# Yes, Rape is HEINOUS but One Must Go On: or The Public Incineration of WOOKINPANUB **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 31, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772 "2006-03-31T22:24:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SusanStoHelit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@SusanStoHelit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SusanStoHelit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/61 "2006-04-05T01:06:04Z")
I’m so glad that this thread is here. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to react to my roomate. She was raped twice in HS (she’s now 21), both times by acquaintances. I’ve never heard her sound sorry for herself and she says that she’s completely over it, but she makes jokes about it _all the time_, so it’s obviously on her mind. I don’t know how to respond. She also has some of the worst safety habits of any female I know. She walks all over town alone at night to go to bars. She goes home with guys she barely knows without telling me, not for sex but to hang out, and is always shocked if one of them comes on to her. She rarely if ever locks the doors when she is home, and if I didn’t insist I doubt she’d lock them when she was gone either. The relationships that she has are crappy, with crappy guys who treat her like shit. She seems very much like a 16 year old when it comes to flirting and other male-female interactions- clumsy, heavy-handed, and _very_ naive. She’s also a “virgin” (heavy on the quotatation marks) but not for religious reasons. Of course she didn’t do anything to deserve being raped, but you’d think that if lighting had struck twice you’d take off the pointy copper hat. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/62 "2006-04-05T01:49:37Z")
> [@](#): > > **SusanStoHelit** said: > She was raped twice in HS (she’s now 21), both times by acquaintances. I’ve never heard her sound sorry for herself and she says that she’s completely over it, but she makes jokes about it all the time, so it’s obviously on her mind. I don’t know how to respond. I joke about rape, both mine and in general. It’s like joking about anything else bad that happened to you. Like joking about the time I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. It doesn’t mean I’m not over it. Things just look different in retrospect some times. There are times when to me it’s incredibly funny how it all happened. It looks like a cartoon in my brain. > [@](#): > > She also has some of the worst safety habits of any female I know. She walks all over town alone at night to go to bars. She goes home with guys she barely knows without telling me, I do the same thing. I go out alone at all hours, anywhere, whenever I feel like it. I’ve never told a housemate where I was going or that I wasn’t coming home, and I don’t call them when I go home with a guy. > [@](#): > > not for sex but to hang out, and is always shocked if one of them comes on to her. This is a little unrealistic. If I go home with a guy I barely know from a bar, then I pretty much expect that it’s about sex and not hanging out. > [@](#): > > The relationships that she has are crappy, with crappy guys who treat her like shit. She seems very much like a 16 year old when it comes to flirting and other male-female interactions- clumsy, heavy-handed, and very naive. Something that could totally be unrelated to having been raped. Immaturity is not a domain solely inhabited by survivors of violent attack, nor are bad reliationships with crappy guys. > [@](#): > > Of course she didn’t do anything to deserve being raped, but you’d think that if lighting had struck twice you’d take off the pointy copper hat. Maybe, but then there’s that guy who’s been really careful and still been struck by lightning like seven times. There’s no way to guarantee that you’re ever going to be safe, and some of us don’t feel any need to go out of our way to avoid being a victim. To me, changing the way I live my life, not going out when I want or where I want, checking in with roommates just to be ‘safe’ means that someone else controls me, it means that they still have the power. What happened to me happen **ed**. It’s past tense. It’s history. It’s yesterday’s news. Today, I live my life like it never took place, because I don’t think I’m any different than anybody else. I do not allow a one time bad act to control every aspect of my life, like where I go, when I go there, and who I’m with. It’s very hard to explain, but I see no reason to behave any differently now than I did the day before it happened. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/63 "2006-04-05T02:28:22Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > I do the same thing. I go out alone at all hours, anywhere, whenever I feel like it. I’ve never told a housemate where I was going or that I wasn’t coming home, and I don’t call them when I go home with a guy. I thought you also had a concealed carry permit and a pistol. > [@](#): > > I do not allow a one time bad act to control every aspect of my life, like where I go, when I go there, and who I’m with. It’s very hard to explain, but I see no reason to behave any differently now than I did the day before it happened. I don’t quite understand this. To me, locking doors and many other precautions are just things that every woman should do (I’m not trying to tell all women how to live their lives. Locking doors and many other precautions are on my list of things all men should do.). You shouldn’t lock your door because you were raped. You should lock your door because it’s a good idea in general. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/64 "2006-04-05T02:43:01Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > This is less a pitting than a personal observation, but I know it’s gonna end up here so I might as well start it here. > > [This article](http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/31/Floridian/The_art_of__healing.shtml) is about a young woman who was sexually assualted three years ago. I imagine it’s intent is to be uplifting and encouraging to those who have been through similar ordeals. To me, it reads exactly the opposite. > > This is the part where you’re all going to crucify me: she sounds like a permanent victim to me; like her new identity in life is “rape victim”. It’s not that I don’t sympathize; nobody should have to go through shit like this. But there comes a time when you have to put shit behind you. > > For the purpose of disclosure, I’ve been raped and gone through the whole unbelievably demeaning, time consuming, torturous ordeal. It sucks in the very largest of ways. And you survive. And you get cognizant of the fact that some people are shitty, and one of them has just done something incredibly shitty **to** you. Is it difficult? Hells yeah, but I believe, like any other flaming pile of shite Life might hand you, you find a way not to let it define who you are. Not to wear it like a badge of pain. > > Again, I’m not “bothered/angered” by this phenomenom as much as puzzled by it. Okay, actually I am a little angered in the way you are when someone is hysterical and you want to slap them so