Saturday, November 2, 2013

Breaking The Silence


(Trigger warning: depiction of rape)

CHRISTIAN MANDEVILLE

When it comes to the subject of rape, it's almost invariably put in terms of women being raped by men. Women being raped is certainly a pandemic, true, but with news media being what it is today, capable of spanning the world in a few hours, just how often have you heard of lawsuits in cases of men being raped? Some people have never heard a story like that. Others (men and women alike) believe that it's simply not possible.

Because, as every adolescent boy could tell you, we only get erections when we've thoughtfully considered the situation and decided in the affirmative, right? Why do we never hear these stories? As a rape survivor, I would like to share some insight. 

When I was in elementary school, I was unpopular, to put it mildly. I had few friends, no social skills, and a naïveté to take people at their word and to readily believe in second chances. 

After being invited to a house party, I was delighted. I had a chance to make some friends with the cool kids, maybe learn to be normal. There was drinking, crowded dancing, a tropical smell in the air. After accepting a cup of who-knows-what, I wandered about the house. I felt dizzy and someone helped me along to a bedroom to "chill and lay down". I remember a red door, a queen-sized bed with a roll of duct tape on the nightstand. "Listen to him, bet he's enjoying it.”

Afterwards, I never so much as hinted at it for years. I was ashamed. In some unspoken sense, I had failed. I couldn't prevent it, which made me weak, made me a failure as a man. And, after the profound realization that it had happened to you once, there was a fear (or was for me at least) that if they did that to you for fun, what would they do if you piss them off by trying to tell someone?

So you stay quiet. You take scalding hot showers to feel clean. You tell yourself that it never happened. You walk past the same people every day, trying to substitute the fear and shame, the self-blame and self-loathing with hatred and anger toward something else. When that starts to show through, you just swallow it down because it'd be better for everyone to think you just had depression than think you were broken and burned out. 

While some might come to that sense of tarnished masculinity on their own, most of it stems from society. After all, how can you truly be a respected man if you were raped? If your attacker was a woman, you should have taken it as one more notch on your bedpost. If your attacker was a man, you should have killed him or died preventing it. I've heard both of these sentiments over and over again in casual conversation.
The stereotype for men being sexual and brutal powerhouses can all-too-quickly become a gilded cage; where it's better to let them get away than admit to your fellow man the truth. 
It is time to erase that mindset. Pretending you're invincible is for children, and pretending you lack emotions is unhealthy. It will only lead to pain, even if its buried where no one can find it.

It took me two suicide attempts and four years to tell someone about what happened to me. To everyone out there afraid of telling the truth, I hope you speak up. We don't need to let them keep us silent.

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