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.)
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
a Pinkerton cover concert and MIA libidos
There was a period of time when I had many ideas to blog about. But I didn't get to all of them, and some of them are outdated. For instance, for a quite a while I had two essays about the L3 scene on the tips of my fingers. But that ended 5 years ago, and I just can't be bothered to contact all those random people to do the research. Sorry, world, for depriving you of that. And I thought I surely would get around to writing about the Matches last show, which was both incredible and emotional. But, again, I just can't be bothered to tap into that right now.
A few days after the Matches last show--August 27, 2009, to be exact-- a few assorted band boys got together to play Weezer's Pinkerton album. I don't care for Weezer, but all my friends were going, and it was to be a sign that the L3 community could still come together even though the Matches were history. I stood in the front row for a full hour through my intoxicated friends singing unintelligibly. The only line I understood the whole night was "G-ddamn you half-Japanese girls!" Well-stated, Weezer.
I'd say the highlight of the evening was speaking with a new friend about our libidos. You see, we were both at one point hyper-sexual young ladies. In my high school yearbook I was voted "Most Perverse" and "Most Likely To Get Off In Class." And that was before I streaked across campus! And my fellow concert-goer was getting an MA in Human Sexuality. So presumably we like sexy time, right? Not anymore! We both experienced a sudden loss of libido in our early twenties. I had a few theories about what could have caused it (the Pill, trauma, etc.), but she had no changes that preceded it. We were both able to have just as good orgasms when we got into it, it was just the getting into it that was a problem. And it seemed that there was no information out there on the 'Net. There was info for ladies who can't have orgasms (though not much of it actually helpful), but none for ladies with no sex drive. The fact that there was no information out there was even weirder than the fact that we lost our libidos in the first place. If anyone out there on the Web wants to clue us in as to what the hell happened to our yonis, we'd really love to hear from you!
A few days after the Matches last show--August 27, 2009, to be exact-- a few assorted band boys got together to play Weezer's Pinkerton album. I don't care for Weezer, but all my friends were going, and it was to be a sign that the L3 community could still come together even though the Matches were history. I stood in the front row for a full hour through my intoxicated friends singing unintelligibly. The only line I understood the whole night was "G-ddamn you half-Japanese girls!" Well-stated, Weezer.
I'd say the highlight of the evening was speaking with a new friend about our libidos. You see, we were both at one point hyper-sexual young ladies. In my high school yearbook I was voted "Most Perverse" and "Most Likely To Get Off In Class." And that was before I streaked across campus! And my fellow concert-goer was getting an MA in Human Sexuality. So presumably we like sexy time, right? Not anymore! We both experienced a sudden loss of libido in our early twenties. I had a few theories about what could have caused it (the Pill, trauma, etc.), but she had no changes that preceded it. We were both able to have just as good orgasms when we got into it, it was just the getting into it that was a problem. And it seemed that there was no information out there on the 'Net. There was info for ladies who can't have orgasms (though not much of it actually helpful), but none for ladies with no sex drive. The fact that there was no information out there was even weirder than the fact that we lost our libidos in the first place. If anyone out there on the Web wants to clue us in as to what the hell happened to our yonis, we'd really love to hear from you!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
How to make any girl the hottest girl in the world
Girls are always looking for ways to please guys. There is a billion-dollar market for magazines that cater to women, telling them how to dress, what to eat, and what sex moves to use. Somehow, the millions of women who read these magazines don’t seem happier, healthier, or sexier. Definitely not sexier.
Women often think that if they wear the right clothes, make up, or hairstyle, men will be interested in them. The truth is, men don’t give a fuck. Ugly girls get laid all the time. Slutty girls get turned down all the time. There is one thing- yes, ONE thing- which guys are into more than anything else: confidence.
A confident woman is sure of herself. She doesn’t have body issues. She isn’t shy. She knows how to dish it out, and she knows how to take it. She doesn’t have any hang-ups. This is supremely attractive to males.
How can women attain this magic attribute? Truly confident women are hard to come by. There is no way I can tell women how to be confident, except that they need to get over their shit and love themselves. I’m not talking about cockiness or self-centeredness—I mean real confidence. One way of doing this is just to fake it until you believe it. That’s basically what I did, and it worked for my friend, too. Just pretend you like yourself—if you’re doing a good job, people will believe you. And then people think you are cool enough to be confident, and that’s a pretty good reason to be actually confident.
