Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Tess of the D'Urbervilles  By Thomas Hardy
1998
Weight: 1.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

 

I was one of the few students in my college-level English class that liked Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  That shocked me a little but what shocked me the most is that only two of us thought that Tess was raped in the book.  This story was incredibly sad and sometimes weighed so heavily on my mind that I thought my heart would break for Tess before I could get to the end of it, but people described her as annoying or deserving.  Boring or beyond their empathy.  I still find this uncanny.  I probably should have taken it as a sign of things to come.  Maybe if I had paid more attention I would not have been surprised to find I was surrounded by losers when I experienced my own rape.

Artllery and Missles

Artillery and Missiles (Armament and Technology Series) and Marines (Special Units) by Octavio Diez
2002 and 2001
Weight: 2.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donation

Tonight, I watched The Invisible War, a documentary about sexual assault in the United States military.  It was very difficult to watch these women and men tell their stories, particularly about what happened after the rape(s).  The denial, the demotion, the civilian life afterwards.  Seeing the supportive, struggling partners.

There was so much I could relate to as a rape victim, but there was a whole lot that was very different from my experience.  Very different and heartbreaking.  The feeling of comraderie that is broken and inverted/contorted into something so painful.  The strange legal proceedings and reports to superiors.  The violence and the brutality.

I have no feelings about the book I am getting rid of, but I do recommend the documentary.  I just wish I had not watched it alone so I was not crying by myself.  Women still have so far to come in our society.  People have so much more growing they need to do if we will ever overcome our shame. 
 

After Silence

After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back  by Nancy Venable Raine

1998

Weight: 8 oz

Method of Disposal: Leaving on the book rack at Joe’s in East Atlanta

This may not be the best time to write about this book.  I have been battling a minor sickness the last couple days, and I am exhausted.  BUT my foster puppy, Strelka-Lelka, just went into a weeklong trial period with a very nice woman.  I am having trouble resting, as I keep wondering how it is going and feeling strange that Strelka is not nearby.  I have not written on this blog for awhile because I have been trying to keep up with my other three!  One for a shelter dog named Evan who was adopted this week, one for Strelka and Belka, and one for another shelter dog that is currently in training.  It is time that I get back to my project.

Needless to say, this book was powerful for me.  The author was raped by a stranger in her own home and there is so much of her experience that I do not share but, surprisingly, there are a lot of common threads with my own story.  It felt empowering (?) to hear someone else giving voice to some of my concerns.  First, that even years later you still feel the effects and that your life is irrevocably changed.  She talks about her self as dying at the age of 35 and another woman taking over.  I think about that a lot.  I wonder what life would have been like and remember the woman I was and how changed I am.  She also talks about comments people made to her that felt more huge to her than they were probably intended by the speakers.  I am always trying to think about how to juggle other people’s suggestions, jokes, thoughts, with how I actually feel and how I react.  I also appreciate that she discusses how expensive the rape was for her, while recognizing that the rapist does not have to foot those bills.  I remember first seeing my hospital bill.  I was infuriated.  I was lucky enough to have a good support system.  I do not know how one could afford to be raped if they were not working or were making minimum wage and had no one to help them when things got tough.  

I felt like I was in a healthy place by the time I read this book this week.  I am glad I did not read it right away.  I bought it months after my own rape, looking for answers.  I think it would have been too triggering then or even just six months ago, but this week, I felt like there was someone out there I could relate to and that would not judge all the things that come up that I sometimes judge about myself.

Recovering From Rape

Recovering From Rape  by Linda E. Ledray, R.N., PH. D

1994

Weight: 11.2 oz

Method of Disposal: Donating

It is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I hope we will all take a little bit of time at some point this month to think about rape prevention, the consequences of living in a rape culture, and all the people we know who have endured.  I am not writing about prison rape much in this blog entry, but I would like to bring some attention to how serious this has become in the United States.  Please take the time to check out this website and support this group : www.justdetention.org.  We cannot continue to ignore or make jokes about the abuse that is suffered in our prisons.

