Blog against Sexual Violence Day: When the rape doesn't stop
A woman's body is Not for Sale This is a beautiful piece of writing by Rebecca. Please read it before continuing.
at any price.
Last month Abyss2hope blogged about a young woman who had been serially raped over a period of months
I've been wanting to write about this, to write something about what it's like, about how a girl can be in a situation where rape is part of living. When people deny that rape is rape if it happened more than once, when people say the girl must be a liar if she reports assault by several men at different times - they deny the reality of many girls and women.
People know that incest and CSA is like this - but when you're an adult, it's not CSA.
People know that prostition is somewhat like this, but it's not prostitution either. Yet I wasn't even sure how to begin talking about it until reading Rebecca's post this morning.
"I was raped again last night. I'm not ready to deal with it yet."
A seventeen year old wrote that sentence, nearly two years ago now, in the last entry on her blog. Her story was a rightly horrifying one. But she wasn't alone.
"These men would turn up at my home, uninvited, on days when I wasn't at work."
Louise Nicholas in Louise Nicholas, My Story
I remember being angry because of the sheer callousness with which I was being used. I remember thinking the word 'whore' and wondering why the bastard didn't just get himself a rubber doll since he obviously didn't want to relate to a human. In those days, I'd been socialised into the belief that 'whore' - someone who sold sex - was the lowest of the low.
I knew that no-one I told would believe it wasn't consensual, because it was happening too often to possibly be unwanted - no-one I could tell was there to see me fighting.
All I remember of that time is the anger and fear.
Women get trapped into situations like these, for too many reasons. The disbelief of those around them. The rapist's knowledge that he can get away with it. The failure of our laws, society and socialisation to give women tools to defend themselves (I'm thinking anti-rapist fire-arms here, for the ultimate protection of all women).
Being raped once is bad enough. Rape as a fact of life - is reality for way too many.
If you can't/won't do anything about it - at the very least, quit denying that it happens!
posted by sophie | 5:41 PM
4 Comments:
Your words are so powerful that I just want to stand and cheer. If everyone would stop denying the repeated acts of the sexually violent those people would be less empowered to view themselves as people who have done nothing wrong.
Thanks so much for your wonderful post after reading my blog.
It is so moving what you wrote, and you say it beautfully.
I think that many women and girls have no words for their experiences of multiple rapes. It has become the unsayable, giving violent men permission to rape.
Many people will turn away from women and girls who raped on an one-off. So, I am not surpised that there is total denial that women and girls have to live with multiple rapes and other forms of abuse.
Most women and girls have no place for this form of abuse, when too many people deny their reality.
They cannot cannot call it csa, as others may say "you are not a child now".
They cannot name it rape, as other will say it is a choice.
They cannot name it prostitution, for are not being paid.
This leads to confusion and all too often self-hatred.
There must be a new language to describe the reality of living with multiple rapes. This can give women and girls expression, and in the long run freedom.
Thanks Rebecca.
You're so right about needing a new language - and it's so *awful* that it's necessary.
Every once in a while a commenter on a feminist blog will say that by extending the definition of rape, her experience has been denied. And she/they are right! It's not that the word was used wrongly, it's that it's used to cover such a broad range of abuses.
A little over a year ago I lit a fire to burn some hedge trimmings. Dry boxthorn - it burns almost explosively, with so much heat you can't stand closer than several metres away. An hour later I had a wild-fire less than a hundred metres away as sparks spread into a pine plantation. For days and weeks after, every time I shut my eyes I saw flames. Every time I read the internet I saw people using fire imagery - 'be the spark', light the fire of action'. I guessed they had never seen a wild-fire, and was angry that they used the imagery so casually.
But there is very little relation between a controlled hearth fire and a wild-fire - yet we must use the same word for each.
I think we have the same issue with the words surrounding abuse - the words are used to describe experiences that vary as widely as the hearth-fire and the wild bush fire.
Thanks for that wonderful metaphor.
I suppose by a gradual listening and hearing of women and girls who have survived different forms of sexual violence, we can form words that fit their experiences.
This means listening without interrupting or placing your own words on top of the survivor.
This can be very hard, but it will lead to a forming of a language that fits their lives.
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