Soapboxes

CAUTION:  Today's post is not humorous.  I will not name names, though I remember all of them.  Enuf said.


An acquaintance of mine recently posted a blog about shocking her mother-in-law.  I thought it was hilarious and you can see it here:  http://allfookedup.com/in-which-i-discuss-circumcision/.  Well, she unknowingly set off a huge powder keg of controversy, which you will see in the comments if you read her blog.  This started me thinking about pushing buttons and hot spots.  We all have something that will set us off.  Some of us have really short fuses and almost anything will cause an explosion.  I have not seen so many people overreact to something that was meant to be comical in a very long time.  It's worse than the proabortion/antiabortion debates.


There are a few subjects that can get my dander up --- child abuse, animal abuse, elderly abuse, nursing home conditions, animal rights (but I think PETA goes about it in all the wrong ways), reintroduction of wolves.  There are probably others, but those come immediately to mind.  There is, however, one subject about which I cannot be unemotional and if broached in the wrong way will invariable cause spontaneous combustion and nuclear fallout.  That subject is rape.  I approach the subject of rape from the viewpoint of a survivor.


When I was 13 and our family was relatively new to the little (at that time the population was less than 5,000 people) town of Hackettstown, New Jersey,  I made an incredibly stupid error in judgment.  I was out past my curfew and knew I was already in serious trouble.  Two guys I did not know offered me a ride home.  I knew all the stories about getting into cars with strangers, but these two said they were friends of my brother Joe, and a car ride was a lot faster than walking.  Well, Joe was my hero, and if they were his friends, how could they be bad?  And, there was a male friend with me who also needed a ride home, so he went along with us.  It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what happened.  They dropped my friend off first.  It was much later when they dropped me off.  I lost not only my virginity that night, but what little faith I still had in humanity and whatever was left of my innocence.  It wouldn't be long before I would loose faith in the American judicial system too.


The young men (one was 18, the other 21) threatened if I told anyone they would come back and hurt me.  Well, I figured they couldn't hurt me too much more than they already had, even death would end the pain.  But when I went in the house, my Mom was so furious about what time it was and how late I was that I just accepted her tirade and went off to my room, where I was told to remain all day the next day except to go to the bathroom.  I lay awake in bed all night and I worried.  I thought about not telling, but then I thought about what would happen if I kept quiet and it turned out I was pregnant.  I thought people would believe me if I spoke up now, but no one would believe me if I waited.  So, early the next morning I went to Joe's room and woke him up and told him what happened.  Surprise, surprise.  Those guys were not his friends.  He had heard of one of them (I knew one guy's nickname because the other idiot was dumb enough to call him by it), but couldn't even guess who the other guy might be.  Joe told me to go call my Mom (she was at work) and tell her what happened.  That was the hardest telephone call I've ever made in my entire life.  While I was on the phone with Mom, Joe came downstairs with a knife in his hand and headed for the front door.  I had to hang up on my mother and go latch on to Joe for dear life to keep him from doing something even more stupid than I had already done.  For the record, Harry was grown and living on his own and we didn't even tell him about what happened for at least ten years for fear of what his reaction might have been.  Glenn was in the Army at the time and I don't know when or how he found out.  I've never discussed it with him, but I know he kept a particularly good watch on his daughter when she was growing up in that same small town.


My Mom came home and I told her the whole sorry tale from beginning to end.  Then she called my stepfather (who was also at work) and he came home and I had to go through the whole mess again.  Then they called the police and I had to recite the entire saga all over again.  Since I told the police the same thing I told everyone else, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who at least one of the guys was; there was only one guy in town with that nickname.  After the police report was filed, and my clothing taken as evidence, I was transported to the doctor for an examination and confirmation.  I have to say, the doctor was one of the few decent people in this whole story.  He sewed me back together (I was 13 and still looked more like a prepubescent boy than a girl), and told the police it was obviously rape.  There were bruises where I had been held down and from where I had attempted to fight.  Reports were made, pictures were taken, and then I was released to go home.


