Snow Falling on Cedars

Snow Falling on Cedars is a book that was lauded in 1995 for its smooth narration between present and past, charming descriptions of a small island, and its message of the folly of racism. Some at the time objected to the book because it included some sex scenes. Of course, nowadays modern readers are not at all shocked by a few explicit details.

But this modern reader does not have time for casual rape. Most people still hold a limited understanding of rape: a crazed man jumping out of the bushes and attacking someone. But there are other, more subtle forms of rape. There’s date rape, where someone you know makes sure that you get too drunk to consent and then takes advantage of you. There’s raping someone who is already unconscious. There’s begging and threatening someone until they relent and let you have sex with them. And there’s casual rape. This is a term I coined to describe surprise penetration from a familiar partner. Because it’s someone you trusted and you’ve been intimate with, because there was no violence, it’s hard to immediately understand that you’ve been violated. But it comes down to this: do women get to decide when they are penetrated?

Seriously, do they?

As #MeToo has brought sexual assault into everyday conversation, some people have expressed confusion about how to know if your partner wants sex. After all, women are mysterious and finicky creatures who are incapable of human communication, right? Do we need to always ask, wonder these naysayers, for every single thing? If you suck that much at human interaction, then yes, you do need to ask. Inviting someone back to your room, taking off their clothes, etc. are all indicators that they are interested in some sexual contact. However, they may change their minds at any time. They may want sex but not at that very moment, they may want sex but not in that way. Maybe she did want to have sex, but after talking or cuddling or kissing for a while, or whatever she needed to want penetration. If you penetrate someone when they are not ready or expecting it, you just put your desires above her needs. And I’m not talking about her need for cuddling, I’m talking about her need to determine what goes into her body and when.

Here's the scene in question. Hatsue and Ishmael are two teenagers in the 40's conducting a secret interracial affair. Hatsue is about to leave for an internment camp, and had been feeling guilty about doing something that she has to hide from her family. It describes their foreplay, in which Ishmael's hands and genitals do all kinds of pressing and traveling, and Hatsue "lets" him. She does take some action but it is primarily Ishmael who moves things along.

"Let's get married," he said again, and she understood what he meant. "I just... I want to marry you."

She made no move to stop him when he slid his hand inside her panties. Then he was peeling them down her legs, and she was still crying silently. He was kissing her and pulling his own pants to his knees, the tip of his hardness was against her skin now and his hands were cupped around her face. "Just say yes," he whispered. "Just tell me yes, tell me yes. Say yes to me. Say yes, oh God say yes."

"Ishmael," she whispered, and in that moment he pushed himself inside of her, all the way in, his hardness filling her entirely, and Hatsue knew with clarity that nothing about it was right. It came as an enormous shock to her, this knowledge, and at the same time it was something she had always known, something until now hidden. She pulled away from him --she pushed him. "No," she said. "No, Ishmael. No, Ishmael. Never."

He pulled himself out, away. He was a decent boy, a kind boy, she knew that. He pulled his trousers up, buttoned them, and helped her back into her panties. Hatsue straightened her bra and clasped it again and buttoned up her dress. She put her coat on and then, sitting up, began meticulously to brush the moss from her hair. "I'm sorry," she said. "It wasn't right."

"It seemed right to me," answered Ishmael. "It seemed like getting married, like being married, like you and me were married. Like the only kind of wedding we could ever have."

"I'm sorry," said Hatsue, picking moss from her hair. "I don't want you to be unhappy."

"I am unhappy. I'm miserable. You're leaving tomorrow morning."

Ok, so to recap: girl is crying, boy penetrates girl, girl is “shocked” and moves away, girl reminds
herself that boy is good, boy is shown to be good by “helping” her get dressed as if it’s easier for two people to put underwear on than one, girl apologizes. Cool.

To be clear, I’m not against rape in literature. Rape has been a common part of life, although it doesn’t have to be. What I’m against is including a casual rape and then acting like everything’s OK. This is exactly what normalization looks like. These are the instructions for boys: no means no, but silence, other words, crying mean yes. These are the instructions for girls: at some point a boy will surprise penetrate you, and you should do whatever mental gymnastics are required to accept that he has control over your body and you don’t; and no matter what don’t let his feelings get hurt.

Casual rape was the most unacceptable part of this book. But there were other little bits and bobs of misogyny. Here’s 3 more BONUS packs of bullshit.

• Ishmael stalks Hatsue. He literally watches her house and follows her around. Because he “likes” her. She never finds out. He never thinks about whether his actions might be problematic.
• A female character gets introduced, and the author tells us all about how she hit puberty and got boobies, and what her boobies were like, but even though she was a naughty girl who could “shape the behavior of men,” she “never flirted.” And then, her boobies changed after breastfeeding her kids, and it was a little sad. Can you imagine a female writer introducing a character’s backstory with “SHE GOT TITTIES!”?
• After the war, Ishmael still has a thing for Hatsue even though she broke up with him, went to an internment camp, got married, and had kids. He longs to have physical contact with her, which she rebuffs when he’s stupid enough to say something about it. After Hatsue’s husband’s murder trial, Ishmael finally reveals the exonerating information and sets him free. Hatsue tells him she’s grateful and kisses “him so softly … like a whisper against his cheekbone.” So, in case you missed it, the lesson is that if a woman says no to you, rescue her from something and then she’ll give you what you want! Because she OWES you.

