on rape (especially statutory rape and rape in which the victim doesn't say 'no')
*Trigger warning of discussion of rape and abuse from a perpetrator who committed statutory rape and digital rape*
Hello there,
I can't imagine that anyone will read this. It's been a long time.
Actually, it feels quite strange to be writing on Livejournal. I was an anxious kid, but those days before I became a hypochondriac and then a sex criminal had their fun moments. Helena was a good first girlfriend and sometimes days could be enjoyed just in-and-of-themselves.
I'm thinking of killing myself. Of course, being a melancholy sort, it has been something I've been considering for years... but I think that at some point within the next few years I'm going to do it. Once my thesis is in order and I know that Rachael will be able to cope. There are certaily lots of beautiful things and people in the world, but I feel cut off from them and my crimes cannot be erased. The fact of your father refusing to discuss the fact that you are a child rapist, does not stop you from being one. Denial of the truth alters the truth not one jot. I've repeated this about hundred times or more over the Internet by now, but here goes. Six years ago when I was 21, I committed statutory rape against a 16-year-old girl. I wish I had waited to visit her two weeks later. But I didn't. The doors of Hell close on me. In Texas my crime (or rather, series of crimes - we only attempted intercourse one, but there were a fair few instances of 'sex') is classified as the 'sexual assault of a child' since T's willingness, or otherwise, mattered not one jot. It is strange to think that the one clear instance of abuse, in which I fingered T after she had told me just to hold her, would be classified no differently to the times in which she was happy, comfortable, or the initiator. Those two weeks make all the legal difference and thus the meaning fo those acts. One state over in Oklahoma and I would be a child rapist. It's strange and artibrary, but it also is what it is. I don't blame T for her part in the relationship as she was just a young girl with no friends her own age who had been messed around by an abusive married woman. I was a pathetic, entitled 21-year-old with such a hideously diminished sense of self-worth and lack of boundaries that I took the flirtation of a 16-year-old child as a compliment.
Anyway. It is what it is. There is no place in this society for child rapists. T doesn't want to prosecute and it's so utterly her perogative... the court system just re-victimizes and she doesn't see herself as having been a victim of child molestation so there is the issue of pushing my narrative onto her own. Sometimes I wish that the U.N.'s 'Rights of the Child' manifesto hadn't been passed... maybe if 16-year-olds had remained, by definition, 'minors' rather than 'children' I'd be able to live with myself. It's strange how language determines so much of my feelings about this. However, whether 'child' or 'young adult', the fact remains that she wasn't ready for a sexual relationship with someone older. If the same shit had happened in English (so, if she had visited me) I'd just be fobbing off my conscience with the fact that 16 is the age of consent here... but the emotional pain for her would have been the same. A 16-year-old child would still have missed out on learning about sex in a comfortable, happy way with a child the same age as themselves. This is why we should condemn Picasso or Charles Dickens or any of the other men who may have skirted inside the law (although there are doubts regarding Picasso) but still forced a young person to grow up way too fast.
I don't know if I believe in Hell. If there is one, that is where I am heading. I do not believe I deserve to be tortured infinitely for infinite though... although, then again, I don't really believe anybody does. Maybe one day I'll be reincarnated as a better human being. But I think it's far more likely I'll just suffer the agonising pangs of death and then cease to exist. If you're reading this and think I deserve to go to Hell... maybe I will. Take comfort where you can.
