“Rape” is Just a Four-Letter Word

I don’t want to talk about about rape today. Or any day. March 21 is World Poetry Day. I love reading poetry. I love writing poetry. And six of my last seven columns have been on intense topics: Consent, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, criminalizing gender affirmation, Nazis, and Ukraine. I could use a break. We could all use a break. It would be totally reasonable for me to give myself a week to breathe, to bring out a new poem or to write about some of my favorite poets or poems. It would be a great lead up to our plans for National Poetry Month, too. I could certainly talk about the relationship between art and poetry and healing. 

I tried. For my own mental health I tried. (And mental health is another one of those things that’s on my list of topics to write about, too.) 

Mental Health Cuts Both Ways

I know how important it is to protect my own mental health. Not just when I write about these things. That’s part of why I write–for my own mental health. And even though I do need to make sure I plan writing time that doesn’t involve things that fill me with rage and frustration, I also need to write about these difficult things. Writing about them means I’m not a bystander in my own victimization. It takes away the power that others have to silence me or to twist the real stories, the lived experiences of survivors. It means my story remains mine, even as I share it with the world.

So as much as I want to write about poetry I can’t. Even apart from taking a week to chill with a poem, my notes file is overflowing.I really want to talk about how fragile some people’s grip on heterosexuality must be to use the long debunked myths of grooming and recruiting as grounds for oppressing queer people. I want to talk more about “Don’t Say Gay” laws. And attempts to criminalize affirming gender. What I don’t want to talk about is the only thing I have been able to think about every time I sat down to try and write. 

I don’t want to to talk about rape and about consent today. But I have to.

I’ve said again and again in my own columns that we have to think about who we’re protecting when we avoid the difficult conversations in front of us. The things on my mind are definitely part of those hard conversations.

So. Here is a story about two hard conversations.

Conversation the First

Last week, after the consent article came out, I sent my friend K. a message to thank her for her help and to make sure she had the link so she could read the article. It was late, and she said she’d read it in the morning, so I wished her a goodnight and began working on other things.

Just a few minutes later, the “ding” of messenger jolted me out of a late night YouTube video. K. decided she couldn’t wait until the next day to read the article. Her first message was thoughtful: wishing she could have been more helpful, complimenting the story, and sharing a story about her own child. And it was immediately followed by the message that, in my quiet moments, and in so many others, has kept creeping back into my thoughts:

“I know I recently used the term ‘sexual assault’ when we spoke about your previous article. In no way was I trying to downplay or gloss over your rape. I used the prior expression because for some women and men that I know, they prefer the term sexual assault. Perhaps it’s to disconnect to some extent from the trauma of their experience. Therefore, I tend to use “sexual assault” until someone clarifies what they feel comfortable with. Maybe I need to address it head on – like asking someone for their preferred pronouns. I apologize if you felt that I was insensitive or was softening what your attacker did to you.”

The Power of (Unnecessary) Apology

The apology hit me like a soccerball to the gut. It was unexpected. It was freely given and sincere. And it focused on action. On how to avoid recreating the hurt in the future. All things important in a true apology. Things that make an apology more than just hollow words. 

The apology was sweet and gentle. The response was not. My stomach went sour. My heart sped up. The (completely unnecessary) apology triggered a whole lot of my survivor communication patterns, The ones where I downplay my own needs, where I try to make peace or try to become small and unobtrusive. The one where I am afraid to pick up the phone and call a friend when I need or want to hear a friendly voice because I don’t want to bother anyone. 

I had to respond. You can’t just leave someone hanging when they reach out like that. I had so many things to say and so much uncertainty about saying them. 

How Long until you’re Comfortable with your Rape Story?

You would think, after so many years, and so many conversations, I’d be more comfortable with it. I would think that way anyway. I’ve been standing up and telling my story for a long time. It only took three years for me to be telling the story in front of an audience of over a thousand people.

