Beyond Victimhood

Responding to: "What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life" by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

(page 97) "What was in all the zines and seven inch vinyl records was this: if we all said out loud how common the secret catastrophe was that all of us knew girls who'd been raped or fucked with, the 'every single person I know is a fucking survivor' feeling--what would it mean? If all the rage and memory and experience of what we'd lived through came screaming out, wouldn't the world split open? What would the world do with the reality that maybe more than one out of four girls and one out of six boys were sexually abused before we could vote? That the world was built on incest?"

There continues to be a stigma attached to victims of sexual abuse and assault. Victims are broken, never to be whole again. Victims are mine fields, always ready to explode or cry or react badly. Victims are basketcases. Being a victim is the entirety of your identity. Wrong. So very, very wrong.

Far too many of us have been victims, and there is a wide spectrum of responses. It's often easier to just be quiet. I was honest on a medical questionnaire, and the bumbling jerk of a nurse flipped out. He interrogated me, because if I was going to flip out on a doctor exam, he needed to know, and I better not do that. Because I desperately needed to see the doctor, I didn't complain. I should have.

I understand that hearing or reading stories of abuse, assault, rape, etc can be an uncomfortable experience. What do you do? What do you say? How do you act around this person after this revelation? Do you offer a hug? Do you say sorry? What do you do? What is proper?

I have quite a bit of distance from my experiences at this point. If I do tell you what happened, and I'm growing more casual in my sharing, I don't want you to treat me differently than you did in the past. Incest doesn't define me. Rape doesn't define me. I'm not a walking ball of insecurities threatened by every man I see. I never have been, not even when the experiences were new.

(page 99) "I came bit by bit back into my body through words that tell me stories that sound like mine, of how racism, violence, and abuse are all wound together; about how denial of childhood sexual abuse and denial of systemic oppression feel the same."

Victims have been othered, are seen as lesser. I fear being branded a victim, because I pass for normal. Aloof perhaps, but normal.

But what is normal? As I hear more stories from more people, I start to wonder if getting hurt is what's truly normal in this world. If this victim brand is naught but a tool to keep us silent, to keep us complicit. All of us, not just women. Who wants to be a victim? If we just pretend it's not happening, of course it will go away. Only, it hasn't. Nor will it.

(page 101) "Every time I have just the kind of sex I always wanted, every time I grow more into the fierce, fearless femme I have always wanted to be, I heal not like a cliche but like I can see new cells being made, the purple and magenta color of the outside of the skin cells, the bone being reknit."

My lovers want to please me, want to hear me moan and sigh and whimper with pleasure. My ecstasy makes them feel powerful. The power of pleasure is filling, lasting, awe-inspiring. It's divine. It's healing.

The more pleasure I receive, the more pleasure I want to give. I like the power of coaxing moans and sighs and whimpers from my lovers. It's good for my soul. The mere anticipation of great sex is enough to thoroughly silence the bad memories. The more great sex I have, the less power my bad experiences have. I think about them less and less.

Some men think they can own a piece of a woman through subjecting them to violence and abuse. That they will mark her forever. Brand her forever. Wrong. Want a place in my soul? Bring me screaming into orgasm.

I am currently working through my bad experiences, but the men who hurt me are not my true focus. I am. I am working to understand that it wasn't my fault. I am working to forgive myself. My mother's brother, JRS, JD, MZ, and anyone else who has hurt me are nothing to me.

(page 102) "A lot of people are waiting to be asked, silently screaming in their heads 'Ask me, go on ask me, can't you fucking see what's going on?'"

No one asks. They don't want to know.

I've started asking, but worry I'm just reopening wounds. It's hard to ask. Goodness, victim stigma as silencing mechanism really does work.

I think I'll just tell my stories and invite everyone else to also tell theirs.

Maybe someday I'll learn to ask.