About midnight that night the police came and said they had two guys in custody and would I please come to the police station to identify them.  Now this was the early 1960's, before the  Miranda Rights which came about in 1966.  In a little town where everyone knew everyone else, it wasn't considered necessary to have a "line up".  We just walked into the small police station (which had originally been someone's home) and there were my attackers.  I looked at them and they looked at me.  The policeman said "Are these the two guys?"  I said, "Yes".  And that was that.  They were put in jail and I went home again.  As it turned out, my brother Joe had a few real friends who were residents at the  jail at that particular time too.  Their crimes were far less serious, but small town jails only have a limited number of cells.  I prevented Joe from killing anyone, but I had nothing to say when he suggested to his incarcerated friends that life could be made a whole lot less pleasant for two recent inmates.  Eventually, bail was set and paid and they were free again until the trial date.


The world was a different place in the early 1960's.  Many people still believed if a girl/woman was raped, she must have done something to provoke it.  I had to laugh at that.  I was as far from sexy, provocative or alluring as it was possible to be and still be female.  But, I was also new in town and these boys had lived there all of their lives.  They had played football on the high school team.  Their families were long time members of the community.  Not necessarily stellar members of the community, but at least they weren't recent transplants.  Somehow, that translated to me having caused this problem.  To make matters worse, the last name of one of the guys started with K, and his sister was in the same grade in school as I was.  We got to share homeroom for the rest of our years in the school system.  The mothers of some kids I thought were my friends would no longer allow their children to associate with me.  I guess rape rubs off or something.  I had a few girlfriends stick by me, but not without some grief from their parents.  I suddenly had a lot of a certain type of guy who wanted me to be their girlfriend.  I'm sure they thought that as I no longer had anything to lose it would make me easy.


Seven months later the case went to trial.  My family was not wealthy and we were naive  enough to believe that right is might.  We didn't hire an attorney because we couldn't afford one and the District Attorney felt he had an airtight case.  The trial was held in an open courtroom where anyone could just stroll in and listen.  Anyone except me, of course.  I was not allowed to hear any testimony by anyone -- defendants, doctors, police officers, etc. -- until AFTER I gave my testimony.  Of course, my parents were allowed in the courtroom throughout the entire trial and my mother said they had the minister of the Lutheran church and the head football coach at the high school testify as character witnesses for the "boys".  As an aside, three years later I had the head football coach as my history teacher.  I knew it was gonna be a tough year and I would have dropped the class but it was a requirement for graduation and he was the only one teaching it.  From the start, it was adversarial.  I made certain I did every piece of homework, paid attention in class though he would never call on me even if I raised my hand, and passed every quiz and test.  I saved every one of my graded papers.  Even when I was out for six weeks because of an extended illness, I made certain I got my assignments and made up my tests in his class.  I can assure you I was far less diligent about my other classes.  Regardless, when report cards came out, I failed his class.  I didn't say a word, just kept on doing what I was doing.  The next report period came and I failed again.  There were five report periods in our school year and if you failed a major subject three out of those five periods, you failed for the year.  As this was a required class, if I failed for the year, I would not graduate with my class.  Still I remained silent and continued doing all the required work for his class. And, I failed the third time.  At that point, I gathered all my papers and marched into the Principal's office.  He and I had gotten to know each other fairly well over the years, as I was not exactly the most restrained student in the school.  Still, we had a grudging respect for each other and he knew I was intelligent.  I was getting mostly A's and B's without cracking a book in all my other subjects, as I had for the entire time I attended high school.   So there I was in the Principal's office with all my hardcopy evidence and wondering why I had failed PAD (Problems of our American Democracy) for the third time.  He called the teacher in and asked the same question of him.  His response was some hemming and hawing and something about attendance, and non-participation in class, and attitude.  The Principal told him he didn't like his attitude either and that I would pass PAD for the next two report periods AND for the year.  So, I got two D's and a final grade of D-, but I am the only (to my knowledge) person in the school to ever fail a major required subject three times and still graduate.