Ishmael is a creep but he is the hero in the end who brings justice to Hatsue’s husband and teaches the local racists a lesson. His choice was to exonerate an innocent man but lose his last chance at his crush who already rejected him, or let an innocent man go to jail and have a chance at finally controlling that which asserted its own agency.

I understand that heroes can be complicated-- when they’re male. Ishmael can be the hero even though he was garbage. Fine. But women protagonists never get to be complicated. The patriarchy cannot tolerate a women it doesn’t like or doesn’t understand according to its concepts about what women are. Don’t believe me? Look at Hillary Clinton. People lost their minds at a female politician who made hard choices in her career. Male politicians are seriously considered even if they’ve said or done the wrong thing before. But female politicians must be some hybrid superlady of motherly benevolence but not remind anyone of their sexless, nagging mother. Part of the reason, as Rebecca Solnit says, is the stories we tell. Complicated male heroes are in all our stories--the Bible, the Odyssey, Snow Falling on Cedars. But complicated female heroines are absent. This reinforces the patriarchy.

I found Snow Falling on Cedars in the English department bookroom at my school, which means someone used to teach it. And I’m sure it’s still taught at other schools. But in the era of #metoo, it’s time to take a second look at what we’ve accepted as literature. If we want the children to grow up in a less-rapey world, we need to change the stories we tell them; or at the very least revisit them through a feminist lens. It makes my skin crawl to think of students reading and discussing this text without taking a hard look at the male creepiness and sense of entitlement therein; teachers who glossed over the problematic passages, inadvertently teaching the students that this behavior is unremarkable, expected, mundane. I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach any controversial, problematic, or complicated texts. I’m saying we shouldn’t teach texts that reinforce systems of oppression rather than challenge them. “Doesn’t encourage casual rape” seems like a pretty low bar moving forward, but it’s a good place to start.

Neutralizing the shit out of my rape with EMDR

I just wanted to forget about getting raped. It was too much to process. I did my best to move on so that I didn't feel overwhelmed. At 22, that seemed like the best option. The problem is that when you don't adequately process an emotion, you can get stuck there. I didn't know how to process that much rage and betrayal. I had never known so much distress, and I didn't know if I would recover or how. For me, being stuck looked like projecting my anger and fear of my rapist into anger and fear of men in general. Rape was always right under the surface when interacting with men, especially strangers. I still wanted my rapist dead. I hated him. I felt a righteous anger that I channeled into activism. I made it productive. I saw myself as wise-to-the-world rather than traumatized. I mean, who wants to be traumatized?

I did a great job coping, I think, but that's not the same as healing. I started dating someone 7.5 years after being raped. It wasn't a very good relationship, and soon anxiety got the better of me. I'd always been an anxious person, but I had found ways to manage my life so that it didn't interfere with my functioning. But once the relationship started, my anxiety escalated. So I went to therapy.

I knew anxiety is often a side effect of sexual abuse, but I wasn't able to connect the dots at first. I'd been living with extra anxiety for so long, I just thought that's how I am. After I resolved the relationship issues (by getting the fuck out of that relationship), my therapist suggested addressing the rape with a therapy called EMDR— Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a treatment for PTSD. It was tested on combat veterans. (Fun fact: the majority of people with PTSD are rape survivors.) The idea is that you can enter into a deep state of your memories, and then remember them differently, or with a different understanding. So instead of remembering an event as making you feel worthless or vulnerable or ashamed, you can remember it as an unfortunate event that happened to you— a valuable or safe or innocent person. Your memory is still there in the end, but it’s like someone else’s memory, or foggy, or blurry around the edges, or just far away. It made me think of Professor Slughorn’s altered memory of Tom Riddle.

Here’s how it went: I closed my eyes. I used headphones to listen to a beeping noise. I could adjust the speed and volume. At the same time, I held a little vibrating pad in each hand, which corresponded to the beep. I could control the intensity. I used the thoughts of a calm place and support people as resources. My therapist guided me back to a disturbing memory, and I thought about my support people telling the younger me what I needed to hear at that time. I pictured a shield that deflected the event from hitting me. I focused on the more neutral or positive lessons that I’ve come to understand, instead of the harmful one that I absorbed in that moment. That was the practice run, on a slightly disturbing incident.

I did EMDR for the rape in another session. I re-remembered getting raped as just leaving his room safely. I can describe being raped because I've told it many times and it's written in my diary, but when I try to remember it I see myself leaving over and over again. I have to force myself to remember the rape itself, and even then it's a bit fragmented. It's like I can remember the story more than the event. When I think of my rapist I still generally wish he would just get hit by a bus already, but in the way that we're hoping Bill Cosby (or your nemesis of choice) would just drop dead to save us all the headache. During the EMDR session, I felt so sad for 22-year-old-me. How unfair that she had to go through that; she didn't deserve that. She doesn't deserve to carry all that trauma for years. But present-day-me is OK, is safe.

I did EMDR a total of 3 times. They were all intense. I was weepy for a few weeks each time. But now when I remember those events, I see the alternate memory. I can still tell you what happened; the memory is still there, just its effect has changed. I can see those events as things that didn’t damage me. Or, they did, but they don’t anymore. They memories are no longer disturbing or emotionally-charged. I didn’t even realize (or I didn’t want to admit) how traumatized I was, even though I had a lot of good support from some of my friends (and people who became friends), even though I see myself as strong and resilient, even though I had more or less moved on. Recovery is possible. That little trauma monster inside you can turn into the emotional equivalent of a house plant.

