rape, acknowledgement and body shame
I read, Why I talk about Rape and her referenced article, my rapist friended me on facebook.
It made me think of my own story. How it isnt as simple as I make it seem sometimes. How I have felt sexually taken advantage of in different ways. Or how I didnt have a voice to consent to things most of my life.
Most of all I am hung up on her recounting of the conversation with her rapist. About his apology, his confusion at what was happening, his uncertainty that it was non-consensual. There is something so depressing yet satisfying about that.
Its hard to see that he may have been well intentioned, but wasnt raised to really understand consent or what no means or how to relate to women sexually. It makes me sad in so many ways. But yet it also feels like relief that it wasnt a sustaining characteristic that he changed that he tried to understand and tried to apologize.
I am remembering my own conversation with my brother. The denial, the blame on my parents, the still obvious anger at me. If anything now, years later I can look at that and know that those were all signs that it did happen. I didnt make it up, he wouldnt have reacted that way if I had. But there was no attempt at apology, or to clarify events, or to understand that he didn’t know what consent was.
Anger is the best proof I have. At the least I am thankful that my father sees it. He sees the anger as denial as proof that something happened. His recent statement after my brothers last and perhaps final out burst to my dad was that he was going to set up someone to deal with his will, to split things how they needed to be split. “because you don’t need to deal with that anger”
An acknowledgement, a powerful one. When I first tried to come out about it 8 years ago my dad told me, “well you’ll have to deal with him eventually when we die”. Odd that it always seems to be framed around death. some unifying event.
Its all hanging heavy around me today. An IM conversation with this one guy has left me in a bit of a haze of body shame and uncertainty. Worrying what self love and consent mean in the context of this other person. I do not want to feel voiceless. I thought a black trans man who specifically said he wanted to date queer women would have less stringent standards of femininity.
