting her to take a look here. I think it would be helpful for her…
Btw she is in USA, I’m in Europe!
Wish you a big success on this blog
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Harriet J. … I wish I knew you
I think we would be great friends- except you’re extremely smart and well informed, so you would get irritated with my lack of care for grammar and linguistics from time to time (this is a playful assumption).
Qs:
“Why didn’t you scream ‘No!’ louder…”
“Why didn’t you fight him off physically…” like I didn’t try
“Are you sure you were clear you didn’t want to?”
“How could YOU do that!?” in terms of ‘letting’ myself be taken advantage of.
“Was it really rape, or were you just in over your head and then didn’t know what to do…?”
gosh, these blogs give me nasty gagging flash backs.
I took a karate course after my incident, on campus, for an extra credit to be full time but also to learn some ass kicking moves.
Turned out my professor was the first man I learned to “re”trust (I suppose that wording is correct for that emotional path I walked down?).
HE WAS THE FIRST MAN TO SAY in an ANGRY serious tone, “RAPE IS NOT FUNNY, THIS IS SERIOUS.”
I started crying in class as he listed positions, that I wish I had known, to disable a potential/rapist.
I was crying because I felt like I finally had the fatherly answer, protection, and love I needed about the subject.
When I opened up to my father (a day or two after the incident), all he said (and has ever said) was, “Well- get checked for HIV…” *following with silence for a full month, in contrast to our daily conversations*
I finally accepted that wrong was done to me when I saw a poster on my dorm’s elevator that said to the effect of; “Sex needs consent from both sides, and consent means ‘Yes.’ ”
It was that moment looking at the poster I flashed back- I remembered saying, “No no no no no no no NO… NO” and staring at the ceiling… eggshell white spackled ceiling………………………. Like when you said Harriet, “I think about what the trees looked like as I stared out the window. I think about how bright the room was.”
That wasn’t both sides.
You are the best!
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i’ve been stalking your blog for a while now, and to be honest i’ve never had the opportunity to talk with another rape survivor… mostly because nobody that i know of has come forward and shared their experience and whenever i try to explain mine, people tend to look at me in disbelief or try to pretend that i didn’t say what i just said.
i need some legit advice. i was raped several years ago during my freshman year of college. it was a small school where everybody new everyone else, and it was a rude awakening {but typical, i suppose} when nobody believed my story — not the police, not administrators, not my friends, and sadly… i’m not even sure my family believes it. basically, everyone ignores that it happends and expects me to “go with the flow” so that life is easier on everyone else, including the rapist who is still friends with all of my close friends from college {including several of my bridesmaids, one of which who was dating him when the rape occured and continues an on again off again relationship with him}.
It’s really hard to know that the majority of my college friends -who aside from this are really, really good people- are still friends with this guy who completely ruined my life. i assume they are trying to “not take sides” but in essence… they are taking his side and hoping i will stay quiet about the whole thing so that it isn’t akward for anyone else. but it really really bothers me… to the point where i almost can’t let it go.
How does one go about handeling this? Do i force all of these people, who were a huge part of my college life and continue to mean a lot to me, out of my life entirely? it would certainly make things a whole lot easier… but then again, my husband also went to the same college and i don’t think it’s right to ask him to give up his relationships with these people {although, he would more than likely understand}. but we can’t completely isolate ourselves from the people we made so many good memories with. i feel like i am ultimately the one being punished for a situation that was entirely out of my control.
am i a bad person for harboring so much anger towards these people?
god, and then there’s my mother. i am applying to grad. school to be a therapist and i included a -very, very limited in detail- paragraph about my experience as a rape survivor and how my experience will benefit the feild. my mom was reading over the essay this morning and told me that i should take that part out of my essay and wrote in big letters “T.M.I.” along the margins where i mention the rape. how does one go about handeling these relationships that are for the most part good? i wish i could tell her that she made me feel ashamed of my experience and quieted my voice just as i had found the strength to share something so personal to me, but what’s the point if she won’t understand? what’s the point in bringing it up to my friends when they don’t seem to understand and get so uncomfortable about it.
is this something that i am going to have to battle for the rest of my life? each time i reach out for support, i am told that it’s innapropriate to talk about or that it wasn’t really a big deal. i want to let it go and ignore that my friends and family do not support me, but it makes me extremely angry. angry at THEM. ugh… i’m starting to rant.
i guess i’m trying to ask: am i a bad person for being mad at friends and family for not understanding or supporting me?
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:
To start with: however you feel is okay, appropriate, and right. You can’t control, change, or disappear your feelings on a whim. If you could, you certainly would have by now. If you are feeling angry, it’s because there is something to feel angry about. If you are feeling hurt, it’s because something hurt you. You can choose how to act on those feelings, but you cannot choose how to feel. There is no such thing as a wrong feeling. Feelings do not make you a good or a bad person. The way you act on feelings may reflect upon you, depending on who is judging you, but the fact that you feel things just means you aren’t dead, and the fact that you don’t control what you feel just means that you are human. So, no, you are not a bad person for being mad. You can act on your anger in shitty ways, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with having a feeling, no matter what that feeling is.
You’ve got a million things to deal with here. They all stem from this one event, and so they all seem like one big mess. But trying to deal with them like one big mess isn’t working. You’ve got a lot of little problems. You need a lot of little solutions, not one big one that covers everything. Try breaking it down into its smallest components. When you roll multiple problems into MASSIVE PROBLEM, and attempt to find one MASSIVE SOLUTION to cover it all, you don’t get any subtlety or flexibility. Sometimes that’s the way to go. When I got divorced, it was because I was sick to death of teasing out all the million little problems and finding millions of little solutions. I just wanted to burn the fucking house down. I chose a massive solution (divorce and shun my husband) to a massive problem (nothing about my marriage feels good or loving). Behind that massive problem was a million tiny little problems that had built up over years, but I was done trying to solve each one individually. I wrapped it all up into one and hit it with a nuclear strike. That meant I didn’t get to do things like have long conversations where my husband and I came to a mutual and understanding decision. But I didn’t want that anymore.
When I was dealing with friend fallout, though, I needed a more flexible approach. I had friends that I knew weren’t all-around good people. But I looked at my life and I knew that right now, for this moment, I needed them. I might not always need them, but I did right now. So I negotiated. I figured out what things were important to me and what things could be put on the backburner. I broke my really big problem (I think my friends might be amoral assholes and that’s unhealthy for me and can’t last forever) into lots of little problems (Polar sometimes says racist things, Gregory doesn’t seem to want to talk to me unless I’m flirting, Sunny keeps hanging out with abusers, so-and-so can’t deal with hearing about my rape). I found small solutions for each of those small problems (I don’t talk about race with Polar, I flirt with Gregory, I avoid Sunny when she’s on an abuser kick, I will forgo talking about my rape for now). Because they were small solutions, I was able to change them or modify them without necessarily moving the earth and the stars. I didn’t have to contemplate whether or not Polar was a good person, or if I was a bad person for being judgmental, or if I was a bad person for not telling a racist that they are racist and bad and evil, or if I should feel this or should feel that or should do this or should do that. Those were different problems with different solutions. Polar says racist things. I can either avoid this topic, or not avoid this topic and listen to her say racist things.
I talked about this more eloquently here: https://fugitivus.net/2010/07/07/great-now-i-hate-everybody/
You can try starting from something very, very small, like moment to moment. One moment, a friend says something insensitive about your rape. During this moment, you can choose: do I acknowledge to myself that this makes me angry and let myself feel that anger, or do I try to move on without dealing with my emotions right now? You don’t have to make it bigger than that. You don’t have to decide, in this moment, whether or not you’ll say something, or make a stink, or throw a fit, or drop your friend, or throw a punch. You don’t have to try to project forward to all the possible outcomes of these two decisions. Just find two options that are small enough for you to deal with, and choose one.
Maybe after taking baby steps like that for a while, you can kick it up. In one moment, a friend says something insensitive about your rape. During this moment, you can choose: do I tell my friend that hurt me, or do I keep my hurt to myself? Again, you are not making a big grand decision about keeping your friend or not keeping your friend or teaching your friend all about rape so they are a good person. You are not engaged in a battle to legitimize your rape. You are not engaged in anything larger than, “Do I say something or do I not?”
If you get comfortable with that, you can start extending moment-to-moment into day-by-day. Today, your friend says something insensitive. You tell them it hurt you. They don’t acknowledge this, apologize, or appear to care. Today, you decide you don’t want to be around this friend, because they make your day worse. Tomorrow, you can revisit this decision. Tomorrow, maybe you feel okay about it. Tomorrow, maybe you decide you still don’t want to be around your friend. But you don’t have to think about that today. Today, you decide whether or not you want to be around a person who has just treated you in this way.
And once you’re comfortable with that, you can start making it bigger. You can start dealing with the question of whether or not you want to be around people who treat your rape as insignificant. This is not the same as deciding whether or not your friends are good or bad people, whether or not they deserve your compassion or education, whether or not you should be sweeter or kinder or more understanding. Those are different decisions. Do you want to be around somebody who treats your rape as insignificant, or not? If the answer is not, there are still multiple solutions to choose from. You can choose to cut that person off entirely. You can choose to avoid the topic of rape with them. You can choose to set a boundary and let them know that every time they dismiss your rape, you will end the conversation and go home. All of these solutions allow you to choose not to be around somebody who treats your rape as insignificant.
Same thing with your husband. You’re rolling multiple solutions into one. Take it step by step. Do you want these mutual friends in your house? Do you want to go to parties where these mutual friends are present? Do you want to speak to these mutual friends at all? Do you want to hear about these mutual friends? Do you want to spend time with people who speak to these friends? Those are all individual problems with individual solutions. Because they’re all individual, not connected and not one Katamari mass, you can tease them out, change them, negotiate with them, make them temporary or permanent as you wish. You’re not deciding who your husband can be friends with. That’s never your decision, anyway — you don’t have the ability to decide that for him. Framing your problem that way makes it impossible to come up with a solution that makes you feel morally okay. So, break it down into piece by piece.
I’m sorry your mom is being an ass about this. I’m sure it’s not hard to understand where they’re coming from — it’s probably the same place you’ve been in, the “is this really happening? I don’t want to deal with this!” place — but that doesn’t make it hurt any less, especially from somebody who is supposed to love and protect you.
I would suggest, as I often do, checking out a rape crisis center. You may not feel like you’re “in crisis,” but these centers are full of people who do believe you, do want to hear you talk about it, and cannot be made uncomfortable by this shit anymore. They know where you are, where you’ve been, and where you’re going, and that can help give you a reality check and a confidence boost when you’re surrounded by a world of people who are telling you that the way you feel and think and perceive is faulty somehow. You have a right to feel angry. You are normal and healthy to feel angry. It would be a sign of serious alarm as to your state of mental health if people could treat you this way and you were all, “oh, ho hum, I suppose I’ll go dance a waltz.” People treating you like shit is supposed to make you angry, because you aren’t supposed to be treated like shit. That is your brain piping up to tell you, “This isn’t right; this is a bad scene.”
I’m sorry to say that you probably will be dealing with this for a lot of your life. It gets easier, with time and practice, to figure out how to deal in a way that is healthy for you. It’s very difficult, obviously, because everybody else is asking you to deal in a way that is healthy for them, and fuck how you feel. That’s a lot of pressure, especially because these people have things you desperately want and need: love, support, and company. There’s nothing wrong with feeling so completely headfucked to be in this situation, and your anger is directed the right way. You didn’t create this situation. You’re not maintaining this situation. The people who want rape to be invisible created and maintain this situation.
There is nothing wrong with you, and there is nothing wrong with the way you feel.
You may make mistakes when you find a way to express how you feel, or act on your feelings. You’ll learn from that. And unless you are in a rape crisis center or in a space like this, you will probably be the person in the room who has the most education, authority, and understanding about what rape means and how to help a victim. That’s a lot to bear. Feeling angry about being segregated out from the rest of the world, through no desire or fault of your own, means you have a strong and healthy mind.
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thank you — i appreciate you taking the time to write such a lengthy response! and i read the blog that you recommended… very helpful.
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“Is it still rape if I gave him permission, even if I didn’t understand what I was giving him permission to do?”
I go back and forth on this. I don’t know whether to consider it rape or not. I don’t know what difference it makes to label or not label it as rape, only that it is apparently important to me to do so.
I have had my share of VERY drunken one night stands. More than my share. Some of them involved good sex, and some of them involved really, really bad sex, and some of them caused me to feel a little embarrassed or ashamed the next morning in that “Oh, god, that was a mistake” way. But I have never felt, after any of those encounters, the way I felt after the one in question. There’s no comparison. After this encounter, I felt dirty, soiled, violated, disgusting, wrong, humiliated. I wouldn’t go out with friends for awhile afterward. The first time I went out again, I started crying and had to leave the bar. I still didn’t think of it as rape, just bad sex – but I’ve had bad sex before. Tons of it. And it’s never, ever felt like that. Which makes me think that maybe it wasn’t really sex.
This is what happened. I was out with friends. I drank some beer. The beer, unbeknownst to me, had been flavored with a substance that I am highly allergic to. In large amounts, the substance gives me food-poisoning-like symptoms that result in hospitalization. In small amounts, it makes me loopy, and high, and unable to keep track of what’s going on moment to moment. So I drank the beer, and I got drunk, but much different than normal-drunk. I was in a state where I really wasn’t aware of my surroundings. The kind of state where I would hear a voice talking, and, after a delay, realize that it was my voice, but not really understand what I was saying.
So I was out at the bar, in this state, and I’m sure none of my friends knew how serious it was. And I was suddenly making out with a guy – I don’t remember who he was or how it happened and I wasn’t even sure what he looked like, but I guess I certainly could still have come across as an active participant.
I don’t remember anything after that, except that I’m in the cab, going back to my friend’s house to stay the night (which was the original plan). And I hear one of my other friends say he told the guy to come over and gave him the address.
