The Crimes
July 3, 2011
3:30 a.m. CST
In some of my earlier posts, I alluded to some crimes that had been committed against me. I feel it's time to tell that story.
Before I go on about my story, here's the article about Bristol
Palin. Make no mistake. I'm not a fan of hers. To me she's just the
daughter of a politician and presidential wannabe, and she's riding on the coattails of
her mother's political career. But that does not make what she's been
through any less painful, or justifiable, or a lie. I'm not saying that what Bristol claims is the truth, only that being the daughter of a politician does not automatically make her a liar. I wasn't there. I wouldn't know.
I was reading an article on the internet a couple of days ago about Bristol Palin written by Maressa Brown on June 24, 2011 for The Stir, a presentation by Cafemom.com. The subject of the article stirred up a lot of old memories and a lot of anger. I've been keeping a number of secrets from my family for more than 30 years and most of my friends don't know them either. This article about Bristol made me so angry that I feel that must set a few things straight. It's been a long time coming. It's time.
I graduated high school in June of 1979. I was 18. I was young. I had been very sheltered by my parents and the church I had been raised in. There was a great deal about people in general, and men, and the real world that I did not know and was not prepared. My father had often warned me that people outside our church were different and generally could not be trusted. He saw evil around every corner. In the views of the church we were in, every person was born into sin, and therefore sinners. And while we were also sinners, for we weren't immune from the wiles of the devil, our church members were the only real Christians. Those outside our church, our cult, just imagined themselves to be Christians, but weren't really. And to us, Christianity was the only truth in the world, and the only way to be if you wanted God's love, mercy and acceptance.
For those individuals who live in caves and don't know who Bristol
Palin is, Bristol is the daughter of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin was the
former governor of Alaska who ran for the seat of Vice President on the
Republican ticket with John McCain who was running for the seat of
President. They lost to President Barack Obama.
My first job after I graduated was as a file clerk. However he had grave concerns. He never stopped giving me dire warnings that all men, especially those who worked in offices, were only out to get girls into bed with them. He insisted that I never participate in any parties, Christmas or otherwise, suggested by the management, or any other men for that matter.
His logic made no sense to me, on so many levels. However, I was young and naive......and inexperienced with people generally. There were many things he taught me that I did believe though.
I remember the day a co-worker came to me and asked me to help him with a favor. Let's call him Mike. Mike was a Palestinian. That wasn't his real name by the way. He gave me a line about how his ex-girlfriend wasn't speaking to him and he just wanted to talk to her. According to Mike she was staying with her brother and her brother was controlling the phone. Mike asked me if I could go with him to a private phone, ostensibly at his place, to make a call to this ex-girlfriend, just to see who answered the phone. Once the phone was answered, I was to ask for a non-existent person, then apologize for calling the wrong number and hang up. I agreed. I knew it sounded fishy, but I wanted to make friends. I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what didn't feel right. It was August 15, 1979. That date is etched on my mind.
I knew all the terrible things I had been told about people who weren't part of our church, and all the things I had been warned about foreigners. I so wanted to believe that it wasn't all true. I so wanted to believe that there were good people out there, honest and decent people. But I had no experience with people.
Mike took me to an apartment. The phone call was made and ended, as planned. I'll spare you the play-by-play, but I was raped within minutes after the phone call ended. I tried to leave before it happened, when I realized what he had in mind, but I couldn't figure out the lock on the door. There was a moment when I believed he was going to kill me, when I looked into his eyes and saw my murder. I remember thinking the words, I am not going to want to remember this. My mind took a hike. It went across state lines. It traversed not only space, but years. I went back to when I was 10 and lived on my parents farm. I do remember fragments of that afternoon, but only fragments. I wish I didn't have to remember those either.
Later that afternoon, Mike introduced me to Chester, the man whose apartment we were in. Chester was also a Palestinian. Chester is not his real name either. Later that evening, Mike and Chester drove me home.
I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I did not get medical attention. I did not tell anyone what he did to me. I did not report it to the police.