"It'll be just like you were never gone."

Seeing The Matches again after 5 years was one of the greatest weeks of my life! They first played a "secret" show, which they were wont to do back in the day. The venue they picked was in the building across the parking lot from iMusicast, where all of this started. (iMusicast folded.) I immediately started running into friends, including some I hadn't seen in 7 or more years. And I mean that literally: seeing people and running into their arms. Everyone felt weird but really happy.

I cannot describe the level of euphoria I (and I think everyone) felt as soon as The Matches started playing. Besides that the fans were reunited, and besides that it's our favorite music, and besides that it'd been a long time, The Matches' joy was infectious. They were obviously just as happy to be back as we were, which made us even happier. This is what people mean when they talk about "the energy" of a band.

I didn't know if I'd be able to mosh in a long skirt, I didn't know if I'd be able to mosh now that I'm in my late 20's, I didn't know if I'd have that feeling of absolutely losing your shit to some music. I could! I did! We all did! We sang, we danced, we hugged, we smiled until our faces hurt.

For that whole week, the L3ers were tagging each other in pictures, videos, and emotional facebook posts. So even when were weren't physically at the venues, we got washed in a bath of constant love online. Did that sound sexual? Sorry. Seeing them two more times was amazing; I didn't feel tired of my friends, of the music, or of moshing. The Matches mosh pit is my happy place.

The Matches mean a lot to their fans, and many of them have personal stories about how their music got them through hard times. Indeed, The Matches' music got me to face one of my greatest fears. While everyone was looking forward to the reunion with eager anticipation, I was growing increasingly anxious. Standing stage right at the first show was my own, personal rapist.

And I. Did. Not. Care.

Nothing could stop me from being happy in those moments. I saw my own rapist and laughed. I saw him again when I left the venue on Thursday: he was sitting alone on his motorcycle outside the club, looking at his phone. I was with my sister, soaking in a sweat cocktail. On Saturday, my friends called me over to join their picture, and he was right there talking to someone (though not invited to the picture.) It gives me comfort knowing that my friends and others know what he is. I'm glad I haven't been carrying this around inside me for the past six years. These L3ers who moshed with me and posted photos with sappy captions with me-- these are the people who believed me and supported me the most. Music carrying one through dark times: live in action!

I don't think it's possible to understand The Matches fans' ardor unless you were there. For those who already bleed audio, here's a memento:
Video courtesy of BxB. (See if you can spot You-Know-Who!)

but getting raped still sucks some of the time (part III of the Rape Chronicles)

I saw the Matches 38 times from 2002 to their last show in 2009. Those were formative years-- part of high school, college, and the beginning of my adult life. In fact, I consider the last Matches show the last day of my childhood-- I had just started two jobs, paying my own rent, and going to school again. Once they went on hiatus, I didn't know if I'd ever have that feeling of completely losing my shit to a band again. I've written about them before , as have many others. It was so sad when they broke up. They sold out the Fillmore (capacity 1150).

You can imagine my joy when they announced this summer that they'd be playing a show in November. Even five years after The Matches broke up, I was still friends with many people from shows. Everyone was so excited, posting pictures and status updates with a lot of exclamation points. I had about 30 seconds of that before I realized I'd probably have to see my rapist. Instead of the unadulterated joy that my friends were experiencing, I was just ambivalent. One show turned into 3 in a row, which for me also meant another chance (one show was on Shabbat) to come face to face with the creature who felt like my "no, do not put your sex organ into my body" wasn't worth listening to. I had six months to see how it would turn out: would I scream at him and then weep in my car for 30 minutes like last time? Would I get drunk and physically assault him? Would I assault him while completely sober? Would that make me miss part of the show? Would my friends help me? Does this mean I have to tell my 18 year old sister that I'd been raped? I got to stew in these questions for half a year. Yay.

My dreams have changed in the past year. Not dreams as in goals, but dreams as in sleeping. I used to have dreams that someone was after me and was going to rape me (these predate the actual assault, which did not involve any chasing.) Now when there's a rapist in my dream, I beat the shit out of him! I've never gotten into a fight in my life. No one gets hurt from these attacks, but I also don't get raped, which is nice, and I'm able to continue my dreaming free of fear. I had dreams of kicking Rob's ass, and also of seeing him and feeling nothing. I tried to hold onto that feeling.

Despite my best attempts to fortify myself, I wanted to feel safe at these shows. I felt I needed to do something, rather than passively take whatever comes. My friends, however, were not on board. One friend advised me: "Don't anticipate something bad happening, then you'll just have anxiety the whole show. Surround yourself with friends and you won't interact with him. It's gonna be fun!" A very zen stance to take, and one I wish this friend would take in her own personal issues, but I digress. Another friend said there was nothing I could do about it so there's no use worrying. I'd say that's a good attitude to take when waiting to get back a paper or to see if that one guy texts you back. But being viscerally, face-to-face reminded that there exists a person who thinks my body was created for the sake of his wiener is different. Being reminded that while I've had to live the past 6 years (happy rapiversary to me!) as a rape victim who hates touching people, he's gotten to continue his life, doing what he normally does with his dick-- that's something different. It was an isolating feeling.

I reached out to a new friend who had also been raped, and she was solid. She understood where I was coming from and was not dismissive. She also helped talk me down. Should I contact the core group of fans and tell them what happened? Should I contact the rapist himself? Should I contact his friend in the band? Can I take out a restraining order? We came up with priorities.

