This. I was raped many times over many years before I was old enough to have periods. I am NOT a victim, I am a survivor. While I am willing to admit that if I ever see my step-dad again, I’ll kill him…that won’t happen. I am not looking for him, my husband isn’t looking for him and I don’t even know if he’s still alive.
Everyone heals their own way. My childhood trauma will always be with me, but it doesn’t define me. Some people will never get over the pain and humiliation, some will just bury it and some will make peace with it. Others will get so angry that they devote their lives to helping those weaker and more helpless. And some might kill their abuser or themselves.
Everyone is different, but we all suffer when we’ve been hurt in such a fundamental and invasive way.
And I’ve already acknowledged that. But we shouldn’t say as a blanket statement that these womens’ lives are destroyed and that none of them will ever feel safe again (aceplace57 already used the parking lot example). It’s just wrong because you don’t know how they’ll feel long term. This isn’t about the impact of rape. It’s about how we talk and think about women who’ve been raped. We can acknowledge the pain and traumatic impact without asserting that your life is ruined and your sense of security is gone for good after a rape.
This. Very much this - and not just women - in fact, the stigma thing is probably worse for a lot of men who’ve been raped. Although I don’t think the “damaged goods” aspect is there, as much.
Not that I’m wanting to make an MRA thing out of it.
Those ankle bracelets don’t prevent people from committing more crimes.
“The evidence shows that the men allegedly committed the crimes while wearing their GPS bracelets, he said.”
I can’t agree with this statement. Rape is something that permanently alters a woman’s life in an extremely negative way.
You’re arguing that “destroyed” is excessive hyperbole but I take it to mean scarred for life, as in not reparable. It can’t be undone. It will forever haunt the person attacked.
What about the fact you’ve had multiple rape survivors disagree with you in this goddamned thread? Apparently you are more of an authority of their own experiences and feelings than they are.
One person said that. The other said it would follow her forever and she’d kill him if she could. so whatever argument you hoped to make falls short of the mark. There’s plenty of literature that discusses the trauma associated with rape.
That’s not what destroyed means. It doesn’t mean scarred and it doesn’t mean terrified all the time. It means:
Or
I realize I’m more obsessive about words than most people are, but the difference between scarred or traumatized or injured and destroyed is HUGE, and it’s not something you can just ignore or handwave away in a discussion like this. It’s only a little bit smaller than the difference between living and dead. Fundamentally it’s a lousy thing to just assume a person has been destroyed following a sexual assault.
It was actually three.
The trauma is not up for debate. What’s up for debate is whether people are destroyed or whether they’re still human beings and shouldn’t be presumed to be living rubble.
Maybe you are right in some cases but I am here to tell you that I have not had my life altered in an extremely negative way and my rape does not haunt me forever. I know several other women who feel the same way. You are being extremely insulting by trying to tell us how ruined we ought to feel. I wonder why people (mostly men, it seems in my experience) want to think of a rape surviver as forever marred. Maybe it is because they themselves see the surviver as marred, regardless of how the surviver sees herself. And what does that say?
One of my sisters was raped. So I feel somewhat qualified to make a few comments.
What the woman feels about her rape is of course a very private feeling and I applaud any that make a wonderful recovery.
But when they volunteer a point, I need to ask a couple of questions. I do not quantify nor qualify what the woman is or should feel under any circumstances.
Rape is not just one thing nor one condition for all.
Rape has ranges, from something like being hit or threatened and your pants are pulled down, all the way to gang rape where the physical damage is so great that she can not ever have kids or a climax & have many big ugly scars. These are a couple of rapes, that are called rapes and are prosecuted as rapes and rightly so.
I would be very surprised if the woman in the second situation were to say that is was no big deal & she and we should not think a thing about it. She claims that there is no lasting effect.
Extreme you might say, well, IMO, if you say that your rape is completely recovered from and you don’t think your family or any other man should ever comment on or feel outraged or assume that that there is a possibility of lingering physiological or physical trauma is, IMO, way off base and not at all cognoscente of what it is like for others that have been raped where the circumstances are known to be quite horrific.
IMO, no one on either side of this kind of thing have any right to claim the feelings of others are wrong. If you want to be considered healed with no lasting problems, that is very good. To ask for that without letting others know what level you are coming from or that the public should just assume it is all okay is not reasonable and wrong to suggest that they all act in accordance with you & your personal wants & opinions.
We know your heart’s in the right place. You were corrected on (hopefully) a semantic point, and cautioned to be a bit more careful when discussing such a touchy subject.
I’m sure we all agree that this man did something truly horrible to a lot of women, and needs to be prevented from doing it again.
You’re right; no-one should. I don’t think anyone did.
The message here is that rape is a horrible thing, but it doesn’t necessarily destroy the victim’s life. It certainly can, but we shouldn’t assume that it always does.
I think what Aceplace meant was “The man did incalculable damage to 40 women,” and I doubt anyone would disagree.
I have a bad habit of using the word destroyed too casually. I use it all the time in real life when something is messed up or damaged. I never intended it in a literal sense. I spill barbeque sauce on a white shirt and I’ll say its destroyed. Not literally, but there is some damage (a stain) that may take several trips through the washer with bleach to fix. People that know me well don’t give my usage of that word a second thought. I’ll be much more careful about using that word here in my postings.
Every person is an individual and they react and recover from violent crimes in unique ways. I regret not saying that in my earlier post.
Any reason to believe that the dude is suffering from the onset of dementia or alshiemers and the facility admin simply want him off the books. They say he is no longer mentally ill, but the news link above , states that he is going to be heavily escorted for the next couple of years, where ever he goes.
“Punishment” = beating the living hell out of prisoners (as was done hundreds of years ago). “Public protection” = merely locking them up for years or more.