the shaft of justice that cuts through all the bullshit: my rage against sexual violence
He stretched closer, sniffed her neck and her hair, licked her, his tongue running from her ear to her cheek and over her eye. "Did he make you suffer the way I will make you suffer?"
The rush of blood was loud in Munroe's ears, a heavy pounding that drowned out the world, drowned out everything but the man in front of her, and shouted the command to kill.
...
One movement, solid, fluid, fast. Knees to feet. Upward. Forehead into his face. Fast enough to break his nose, hard enough to whip his head backward. Her hand to his pocket. His knife to her palm. Arm around his neck. Blade to his throat.
In the time it took for his bodyguards and bullies to draw their weapons.
...
....
"What do you think happened here?" Gideon said finally.
Logan shrugged. "At this level of violence, I think someone probably touched her. You know, sexually." He strode to the next man, knelt again, and felt for a pulse as he had the first two. The bodies were cooling but not cold. "She tries to avoid bloodshed," Logan said. "Especially so much of it. But there are a few things that will completely set her off and cause something like this, and if someone gets sexually violent with her, he's soon a dead man."
"All of them?" Gideon asked.
"I don't know," Logan said. He paused, turned a slow circle, and then pointed at a man pooled in blood and crumpled up against a wall riddled with bullet holes. "That guy," he said, and walked toward him. "It looks like he bled to death from the knife wounds. I don't know about the others, but this one carries all the hallmarks of Michael. Whoever he was, he really pissed her off. I venture he's the one in charge."
Taylor
Stevens: The Innocent
In Vanessa Michael Munroe, Taylor Stevens has created a controlled, intellectual warrior, a brilliant brain, sharp wits, and hard-won fight skills. She watches learns, defends, and avenges, spurred on by her own personal spectres and a driving will, also hard-won, to survive.
I am drawn to this strong character; she embodies and acts on the rage I feel. I am driven to rage by many crimes against people, but sexual violence ignites an electrical fire in me. I am not myself a survivor of sexual violence. I am an ally to those who are, a witness to its aftermaths, and to a world that supports it.
The driving rage is personal though.
It wasn’t always like that. Sure, the stories I heard on the sexual assault crisis line I volunteered with haunted me, often stayed with me for days and weeks. They never stole my sleep though. They never kept me on edge during the day. They never stole my appetite or libido. They never prompted words of pain and endurance to pour from my fingers onto the computer screen. They never coursed through my body urging me to fight.
In yoga, savasana is a time of rest and reflection. Not, as many might assume from the sight of numerous supine bodies in a yoga class, a time for sleep, but a time for mental and physical awareness. I’ve never really achieved that fully focused attention to the breath, that brain emptied of worries, or focused on one particular intention. I’ve also seldom thought that savasana did much more than allow the body to rest and the mind to remember to breathe. Moving energy, or prana as yogis and yoginis call it, was to me more active than lying on my back on the floor.
It was as I was reminding myself to breathe one night after a particularly intense class that the rage hit me. While I can’t banish most thoughts, I can usually allow them to pass through my mind, rather than sticking there. The rage stuck. My palms sweated and my toes wiggled. Slow calm breaths turned to pants, and I struggled not to moan the pain out loud. The more I tried to calm myself, the more intense the feelings became. I knew something was very wrong when my body jackknifed up towards the ceiling, fingers clawing and clenching the air and feet kicking.
I was thinking of a friend.
The week before I heard a story, about a young woman, a male cousin, and rape. The pervasiveness and insidiousness startled me. The nearness of the reality that someone I knew personally, someone who was becoming my closest friend, had been the target of this sexual violence, permeated with threat and family secrets. This was there, in my face, not only because I knew the survivor, but because there was no resolution. This wasn’t a story of abuse long-past, perpetrators dead or faded into the distance that time and hundreds of miles can bring. This was present-real-an encroaching threat, for the young woman-my friend-was headed to a family reunion where she would see her predator, where if his wiles and whims willed it, he would attack her.