First, I contacted one of the guys in the band, who I'd become friends previous to getting raped by his best friend. I didn't even know if they were still friends. I asked him if Rob would be at the shows. He wouldn't answer that questions, he suggested we all "act like adults," and he said he didn't believe me. Sorry if that was harsh, he said. He also said he hadn't heard my side of the story. I'd offered to tell him what happened at the time, but he said he didn't remember that. He suggested we get coffee after the tours. Sheesh. On the one hand, fuck him for not believing me. On the other hand, it's curious that he hasn't written me off completely and wants to hear what I have to say. On the other...foot, um, I don't want to lose The Matches. I love their music, I love the band members, I love what being an L3er meant, I love that we're still connected after all these years. I didn't want to lose all of that because one member of the band -- who is otherwise a great guy -- has a weird soft spot for a creepy dude accused of rape who literally everyone else hates. Talking to Band Guy did not help.

So I talked to Rob. I was hoping to avoid it coming down to that, but I needed him to stay the fuck away from me in order for me to feel safe. I didn't want to be hiding from him, keeping my eyes on fixed spots to avoid accidentally seeing him. That should be his job. Here's our conversation. His response reminds me of Jian Ghomeshi's faux-anguished facebook post  when his shit hit the fan.

Me: Hello, rapist. The day after raping me you offered to not go to any more Matches shows. I declined that offer because I wanted to avoid drama and wanted to forget about everything. It was the day after getting raped and I was confused about what to do. A year later, I saw you at a concert and told you to stay the fuck away from me, to which you said “OK.” I’m taking back my initial leniency and taking you up on your original offer. I’m going to all of the shows here except on Friday. I expect you to stay the fuck away from me.

Rapist [with commentary from yours truly]: You know damn well I never raped you, and I will not allow you to slander me anymore just so you can get more attention. It's sick the way you seem to feel okay turning a momentary misunderstanding ["no" could mean so many things!] into a justification to hurt me so much [who's the real victim here??]. Your baseless accusations already costed [sic] me my career as a teacher, and apparently that wasn't enough for you. You know I never deserved any of this. [That's hilarious and amazing considering he "taught" at his mom's daycare center. Did she hear about this? I used to fantasize about telling her, imagining our solidarity as women would override her maternal love. Maybe dreams CAN come true!]

I never intended you any hard. I really liked you, [redacted]. [Why are you doing this to me? *sob*] And I thought you'd given me consent. I thorught we were both having *fun* with kink/BDSM. [We were not doing any kind of kind or BDSM at the time of the rape. The kink/BDSM we did was all consensual.] We'd both talked about wanting to do what you now claim you never wanted.[We specifically had a conversation about me not wanting to have sex with him, which made him angry. At no point did we discuss an interest in anal sex.] As soon as you made clear that you didn't want to keep playing, it was over. [Again, we weren't "playing," and I was the one who got up and ended it when I realized what he was doing. He had already ignored my two no's, or as he would have it, "misunderstood."] I realize you must be hurt, and I really do feel genuine sympathy for you, but I can no longer take the blame for how you feel. [You got raped but I didn't do it!] I don't think it's really me you're mad at. [You probably have some deep-seated psychological issues which you're taking out on me for reasons unknown.] Everyone I know of who has ever met or seen or known you only sees you as an attention-seeking drama queen because of this. [Maybe taking a shot at her self-esteem will work? If I may: while I certainly ran around like a crazy person at shows when I was 17-20, I never hooked up with any band guys or tried to (there was one guy who was technically in a band who I hooked up with when I was 18, but I hadn't seen his band yet, and that's not why I wanted to hook up with him), I never got into drama with anyone, no fights, no drugs or drinking, no imagined romantic relationships (quite common!) I went to shows, sang and danced/moshed, hugged band guys, got home by 12:30. Also, everyone I've talked to who knows him was not surprised.] You're embarrassing yourself. If you want to press charges, go for it. (I'd LOVE a chance to clear my name once and for all, and recoup some of the expenses for the hell you've given me.) But you don't get to just make this sort of accusation without repercussions. If you attempt to slander me further, I will absolutely file a restraining order and take you to court. [You can't file a restraining order for someone "slandering" you. I like how he switches to threats here after starting off the paragraph going for sympathy.]

And, of course I will be at the shows. They're my good friends [the other 3 hate him, according to another band member's sister (and also everyone else)] and my best friend. Not to mention the fact that they're my former employers [I'M VERY IMPORTANT], and I'm working those shows. I have far more of a right to be there than you ever had. [I'm powerful and you're not!] You're essentially planning on showing up to my work to tell me I can't be there. [Seems unlikely that the Matches would be paying him this time around, but OK.] Pretty strange behavior for a supposed rape victim. [LOL] This is a momentous occasion for so many people. Please don't make it all about you. [Why won't you just sit down and be quiet?] If you feel you have to go, please do. Enjoy yourself. But if you don't know off the bullshit, you are going to end up in serious legal trouble. [More threats.]

I hope you find whatever it is that you need in order to heal from this. [See how nice and therefor not-rapey I am?] I regret having taken any part in a situation that led to you being hurt. Please seek help. If I can do anything for you (aside from avoiding Matches reunion shows), please don't hesitate to ask.