Next I remember I’m in my friend’s spare bedroom, and the guy is there. He’s taking his clothes off, and he’s helping me take mine off, and I’m just doing it without really knowing why or what’s happening. The only thing I’m aware of is that he is insulting me and saying misogynistic things to me, because the whole time, all I can think is, “He hates me. Why does he hate me?” I am trying not to cry. (My friend later told me she heard him making fun of me earlier, and telling me I acted just like a molestation victim and he was sure I’d been molested when younger. I don’t remember this at all.)
He is doing things to me, and I think I must be complaining about some of them, because he is growing irritated and telling me to calm down. I can’t feel anything that he’s doing. I am lying there and not moving, or reacting. When he says things, I am barely able to respond, because I can’t track what he’s saying.
And then he’s having sex with me anally, and I can’t really feel it and I’m not really sure what it means. And I’m just lying there and not reacting, because I can’t feel it. And still, all I’m thinking is, “Why does he hate me?” And trying not to cry.
And then I hear him say, in the middle of intercourse, “Are you sure you want to do this? I can stop if you want.”
And I hear myself say, “It’s fine,” but I’m still not sure what I’m agreeing to.
We lay there afterward for awhile. I’m crying, but it’s dark and he’s asleep, so he doesn’t notice. The alcohol’s wearing off, and I suddenly realize I can just call a cab home, and I don’t have to stay here. So I call a cab and go home, because I can’t stand to be in the same room with him for one more minute.
I cried all the next day, and felt terrible, but I really couldn’t explain to myself why. I told friends about it, and they said, “Oh, it’s okay, you’ll be smarter next time,” and that hit me like a slap in the face, but I didn’t know how to explain that to them, because I figured they were probably right, and I was just being emotional. Except, again, I have never reacted this way after any other sexual encounter I’ve had, even the bad or humiliating ones.
I thought about him, and didn’t know how to feel. Well, I did know how to feel. I hated him. But I wasn’t sure if this was fair. I try to think about things from his perspective. He asked. He covered his ass by asking. It was while things were already happening, and I don’t think he did it out of genuine concern for me (considering his complete contempt for me overall), but he still asked. Didn’t he do what he was supposed to do? And I apparently agreed, though I don’t understand why I did. It wasn’t a conscious decision, giving him permission; it was just something I heard myself do. I think it was because I felt like he hated me and I didn’t want him to hate me, and part of me knew he was looking for an affirmative answer, even if I wasn’t entirely clear on what the question was.
But he asked. He didn’t have to ask. It should have been obvious how incapacitated and just miserable I was. (My friend, who apparently never tried to step in at all, even though she felt weird about the whole thing, said I looked miserable when we were interacting.) He made fun of me for being a molestation victim, I guess because of the way I froze up when he touched me. I wasn’t reacting or initiating or participating at all, really. How could he not know that this was not sex I wanted to be having? He must have known.
Then again, I barely remember anything. Maybe my body was moving, instinctively, enough for him to think that I was participating the minimum amount and it was okay. I do vaguely remember him directing me into a certain position, and me following him, so there was some amount of interaction. It was not interaction I was consciously controlling, but maybe that wouldn’t have been clear to an observer. I don’t know. I just feel terrible about this.
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I was going to point this one out, but you seem to have a fairly good grasp of it already. You seem to know that he wasn’t asking because he was actually looking for consent; he was asking because he was trying to make sure he couldn’t be prosecuted for rape. If he had asked you beforehand, you might have been able to say no. But he asked you after sex was already underway, when you are in the most vulnerable position you can possibly be in. He asked you if you were okay with rape after he was already raping you, which is a win-win for him: if you said no and he actually stopped, all the rape that came before is magically not-rape because hey, he stopped eventually! A rapist wouldn’t stop, right? If you said yes and he kept going, all the rape that came before and after is magically not-rape because hey, he asked! A rapist wouldn’t ask, right? And a victim would never say yes? So, either way, the night ends and there is one rape victim and, magically, no rapist. You get to deal with all the fallout, and he gets to be a sensitive fella who asked his rape victim how she was liking her rape.
If you read psychological profiles of rapists (I suggest any work by Diana Sculley), you’ll find this is pretty common. A lot of rapists will do something seemingly kind or normal in the middle of a rape, and this proves to them that what they’re doing isn’t rape. They may wear a condom, attempt cunnilingus, put down a blanket, kiss the victim goodnight, or, say, ask her in the middle of her rape if it’s okay that they’re raping her. These are ostensibly things not-rapists do, so, poof, magically, this becomes not rape. Rapists do this to bolster their own self-image — aside from sociopaths, no rapist wants to believe they’re a rapist — but they also do this to bolster their chances of getting away with it. It’s a way to confuse the victim and confuse everybody who surrounds her, because a rapist wouldn’t make his victim breakfast in the morning, would he? A rapist wouldn’t brush her hair for her. A rapist wouldn’t ask for consent. Afterwards, the victim is left wondering what happened, if she misinterpreted it, if her feelings are just crazy and wrong (because, you know, feeling violated, terrified, and disgusted just happens out of nowhere, for no reason, and also there is no such thing as cause and effect, right?) and if she ever gets up in front of a jury, they’re damn sure going to ask the same questions. I mean, if you feel violated but an objective evaluation states, “Ah ha! You see, he sent her a Valentine’s card, which should make you feel sweet,” then no violation happened because you should have felt sweet! It’s like punching somebody in the gut and then giving them candy; when they call you a fucker, you’re all, “What, candy makes you angry? Wow, there’s something really wrong with you, that you get angry at candy.” It’s rape fucking magic!
This guy had already proven to you that he was willing and able to rape you, willing and able to verbally berate you (I mean, if you were really so drunk that you were just utterly and eagerly compliant, why would he have to repeatedly trigger you throughout the night to get you into bed? Why would he have to insult you? He was working down your defenses, which means no matter how drunk you were, you still had defenses up which means you knew and he knew that you didn’t want this), willing and able to violate you and degrade you in any way he liked. Why, exactly, after all that, would you believe that saying no would end sex? Why, exactly, would you believe that he wouldn’t do worse to you if you did say no? I mean, you’d already been giving off “I don’t like you” signals all night, according to your friends. You were already saying no, all night long. And he just didn’t give a shit. So why the hell would you think, when he’s already got you pinned down, naked, and isolated, that the answer to your question was going to lead to anything other than further degradation, further physical force? You told him no in a million ways that night. He told you, “I don’t care” in a million ways. Then he asked a dishonest question (“Do you want me to stop?” when you knew what he meant was, “Do you want me to mock your experiences of sexual abuse, call you names, and treat you like shit until you’re so tired of fighting that you let me fuck you some more?”) and you gave a dishonest answer (“Yes” when what you meant was, “Whatever it takes for you to get this over with faster, since I know you won’t actually stop.”)
Also, consider this: that night was hazy for you, and you don’t remember much, and you’re working with the possibility that you signaled consent in certain ways. That’s a mindfuck and a half. But think of it this way. When, in the middle of sex, have you ever stopped and asked somebody, “Are you okay?” If you haven’t done this, can you imagine a scenario where you would? And why you would? Because here’s what I’m thinking. The only reason you stop in the middle of sex to ask if somebody is okay is because that person is signaling in a thousand ways that they are not okay. You were doing that. You were doing it all night long, but you must have done it so much at that moment that even he — who feels that having sex with a girl who can barely stand up and can’t take her own clothes off and needs to be insulted into bed isn’t rape — had to ask if you were okay. And all you could say was, “It’s fine.” Not “Yes, fuck me!” Not, “Keep going!” Just, “It’s fine.” Do you really think that after you uttered that lukewarm, ambiguous equivalent of a shrug that you started acting enthusiastic? That you got into it? That you stopped giving off whatever signals you had been giving that said this was not fine, you didn’t want this, you didn’t even know what was going on? I doubt it. But he wasn’t interested in whether or not you were actually okay. He was interested in forcing the magic words out of your mouth so he could continue to legally rape you.
I’m calling this rape. You don’t have to. You only have to call this rape if naming it helps you. But if you do want to call this rape, you don’t have to wrap it up in one big package. Calling this rape doesn’t have to mean that 1) you’re a victim 2) you can’t or shouldn’t feel guilty 3) he’s a bad person 4) you should hate him 5) you should be angry at your friends 6) he should go to jail 7) you should be all strong now 8 ) you should tell other people about this 9) it’s all his fault 10) it’s all your fault 11) you should really be fair and give him the benefit of the doubt.
Those are all separate decisions that you get to make, and you get to change your mind whenever it fucking suits you. Calling this “rape” just means that you didn’t want to have sex and somebody had sex with you anyway. I think that happened. But all the little decisions that come after that don’t have to come all at once. I mean, let’s assume you call this rape. Does that mean you have to get angry at him? If it helps to get angry at him, you can do that. If it doesn’t, don’t. Just because you call this rape doesn’t mean you have to be angry — that’s a separate issue, a separate decision. And if you are angry, you don’t have to tie your anger in with doing something about it, or prosecuting him, or anything of the sort. You can just be angry at him without it meaning anything more than being angry. If it helps to think of ways you might have done things differently, do that. That doesn’t mean you’re betraying other victims, or blaming yourself. It means that you’re coping in whatever way works for you right now. The way you cope can change, anytime you need it to. You don’t have to please anybody but yourself here; you’re the one who has to live with this, and if right now the way you can live with this is by believing that it wasn’t fully his fault, that you must have done something wrong, that doesn’t make you a bad or wrong person. That makes you somebody who is trying to survive, and you get to do that in any way you need, ’cause hey, you’re the only person who needs to survive this, so you’re the only one with a goddamn stake in it.
Believing that this isn’t fully his fault, that you were somehow telegraphing consent through all the ways you remember not-consenting, isn’t a stupid, weird, or messed-up thing to do. It’s soul-crushing when you realize that there are people in the world who can and will hurt you in this way, and sometimes there is nothing you can do about that. It’s frightening as hell to feel like you had no control, that you couldn’t stop it, that the people you love and trust (like your friends) couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t help you. It can be easier to deal with this if you believe that you did have some control, that you were the cause of this, because then you can maybe keep it from happening again, if you just act right next time. That’s something every victim has to deal with. There is no right way to deal with it. I refuse to believe my rape was my fault, in any way whatsoever. But that belief has come with some costs; I’ve lost friends who really wanted to believe that it was somehow my fault, too, so they didn’t have to think that they were hanging out with a rapist. I’ve had to defend myself against snotty fuckers who don’t want to believe that the world is as full of rapists as it is, that “damaged goods” women like, want, deserve, or are able to tolerate rape, which makes it not “rape rape”. My belief that my rape wasn’t my fault helps me, personally, deal with the world in enough ways that the benefits outweigh those costs. But that’s not true of everybody, and it certainly wasn’t true of me for all the years that I was in an abusive relationship. If I had opened myself up, then, to the idea that I was being abused horribly and I had no way to stop it and no way to control it, I think I would have broken right in half. I wasn’t equipped to deal with that at the time. When I was equipped to deal with it, I did.
So if you need to think of this as bad sex right now, if you need to think of this as somehow partially your fault, if you need to think that he’s not really a villain, that he didn’t know, that he didn’t mean to, then that’s what you need to do. You don’t owe anybody anything here. There is no right way to do this. You don’t have to pick the way you’re going to deal with this and keep that up forever. During that night, you weren’t allowed to revoke consent. You weren’t allowed to change your mind. You were barely conscious, and didn’t have much time or space to think anything through. It’s not that way anymore. You’re awake, and you have all the time in the world. You can call this your fault today, you can feel guilty and self-hating today, and tomorrow decide to feel differently. This is something that will be with you for your entire life; you get a lifetime to decide how to cope with it.
You are the best!
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Thank you so much for your prompt and thoughtful response. I still have a lot of things to sort through, with respect to my own actions and with respect to the actions of my friends, but I hope you realize how much good you are doing with this blog. I’ve been reading you for several months, and recommending you to all of my friends, because you have a way of grasping the nuances of incredibly complex situations and distilling them into clear, understandable sentences. You have helped me immeasurably, and I know the same is true of the other people who visit here. Please keep doing what you’re doing, because it is meaningful.
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Hoo-boy. Turns out I have rape-related PTSD and that qualifies me for some free counseling down at the crisis clinic. Where the counselor wanted to hear about my experience and then asked, “And you’re calling that rape?” Well, he didn’t hit me with a lead pipe, but yes, I’m still calling it rape.
One of the best things reading your writing has done for me is expand my understanding of what rape is, how it operates and what fighting back looks like, if that could find its way into the book it’d be good.
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I am one of the lucky ones who have never been raped or abused. I guess my question is related to all those “Why didn’t she scream/fight/run away/tell someone?” questions. Not because I don’t accept all the answers I have ever read to that question, or that I can’t imagine a lot of other good reasons, or that I somehow in any way think they’re to blame. But, because I see now that I’ve been thinking that If it ever happens to ME I will scream, or fight, or run away, or report it, or whatever will make everything ok. But this blog has really forced me to rethink that, and I guess that I had subconsciously been thinking that only some people run a realistisc risk of getting raped, and I am not one of those people. Not because I’m somehow better than them, and certainly not because I thought they “had it coming”, but simply because nothing even remotely like that has ever happened to me.
So now that you’ve helped me see some of my own reasoning, and I realize just how wrong it is, I am forced to face the reality that I am a potential future victim. Since I am in my early twenties I guess I actually run a higher risk than many others, statistically speaking. So what possible reason can I have thinking that I could defend myself in a situation where so many others aren’t able to? I’m not better than them, I’m not smarter, or stronger, or faster, or less likely to get really drunk, or more self assured or anything that I can imagine that might or might not help me get out of a rape attempt. I am just a regular girl/woman, just as I’m sure they are. And wouldn’t most if not all of them have thought before the rape that THEY would be able to defend themselves from a (then) hypothetical rape attempt?
