Tag Archives: rapists

by | August 1, 2011 · 7:24 am

Forgiving My Rapist

I received a tweet a reader in regards to my article “Confronting My Rapist.”

In the tweet she stated,

“I read your article about facing your rapist. You are a better woman than me, I couldn’t have acted so politely and diligently.”

I found the tweet to be extremely thought-provoking. Though I responded to my rapist with expletives and warnings to never bother me again, it was through email and not in person. By the sound of my reader’s tweet, when faced with the same scenario, she might’ve kicked the guy’s ass (or at least cussed him out). This thought made me smile, I can’t say I don’t blame her.

When it comes to my situation, I never really thought about vengeance. I was too caught up in hurting myself and messing up my own life because of the pain. Thinking about it now, it might feel good to go to his house, smash the windows of his car, and break everything he owns, but would that solve anything? If I destroyed all his belongings he would still be more reparable than how he left me.

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by | July 20, 2011 · 8:00 am

Confronting My Rapist on The Huffington Post

If you haven’t yet checked out my post, “Confronting My Rapist,” please follow the link and check it out on HuffPo. This is a must-read piece that I’m extremely proud of! I hope you appreciate it!

It takes a strong person to confront their rapist. Sometimes it is unavoidable. In cases of rape between family members or friends, you will undoubtedly see this person again. Other times people are forced to confront their rapists in the court of law in order to get the justice they seek. The majority of rapes go unreported (95% of sexual assault victims do not report the crime to the proper authorities).

I was so young when I was raped I thought I would be the one who got in trouble if I reported it. So I didn’t get the courage to speak up for a decade. By that time, any physical evidence that was left had faded. I spoke to police and counselors about reporting it but they told me it wouldn’t be an easy case to prove with only circumstantial evidence. Since there were two rapists involved, I thought maybe it was possible that one would rat the other out to save their own butts. It was a possibility, but nothing was for certain.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

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by | June 13, 2011 · 3:32 pm

Surviving Trauma: I Choose To Live

I was surfing the web looking at different statutes of limitations and legalities for rape crimes, when I found an article that proposed a repeal of statutes for certain rape cases in the state of Connecticut. In the article, Governor Jodi Rell is quoted as saying of rape crime, “It is violence of the most personal and devastating kind, as brutal in its own right as murder.”

In the article, Rell points out that rape is not a crime of passion, but rather a violent crime, which is a common misconception for many. The term rapefrom the Latin word Rapere, originally had no sexual connotation, and meant “to seize or take by force.” It simply meant to steal. If you are someone or know someone who has been raped, you can testify that this definition is still applicable to the verb “rape” as we use it today. Because when you are raped, something is taken from you by force.

Justice systems for centuries have considered rape as brutal of a crime as murder. Even in ancient Greece, Rome, and Colonial Times, rape was considered a capital offense within the same category as murder. In the 12th century rape victims’ families were granted the right to carry out the rapists’ brutal and sometimes fatal punishment. In 14th century England, the rape victim was expected to gouge out their rapist’s eyes or castrate him. Today in the United States, current death penalty standards consist mainly for convicted murderers. Modern day rapists typically receive much cushier punishments than their violent predecessors.

Read the rest of the article at The Huffington Post. 

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by | June 1, 2011 · 4:03 am

Hunted

Someone once told me that rapists scope out their victims and deliberately choose certain type of person; who they view as easy prey. By sizing up their victim in this way, they gain control of the situation. When I heard about this, it really upset me, and I wondered if my persona could make me the victim of this violent crime once again. Once a rapist selects their target, they stalk him/her and plot their attack. Then they ambush their victim in a variety of ways such as coercion, date rape drugs, and violence.

There is a common misconception that rapists rape for sex. This is wrong. In fact, it is noted that rapists have access to legal sex; many of them have wives or girlfriends. Rapists rape for power. Serial rapists might even do it for sport, for some type of twisted thrill, that is perhaps comparable to the jolt of excitement kleptomaniacs cite to explain their addiction to stealing. After committing a rape, the rapist does not care that they just traumatized and possibly destroyed a living and breathing being. The rapist didn’t even consider that their victim was an individual with thoughts and feelings. The rapist only cared about one thing: getting what they wanted through control and domination.

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