Question for Guys - Rape (dates, marriage, single, husband)
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Rape is a highly personalized crime against women , IMO they are all different and you can't expect every person to react the same way about all rapes. I would even guess that some SO's would want to hear some of the details about the rape before he made a decision on how he felt about the rape.
Its even telling that the OP used "gang rape" as if some are worst than others. I am not making an indictment here but again the "number" always comes into play when some men think of a woman.
In some rapes there may be a third party responsible, a family member , close friend or some one who could of helped and didn't. The age of the rapist, the age of the victim, the location of the rape, and more importantly who is the rapist and where is the rapist now? can all be factors for the victim as well as her partner in finding a place for this part of her past in their relationship.
Well, Bob, here's where I see the problem. I don't see why a person who does not want to revisit the issue is deemed by some counselors as "not having confronted and dealt with it". It seems like a very arbitrary judgment on their part. I may decide to confront it and deal with it in my own way -- and I don't see why confronting it and dealing with necessarily involves discussing it with people. There are other ways to deal with personal tragedies. Moreover, once I've confronted it and dealt with it, I may choose to simply close that chapter in my life. Why is that wrong, and how is that "unhealthy"? I really think it's a cultural notion, rather than an objective, scientific one. Most Americans love nothing so much as to talk at length about their feelings -- and they think that anybody who shies away from that is somehow weird or freakish. But in the majority of the world, people are more reticent and private, so talking about how being raped makes you feel really isn't the norm or a natural inclination for many people. I, for one, consider my innermost feelings very private. To ask me to reveal them would be the equivalent of telling me to strip (in fact, in many instances, I would rather strip). I know I am not alone in this. And just like telling a rape victim to strip and be naked for a while wouldn't help her get comfortable with the idea of having been raped, so telling many rape victims to explain their feelings wouldn't help them either.
I also dispute the notion that rape is a "permanent fixture" in a person's life regardless of how she wants to deal with it. I know some counselors put it that way -- and it's one of the things that I really, really hate about modern counseling and psychotherapy. Basically, it internalizes the problem. Let me explain. The rape starts out as something that happens to you, perpetrated by someone else. It's an external circumstance, which will eventually recede into the past. However, saying that rape is a "permanent fixture" in a person's life, coverts it from being an external circumstance created by someone else into something being wrong in your head, that you can never cure -- internalizing. I've read extensively on this subject, and I think that this deliberate internalizing by "specialists" turns afflictions such as PTSD into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many counselors feel it's de rigeur to tell patients that their traumatic experiences will always be a permanent part of their lives -- and they become that way as a result. Basically, the patient becomes convinced that what began as external (rape, war, natural disaster) has now somehow been transmuted into a permanent defect in his or her brain. And that, in my opinion, inflicts devastating psychological damage on the very people that these counselors claim they are trying to help.
Coping with rape is basically trying to contain the damage. One thing that should be the absolute priority for the victim, is not allowing the rape to **** with her mind. And contrary to stated intentions, I think that this philosophy that the rape is with you forever and ever whether you like it or not, that you can never just cross it out of your life, and that the only way to "deal" with it is to chew it over and over and over -- that, in my opinion, constitutes not merely allowing rape to **** with your mind, but inviting and begging it to do so.
And who decides what constitutes "dealing with it effectively"? Why is putting the rape behind you invariably described by the metaphor of "running way", rather than, say, crossing it out?
Despite all the other posts and threads over which we've disagreed, I could just about fraggin' kiss you for this!
I am saying that women or men who have been through this should handle it in a way that works for them. Some people do better by not talking about it....
I think this is probably true. We all have our own ways of dealing with trauma. For some discussing it with others is just too much. Others talk it to death, and I'm not sure how much it really helps them.
My wife and her older sister were both molested by their father throughout their childhoods. (My wife can remember it from age 2 until she was big enough to fight him off at around age 12.) My wife's sister spent years in therapy and brings it up every time she and my wife get together, yet my wife has never talked to a therapist and doesn't like to talk about it even to me. (Although together we did run an online "shelter" for adult survivors of rape and abuse, and she shared her story there with others.) I'm not sure who handled it the best, but they both seem to lead productive, healthy and happy lives.
A friend of my wife's has been going through a bad time in her life, very depressed, even talking about suicide. She had similar childhood experiences. She finally went to a psychiatrist a month or two ago, talked about her childhood abuse and got some anti-depressant meds. She said the meds completely changed how she felt -- completely, but the weekly sessions she was having were very difficult for her. As of a couple weeks ago she stopped the sessions. She said it was like living it all over again and she couldn't handle it.
I don't know all the answers, but I do believe if it's too hard to talk about it then you shouldn't. We usually know what's best for ourselves and when we're ready to discuss the traumas in our lives -- or at least when we're NOT ready to discuss them.
