Raw
A friend recently reached out to me about how she was missing my blog. My first thought was hmmm, it has been awhile, but I don’t feel I have anything to contribute…and how over confident I even dared to think, “You know, Im feeling pretty alright, life is good. Ha, welp I suppose that gave God a good chuckle. Oh how far yet I still have to go.
With the current news stories circulating regarding rape culture and the “advice” (and boy do I use that term loosely) the fury and outrage inside me is just too much. Tips from a news outlet were given that we as women could incorporate to stay safer and be proactive. They included 2 of the most aggravating comments I’ve ever read. “Don’t wear baggy clothes” “Don’t wear your hair in a ponytail” Are you kidding me with this? Really, this must not be accurate, right….. I am beyond sick of the Victim Blaming mentality and the contradictory that is this statement. If the victim survives an attack, it’s always well…What were you wearing? Don’t intice men with your body, etc etc. And unfortunately if a life is taken, proactive measures are placed on the woman with a list of things to do differently. WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE MAN? Where is the outrage for what the abuser did?
Which leads me into my trigger, if as a society we aren’t to a level of accountability for the abuser who is a stranger, what hope does a woman have when her abuser is her husband?
I have spent countless hours and days now making myself sick with anger because of how triggering this topic is to me. Memory upon memory has surfaced of the years I endured being sexually abused and raped over and over in my marriage. I share all my personal accounts of abuse not just as an outlet for myself to heal, but also to create and inspire change and action, but with this topic I struggle. I struggle because mainstream media still puts all the blame and action for change on the woman. (Disclosure: I 100% know sexual abuse happens to men as well, but this blog is just about my personal account and experience on the topic.)
I can’t compare sexual abuse between a stranger encounter because i’ve never experienced that. But I can speak from personal experience, that the memories I have of being raped by my husband are horrific along with the blaming myself and justifying the situations. Like with all abuse within my marriage there were varying degrees, and sex was no different. One particular event I can’t seem to shake occured when my abuser drank too much and his only responses the following morning were, “That didn’t happen” and “I don’t remember.” I was hurting so badly that I cringed from pain everytime I sat down on my bottom. This in turn angered my abuser, and I was told to stop making him feel bad. Tables were turned away from my suffering and onto him. I won’t go into the full graphic details of what happened, but his strength was too much for me. His body weight bearing down on my back, I couldn’t budge. The pain of what I can only hope he truly didn’t know what he was doing to me, was so intense. The more I fought it, the worse off I was and I eventually made my body relax as best I could and endure. The smell of the alcohol on his breath breathing on my neck, the scratchy material of a cheap hotel blanket wadded around feet, the sweat from my abuser dripping onto my back….it’s all so very vivid. The walk to the bathroom once he finished and rolled over, and discovering all the blood and tenderness as I cleaned up and wiped my backside is all still very fresh in my mind. This incident happened around 6 years ago and it’s still this vivid, yet you know what I thought in the moment…. Well, that’s my husband, it can’t be rape. He was drunk, he just didn’t know what he was doing, it’s not his fault. It saddens me to think about it and how this was kind of the standard that was set within our marriage of how I compared different sexual encounters.
Other times I was usually just awaken in the middle of the night to him inside him. I asked why he does this… his response…”I like to slip it in when you’re asleep, because then you can’t tell me no.” THIS ISN’T CONSENT!! And it’s not ok… But this was normal, sex while asleep accounted for I’d say 90% of my marriage. It’s what I knew, and I didn’t have a clue how wrong and unhealthy this was. It also wasn’t as painful as previous ways so I didn’t really push back on it, which led to me believing the abuse was my fault for allowing it which is something I’m trying to work on and heal from.
Unfortunately there are so many other incidents that occured, but are too graphic I feel to share. This topic in itself is difficult to share because of the vulnerability required. But my hopes by sharing is to shed light on the fact abuse and rape can infact happen between a man and wife, that you aren’t crazy and that its not ok. It’s never ok.
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