Everyone else, call out abuse wherever you see it. That 19-year-old bloke with the 15-year-old girlfriend - he's a child rapist (at least here in Britain). You know that. Report it. The lads in your class who joke about ways to pressure girls into sex. They're rapists. Confront them. If someone tries something kinky on you for the first time without asking, they're being abusive. Please talk to them about that. Since I came to the realisation that I am a child rapist, my eyes opened to how much abuse goes on. The media trains us to see rape and abuse as always obviously violent, using force or restriction - the victim unconscious and intoxication or screaming and fighting back. This isn't always what rape looks like. Maybe it's not even what rape looks like most of the time. It looks like the guy in his 20s with the young teenage girlfriend. The student who only targets the most drunk girls at clubs. The girlfriend who refuses to stop having sex when their partner says they've had enough and want to stop. It's people not listening when other people are too anxious or nervous to say 'no' and can only say 'I'm not sure' or 'I have a headache' or 'I want to sleep' instead. It's silent acquiescence after a man has asked three times and his wife is afraid that if she turns him down, they'll be an argument. It's Decard in Blade Runner. It's James Bond in Goldfinger. It's that sense that something is 'off' but you don't want to use the r-word because it's too much. It seems too harsh and too brutal to describe your experience. I don't think it's even possible to get an accurate measure of how many rape victims and rapists there are. There is too much denial. Selective remembering of things you did or were done to you when drunk that never get brought up again. Do you ask people, "Have you ever had unwanted sex?" or "Have you ever felt pushed into sex?" or "Have you ever had some have sex with you when you had expressed - either verbally or physically - that you did not feel like doing this?" or "Has someone ever done something sexual to you that happened so fast you didn't have the chance to say you weren't comfortable with?" or "Did a guy take 20 seconds to finish off after you told him to stop but it was only 20 seconds and it's hard to know what to call that?" or "Have you been made to do something sexually you did not want to do?" or "Have you ever done something sexually that you did not feel comfortable doing but did anyway because you were scared of the reponse that not doing it might provoke?" or "Have you been raped?"
I've also had times were I felt uncomfortable, even a bit violated, and I don't know if I have the language to describe these incidents. Can a rapist (at the very, very least, a statutory rapist) also be victimized by other partners? What about if this victimization is accidental? What does accidental mean with these things? Like, being too nervous to have sex with your girlfriend because their mother is downstairs until they get snappy and angry and grab you and tell you to 'just stick it in' and you end up crying... but it's hard to capture quite how it was. And I'd be loathe to call that abusive. We were both so young. Or when another partner inserted their finger into me without asking first and I had never had that done before and I felt weird and vulnerable but also turned on and my thought process was: "They didn't ask... this is scary. But it is almost exactly what I did to T and she had said that she wasn't in the mood to do anything... at least this is just a progression, just an extreme one." And then J felt really guilty and awful about it because they quickly realised they hadn't asked to penetrate and I said that I was ok because they were so kind and well-meaning and I could never cope with the idea of them seeing themselves as an abuser, because that would be so ludicrous and OTT. But at the same time, I didn't feel so good... but I wanted to be punished. To know how it is to feel a little violated, because that was the fucking least I deserved.
And it the banality of my monstrous act towards T... it was so pathetic and entitled and hideous. We were spooning and I slowly moved my hands. She'd put my hands around her chest before and told me to hold her. But I didn't want to. I wanted to be sexual. Because(???) I was horny (???) anxious (???) asserting power (???) Rape is a crime of power. But I don't know if that was the reason for the assault. Because I didn't see it as an assault at the time because it didn't look like one to me. My thought process was that we had to be sexual, as we had the other nights, becasue if we stopped being sexual so close to my flight back home, then we would never have sex i.e. intercourse because I thought that intercourse was just sex and everything else didn't 'count' in the same way. And I think I felt we needed to have sex because otherwise the relationship wasn't legitimate. Otherwise I might never get to have sex with her. I'd go back home and she'd break up with me and then would choose Eli over me. Any my thought processes while I slowly moved my hands (so slowly that I could tell myself it was seductive and romantic and sure maybe kind of skeezy... but not in a forecful way, just a tricksy kind of way... I was giving her fair chance to say something, but of course she wouldn't / couldn't because if I hadn't listened when she put my hands around her chest the first two times, why would I listen on the first?) And I told myself that touching isn't rape, but it is. When it is violatory without consent. It is. That why even that scene in Philip Ridley in which Cosmo puts his finger in the mouth of the sleeping girl and she unknowingly sucks it like a pacifier until he climaxes can register as rape even though there is no penis on display. That's why people saying that castrating rapists solves the problem are so far off the mark. The penis is just an interchangeable weapon for violatory control. In a way, the act of violatory touching can be read most clearly as rape because the hand says 'This is mine. This is what I want. This is what I have.' And so I'd just cut off my fingers, but then why stop there? It's not the tool that makes any difference - the finger; the penis; the vibrator; etc. - it's the act of violation + the lack of consent.
