purplerabbit

I had a long conversation with someone today. Some of it involved our experiences as sexual abuse survivors and how we have handled things differently, processed the experiences and used different coping mechanisms. I can't remember if anyone has every asked me directly before how many times I was raped. I don't think anyone ever did. It was a mind blowing experience for me because I suddenly found myself trying to decide which experiences fit the definition. I came to the shocking realization that at least 10% of the sexual experiences I had before age eighteen (and there were a lot) and maybe as high as third, were rape.

Now, don't get me wrong. I had some amazingly wonderful experiences too. But I also had a large number of what would now be defined as "date rape" experiences. I came of age in a time when such things were not prosecuted and not won when they were. If you got in the car with or were alone in a room/house with a boy/man, you were basically assumed to have given your consent. And if you were "making out" and said stop, you were lucky if he did and paid the price if he didn't. My mother worked in rape prevention and was a volunteer with the rape crisis hotline. It wasn't enough to protect her own daughters in that climate though. And I saw the worst case scenarios around me all the time. If the man was not going to stop and you resisted, you got beaten or left beside the road, or both. That doesn't sound as bad as rape? Well, giving the man a blow job really did feel like a better option to me than him dumping me on the side of some country road in Oklahoma in only my underwear at night in a time before cell phones and possibly in freezing weather. Think I should have fought back? Well, my sister did and she did get dumped out at the lake with no way home in the cold and no way to call for help. She had just gone to the lake to get high with a couple friends. Beaten and raped by three men, she had to walk in the dark several miles back to town.

There were times when the "date" would "go bad" and I did what I could to take control of the situation. It was a survival skill to turn rape into sex. If I was consenting, I could get the man to wear a condom. I could get home safe. I actually have no count of how many times this happened to me. It was way more than a couple. In a time before AIDS or HIV or any sexually transmitted diseases that couldn't be cured with anti-biotics, it was sometimes the actually safer option that when you couldn't stop the man, you gave in. If you consented, you got a ride home and a shred of dignity left. Sick but true.

And one of the ways I coped with it was not to think of myself as a "victim" but someone who liked sex and didn't care who I fucked. It felt better to say to myself that I enjoyed the sex even if I didn't like the guy it was with. And sometimes I could even make it true. Better to be a slut than helpless. This isn't a judgement of others. This was how I dealt with it -- how I kept my ego as well as my body intact in dangerous and/or degrading situations.

My childhood was full of such situations, so as a teen, it didn't really surprise me. I was in pre-school the first time some neighbourhood boys "molested" me. My ego did the same thing with the "molestation." For me it was experimentation. It didn't upset me. I cheerfully told my mother about it. I don't remember the incident. She only recounted it to me as an adult. But I remember a number of later similar incidents.

My mother's first husband tied me to my crib when I was four. I don't really know what all he did to me. The memories are often confusing but they always "feel sexual" when I think about (used to dream about) them. He had been verbally and physically abusing me for several years by this point. My first "father" was not a nice man. I was terribly afraid of him. But I still craved to be loved by "daddy." My mom got us out. She left the man at great risk to herself. And my stepfather became my real Dad. He was a man who protected and loved me. At least until he died when I was thirteen. A mother and four daughters in redneck suburban Oklahoma in the 1970s. Not much money. My mom had the fight of her life just getting us fed and clothed, protecting us from everything else was impossible.

So I write novels. I have published over a dozen now under another name online. And at least three quarters of the stories involve a main character who was either incested, raped or sexually assaulted either before the story begins or during. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to understand that this is a major issue in my history. Since many of the characters I write are young adults or teens, it shouldn't be surprising that so much of what I write draws upon that very personal history.

I just never did the math before. The scariest part about the way my memory of that time is now is that I can honestly say that the things seemed run of the mill to me then. I had gotten off better than many of my friends. At nine, I managed to stop one friend's big brother from forcing me to do "something" as he corned me in the bathroom and exposed himself. At seventeen, I talked my way out of being raped by my female lover's father -- when the man actually climbed in the bed with us and on top of me. At twenty, I had threatened my way out of another rape when a friend's live-in-boyfriend climbed into my bed one night. I considered myself lucky. I got out of or turned non-violent a lot of the "worst" incidents. Now, looking back, I think if you count all the attempted assaults and "dubious consent" sexual experiences, along with the direct assaults, that the numbers are easily several dozen "events." The irony is that, before today, I didn't ever count the damage that having to constantly talk or negotiate my way out of such situations had on my feelings.

I was explaining today that just because someone is part of my circle or friends or lovers, doesn't make me necessarily "feel safe" around them. If you look up rape on Wikipedia, they cite only two percent of rapes of women by men are by strangers. That mirrors my experiences. Fathers, brothers, friends, lovers, dates and other people who should have been trustworthy were time and time again proven to be the ones who were the most likely threat.

And, for me, women/girls were no safer -- because most of the beatings I have received in my life came from girls and women. Girls pushed me in to lockers and spat on me in school. A girl nearly broke my jaw when I was thirteen. It was my lover as a teen who actually encouraged her father to rape me (he'd was already incesting her). It was my own younger sister who beat me so badly when I was twenty that my eyes were purple and they found my contact lenses under her fingernail. It was my ex-female partner and mother of my son who dragged me with a car.

To this day, if I get scared, I can't even let my own child hug me. We had a near miss this summer while driving in SF. Just the fear of the potential car accident sent my adrenaline into overdrive. But it was my son trying to comfort me that sent me into a panic attack. There is no one in the world I trust more than my son. Yet, when frightened I couldn't even accept his affection without it triggering me.

I don't give my trust easily. I am not a person who touches people easily. Don't take it personally, but please do give me space. I am not saying people should never touch me. I like touch. I am just less likely to do so as casually as most of my friends. And sometimes, when I am tired or in too much pain or emotional, the answer to "can I give you a hug" really has to be "no thanks." It's not meant to be off putting. Sometimes all I can really handle is a hand squeeze or the like.