Yes, I am a survivor, but I was a victim.....
Yes, I am a survivor, but I was a victim.....
- Thread starterMarmite
- Start date
Z0RN
Registrant
You did absolutely nothing wrong. You were the victim of a terrible crime and the fact your family tries to place any blame on you is sick. I remember as a kid when I disclosed, my parents were for the most part and still are supportive. But I remember when I told them one of the details of what happened, they said to me "well why did you keep going back for more". I remember it leaving me confused and a little disgruntled as I was 13 at the time. I can't say I have any real advice but your certainly not alone man.
finallyhere
Member, Male
Stay strong. Sharing doesn't always bring the response we expect but it is YOUR voice being heard finally. I never told anyone for years, didn't understand myself just as long but now I can selectively speak up. I was 12 and like Zorn I get the sense from some as to why I 'let' it happen for 6 yrs. I blamed myself for that very reason for so long till I faced that he/it, the situation, had the control, not I. I was in such need to feel connected and then lured in. I was so naive I didn't understand a lot. Someday I'll finish and post my story. Till then we hear yours and support you. Yes victims don't always have a voice initially but we find that we have a choice. It is then when we choose, we find that voice and can move on. Good luck.
dark empathy
Registrant
*** possible trigger warning ***
By accident a few days ago, I cought the end of a girl on the late news describing her experience of being raped when she was thirteen, (she now seemed to be 18-20).
one of the things that struck me about her description of events, was that she used the word "rape" as a perfectly normal verb. Indeed her description wasn't triggering of my genophobia simply because she used and owned that catch all term, used it in a way that made it hers.
She described where she was, and then said "some men grabbed me, dragged me under a market stall and raped me"
It was just as if she'd said ""some man hit me" it was an action and context that everyone understood that needed no clarrification or reflection. She said it in a quite streight forward fashion, this was something that had been done to her, that she was angry about, that the news casters and the police and the viewers would understand and condone her anger. Indeed the story wasn't actually about support for that victim but how the local market was a dangerous place and required more security, and she offered this as a justification.
One of the things I'm beginning to realize is that our language is still gender biased on sa related issues. That if said girl had been a thirteen year old boy who said the same unaquivocal "then some men grabbed me and raped me" still more if he'd said "then some women grabbed me and raped me" it would simply not fit with people's understanding sinse the publically agreed upon concept of "rape" is still largely one based upon the idea that the victim is female. It would be like someone walking up to a man and saying "hello Mrs. jones"
When most people run across these sorts of ambiguities, the usual response is to try and find a way to make them fit into a "normal" context. If someone addressed a man as "mrs." well they must be joking.
As Witkensteinn said, a lot of what we do can be thought of as language games, as systems with their own discrete context and rules, and outside of those contexts and rules the peaces don't fit. After all if you weren't playing golf a golf club is just an oddly shaped stick.
One clear way that people try to make male sa fit in with the usual rules is to say, as your relatives have Kieth, "Oh but you must have been responsable" sinse it is an intrinsic rule of the concept of "rape" that men are responsable for their s/xual actions, while women are not.
Another way, and one which I'm afraid as a disabled person I've encountered far too often is for people to play the exception game. People say to me often "Well your amazing for doing x y z while being blind" they do not think that their own concept of "blind = helpless" is incorrect, merely that I am some sort of amazing exception.
In the same way nasty as it sounds, I wonder how many people will have heard your story and thought "Wow, that boy's father must have been really perverted and wrong to do something so abnormal"
Of course, not everyone will have thought that, but I do wonder how many did.
Is there a way to change these assumptions? I really don't know. Perhaps, after all the assumption that so called "black" people were morally and interlectually backward has recieved a severe shaking, and of course having stories out there helps, though with all the pressure of the media and language and depictions of gender to fight against I don't know.
By accident a few days ago, I cought the end of a girl on the late news describing her experience of being raped when she was thirteen, (she now seemed to be 18-20).
one of the things that struck me about her description of events, was that she used the word "rape" as a perfectly normal verb. Indeed her description wasn't triggering of my genophobia simply because she used and owned that catch all term, used it in a way that made it hers.