I love how he took every angle on this one- sympathy, anger, threats, concern, belittling/self-aggrandizing. It made me sick to read it, and it's making me feel ill writing about it again. But, can anyone read that and not feel creeped out? I think my creep-detector is way more sensitive than other people's (I've learned from experience!), but this raised so many red flags. I'd love to not be a rape victim. But, alas.

The Matches added a "secret" show on Wednesday night, across the parking lot from iMusicast, where it all started. I had dinner with a friend, and I didn't want to start the car afterwards. But I did. We got to the show, and I didn't want to get out of the car for half an hour. But I did. The battle between excitement and dread was still playing out in my head.

getting raped eventually sucks less

It's been five years since I got raped, which sucked.

But it sucks less than it did then. Partially in a "time heals all wounds way," and partially in a "SUCK ON THIS, RAPE!" way.

I think about it fleetingly every day, and I wish I didn't have to deal with that. Some days I think about it a lot. I talked about the details with someone today, and it made me shake.

Rape is a lack of power, autonomy, respect, humanity.

Fuck that! Now I use rape to make me more powerful.

I reached out to other people and gained strength from their numbers. (Turns out everyone's been raped/almost raped/has a sister/friend/roommate who got raped, too.) Rape is a deeply private, personal attack-- it happens within your own body! It doesn't go this way for everyone, unfortunately, but I found tons of support all around me when I started looking. Not everyone was supportive, which cost me some friendships, but some people who weren't even close to me were solid as fuck.

I decided that I'd start looking at the issue of rape more, and that strengthened me, too. Reading about rape lead me to misogyny, rape culture, patriarchy, and a host of other ideas that helped me understand how thousands of men go from innocent infant to rapist. However, understanding did not breed sympathy! I got mad, and now I do whatever I can to punch patriarchy in its face.

Rape can make you feel isolated, but being open about it has made me see how absolutely not isolated each rape is. Shit is systematic. Gaining an understanding of rape-- even when getting raped seems to destroy everything you understood about people, your body, boundaries-- gave me the tools to speak out louder and clearer against rape, rape culture, and all the factors that contribute to it.

Besides friends and reading, yoga and dance also helped me reclaim my body and my sexuality. Yoga speaks for itself-- go to 5 classes and see what happens!

The sassy, witty, sarcastic, smart-as-fuck ladies at Jezebel.com were also a sustaining force in my recovery. They sent a clear, consistent anti-rape message in a language I could understand (sarcasm!) As crazy as it sounds, just being reminded that rape is not OK was crucial for me as I developed an understanding of the issue. It's not like I thought rape was OK beforehand, but my rapist tried to convince me that it was a misunderstanding and that I actually wanted it, and it was very convenient to believe him instead of accepting the truth! Since then I've read countless hilarious articles about the myriad ways that women have their rights, bodies, freedom, and autonomy violated-- besides rape!

Five years later things are looking good for me, and I am infinitely grateful for that. I'm lucky that I have supportive and radical friends (because apparently "rape is bad" is still a radical idea), that I had life goals and was able to take huge steps toward fulfilling them, and that I've been financially stable since then. Many women aren't as lucky. Getting raped made me significantly less emotionally stable in the short term, and it was just luck that I made it here. Many women struggle for years or the rest of their lives to gain back what they lost when they were violated. I don't have a snarky analysis of that; it's just fucking awful.

I still experience post-rape side effects. I haven't had sex since then, which may be a direct result or may just be how I am. (Funny sidenote: after two months of dating, I told a guy I was ready to have sex. I also told him that I could never be his girlfriend. He got mad and cited Martin Buber at me.) Anyway, my sense of "I could get raped" is way heightened. Males probably don't think about this much (that's what male privilege is all about), but I know all the ladies know what I'm talking about. Just being alone in a room with a guy sets off a little alarm deep in my brain. I don't let it control me, but it's there. Looking into the nitty-gritty of rape culture has led me to some pretty ugly things: appalling statistics, revenge porn (exists!), how men silence, oppress, and --wait for it-- rape women on the daily in every conceivable situation-- business, the Internet, literature, on the bus, etc. Some things are triggering for me. That means that otherwise innocuous things (whether relating to rape or not) will cause my brain to flood with cortisol, putting me on edge. At this point those things are fairly predictable, but sometimes they change.

I feel good about where I've come since then. But I'll always (as far as I can tell. Will keep you posted.) carry around a little of the baggage, fear, and cynicism. I'm doing what I can to turn all that rage (because women are allowed to feel rage, btw) into righteous anger, strength, power, and peace. (Stay tuned for the next blog: How to balance righteous anger and peace.)

Lemme holler at you!

I was eleven years old the first time I remember a male making me feel uncomfortable about being female. I used to wait at the bus stop at Gilman and San Pablo, and I remember a white pickup truck with three men in the cab stopped at a red light, and they all looked at me. They could probably see my skinny little girl legs because it was summer and I was wearing shorts. I remember putting on my toughest don't-fuck-with-me face. Sorry that I haven't been keeping track since then, but I'd like to start now. When men stare at you, yell at you, manage to "bump" into you even when there's plenty of room, strike up a conversation with you when you're reading and have ear phones in and clearly don't want to have a conversation, ask for your number, comment on your appearance, or suggest sexual escapades they'd like to pursue with you, they're letting you (and everyone else) know that men are allowed to think and say whatever they want about your body, and there's nothing you can do about it. At the end of the day, most of us lady-folk understand that responding to harassment almost always increases it. Better to be yelled at than groped; better to be groped than raped. Rape and rape culture is at the heart of harassment. There have been many times over the past 15 or so years since I've hit puberty (and even a few before then) when I wondered if I was about to get raped. I have the feeling that no matter how drunk, obnoxious, or aggressive I've been, no one has ever felt that their bodily integrity was threatened. But you know, all this talk about rape culture is such a downer. Let's just get to the good stuff.