One evening I was there at his apartment late. I wasn't there to help him with homework, but I was trying to avoid a situation at home. All I wanted was a few hours someplace safe and then I'd go home after the situation took care of itself. That was the plan anyway. He scolded me for taking such risks running around the streets of Chicago after midnight and telling me how dangerous it would be out there. Surely, it would be safer, for me, if I just slept there until dawn and then go home. Yeah! So much safer! I believed him and was grateful for someone who cared to make sure I stayed safe.
That evening while I was at Chester's apartment, and Mike was away from us, Chester told me he was trying to learn English. It was obvious that he did not speak it well. His speech was very broken. He asked me to help him. I have to say here that when traumatic things happen, often the gravity of the events don't register in your mind for a while. It can sometimes take hours, days or even weeks before things start mentally moving sideways, and you notice that things are getting surreal. Over the next month I continued to see Chester at the apartment. I helped him with his English lessons. He was taking English as a second language at the local school and was having trouble with his homework. I felt safe with Chester.
He had me so convinced that he was so concerned for my safety and well being, I laid down to sleep on his couch. Two minutes later he jumped on top of me with all the grace and finesse of a hippo. And he was just as heavy! I don't remember him pulling my pants off, but it happened. My face was buried in the pillow and I struggled for every breath. I was too angry and fighting back to be afraid. It happened too fast to be afraid. It happened too fast to zone out and go somewhere else in my head. I remember every second. With every lungful of air that I could muster, I screamed. I yelled. I screamed at him to stop. He didn't stop. It was the first time I ever swore like a sailor. Come to think of it, it was the first time I ever swore. I fought. I lost. And I lost more that night than I ever imagined I could. When he finished I got up and screamed at him. I screamed "Why did you do that? I told you to stop!" His answer was "You're here." As soon as I put my pants back on, I left immediately in a rage. He followed me to the bus stop. I couldn't stand the sight of him. I kept trying to walk faster but he kept up. He waited with me at the bus stop until I caught the bus. I never went back.
Again, I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I did not get medical attention. I did not tell anyone what he did to me. I did not report it to the police.
The attack that Chester perpetrated was sometime in September 1979. I can't remember the exact date. For the next few months, things started getting crazy. As I write this, it is July of 2011. It has been almost 32 years since that first rape. There were two more rapes after those first two, but I forgave those. Those last two rapes were committed by my then boyfriend, Stan. Again, that's not his real name.
Unlike the first two times, I was not embarrassed, and I was not ashamed. But in spite of what my boyfriend had done, I was protective of him. Somehow the third time did not hit me so hard. I knew why it happened as it did, and I felt I was partly to blame. The fourth time, also by the same boyfriend, I also forgave. I don't remember the rape. He had forcibly poured vodka down my throat and I passed out. After I regained consciousness, there was evidence as to what he had done to me. I was so mentally and emotionally frazzled from the first two rapes, and so angry about them, there was no more room, no more space for more rage on top of that. Like the first two rapes, these also were never reported.....to anyone. And I did not get medical attention.
You might ask: Why was I embarrassed? Why was I ashamed? Why did I not get medical attention? Why didn't I tell anyone what any of these men had done to me? Why didn't I report them to the police? Those are all good questions, and fair. Not only didn't I do any of those things, but I didn't get any kind of help. I hadn't done anything wrong, but I felt I had. I couldn't live with either of my parents saying "I told you so." I couldn't live with the police asking loaded questions that insinuated I was lying. I had no answers for why I had taken the risks. I couldn't explain why I had trusted these men.
In the span of 1 year I had been raped four times. But my hell did not end with the end of that year.