She described where she was, and then said "some men grabbed me, dragged me under a market stall and raped me"
It was just as if she'd said ""some man hit me" it was an action and context that everyone understood that needed no clarrification or reflection. She said it in a quite streight forward fashion, this was something that had been done to her, that she was angry about, that the news casters and the police and the viewers would understand and condone her anger. Indeed the story wasn't actually about support for that victim but how the local market was a dangerous place and required more security, and she offered this as a justification.
One of the things I'm beginning to realize is that our language is still gender biased on sa related issues. That if said girl had been a thirteen year old boy who said the same unaquivocal "then some men grabbed me and raped me" still more if he'd said "then some women grabbed me and raped me" it would simply not fit with people's understanding sinse the publically agreed upon concept of "rape" is still largely one based upon the idea that the victim is female. It would be like someone walking up to a man and saying "hello Mrs. jones"
When most people run across these sorts of ambiguities, the usual response is to try and find a way to make them fit into a "normal" context. If someone addressed a man as "mrs." well they must be joking.
As Witkensteinn said, a lot of what we do can be thought of as language games, as systems with their own discrete context and rules, and outside of those contexts and rules the peaces don't fit. After all if you weren't playing golf a golf club is just an oddly shaped stick.
One clear way that people try to make male sa fit in with the usual rules is to say, as your relatives have Kieth, "Oh but you must have been responsable" sinse it is an intrinsic rule of the concept of "rape" that men are responsable for their s/xual actions, while women are not.
Another way, and one which I'm afraid as a disabled person I've encountered far too often is for people to play the exception game. People say to me often "Well your amazing for doing x y z while being blind" they do not think that their own concept of "blind = helpless" is incorrect, merely that I am some sort of amazing exception.
In the same way nasty as it sounds, I wonder how many people will have heard your story and thought "Wow, that boy's father must have been really perverted and wrong to do something so abnormal"
Of course, not everyone will have thought that, but I do wonder how many did.
Is there a way to change these assumptions? I really don't know. Perhaps, after all the assumption that so called "black" people were morally and interlectually backward has recieved a severe shaking, and of course having stories out there helps, though with all the pressure of the media and language and depictions of gender to fight against I don't know.
NoSimpleMachine
Registrant
dark empathy, what you say about this woman using the word rape in a confident, normal way can be there for men too. When I started talking about my abuse, I said I was "taken advantage of" and couldn't bring myself to say "raped". In time I got to the point where my head was telling me "this was rape, everything about it was rape, you have to say it" and I didn't want to. When I finally did it was like it was getting stuck in my throat, and I finally coughed it up, and it was really jarring. I cried and shook and it was really terrifying to internalize that I was raped. But I guess I did, because now I say it, and it isn't scary. It's just fact. I was raped by my 40 year old neighbor when I was 3 years old, period.
If I could offer, dark, I feel like you're in a bit of an externalizing loop. It's an incredibly common thing that people do when they've got something on their mind that they're not ready to accept, whether it's something as big as being abused as a child or something as small as not wanting to be blamed for leaving the refrigerator door open. It happens across the entire spectrum of blame and acceptance. When you talk about the society treating women differently than men in terms of the use of the word rape, you're letting your perception of what the outside world is doing stop you from doing what you need to do for yourself. And right around the time you realize that you don't have to let your perceptions of the external world dictate your behavior, you will simultaneously do what is best for you AND watch those perceptions melt away. Men can use the word "rape" if they were raped. You will always find more peace when your perception and description of your reality aligns better with reality as it is. And if you do that, and I do that, piece by piece, that becomes the change that ripples through the society. None of us can make that change wholesale, but we can be a part. "Be the change you want to see in the world" (within the limitations of your potential impact as a single human being, which requires peace to accept those limits and work within them. The serenity prayer, in other words).
Marmite, I really appreciate what you said about your mom covering it up. The fact that my abuser's wife struck me when I made mention or implication of what he did to me is becoming a larger and larger part of my story. The first person I reached out to, if memory serves, was his wife. And I learned quickly (and wrongly) to not do that. It's taken 25 years to see her for what she was.
