A Time for Rape

In Steubensville, OH a 15 year old girl has been raped. The night of her rape was chronicled on Youtube, Twitter and Instagram. Recently her attackers were convicted of rape. The media then told the story of how two young men, with such promising futures, were ruined by this incident. The night they tried to convince me you were abusive, I shook it off, like a spider that was crawling up my arm. Believed it was a shirt too big for me to fit into. Tried to throw it away like a note that was never intended for me to read. But I couldn’t. Their words stayed with me, a backpack full of too many books. Something threatening my balance, keeping from going forward, but also from stepping back. When I think of us, I remember that night in August. I remember the stars and trying to waltz in the grass. I can’t tell anyone about that night. Sometimes because it sounds too much like a movie, but mostly because our friends can’t believe you would ever be that nice to me. They don’t think of you that way. When they think of us, they see you trying to fit me into shapes so I would be more manageable. Keeping me square inside a box so you would always know where to find me. Convincing me into circular arguments so I would never find a way to leave you. Trying to cookie cutter me into triangular finger sandwiches, so I would be easier to handle and my personality would be easier to swallow. The night he could have raped me, I couldn’t help but think of you. How you trained me to respond to raised eyebrows and cocked heads like a dog waiting for a treat. How being pulled away meant I was special, meant I was worth something, meant you still remembered that you wanted me around. I wonder if this is how she felt that night. I wonder if she knows how many of us have come so close to being her. I think of how close I came. One more drink, one less person and suddenly society is ready to stich a scarlet A on my chest because, as a woman, rape is my burden to bear. An inconvenient truth to put on the shelf between my hair brush and a box of tampons. We force our rape victims to bear their scars, not with honor, but with shame. As if a shooting victim should be shunned for stepping into the line of fire. We tattoo a product recall across their stomach, so everyone will know they’re damaged goods, yet we hand a bar of soap to the attackers to ensure their hands are clean. I still read every newspaper article I can find on the case in OH, even though they all say the same thing. I tell myself that it’s just like a car accident. Something so bad you just can’t look away. In 2010, 32,885 people died from fatal car crashes. That same year, 207,754 people were sexually assaulted, with the overwhelming majority being women. We see car crashes as an unfortunate tragedy, something uncommon enough that we can always blame it on bad luck or unfortunate timing. But with rape, I fear that it is never too early for me to start clearing my schedule.