From: rsr@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport)
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: Absolute Cluelessness.  Help, please?
Date: 21 Dec 1992 10:00:24 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu


Hmm.  Where to start?

Until six months ago I didn't know any survivors.  At least, in the sense
that I knew of nobody who was a survivor.  Since then, two of my friends
have 'come out' to me about being survivors (one of them had his ribs caved
in while watching his girlfriend get raped.  IMHO, he was a victim also).

Since then, also, I've made quite a few friends (women friends ... what a
wonderful concept :) ), quite a few of whom were survivors.  Let me rephrase
this:  I currently have about 15 or so good women friends.  One of them
_wasn't_ raped, molested, or was the victim of incest.  What is it? one of
10 women in this country (US) is raped? How is it that 93.3% of my female
friends were raped? 

Anyway ...  

I've done my share of crying, I _think_ I've internalized the lessons that I
try to see when a person tells me of hir experience ... 

I still don't know how to deal with it ... just that every few weeks I find
out about another one ... 

I started reading talk.rape on thursday, after an acquaintance of mine told
me about very recently losing her virginity in less-than-consentual
circumstances (She was taking medications, he made her drink.  What an
absolutely wonderful combination for making people pass out).  She's one of
the sweetest people I know, I was the first queer person she ever met, and
she challenged a lot of my stereotypes about catholics.  So she told me ... 
And there was this deep sense of loss, of sadness ... at the same time,
wanting to find the asshole and _hurt_ him ... What the hell are you
supposed to say? "I'm sorry" is so damned inadequate, both in terms of
potential of helping, and in expressing your feelings ... 

Every time I start getting a bit of hope for this world, this society, I
find one of these lovely little punches hidden somewhere that punch me in
the chest, in my heart, and have me reeling back, thinking "My God, how can
anyone _do_ that ?!" 

And I still don't understand rape ... I simply do not ... The act seems so
_evil_, beyond my regular definition of bad, or immoral, or indecent, and
the results that I've seen are so _horrible_ ... There is a very big wall
between me and understanding how anyone could possibly do it ... my God, I'm
not even sure I _want_ to understand ... becaue this amount of evilness,
this amount of selfishness, is frightning to witness, let alone
_understanding_.

So ... to ask a rather broad and inspecific question, what do I need to
know? How can I deal with this, both so I can be there for my loved ones and
friends who are survivors, if they need me, and so I can deal with this in
terms of what it does to me? 

My SO, in her vulnerable times, tells me how frightened to death she is of
it happening again ... and all I can say is, "I know ... me neither ... if
it was up to me, you wouldn't, love."  I can't even say "It won't .. " I
don't even know what to say ... I don't know what to do as a friend/lover of
survivors ... I want to help, if I can, and I simply don't know how ...

When I hear of rape, from an acquaintance, or a friend, it _hurts_ me ... I
know it's nothing like the pain of actually going through it, but it's a
direct hit on me, my essence, _because_ I can't understand the magnitude ... 

I don't really know anything about rape, beyond what I've seen/learned/heard
from my survivor friends ... so my knowledge is a very personal, subjective
one.  Rape, in a way, hasn't really _taught_ me much, as much as shaped me
in a certain way, influenced me.  As I said, I don't really know much ... 

So ... any suggestions?

-roy, the rather thoroughly clueless.

-- 
Roy S. Rapoport     internet: rsr@soda.berkeley.edu      bitnet: rsrsoda@ucbocf
anonymous mail: wi.5836@n7kbt.rain.com        androphile, gynophile, kerryphile
"What I used to think is me / is just a faded memory." -NIN
DISCLAIMER:  I speak for the University of California at Berkeley.  Rrrright.
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality,rec.arts.books