Sorry it took so long to get to it, but I guess my question for the FAQ is: “What can I do to make sure I WILL scream/fight/run away/tell someone?”
I know I can do things to prevent getting in a threatening situation, but my question isn’t about avoiding the situation, it’s what to do when you’re in it. Is it enough that I tell myself now that I would scream? How can it be, when I’m sure all those other women surely knew the “theory” or the “right” thing to do? I’m hoping there is some small chance there exists a good answer that might someday make the difference between being raped or not. But at the same time I can’t think of one…
I am sorry if this is a stupid or irrelevant question, or if I offend people by making assumptions about rape victims in general or making them feel bad about themselves or worse. I really don’t mean to provoke anyone, but I’ve seen from other comments to this blog and others how easy it is to offend people without meaning to, and I’m one of those that have yet to read up on Feminism 101 (though I will, now).
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@Not a victim:
In a word, practice.
You can take a self-defense class, or a boxing class, or a martial arts class. Any sort of class that teaches you how to physically defend yourself will help your body get the practice it needs. It’s just like ingraining any other skill in your body — if you drive, you probably don’t think about every little thing you do anymore, because you’ve gotten your body trained enough to act on auto-pilot. Training your body to react to being grabbed, shoved, or held down might help those reactions kick in even if your brain freezes up. Training your body to recognize physically intimidating body language, or pre-attack body language, can help you react quicker before your brain even realizes what’s going on.
But rape isn’t accomplished solely through physical threats of violence. There’s a huge psychological component, so you’ve got to practice that as well. This might give you an idea of what I mean here:
https://fugitivus.net/2009/06/26/another-post-about-rape-3/
The shit rapists do to coerce their victims into submitting isn’t reserved solely for rape-related situations. They don’t pull these tricks out of their bag just when they feel like raping — they need to practice, too. And it’s not just rapists — most people are so acclimated to the way men and women are supposed to interact that they unconsciously perpetuate psychological breakdowns on mouthy women with boundaries. Which helps rapists move freely through social circles undetected (https://fugitivus.net/2010/03/27/predator-theory/).
So, practice not letting somebody fuck with your head, or dismiss you as a person, or make you feel like you ought to shut up, or back down, or be quieter or nicer or sweeter, or apologize when you did nothing wrong. Practice not letting people cross boundaries that make you uncomfortable. Practice on the small stuff, and move up to bigger and bigger fish. It’ll be easier to practice saying, “Hey! Don’t interrupt me!” with a friend than it’ll be to shout and shove at a strange guy getting up in your personal space. So, practice on the places where it’s easier until it starts to come more naturally. And then, just like getting your body prepared, your mind might be better prepared as well. If a guy starts to tell you what you want, cuts you off when you try to say no, calls you a bitch when you ignore him, acts like the biggest hurt baby in the world when you ask him to take his hand off your goddamn thigh, then maybe all that practice at saying “no, that’s NOT what I said, don’t tell me what I said” or “I said NO and I am not going to stop saying NO” or “go fuck yourself” or “leave me ALONE or I am going to call security” or “I’m NOT sorry, and I want you to GO” will kick in instead of the easier, more practiced shit you’re probably used to. I mean, I know I wasn’t born saying “I’m sorry” in a meek quiet voice when somebody else interrupts me; I had to practice a lot to learn how to do that, and I had to practice a lot to learn how to stop.
And the third thing to practice is trusting your gut without apology. I’m sure you’ve gotten icky creepy feelings sometimes, bad situations, bad people, bad vibes. And I’m sure sometimes those bad vibes came at really inconvenient times, where there was no good way to extricate yourself from a situation without some kind of confrontation, or without making it publicly known that you thought some shit was fucked up, and that made everything awkward and full of consequences. Plenty of rapists are able to be charming as hell and nobody knows a damn thing, but those rapists are more accurately called “sociopaths.” Most people who think rape is A-OK are going to let that feeling slip via words, actions, or creepy bug-eyed staring. When your gut starts going off, practice ways to listen to it. Maybe when your gut goes off, you take an extra second away from whoever you’re with so you can listen more carefully — you leave the party early, or you don’t respond to the email or Facebook status update or weird thing somebody said right away. You give yourself time and space to feel it out and think it through (and the people who don’t want to give you that time and space? Definitely trust your gut about them). And then maybe next time you act on it — you tell somebody what they said wasn’t cool, and see how they react. You tell your make-out buddy to back off. You stop talking to somebody until they apologize. You see how they react to that, and you trust your gut about how that feels, too.
But that’s only half the practice with your gut — the other half is not apologizing for listening to your own instincts. Plenty of people will want you to. I had to deal with this at first by just refusing to discuss it, saying things like, “I don’t want so-and-so in my life anymore, and it’s not up for discussion. My reasons are good enough for me, and I’m not going to justify my life to you.” I think it’s incredibly important to learn (via practice!) how to trust that your own gut is right (for you — it doesn’t have to be right for anybody else), and that you’re not obligated to explain or justify it to anybody. “Because I don’t like this” is good enough and requires no further explanation; people who require an explanation of why you deserve rights don’t actually think you have any.
None of this will be the 100% guaranteed method to not get raped. The only 100% guaranteed method is to get rid of rapists before they start. But I will tell you this. There are things that happened during and after my rape that I cringe about, and I think, “Oh, if only I would have!” And there are things that I know I did right. Not screaming and fighting and running? I think that was right. I felt, in my gut, that my rape would have been worse if I had done that. I believe myself. I question a lot of decisions I make in life, but the ones I make in dangerous situations feel correct to me; I trust that my body knows what to do, that my adrenaline soaked auto-pilot is running in the right direction. My brain stem activates, I’m working on pure survival instinct alone, and I knew then and I know now that that was the right choice for me. That has helped me heal, knowing that there is a part of me that activates and knows what the fuck to do. Now, maybe these days I would have more options. Maybe these days that part of my brain would activate and feel better equipped to punch or scream or call the cops, because I have practiced doing these things until they seem possible. But back then, I didn’t know how to do those things. I would have had to take time and space and resources to actively think through how to accomplish those things, because they were new to me. I didn’t have time or space or resources; I was being raped, and my rapist specifically wanted to take those things from me. So, without having an ingrained PUNCH YOU SO SO HARD reaction, or an ingrained DID YOU HEAR ME I SAID NO MOVE AWAY MOVE AWAY I AM NOT GOING TO STOP SAYING MOVE AWAY reaction, and without the ability to think about how to do those things, I made the best choice I had with the options available to me. Knowing that I did my best, trusting that I did my best, has helped me get better after my rape.
So, while these things might not keep you from getting raped, I think learning how to trust yourself, believing that you have inherent rights that require respect (because you inherently require respect), and not apologizing for making the decisions that you know are best for you are things that will help you recover from a rape, if, god forbid, you should someday need to recover.
You are the best!
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@ not a victim,
Firstly, Harriet’s said almost everything that I would have said better than I could have said it. But there are a couple of things that I’d emphasise.
Firstly, it may not be the best idea to fight back or scream. It might help, or it might not. Until you are in that situation, you won’t know. You do exactly what you need to do to stay alive and as safe as possible in those circumstances. For some people that might mean fighting, for others that might mean staying completely still. I know that what happened to me would have been less violent, and probably less traumatic (for me only, not compared to anyone else) if I hadn’t tried to get away.
Secondly, I talk to a lot of girls roughly the same age as you and me who have been through sexual assault and a lot of them don’t feel like they had the right to be more vocal. You know that feeling when you really want to say something but it’s as if your voice won’t work? Like that, but increased by fear and social conditioning and all of these external factors that mean that when you say no, you whisper. So maybe thinking about what you would say, how loudly you would say it, practising it out loud, saying it more rather than less loudly than you mean, shouting if necessary, maybe that would help, I don’t know. I know that at least one of the guys I know who attempted to rape a girl backed off when she shouted “fuck off” at him. Which isn’t to say that it will work with everyone, or in a stranger situation. But it might give you more confidence, as well.
And I hope you never have to use these strategies.
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Sorry about the fairly long-winded post; I think there are 3 questions in here.
Why don’t you talk to your therapist about this?
Never mind that most people can’t afford a therapist. And never mind that although I’m one of the lucky ones, my therapist can’t work miracles. And sometimes part of therapy is doing homework that might involve confronting issues with people in your life, particularly if they are triggering you.
My friends ask me this all the time. In particular, the friend who set off my most recent and most severe PTSD episode asked me this when I tried to confront him about the things he did that precipitated the whole thing. He said some seriously offensive things before he knew I was a sexual abuse survivor. He said that all people who have been sexually abused are crazy, and not in a good way. He then went on to say that he would’ve gotten out of the situation were he a victim. He figures by the time someone is 11 they’re old enough to run away, which is what he would have done. After we had this conversation on four separate occasions I felt compelled to come out of the closet.
I honestly thought he’d be more understanding. He’s gay. How many times had we discussed issues pertaining to coming out of the closet? Lots, that’s how many. And the fact is that he knew before he ever started this string of victim-blaming rants that I was in the closet about something other than sexuality. The fact that he is a victim of institutionalized oppression over something he has zero control over and that he couldn’t empathize with my analogous situation really threw me. Particularly when before I came out of the closet with respect to my abuse (he already knew I’m a bisexual atheist which are the other things society at large would like me to hide) he was very clear that We weren’t crazy-in-a-bad-way.
I say that he precipitated, not caused, my most recent massive PTSD episode. Obviously my dad still gets credit for the causing. But the thing is I’d already dealt with my dad’s end of things at least enough to get on with my life. It was the reaction from my friend that was substantially more damaging at this point in my life. It wasn’t the victim blaming that was bad so much as the notion that I’m somehow fundamentally undesirable to interact with on account of being crazy-in-a-bad-way as the inherent product of my experience. Worst. PTSD. Ever. I was in a constant panic state with near-continuous flashbacks for about 2 months and the adrenal overload almost killed me. Fear of being perceived as crazy-in-a-bad-way made me crazy-in-a-bad-way.
After I outed myself, suddenly he became a person who has good solid boundaries in his friendships that he never, ever violates and discussing feelings would violate those boundaries and he’s not going to do it. He totally pities me, but it’s out of line for me to try to talk to him about the things he said to me. It’s out of line for me to try to grapple with the issues he introduced that totally broke me. He pities me, but this is a problem for my therapist. My therapist is wonderful, but she is short on magic wands. My therapist can’t tell me why my friend said the things he did; only my friend can. The notion that he can hurt me all he wants and that somehow my therapist can clean up the mess is completely crazy. And not in a good way.
I’ve since outed myself to everyone in our circle and he’s the only one who expressed any sort of victim blaming. So how is this something my therapist can magically fix? Because what I want to know is if he’s re-evaluated his position since I came out of the closet. Does he think that it makes me crazy-in-a-bad-way and has he reinterpreted all our pre-outing interactions with the crazy-lense? Or does he think that maybe it’s possible to be a sexual abuse survivor and not be crazy-in-a-bad-way? Or maybe he still thinks we’re all crazy-in-a-bad-way but will make an exception for me. And why has he been avoiding one-on-one contact since I outed myself but still sought me out for long one-on-one conversations on the side of the large group when we’ve gone out socially since? WTF is he thinking with respect to me, my sexual abuse history, and the things he said? Is he just embarrassed? Or is it a trigger for him? Or does he kind of not want to be around me anymore but still feel the connection? The degree of shame he heaped on me that is coming from no one in my life but him: How the fuck is my therapist supposed to magically deal with this? Maybe my therapist can talk me into a place of not minding the rejection, but only an actual conversation with my friend about what exactly is going on is going to put me in the position of being able to actually deal with him and the things he said.
And maybe another good question is, “Why do you value friends who are obviously bad for you?”
I feel a huge connection with this friend. I feel a bigger connection with this friend than I do with my spouse. It’s a life experience thing. My spouse has never had anyone try to injure him on purpose. His most violent life experience involved a drunk driver–bad, but not personal and deliberate.
My friend and I both came from abusive homes. We both did time being homeless as young adults. We both have these formative periods in our lives that we look back and we’re genuinely surprised that we’re still alive. I have zero other people in my life who are even close to understanding what I’ve experienced and the choices I’ve had to make. No one else understands deciding to go back home to be raped by your dad who was either infertile and disease free or using protection after fighting off a rapist on the street. Other people would ask “Why did you go back?” (There’s another question for the FAQ.) My friend has already seen too many close friends die of AIDS and doesn’t even require an explanation. But I have to spell it out for other people: you can’t protect yourself when you’re asleep and you don’t want to be raped by an IV drug user.
I have zero other people who spent years of their life with the genuine threat of violent death hanging over them. It’s not that there aren’t other people with these experiences, it’s just that there really aren’t in our social mileu. I know zero other people with our shared destructive and violent past who were Lucky enough to claw their way into the lower middle class. I feel lucky to have met just one other person who made it out of the past without disease and addiction to show for it. It’s almost like having family–only without the constant threat of violence. And I know we’re the lucky ones; statistically, we should be dead. I figure most people don’t make it out at all.
I can’t shock him and he can’t shock me. We can only push each other’s buttons because we know the buttons exist. But this is important: these big overarching formative life experiences don’t surprise us. He might think I’m crazy-in-a-bad-way because of what has happened to me, but he lives in a world where he knows it happens and just how bad it can be. My therapist has been specializing in rape and sexual abuse for over 30 years. Every couple of weeks something comes up and I can tell that I’ve once again said something that shocked her, that she hasn’t seen yet in 30 years, and that she didn’t know things could get that bad. My friend knows. No one else in my life gets it. So I’ll put up with a little victim-shaming and mutual-triggering just for that connection.
It’s probably related to the question of why people who have been abused seek out abusive relationships. I don’t think they do; I think they seek out people they feel a connection with and although most survivors don’t go on to abuse, most abusers were themselves abused. So most abusers are going to be in this class of people you feel this connection with, increasing your odds.
