From: starbuck@ucrmath.ucr.edu (starbuck)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Who's responsible in rape? (Was Re: Observations from male studentnt)
Date: 13 Oct 92 05:02:43 GMT
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <1992Oct10.005919.806@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:

>The only thing I can figure out is that someone is trying so hard not
>to be a victim that s/he loses whatever common sense and compassion
>s/he has.  Strange, too, how this only seems to crop up in people who
>have lead sheltered lives, where little bad or evil ever befell them.
>But they're such great people, of course, they're responsible for
>their nice, tidy lives.

I don't think so.  I am one of those people who think that feminists are
making a fatal error in promoting the victimization of women.  
Making a person a victim is to make them helpless, to more
or less distroy their sence of well-being.  In a away take away the
the control they have over their own lives.   Some people don't allow
themselves to be victims because they have reached a higher state of
awareness that is superior.

[ a long example of where "one person's ceiling is another person's floor"
  ( Paul Simon I think ) or why some people are victims and others are not.
  I the need to explain myself somewhat so you understand why I feel 
  as I do.  I relate a little background about my "on the road years, a tale
  of violence and a tale of humiliation as a teen at the hands of two teenage
  girls.  I also relate how I personally react to violence and humiliation
  stating the reasons I feel the vitimization is in reality worst that
  the crime. ]

Seeing *yourself* as a victim is a perception and not a truth.  I went on
"on the road" after the army and Vietnam.  While I look inward and outward
I earned my way on the docks, doing displays, reading "Women's Ware Daily",
and "Display World" at a department store in Boston, working in the fields of 
California, pouring coffee and making eggs over easy in D.C., working leather
in the Berkshires hills, driving cab in Bean Town, making furniture in Denver. 

At one time working as an orderly in a chonic disease hospital in what I call
in blacker moments the house of the dead.  A place I learned to wash the
bodies and comb the hair of human beings who no longer can speak nor move
of their own volition.  A place for some who come to die, slowly.  A place
where some learn to care.  A place were you prepare for a hard labor with
quiet time and meditation.

I slept under the stars, under canvas, in lonely rooming houses, and the
back seat of a car.  I resided in everything from town houses on Beacon
hill to the slums of San Francisco.  I lived with people and without people.
I shared my life with others and at times I lived in solitude.  I had a saying
at that time.  "Home is where I am. 

I mingled with the many.  Wino's, welfare mothers, artists, bards, people
with money, those without, the weak, the hard, those with a heart,
bigots, gays, farmers, migrants, feminists, hippies, workers, the old, 
the ugly, the mean, blacks, hispanics, asians, native americans ...  
Some neighborhoods I traveled were nice and others were on 
the edge where violence where the mean things abode.  I have gone 
without food and money.  I have been robbed and beaten and not once have 
I ever thought of myself as a victim.  And that is one of the keys to 
succeeding in life.  "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off ...", Walt
Disney wasn't crazy.

I will tell you why.  It is quite simple.  It is because I was not in my own  
mind.  In those times and other times of my life I simply looked at what had 
happened and asked myself the questions.  What has just happened?  How did I
get to the place that I have found myself?  Most importantly "how can I 
change?".  

[ Prelude to violence and the choices one makes ]

When I drove cab, I drove with a fever.  I spent nights studying maps, tour
books, history books, business listings and the such.  Many a night after
a shift I would drive around till dawn learning new paths.  I became in 
months one of the best measured by the amount of money I was making.  It
took skill and nerve to understand the heartbeat of the city.  I believe
now as then not to exclude and so rather than talk about it I worked the
Black and Hispanic sections as well.  One of the very few white drivers
to do so.  And as a bonus I rarely without a fare.  I choose to do this
because of the lack of ties and the money someone who knew how to hustle
could make.

[ An omen of things to come ]

The first time I was robbed I looked at it as "hot shit".  I felt I had reacted
well to the threat and was pissed at loosing the money, but all in all pleased
I did not "freak".  I felt the two robbers with the knives were just playing
a game and if I played the role I would be allright.  The second time was 
another story.

[ A more meaningful lesson in violence ]

He had me fooled.  The pin stripe suit, brief case and the easy manner 
threw me off in making a judgement call.  In almost all cases I insisted
that the fair pay using the two way drawer from the back seat.  This 
person got out of the cab and pulled the handle on the front door.  Bad
call, very bad.  When I unlocked the door he moved onto the front seat
revealing a m1911 A1 45cal semi-automatic pistol, a US Army standard.
Extreme caution was advised.  One thinks fast in a dangerous situation.
I can recall very clearly as it went down on that spring night in 73.