Over the following 18 years, I had periods of: feeling like my brain was being physically sandpapered, not being able to remember what my own face looked like, seeing maggots crawling inside my eyes when I'd close them, having a sense of not owning my own body or the right to say "No", feeling like I was being viewed under a microscope, feeling my eyes were being sandpapered by the colors of real life objects, feeling worthless, feeling ugly, feeling useless, feeling crazy, becoming paranoid about disappearing into a cartoon land inside my head even to the point of being afraid to even blink, the sensation of being emotionally disconnected from everyone and everything around me, feeling numb, not being able to cry when friends or family died, crying over nothing, not being able to remember everyday things, not being able to remember my own name when being questioned, hearing someone talk and not being able to understand simple English words, my mind blanking out when asked questions, surreal time speeding up, surreal time slowing down, zoning out when people would talk to me, feeling emotionally disconnected from my own name, feeling dead, not being able to hear music as if the notes all got jumbled around before a melody or tune could enter my ears, not being able to string words together to say what I wanted to say, having the most gruesome nightmares involving rape and murder and mutilation, and generally becoming paranoid. In addition to all of this, I was hearing voices and I once also saw an apparition. These are all standard signs of PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are others that can be experienced, but some symptoms are fitted around the circumstances of the trauma.
Ms. Maressa Brown is fuming about how Bristol Palin claims that her boyfriend took advantage of her while she was passed out drunk and "had sex" with her.
Let's start with that claim all by itself. First of all, when you are not capable of participating, it doesn't matter why you're not participating or what is incapacitating you. If you don't willingly comply and knowingly participate, 1) it's RAPE! 2) it's not having sex! Second of all, it doesn't even matter if you begin to participate and then decide to stop. Everyone has the right to change their mind. Everyone has the right to stop the act anytime during the act. If either of the people continues when the other chooses to stop, it's RAPE, and it's not called HAVING SEX!
Ms. Maressa Brown admits that this account written by Bristol Palin smacks of being rape, but dismisses this claim on the basis that Bristol never reported it to the police and then continued to date the young man and eventually agreed to marry him. Ms. Brown's theory is that Bristol got drunk, had sex, can't remember the act, then when she discovered what had happened, was so overcome by regret that she now claims that her virginity was stolen instead of admitting she participated voluntarily.
Ms. Brown insists that had it truly been rape, that Bristol would not have been willing to forgive and accept the young man's marriage proposal.
She also alludes to an attitude that Bristol's account of the events are insulting to those who are "really" raped. I get the distinct feeling that Ms. Brown doesn't truly believe that rape is rape if the act is not vicious and brutal, leaving bruises or broken bones. While she doesn't say it straight out, she gives the distinct impression that she doesn't believe that any rape goes unreported. She hints that all rape victims know when they've been raped and know the definition of rape.
I know there is cause for feeling torn on this issue. Ms. Brown claims that she believes that Bristol got drunk and just can't remember participating. I can see how this can happen. I have friends who have alcohol-induced blackouts, while the whole time are walking and talking. You would never know at the time they are mentally not capable of remembering what's going on. I'm in no position to say that Bristol is telling the truth or lying. I'm not her. I wasn't there. It wasn't me. But I resent Ms. Brown passing judgment, sans court trial, especially since obviously there are a few things she should know, especially as a journalist, and doesn't.
She failed to do her research. Even in a sloppy research job, all she needed to do was look up rape statistics on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics
I have included some excerpts below from Wikipedia. Oh, and I'm not a journalist, so don't fume about me not doing a better research. I wouldn't know where to look for more detailed information.
The United Nations compiled a report covering 65 countries. According to their report, over 250,000 cases of male on female rape are reported every year. This 250,000 only includes male on female attacks. It does not include male on male, female on male or female on female reports. Jurisdictions don't all agree on the definition of rape and often see males as not subject to being raped or females capable of committing rape.
The National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted in the United States in 2009, estimates that only 55% of victims report rapes committed against them and that male victims only report rapes against them about 10% of the time. Their survey ignores reported rapes committed by females.
It also mentions a British report in which the British government estimates that up to 95% of rapes are unreported.
