I have been reading with great interest all the Op-Ed pieces about rape lately and to be very honest, I have been slightly annoyed that the word feminist keeps popping up in conjunction with rape. It seems to be another way for man haters to bash men. This then leads to men saying all feminists are crazy and not really hearing what desperately needs to be said aloud. It becomes about women and men and not about violence. Rape is violence. It is not sex. It is an act of aggression.
To give some background, I am a woman in my forties. I have lived my entire adult life with the exception of 5 years, alone. I have moved almost as many times as I have years and I have lived in places that would give pause to the bravest of souls. I have been gainfully employed and supporting myself for this entire time and have not depended on a man for most of my basic needs since I was a teenager. I feel the need to clarify at this point that I am straight and have always been.
I am also a rape survivor. In fact, my first sexual experience was rape. At 15, our parents left us alone to travel and my sister used that opportunity to have a week long drunken party at our house. I mostly did not participate as I had not begun to drink in earnest yet but the night it happened also happened to be the first time I got drunk. A friend of a friend of a friend was there and took advantage of the situation. I found myself staring up at a massive chest as I was pinned down under an end table while he forced himself on me. Most of the rest is flashes of memories but all of these memories are as vivid today as they were the night they happened. After it was over, he ran out the front door and I made my way to the living room. I told everyone there in a flat monotone voice that he had raped me. I said it over and over again as I waited for a reaction.
I was not naïve, I had seen enough movies and television shows to know that the telling about it would be as awful as the action itself. I was not wrong. The room was filled with my sister´s closest girlfriends in various states of drunkenness. My sister´s reaction was to call me a liar. I grabbed the nearest person´s arm and marched them into the room where it happened and showed them the two blood stains marking the carpet. One from the rape and the other from him punching me in the mouth. My sister had followed along with most of the other girls and she immediately asked me what I did to deserve the punch. She then told me I deserved it because I was stupid enough to get drunk. It was all very stereotypical and awful.
I knew that what my sister said was only going to be said again in a kinder manner if I reported it to the police and I also knew that my sister would go to any length not to get in trouble for having a week long rager at the house while my parents were out of town so I decided in that moment not to report it. I told my closest friends and one guy friend.
My life changed a little after this. I cleaned up the blood stains. I kept up my grades and sports and afterschool activities. I did not isolate myself or even become particularly depressed. I was just as social and still cruised around each weekend looking for house parties with one crucial difference. My guy friend who I told became my bodyguard. When we found a house party he would go in first and scope it out to ensure that the rapist was not there. He would do this and then go into the party and hang out with his friends like it never happened. When we decided to leave, he was always by my side making sure I made it to the car and sometimes all the way home. He was not a boyfriend and he was not even a close friend. He was just a guy who wanted to make up for what another did to me. He did this for the next 2 ½ years and even through college when he came home during vacation and we would all meet up to find a holiday party. He was me secret hero and there will never be enough thanks for his part in making me feel safe then.
I do not know what became of my rapist but over the years I heard that he became a marine and moved out of the area. My friend who did recon for my all those years met an older woman and married her. I got married and divorced and am set to get married again within the next few months. My sister and I are estranged and have not spoken for many years. Surprisingly though, I never got angry with her for her reaction and disbelief. It was not the reason for our separation.
I told my mother about the rape about 12 years after it happened. I did not bring it up for discussion again and we have never really talked about it since.
I have no doubt that what happened to me affected the rest of my life profoundly. I refused to let it stop me from doing the things that I wanted to do. What it did do was leave me with a persistent level of fear, of hypervigilance, of terror in certain situations.
It kept me vigilant about my safety. I learned self-defense. I carried pepper spray for years until it was taken at an airport inspection when I forgot to pack it in my checked baggage. I avoided dressing provocatively to the point of never wearing a button up shirt for fear of ´the gap´ mistakenly enticing someone. I never give out my whole name when introducing myself. I do not wear nametags. I do not label my luggage or wear flashy jewelry. I check the locks on my doors and windows twice before I go to sleep. I sleep with a weapon under my bed. I have trained my dog to go in before me and check all the rooms and closest when we both return home. I always check the backseat of my car before entering it. I never accept a drink from a stranger and never leave a drink unattended at a party. I walk with my keys like Wolverine claws even if I am walking to the mailbox. I wear practical shoes that I can either kick off easily or ones that allow me to run in them at all times. I never put myself in a situation where I am alone with a stranger without a weapon or an open door. (I mean you cable guy.) I vary my routines. I keep my blinds closed.