I noted right away he was unaware that he had the barrel pointed into the seat.
I had a chance to take it from him but I let it go.  The risk was too great.
The attack would mean I would have to keep barrel pointed away from me. 
I was handicaped by the wheel, my motion limited, and I was unable to
move out of the way of the gun.  On the other hand I judged that the most
likey change in position of the barrel would blow my hip off if he pulled
the trigger.  Instead I choose to put my hands on the wheel to making
sure he could see them.  This all took place in a second.  When he asked
for the money my chance had passed and I was then looking down the barrel 
of a 45.

I could see he was nervous, very nervous.  I knew I had to do something
fast.  In the position I was in all I could do was talk.  So I talked him
through the robbery.  I explained to him that I wore a two pocket shirt
for ease of making change.  Bills in one pocket and change in the other.
I explained how I would keep one hand on the wheel while I used my other
hand to place the money on the seat for him to take once my hand was back
on the wheel.  He followed my instructions.

At that point I felt like the worst was over. It was going well. I had a
handle on the situation. It would soon be over.  That was until he said, 
"Where is the rest of the money mother fucker", in a voice cold as ice.  
A voice filled with anger, a voice that said "give me what I want and
give it too me now or ...".

It was all the money I had and I knew that I was in jeopardy, that at 
that moment my life of twenty-something years was very close to being
over.  Up until that point I felt the game was dangerous but not life
threating, but then he said "check" and I sure as hell did't want it to
be "mate" because he felt I was holding out on him.  My only option
was to talk fast.  Communicate with all the convection and honesty
I had within myself.  I looked him in the eye, let him see that
I wasn't bullshitting him.

I explained that I never started out with more that five bucks because if
I got robbed I would cut my looses, that he picked a time that was too 
early in the night, that had he waited longer to rob a cab he would have
done better, to take a look at my waybill ( record of fairs ) to see
that including tips the pot was right.  I explained that to me my life
was worth far than a few bucks, that I would not hold out on a man with
a 45.  He accepted it. 

Strange and I will never forget what he said as he left.  "Sorry man, I
had to rob you, I'm a junkie".  You know, it made it allright, it was like
I understood.  It made a difference to me.  I believe he told me that be-
cause he respected how I handled myself.  It was life and life only.

I drove a few more days but my nerve was gone.  I had several thousand
dollans hidden in my room in Brookline.  I had no reason to stay.  The 
rent was up, my judgement shot. I had become disillusioned with the art 
scene in Bean Town. (My other invovlement). People had been trying to get
me to come up to the Berkshires and now was the right time for getting 
out of Dodge.  Besides winter was almost over.

I felt threatened, I felt fear, and something close to terror. When it was
over I was proud of myself.  It seemed to me I had passed a test of my 
character, of how strong I was emotionally, and of how I could handle the
"bad things".  That situation became one the many stories of what is 
my life.
 
Did I feel violated?  No.  I felt renewed having survived.  I wasn't even
pissed about the money.  I sort look at this one as the admission to the
theater of the streets.  One more story from "the naked city".

I have to have the outlook that I have because a man like myself cannot
live a life hiding behind rocks.  When something like the robbery happens
I cannot think of myself as a victim.  To do so would be to let that 
person control more of my life than he already has.  To be the victim
means I have to relive "the bad thing" over and over and over agian
until I am finally weak and sick with fear.  It would then never be
a story, it would never be over.

[ To me Emotional Pain is worst that having your life theated ]

Oh yes, I can look back to some really painful moments, moments of
humiliation and hurt,  I can feel some all the way back to when
I was a child.  Such as the time the Blake twins, two of the most
popular and good looking girls in our high school humiliated me at
the beach.  

I had decide to ware a tight fitting sleeveless shrit
that was the rage of all the guys.  My problem was I was skinny and
didn't know it. I was 16.  They laughed at me and pointed
out to everyone what a joke I was.  Let me tell you it hurt.
I have never forgotten the pain, how could I, it was so powerful.
In one fell swoop those two girls had distroyed the phisical image
I had of my self.  They made me feel ashamed of my body.
I cried it hurt so bad.  My heart felt like it was breaking.

My buddies stood up for me and that saved the day.  My best friend
went out with one of them and he broke up on the spot. Someone
cared.  Did I feel the victim, a little until I recovered enough
to decide that I would prove to *myself* that I was as physically 
fit as anyone.  I worked out, ran and built myself up.  I went without
my shirt as often as I could in public to teach myself not to be 
ashamed of my body.  I let people look at me to overcome the shame.
I learned to say "F them if they can't take a joke".

To be a victim is to be a looser.  To teach women to be victims
is a crime agianst nature.  A real feminist would teach women to be
strong, to overcome, to prosper, to succeed, to live with a fire
in the gut, to "roar like a mama lion" ( joni mitchell ? ). 

starbuck
Newsgroups: alt.feminism