If I could offer, dark, I feel like you're in a bit of an externalizing loop. It's an incredibly common thing that people do when they've got something on their mind that they're not ready to accept, whether it's something as big as being abused as a child or something as small as not wanting to be blamed for leaving the refrigerator door open. It happens across the entire spectrum of blame and acceptance. When you talk about the society treating women differently than men in terms of the use of the word rape, you're letting your perception of what the outside world is doing stop you from doing what you need to do for yourself. And right around the time you realize that you don't have to let your perceptions of the external world dictate your behavior, you will simultaneously do what is best for you AND watch those perceptions melt away. Men can use the word "rape" if they were raped. You will always find more peace when your perception and description of your reality aligns better with reality as it is. And if you do that, and I do that, piece by piece, that becomes the change that ripples through the society. None of us can make that change wholesale, but we can be a part. "Be the change you want to see in the world" (within the limitations of your potential impact as a single human being, which requires peace to accept those limits and work within them. The serenity prayer, in other words).
Marmite, I really appreciate what you said about your mom covering it up. The fact that my abuser's wife struck me when I made mention or implication of what he did to me is becoming a larger and larger part of my story. The first person I reached out to, if memory serves, was his wife. And I learned quickly (and wrongly) to not do that. It's taken 25 years to see her for what she was.
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VASurvivor
Registrant
The path to every healing MUST start at the beginning. Victim is the logical place. You were indeed a victim. And for those who can't accept that, they are all the worse. So sorry for your experiences. Great to hear you are speaking out so that others may experience freedom from their silence. Thanks for being here!
Marmite, I appreciate your point here. Owning the reality of having been a victim is an important part of healing, in my opinion. Please don't let those that find it uncomfortable pull you down. Hope you are able to shake it off and keep the progress on your healing journey.
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See? You have to re-visit the damned fundamentals of dealing with the crime against the child-you!
This will never change unless a massive, national effort were to be undertaken, similar to MADD. Otherwise, the ill-informed default to "sex stuff is a two-person action." Thusly, one person chose another person because of some reason. But there's a problem they don't get.
"Sex with a child" is a misnomer. Its an impossibility. One cannot have "sex with a child." As Mike lew once said, "that's like inviting a sandwich to a lunch meeting."
Anything other than consensual engagement in pants-off action is Rape! Children cannot consent!
Now...just try explaining all that to some Joe Sixpack or Chaz Everstoned. Their eye's glaze over and they go off into LaLa Land...wondering "why it took you so long to report...disclose...why did he let this go on for 5-years? I wonder if he's gay...I never let that happen to me. I'd never allow that to happen to me....My kids ywould never allow it to happen to them...what did he do to attract that attention? Maybe he dressed real hot as a 7-yo?"
I spent 4 years sharing with my last remaining Best Frnd what it was all about. It was rare, but I would share...and it would be poignant. One day..when I was talking about my wife kicking me outta my dream life, he asked "tell me the truth now..do you even like women?"
We can spout all the informed intel of the what's and why's of our childhood being raped to shit, but if our communicative weakness OR their active little mind fail to accurately paint a picture, who knows what image they hang in their non-traumatized mind?
Its not worth it...disclosing that is...SO not worth it.
Disclosure RUIND my life...The 11-yo in me had always told me - assured me that it would result in disaster, but I felt that I HAD to disclose.
BTW: We still have that fkg radio talk-show host in Boston (Howie Carr) who swears he feels that the women who rape little boys, students, charges, etc are SAINTS! That he use to pray to receive abuse from a hot teacher. Every time those teacher/student abuse cases reveal, he takes to the airwaves to investigate if she's hot or a dog. If she's hot...she's a saint and thus, not a criminal. If she could launch a thousand ships, she needs to go to jail. When I've called to rip him a new one, the producer pussies-out and berates me for thinking that way and "being a fag."
Just shoot me!
This will never change unless a massive, national effort were to be undertaken, similar to MADD. Otherwise, the ill-informed default to "sex stuff is a two-person action." Thusly, one person chose another person because of some reason. But there's a problem they don't get.
"Sex with a child" is a misnomer. Its an impossibility. One cannot have "sex with a child." As Mike lew once said, "that's like inviting a sandwich to a lunch meeting."
Anything other than consensual engagement in pants-off action is Rape! Children cannot consent!
