But it’s a powerful short story, Trigger Warning: Breakfast. We hear all the time from MRAs about how women make false rape accusations to cover their regrets about having sex, but this rings far more true: that they sometimes make new narratives to cover over their regrets about being raped.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
There is a poster on another forum who always seems to side with the male in any sexual harassment/rape story, I wonder if she’s still making her rapists breakfast.
I’ve never read so few words defining rape culture so well. Powerful may be an understatement.
Fuck.
Can we make everyone in the world read that?
Right now I can’t find the right words to praise it, so:
fuck.
I read this yesterday and felt a little sick in my insides.
then again I was already sick and feeling pukey but this didn’t help.
I have tears in my eyes.
Powerful story, indeed. It’s terrible that rape victims often have to engage in denial like that. As long as rape culture blames the victim and excuses the perpetrator, it’s going to be far too often.
A friend once told me about her date rape. It was an actual date, and she’d liked the guy, but she didn’t want to sleep with him and he raped her. She told me she cuddled up against him while he was sleeping after the fact, as if she could make the rape retroactively become something consensual and loving. And she felt shame over it too.
I still have trouble calling my first rape “rape.” We were dating. I went over to his house willingly. I knew we’d be alone. I took a shower after in his bathroom, got dressed and went to school like nothing happened. He told his friends I was a slut and dumped me the next day, after telling me I should have told him I was virgin and he wouldn’t have done it.
I don’t believe him.
Wow.
I remember making my rapist coffee. And, before today, I never even thought of it. Camping in the Coconino.
Thank you. Powerful.
And a hearty fuck off, assholes, to the people who claim that any variation in the story of what happened, any memory that has been put in a DNR box, any deviation from the initial report, is proof that she (or he) is lying.
That’s… familiar.
I was, and am, a bad victim. Loud, big boots like the artist’s, I know how to fight. Except, apparently, when I didn’t. I just wanted to sleep, and die, I was so sick when it happened, but he convinced me I owed him.
I ate no solid food for a week. It happened so many times a day for that week. No Gatorade or meal replacement drinks ever ever ever again for me.
This makes me so terribly sad.
In the 80’s, when I was in my early 20s, I started dating a girl.
I was so in love with this girl.
I was a gob-smacked fundi Xtian eternally guilty for my lustful thoughts and masturbatory lapses. (This is not an excuse)
Things progressed.
I was raised in Midwest “get what you can” male culture. (This is not an excuse)
We had sex consensually, my first but not hers.
I was geeky, sex-crazed and sex-starved. (This is not an excuse)
She shared with me her life, stories of being taken advantage of, once by a church deacon who she went to for relationship advice.
I didn’t want to be that guy.
We were in the car after a good date, had been talking and making out, windows fogged.
She said “No” repeatedly, I didn’t listen. Pushed my hands away repeatedly, I persisted. She gave up…
I was that guy.
“We’re in a relationship,” I told myself, “so it’s ok. This is just how it goes.”
I don’t know what she told herself.
We got married that year, still much in love.
It’s amazing how blinded you are by the culture you grow up in. I bought into the boys-will-be-boys meme and the rest. As a fundi xtian, I believed I owned my wife’s body.
It lasted 10 years and 3 kids. We both lost our faith, me to become a rational skeptic, her polyamorous pagan.
Once I left that behind, and started assimilating skeptcism, feminism and humanism, I began to realize how horrible I’d been.
I was that guy. I’ve no excuse.
It haunts me to this day.
We had dinner together several years ago as we did from time to time to discuss kids and things,
I apologized, there was no way for me to make it better, but for the little it was worth, I said I was sorry.
She didn’t cry, but teared up some. She forgave me. I will never forgive myself.
We still see eachother for holidays and family game nights with our 3 kids. We’re friendly. There are scars, but it’s better.
Now I see it from the other side.
This makes me so terribly sad.
I’m sorry.