In college, I still went to drunken keggers and got stupid drunk at least once a week. I smoked pot enough times to make me realize that it was making me less motivated than I liked. I still danced on tables when the spirit moved me and sucked the marrow out of life whenever the occasion called for it. I was in a sorority and had my share of one night stands.
I also still traveled the world alone, I just did it with a hypervigilance. Until one night in Central America where I was jumped, beaten and robbed. I woke up without my passport, my wallet, covered in mud and badly beaten with no memory of what happened. To this day, I still do not know and honestly, prefer to live the rest of my life in ignorance about this. After this instance I did not have a friend to run interference for me. I became withdrawn emotionally but I acted out until I finally told the organization I was working for what happened and they sent me back the United States for medical treatment. I spent a month healing physically and seeing a shrink but I never felt those conversations were useful.
I moved on with my life and as the years passed my hypervigilance became a part of daily routines, so much so that I excused it as wanting to ´´retain my privacy´´, not live in fear. I have never given out my telephone number unless I already have the other person´s number. I background check everyone I have a relationship with. I give out little to no personal information to everyone and that includes new doctors, employers, and work colleagues. I have not social media profile. I do not belong to any groups under my name. My email addresses were opened with false information and the only people who seem to be able to find me with some regularity are the student loan folks, damn them. When I do meet people I give them only a little personal information and only in relation to what they have told me about themselves. I have become a great listener and because of this, I am considered a good friend to a lot of folks.
I began to have panic attacks in my 30´s and they began to affect my life significantly in my 40´s. I took medicine for about a year and a half and discovered that most of the ladies I worked with were also on panic medicine. I only learned this because I had a panic attack at work and asked one of them to help me get home to get my meds and they offered me their own. It became a bonding element between us, panic sisters. We did not talk about why we needed it or the fact that it was so very sad that so many of us needed it, only that the medicine was so very helpful in functioning in daily life. I did finally realize that being medicated was not a treatment but only a Band-Aid covering the festering wound on my soul and I weaned myself off it.
So why am I irritated with the feminists who attach themselves to the latest rape stories? It is because I am so very angry that we need feminists to separate themselves from humans and declare that their voice is more valid than a man´s when it comes to defending women´s rights.
It goes back to my guy friend who was my body guard. He was not a feminist, just a guy who wanted to make things feel safe for me. That is an equalizing feeling. When was the last time a guy you knew walked to his cars with his keys out like Wolverine because he felt unsafe? When was the last time a guy double checked his pants to make sure they weren´t too tight to avoid the nasty comments of construction workers as he walked by them on his way to work? When have you seen guys walk to their cars after a late night in groups because they did not want to be attacked?
Everyone is responsible for making the world change. Not just feminists or rape survivors. Everyone.
Women in the media need to stop using their bodies to get attention. Use your talents. We, the public, need to stop giving our money and attention to women in the media who use their bodies to make money and give our money to the ones who use their talents. Why is this important in stopping rape? They are turning their bodies into objects to be admired, coveted and copied. Their parts have become more important than the human they cover. We, the public, have forgotten that they have feelings and I have no doubt that if one of these women who sell themselves this way were raped, we would tell them that they got what they deserved because they flaunted themselves. This lack of empathy trickles down to the ordinary folks. When a woman tries to emulate their famous counterparts by dressing and acting provocatively, they make themselves a target and the blame falls on them instead of the aggressor. Glorify the human, not the parts of a human.
We also need to stop glorifying violence and return it to its natural place in our psyches as something we recoil from in horror. We need to treat all acts of violence equally and not use the word sex to confuse the issue. When something happens to you that you do not give permission for, it is an act of aggression, of violence. No grey areas. Don´t blame the victim, shame the perpetrator. Educate everyone about the difference.
Teach all children that their voice matters and their bodies are their own and anyone who tells them different is not a friend. Keep teaching this idea all the way through college so that women and men grow up with the idea that they need to respect their own needs and the needs of others. This will make the ones who do decide to commit acts of violence stand out so much clearer and we, as a society, will be able to deal with them in the manner they deserve.
This is not a feminist view, it is a humanist view. It is the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated. This will stop the way we currently we treat rape and rape victims.
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