On a Rowboat

Responding to: “An Old Enemy in a New Outfit: How Date Rape Became Gray Rape and Why it Matters” by Lisa Jervis.

Today is a better day than yesterday, and so I'm tackling a memory I've not wanted to tackle. But in the rough seas of my emotions, today I remembered to imagine a rowboat, and then I realized I needed oars, and the Room of Requirement in my soul provided them. Some people would believe that I have called out to a higher power, but whose metaphor is it? I've caught a glimpse of land, and I just have to make my way there. Yesterday it was all I could do to tread water, and all I saw was darkness.

(page 163) [Gray rape is] “…a disgusting, destructive, victim blaming cultural construct that encourages women to hate ourselves, doubt ourselves, blame ourselves, take responsibility for other people’s criminal behavior, fear our own desires, and distrust our own instincts.”

Once upon a time in my late teens/early twenties, I read an essay that described the trauma of another teen girl who had frozen up and not resisted the advances of some boy. She appealed to an older woman, asking for understanding that the girl had been raped, that the memories were crushing her, and the older woman said "you raped yourself."

(page 166) “This is how the language of ‘gray rape’ accelerates the victim-blaming cycle. The very concept the phrase relies on—that a supposed gray area of communication or intoxications means that you cannot trust your own memories, instincts, or experiences—is designed to exploit the stigma and fear that fuel the guilt, shame, and denial.”

And while I was reeling, trying to understand what had happened between me and JRS, I started wondering if I too had raped myself. Could it all have been some huge, almost cultural, misunderstanding? Was it only rape in my own mind, and I the perpetrator? And, because of that essay and the comments of a few others, that's what I chalked it up to: my failing.

(page 164) “…everything about so-called gray rape seems awfully familiar: The experience is confusing, makes victims feel guilty and ashamed, and leaves them thinking they could and should have done something differently to prevent the attack.”

Part of my misunderstanding is that I had enjoyed kissing and fondling with JRS before he bulldozed me into sex--sex I wasn't ready for, sex I didn't want.

(page 169) “But here’s the thing: flirting and hook-ups do not cause rape. Rapists and the culture that creates them—with its mixed messages and double standards—cause rape.”

It took more than a year to come to terms with my experience and to move past it. I buried the experience, never quite satisfied with it. I had an easier time recognizing what MZ did as rape. After all, I said no over and over and over with him. He just didn't listen.

(page 164) “…any therapist, sexual assault counselor, rape survivor, or close friend or family member of a rape survivor knows that feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame, and denial are common almost to the point of inevitability, no matter what the circumstances of the crime.”

But I didn't resist with JRS. How could it be rape? At least, that's what I thought at the time.

(page 165) “When the culture teaches you that lack of consent is measured only in active, physical resistance, when your actions are questioned if your date refuses to respect ‘no,’ you’re going to have a hard time calling rape by its real name.”

I've unburied those memories, and I am ashamed that I blamed myself. I betrayed myself in framing JRS as a colossal misunderstanding. It was JRS who refused to pull his head out of his ass and recognize that something was horribly wrong--that I was not willing, that I was not cooperating, that I was just enduring, that I was frozen, that his attention was not welcome.

(page 166) “Despite gray rape proponents’ eagerness to use their phenomenon to shift responsibility from rapists to victims, the fact remains that the reluctance in question is a symptom of the very social disease—sexism, misogyny, men’s entitlement to women’s bodies, and the idea that sexual interaction involves women’s guarding the gates to the land of the sexual goodies as men try to cajole, manipulate, and force their way in—that enables rape in the first place.”

JRS raped me. I did not rape myself.

And I've filed that essay into the "WTF? Lies people say to enable rapists" drawer in my head.