My Personal Experience of Rape....
In the future, when I think back upon the news and media of 2012 and 2013, there's a word I'm going to recall having heard a lot of, "RAPE." The instances are too many for me to hyperlink to now, but a short list might highlight: Tosh O., Military Rapes, Rape Jokes, Legitimate Rape, Rape Easy, Steubenville, Sandusky, and Rape Culture. There are far too many other instances to attempt a more inclusive roll call of rape references. It's wearying to hear such a charged word repeated so many times! I often feel as though I've been on an emotional treadmill, when in fact all that I have done is listen to NPR. But I have come to feel as though the worst part of this cultural phenomenon is that often we're not discussing rape in any meaningful way. We don't grow personally from these assaultive news stories and true discourse rarely occurs. I want to really talk. I want to honestly speak. I'd like you to be able to ask me about my rape and I'd like to say something substantive. If we're going the suffer the discomfort of this subject, let's actually accomplish something for our trouble!
I've given several days of thought as to whether I would broach this rather charged and unpleasant content on a public and online journal. I first wrote a version of this short essay in March of 2007. At the time, it was heavily locked and only available to about four or five readers. It's now in the last few minutes of March 2013. March is Women's History Month. While a rape experience is not the exclusive domain of a female, it does disproportionately impact women. And we often bear the shame of this in quiet. My contribution to this last gasp of March is to share my experience with having been raped. My aim making it public now isn't to garner sympathy or disturb anybody. There's no pressure to read any of what follows, or to reply. My intention is to just open an opportunity in myself to claim an experience that's sometimes easier to ignore. If I can open an exchange of thoughts, then it's an added benefit.
My tale is a hard one for me to tell, for more reasons than simply the recollection of pain. It's a shameful story to me. It's one where I come out feeling as though I must seem rather stupid. And it's an awkward one because my experiences were difficult to define or contextualize for a very long time. Even these many years later, I still have feelings of confusion and embarrassment about the way that I mishandled events. I was operating with the skill set present in my late teens, when the event took place, and it proved to be inadequate. Such is the messiness and pain of growing through a trauma!
When my ordeal took place, I was recently divorced and renting a room. I lived from month to month on lean finances. Though I was pretty happy to be recently free of the unfulfilled marriage, I was still the young woman that followed a course set by another person's wishes. One day, at a fueling station, a man in a luxury European sedan spoke with me. I believe the discussion was about Jazz and Classical music, or maybe that came later. My memories here are patchy, at best. Anyway, he did get my phone number. I believe that I was flattered that he noticed me. He had an accent and exotic looks, so I probably liked the idea of him fancying me. I am pretty sure that I proudly reported the encounter to a friend or two. It's strange to see myself in the retrospective, since I realize how naive and innocent I was at the time. This man, that I can no longer clearly recall in name or appearance, began calling me and amusing me with stories of concerts and travels. I see now that he never inquired after me and that most of his anecdotes favorably recounted his own doings. He stood me up on our first plans for a date. In later outings, he never arrived on time and failed to treat me with anything resembling genuine courtesy or respect. This is, of course, where my own sense of shame and responsibility enters the narrative. It's difficult to understand how I ever could have been that girl. Still for the first few times that we saw each other, I was somehow validated by the company of a man that I viewed as cultured or worldly.
Our physical contact was rare. I'm not sure what we had done prior to the night that he raped me, but I'm pretty sure it was minimal. We were in my rented room near my bed, perhaps having eaten dinner out first. My roommates were home, shut in their own rooms. I don't know how he intimated his intentions, but I think there was very little in the ways of preliminaries. I also think we were both clothed at the time and that my bedspread was still covering the sheets. The only thing that I remember saying out loud was, "I'm not ready." I don't know in what exact tone of voice. I was scared. He pushed me down and said, "You will be." which was his only utterance. I'm now not sure of what logistics surrounded him entering me. He did and his movement were rough, awkward and uncomfortable. I cried quietly throughout. He ejaculated very quickly and without leaving my body, he began again, again ejaculating. I don't really know how long this ordeal took or what the specifics were. I don't think that he said another thing to me that night. He took a shower in my bathroom and dried himself only using a small washcloth. After he left, I showered for a while. I am fairly sure that I felt physically uncomfortable and cried. I don't really remember the following days.
I didn't recognize this event as a violation, at the time. I wasted countless hours, over the period of many, many months, punishing myself for what I thought was my acceptance of an unprotected sex partner that I didn't even like. I thought the repeated STD exams were the rightful consequences of being a person who would do such a thing. The final trauma inflicted by this person was a financial scam that cost me thousands of dollars, at a time when I could ill-afford it. He was clearly a con artist. I didn't know that he was also a date-rapist. At the time, I believed that a sexual assault required screams or a physical struggle. Until actually in such a situation, it's hard to imagine how coercive a strong and large person's physical mass can be, as an implied threat. It was in therapy that I confided to my counselor that I had guilt over a sexual indiscretion. She asked me to describe the event that I was so pained by. When I did, she remarked that it was a date-rape and that my lack of assent or cooperation and, indeed, my statement of dissent were clearly not the characteristics of a consensual encounter. When my therapist said that, I felt a 'click' and some relief. I still felt myself to be something of an idiot, but it eased the guilt slightly.
Even so, I remain a little humiliated that I never screamed. In my fantasy of a redeemed past, I bravely cry out. The roommates call 911. The man is punished for his misdeeds. Revisionist dreams of an unlived history are no help. Despite the psychological therapy in the years since, part of me has a hard time forgiving myself for the sense of having 'allowed' this unpleasant happenstance to transpire. It remains a sore that I carry around with me, hence the fact that those days continue to be onerous to speak about.