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I’ve known a few women that have confided in me that they had been raped.
One who I got to know took me to her bed before I realised what had happened to her.
She relived the experience. I could tell by her reactions. She was reenacting.
I spoke with a friend about it who is a social worker dealing specifically with abused women and children and apparently that is a common reaction to rape for many women.
My initial reaction was one of shock and disgust. Specifically that I was put in the place of the rapist in her mind. That was before discussing it with my friend. Had I realised this before hand I would have reacted differently.
I understand that this blog is specifically geared to women but many women will end up having a serious reaction to their first/subsequent sexual encounter(s) after the rape and as a FAQ section it would be a valid reason to address it from both the female and male POV so both have an idea of what to expect.
Yes I do realise the irony here of men reading a feminist blog to get advice on how to be more accommodating to their partner but even if it only helps one then its worth it.
You are the best!
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
You are the worst.
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I was raped summer 2008, drugged and woke up to hearing a shower running in a hotel room. I freaked out, put on clothes since they were not on me at that time, and heard two male voices. I ran, found the nearest place to hide and call a cab, the hospital and the police. I don’t remember any of it. Photos were taken, I was bruised all over the bottom half of my body.
The said thing is my now ex never believed it happened because a sister told him it didn’t because I wasn’t “acting a certain way” I guess there was supposed to be a set way that rape victims act. To this date he tells me I am lying.
There are other incidents growing up in foster care as well of things my father did to me but not my sisters. He sexually abused me, those things I have reacted to, fear of hot things like fire as he used to burn my arm with cigarettes, sharp objects and guns. I am also rather shy and intimidated by men. My sisters use this against me at times, claiming I loved doing the nasty things to my father (I was 3 yrs old when it happened) Or they would tell my now ex that it never happened out of anger when they would get ticked off. One of my sisters is an escort and projects her lifestyle on to me, the other on medications to attempt to stablize her mental illness. The escort has multiple personality disorder as well…
It really disheartens me that this guy I was absolutely in love with and he claims he loves me says its all made up and that I am just some crazy *itch… At times I doubt myself thinking maybe they are right, that I am just some screwed up *uck up. After all its been said enough all my life. I am now 38, its affected me so bad, I hate men, I hate women at times too (moreso the vindictive ones who try to get with my boyfriends) I am in tears half the time when I get called names or this stuff used against me like I wanted it.
Why is it the person who claims to love one the most can’t even believe this stuff happens…
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:
Two thoughts here. These are my opinions — they don’t have to be yours.
Everybody I have ever known that I would classify as totally fucked-up, well, I classify them that way because they don’t doubt themselves, don’t reconsider their lives periodically, don’t wonder if they are good or worthwhile people. They aren’t self-aware enough, and they don’t want the benefits of being self-aware, and that makes them uniquely boring individuals. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel any better when you’re in that pit of “oh my god am i wrong to the core,” but know that people who are wrong and bad and evil don’t care about that. Only good people care about their contribution to the world,.
Second:
Try assuming that they’re operating with a different definition of the word “love.” To you, this is something you would never do to somebody you love. That’s outside the boundaries of love. To them, it’s not. That’s a matter of compatibility, and not settling for lowered expectations (can you be with somebody who thinks hurting and distrusting their lovers is within the definition of love? Do you deserve better than being with that person?), but it’s also a matter of pity. How blocked up and ruined one’s life has to be to go through all human relationships thinking the abuse they inflict and the abuse they receive is to be expected, is what love means.
Next time you’re thinking about how fucked-up you might be, remember that there are people who think love is the same thing as pain and abuse, and that they actually conduct relationships in this way. These people go through life wanting, as any human being does, to connect and be intimate with the people they care about, and they have to let that part of them wither and die because all they can acquire is spiteful, hurtful, abusive relationships instead of loving, caring, supportive partnerships. And they are angry at you for not participating. That’s a sign of your good health; somebody gave you a platter of shit and you were like, no, man, I’m all full up today, but they went on eating it because they’re “normal” and “not fucked-up.”
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Here’s one that I got from a male friend, after telling him the day after a sexual encounter (I still have trouble calling it rape, and I’ve almost never talked about it since) that I wasn’t sure whether I was raped. I felt like I had been raped, but I didn’t know why.
“Well, DID HE RAPE YOU OR NOT? It’s a big deal! Don’t fucking say that, if he didn’t. Make up your mind!”
So, maybe it would be good to talk about how there are complexities when it comes to sex and rape. That not fighting back doesn’t automatically mean it wasn’t rape.
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The question I’m dealing with:
Is it rape if you were complicit and acquiescent, and even said “yes, ok”, but only after an extended period of begging and your boyfriend demanding a reason why you didn’t want to in order to accept no for an answer, and you know, he really, really wanted to, so why were you being so cold? Or after this has happened a number of times and you just start to naturally acquiesce to whatever to spare yourself the ordeal of having your motives and feelings and mental health questioned and torn to shreds?
Actually, I usually know the answer is yes, now, but I’m loathe to try to explain it to other people.
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, re A Man
I’ve been thinking a lot about that comment, and I understand why you shut it down in the way you did. But I do think that it raises an issue that I actually don’t hear talked about much, and I think it is problematic, both for rape survivors and for their partners. And maybe it would be phrased like this: “I am the partner of a rape survivor. How can I have a fulfilling sexual relationship with her without causing more damage?”
So for example, my partner is one of the few men I know who I truly believe is totally incapable of rape. He’s extremely serious not just about consent but about enthusiastic consent, about which he has been strenuous attempts to keep well-informed, and on occasions, he has recognised my own unwillingness before I have. The problem is this: like many survivors, I have vivid flashbacks that occasionally leave me briefly unable to tell memory from reality. It is rare for sex itself to trigger me, but it has happened. In these circumstances, I often cannot vocalise my discomfort and the signs I am able to give are usually later than is comfortable either for me or my partner. There’s very little, in a practical sense, that can be done about that, but since it is something that makes him feel deeply guilty, since he doesn’t wish to hurt me even unintentionally, I don’t feel able to discuss the incident either. So some discussion of it, and how men can feel after such an occasion, might not be such a bad idea.
Just a thought.
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:
I agree. The sense I got from “A Man”‘s comment was, specifically, that he wanted me to discuss it for him. Maybe I misread his intentions, but being a 1) feminist 2) blogger, I pretty frequently get requests or demands to write about whatever a particular individual wants me to write about, regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with what I obviously have an ability or interest in writing about, or passive-aggressive remarks on my real dedication to whatever cause because I haven’t discussed this issue or that issue. So, I was feeling it from both ends there: if you’re a feminist, why haven’t you talked about the menz (I don’t know if you know this, but you have not been talking about them enough!), and, you’re a blogger, let me put a quarter in you and make you write a post for me. And since you’re a social issues blogger, bonus round, I can insinuate that you should feel guilty that I had to put a quarter in you at all, because you should be doing my work for me for free!
You said you understand why I shut it down, so maybe you get that already. I know I’ve also been getting meaner and meaner about the way I shut things down (it’s part of why I wonder if I should be blogging anymore), because the longer I put up with the same asinine stuff, the less tolerant I get, so Person Z doing the thing Person A did a zillion years ago ends up getting the accumulated “jesus christ shut up” People B through Y have generated for me.
But, just to clarify (and it is in the Comments Policy as well), talking about your experiences is 100% encouraged and valid. Asking other people’s input on your experiences, or asking if others have experienced the same or similar things, 100% encouraged or valid. This thread is specifically to request input from commenters about questions that could be in a rape FAQ, so leaving questions you’d like to see answered in this future ephemeral project is 100% okay or valid. This is not a thread where I answer everybody’s questions. This is not a thread where I address everybody’s issues. This is not a thread where I write about whatever somebody else wants me to write about. And this is not a thread to tell me that I should write about this or that or the other, due to or in spite of my feminism. If an issue hasn’t been raised here yet, raise it, as that is exactly what this thread is for. If an issue needs more description, in your opinion, add more. If it needs more discussion, add more. But man alive, do not ask somebody else to do that stuff for you. This is a place for people to collaborate (which means they’re all working), not make demands.
So, yes, any discussions of being a good partner to a survivor: totally awesome and encouraged. Any discussions of what it feels like to be the partner trying to be good to a survivor: totally awesome and encouraged. Any discussion of what it feels like to have unintentionally triggered a survivor: totally awesome and encouraged. Asking me to do these things: not awesome and not encouraged, because these are not experiences I have had, and so it is not my place, my right, or my obligation to speak for others who have had them.
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@ Harriet,
I really do understand that, and I didn’t mean to sound like I was making a request for you to address it – I hope that wasn’t how it came across. The only thing I was trying to do was to rephrase that extraordinarily patronising and entitled comment into a question suitable for this section of your site, and to add that it’s not a topic that people really feel comfortable addressing a lot of the time.
Hope that clarifies things.
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: No, no, no, all that making a request stuff, that was directed at “A Man” (and any others on that same wavelength who are reading), not at you. Sorry that wasn’t clear.
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When my baby sister was raped by her husband, she said what hurt her most was the question coming from our brother: “Is that even possible when you’re married?” I have plenty of strong feelings about that issue and would love to see that addressed.
I avoided questions at all costs growing up and refused to share my experiences; I’m only now learning to address the emotional aftermath of being raped. When I did attempt to come forth to my family, I was asked “Are you sure that’s what happened?” I’m of the belief that “no” means hell-fucking-no and nothing else, but I’d be interested to see a full discussion on that topic.
With that said, a friend of mine referred me to your site recently and I have been combing through it all afternoon. I just wanted to take a moment to say that I completely admire and respect you. You’ve inspired me. <3
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How do I start…?
Well, I suppose the first thing to say is that I’m not a survivor. I found your site this afternoon and I’ve been combing it through ever since. Your clarity and eloquence shock me. I write in my spare time, and besides the fact that I love writing, writing is the way that I cope with the problems that I have. I truly find the voice of your writing realistic and able to articulate things that I think of but cannot say. Your blog entries have brought back recollections of my time in my former school.
I have many memories of being opressed and bullied in school. I’m still raw from the entire experience. There’s fallout four years later, and the aftermath is doing the biggest number on my brain. I’ve developed phobias that I never thought I would encounter. A part of my school life that stands out to me is my time in third grade. I was in class with a particularly disturbed boy who became fixated with me. I was shy, self-conscious, but I didn’t hold back from telling him what I thought about his approach toward me.
He’d hound me, follow me, give me gifts and announce that he liked me to other people. As a little girl of eight going on nine, I was apprehensive of boys in general. I did not understand why everyone else referred to it as cute and didn’t pay attention to it. I was scared. I didn’t want to go to class because I knew he’d be there. The day I really lost it was when he cornered me at lunch time and forced a kiss on me. My classmates laughed about it.
I did not fucking understand why people said it was cute. I was on the receiving end of the attention and I did not enjoy it. I cried about it at home. My mother was horrified when I talked to her about it. She, being the adult in the situation, obviously saw the situation in a different light than I did. She’s told me years later that she could not believe a boy at that age had such a mindset. I only truly realize what I escaped when I could understand the entirety of the situation.
He often launched himself at him with no warning, hugged me without my consent, and generally freaked me out. There was a day when he hugged me from behind and I hit him over the head with my lunchbox and called him a bum. Later he told the teacher that I’d hit him and said bad words to him and called him a name. I got in trouble for my “inappropriate actions.”
Sometime later, I’d been talking with one of my classmates about nightmares or something of the like, and I’d said that whenever I got particularly scared I’d go to my mother’s bed because I felt afraid of the dark. He’d listened in, and popped up a while later and asked me if sleeping in the same bed with my mom meant that I had sex with her and I was a lesbian. He could see that what he was saying creeped me out, and I remember even now that he liked seeing me scared. He spread rumors about me, ones that said I’d lost my virginity to him (at the age of nine) and that I gave him a blowjob.
Only now do I remember how terrifying those days were. I wondered what would meet me the next day at school, what the next person would say and what I would have to deal with. I hated the fact that my teachers wouldn’t believe me.
My parents talked to my teacher and after a long period of back and forths between my parents and the boy’s mother, which I will not recount here because it’d be enough for a blog of my own, he got moved to another school. He wasn’t expelled, or punished for his actions. He hasn’t really changed, from what I’ve seen lately (our schools had a track meet and he was there, luckily he didn’t recognize me). If anything, he fits the profile of sexual offender much more easily now.
I can’t help but wonder if some people are just born this way. Could there be a reason he was acting like that at such a young age? I guess, what my horribly-longwinded post really comes down to is: am I just getting too worked up? How can people dismiss experiences like the ones that have been recounted on here without a second glance? How can you just stare at me and tell me to get over it? That doesn’t go for only the above, but all the torture that I’ve endured in that shithole of a school.
I have a phobia for a reason. I don’t want to go back to a specific place that’s loaded with triggers for me. If I’ve got a choice about whether I want to go back or not, I’d rather not. Seeing especially as the people who were a large part of me collapsing are still there.
No. I can’t “get over it” so easily. You can? Boy, that’s a God-given gift. But I can’t. That’s why I’m seeing a therapist and taking a little pill each day to help me along.
Sorry, this post became mammoth-sized. I don’t really think I’ve got a place here, simply because what I’ve experienced racks up to nothing when I look at comments and posts here, but I wanted to share and ask. While I can’t connect entirely, know that you’ve got a supporter here and that I think you’re all incredibly strong. Harriet J, I hope you keep doing what you do best and that you keep helping people through your words. You are truly giving.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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Hi Harriet
I had someone I thought was a close friend but turned out to be a sociopath (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, I mean literally). I told him what my sexual boundaries were and he told me a whole pack of calculated and deliberate lies to get around them. After I told him exactly what I needed to know and how ****ing important it was to me to have the truth. I wouldn’t have had sex with him if he hadn’t lied. I would have run for my bloody life.