The slow burn of rage perhaps began then, as I wanted to beg her not to go, tell her that no family was worth personal danger, figuratively kick and scream through the phone. Why didn’t I? WE were close, but hadn’t known each other terribly long. I could hold no sway. I also knew from the others whose stories I’d heard that the sense of responsibility to others is strong, the sense of self not so much--family bonds run deep, that they cannot be broken by anyone else but the one who chooses to break them. I couldn’t be the one to fight and deny her agency. I didn’t have that power; and while I probed to find that power within her, I did not find it then.
A few days later, as I talked to my friend on the phone, she broke down in tears,. She was tired. She had to take work with her on her trip. She had to get the house ready to leave it for a week. She had to pack. She had to, she had to, she had to. And what should she pack? Would it be enough? Would her family approve of her clothes, her hair, the food she cooked for the reunion? I heard overwhelm, but I also heard fear. My fear simmered along with hers, and my rage began to sizzle.
The rage of sparks exploded during the simple act of lying on the floor after a yoga class. Adrenaline coursed through me. So much for relaxing, or unwinding after a difficult yoga sequence. I would have thought that all that nervous energy would have been worked out in the warriors and downward dogs, but if anything the postures, sequencing, breathing, intention-setting, seemed to have amped everything up a dozen notches. There was prana alright. Savasana was a proper yoga pose, all right, as I discovered when I sat up and the raging energy instantly began to ebb, though the unhappy thoughts remained.
I am so drawn to fictional warrior women, those who move beyond the law to do the things we cannot do in our society. Those who focus their personal demons and violent streaks into justice for those whose pain is not recognized or given necessary importance. The type of society that subtly supports violence, tells us to be wary of strangers but won’t listen when our enemies are our closest friends or relations, who recognize prestige over truth, power over integrity. I want to be one of those warrior women; to be the shaft of justice that cuts through all the bullshit. Instead, I can only read about them.
My only weapons are words.
This has been my entry for therealljidol. This week’s topic: bringing a knife to a gun fight.
The rush of blood was loud in Munroe's ears, a heavy pounding that drowned out the world, drowned out everything but the man in front of her, and shouted the command to kill.
...
One movement, solid, fluid, fast. Knees to feet. Upward. Forehead into his face. Fast enough to break his nose, hard enough to whip his head backward. Her hand to his pocket. His knife to her palm. Arm around his neck. Blade to his throat.
In the time it took for his bodyguards and bullies to draw their weapons.
...
....
"What do you think happened here?" Gideon said finally.
Logan shrugged. "At this level of violence, I think someone probably touched her. You know, sexually." He strode to the next man, knelt again, and felt for a pulse as he had the first two. The bodies were cooling but not cold. "She tries to avoid bloodshed," Logan said. "Especially so much of it. But there are a few things that will completely set her off and cause something like this, and if someone gets sexually violent with her, he's soon a dead man."
"All of them?" Gideon asked.
"I don't know," Logan said. He paused, turned a slow circle, and then pointed at a man pooled in blood and crumpled up against a wall riddled with bullet holes. "That guy," he said, and walked toward him. "It looks like he bled to death from the knife wounds. I don't know about the others, but this one carries all the hallmarks of Michael. Whoever he was, he really pissed her off. I venture he's the one in charge."
Taylor
Stevens: The Innocent
In Vanessa Michael Munroe, Taylor Stevens has created a controlled, intellectual warrior, a brilliant brain, sharp wits, and hard-won fight skills. She watches learns, defends, and avenges, spurred on by her own personal spectres and a driving will, also hard-won, to survive.
I am drawn to this strong character; she embodies and acts on the rage I feel. I am driven to rage by many crimes against people, but sexual violence ignites an electrical fire in me. I am not myself a survivor of sexual violence. I am an ally to those who are, a witness to its aftermaths, and to a world that supports it.
