.
We need to talk about rape, and listen to all the voices who do.
I can’t imagine this being a surprise to anyone, but society at large doesn’t like to discuss one of its ugliest, most abhorrent crimes. Not surprising. It’s awful. We don’t want to think about it; it’s too unfathomably cruel, too widespread.
When we’re faced with stories, see streams of news reports recounting acts so foul we can’t stomach imagining what the sufferers must have endured, it naturally curdles in our thoughts.
What if that was me? What if it was my loved ones and friends? What if a perpetrator is someone I know? How could I protect myself if it happened to me?
How could I stop it?
Because the truth no one wants to face is that it could happen to us. It could happen to the ones we love. And for countless, that’s already our reality.
Before I remembered my lost past, I did try to do my part. I would share news on the subject, have discussions with friends, support those who had their own experiences with violence.
I knew statistics, I knew signs to look for. I knew what consent was and did everything to keep the people I loved safe. But I never talked about it publicly. Wasn’t my place to. Wasn’t my story to tell.
I realise now that was wrong.
Silence throttles victims of sexual violence: it perpetuates abuse, frees abusers from consequence, and forces survivors to suffer alone.
Society bolsters this.
Rape, assault, sexual violence. It’s rare to see any of these said so cleanly outside of the news or essays like that. Instead, they’ve been replaced with Grape, SA, or goddamned emojis. Even in general conversation, on platforms that don’t immediately flag these words and remove posts, people still will resort to these cushioned terms. Shave off their sharper edges.
Rape.
The word we have to protect everyone from hearing.
But what about those who lived it?
Because hearing about someone’s rape is never, ever worse than what the person who endured it has known.
Why do we protect everyone before survivors?
Why do we force them into silence and allow the rest of the world to shout? Why do we make them carry the secrets that belong to their monsters?
Rape is an evil that gleefully festers when ignored. Loudly says that no one speaks up when someone steals another person’s body and soul for their own gratification. It shows them that if they enact their worst pleasures, the world will do nothing in response.
And I’m done with that.
I know I am one voice out of many talking about sexual violence, raising awareness in any way I can. My reach is small, and right now I’m not pushing for more to protect myself.
But I knew early I was going to lend my voice to the conversation because if I do that, and if any one person reads my words and it eases their ache even for a moment, then talking is worth it.
Discussing my pain in places like this is worth it if it shares even a fraction of the load for someone else who knows what this hell is like.
I’ve said this before, it’s not a new sentiment.
But imagine if you had a friend or loved one who never felt safe sharing their own story, who carried it like an intolerable weight, who one day saw you speak up. Watched you stand firm for the millions who couldn’t. Read your words and heard your voice and knew they weren’t alone.
Imagine what that could do.
Imagine the friend who has a pushy partner who begs them into sex they don’t want, and you said, “talk to me”.
Imagine the friend who makes jokes dangerously dark that sets a pit in your stomach, and you said, “that’s not okay.”
Imagine if you heard the story of a lonely person in a dark hole you cannot even imagine be brave enough to share their thoughts and instead of scrolling on by you stopped, you read their words, and you lend them the littlest amount of courage.
Not everyone can talk about their experiences, and no one should be forced to. So couldn’t, and more importantly, shouldn’t we do it for the ones who can’t?
My childhood abuser threatened me into silence. My date-rapist used drugs to mute me. My family, who should have seen the signs, turned away. My friends, who witnessed me unable to use my own body, half-naked, hysterical, and violently overdosing, all said nothing. And not because anyone was cruel or negligent. Society had already taught them to look the other way, to not confront what they knew in their bones to be true, while I remained blissfully ignorant in amnesiac repression.
The ones who listened to me now, when it all came back, saved me from it.
Imagine who you could save if you didn’t ignore it the way everything larger than us tells us to.
Rape is not a mythic monster — it is a crime committed by people, and it thrives when we refuse to name it. But each time we talk, we give it less power. Pull out its fangs and blunt its claws. It shows would-be rapists that if they succumb to their twisted fantasies, the rest of us will be there to scream and shout and ensure they face the societal consequences of their actions, and that their victims do not have to carry it alone.
It takes so little effort to help corrode its hold on us all.
All we have to do is not feed it our silence.
All we have to do is talk.
I believe you.
I believe my son.
I know what happened to me as well. 💙💙💙
Excellently written and very powerful.