I know lying is coercive. And I’m pretty sure misinformed ‘consent’ doesn’t count in medical procedures or business transactions.
But I don’t know whether to call it rape. (Almost) everyone else wants to say it’s not rape. I wouldn’t mind calling it something else but for the fact that once they’ve established that it’s not really rape, people then feel like they can ignore it, not feel outraged, not hold him accountable, not stand up for me, not take it seriously, and so on. If it’s not rape it’s…. nothing. It’s just life. It’s to be expected. And I should shut up and sit still before I infect someone else with my bloody feminism.
I decided to use the r word as a consciousness raising act of defiance, at least until people will accept another term that acknowledges the viciousness and violation.
I dunno if that’s right. There’s nothing that teaches people about this, nothing I can refer to for guidance. What do you think?
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I know this is off-topic and you can go ahead and delete it, I just didn’t know how else to get in touch with you.
I want to thank you because reading your blog has helped me break out of an emotionally abusive relationship.
I discovered Fugitivus a bit over a year ago, and as I read through the snippets of your life story, I realized that a lot of the relationship dynamics making my life an unhappy one were pretty similar to what you described (though expressed primarily through psychological warfare without obvious elements of physical violence or neglect, which I did have a hard time wrapping my mind around.).
Thanks for speaking up about these experiences on the internet, you’ve really helped me a lot.
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I’ve been reading through this thread for the past hours, and I’m impressed by the amount of thought that has gone into it, and the amount of intelligent things that have been said. I hope the following doesn’t come across as offending.
My question relates to what “Not a victim (yet)” said above. (I fall into the same “not yet” category and therefore I am afraid my assumptions may be naive.) Since rapists apparently tend to put a lot of effort into conceptualizing what they are doing as something other than rape (e.g. asking for consent when already acting, or doing ‘normal, affectionate’ stuff that non-rapists also do, or narrowly defining rape as ‘by a stranger, in a dark alley, with physical force’) , I’ve been wondering whether one of the ways to react if you are unlucky enough to get into such a situation is to actually call what they’re doing rape in their faces. To take it one step further from asserting “I’ve said NO, and I will continue to say NO, and it’s not okay for you to keep doing this” and to add “If you continue doing this even though I’ve said NO you are RAPING me; never mind, in fact you’ve been RAPING me since you started because I didn’t say yes!” I guess this is really difficult because you aren’t always in a situation to say that much without being silenced, and also you’d be afraid that, once accused of rape, the rapist would definitely get physically violent to silence you (he has nothing more to lose in terms of self-image once you’ve spoken the word). What do you people think?
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I just want to say that I really value this post. For about three years now, I’ve blamed myself for what happened to me. And I kept on making excuses like, “Something is wrong with me because I didn’t want sex.” or “I was boring him so that is why he did it like that when I said I didn’t want to.” Or I made excuses for him like, “We are leaving soon, he wanted to get in as much as he could.” Or “Maybe he just didn’t I really meant it” I tried to convince myself I really did want it.
I didn’t know why every time I spoke to him it triggered this feeling of humiliation and made me sick to my stomach. I thought it was my fault, that I was nervous of pleasing him in bed. That maybe there was something wrong with my brain for not wanting it that day.
Reading this made me realize that it was not my fault, that other people have encountered and felt the same. He was the one who was messed up in the head.
Thank you very much for your insight and sharing your empowerment.
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This post reminds that for every stupid, inane question I’ve been asked about the fact I’m been abused, many other women have been asked the same. Among the gems of mine:
Q: “You’re the weirdest rape victim I’ve ever met.”
A:”Weirdest rape victim I’ve met” presumes there’s a type of rape victim, like this role, quiet, meek, destroyed person, which I refuse to see myself as. People tend to get lost in stereotypes
Q: “Why are you into S&M? Weren’t you raped?” Or “I think your interest in S&M comes from the fact you were raped.”
A: S&M is something I consider as a part of my sexuality. I’ve been interested in rope/bondage/whips and sexy things like that from the time I was young, and many other people into S&M who were not abused were the same way. This question comes from a certain stereotype that S&M is abusive and non-consensual, and that rape victims are drawn to it because that’s what they’re used to, they like etc. It also somewhat perpetuates the stereotype “they asked for it”…because of course on some level they must like it if they want repeat it. S&M for me is as they say “Safe, Sane, Consensual”. It’s not rape or abuse, it is something I enjoy, and do with my partner with mutual consent. It’s a far, far cry from being raped for me.
Q: “Didn’t you tell anyone?” or “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Q: “Why didn’t you report it?”
Q: “How did it feel?”
Q: Do you feel you’re permanently broken?
Q: Why don’t you cry over it?
Q: When will you get better? Or when will you get over this? (Translation: How much longer will I have to deal with you being like this?)
Q: Why didn’t you say no?
Q: Didn’t it hurt? Why didn’t you scream?
Q: Why didn’t anyone notice?
Q: Why didn’t your parents notice?
A: This is a good one, ask them.
Q: Why aren’t you trying harder to get better?
Q: Why didn’t you dress less slutty to prevent it?
Q: Do you feel that the rape is a part of you?
A: Stay out of my fucking business. I love how people feel they have the right to poke, prod and question rape victims and to question what they did in the situation. You can’t judge someone in a situation in which you have never been. People never know how they react until the situation happens to them. The healing process, for all the questions about that, takes time. It can take weeks, months or years and it is hard to go through.
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: You have a phenomenal blog. My friends and I have been discussing a couple of very infuriating news articles displaying victim bashing, and one of those friends linked me here. I respect your voice and your passion, and I look forward to reading the rest of your posts.
This question/comment/mindset from a friend of mine is a variant of “get over it” but phrased rather differently. I house-sat for her last year, and freaked out when a couple guys I didn’t know showed up at the house one day. One claimed to be a relative, but I felt very uncomfortable in their presence and said the family would be back in a little while. The minute they drove away, I locked up the house and ran across the street to a neighbor’s house. She let me sit in her kitchen for a few hours while we consulted with a police officer (who happened to live down the street) on what to do.
This house was in a fairly rural area — there were maybe 7-8 houses nearby. I finally got hold of the friend the next morning (and the police officer had made sure to have officers drive by the house through the night to keep an eye on me), and she confirmed the guy was family and she asked me “why are you overreacting so badly?” I explained to her that I’d been raped and mugged (two separate occasions), and I wasn’t comfortable alone with unknown men and no support. Her words, “Well, you just need to relax because you’re in the country now and things like that don’t happen here.”
I cannot help contrast the reactions: the neighbor who understood my paranoia and fear and understood I needed support; the police officer who understood and took steps to ensure my safety; and the friend who thinks Bad Things (TM) don’t happen in the country. I tried to explain again why my discomfort level was so high, and she told me I just needed to move away from the city because they’re bad places. I wanted to say, well, I was sexually assaulted as a child and that happened in the country, but I felt it would be lost on her at that point.
Apparently, Bad Things only happen in cities, and people who’ve been assaulted shouldn’t overreact — EVER — when really weird strangers accost them. Who knew?
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I was a child victim by a school friend. I grew up with FAQ like “But what if you were really raped?” (Translation: Be grateful!) One girl told me that I wasn’t a Real victim, like she was. Apparently Real rape is what strangers do, or someone much older than you. I’m not going through those FAQ about Real rape again by telling anyone that my ex-husband raped me. I suffer enough from the FAQ questions, like Isabel Knight above, re the physical abuse i.e. Why didn’t you leave? Now I’m sympathetic to women who experience rape in non-stereotypical situations, like at home or even during birth i.e. when non-consent to manual or material penetration during labor is ignored.
And in reply to babel above, Jan 24, I tried a version of what you ask but it didn’t work for me. What I said was, “This feels like rape”. He was enraged that I could suggest he was “like that” so he attempted to suffocate me. But that’s in a domestic setting so may not quite answer your question.
My last point is to ask people to consider the phrase “Fuck you”. In my experience it’s been used as a threat to rape and now I hear it as a verbal sex assault. Does anyone else think the same?
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I’d like to reply to some other FAQ that I’ve gone back to after my initial reply.
Anne, June 14 2010: I experienced something similar with my ex-husband using a former experience to invalidate my current experience. He used my childhood experience as evidence that I didn’t know what Real rape was.
A Man, November 11, 2010: I’ve not heard of a woman recreating the rape event with her partner but I went through a phase of fantasising about having consensual sex with my rapist. I don’t know why.
Lady Gray, December 10, 2010 and Elise, January 17, 2011: I agree here that if it “felt like rape” then err on the side that it was. I think a lot of sexual violence is perpetrated on women that isn’t reportable but should still be considered for its damaging effects.
Soledad, January 12, 2011 and others: I’m glad people are telling their stories of experiences of rape in marriage.
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The worst question I have been never been asked is: “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Answer: I DID. I told SO MANY FRIENDS. Over five, which is a huge amount of disclosure for me. I was seeking validation and a solution to my confusion. More than half of them didn’t believe me, didn’t speak out, didn’t support me, and actively encouraged me to silence. I thought I had been sexually abused and I told the people I go to for support.
To me, having told my support system after the fact was like doing the kicking and screaming I wish I had done during the act. And no one responded to my “kicking and screaming” the way people always say they will. It doesn’t take an exceptionally perceptive person to recognize a cry for help, especially when it comes in a form so plain and articulate. I have been abused before; I know how to talk about it. Why did this happen to me, if I did the right thing?
The worst question that I have been asked: “Why didn’t you kick and scream and try to get away?”
Because I trusted him. Because I thought that rape was a violent and forceful act by someone who does not know me. Because I was afraid that my “friend,” someone who had professed to be family, would alienate me and I would lose all contact with our mutual friend group, and be denied access to the things he possessed: photographs/videos/material things belonging to my dead boyfriend, his brother. Because I was drunk to the point of incapacitation, and it is only after wracking my brain that I remember anything at all. Because even if I had realized what was going on through the haze of intoxication, I was alone with him in his house in the woods, and no one would have heard me or come to help. Because my lover had just died, and his brother was the only person who understood that loss, and I was emotionally compromised beyond anything I had ever experienced before or since. Because I said “no,” and he kept pushing it, and I didn’t have the energy to fight forever; I was fighting for my life already.
And you know what? Everything I was afraid would happen, DID happen, and I was left to deal with being raped in the bargain.
After that, I shut up about it. I was celibate for a year. It was such a confusing situation for me that I did not think I had been raped until a close friend told me she considered it so. It has been 3 years, and only now I am ready to identify as a survivor, to tell anyone what I have experienced.
I am polyamorous and bisexual and gender-queer. I am not these things because I was raped. I am not a “social deviant” choosing “unhealthy pathways” as a way of dealing with abuse. {As though heteronormative behavior sets the standard for what is healthy and not in a relationship or a life.} I am a sane, healthy person who has lived through some serious bullshit to stand on firm ground, and I STILL manage to question myself in basic ways, to see if I actually deserve ill-treatment, if I am somehow encouraging it. I know now that there is only so much I can do, and that what happened to me is not my fault, no matter how it sounds to a jury or my friends or a psychology text.
Harriet J: thank you so much for giving me the words to express what I have experienced to others. It is so good to know that I am not alone, that there are others like me, that my experience isn’t invalid. Please keep blogging.
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Q: “Why’d you get drunk if you didn’t want to get raped?” (Want?!? HULK SMASH PUNY APOLOGIST!)
A: I’d never intended on getting drunk. It was the first time in my life I’d been drunk. I was raped at a high school party. It was only friends and schoolmates there, and it was a small school. No strangers. As a naive fifteen year old, I didn’t think there was a risk. All of that crap about not accepting drinks from people only applies in bars, not friends, right? Wrong. I didn’t know that my drink was alcoholic (cherry rum tastes oddly like cherry syrup when added to Pepsi) and I was a very petite girl. I was drunk after one “soda” that was given to me by a friend who thought it’d be funny to see the goody-goody prude girl get drunk. Another person at the party followed me into a room and raped me.
Q: Why didn’t you scream?
A: I was drunk and in shock. I didn’t even have the cognitive ability to slur out the word “no”, much less wail in terror.
Q: Why didn’t you fight him off?
A: I am 5’0″ and at the time, weighed 100 lbs. He was a 6’2″ football player. It’s like asking a butterfly why it didn’t fight off my car’s windshield after getting smashed against it.
Q: [Emeryn], you were raped once… and then sexually assaulted three times after that. Why do you keep getting yourself into situations where you get into trouble? Don’t you ever learn? (This has been asked to me numerous times)
A: I don’t get into trouble. That denotes some type of culpability on my part. Why don’t you ask my assailants why they assaulted me and didn’t respect boundaries? That’d be a better question. And to the second… yes, I do learn. I’ve learned that you’re a judgmental, intrusive asshole. Thanks for the lesson.
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Hannah Searsy: Thank you for bringing up BDSM. I went through a series of rapes between the ages 12 and 14, and sometimes it seems that nothing, nothing I ever do sexually since then is regarded as fully mine.
(Here comes rage and frustration)
To all of you who has questioned my sexual identity these last sixteen years:
Yes, I am the first to accept that early experience of rape and sexual violence probably have shaped my notions of sexuality, but please… Stop dealing out punches left to right. There is no way I can ever make you people happy without letting your opinions of how a rape victim _should_ act or feel shape my sexual practice, and that would be just another form av (self)abuse. If I ever put myself in a vanilla scented, monogamous heterosexual relationship where I aim to please and therefore let my careful, superficially respectful boyfriend fuck me once a week even though I don’t really enjoy it, you will have won the battle over my body. I wouldn’t.
I get even on the men who raped me by having screaming orgasms with men and women who demand a yes before they play. I take back my sense of self, my sense of entitlement to my own body by using it for my own sake. Sometimes it backfires into flashbacks, but the situations which trigger them are not what you, the condesending, superficially-well-meaning public assumes it must be. I never get flashbacks tied to a chair by a person I trust. I get flashbacks when I see a specific kind of brown linoleum floor, or when someone fires up a lighter to close to me, or some guy in a bar put his arm around my waist and won’t let go when I try to wriggle free.