This is the first time in my life that I've addressed those occurrences with this degree of openness. The circumstances of my physical victimization must have taken under an hour. Such a short passage of time has cost me thousands of hours in regret and thousands of dollars in therapy. The fallout of this attack has lasted for years and years. Honestly, I remain now a different woman than the one I would have been without that experience. It's a long road to 'normalcy' and that recovery doesn't always mean a return to the person one was prior to such a trauma.
I've given several days of thought as to whether I would broach this rather charged and unpleasant content on a public and online journal. I first wrote a version of this short essay in March of 2007. At the time, it was heavily locked and only available to about four or five readers. It's now in the last few minutes of March 2013. March is Women's History Month. While a rape experience is not the exclusive domain of a female, it does disproportionately impact women. And we often bear the shame of this in quiet. My contribution to this last gasp of March is to share my experience with having been raped. My aim making it public now isn't to garner sympathy or disturb anybody. There's no pressure to read any of what follows, or to reply. My intention is to just open an opportunity in myself to claim an experience that's sometimes easier to ignore. If I can open an exchange of thoughts, then it's an added benefit.
My tale is a hard one for me to tell, for more reasons than simply the recollection of pain. It's a shameful story to me. It's one where I come out feeling as though I must seem rather stupid. And it's an awkward one because my experiences were difficult to define or contextualize for a very long time. Even these many years later, I still have feelings of confusion and embarrassment about the way that I mishandled events. I was operating with the skill set present in my late teens, when the event took place, and it proved to be inadequate. Such is the messiness and pain of growing through a trauma!
When my ordeal took place, I was recently divorced and renting a room. I lived from month to month on lean finances. Though I was pretty happy to be recently free of the unfulfilled marriage, I was still the young woman that followed a course set by another person's wishes. One day, at a fueling station, a man in a luxury European sedan spoke with me. I believe the discussion was about Jazz and Classical music, or maybe that came later. My memories here are patchy, at best. Anyway, he did get my phone number. I believe that I was flattered that he noticed me. He had an accent and exotic looks, so I probably liked the idea of him fancying me. I am pretty sure that I proudly reported the encounter to a friend or two. It's strange to see myself in the retrospective, since I realize how naive and innocent I was at the time. This man, that I can no longer clearly recall in name or appearance, began calling me and amusing me with stories of concerts and travels. I see now that he never inquired after me and that most of his anecdotes favorably recounted his own doings. He stood me up on our first plans for a date. In later outings, he never arrived on time and failed to treat me with anything resembling genuine courtesy or respect. This is, of course, where my own sense of shame and responsibility enters the narrative. It's difficult to understand how I ever could have been that girl. Still for the first few times that we saw each other, I was somehow validated by the company of a man that I viewed as cultured or worldly.
Our physical contact was rare. I'm not sure what we had done prior to the night that he raped me, but I'm pretty sure it was minimal. We were in my rented room near my bed, perhaps having eaten dinner out first. My roommates were home, shut in their own rooms. I don't know how he intimated his intentions, but I think there was very little in the ways of preliminaries. I also think we were both clothed at the time and that my bedspread was still covering the sheets. The only thing that I remember saying out loud was, "I'm not ready." I don't know in what exact tone of voice. I was scared. He pushed me down and said, "You will be." which was his only utterance. I'm now not sure of what logistics surrounded him entering me. He did and his movement were rough, awkward and uncomfortable. I cried quietly throughout. He ejaculated very quickly and without leaving my body, he began again, again ejaculating. I don't really know how long this ordeal took or what the specifics were. I don't think that he said another thing to me that night. He took a shower in my bathroom and dried himself only using a small washcloth. After he left, I showered for a while. I am fairly sure that I felt physically uncomfortable and cried. I don't really remember the following days.
I didn't recognize this event as a violation, at the time. I wasted countless hours, over the period of many, many months, punishing myself for what I thought was my acceptance of an unprotected sex partner that I didn't even like. I thought the repeated STD exams were the rightful consequences of being a person who would do such a thing. The final trauma inflicted by this person was a financial scam that cost me thousands of dollars, at a time when I could ill-afford it. He was clearly a con artist. I didn't know that he was also a date-rapist. At the time, I believed that a sexual assault required screams or a physical struggle. Until actually in such a situation, it's hard to imagine how coercive a strong and large person's physical mass can be, as an implied threat. It was in therapy that I confided to my counselor that I had guilt over a sexual indiscretion. She asked me to describe the event that I was so pained by. When I did, she remarked that it was a date-rape and that my lack of assent or cooperation and, indeed, my statement of dissent were clearly not the characteristics of a consensual encounter. When my therapist said that, I felt a 'click' and some relief. I still felt myself to be something of an idiot, but it eased the guilt slightly.
Even so, I remain a little humiliated that I never screamed. In my fantasy of a redeemed past, I bravely cry out. The roommates call 911. The man is punished for his misdeeds. Revisionist dreams of an unlived history are no help. Despite the psychological therapy in the years since, part of me has a hard time forgiving myself for the sense of having 'allowed' this unpleasant happenstance to transpire. It remains a sore that I carry around with me, hence the fact that those days continue to be onerous to speak about.
This is the first time in my life that I've addressed those occurrences with this degree of openness. The circumstances of my physical victimization must have taken under an hour. Such a short passage of time has cost me thousands of hours in regret and thousands of dollars in therapy. The fallout of this attack has lasted for years and years. Honestly, I remain now a different woman than the one I would have been without that experience. It's a long road to 'normalcy' and that recovery doesn't always mean a return to the person one was prior to such a trauma.