Wikipedia continues:
FBI reports consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. The average rate of unfounded reports for Index crimes is 2%.However, “unfounded” is not synonymous with false allegation and as Bruce Gross of the Forensic Examiner explains,
The largest and most rigorous study was commissioned by the British Home Office and based on 2,643 sexual assault cases (Kelly, Lovett, and Regan, 2005). Of these, 8% were classified by the police department as false reports. Yet the researchers noted that some of these classifications were based simply on the personal judgments of the police investigators and were made in violation of official criteria for establishing a false allegation. Closer analysis of this category applying the Home Office counting rules for establishing a false allegation and excluding cases where the application of the cases where confirmation of the designation was uncertain reduced the percentage of false reports to 3%. The researchers concluded that "one cannot take all police designations at face value" and that "[t]here is an over-estimation of the scale of false allegations by both police officers and prosecutors." Moreover, they added:
What's clear from the reports is that nobody can seem to get a handle on what constitutes rape, who can or can't be raped, who can or can't commit rapes and who can or can't be believed. And that's about the only thing that's clear in the report. There is no unified code on how to take reports, how to classify them, how to handle victims, how to counsel them, or how to identify genuine cases.
There are some similarities in what victims suffer, given the circumstances of each individual case. However, every person experiences things from their own unique perspective and not all similar crimes are experienced the same way. Youth plays a factor in that a victim may not be knowledgeable about the definition of rape, but that could be true of a victim of any age. Young victims may not know where to turn for help or think that no one will believe them. And, as a truth, rape victims often aren't believed. Some may be afraid of revenge. Most believe they are at fault in some way. That is actually very common, especially among females. Culture plays a part. Come cultures automatically blame the female and/or consider her damaged goods.
Some girls, especially those who are young and are virgins, have the expectation that they must be in love with the one who ends their virginity. Sadly, they often see themselves as not being virgins if they've been raped. This was also echoed in Bristol's account of what happened to her. She claims the young man took advantage of her when she was unconscious and therefore ended her virginity. For some girls, it's an impossible pill to swallow that you've lost your virginity to someone you're not in love with, therefore you must convince yourself that you must be in love with that person. Females are often encouraged to "lay back and enjoy it", not just by the perpetrator, but by comedians who think that rape is funny.
For boys, it can be even worse. Not only are they not believed, but they are often labeled as gay.
I don't know of any high school that addresses these topics with their students: the definition of rape, that being date-raped is not sex, that anything not consensual is rape, that it's OK to not be in love with someone who takes advantage of you, and that someone who takes advantage of you has just proven by their actions that they don't love you. When you love someone, YOU DON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM!!!
The one thing I know for sure is that this needs to be addressed at every level, from the schools to the television to the internet. People need to have an education as to the definition of rape. We may not be able to address what happens in other countries, but we need to take responsibility for ours. Our children need to know. Our police need to know. Our defenders in every government agency need to know. They need to know the definition of rape. There needs to be just one definition. It needs to be standard. ALL SEXUAL ACTS NOT EXPRESSLY CONSENSUAL ARE RAPE! Everyone has the right to say "No!" Everyone has the right to say "Stop!" Everyone has the right over their own bodies.
There are instances where a person can be made so afraid of violence or being murdered that they comply in order to save their life. THIS IS ALSO RAPE! This is also why we have court trials. Judgments need to be made as to whether or not a crime was committed. But our justice system, including the police and the prosecutors, need to understand that just because someone complied does not mean it was consensual. Compliance is not consent.
I don't know what happened to Bristol. Neither does Ms. Brown. There's been no court trial. And as difficult as it is for Ms. Brown, and others, to swallow, Bristol has the right to forgive the young man, regardless of how she did or did not experience the events. Bristol has the legal right to not report the crime. If Ms. Brown wants to say that she's hesitant to label, or not label, another woman's sexual experience, then she should stick by that policy and keep her mouth shut. And I resent her sticking her two cents in when she has not done her research. I also resent Ms. Brown implying that Bristol's account is an insult to "real victims" simply because Bristol did not report the event immediately to the police and did not understand the event to be rape and decided to forgive the young man. It makes me wonder what Ms. Brown's definition is of a "real victim".