So, the questions I want to add (which may already be added in other forms)
Q: If you were raped, how come you still like sex?
A: Uhm… Because beeing force-fed doesn’t make you fear food for the rest of your life? It could, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily. Everyone reacts differently to rape and abuse. Nothing is wrong, nothing is right, except for a world were no-one feels entitled to another person’s body without a clear consent, because that would be so right that my skin tingles at the thought.
Q: If you were _really_ raped, how come you sometimes muddle up the time-line when you talk about it?
A: Yes, why? Ok, imagine a trauma. When you are raped, or otherwise traumatized, the situation around you tend to get surreal. Your mind can’t take in each and every little detail, and most of the time a lot of rape victims are not even _in_ their own body, especially if it has happened before and the mental safety buttons are already installed and ready for use. It’s called getting dissociative, that feeling of un-reality. When the rape is over, the mind tries to handle the trauma. One way of doing that is by locking down. Shock is not a very good state to run in a memory contest.
Q: How come you can joke about rape, and I can’t?
A: Because I know what I’m talking about. I do, sometimes, in safe company, joke about rape because the dark, sarcastic and bitter can make it easier for me to handle my flashbacks, my fear and my feeling of being up for grabs, whereas YOU (as in non-raped, non-sexually-traumatized, usually male person) have no entitlement to making fun of my trauma. Seriously. Last time someone whined about me being a bitch when they joked about rape, I sent them to this blog.
Q: Are you bisexual because someone raped you?
A: No. At least I don’t think so. But _if_ my experiences with male sexual abuse made me more open to sex with women and transgender people, it still doesn’t change anything, because, and listen carefully to this important piece of information, it’s not as if that would make it any less REAL. If (and let me once again assure you that I don’t think this is the case) my repeated trauma in some way turned me bisexual, that doesn’t mean that my heart _doesn’t_ flutter when an attractive woman meets my gaze, or make me any less horny when she kisses me. The experiences of someone raping you may influence how you relate to yourself and the world around you, but it doesn’t make these relations any less real or important than if you had never been raped.
Q: Why are you talking about your rape all the time? It seems you just want the attention.
A: You’re damn right I do! This moment, when you ask me this silly question (or actually just states to me that I should be shutting up instead of making you feel uncomfortable), someone is raping another human being. One of the reasons this is happening is because no-one really wants to talk about power and sex in the same sentence, because if we did, we would have to face up to the fact that so much of our so called courtship are based on male power and supremacy, and that would lead to getting your bill paid on the next date just wouldn’t feel as good anymore. Oh, and on a less agressive note, there is a 25% chance (if you are a swedish woman, I don’t know the international figures) that you are sitting next to me with your own, personal rape-story you’ve never felt entitled to tell anyone. If I talk about mine – perhaps that can help you talk about yours.
Thank you for the blog, and sorry about the rage and the sloppy english.
//Alva (Sweden)
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Thank you for your thought provoking blog, it has been very helpful to me. My question is:
If 1/5 or 1/4 women (depending on your source) have been victims or sexual assault, how many men have been perpetrators?
This is a question that is often ignored for the sake of comfort – it’s much easier to apportion sympathy to victims that it is to apportion blame to perpetrators. In fact, as a question it only struck me after reading one of your posts. If rape ‘jokes’ distress victims, they also condone rapists.
Obviously it would be a hard question to answer, as very very few men would ever admit to it, and most rapists limit their conception of rape to avoid blaming themselves. But I imagine some sort of statistical analysis may be possible. I imagine there will be more men who have raped multiple times than there are women who have been raped multiple times, suggesting that, thankfully, the number of rapists may well lie far below the 1/4 figure.
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one that i’ve been dealing with recently, from my best friend:
Q. why are you letting him get away with this? (by not going to the police)
A. the abuse took place years ago. i’m someone who drinks alot, is percieved as “promiscuous” and had consensual sex with my abuser. the odds of the police actually taking me seriously, my case making it to court and a jury actually convicting him are 1 in 1000000. trying to visualize EXACTLY what happened and how i felt at the time on my own, to try to get more comfortable talking about it with others, gave me a panic attack, i don’t think i could survive being cross examined by hostile defence lawyers in front of an audience of complete strangers who don’t give a fuck about me.
i know that its because she hates that someone has been able to hurt me without any consequences, and we both know that he’s out there, doing the same shit he did to me to even more girls and theres no other way either of us can think of to stop him, but every time we talk about this and she asks me why i havn’t gone to the police it makes me feel so guilty, like its my fault that he’s free to abuse people and i’m just being selfish, even though i know i have a right to do what i need to to feel safe. i don’t know how to deal with how angry she gets, sometimes it feels like she’s angry at ME, and she’s probably going to read this and things will be horribly awkward.
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If I am too scared to say no, or to fight back, or if I am sleeping and I just close my eyes and pretend it is over… is it my fault?
If I’m TRAINED to fight back and I don’t… does that invalidate me?
If it’s someone I know and have been friends with, and this comes out of nowhere – does that mean I am stupid?
I knew this person for a long time. We dated. We lived together. We split up, I moved out. It was on good terms! We were going out on a Friday night, LIKE WE ALWAYS DID. There was no tone to the evening that I could sense, and my job relies heavily on my intuition, so I would have noticed if something were wrong. I LOOK for things to be “wrong”, “out of place”. I had no reason to suspect that when I went back to his place to watch a movie and hit the hay (like WE ALWAYS DID) that something was going to happen.
Then it all started with a “massage”. He wanted to give me a back rub. I remember thinking, “Go away, I’m tired.” He stops before he puts his hands on my shoulders and offers the back rub. I can sense him looming over my form; I tell him, “I’m tired. Whatever.” So he proceeds to attempt to rub my back, my muscles of which are notoriously knotted. His back rubs always suck, and for some reason, his touch suddenly nauseates me. I think it was the alcohol that did not agree with my stomach, but I think it was also something more.
I push him away. “Enough,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “Good night.”
“Good night,” I mutter into the pillow, already drifting away.
I wake up an hour and a half or so later. My bra is unhooked and has now become a tangled mass of fabric at my elbows and hands; I feel as though I am playing Cat’s Cradle with Victoria’s Secret ribbon. I am dead weight, but like a driftwood; something is bumping me. HE is bumping me – he is trying to roll me from my back to my side, trying to grab at my chest and trying to touch my lower regions.
I am awake. I am awake, but I am asleep. I am stunned. I can’t understand what is happening. This must be a dream. But every cell in my body said, “LET’S YELL OKAY LET’S YELL,” but when I inhaled – I froze. Suddenly I became terrified. I didn’t yell; instead, I shoved him away, made a noise and rolled back into my spot. I kicked out.
Maybe if he thinks I am sleeping, and I show a little aggression, he will take a hint. For some reason I feel it is better to pretend I am asleep.
An hour and a half later, the sun is rising. I wake up. He is on top of me, groping me. Again, I have to roll away. I lay with him next to me, breathing and existing, and I want to smother him with a pillow. I bide the seconds into minutes until he gets up to go downstairs and work on his car. I lay in bed a while longer, and I feel disgusting.
I left in front of several friends later that afternoon during an NFL game. I went to the bar to watch the game; my team is playing. I feel wrong. Something in me feels wrong. I text a friend. I say, “May I ask you a question and expect an honest answer?” He says of course. I said, “If your girlfriend was asleep, and you tried to kiss her and touch her and grope her and get on top of her… that would be bad, right?”
I hate how my text comes out. It seems naive; childish. I feel stupid for asking as I hit enter.
“I would never do that. A kiss maybe, but I would never ever just put my hands on her in a manner that you describe. She’s my girlfriend, but I don’t have a right to try that when she’s asleep. That’s just… sick. Why do you ask?”
So I tell him about my night. He is stunned. He encourages me to call the police. He tells me what occurred is “Sexual Assault” and it is NOT OKAY. His girlfriend is a nurse. She asks me a few questions, then they encourage me to call the RAINN hotline. I thank them, I watch my team lose the game, and I come home. I call the RAINN hotline later and I recount every detail with terrifying accuracy.
The woman warns me. I tell her I want to confront him. She says that if I feel I must, than that is a decision only I can make. She ensures me in several questions concerning my safety and sanity. She warns me that he will try to minimalize what has happened. That he will try to rebuff me and say, “Well, you didn’t say no. If you were awake, why didn’t you say no?” I tell her that I just want to make him say it.
I am scared. I tell my roommate. I am ashamed and embarrassed. He does not respond for quite a while; he clarifies which person I am referring to. He is further silent until asking if I need anything. I feel relief; he believes me. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t, but I am always scared when I see women recount tales of abuse to family members who turned deaf ears and blind eyes. The next day, I wake up and I go to work. I walk in and I go straight into the back where my friend/manager is.
“I want you to walk me through Saturday night in perfect detail, and I do not want you to leave anything out.
He stammers a stupid reply. “You met us at the bar, we drank, we went to my place, we went to bed, I woke up, you left.”
I take a step closer, now hovering over his desk. I cornered him, just like he cornered me.
“I want you to walk me through Saturday night in perfect detail, and you will not leave anything out again.”
Instantly, the excuses begin pouring from his mouth. He knew to what I was referring; he knew his guilt. He attempts to give me myriad excuses as to why I “asked” for it. Then when I leave, I receive this text message:
(Direct Quote)
“I’m sorry…. I really misread the situation…. I do feel that I was lead to believe something the night before between comments and you comming out of bathroom in underware…. but if I hurt you in any way I’m sorry…. please think about me how I act and who I am and understand that I did stop we didn’t have sex and I was only trying to wake you up and see if you wanted to…. had you woke up and said no would have stopped imediatly but you didn’t so instead of continuing to try I just stopped and went to work on the car. I am sorry and I will stop talking now and if you ever need anything let me know.”
I think it’s very kind that he would have stopped if I had WOKEN UP TO SAY NO. Don’t you agree?
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A question that I often ask myself about my rape is, “Why did they rape me?”
A question I have both received and asked myself regarding long-term molestation by my father is, “How can you still love him?” That question applies to abuse/assault in any close relationship.
I know these aren’t really questions that would go well in a general Rape FAQ but, now that I think about it, rape victims are probably left with a lot of questions that they have trouble getting answers for, but that kind of thing is likely best for a discussion.
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I think this got lost or posted b4 I was finished due to KKOL (Kitty Kat on Lap), so I’ll post again….
The question for me was “Don’t you realize you will never make progess until you forgive the perp unconditionally, even if he never apologized?”
Sorry – I’m going to yap a bit now. I experienced mean incest at age 11 from an older brother while my father was ill in the hospital for months. We kids were left alone in a household which became “Lord of the Flies,” being repeatedly threatened, bullied, abused and then laughed at. “Don’t tell anyone – you don’t want to make mom more upset – she’s already overwhelmed being at the hospital all day.” When my father died a few years later, I instinctively went No Contact with the entire family after being open about the situation (no acknowledgement from them and only repeated invitations to the usual family activties and finally refering to me as the “problem child” – isn’t that convenient). Here’s the thing: keeping it “quiet”/doing the “forgiveness thing” brought me thoughts and active info gathering on suicide, going no contact brought me thoughts about how I would like to spend my time.
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Sorry if this one is already up here; I didn’t have time to read through all the comments. A good friend survived acquaintance-rape in college. Her rapist, who is much smaller in stature than she is, didn’t use physical force to overwhelm her; he simply refused to take “no” for an answer and let fucked-up acculturation do the rest of the work. She told me afterward that she was repeatedly asked (as you note, not just by others but by her own internal critics as well), “Why didn’t you just push him off you?” This, even though she was saying “no” the entire time. People.
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I just wanted to point out a pet-peeve I have about relationship rape.
My boss and I were talking about abuse and how it can so easily be compared to Stockholm syndrome. She said the following:
“I have a girlfriend who’s husband abused her for years- for twenty plus years, he basically raped her every day.”
While I appreciated being able to have a thought-provoking, intelligent discussion with another woman, I did not appreciate hearing that woman use the phrase “basically raped.” I wish instead that she had said “For twenty-plus years, he raped her everyday” because that “basically” she put in there implies disbelief on a very small, subconscious scale, and that breaks my heart.
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When I used to teach, I heard this (and I have also heard it in non-teaching situations), from men: that they feel/felt shamed, as men, sexually, by mothers or women friends who tried to teach them not to rape. That is, that they felt that being told “don’t be a rapist” sort of implied that they would grow up to be a rapist, or that they might be a bad person, or somesuch. Which I would reframe as a faq thus: “what can people who are raising/teaching boys (and girls too, for that matter) do, to teach them not to be confused about rape, without shaming them simply for being boys?
I’m also thinking this is potentially part of a response to a question way up thread from 2010, i.e., “what can I do?” to counter the rape culture?
So this is what I have done: when my son asked me what rape meant (I think he was about six? And I don’t remember what the catalyst was for the question, probably something he heard on the news, it doesn’t matter), I told him *and* I told him that rape was unfortunately very common, for example ___ and ____, two grownup women that are a big part of his life and that he loves, were raped.
Of course his eyes got big and he had questions about what happened, so I told him what I knew: one person had been raped at the age of 14 under these circumstances, another at this other point in her life under a different set of circumstances.
He is still a child, but it’s very clear to me that my explanation made him identify with the *victims* rather than the rapists. Which of course makes sense, because the victims were women that he knows and loves and he was a child and it didn’t occur to him to identify with the rapists simply because, like them, he is male, any more than it occurs to young children to identify with the bad guys if they read a superhero comic simply because the bad guys are male (or, say, because they aren’t superheroes).
