From an article in the NY Times Magazine, written in a list of memories by a woman who suffers from amnesia, which allows her to remember apparently large events in her life but not others, and renders her often unable to place in time those things she does remember:
I was raped, I think. Although I was physically overpowered, I did know the guy, and there was no knife or gun. I remember driving home in the very early morning, wondering if I was ever going to have to see him again and, if so, what I should say.
I genuinely do regret to inform the writer, as someone who knows that horrible self-blaming “was it rape?” feeling, that yes, it was. And though I dream mostly of a day when women have no use for such a realization, in the immediate future I constantly find myself hoping for a time when women do not blame themselves, can rightly declare that they were raped without the caveats, and need not ask that question as a part of the recovery process.
Let that hope motivate us to keep working.
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