Storms:
Hugs and support to you. I understand all too well. You have my sympathy. Glad you are one of the ones (too few, it seems) who learns.
That post was incredibly upsetting and IMO totally out of place, Storms.
Yup, I saw the trigger warning and am perfectly capable of reading an account of a rape by a survivor. Having read that, the last thing I expected under this piece was a blow by blow account by a rapist of how they raped someone who became their wife, complete with excuses, attempted mitigation and explanation. There’s undoubtedly a place for the stories of (reformed) rapists, but to me, it is really not here under a survivor’s account of trying to normalise what was done to them.
I’m sorry if I offended. I’ll leave it to PZ to pull the post if it’s inappropriate as it’s not in my power. Suffice it to say, this moved me deeply.
Fuck. That was a powerful story. My heart goes out to her.
****
I agree with emilybites.
The OP is about who wants to rewrite the story of her rape so it didn’t happen. She’s trying to cope by denying what happened, but knows she can’t. By telling your story, storms, you distract from *HER* story. There is a place out there for you to tell your story, but it isn’t in this thread.
This is not an apology.
An apology does not contain IF.
I agree emilybites, that was totally fucking inppropriate, Storms.
It’s very telling to me when rapists come into threads about survivors and boohoo and poor me (usually with a couple “this is not an excuse” figleaves in there) about how much they suffer for being rapists. If you do this, you have not learned shit about boundaries, and you still lack empathy both for your victims, and also other survivors.
Tony, you are correct. PZ, please remove my post as I also feel it is inappropriate for this thread.
Text does not contain emotional context, and I can see how that might read as condescending or sarcastic. That was the farthest thought from my mind.
Gah, preview better:
Fixed That For Me
My situation wasn’t a one-off rape. Mine was several years of abuse from my ex-fiancee.
You rationalize. You hand-wave. You twist things round in such a way as to make it seem normal, even though somewhere, deep down inside, you know something is wrong.
And then you start blaming yourself, because “if I only… if I hadn’t… I shouldn’t have said…”
You do anything you can to make it “not-rape” or “not-abuse”; I would dissociate, pretend it’s happening to not-me.
storms:
If you’re still reading, a discussion is occurring in the Thunderdome about your #11.
For years I maintained I wasn’t raped; it was just sex I didn’t want. I didn’t say no, I just said “stop” and “don’t” and tried to push him off of me. I didn’t fight. I didn’t want to hurt him. I loved him.
When the other shoe dropped, when I realized “sex I didn’t want” is rape, I suddenly understood a lot of what I did. Processing my response and being a “bad victim” has been harder.
I gotta say I support Storms testimony here. He seems to have really understood exactly what he did and where he came from. For every Storms there are plenty of dudes who never figured it out.
Thank you, Francisco, I’m sure us survivors who were triggered by his self-pitying shit now know better thanks to you.
I support Storm’s testimony, in an abstract sort of way. I also believe the people who are more affected and feel it doesn’t belong here.
Thanks, Azkyroth. (For real.)
Yeah..
Azkyroth and Francisco – I support it, too, abstractly: of COURSE what we want is more rapists realising what they did/do is wrong, and Storms has stopped doing it, which is a win for humankind.
Still, his was a selfish derail and upsetting for people, including survivors, including me. I’ll drop it now, just wanted to say to Storms that it was wrong, and hopefully he can see why.
That people create false narratives to explain away horrific events in their past is tragic enough without the horrible baggage that comes with rape (i.e. the victim blaming, slut shaming, etc). At least with most other tragic events, plenty of people will attempt to be supportive and reassure the person that it wasn’t their fault that something bad happened. For rape, many of those same people will just blame the victim, making the fantasy even more preferable over reality, or sometimes even help construct the false narrative.
I really don’t think you were perceived as condescending or sarcastic. I think the problem is that you came in here, to a thread full of survivors, and… reminded them that people who have committed rape are everywhere, including right cyber-here. That triggers some, likely many, survivors (like HappiestSadist in comment 23).