Those audiences of a thousand are so much easier to face than one person. Easier than facing myself.

I worry a lot when I talk about my own experience as a rape survivor. Obviously there are the usual worries about victim blaming, about the judgment of others. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fit into the box that makes me the right kind of victim (not survivor; victim)–I didn’t drink too much, didn’t flirt too much, didn’t dress in a way that invited what happened. As my mother used to put it, “what are you advertising?” I was advertising that I wanted to play video games with some friends. 

Just Another Rape Story

When I contort myself into that space, usually, the person hearing my story is able to both express sympathy for what happened to me and also to keep themself far enough removed from the dirty violence to believe they’re safe from it happening to them. They get to keep their safe bubble intact and watch me fall gently to the ground. I become just another rape story to them.

I don’t want my story to become “just another rape story.” Not because my story is unique but because it’s not. There are hundreds and thousands of stories like mine and every one of them counts. So I’ve started thinking about ways to short-circuit that complacency. One of those ways is to use the word “rape” when I talk about what happened to me.

Denying, Burying the Word “Rape”

I couldn’t say the word “rape” for a long time. Not about myself. Years. Decades, even. I knew that’s what it was. Not saying it didn’t undo what happened. Saying it meant acknowledging a different kind of violence, a different kind of anger than I’d been willing to admit to before. I wasn’t ready to face that.

In fact, it was writing that allowed me to say it–and not in the way I would have expected.

I have put off writing about this episode in my life for a while now. More than a year. Partly because it’s about Adam, my partner here at 2 Rules of Writing. Partly because it’s just… a lot.

Conversation the Second

Early in my work with Adam, we had weekly writing sessions. The lessons were much more formal–we’d free-write for a few minutes, we’d do some literary analysis and then we’d dissect whatever assignment he’d given me to complete for that evening. And one night, during our session, the piece he had chosen for analysis sent me into a full on flashback. The piece, if you are wondering, was an animated performance of Franz Schubert’s song “Der Erlkönig.” I can say that now without flinching.

If you know the piece, then you know it has nothing to do with rape or sexual assault, per se. But there I was, out of control, screaming, crying, trying not to punch anyone. For a few minutes, I was completely lost. And on the other side of the video-call, Adam sat there. He listened and waited. He didn’t intrude or try to soothe. I can’t imagine how lost or helpless he might have felt at the time–especially since we hardly knew each other, having only worked together for a few weeks at that point.

What Came After

So much changed in that moment. It was a pivotal moment in shaping my relationship with Adam–it had to have altered the teacher/student dynamic that we had going on. It also changed me as a writer. I started to write about rape. As a tool for healing. Words began to pour out. Barriers fell. I was able to write, and not just about violence. I started to really open up and write again, with joy, with pleasure, and with some creativity that had lain dormant for a long time. And a few weeks later, I wrote the beginning of a current work-in-progress, working title: “The Sweater Poem.”

Even after the flashback incident, it still took me months to say “rape” out loud. Even though the work from those months was intense and creative in other ways, There were just some barriers that were more stubborn than others. I’m pretty sure Adam said the word first. It’s such a hard word for people to say that I have trouble recalling who else might have said it. Even my therapists have avoided it.

Now that I can Say “Rape” Again

I still pause when I say it, taking longer to decide between “rape” and a euphemism like “sexual assault” or “sexual violence.” And even if Adam was the one to say it first, he still hesitates when he says it to me. I can ignore the discomfort in my own voice about the word. But not in his. I hear it in his, and I feel it, and I think very carefully about how to say whatever it is that will come next.

And yet when he edits my work, Adam often changes my euphemisms to “rape.” Even though I’ve reclaimed the word, it’s a struggle every time I try to write it. He’s right, though. As an editor. The word “rape” brings the power of specificity to my story. And, as a survivor, it brings power to my voice that is all too easy for me to forget or to suppress in the interest of making peace, or making people feel more comfortable. 

