Rape Support Group
If you or someone you know has been the victim of rape, this is the place to find support and get advice. If you want, discuss your experience, share your feelings, and meet others going through a similar situation.
As a therapist specializing in sexual assault, I've begun working on a book to help accompany survivors through their difficult therapy process. It's sort of a "rape survivor's guide to surviving survival" (not the actual title--unless you like it).
For those of you who have worked with therapists, please offer me feedback.
What questions do you wish were better answered during rape recovery? What topics about rape recovery do you wish were better explained?
I'm trying to assess the most common questions, curiosities, fears, and unknowns that survivors face as they work through this.
Please add them here, rather than in direct messages, and thanks in advance!
For those of you who have worked with therapists, please offer me feedback.
What questions do you wish were better answered during rape recovery? What topics about rape recovery do you wish were better explained?
I'm trying to assess the most common questions, curiosities, fears, and unknowns that survivors face as they work through this.
Please add them here, rather than in direct messages, and thanks in advance!
*Is recovery even possible?
*Why is it so hard to use the "R" word?
*What is the difference between a Victim and a Survivor? (in the book, I use the two words very deliberately)
*What is "trauma?"
*What is Rape Trauma Syndrome?
*How do I know if my therapist is competent to treat rape trauma?
*How will I know when "recovery" happens?
*How do I deal with jerks who say insensitive things?
*Are dissociation and flashbacks the same thing?
*How do I cope with flashbacks?
*How to take care of yourself during therapy
*Why do victims blame themselves, and GET blamed, so often?
*Putting rape in the larger context
Topics I plan to include but haven't written yet:
*What do I do if I encounter my perpetrator again?
*Why do some victims begin to self-injure?
*What if I sometimes doubt it was even rape?
*I feel guilty about my struggle, because other have had it worse than me.
*After my rape, I suddenly lost control of my sex life. Why?
Things I'm considering including, but haven't decided on yet:
*If rape is the fastest-growing violent crime in America, what are our political leaders doing about it?
*How do I handle triggers at the doctor's or dentist's office?
*What is God's role in this, and how do I handle my anger at God?
*Why do I simultaneously distrust men, yet feel compelled to have a male partner?
I'd like feedback about those; some are controversial and it will take a lot of care to write them in a way that isn't clumsy and offensive, but also isn't vague pandering.
Shannon, I'm really curious about your recent experience. I wish you could tell me more about the circumstance.
But basically, it's a reflection of people's common misunderstanding of rape as a sexual event. Without good information about rape, people often still believe that rape is the end result of sexual libido/horniness that gets out of control. As a result, inquisitors like the one you encountered don't even know why their question is irrelevant--they see rape as a form of aggressive sex, and rape has often been romanticized in media (we talked about this in group once, but I'll review examples if anyone wants). So they ask questions like that.
The mistake they're making in understanding rape is that they still buy into the old myth: men use rape to get sex (or a similar version: Rapists use power to get sex).
The real truth is that rapists use sex to get power. Sex is the method, not the goal, of sex. (This is also why heterosexual men rape other heterosexual men--it's not about sex, it's about power and control).
But until people see this as a hate crime, rather than a sex crime, people still get distracted by rape as a sexual issue.
(incidentally, research shows that this is almost ALWAYS the point where male therapists fail to treat rape accurately--male therapists often emphasize the sexual rather than power dimension of rape).
The idea of rape being pleasurable is repulsive to you because it denies the core truth that you yourself have struggled so hard to examine: that it was a trauma, uninvited, correctly resisted by you, and life-changing. The question "was it pleasurable anyway?" becomes a "stuck point" because it drives a wedge between what you've worked so hard to comprehend, versus the old belief you used to have that people will forever misunderstand you.
I once had a teen make that joke during a presentation I was giving. He made the comment that women like it, and should lay back and enjoy it if they can't stop it. Right in front of the entire audience, I *nuked* this kid, verbally, until he was little more than a greasy spot in his chair. I ripped him hard, and forcibly told him how ashamed of himself he should be. And I didn't let up--I went off!
Later, I felt guilty like I'd lost control, lost my cool, and acted horribly. But when I consulted with my peers (Marcia and Jennifer, for starters), they affirmed my response 100%. They made a superb point: Not only did that kid need strong confrontation, but the rest of the AUDIENCE needed to see it. They need to SEE an example of someone becoming angry, refusing to coolly tolerate that kind of crap-thinking, and opposing it with passion, not just "calm and in control" style. So few people ever see anyone oppose and correct rape myths with passion, and we need to see incorrect beliefs being confronted--not just in the dull tone of pamphlets, articles, and books, but with passionate and strong voices.
Remember the guy in group you confronted? the one where you wrote in your journal "He'd BETTER be scared!" (and then scribbled it out, but I could see it anyway--LOL!)? Well, that was training for you. Use that same righteous anger and battle that kind of comment on behalf of every woman (and man) out here who is also a survivor!
I meant "sex is the method, not the goal of RAPE."
It's not the *concept* I had confused, only the accidental typing.
I would really like to see that one. I don't know how often feelings like that occur, but I think it would be helpful to include that.
It seems the majority of the men in my life who have "claimed" this unconditional compassion for me, and have offered themselves as friends and confidantes, almost always inevitably end up making a move on me. I can't count how many times that has happened, and yet I'm still drawn to men much more (almost exclusively?) than I am women, as friends that is.
When it's just sex, and it's with some random person and I'm drunk I can deal with it. I know it sounds awful and I feel sick for doing it every time, but I still do it.
Then when sex is meant to mean more, when it's with someone I like or care about I can't do it. I freak out get flashbacks and just can't cope with it, why??
And when will I be able to get back to 'normal' again?
but I don't think I'd be able to write about your specific situation because you are in GBR and i am in Oklahoma; our laws, courts, abnd police are very different.
My situation wasn't a violent one. But it was an unwelcomed one. What does it say about me or the situation that once I let go and realized there was nothing I could do parts physically felt good?
As for why it's the fastest-growing violent crime, that's something I've spent a lot of time pondering. I even have a lengthy multimedia presentation I give at seminars on that very issue. The best answer I've ever read is Jackson Katz's amazing book, "The macho paradox: Why some men hurt women and how all men can help." In it, Mr. Katz does a brilliant job of analyzing the problems of culture to explain the epidemic of rape and battering.
As for the question about sexual sensation during rape, you might be surprised to find that you're not the only one to divulge that issue. In therapy, I've had women who felt deeply ashamed because of their physiological responses during the assault, including orgasm, which they had been terrified to tell any therapist before. I suspect because of human physiology that it might be a question that silently haunts other victims and survivors. Perhaps there should be a discussion of that issue, because it's been a major "stuck point" for too many women, and it prevents them from fully sharing their story because they fear it will invalidate their "claims" of rape if others hear it.