I met my late wife when we were both in our mid 40s. She was a brilliant and loving woman but had been fighting demons her entire adult life. She was an agoraphobic and was having problems getting through business meetings and had to sit in the doorway. She was unable to get on a commercial plane, not because she feared crashing, but because she couldn't stand to be enclosed in the cabin. (She actually enjoyed traveling in our private plane.)
She finally sought counseling, and the psychiatrist asked about her youth. That was the first time she'd talked about her childhood sexual abuse to anyone. She came to me, afraid I'd think poorly of her for it. (This was shortly before we were married.) Of course I didn't. In fact, we both became advocates for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and I helped her write a non-fiction based on interviews with several survivors. It was never published (she died before the work was completed), but here's a poem she wrote about her own abuse. I'm sure some can relate:
The Thief Of Trust
He took my hand; he took my lips;
He took my unspoiled, clean young skin.
He took my trusting childish soul
And made me share his secret sin.
He told me of his raging need;
I didn't even understand
The power I held over him ...
The strength that lay in my small hand.
He took the lightness from my heart,
Each shred of faith I once held dear,
And in their place, he left me pain,
And anger, and the darkest fear.
He said that I must never tell ...
The Secret he had made me share;
He stank of liquor, and of sweat --
He left me huddled, crying, there.
And I was good; I didn't tell.
He went back to my mother's bed.
I glared with hatred at his back
And wished him shriveled, dry and dead.
But nothing happened; life went on,
And every time he came to me,
I let him use my tender flesh;
I did what I was told, you see.
I was the best, the goodest girl,
And I could be depended on
To bear the guilt, the shame, the dread,
For they were mine, and mine alone.
The years have passed, and I have paid
The price of that man's evil need;
So many times, I've hurt myself
Because of his weird, awful greed.
They say he has become a priest;
I shiver at the picture of
His ugly, pale white hands upon
A child, all in the name of love.
And when I pray, my worn heart weeps
For that small girl who went away
Forever, in her mind and heart,
On that long-gone and fateful day.
He cannot hurt me now, and yet
I wonder how my life would be
If that deceitful, selfish man
Had never dared to fondle me.
I've never wished on any soul
The kind of pain I suffered then,
But if I did, I'd wish it on
That lowest, least complete of men
Who forced himself upon a child
And raped her fragile self-esteem
And took away her every hope,
Her every pure and youthful dream.
If there's a special hell for those
Who slake their quirky grownup lust
On children, then I know he'll burn
Because he was the Thief of Trust.
And as for me, I'm stronger now,
And someday soon, I will forgive
The man who killed my sweet young soul
And then, in cruelty, let me live.
The shame is his; I know that now,
His power over me is gone;
I'll have the final victory!
I will go on ...
I WILL GO ON!
I dated a girl who was abused by her father. She seemed normal but would go pyscho for no reason sometimes on males and never females. Because of 1 experience, no i would not date someone that has something like that in her past.
If you found out that the woman you are dating was gang raped when she was younger, would it change your feelings towards her. I know a lot of guys say it doesn't matter but deep down, I think it does matter to most men.
Depends on how it affects her life at present.
And how much the man is willing to deal with in association with that.
Have dated several women who were raped.
And have known quite a few more.
Even if they are coping with it well, its still one of the factors in their general perception and personality.
I actually dated a girl for a while who had been sexually molested by a family member when she was really young. I felt angry that someone would do something like that to her, and that she had to go through that more than anything else.
But I will say one thing, and I hope I don't get cast out for saying it. While I really liked her, and while she could lead a perfectly normal life, the incident did mess her up pretty good. She had trouble with relationships and other things. I knew another girl who was raped only a year or so before I met her in high school, and she was suicidal and had to go to counseling for it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who've undergone such tragedies need friends to be there for them, to talk about it, just to be there, etc. But knowing what I know now, I'm very hesitant to think that I would ever form a lasting relationship with a victim of sexual molestation, rape, whatever. There's just too much emotional baggage there. I hope I'm wrong though.
Been there too man.
Went to visit her family on a holiday and I just could not shake his hand.
It took all I had not to punch him in the throat.
I'm almost offended here. To assume that most men would feel that way is a little insensitive and offensive.
To be quite honest.
The woman is a victim. Period.
In some Third World cultures, women who have been raped are considered "disgraced" and sometimes killed because of it because it is considered a mark of "shame" to the family. I think it's called "honor killings".
I can kinda see both ends. I actually know of a cat whose wife was horrifically raped as a teenager, a few years before she met him. Thing is, she didn't tell him until after they had been married for several years; she was sinking into a depression and fighting the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, even becoming suicidal. It was rough listening to him vent. He always used to say that he wished the sex was better, but now he knew why she kind of held back, and that sex seemed like a chore for her. I think what he might have been going through was the thought that if he had known this beforehand, he might not have married her. Thankfully they got through it, though. But it was definitely a rough stretch.
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