annanotbob2's Diaryland
Diary
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Rape
I’m going to write about sexual assault, about rape, one of the times I was raped, for three reasons. Firstly, my daughter and two of her friends started a choir for survivors of sexual assault and I went to the first session today. As I was driving there, I became very choked up – knowing that’s who the choir is for made it loom large in my mind. Though it was already there again because of that case in France, which is reason number two. The woman insisting on an open court for the trial of her husband and about fifty of the ninety men he invited round to rape her while she was unconscious due to him having fed her sleeping pills in her food. And finally, my writing coach and all round hero, Beverly, has written today about “the agony of untold stories” (from a quote from Maya Angelou “There is no greater agony than an untold story”). Like Beverly I’m not entirely convinced that it’s the very worst agony, but it’s pretty shit and I feel I’m going to write about it, though it’s not easy.
The case in France is utterly gob-smacking for many reasons, one of which is that it took place in a small town of 6,000 people, where he was able to find ninety different men who’d rape his unconscious wife while he filmed them, over a period of many years without any of them feeling the need to report it. I wish this was beyond belief, but it isn’t, is it? I’ve just done the calculation and if I’m right it’s ‘only’ 3% of the males in the town - well, that’s not taking out those who were too young – the youngest was 24 – or gay – so as a percentage of available men it’s definitely too low but still, it does my head in. It went on for years – at least one of the men visited the house to mend their bicycles and shopped in the bakery where the woman worked and exchanged pleasantries with her, as if he wasn’t regularly fucking her corpse-like body when she was unconscious.
How can we know who to trust and who not to? My case wasn’t quite the same – it was only once and I was the person responsible for my state of unconsciousness by ill-advised over-consumption of alcohol and other drugs. But I was with men I knew – we were young and I didn’t think of them as men, legally they were, though no older than late teens early twenties – and I thought they were my friends. When I woke up, naked in a bed next to a (sleeping, thankfully), naked man and stood up, the evidence of what had happened trickled down my leg and I panicked, grabbed my clothes and fled, through the quiet Sunday morning town. At the time, about 1973, I had a very different view of sexual activity. For a start, I thought it was my fault, without ever taking that to its logical conclusion. Was it really my fault for drinking so much with men I trusted? Should I have known that if I became unconscious at least one of them would take my clothes off and fuck my inert body? Should I? Is that really who men are?
Although I blamed myself I developed a severe hatred for the man in the bed because I assumed it had only been him. Not for a moment did I consider going to the police because it was ‘clearly’ my fault. I didn’t even tell anyone else for years and even more years before I was able to see that this was rape. And it was literally decades before I even considered that it might have been more than him, it might have been every one of them, but it was so long ago and my focus had all been on That One - now for the life of me I have no idea who else was there. This is unspeakable. After many years of no contact, people have found me and Bloke and invited us to various functions and I discover, always at the last minute, that I can’t go, that I can’t sit in a room, thinking, “Was it you?”
The EMDR session I had about this did lead me to believe there was more than one, but that’s not what you call evidence, so I remain uncertain. There were no visuals, just an overwhelming sense that I don’t even want to describe – I went there briefly and came back out at once. My therapist said I didn’t have to go back but if I wanted to, she’d come with me, so we did and it was like being multiplied by two – multiplied more than split, as both parts felt whole – and I stood with her on one side, holding on tight, while over there, unspeakable things were happening.
And I feel strongly that this brave Frenchwoman – well, I don’t know what I feel, but I stand with her. Part of me wants to go back to that old town, stand in a room with all those men, old men now, and say this happened to me – were you there, bastard? Did you rape me? Or you? Or did you stand by while he/they did? Did you all talk about it afterwards? Can I shift the shame from me to them? I think I don’t feel shame until I think about speaking about it, when I find I still do.
Phew.
11:24 p.m. - 07.09.24
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