Mental Musings from
The Marginatrix
...because sometimes I just need to share my thoughts.
If you push something to the back of your mind long enough, you may grow to believe it has been forgotten. You may even forget it, and begin to believe that it may not have even happened. Until suddenly, an outside event can propel it to the forefront of your mind and force you to come to terms with what you have long denied. Memory is a funny thing, and particularly in regard to traumatic events, the details remembered can be surprising and the details forgotten lead to additional questions. Questions that may never be answered adequately. Yet, the remembered details can be enough to haunt you and color everything in your life. Sometimes confronting these traumatic events can be the most cathartic way to deal with them, and truly leave them behind. Other times, they can never be left behind, but perhaps, they can be transformed into lessons that can help others.
I found myself forced to confront these feelings, these memories, and here are my thoughts: Thirty years ago, I was raped. For many years, I used euphemisms. He forced himself on me. He took advantage of me. He didn't listen when I said no. Recently, I acknowledged, he sexually assaulted me. Then, my mom asked me to tell her exactly what had happened. When she told me I'd been raped, I cried. How many women go through life minimizing their own personal experiences, justifying the actions of someone else, because it could have been worse? Because we should have done something differently? We’ve all been programmed to believe that there’s violent, stranger rape, and there’s something else. We avoid the dark alleys. We avoid walking through a parking lot alone at night. We hold our keys in such a way, we believe we can use them as a weapon if necessary. We play out scenarios in our heads and take self-defense classes. We remain on alert, prepared for the attack that will likely never come. But we fail to prepare for the more likely attack. When we’re with friends, we relax. We don’t suspiciously eye everyone in the room. Maybe we have a couple of drinks. Maybe we get completely wasted. Why should it matter? Why should alcohol and drug use be permitted only for males? So, we relax some more. And when our inhibitions are lowered, what that really means is that our fears are diminished. We’re not so serious anymore. We’re fun. We might even flirt. Because it’s exhausting to function on high-alert at all times, and if you can’t relax with the people you know and trust, when can you? How could I go thirty years, refusing to acknowledge that I was, in fact, raped? I was a teen in the 80s, and looking back now, with the maturity that comes over thirty-plus years, I think that had a great deal to do with it. I grew up watching John Hughes’ movies and was caught on the cusp of “good girls don't” and “women can have it all.” The teen years are confusing enough without throwing in drugs and alcohol and mixed messages for boys and girls. The boys were supposed to get sex, in whatever way they could. The girls were supposed to avoid sex, and be careful not to tease boys too much. If a girl had sex, there could really only be two reasons — love or coercion. Either way, she ran the risk of being labeled a slut. The ever-popular double standard. Back up. Did you see that word? Coercion. That was perfectly acceptable when I was a teen and a young adult. Perhaps it still is. It was acceptable for a boy to coerce a girl. In fact, it was expected. Coercion could take the form of wheedling, trickery, plying her with alcohol or drugs, peer pressure, roughhousing, manhandling, overpowering, but never outright threats of physical violence or actual physical harm. Psychological harm was acceptable, and even expected. Separation from female peers was preferable. Removal of alternative choices was required. She had to feel helpless. Then came the locker room talk. Did she or didn’t she? Was she good? Can she be “blackmailed” to do it again? Surely, she wouldn’t want everyone to know. If she didn’t fight hard enough, she was “easy.” If she did, she was a “tease.” Always, she got what was coming to her. There was no right answer for the girl who dared to express herself or expected to be treated as an equal. Equality was, and is, a myth. Is it any wonder girls were bullied into silence? Half the time we weren’t believed, and the rest of the time we were shamed. And there wasn’t a word to describe what was happening. If you didn’t come away with bruises or other signs of a struggle, you didn’t fight hard enough. Never mind the fact that good girls were taught to keep their mouths shut. You don’t question the way things are; you just go along. If that means allowing someone to touch you in ways you don’t like, you pretend it’s not happening. You just get through it. The alternative might be ostracization or actual bruises. Once you’d been chosen, your options were severely limited. The thought that someone you knew could “rape” you was unimaginable, to some, laughable. Rape brought up images of threats with guns or knives, criminals, fear of death, dark alleys, strangers, physical pain, and wearing a skirt that was too short or a dress that revealed too much. Even in cases of “real” rape, there was still a way to blame the victim. But the tools of the “real” rapist and the “friend” as rapist are frighteningly similar — darkness, psychological manipulation, threats, separation, and shame. Separate her from her friends, prey on her trust, use drugs and/or alcohol to lower her inhibitions (relieve her anxiety — after all, there’s no reason to fear a friend), threaten her with public shaming, make her think she’s crazy, or even better, she deserved it, and finally, encourage her to compare her experience to a “real” rape so she’ll think it wasn’t that bad. I recently heard the term “consensual rape” used by an official describing what was clearly a rape, but had never been prosecuted as one, despite ample physical evidence. The victim knew her attackers and was foolish enough to drink and allow herself to be alone with them. That was her crime; that’s how she consented. I was flabbergasted. This may be the biggest oxymoron since jumbo shrimp, but although the latter might make you chuckle, the former is horrifying in how accurately it describes the views of some, particularly (and I really hate to say this), men. When “acquaintance rape” became a thing, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in breathing a sigh of relief. It was nice to be able to put a name to that feeling of helplessness and violation that so many of us have experienced. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it much easier for any of us to report it. Shame runs deep. It is the most damaging and most powerful emotion that any of us can experience. And, as I’ve recently discovered, it doesn’t really go away. Men have learned to weaponize shame so that women are afraid to speak up, afraid to make accusations for fear of the repercussions. When we speak our truth, we are victimized yet again — mocked, disbelieved, ostracized, threatened. It seems all of the tools with which the “consensual rapist” manipulates his victims are real and society is all too ready to implement them. I’m going to suggest an idea that will be controversial. Is it possible that while women have been suffering in silence, while slowly finding their voices and speaking out, men have been blindsided by something they never imagined? Is it possible that, viewing the exact same events, our interpretations are colored by our gender? If I were to confront my rapist, would he even remember the event, much less view it through the same lens? Might he think the encounter was entirely consensual? It’s worth considering that my truth may not be his truth. That doesn’t make his truth equal to my truth. What it does do is suggest that I cannot expect him to truly understand what happened until it is explained to him. I want to believe that there are men who, if confronted by their actions from the past, would feel the shame that women have been carrying for years, and might even be prompted to apologize. I think that should be allowed. Just as it harms us to hold onto shame, it also harms us to hold onto anger and I can say, unequivocally, that I would welcome the opportunity to offer forgiveness for what was done to me. All I’m asking for is acknowledgement and an apology, and since I’ve been carrying this for so long on my own, I don’t think that’s too much to ask. October 3, 2018
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Elizabeth J. Connor
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