But, back to the trial.  Then it was  my turn.  I cannot even begin to tell you the horror stories of a 14 year old girl being grilled on the witness stand by a defense attorney.  With a full gallery of spectators, he asked me questions like "Did they use a prophylactic?"  Excuse me?  I had absolutely no clue what a prophylactic was and once he explained, I had no clue whether they had used one or not as I was pretty busy trying to avoid being raped.  The next question was even better.  "Where did he put his penis?"  Okay, I'm sorry, but I was not quite the brazen hussy I am now and I was absolutely stumped as to how to answer this question without using slang.  I guess vagina was actually part of my vocabulary, but it just didn't pop readily to mind.  I finally settled on "between my legs" and hoped he'd move on.  Thank God, he did.  I was so embarrassed, humiliated and mortified by the time they let me leave the stand, I could have just crawled off into a corner and died.  But, that's not allowed.  The case went to the jury for deliberation.  All states except Louisiana and Oregon require unanimous verdicts in felony cases.  After hours and hours of waiting, the decision came back that the jury was hung.  The voting was 11 to 1.  One older woman on the jury had taken offense at something the District Attorney had said in his closing argument and had voted the defendants not guilty.  She would not change her mind.


So, we were back at square one.  The District Attorney was preparing for a retrial, but I know he wanted this damn case over.  He had other cases to try, other things to do, and retrying this case was just going to be a gigantic pain.  However, rather than go back to court one of the guys confessed and in his confession implicated the other.  The second guy was insisting he had no part in the whole thing, but the DA accepted a plea bargain allowing him to plead guilty to Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.  Now I was really pissed.  He was allowed to plead guilty to a charge that in effect said I was the delinquent.  In case you were wondering, the cost of a person's spirit is $700.  The guy who pleaded guilty to rape was fined $700.  We could have paid to get a lawyer and started the whole thing all over again, but to be perfectly honest I was tired of it all.  It was obvious to me justice depends on a lot of things, but not one of those things is whether or not you are actually guilty.


There were no Rape Crisis Centers in the early 1960's.  No hospitals had Rape Kits to recover evidence from victims.  There were no Rape Counselors.  I had to learn to live with it however I could.  It screwed my head up for a long time afterward.  To varying degrees it had an effect on my family and friends.  Every relationship I had with any young man for many years following the rape was tainted, often to a large degree.  I guess it's no wonder I was attracted to psychopaths.  I developed some erroneous concepts about physical relationships.  I was blindly stumbling around trying to find my way through a minefield of volatile emotions, and sometimes things blew up.  But, time heals all wounds.  Often it leaves some ugly scars, but the gaping lesion ceases to bleed.  I still can't watch a movie with a rape scene in it.  But, I made it through.  There's that old saw about what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, and I believe in this case it's true.  I wouldn't be who I am now if I hadn't stared Satan in the face, and I'm proud of who I am now. 


So, why does the subject of rape set me off like fireworks in July?  Well, for all the obvious reasons, of course.  But more importantly, because of the women who claim to have been raped, but weren't.  I watched the movie Derailed yesterday.  There is a scene in it where it seems the character played by Jennifer Aniston is raped.  As soon as I realized what was about to happen I turned off the sound and looked away, but I still started to shake all over and broke out in a cold sweat.  After I was sure that scene was over, I continued watching the movie and it turned out she wasn't raped at all.  It was just part of the scam she and her partner were pulling on the character played by Clive Owen (if you've never seen the movie, I just ruined it for you, so skip it).  Having lived through how hard it is to make anyone believe you really were raped, I get ballistic when I hear about someone claiming rape when it didn't happen.  Don't those ignoramuses know they are making it so much harder for actual rape victims to get any respect?  Yes, the world has changed, and attitudes about rape and rapist have changed, and laws against rape and rapist are tougher and usually enforced.  But don't these women understand how much damage they are doing to the credibility of the actually innocent?


Okay, I'm finished with my sermon now.