Now...just try explaining all that to some Joe Sixpack or Chaz Everstoned. Their eye's glaze over and they go off into LaLa Land...wondering "why it took you so long to report...disclose...why did he let this go on for 5-years? I wonder if he's gay...I never let that happen to me. I'd never allow that to happen to me....My kids ywould never allow it to happen to them...what did he do to attract that attention? Maybe he dressed real hot as a 7-yo?"
I spent 4 years sharing with my last remaining Best Frnd what it was all about. It was rare, but I would share...and it would be poignant. One day..when I was talking about my wife kicking me outta my dream life, he asked "tell me the truth now..do you even like women?"
We can spout all the informed intel of the what's and why's of our childhood being raped to shit, but if our communicative weakness OR their active little mind fail to accurately paint a picture, who knows what image they hang in their non-traumatized mind?
Its not worth it...disclosing that is...SO not worth it.
Disclosure RUIND my life...The 11-yo in me had always told me - assured me that it would result in disaster, but I felt that I HAD to disclose.
BTW: We still have that fkg radio talk-show host in Boston (Howie Carr) who swears he feels that the women who rape little boys, students, charges, etc are SAINTS! That he use to pray to receive abuse from a hot teacher. Every time those teacher/student abuse cases reveal, he takes to the airwaves to investigate if she's hot or a dog. If she's hot...she's a saint and thus, not a criminal. If she could launch a thousand ships, she needs to go to jail. When I've called to rip him a new one, the producer pussies-out and berates me for thinking that way and "being a fag."
Just shoot me!
NoSimpleMachine
Registrant
That radio show host...before I uncovered my abuse, I would say to myself that "I wish I was taken advantage of as a kid". When I was 7, 8, 9, 10...I wanted that opportunity. Of course I had had it completely blocked that it had already happened at 3. Maybe subconsciously I wanted the chance to revisit it or something. Anyway, maybe he's one of those. Or just a shithead.
keith
power prose
you are a brave MAN. I suffered psychological abuse by my mother, alcoholic rages of my father and sexual abuse by the neighbour. My experience is not close to what you have endured. Having your father, care giver, the man you want to make most proud in the world as you abuser is the ultimate betrayal! Your poise, caring for your brothers and just the way you put life into words, speaks to the great character you possess.
Those that are blind to understanding will only see if they chose to become educated and informed so than can at least try to appreciate what a monumental struggle you went through and despite the most incredible odds, what you have overcome. Otherwise, They are not worthy of you thoughts and certainly not your consideration.
YOU blow my socks off. I couldn't be more proud to have you as a brother here.
Huge wrap around hugz
Grant
power prose
you are a brave MAN. I suffered psychological abuse by my mother, alcoholic rages of my father and sexual abuse by the neighbour. My experience is not close to what you have endured. Having your father, care giver, the man you want to make most proud in the world as you abuser is the ultimate betrayal! Your poise, caring for your brothers and just the way you put life into words, speaks to the great character you possess.
Those that are blind to understanding will only see if they chose to become educated and informed so than can at least try to appreciate what a monumental struggle you went through and despite the most incredible odds, what you have overcome. Otherwise, They are not worthy of you thoughts and certainly not your consideration.
YOU blow my socks off. I couldn't be more proud to have you as a brother here.
Huge wrap around hugz
Grant
Marmite
You have the right to speak of the abuse and everything that you endured. Others do not have the right to silence you. I am glad you are not letting these naysayers silence you. Sharing what happened let's the world know the reality of CSA and its prevalence.
It is a crime and so often goes unpunished.
You have the right to speak of the abuse and everything that you endured. Others do not have the right to silence you. I am glad you are not letting these naysayers silence you. Sharing what happened let's the world know the reality of CSA and its prevalence.
It is a crime and so often goes unpunished.
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Jude
Registrant
It seems to be a consistant truth that when you disclose your story, you find out who the cowards are. To accuse a childood victim of being responsible for being raped is a hateful, cruel thing to say.
Real friends and family are the ones who say they will stand with you no matter what. The others don't deserve a place in your life. Its their loss.
Jude
Real friends and family are the ones who say they will stand with you no matter what. The others don't deserve a place in your life. Its their loss.
Jude
NoSimpleMachine
Registrant
Very well said Jude.