Who: Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car
When: Saturday, January 19, 2013 9:30 pm
Where: Telegraph and 19th St, Downtown Oakland
What: While walking to a concert down a highly populated Telegraph Avenue, Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car yells at me: "Yo, lemme get yo purse! Lemme get yo purse! Hey, lemme get yo purse!" People pack heat in Oakland, so I figured this was not an appropriate time to talk back. I looked straight ahead and kept walking, to which Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car concluded: "Bitch."

Who: Tall, Dark Stranger At The Fox Theater Bar
When: Sunday, January 19, 2013 12:30 am
Where: Telegraph and 19th St, Downtown Oakland (but on the other side of the street this time)
What: After a concert, Lynn and I decided it would be better for both of us to walk to her car, and she could drive me to my car. No, I'm not some lazy girl with impractical heels on, we just didn't want to get raped. And when I say we decided, I mean we didn't even talk about it, we had already talked about where we had parked, so we just walked out together to the closer car. So we walk by the Fox Theater bar, and a Tall, Dark Stranger starts walking toward us saying "hey" aggressively, as if we left our lights on and he wants to tell us, or if we'd just told his mother to suck a bag of dicks, or if he saw two very petite ladies and thought that he'd be able to get some kind of sexual satisfaction out of at least one of them because they're probably too meek to say no. We both ignored him and kept walking. We both had pepper spray in our hands. Lynn suggested that only women should be allowed to own and carry guns.

Rape Jokes

The other day I was watching some show on TV. This show had two hosts, a man and a woman, and they had on two “social commentators,” i.e. people who talk on the Internet. They were discussing a joke that the comedian Daniel Tosh had made. Tosh joked that his girlfriend was mad because he’d replaced her pepper spray with silly string, and then “she got raped so bad.” Cue laughter. A woman in the audience heckled him and said “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” Someone can’t take a joke, amIright?! Tosh said: “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” So the heckler and her friend left. They were there to see Dane Cook and didn’t know who Daniel Tosh was.

 In case you missed the Internet-chatter about this joke, let me briefly explain why it was so bad. It’s not just a joke against a minority group (women), it’s someone who holds power in the majority making a joke about how powerless the minority is. I’ve offended my fair share of people with my “humor,” and I felt super embarrassed when they called me out on it. I was aware that I was broaching a powerful subject, and it didn’t feel good to have it pointed out that I was doing it wrong. But I am especially listening when I make those potentially offensive jokes, so that next time I’ll have a better idea of what jokes will actually be funny and which will make me sound like a bigoted asshole.

 Yes, Tosh made two rape jokes, one being hella oppressive, the other being possibly amusing. But it gets worse. Let me tell you what the talk show hosts and their guests concluded: 1. If we start saying topics are off-limits to comedians, we might as well go back to Stalinist Russia. 2. If you get offended by rape jokes, you can just leave, and 3. You have no sense of humor, you angry feminist (probably)lesbian with hairy armpits.

So let’s review:

 Comedian makes a shitty joke.

 When legitimately called out, comedian reaffirms the misogyny behind his joke when he suggests that several people in the room rape another person in the room.

The TV says the comedian was in the right. Or possibly that he shouldn’t have said that, but that it’s not as bad as voicing anti-rape (joke) sentiments.

Not only does this show send the message that rape is kinda funny and everyone should think so, but also that if you say that (joking about) rape is not OK, you are seriously lame.

I’m not going to make a blanket statement condemning rape jokes. Humor is a powerful tool, and if that’s what’s going to work to get your ANTI-RAPE message across, then it’s an acceptable topic. What I am going to do is condemn the rape discourse in this country. The rape discourse says that when you get raped, you did something to bring it on yourself, and please shut up about it because we really don’t want to hear you complain. Also, are you sure? You probably wanted it and then changed your mind, you lying slut. Gotta watch out for broads like that. Did you know nearly 1 in 6 men get falsely accused of rape? It’s terrible. Wait… what was that? Oh! Sorry. It’s actually 1 in 6 women get real-life raped. 1 in 33 guys get raped, too. That’s right, there’s a 3% chance your dad got raped, and a 17% chance your mom got raped. And a 17% chance your girlfriend got or will get raped. And if you have 6 female friends on Facebook, it is statistically extremely likely that one of them has been, or will be!, raped. And you’re in there, too, don’t worry! Even if you think rape doesn’t have anything to do with you, there is a 3-17% chance it’ll happen to you yet. Downer :(

But what’s the problem with comedians making offensive jokes? It’s the power dynamic. Rape victims making rape jokes: possibly funny. Women making rape jokes: possibly funny. Men making rape jokes: probably not funny.

I think Tosh’s original joke about the silly string was a funny idea. What isn’t funny is being a man (i.e. potential rapist) and saying that. What isn’t funny is the fact that your audience is predominantly (or at least 50%) male. What isn’t funny is being one woman in a sea of men who think it’s funny to rape you. It is of the utmost importance that men stop accepting rape. Are minorities supposed to avoid getting discriminated against? No, the majority has to stop being racist dicks. Women are always told ways to “avoid getting raped.“ But it is men who need to stand up and not allow this kind of evil behavior from their own kind.