And it is also very clear to me, this is the point, that because of that sense of identification he still, whenever he sees a kinda rapey scene in a movie/video/advertisement, he sees it from the point of view of someone who has a visceral recoil reaction to rapey things. He may also have a “that’s hot” reaction, I don’t know; I’m his mother, he’s not going to tell me everything. But I have made it a point as he’s gotten older to say that it’s okay if, when he sees the way that sex or women are depicted in a lot of media, he feels confused: both titillated and repelled, because what he’s being shown *is* confusing. Rape culture is confusing, because the point is all about confusing/blurring the distinction between sex and rape.
Frankly, I think that both boys and girls who have not been raped get that confusing titillation/repulsion reaction to rapey media, or to rape/sex distinction altogether, really. Which of course is what the rapey media is supposed to do. So I think that these things–(1) when at some point a child asks, what is rape? explain it *and* give them examples of people they know and are fond of who have been raped, so that they start from the very beginning with the ability to empathize with the victim rather than see rape as some abstract concept; (2) as they hit puberty and start noticing rapey media in a whole new way and you see them side-eying you to gauge your reaction, telling them that said rapey media is confusing because it is deliberately combining sex/nakedness/titillation with objectification/exploitation/dehumanization, and that it is okay for them to have emotional responses to *both* parts of that–are maybe a good starting point for helping people start with a clear sense of sex and rape as distinctive things, maybe innoculating them against the twisted sex/rape cultural confusion while they are still young and hopefully helping them become healthy sexual adults who know the difference.
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I have experienced rape in a few different forms (if that makes sense?) and I think people’s questions and/or reactions have been vastly different depending on the ‘form’, even though for me, they were all just as devastating as one another.
Childhood abuse – I don’t generally discuss that with anyone and it is probably the ‘form’ that I am most uncomfortable with and have not dealt with within myself.
Brutal physical attack/gang rape – Most people react to this with disgust, shock, or disbelief. It occurred in my own home and people ask my how I can still live in the home it occurred in. I did leave for a while but I came back, I didn’t want it to beat me, I didn’t want to keep running away. I learnt to deal with the association and make new, better memories in my home. The most frequently asked question with people who knew about this was why I refused to press charges. They didn’t understand the absolute terror associated with what occurred and the people who did it. I didn’t feel that the police would protect me, I didn’t want to have to go through the disbelief from people, I didn’t want to be hurt even further, I didn’t want to have to relive it continually through statements, lawyers etc.
Manipulation/Guilt – This always confused me the most, because it was within a relationship. It was an abusive relationship but it always left me feeling like ‘I should have just kept saying no and not given in because of manipulation and guilt. I should have just walked out.’ And those are the questions people ask. “If you eventually caved in then it can’t have been rape” and that is what I believed for a long time as well. “You always reject me, it makes me feel like you don’t care about me, I need to feel loved by you so have sex with me” was pretty much the formula for that one, or just starting when I was asleep. I think the worst part is that the person doing this knew of the trauma from my past and used it to manipulate and hurt me more. He actually told me I deserved what had happened. Another poster mentioned that someone has said to them ‘you ruined his life as well’. I felt that way at the time and it’d be awful for someone to say that. I snapped one day and told him what an awful human being he was and he just stood there and cried. I still feel guilty over that but I’m sure as hell he doesn’t ever think of how much he fucked me up with all that he did.
I am also someone who has been into various aspects of BDSM since I can remember, and there is always a part of me that wonders ‘did I do something to make this happen’ despite it being absolutely nothing like what I’d ever want. I feel that telling people who know about my interest in BDSM about my past will result in them believing what happened to me was my fault or is somehow less traumatic and devastating because of my interest in BDSM, and on the other hand I don’t feel comfortable telling people who know about my past that I’m interested in BDSM, for the same reasons. I go through the constant circular thinking of ‘Did my interest make it happen, over and over, or did what happened heighten my interest in it?’ It’s a constant battle with my mind to not let it drag me under at times and fall into the pattern of self-blame.
Aside from being told I deserved it, I think the worse thing revolving around people questioning me was a partner I had recently. He was a lovely guy, well intentioned, who just said the wrong thing. I was in hospital at the time trying to sort through some of my psychological issues and a lot of past stuff was being brought back up for me. He was supportive and I think it was out of concern that he asked: “You went to SARC (sexual assault resource centre) and to your GP. They both knew and you were 16. They legally would have had to report it to the police, you said the police were never involved, why didn’t anything ever happen?”
In Australia there is a legal requirement for teachers, doctors etc to report any suspected sexual assault/abuse involving anyone under 18. I was speechless when he asked me this, I didn’t understand why it hadn’t happened. I was upset and hurt that he was questioning me, I was angry at the people who I thought had done the wrong thing and not reported it when they were required to, but I was also relieved that they hadn’t because at the time I’d been so terrified that I hadn’t wanted to anyway. I did some research and discovered the law didn’t come in until a year or two after that particular event. But what stuck with me most was the doubt I felt my partner held towards me.
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After I was raped, my rapist, who hung out in the same place I did on campus, told everyone I’d accused him of rape. And of course had a fancy story that wasn’t even close to what happened even if you squinted and turned it sideways. He got to everyone before I did. And you know, I just didn’t feel like setting the record straight – though I had a friend who tried.
I mention this because the question that seemed to be on everyone’s mind was, “If your story is true, why haven’t you explained yourself?”
And it’s funny, in a completely painful kind of way, how many of these people asking this question were other women. No one seemed to be able to stop and ask themselves, if this had just happened to me, would I want to talk about it over and over again, reliving it just so some people I used to hang out with would believe me? Would I really want to have to go out of my way, during a time filled with shame and pain, to try to convince people that the story was true? And if I had to start every conversation looking to convince someone of something that should never have happened to me in the first place, why the fuck would I even bother?
I was a victim of the system, as well – the police, going against protocol, told me that I did not have enough evidence, that my case would never make it to trial, and even if it did, I would lose. I did not say no firmly enough. We were alone, and there were no witnesses of any kind. They told me this before the results of my rape kit came. They told me this right after I had to submit to a rape kit, which is the last thing in the world anyone who has just been raped wants to do – give someone access to the very place that has been violated. I did not even want to call the police – I already felt like maybe I should have done something more – even though I’d waken up to him climbing in my bed, even though I distinctly remember that show of strength when he kept me from getting up, even though I weakly tried to persuade him that this was a bad thing, that this was not right, groggy-eyed and waking up to such an alarming circumstance, knowing someone had opened my door and just climbed right into my bed as if they belonged there. But I felt like it was my fault for not locking my door. It was my fault for giving in, for not shouting no, for not fighting. It was my fault because I’d been so nice to him all the time. It was my fault because once it was happening, I let him think I enjoyed it, because really, he could have hurt me, it could have gone on forever, and this way, he’d go away faster. I had not even called the police – my friend had, when I showed up on his doorstep at something like three in the morning unable to speak, until finally he dragged just enough out of me to understand why I was darkening his door with tears. “I woke up, and he was in my bed…” was all he got. And so, after begging him not to call, after feeling like it was all my fault, after feeling terribly invaded having to provide a rape kit, to let someone in that place that I wanted to pretend didn’t exist, those two cops validated all of my fears that obviously, this was my fault, because I didn’t say no loudly enough, because I didn’t have any wounds to show, because what happened to me did not count in the eyes of the law that is supposed to protect victims.
And always, the question lingers in the back of the throats of most people who hear my story, “Why didn’t you say no more firmly? Why didn’t you fight? If you would have done more, then the law would be on your side. So why didn’t you do something?”
Because I was afraid. Because I was in shock. Because I didn’t want it to hurt. Because I didn’t know what he would do if I did. Because he had already came through a closed door and got into my bed while I was sleeping. Because I knew him, and I couldn’t believe it was happening. Because of a million different personal reasons that I just don’t feel like telling the world. And I shouldn’t have to.
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Oh, this. Hits so close to home.
I was raped by my ex-boyfriend from the instant I met him in person. We’d known each other online for months. He wrote me a story that involved him kidnapping and raping me (hello, alarm bells I did not acknowledge and should have). From the instant I saw him, my intuition said “stay the fuck away from this man.” And I didn’t.
The one thing I cherish about that first night, coming from me, the one who had never been in a relationship before, the one who had been molested and raped as a child by her own father, the one who was shy, possibly has selective mutism, the one who had almost never stood up to anyone before….he asked me if I wanted to go all the way, and I said No. Unequivocally. No. Not “maybe in ten minutes.” Not “no, but…” Just. Plain. No.
Of course, it didn’t matter in the end, and I just sort of gave up, especially after he was over a foot taller than me and more than a hundred pounds heavier…but still. And the thing that always sticks in my head is that I was afraid I would get blood on my friend’s Little Mermaid blanket. And that he called me beautiful while he was raping me.
I actually told people afterward, right afterward. I said “he asked, I said no, he did it anyway.” Not ONE PERSON said it was rape. Not one person asked if I was ok. Not one person said it wasn’t consensual, something was wrong. (Incidentally, not one person of the people I am talking about are my friends anymore.)
I can’t count the stupid comments and questions I have gotten, or the ones my own mind has generated. A friend that I thought would have been supportive told me that it couldn’t have been rape because I wanted sex with him eventually. “Eventually” being the key word. And how can it be rape when I told him he should bring condoms? Because wanting to practice *eventual* safe sex does not mean he can throw me down and rape me whenever he has a mind to. I was trying to be *responsible* not giving him the green light to ignore whatever I said.
Also heard that it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t been a virgin. Like only virgins can be raped. (Well, I thought I was a virgin at the time, hadn’t remembered my childhood at that point…lucky me. Oh, yes, recovering molestation memories a couple months after being in an abusive relationship–so much fun. Not.) That’s what my mom said when I foolishly told her. That it only mattered and was a problem because I had been a virgin. Um…what?
Also: why can’t you get over it already?
Don’t you talk about anything else?
Why are you offended at *insert rape joke here*? It’s FUNNY.
Are you just trying to get back at him?
Do you have Daddy issues? (Fuck. You.)
Are you submissive because you were molested/raped? (No. I’d be submissive, anyway. The level of things I have been willing to do has been based on the abuse I’ve gone through, but not the underlying fact I’m submissive.)
Why didn’t you say no? (I DID. After a certain point, it becomes clear you’re utterly wasting your breath.)
Why didn’t you say a safe word? (HE SAID WE DIDN’T NEED ONE. And if he doesn’t listen to no, what makes you think he would listen to a safe word? Answer: he wouldn’t.)
Why didn’t you call the police? (I was in shock and terrified. And pretty sure if I had tried to call the cops and he heard me, he would have tried to kill me.)
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You brave women are my heros. I cannot believe the violent, horrible shit that is done to women and how we survive it. Actually, I can believe it. This blog has really given me answers to some of my own questions and I identify with how hurtful it can be when you find the courage to reach out and people ask you… questions.
Here are a couple that were asked of me, by my ex-boyfriend when I told him what had happened: What do you think “Do you want an Ambien means?” Well, I thought it fucking meant do you want an Ambien.
“Why tempt him when you knew he wanted you?” Tempt him? Tempt him to what, rape me? What the fuck kind of question is that?
I’m one of those girls that, until just last week, thought about rape as the guy that grabs you from behind when you’re walking through a dark alley. Yeah you may be drunk but it’s still not your fault, all you did was walk though an alley and some stranger attacks you. But that’s not what happened to me. I was raped by my boss. He had been my friend, mentor, confidante, and employer. I trusted him completely and never for a second thought he was capable of rape. Ever.
Well, he was capable. He’s literally twice my age, he’s my father’s age. We were on a business trip and I went to his suite after dinner to finish a bottle of wine. Why did I go? Because we were friends and I had wine. I had no reason NOT to go. Shit, I didn’t think he would rape me!
Here’s where my ‘alarm’ voice should have went off but instead was overcome by other things – He offered me Ambien and I took it willingly. Because I’m fucking stupid and I’m a drug addict. Then more wine. Then he gave me Xanax. Then more Ambien and wine. The last thing I remember is him kissing me, and it just went black. I woke up in his bed and just hoped I passed out and he was looking out for me. But I guess I knew deep down that something had happened. I wasn’t sore or bruised, but I had a bad feeling.
On the way home from the airport I asked if we had sex. Yes, lots of sex, he told me, all happy-like He said that I had asked him to put his dick in me. I don’t remember anything but I know that I never wanted his dick in me – I would rather fucking die. He’s disgusting and old and ugly and repulses me.
I immediately felt like I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this had happened. Then waves of anxiety, humiliation, disgust, horror, and fury just washed over me and took me over. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to kill him. The thing is – he knows that I didn’t want to have sex with him. I have been around him, alone, with others, in my apartment, out drinking wine, whatever… and never have I felt like I wanted to be with him. I had let him kiss me a couple times like 18 months ago but I didn’t like it and stopped it. But see, I was sober at the time and capable of defending myself. Like someone said earlier – my consent was simply an obstacle he had to overcome. He simply figured out that it wasn’t going to happen if I were sober, and knew I had vulnerability to a very bad drug ( I confided in him), figured out the perfect blackout cocktail, and made it happen. It all worked out perfectly for him, because I probably didn’t fight and who knows, maybe I even “participated” in some way. Never mind that I DIDN’T WANT TO FUCK HIM, NOT ONCE, NOT EVER.
He has a lot of money and power. He used it to try to fuck me and it didn’t work. He got me a job. I still didn’t want to fuck him. He didn’t get it that no matter what he did, I wasn’t just going to all of a sudden develop a sexual interest in him. He’s old an gross. The men I want to fuck are young and hot. It’s just a biological thing that can’t be manufactured no matter how hard he tried, but he’s not used to hearing NO and obviously he wouldn’t take NO for an answer.
I’m also noting the psychological component to all this – all the ‘grooming’ he did, getting me to trust him, worming his way into my life, keeping close tabs on me through facebook and all that. I see it now and it makes me homicidal. How, being a smart, educated, professional woman, that I did not see this coming, I will never know. But I do know that I never wanted to have sex with him and just figured, as with most fucking normal people, that that was the end of it. Apparently not.