So I am uncomfortable saying it. My editor is uncomfortable saying it. Both of us are uncomfortable writing it. Why bother? It comes back to K.’s message. About how she was uncomfortable not saying it. As loaded as the word “rape” is to say, sometimes you have to say it because avoiding it feels like retreating into those survivor defense mechanisms. Shame. Silence. Accommodating the feelings of others.

“Comfortable”

So we’re back to that idea of “comfortable.” At what cost to me, to other survivors, is that comfort purchased? I have become less and less comfortable with trading the honest expressions of my feelings for the comfort of others. I don’t want pity. I’m not ashamed. What I want is action. I want to see people stepping up to change the discussion from “here’s how people can avoid being raped” to “here’s how we can put the responsibility for rape on the  perpertrators instead of on the victims and survivors. 

The more I say the word “rape” the more I own the power of the experience. I get to claim power that was taken from me in that moment. I also get to claim power that I have to speak up about rape, about sexual violence and sexual assault. Power that I have because I’m a rape survivor. 

That victim vs. survivor distinction is very important to me. The last person who called me a victim was, ironically, Adam, and I was furious about it, and did not hesitate to tell him so. Calling me a victim makes me feel helpless, powerless, and weak. And it implies that I am those things. On the night I was raped, I fought hard. I drew blood. I fought until the only thing I had left to fight for was survival, and I’ve never stopped fighting for that. 

Back to the First Conversation

So what about K. and her apology? The apology that I never asked for. That I wouldn’t have asked for. And that made me feel tense and anxious and heart-burny to read?

I’m glad she sent it.

It mattered. The fact that she was thinking about it. The fact that she thought about how the words mattered to me, and that affected how they mattered to her,is important. To know that there are people who may not be survivors who care about the language they’re using. And who are willing to examine and explore how they talk about rape with survivors and victims, and to consider the impact their language might have on those survivors.That’s a big deal. It led to me considering the impact of language, even though I had done so before. It led to me realizing I needed to write this essay. 

That’s a good friend, a compassionate person and someone who is doing what they can to lift up the voices of survivors. 

Changing the Conversation

The language that survivors and victims use to talk about their own experiences is very personal. Whatever language each of us chooses to use is fine–whether you call yourself “survivor” or “victim,” whether you talk about “sexual assault” or “rape,” it’s about whatever makes you heal, feel empowered, feel at peace. 

My priority is to keep these conversations going. To keep people talking about and thinking about consent, sexual violence and how to prevent them. To make sure we’re saying some version of: “don’t rape people,” and not: “don’t get raped.” 

And if the only way to get some people to listen is to soften my words, then I’ll keep doing some code switching, choosing carefully when to use “sexual assault,” and when to use “rape.” For most of the last year, I needed to say “rape.” I needed to own the word. Now I do own it. Now I am able to focus on the larger battle: doing whatever it takes  to raise my voice and to keep amplifying the voices of survivors.

Postscript

We need these conversations more than ever. And we need to change them more than ever. As of this writing, Ted Cruz, an American Senator, quipped to the Supreme Court Nominee: “No one is going to inquire into your teenage dating habits.” Brett Kavanaugh’s predatory behavior is a “dating habit.” I’ve heard people express their outrage in familiar terms: “How can someone who has daughters say that?” But that’s not enough. I’m not interested in aiming my sights that low. Look at what is implicit in that question… That if you don’t have children of your own, or if you do but they don’t conform to a certain biological standard, you don’t have to develop empathy.

Let’s aim a little higher. Let’s get frustrated and outraged at anyone who downplays victims and survivors. At anyone who treats us as a political football. And at anyone who is that lacking in empathy.

Part of a series on rape and sexual assault-to read more, follow the links below:

Part 1: I’m Going to use The R Word (& it’s okay if you do, too.)
Part 2: Consent: Changing the Conversation
Part 4: The Nice Guy Fallacy
Part 5: Rape Reporting Requirements are Dangerous