“I would rather die than be raped!” I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have heard this bavardage from the sisters. And frankly, given the sheer ridiculousness of the statement, it has got me sufficiently bugged to put pen to paper.
Before the furious letters come into my harassed editor’s mailbox, yes, I know. I’ve never been raped.
Given the odium of the subject, especially in countries where rape has become all too commonplace, like ours, I would be the last person to suggest that women who have been raped are exaggerating. Or that the rape is somehow not as bad as they say.
A victim of rape is justified in being a lot of things – horrified, angry, traumatised, humiliated – at this extremely personal violation. Because it is all about power, and violence to assert this power, it is an extremely serious issue. It is a criminal act, which should be accompanied by severe penalties.
But there is something in women’s attitudes that is deeply disturbing. And here I put my head on the block, because I am now condemning myself to the femi-literary guillotine for what may look like “trivialising” rape.
What I am trying to address is no less than a flawed attitude that causes women to walk around preferring death to sexual assault – because they have to “live with the memory”.
One thing that sets a rape survivor on a quick road to mental recovery is refusing to accept “victim status”. But what does it help if women say that rape “wrecked their relationships”, “forever altered their personalities” and, in short, destroyed their lives.
Why the hell should this be the case? I am not implying that the trauma that goes with a rape can be forgotten in the twinkling of an eye, but society really needs to stop implying that women who feel this way (“destroyed”) are, in fact, justified.
Germaine Greer said this type of mentality is in itself “a bizarre sort of homage to the penis” – merely saying that women continue to be so impressed by the penis that they imagine it to wreak such havoc in their lives. In short, they give an otherwise flaccid piece of tissue way too much credit.
A penis should not be allowed to wreck lives and alter relationships. If it does, we are no better off than in the days of gentility – and certain barbaric countries that stone raped women to death for being adulterous – when a sex crime had more to do with the “honour” of the woman than the crime itself.
Go on, call me a filthy (female) misogynist – you know you want to. But all this talk of women’s lives being destroyed by a penis really is a problem. And I don’t think rape is the worst thing in the world that can happen to a woman. There, I’ve said it.
God forbid anyone should be saying that women should, in the instance of rape, “lie back and enjoy it”. But the fact is that women remain more terrified of the penis than of a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
I also think rapists take advantage of this idea. That is why so few of them get caught. They know they have “shamed” the woman so much that she is unlikely to go to the cops. Many raped women have reported that their fear is a contorted “aphrodisiac” for the attacker.
No woman is ever “asking for it”. And who would expect a woman about to be raped to be anything less than terrified? What I am speaking about is the after-effect.
Rebuilding trust in men after a rape, if you are lucky enough to survive, cannot be easy. And it is never really forgotten. But that women continue to be so devastated by rape that some even kill themselves shows that society has still not departed from the “violated maiden” mindset that views rape as an assault on the chastity of women, as opposed to a simple crime.
When we speak about “moving on”, we don’t mean forgetting – because this is impossible. But it is anxiety-causing for me to see that when women say rape has destroyed their lives, other women, and society in general, cluck in agreement, and continue to treat the survivor as “damaged goods” in need of repair.
Yes, rape is terrible. Even worse when it affects children, and nobody should trivialise it. But isn’t death more severe – not to mention irreversible? Without wishing to ponder on the lesser of two evils, because this is diabolical reasoning, I would wish to see that a woman who has survived a rape not be treated as if she had some right to consider it the end of her life. This only means that, as Greer cynically noted, “that piece of gristle” will have, eventually, had the upper hand.