 Rape jokes aren’t the problem. There are many ways to joke about rape that express how bad it is, not how amusing and acceptable it is. The problem is men who publicly laugh at and suggest rape as an appropriate response to anything ever. The problem is the public discourse that excuses male chauvinism and silences women who speak up. That is exactly what creates a culture in which rape is allowed.

Getting Raped Sucks

Warning: You probably do not want to read this.

I am writing about my own rape for several reasons:
> to share my story with other victims
> to speak out about a subject that is usually ignored
> because I have all these words in my head, and that’s why I started a blog in the first place

Once upon a time there was me. I met this guy a couple of times, found that we had similar sexual interests, and started hooking up. We were open about the fact that both of us were seeing other people as well. I was leaving the country for several months soon, so I just wanted to have some fun. Mostly what I liked about this guy was fooling around, and that we always got dressed up fancy when we went out. I overlooked his frequent exaggerations and name-dropping. Since he was generally nice, I ignored my friends’ warnings and his creepy vibes. If you were unclear on what I meant by “hooking up,” I meant being sexually intimate without vaginal or anal sex. I had a whole conversation with the guy about it, and—after being mad—conceded that he didn’t “even like vaginal sex much.” I told him that if he wanted vaginal or anal sex, then it would be fine if he wanted to seek it elsewhere.

One Sunday morning we woke up and fooled around. I hadn’t slept well since he had only put out one pillow and a small blanket, forcing me to lay uncomfortably close to him. We were spooning, but at a distance. We had both gotten off, so I wasn’t really sure where things were going when he stuck his fingers in my butt. I didn’t really care, either. Now, several guys before this one have ventured where even I dare not go, and to be honest, it never actually felt like much. It’s a little weird, or a lot weird, depending on your hang-ups. He seemed to be enjoying it, so I let him continue. “Hey,” I thought, “if he gets off without me having to do anything, it’s win-win.” He asked if he could fuck my ass. I said no. Perhaps as an enticement he offered “even with protection?” I was somewhat horrified that he would even consider unprotected sex, especially since he was having sex with someone else, and he suspected me of the same. I said no again. After a few more minutes of his moaning and rubbing his wiener between my legs while making friends with my colon, I noticed that his hand was on my hip, which meant that something else was in my butt. I sat up and turned around to see his dick slide out of my butt. Oh, no.

My thought process went something like this: “Was he just having sex with me? Is there any way that he could have not just been having sex with me? I think I just got raped. Should I kill him? If I start screaming, will he actually rape me way worse? Does this mean we’re not getting waffles?” I sat there, horrified, until he said I was starting to scare him. I said there was a word for what he just did, and then he got real scared. But I’m pretty sure he was just being dramatic. He has a propensity for melodrama. So I got dressed and went home. I cried. I called my best friend. I took a shower. I considered going to the police or hospital, but there would be no evidence. I was mildly annoyed at having a lover stick his fingers in my butt, but there was no way I could handle getting swabbed or whatever by some technician or clinician or nurse. I just wanted it to have not happened. And I was sad about not getting waffles.

Later that day he proffered several explanations for his behavior, all of which creeped me out: he thought I was into it (as if I’m subtle about it when I’m “into it”), he didn’t understand why I didn’t want to have sex. Even if I thought having sex would result in me getting abducted by aliens, you still have to respect it! I went to collect my belongings from him the next day, which he handed to me folded and stacked in a paper bag. We politely discussed yesterday’s events, and I highlighted how his behavior constituted rape, and was generally unsafe for someone with multiple partners (he was sharing sex toys between me and at least one other girl.) He seemed to admit that a mistake had been made, and that I was hurt, but not that he had put his sexual organ inside my body against my explicit and repeated request.

I then entered a period of general fucked-uped-ness. The main issue was that someone I generally liked thought that I was so worthless that I didn’t even have the right to determine whose dicks enter my orifices. He seemed like a reasonable guy before, so maybe he was right on this one. I didn’t know him that well, so I sought more information. I had a meeting with his 3 previous ex-girlfriends. None of them had been raped by him, but they all had highly creepy stories, which I will spare you here. None of them were at all surprised. I felt validated. I left the country.

A little over a year after I last saw him, we attended the same concert. I was with several of my friends, all of whom knew what had happened. And apparently while I was gone people had been speaking about it. I hid for most of the show. I thought about what to do. I just wanted to leave. But I kept thinking, “HE’S the one who should leave!” After the band we had both come to see, I decided to say something to him. I was shaking. I thought I was going to crap my pants. I went up to him and said something along the lines of “Listen you rapist piece of shit, I don’t want to see you ever again. Do you understand? Never again!” He said OK and looked scared. I’ve come to love that look. It felt great! I went to my car and sobbed hysterically for half an hour. Yep, totally great. I haven’t seen him again.

