Rape is a word no one likes to say. Sometimes the words “sexual assault” come out of my mouth when I mean rape. I guess saying the word itself hurts.
    In the most important ways, rape is not sexual. It is an internal battering. It is a theft of power, of trust, and of something ineffable — too hard to explain with words. If you are a man, imagine being drugged by a stranger or being forcibly held down by five big men who then may choose to batter you inside and out. A certain amount of cheering and enjoyment is expressed with each punch, kick, or stab (with an infected knife). One K-Stater, a victim of the so-called “serial rapist,” was a virgin when she was raped. I told her I believe that she is still virginal. She knows nothing of warm sexuality, of making love. Someday she will be transformed, sun-bleached clean. It takes longer to recover from this kind of emotional battering than a near-death physical beating.
    I admire so much those women who tell their stories. They do it so those who don’t understand might take a bit more care. It is so difficult to tell the police! It is so hard to tell your friends or teachers or landlord or doctor! The thought of inflicting such pain on your mother — your father! Impossible. “Maybe I will tell a counselor, or an advocate,” one thinks, and soon the recuperation begins.
    Being raped by a friend or boyfriend or family friend is a nightmare I hear from dozens of K-State students each year. That first healthy psychological structure of trust, upon which personal autonomy, industriousness and initiative are built, is lost in a moment of forced power. It is a different individual who must find their way back. On the same token, if a rape victim does the right thing and turns to law enforcement and medical personnel for help only to be humiliated and dismissed, a shocking reassessment of reality occurs. Am I living in a nightmare?
    Read these narratives, related by your own classmates, and realize it might have happened to the student sitting next to you. Take care of each other.

— Mary Todd, sexual assault advocate and director of the K-State Women’s Center

Comments

1 comments

Courtney

Sun Aug 2 2009 15:50

When I was 4 I was raped more than once by my babysitter at the time.....I am now 14 turning 15, I do, Yes, Remember it all... Which I believe Is strange since I was so young. The boy maybe 17 at the time called it,"A Game, Like Doctor." He said. That is pieces of my very dificult story to tell....

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