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it seems to be, mr. akin
“it seems to be, first of all, from what i understand from doctors, it’s really rare. if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut down the whole thing down.”
for the record, statistically 1.3 women (over 18 years old) in the united states are forcibly raped each minute. yep. that’s a fact. 54% of sexual assaults are not reported to police, and about 97% of rapists will never – never – spend a day in jail. horrific. but the real clincher is that 78 rapes occur per hour, which translates into about 1871 a day, which translates into 683,000 (yes, six hundred and eighty three thousand) a year.
a year.
mr. akin, i want you to imagine one of your daughters or one of your granddaughters at the hands of a rapist. i want you to imagine the fear in her eyes, in her face. that deep profound fear. i want you to imagine her trying to push that person away, trying to keep him off of her. i want you to imagine him fighting her, holding her down, covering her mouth with one dirty creepy hand as the other dirty creepy hand rips her dress or pants or jeans. i want you to imagine her unable to scream. unable to utter a single word, i want you to imagine her being pinned down… into a corner, or on a cold slab of concrete, i want you to imagine her panties being ripped off of her, i want you to imagine her eyes…her eyes… her eyes – those beautiful blue or green or hazel or brown eyes that were often filled with love and life and joy – i want you to imagine her shutting them, keeping them closed so tightly to prevent herself from looking at, staring at, memorizing this person, this monster, this evil man, as he violates every single inch of her. i want you to imagine him violently taking her, forcing himself on her. repeatedly. over and over and over again. i want you to imagine him finishing her, his getting up, his zipping his fly, his wiping his dirty creep awful violent hands on her clothes, and then leaving her on that sidewalk, on that concrete, in a park, in a corner. alone. i want you to imagine her trying to stand up, her knees buckling, her heart pounding, her lips cracked from biting down on her lower lip, her eyes swollen, her vagina bleeding. i want you to imagine her coming home, her walking through the door, her face and body wearing the scent of mean and ugly and violent. i want you to imagine, mr. akin, your daughter telling you that a man brutalized her, violated her, raped her, took away her dignity and self worth. i want you to imagine mr. akin your daughter or granddaughter telling you that she was raped. violated. brutalized. dehumanized.
and then i want you to imagine your child telling you that she got pregnant through this horrific violent act, and that you mr akin question it’s legitimacy because, well, from what you understand, it’s really rare…if it’s a legitimate rape…the female body has ways to try to, well… shut the whole thing down.
i want you to tell her that.
again, mr. akin, i want you to really truly deeply imagine – use your imagination – her being pinned down, forced against her will, violated over and over again … what you call “that whole thing” … well, mr. akin…. that whole thing is called a horrific unwanted violent rape.
and i want you to now imagine all the shame, and guilt, and fear and self-loathing and self-hatred that is carried legitimately because of that horrific act.
try mr. akin, for god sake, try.
Category: Uncategorized 3 comments »
August 21st, 2012 at 2:04 pm
I was assaulted when I was 5. they didn’t rape me. they took me into an old garage behind an abandoned house. they stripped off my clothes and pinned me to the dark, dirty cold cement floor… It took 4 of them to do it. I fought, I screamed…then there were sticks and belts and taunting. one of them spit on me. when they left, i was bleeding. i put my clothes back on and ran home as fast as i could. i never told. i was ashamed…at 5, i was ashamed. somehow what happened was my fault and I have spent 55 years trying to erase the memory. now this. this elected official, this man, who is cold and removed and is one more voice that inflicts shame upon so many innocents. i am proud of you my dearest amy, i am saddened by such heartlessness.
August 21st, 2012 at 8:40 pm
I hope whoever this man is ..is able to “see” what you are saying..Rape, molestation..they can either leave marks or you can remember that they may touch your body but they will never break your spirit..helped me to get thru both..and then of course..ya sit back and watch karma in action..and it does exist..and it does happen.. 🙂
August 24th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
What if his daughter was raped on a date, after drinking? And got pregnant? That’s the kind of “illegitimate” rape he may be talking about. I think it’s easier to imagine a brutal rape and of course, as you rightly observe, if she were pregnant as a result, what would he say? That she enjoyed it on some level since her body didn’t “shut it down”?
But what about all those girls/young women/older women (even married women!) who are coerced into sex they don’t want who DO wind up pregnant? Were these “less rapes” simply because they knew the rapist, because they have mixed feelings for this person they know and used to trust? Is the pregnancy evidence that they *weren’t* raped?
All coerced sex is rape. And many of us have been coerced and never knew to call it rape. Worse, many rape victims still don’t even know they’ve been raped and feel guilty for the shame and anxiety they feel around their trusted sexual partner. And many of them are mothers as a result.
The whole discussion is so devoid of understanding women’s issues, his “misstatement” reveals more about his unchecked white male hetero Christian privilege than anything else. The very set of categories we women are trying to overcome.
Teaching our girls, or in my case, being taught by them. The only antidote to this nonsense.