Up until this point, everyone I spoke to who knew this guy despised him. All of them believed me immediately when I told them what he’d done. There was just one person still in his ring—the girl he was dating at the same time as me, and was still dating a year later. I liked her the one or two times I’d met her. We got coffee. She herself had been majorly raped several times, although she said that she didn’t want to minimize my experience. She also seemed to believe me, though she also argued his same arguments—that somehow it wasn’t clear to him after our conversations and after he flat-out asked me and I had said no that I did not want sex. Anal sex. (Wouldn’t you make absolutely sure a girl was cool with it before you stuck your thing up her booty? Not necessarily to confirm consent, but out of incredulity. Like, “Are you serious? Girls always say no to this. This is the best day of my life!”) Like many before her, she was also duped by this guy’s charm. She said she always calls him out on his lies, but twice I corrected her understanding of events. Like when she said I had gone to his family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Um, I have my own family, thankyouverymuch. The conversation started out OK, but mid-way through I felt she was CHANNELING him. She sounded just like him, and it totally wigged me out.

When I came back to the country half a year after getting raped, I went to Planned Parenthood to get on birth control. I told them what had happened (the third time I told a health worker), and they reported it to the police. After 3 hours in Planned Parenthood, I came home to see a cruiser parked outside my house. Keep in mind, I had been in America less than a week, I had a cold, and American food was upsetting my stomach every time I ate. So I was alone in a house with an armed man who I didn’t know. And I was telling him every nasty detail of one of the worst moments of my life. He’s asking me questions like “So he was digitally penetrating your anus?” Very uncomfortable. As is my usual style, I’m joking around and being offhand about it, and he’s having none of it. Do you know how uncomfortable it is when your jokes are getting no response? Try that when your jokes are about your own rape. I’m going to advise against that, actually. So this goes on for an hour, and the he wants to know where it happened. I didn’t want to tell the officer where he lives, because he was not being clear on what the consequences would be. And I hadn’t decided on what consequences I was OK with. What would happen to me if cops show up at his door? Eventually he got me to point on a map where it happened, and he said “that’s not in this town,” and headed for the door. It was three blocks from the police station. Apparently the police station is on the border. FML. So that was it. He suggested I go to Richmond’s police department. Hell no I’m not doing this again. A year after that I went to the police station to try to talk to them about how they handle taking accounts from alleged rape victims. Maybe don’t send a man? Maybe explain what the repercussions might be? Maybe show some facial affect? They didn’t have any document of a reported rape, so they didn’t feel there was anything to talk about. I left crying.

There have been some lingering side effects. One is that I have turned into a man-hater. I understand that this one guy’s mistake does not reflect all men. It was other men that pushed me over. I worked a very emotionally draining job (with violent disabled kids), so I took a day off. My dad came home and teased me for being so “tired” after my luxurious 3-day weekend. I hadn’t told him what happened (and still haven’t), but I was just a tad bit sensitive to belittling at the time. When I did go back to work, a male coworker asked why I was so glum. I didn’t say anything, but he took the liberty to offer some advise: “You gotta get inside his head.” Get inside his head?! “He raped me!” I shot back. I told one of the other guys I was seeing. I actually really cared for this guy for several years. His response was “Why didn’t you just get up?” Apparently because I could just “get up,” it didn’t count as rape to him. This was not helpful. We had several discussions on the matter, each of which made him seem more autistic. I tried hooking up with him, and he didn’t understand why I would want to “take it slow” after our previous passionate encounters. And he tried tickling my asshole. Normally I would have let the guy do his thing, but I was taking a crash course on putting up boundaries. High boundaries. Four-foot thick stone boundaries. I tried to talk to him about it more, but he just could not get it. He told me if it was really rape then I would have gone to the police, and since I hadn’t and wasn’t planning to, then it wasn’t rape. I no longer speak to him.

I gained some friends from all this. Some people who I was not close to before were extremely supportive when I told them. When I went to see the guy the next day to get my things, I had a friend sitting there in the car for an hour, watching out for me. One thing that was most helpful at the time was when people would tell me that what he did was not OK. Because for a while I wasn’t sure.

But I also lost a few friends, too. I lost that one guy I was dating, who I already mentioned. I lost one of my closest friends because she didn’t seem to realize that something bad had happened. She never mentioned it, never made any extra effort to be a friend. I don’t want to sound like I’m throwing myself a pity party, but there are just some times when you need your friends to act like friends. I now try to be more forgiving when people do or say the wrong thing after I’ve told them. I know it’s hard to know how to respond. I still don’t know how to respond when people tell me they’ve been raped.

And what happened to my sex life? It died. I don’t know if I can place the blame squarely on this event, but within four months I had absolutely no sex drive, which is depressing. Or maybe I was depressed and that killed my sex drive? Either way, it’s gone.

I think the one thing that helped me recover the most was realizing that it’s not just me. Rape is a very personal crime. It happens INSIDE your most intimate parts. I felt like I was the only person who had ever experienced sexual violation from that guy, at that time, under those circumstances, resulting in a tragic loss of waffles. I felt like no one would understand. I knew that many women have experienced unwanted sexual penetration in some form, but it took me a long time to identify with them. Since it’s such a personal event, I wasn’t able to relate to anyone or anything else. I didn’t find many stories or much information online. But the more I talked about it, the more stories I heard, the more I felt like I was in good company. The last statistic I read said that 1 in 6 American women gets raped. Even if it’s 1 in 10, that is still millions of women.

And that’s pretty much it. You can try to deal with it as best as you can, and find a way to make it make you stronger. Piece of cake, right? And you can just recognize the fact that when you get raped, it totally sucks. Sometimes it is a series of suckyness. Sometimes the suckyness compounds other suckyness. I felt like telling my story would help me, and maybe help others. Don’t be afraid to tell your story.

And if you see Rob, don’t act like you don’t know.