The crime of rape is the imposition on another person’s body. The crime of rape is taking away another person’s right to make their own decisions, deciding what will and will not happen to their bodies. The crime of rape is failing to respect personal boundaries and enacting your will on another. The trauma of rape isn’t necessarily the physical pain; the trauma of rape is temporarily losing control of your own body and your own life. And as rape intends, many victims fail to realize that the control is temporary. The crime and trauma of rape is the assertion that a person’s autonomy can mean absolutely nothing to others and can be taken away. The crime of rape is its inherent intent to own another person.
(trigger warning)
The physical damage from that night I was raped was minimal - all though she could have done anything as I was not conscious during the vast majority of the period the rapes occurred.
The psychological damage, however, is still here. I’m so damned tired of hearing other men (who’ve not been raped or endured CSA) tell me that I’m just internalizing it and opting into the “victim culture” and should “let it go.” The same goes for women who tell me to suck it up or else I must be a “metrosexual” and expect me to adhere to bigoted gender stereotypes that promote the concept that all males want sex all the time from any woman willing to participate.
When I think about what she could have done to me without any ability on my part to stop her, I shudder. She could have maimed me. She could have given me HIV. She could have killed me.
When I remember little bits here and there like how she still insisted on me driving her home (as I had promised) and engaged in small talk like we could be friends - describing her S&M toys, I feel sick to my stomach.
When I’ve been cautioned during therapy that she may have raped me for 7 hours or more as one long rape rather than 2 separate attacks (as I awoke twice and just assumed they were 2 separate attacks), I want to scream at the top of my lungs. When I wonder what else she did during that time period, I want to put my fist through the wall.
I hurt. I have to process that. I have to feel it. I have to let it flow out.
I tried ignoring it. I tried denial. It doesn’t work. I’m so tired of being told that I have no right to feel what I’m feeling because she just gave me “freaky sex” and get asked what is “wrong with you” because all men fantasize about that. Of course, without my permission, while unconscious and a with very nasty threat to ensure my silence attached doesn’t qualify as sex in my book.
She took something from me that I didn’t offer to her. She took something I had no intention of offering her. She took something I hadn’t even given to my girlfriend at the time and never did as we eventually broke up, partially due to my own emotional distance following the rape.
Gee, what is wrong with me that I didn’t like all of that?
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