Rape is never the victim's fault... but knowing this and actually believing it are two very different things

 “Rape is never the victim’s fault.”“Stop blaming women for your uncontrollable dick!” “No one 
   asks to be raped.” "Don't blame it on the victim- blame it on the rapist!"

  

The slogans above – culled from websites, campaigns, marches and social media – are all slogans which I happen to like. They’re neat, compact - almost ‘catchy.’ They’re easy to re-tweet, easy to post in a Facebook status, or use as a caption to an inspiring picture.  Easy to ‘like’, in fact. I agree with them all unequivocally, and would be quick to argue against anyone who contested them. I like the certainty they imply - the strength, the occasional wry use of humour, the feeling of alliance. And – like the originators of these slogans - I believe that rape is never, ever the victim’s fault.

What I somehow can’t do is take that belief, and apply it directly to myself.

A few years ago, I was raped by my ex boyfriend, shortly after we broke up. But when I talk about victims of rape and sexual assault, I feel as if I’m talking about a category of people entirely separate from myself. I don’t feel as if what happened to me ‘wasn’t my fault.’  Most days, I feel as if it probably was. Worst of all, I don’t hate my rapist. Not all of the time. I try to, because, mentally, I feel better when I’m channelling hatred and righteous anger. I feel the way I know I should feel. The way I want to feel. I can take my emotions, put them into a neat sentence - a slogan, a placard, a declaration - and I can try to move on.

A lot of the time, however, I don’t feel overt hatred towards my rapist. If I’m honest, I don’t really think of him as ‘my rapist’ at all. I think of him as ‘my ex’ – with all the torrid, complicated host of emotions associated with that word. Sometimes I feel sad, because of what’s been lost. Not so much him, but more the part of myself, the almost-year of my life that’s now stained and tainted, reduced to the label ‘was in an abusive relationship with a man who hurt and raped me.’ Writing that, I realise I don’t even think of him as a ‘man’, but as a boy.  He was young, in his mid 20s. I'd just turned 20. When he first asked me out I thought he was joking: he seemed too attractive, too confident to be interested in me. He was dramatic, funny, charismatic and often very loving. He was also an alcoholic, an addict, and, especially towards the end of the relationship, angry and abusive. I have some horrible memories from that time. But sometimes, paradoxically, I remember odd days near beginning of the relationship where we both had nothing to do, where having nothing to do was the best thing in the world - smoking, laughing, drinking up the endless sun. I hate how complicated memory can be: the way it plays tricks, refuses to let us paint people as wholly good or bad, and consequently makes everything so much messier, so impossibly confusing and sad. 

I can’t remember everything about the actual rape. Teeth, skin, hair, up close. His pores, the stubble on his chin. Too close. Someone so familiar suddenly rendered unfamiliar. Physical pain, on the top of my arms where he’s grabbing me and pain where he’s pushing and jabbing to get inside me. A sense of dawning horror, because I’m asking him to stop, and he is not stopping. He’s drunk, and he’s taken something, but I’m not sure what, because when he looks at me it’s like he’s looking at me but not really seeing me. He keeps talking about the skirt I’m wearing, except I’m not wearing a skirt, I’m wearing a green jumper and jeans which he has pulled down and I am telling him to stop and he is not stopping...

It wasn’t the very first time he'd hurt me physically, but it was the first time he'd hurt me in this particular way. I don’t know why I didn’t leave him afterwards - why I tried to forgive him, even tried to make the relationship work again. Tried to make sure he still loved me. I feel ashamed now, and I do feel as if what  happened was my fault. Towards the end of our relationship, I'd cheated on him, and I know that his suspicion/paranoia contributed towards the anger he later admitted he'd felt towards me that night. I'm not stupid - superficially, I know no one 'deserves' to be raped, no matter what they've done. But at the time, it was hard not to feel as if I'd somehow caused what happened. 

Some of my friends know what happened, some don’t. It's not something I talk about much.  My current boyfriend (whom I have been with for a number of years)  knows, and has been incredibly supportive.  But sometimes I get angry – unjustifiably angry - because knowing what happened and knowing what it feels like are so different.

Some days, I feel as if I have a wound, a huge, septic sore. A deep wound, one that goes so deep you can see the fat meaty tubes of my intestines, my lumpy organs and flaky, cream-coloured bones. I hide the wound under my clothes and I say it’s healed, but it’s not. It’s there all the time, and it hurts all the time, and sometimes it hurts so much that it’s all I can think about. It’s not something I can write about eloquently, powerfully, effectively – it’s not something I can put into words. That's actually one of the main problems I have with writing: the fact that, when it really comes down to it, words are pretty useless. The most inadequate things in the world.  What I really want to convey is a scream. An ugly,  wordless, meaningless howl, a noise that makes your ears bleed, and goes on and on and on without end.

I go over and over what happened in my head, until I’m sometimes not even sure that I’m remembering it right. I once dreamt that he was standing over me and shaving his pubic hair, and it was going into my mouth and choking me, but I couldn’t move or speak.  Occasionally, when the memories are particularly raw, I feel as if I want to just hide somewhere, and cry for days and days, As if I want to be sick, and keep on being sick until there’s nothing left. Sometimes I cut and burn myself - I know it's a cliché, but it's a good way to experience instant relief, snap myself out of a particularly dark mood. Occasionally, not too often, I feel as if I'd like to die. But I don’t die.

I don’t die. I try to look forward to stuff, get on with life. Keep things light. Most of the time, I’m very good at this. Sometimes I feel so alienated, so distant from other people – as if real emotional closeness with another human being is impossible, no matter how much I might want it. But I try not to give in to these feelings. I focus on staying grounded, rooted in the real world, connected to others. I do a lot of writing - creative writing and writing for my university course - but this probably the first time I've written so directly, so personally. It's probably too long, not particularly well written, but I've found it difficult to edit, to condense what I want to say. To fit it on a placard, so to speak.

My ex emailed me about a month ago, out of the blue, after a long period of no contact. He asked how I was, hoped I was okay. I deleted the email and blocked the address. But I felt the question deserved an answer. So I guess writing this blog is partly an answer.  No, actually, I’m not okay.

I like being political, or at least weakly political – fighting misogyny and standing up for the rights of rape victims by sharing a pithy Facebook status or link. I’m not writing this because I think that people shouldn’t do that.  I’m writing this because I think it’s important to remember that the people who need to be told that ‘the victim is never to blame’ aren’t just the petty misogynists, the George Galloways and Todd Akins of this world. It’s also people who’ve been raped themselves. And yet, no matter how many times you tell them it’s not their fault, sometimes they’ll never believe you. Like me, they’ll say they do. They’ll definitely believe that other victims aren’t to blame. But inside, they’ll feel as if they’re the exception. The sick one, the flawed one, the disgusting one, the broken one.

The one who really was to blame all along.