After silence
Subtitle: rape and my journey back
By: Nancy Venable Raine.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
Subjects: Raine, Nancy Venable; Rape victims -- United States -- Psychology; Rape victims -- United States -- Family relationships; Violent crimes -- United States -- Psychological aspects; Women -- Crimes against -- United States
Description: After Silence is Nancy Venable Raine's eloquent, profoundly moving response to her rapist's command to "shut up," a command that is so often echoed by society and internalized by rape victims. Beginning with her assault by a stranger in her home in 1985, Raine's riveting narrative of the ten-year aftermath of her rape brings to light the truth that survivors of traumatic experiences know - a trauma does not end when you find yourself alive.

Just as devastating as the rape itself was the silence that shrouded it, a silence born of her own feelings of shame as well as the incomprehension of others. Raine gives shape, form, and voice to the "unspeakable" and exposes the misconceptions and cruelties that surround this prevalent though hidden crime.

With formidable power and in intimate detail, she probes the long-term psychological and physiological aftereffects of rape, its tangled sexual confusions, the treatment of rape by the media and the legal and medical professions, and contemporary cultural views of victimhood. For anyone, female or male, who has suffered from or witnessed the shattering effects of rape, After Silence inspires and points the way to healing.