And men, how can you make women confident, so that they will be down to take off their clothes and get freaky without you having to coax them into everything? Compliments. Real ones. Be delighted. Be so into her. Probably the most important part: smile at her. But don’t be creepy about it. Pretend that the girl you just took home from the bar is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, and you can’t help but marvel at each thing you discover about her. C-section scar? It’s cute. She didn’t shave her legs? You don’t give a fuck. Touch ‘em anyway. She’s covering up her boobs? Look at them, pause to admire, and say they’re beautiful. These types of things will make a woman think you really dig her, and she will be less nervous about "giving it up". If you’re admiring her and smiling at her, she will feel beautiful, which will make her act beautiful, and beautiful women aren’t shy and insecure, and then she will be all over your cock. It’s that simple!
Based on my own experience, boys pay way more attention to you when you're confident, even if you're dressed like a crackhead and skipping in circles around the mosh pit. Additionally, even with guys who didn't last long in my life, the best ones were the ones who seemed to really enjoy and appreciate me, even if later actions proved that they didn't care for me that much.
So what’s the point of this? Basically, confidence helps everything. It doesn’t matter if the guy is faking amazement or not. The fact is that when he acts amazed, it boosts your confidence through the roof and crushes whatever hang-ups you have about your body, or about fooling around in the backseat of you mom's station-wagon. Men: be amazed at the woman you’re with, but don't be creepy. If you’re doing a good job, she’ll believe you. Women: stop being such whiny babies. When you start loving yourself, the right kind of men will start loving you. More importantly, you won’t even need their love, because you are a confident, self-assured woman.
2014 EDIT: This is one of the worst things I've ever written, and I explain why here.
Women often think that if they wear the right clothes, make up, or hairstyle, men will be interested in them. The truth is, men don’t give a fuck. Ugly girls get laid all the time. Slutty girls get turned down all the time. There is one thing- yes, ONE thing- which guys are into more than anything else: confidence.
A confident woman is sure of herself. She doesn’t have body issues. She isn’t shy. She knows how to dish it out, and she knows how to take it. She doesn’t have any hang-ups. This is supremely attractive to males.
How can women attain this magic attribute? Truly confident women are hard to come by. There is no way I can tell women how to be confident, except that they need to get over their shit and love themselves. I’m not talking about cockiness or self-centeredness—I mean real confidence. One way of doing this is just to fake it until you believe it. That’s basically what I did, and it worked for my friend, too. Just pretend you like yourself—if you’re doing a good job, people will believe you. And then people think you are cool enough to be confident, and that’s a pretty good reason to be actually confident.
And men, how can you make women confident, so that they will be down to take off their clothes and get freaky without you having to coax them into everything? Compliments. Real ones. Be delighted. Be so into her. Probably the most important part: smile at her. But don’t be creepy about it. Pretend that the girl you just took home from the bar is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, and you can’t help but marvel at each thing you discover about her. C-section scar? It’s cute. She didn’t shave her legs? You don’t give a fuck. Touch ‘em anyway. She’s covering up her boobs? Look at them, pause to admire, and say they’re beautiful. These types of things will make a woman think you really dig her, and she will be less nervous about "giving it up". If you’re admiring her and smiling at her, she will feel beautiful, which will make her act beautiful, and beautiful women aren’t shy and insecure, and then she will be all over your cock. It’s that simple!
Based on my own experience, boys pay way more attention to you when you're confident, even if you're dressed like a crackhead and skipping in circles around the mosh pit. Additionally, even with guys who didn't last long in my life, the best ones were the ones who seemed to really enjoy and appreciate me, even if later actions proved that they didn't care for me that much.
So what’s the point of this? Basically, confidence helps everything. It doesn’t matter if the guy is faking amazement or not. The fact is that when he acts amazed, it boosts your confidence through the roof and crushes whatever hang-ups you have about your body, or about fooling around in the backseat of you mom's station-wagon. Men: be amazed at the woman you’re with, but don't be creepy. If you’re doing a good job, she’ll believe you. Women: stop being such whiny babies. When you start loving yourself, the right kind of men will start loving you. More importantly, you won’t even need their love, because you are a confident, self-assured woman.
2014 EDIT: This is one of the worst things I've ever written, and I explain why here.
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