He’s really screwed himself though, because I told a colleague at work, then I told my other boss – his partner. They believe me. There’s physical evidence. Realizing that I felt completely fucked up and violated, and that no sexual experience before this ever felt this way, I got help right away. I’m retaining a heavy-hitting lawyer because now I have to leave the job that I love because of his sick ass. I think I’m very glad that I didn’t keep it a secret and that he has to answer to his female business partner, because I bet he expected me to just keep quiet. Wrong, you rapist asshole. Just because you did it in the penthouse and flew your victim to your destination first class and drove her home from the airport doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape.
Can a rapist drive a Porsche and wear an expensive suit? Yes, the answer is definitely yes.
Ladies – you gotta watch not for the obvious predators, but the ones you don’t think could ever be predators. They’re in your social circles, friends of friends, whatever. Listen to your inner voice, develop your natural protective instinct and listen to it. Heed it.
I think the hardest thing will be to stop asking questions of myself, and just forgive myself and take care of myself. Love myself. It wont be easy but I’m sure as hell going to try.
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Hmph! I’ve had a couple that stuck.
“What was it like?”
“Didn’t anyone hear you.. I mean, you were at a party, right?”
“Is it rape if you went along with it at first?”
“Why didn’t you fight back? If you did, it clearly wasn’t enough” – No shit, Sherlock.
“Are you sure he heard you say no?”
And my personal favourite:
“Why can’t you just get over it? People have been through worse. There’s children in Africa who are starving!”
I think we’ve all heard “Why can’t you let it go/get over it/move on” at one time or another.
I didn’t even know how to answer any of these.
Though I think my reaction of either walking away or slamming the phone was pretty calm and polite.
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Someone told me once I was raped that it was “all my fault.” I was reading in a park with modest clothing on, so is it still my fault?! I don’t understand why he said such things to me…
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I don’t know if anyone is still listening out there, but here’s my situation, and I’d really, truly like some help with it. For context, I am female.
I’m an instructor at a large university in a rural area near a big city. We get a lot of students from the city who perceive our small town as Mayberry and totally safe, but we all know that there is no such thing.
So. A couple of years ago, one of our freshmen art students went out on a beautiful autumn day to enjoy nature and do some art. She went to a park, where she was at the wrong place at the wrong time and met a man who raped her, murdered her, and burned her body beyond all recognition.
I teach composition, a class that many people take as freshmen. I can’t tell you how often, in the following days, that I had conversations with my colleagues that went something like, “I look at my students and think, it could have been one of them.” I know that’s what I was thinking.
The other things I was thinking:
*She was not the only student from this university to be raped this year, this semester, maybe even this week.
*It’s nice and comforting to think of rapists as scary men behind bushes that we can avoid by not being alone in a lonely and dark place, but most rapes are committed by someone the raped person knew.
*I see students every week drunkenly walking between the dorms and Greek Row.
*I want to tell my students, “That nice guy you just met may not be so nice. So when you go out drinking, if you’re going to drink to the point that you can’t take care of yourself, please, please use the buddy system.”
*Blaming the victim? What?
*Damn!
*Ok, how about this version, “The worst consequences of drinking too much should be nothing more than a hangover, a skinned knee from tripping over something, and any other behavior that seemed like a good idea at the time–THAT YOU CHOSE TO PARTICIPATE IN. Not that someone forced/coerced/threatened/etc you into doing. But that is a perfect world where people don’t impose their own wants on others. In this world that we live in, anyone who is so under the influence that she can’t take care of herself, is at risk of being preyed upon. And it’s NOT her fault. Her worst consequence for risky behavior should have been nothing more than a bad headache the next morning and thinking, ‘I maybe shouldn’t have said that thing that I said.’ But instead, because this world is a dangerous and wicked place, she was raped. Or even worse, like that student from Indiana University who disappeared after a night of drinking. Tons of people saw her out and about, and then she was gone.”
*Sometimes, you do all the right things, you don’t engage in any risky behaviors, and still, someone might victimize you. There is no magic formula you can follow to make yourself safe forever.
*Guys, “She’s too drunk to say no” is not, not, NOT the same as “She said yes.”
See? I want to tell my students that I care about them, and that I want them to be safe, but it so easily turns into blaming the victim and believing that if you do everything right, then you will be safe, unlike that dumb drunk slut over there, who is totally unlike you.
The think is, I KNOW that college students cut loose, have fun, and sometimes do things that put them at risk. And I want to tell them to look out for each other. To take someone home if you see she can’t take care of herself. To ask your friend, “When was the last time we saw our other friend? We should find her NOW.” To say, “Is everything ok with you and your boyfriend? I have a feeling that there is something bad going on.”
You know? To see and care about the other people around them, and to care about themselves and their own well-being too. But I never, never, NEVER want there to be a student sitting in my class thinking, “She thinks that it was my fault.”
Anyway, I hope there are still people reading this, because I started thinking about this years ago, and it hasn’t gone away. I don’t want it to go away. The beauty of teaching composition is that classes are generally small and I get to know my students pretty well. We talk about stuff, and I’d like this to be one of the things I talk about, but I feel frozen by my fear that I’ll accidentally perpetuate myths or hurt someone who is listening to me.
Thanks.
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I was asked by a therapist when I told him I had recently been raped: Did you enjoy the sex?
Enjoy…the SEX? It wasn’t sex, it was RAPE, and on what planet does someone enjoy being raped?
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What happened with me was that my boyfriend of the time would wait until I’d taken my really strong sleeping medication, and then have sex with me without a condem because he was trying to get me pregnant. And, voila, he succeeded. So, when people are asking how I’m pregnant at nineteen, and I’m trying to explain it, I don’t even know how. When I try to explain it, people will say stuff like “Well, would you had said yes if you were awake?” And I’m like “Well, probably.” And they tell me then that’s probably not rape. But then I think about it, and I’m like “But, how is that relevant? I wasn’t awake, therefore I can’t have consented, right? And I wouldn’t have been cool with not using a condem, because I didn’t want to be pregnant.” But then, again, people will tell me that if I’d been having sex with him so much, it can’t have been rape because I would have said yes. And I get just so confused as to what this even was. And plus, I’ve got this baby that I don’t know how to feel about inside me. Was this a rape? Can someone please define this for me?
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Hi. I found this after I stumbled upon the geekfeminism wiki – from there I stumbled upon an earlier article you wrote, and hope it’s okay to add my two cents here.
Male heterosexual, I don’t drink or do drugs because it has always seemed to my mind to be like religion – a group activity, and why would anyone want to be similar to other people. I don’t talk to people much either online or offline. Most of the people I talk to are online so I can form fleeting attatchments to places and communities and then deattach because I feel betrayed by them, or on the other hand too comfortable and that makes me feel unsafe. Despite all this I love people but sort of the opposite of I guess what most people say I can only love humanity as an abstract because every individual I know ends up being selfish and self-absorbed and I end up hating them and hating myself for hating them.
When I was in middle school, or junior high, or whatever it’s called I was raped by several of my classmates in the gym lockers. I don’t know why, to this day. Maybe just because they could. Maybe because I was already shy and retreating before, was one of those precocious kids who read a lot and always raised their hand in class and hated being around people I didn’t know who had already decided that for whatever reason they didn’t like me and made no secret of it.
I’d already kind of made the decision to hate my own gender before then. Being raised pretty much by my mom and my sister, it just seemed like men were a huge waste of space – all the complaints they levied against women were things they did themselves. My dad never helped at home, never listened to what my mom was saying, spent money frivolously (and blamed her when she got an extra coffee after pulling double shifts) and derailed any conversation into something about his work – all this, and I still like him as a person, we still like him. So I guess I’ve gotten better over the years or something I don’t know.
Afterwords though, I haven’t talked about it at all until I read this and it made me angry and sad and frightened and I felt, maybe it would be good to post here, because for years I’ve expected to be nice and share interests with men – heterosexual, homosexual, young, old – who all make jokes about sex, and race, and rape. And they all turn to me like I’m part of the same club, and with this knowing look and I just boil over. And I don’t say anything, I never say anything – because I don’t talk with people, I’ve gradually cut ties to pretty much everyone outside of my family because being with them is just too damn exhausting. I can work from home, right? Stalin was an asshole but maybe he was onto something with the whole ‘man is the problem, no man no problem’ thing. And no, of course he wasn’t – Luxembourg and Goldman and Kropotkin are all frowning at me right now somewhere but some days I just feel that way.
There was another option not listed on your post, because very rarely can it happen, and it’s never a good idea even if it feels like one. I remember one of my acquaintances – do I have friends? Can you be friend with someone militantly ignorant? Am I being militantly ignorant at times? etc – saying something about how rape only happened to a few women and they all deserved it, and I just lost it. I broke his nose, bruised his arm while crying like an idiot. I remember babbling things like you don’t understand, and he never really did get why I lost it so maybe he didn’t. And it felt great, because then he got quiet and I knew he wouldn’t persecute me in anyway; cause we were *friends*, right? Nah, he just got quiet too and didn’t make the jokes, for awhile. So maybe he understood a fraction of what it was like, that ceaseless uncomfortable paranoia.
And then it sunk over me that I’d been just as horrible and I stayed at home in my room for unhealthily long a time, not taking any calls and just thinking. The damage was superficial sure. I’m not a big guy, and it isn’t the same thing despite the jokes that people make all the time. But he didn’t care, doesn’t know why and will never get why I care ‘… so much about a bunch of girls.’ the very term girl being used, a dimunitive. And it makes me angry again and everything starts all over and I *wish* that everyone’s response to rape jokes and ‘humorous’ rape anecdotes and things like that was to beat the everloving shit out of people because maybe the Babylonians had it right. Again – I don’t know. It passes, sort of. Not really.
But of course people can’t, it was ‘lucky’ that I could then. And people don’t know, they don’t care. Our society and culture encourages self-interest, clouded ignorance based off of personal bias and the like. Sometimes I wonder if I told any of my male colleagues or friends about it they would care besides an awkward pause, an ‘oh, that sucks’ and then going back to discussing the cup size of whomever they’re ‘crushing on’ at the moment. My girlfriend at the time doesn’t know. I get scared of thinking of how she’d react, and I hate the idea of pity. I’m pretty sure my family knows but we don’t talk about it because it’s almost certainly happened to everyone except my sister in my extended family so why do we need to talk about it, right?
… And that’s why things like this are so important. I apologize for text-walling so much and not really saying anything of value; despite my aggravation, I don’t want for all rape-apologists to be beaten up or alienated or whatever. I just want people to see, and think, and understand. I live a very solitary life right now, out in the rural part of the country because it is easier to avoid people up here. I know there are people who have it worse than I do, and more than anything I just want things to be better for them 0 for everyone, really – somehow, maybe. I don’t want anyone else to have alienate their friends or experience mood swings or have flashbacks or anything like that ever. A guy can dream, right?
So, thank you for giving us a chance to speak somewhere. To try to create something constructive – from all my experiences now, the one thing I think is that the greatest obstacle is that from day one men and women are divided as ‘the other’. It’s obvious, but I mean even as a kid I kind of felt both looked just like skintoneish meatblobs with different pointy bits, something that has only progressed as I age. I want to tear down binary thinking because there are so many interesting, beautiful things in the world and it just seems like no one cares.
I think babel’s post is an amazing post if you are dealing with the sort of ‘conceptualized consensual’ rapist. The person who thinks as long as they keep asking for consent it is somehow magically okay, because if you crush their magical thinking they have to admit the answer is no. For the other kind, maybe everyone should be given powered armor or something like that – I personally look forward to the day when computers are advanced enough that I don’t even have to exist like this (see again – dreaming) because then maybe we’ll just be able to literally sever connections with rapists as easily as disconnecting a land-line connection. That would be great, I think. Of course, it’s magical thinking as well…
This isn’t really cohesive, but I’m going to post it now with some other things that may not be apparent but I can’t overstate enough -
1: Thank you. For allowing people to talk here. It’s stupid, but I feel really good right now – even if my stuff is disjointed, I really wanted to state it, somewhere where it’s hidden but understood.
2: I don’t hate people or anything like that – it’s just, I guess I have a low empathy for them now. But despite all that, I really think things do get better. Progress is not constant, but so many good people doing so much will change things – I somehow know this, will never stop believing it.
3: Thanks to everyone brave enough to speak regardless of thought. I hope it’s okay I shared as well. I guess that is is it – good luck, gods be with you all; or whatever gives you strength, may it be with you forever.
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“I understand why you didn’t fight back (more) during (you didn’t want to be hurt (more)), but, after, why didn’t you find him and kill him? No jury would convict, since he raped you (if he really raped you), then you’d have control over him/your memory of him/be in charge of your life again/be able to move past what happened.”
Thank you for this blog.
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“Do you hate men now?”
In all its variations. With the added bonus that I am expected to answer “Yes, very much, and I’d appreciate it if you did too.”
Before those questions it never even occurred to me that that was an option, to hate all men because of what happened. I struggled with this for the longest time, because I didn’t really understand the question. Because what they’re really asking is whether I am a radical bigot they can safely ignore. It’s not cool to assume that because a couple of men hurt me, I automatically hate half the human population.
Curiously, although my abusers were all Caucasian, student age, and wore glasses, nobody ever asks me: “Do you hate all white people/students/people with bad eyesight now?”
It doesn’t help that my distrust of strange men is somehow always assumed to come from a place of hatred and resentment, instead of justifiable fear. If you are scared of certain people, it must be because you hate them!
No. Just no.
“Well, you’re reading all these feminist blogs and books. They put that into your head, didn’t they?”
No. Fully understanding the gravity of what happened to me (being raped by pretty much every boyfriend I ever had) took a long time, and the feminist community helped me clear up a lot of doubts I had. That is not the same as “putting an idea into my head”, with the charming implication that nothing bad REALLY happened, I’m just pretending so I can be a Cool Feminist Radical.
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