In Texas, that child at that specific point in time, in that place, could not, was unable to, consent to any sexual acts perpetrated by an adult man. And even if she could? Even if it had been two weeks later? In Oklahoma? In England? So what. She would still have been a kid and I would still have been an aduld fresh out of uni who should have been dating a woman his own age. And it doesn't matter that she didn't say 'NO' that one time... but a person doesn't need to. In one's heart... in one's heart of heart's... one can tell. One knows what someone is uncomfortable. Or at the very least, you know that you aren't entirely sure they are comfortable. And that's all you need to know to think 'I will stop now and I don't want to run any risk of hurting this person.' It's about risk. That's why statutory rape is wrong, even though a lot of people like to dismiss it. Because, sure, there might be some 15-year-old girls who have a totally fine relationship with a 20-year-old man... but she may well seem fine at the time and then feel horribly violated by it all later. And that's not her fault ot something for the man to whine about! She. is. a. child. So a 20-year-old who is a decent human being won't mess around with someone under 18 because they know that the terrible potential for harm in no way outweights their own pleasing or - yes - even feeling of love. Because it was nice to feel loved by an intelligent 16 / 17-year-old girl. We had hours of great conversation. But it never needed to be romantic or sexual. And I could have turned her down. But I didn't. Because I liked feeling complimented and I didn't want to disappoint her and because I didn't think I could get into a relationship with anyone my own age. And she was funny and smart. An interesting person. But that could be said of loads of kids. That doesn't mean to get to have sex with them.
So yeah... if you or the person you want to get with is under 21, keep it within a couple of years. The half your age + 7 rule isn't bad. If you're 16, don't go messing about 14-year-olds. If you're 18, doubly so. If you're over getting on for 20, just don't consider a relationship with a 16-year-old a romantic possibility. Because not only will you possibly hurt them, you'll have to lvie with being a fully-grown adult who had sex with a child FOR. THE. REST. OF. YOUR. LIFE.
I think that's the main message here. Don't commit statutory rape because 'hey, they're only a few months too young' or ask your girlfriend for sex a third time because 'otherwise they'll go home tomorrow and we won't have sex again for a whole week' or move your hand where it's not wanted in the cinema because 'loads of guys do this and she'd say something if she didn't like it'. It's better to be cautious than to sexually assault someone because you were a stupid, entitled or impatient idiot. Chill. Wait until the person is the legal age. In the meantime, maybe find someone else who is. Don't be pushy because the sex you'll have will be rubbish anyway. And do you really want to hurt someone? Do you really want to potentially ruin the life of someone who find attractive, think is funny, or maybe even love?? You know they don't deserve that. That niggling feeling of guilt in your stomach? That sense of doubt about your girlfriend being too young for you? They're good. Trust those things. They know what's up.
Because besides all the human reasons for not committing statutory rape, or assaulting someone (whether grabbing and moving their hand onto your dick in the cinema; or squeezing a friend's breasts for a "joke") you too will have to live with this forever. When you grow up and have kids, you will have to look your kids in the eyes with the knowledge that their father is an abuser. If you stick your dick in a 14-year-old child now at 18, just stop and have a think about how you'll feel about that when you're 40 and have a 14-year-old child of your own.
In short, don't try to get someone to be sexual with you when they either don't want to or are too young or drunk to be able to consent. Firstly, it can have serious long-term damage. These are human beings you're interacting with, with dreams and hopes like you. Why hurt them? Secondly, this angst in your pants will pass. You'll find someone else to stroke your ego or to have funny conversations with. If your girlfriend doesn't want to have sex with you now... if you respect her, then you'll probably have a much happier relationship and better sex along the line! if she doesn't want to have sex with you ever. Fine. If that's a deal breaker for you - there really are plenty more interesting fun, sexy, attractive people who you will meet in life! You probably have years and years and years ahead of you. Don't panic. Thirdly, you really don't want to risk going to jail as a sex offender. Fourthly, you too have to live with your own actions. Do you think self-identifying as an abuser or rapist (even if you try to deny it to yourself) is going to be good for your own sense of self-worth and long-term happiness? Probably not, bro.
Anyway, I doubt anyone will see this. These have been my two cents. When you're young the law is liable to see silly and arbitrary... but mostly it makes sense. OK... maybe except for California where the age of consent is 18 with no close in age exemptions. That is a bit silly. I would advise you to get out of California when you can.