The driving rage is personal though.
It wasn’t always like that. Sure, the stories I heard on the sexual assault crisis line I volunteered with haunted me, often stayed with me for days and weeks. They never stole my sleep though. They never kept me on edge during the day. They never stole my appetite or libido. They never prompted words of pain and endurance to pour from my fingers onto the computer screen. They never coursed through my body urging me to fight.
In yoga, savasana is a time of rest and reflection. Not, as many might assume from the sight of numerous supine bodies in a yoga class, a time for sleep, but a time for mental and physical awareness. I’ve never really achieved that fully focused attention to the breath, that brain emptied of worries, or focused on one particular intention. I’ve also seldom thought that savasana did much more than allow the body to rest and the mind to remember to breathe. Moving energy, or prana as yogis and yoginis call it, was to me more active than lying on my back on the floor.
It was as I was reminding myself to breathe one night after a particularly intense class that the rage hit me. While I can’t banish most thoughts, I can usually allow them to pass through my mind, rather than sticking there. The rage stuck. My palms sweated and my toes wiggled. Slow calm breaths turned to pants, and I struggled not to moan the pain out loud. The more I tried to calm myself, the more intense the feelings became. I knew something was very wrong when my body jackknifed up towards the ceiling, fingers clawing and clenching the air and feet kicking.
I was thinking of a friend.
The week before I heard a story, about a young woman, a male cousin, and rape. The pervasiveness and insidiousness startled me. The nearness of the reality that someone I knew personally, someone who was becoming my closest friend, had been the target of this sexual violence, permeated with threat and family secrets. This was there, in my face, not only because I knew the survivor, but because there was no resolution. This wasn’t a story of abuse long-past, perpetrators dead or faded into the distance that time and hundreds of miles can bring. This was present-real-an encroaching threat, for the young woman-my friend-was headed to a family reunion where she would see her predator, where if his wiles and whims willed it, he would attack her.
The slow burn of rage perhaps began then, as I wanted to beg her not to go, tell her that no family was worth personal danger, figuratively kick and scream through the phone. Why didn’t I? WE were close, but hadn’t known each other terribly long. I could hold no sway. I also knew from the others whose stories I’d heard that the sense of responsibility to others is strong, the sense of self not so much--family bonds run deep, that they cannot be broken by anyone else but the one who chooses to break them. I couldn’t be the one to fight and deny her agency. I didn’t have that power; and while I probed to find that power within her, I did not find it then.
A few days later, as I talked to my friend on the phone, she broke down in tears,. She was tired. She had to take work with her on her trip. She had to get the house ready to leave it for a week. She had to pack. She had to, she had to, she had to. And what should she pack? Would it be enough? Would her family approve of her clothes, her hair, the food she cooked for the reunion? I heard overwhelm, but I also heard fear. My fear simmered along with hers, and my rage began to sizzle.
The rage of sparks exploded during the simple act of lying on the floor after a yoga class. Adrenaline coursed through me. So much for relaxing, or unwinding after a difficult yoga sequence. I would have thought that all that nervous energy would have been worked out in the warriors and downward dogs, but if anything the postures, sequencing, breathing, intention-setting, seemed to have amped everything up a dozen notches. There was prana alright. Savasana was a proper yoga pose, all right, as I discovered when I sat up and the raging energy instantly began to ebb, though the unhappy thoughts remained.
I am so drawn to fictional warrior women, those who move beyond the law to do the things we cannot do in our society. Those who focus their personal demons and violent streaks into justice for those whose pain is not recognized or given necessary importance. The type of society that subtly supports violence, tells us to be wary of strangers but won’t listen when our enemies are our closest friends or relations, who recognize prestige over truth, power over integrity. I want to be one of those warrior women; to be the shaft of justice that cuts through all the bullshit. Instead, I can only read about them.
My only weapons are words.
This has been my entry for therealljidol. This week’s topic: bringing a knife to a gun fight.