you can calm them down and get them to take whatever the next move is that will improve the situation. Here is a beautiful, obviously talented woman who is letting an admittedly fucked-up chapter in her life take up the majority of space in her soul. > > After you all kick my ass, can somebody shed light on any of this? No need to point out the obvious “different folks different strokes” thing; I’m looking for something a little more in depth. Has anyone been a victim of a crime and can’t get passed it? If so, why? Does anyone share my take on it, or am I just the world’s coldest beyotch? > > I’ve gotta sign out for now, so I won’t be able to defend myself, er, respond to you, but I’ll be back to sift through my own charred remains a bit later. > > Thanks in advance to anyone who actually wants to try to share some insight I see your point. As someone who has suffered from a mental illness that is now in remission I think I spend alot of time viewing myself as someone who has had a mental illness and whose goal it is is to recover from it first and foremost. You could easily write the history of my life as the ‘pre’ and ‘post’ mental illness phase. I do not like it and I agree that realizing a person has an identity above all that is good, but that is easier said than done. Evenso, dealing with my problems has never been as bad as Coulters recovery problems. My side effects are just nuisances. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/65 "2006-04-05T03:00:12Z")
On another note I remember watching something on A&E that I can’t remember the name of. It was about a woman who was hitchiking and the guy picking her up ended up keeping her in his basement and raping her for about 4 years. She eventually escaped and now says she leads a pretty normal life and that most people don’t believe her when she says she is normal now. I looked it up, apparently Carol Smith is her name. [http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal\_mind/psychology/sex\_slave/12.html](http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/sex_slave/12.html) Although she still felt a bit fragile, she got on with her life. She found a job, went into therapy, and went to school for an accounting degree. She managed to find a way to feel better about herself. She got married and had a child, but then got divorced. Her daughter considers her to be brave and strong. “My life,” Carol said on the documentary, “isn’t any different from anyone else’s, I don’t think.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/66 "2006-04-05T03:08:26Z")
Is that the one who was kept in a “box”? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/67 "2006-04-05T03:14:49Z")
[http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/05.22/01-brain.html](http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/05.22/01-brain.html) Ugh. Apparently abuse in childhood can lead to improper brain development. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/68 "2006-04-05T10:59:39Z")
> [@](#): > > **DocCathode** said: > I thought you also had a concealed carry permit and a pistol. Yup. And I don’t carry when I’m going to be intoxicated. You figure it out. > [@](#): > > To me, locking doors and many other precautions are just things that every woman should do (I’m not trying to tell all women how to live their lives. Locking doors and many other precautions are on my list of things all men should do.) Some things that you might consider a precaution, I would consider to be a fear. I keep the door locked, but I have no fear at all of walking around alone in many neighborhoods at three in the morning. I would never consider calling my roommates to check in with them, and most of the time they have no idea where I am or when I expect to be back because I don’t really feel all that close to my roommates or want to share my life with them. I share a house with them for economic reasons, not because I want them to know my whereabouts 24/7. The point is, I don’t act any differently today than I did 10 years ago or 9 years ago, before the whole thing happened. My life is not divided into ‘before rape’ and ‘after rape’. It’s just my life, and that was a speedbump. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772/69 "2006-04-06T02:03:27Z")
I have three close friends who were raped or sexually assaulted in the past. The first took about six months to get over the assault. Since then, it doesn’t even impinge on her daily life. The only time it’s come up between us since her recovery was when I asked her advice when dealing with a student who’d been date raped. The second was raped by her boyfriend and then husband on multiple occasions. She eventually kicked his ass out and divorced him, went through several bad relationships, and is now in a longterm, monogamous relationship. She has no interest in getting married, but I suspect that has less to do with the rapes than it does the fact that she doesn’t ever want to give up her independence again The third friend was raped in her late teens/early twenties and conceived by her rapist. Every time she turned around, the people who should have loved and supported her tore her down. Her sister said she made up the rape so she could get an abortion. Her mother reminded her all the time of the Baby That Never Was. The university police she complained to told her to go home, she’d just had a bad argument with her boyfriend. Later in her life, each of her three children had life-threatening illnesses, and her parents died within a couple of years of one another. She’s fought severe depression for several years. The rape, more than twenty years ago, colors her views on sex, men other than her husband, and sexual relationships among other people. While she doesn’t consider rape to be “the worst thing that can ever happen to a woman”, she does seem to fall into the camp of “you never get over something like that” and “women who say they’ve recovered are just in denial”. She has a very difficult time recognizing that other women have different reactions and different recoveries. I suspect that if she’d gotten the support she needed from the beginning, she’d have recovered much more fully. I also suspect that if she hadn’t gone through stress after trauma after stress after trauma, it wouldn’t be so present in her mind to this day. I also suspect that her stance on the effects of rape is a coping mechanism. She hasn’t recovered very well. She has more than enough reasons to explain why, but if she tells herself that rape is always soul destroying and women never really recover, she doesn’t have to hate herself for not managing a recovery. I’m very uneasy about casting judgment. There have been events in my life, far less horrible than rape, that still affect me to this day. There are others I’ve known or know about that have suffered just as horribly or worse and made a full recovery. Yes, there is a victim mentality in our culture today. There is also an unbelievable lack of support and education that could make rape easier to survive and recover from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-rape-is-heinous-but-one-must-go-on-or-the-public-incineration-of-wookinpanub/350772.md?page=3)