_________________________________________________________________________________

This is how rape seems to me, as someone who has been raped and sexually assaulted on more than one occasion.   Someone who experienced this with a friend and from a stranger.  Someone who has never experienced rape as a hate crime or in a time of war.  Someone with a support system (now) and a deep understanding of rape that existed before, during, and after my encounters.    I think what I am trying to say is that I felt very prepared to handle rape, though I never have learned how to.  In theory, in thought, in my mind I understand it and deal with it.  In my body, my emotions, and my insecurities there it lies.  Rape has become insidious.

I move on.  I move forward.  I return to life and continue onward.  I am over it and it is over.  If you really think about it, it was not the worst thing that has ever happened.  It was terrible, but there are other terrible things.  I was lucky.  I am alive, there was no real damage, no pregnancy or disease, no long trials.  I am completely fine…and then my mind takes a turn.  I walk around the wrong bend and there he is rubbing his penis through his basketball shorts and asking me how much I cost.  It does not dominate my life, but it is always lingering backstage and when it makes an appearance it can knock me to my knees.  I really just don’t know when it will happen or what will happen until I catch myself reacting, as if I am out of my body, watching some other person struggle with some new question or concern.  

It happens, sometimes, when I watch a movie, and I see a woman struggling underneath a man.  I get a pain in my gut and it grows and envelopes me.  It happens on the anniversary of the day I was raped by a total stranger named Mark. Or is that just the name he gave me?   I was raped in March of 2007.  I went to the emergency room days later on March 22^nd.  So close to Sexual Assault Awareness Day.  So close to my dearest friend’s day of birth.  So close to right now.  It happens when someone makes a bad, off-handed joke about rape.  I am racked with anger, guilt over my anger, embarrassment that I’m so angry, angry that I am so embarrassed, furious that they don’t understand that it is not funny.  It happens when an old friend calls me into question or acts condescending.  Why didn’t you call the police?  Why would they believe me if YOU don’t?  It happens when I wear tennis shoes.  Every.  Single.  Time. I wear tennis shoes I hear him saying, “You look like a little girl in those shoes.”  I feel his stubble rubbing my cheek raw.  Sometimes it happens after too many beers.  It happens when I have sex with someone for the first, second, third, or one hundredth time.  I feel like I can never have sex without him somehow coming into the room.  That is one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.  It makes me feel inadequate, unattractive, and unable to relate.  Sex used to be my favorite activity, it is where I had some of my most happy and bonded moments.  Now, it is full of doubt, fear, and distraction—but I still want it.  I cannot stop trying.  It happens all the time, and that is the truly terrible thing about rape.  For me.  No matter how “over it” I am.  No matter how far I get away from it, rape spreads and leaks into my ordinary everyday life.  It rears up when I am not expecting it to.  It introduces insecurity into my safe places.  It embarrasses me in front of my friends.  It makes me feel weak when I remember having been strong.  It makes me question things I never questioned.  That is what rape is like to me, 5 years later.

Let’s do something preventative for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  You cannot erase what has been done, but you can stop it from happening.  Check out www.ihollaback.org and stand up for other people experiencing sexual harassment/violence.  Tell people it is fucked up when they blame someone who has been assaulted.  Tell people not to make jokes.  It isn’t worth it.  Tell the street harassers that what they are doing is wrong.  Don’t leave someone alone when you see them being made uncomfortable.  Talk to people about consent.  A lot.  Think about what consent means to you and how you use it in your life.  Know that it is far more than just saying “no.”  Support your local rape crisis center.  Listen to your friends and family.  Allow yourself to grieve and to feel pain.  Allow yourself to feel frustrated. 

Lucky

Lucky by Alice Sebold
1999
Weight: 12.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Donate

Alice Sebold is probably best known for her novel, The Lovely Bones. Lucky is whole other thing. It is a memoir and the story of Sebold’s own rape. The cover of the book starts you off with this, “In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was LUCKY.

I read this book before my own rape. I remember it being horrific. At the end, I remember thinking it was “unrelenting” when her roommate is raped. I can grasp images from her life, just moments, but I cannot write a real review, paragraph, or whatever about it. I tried to jog my memory by skimming it, but it opens with this horrible rape that Alice Sebold endured and it is too much for me. It all comes at me in a blur. I see words like “virgin,” “blow job,” “dry” and I don’t want to make sense out of it so I slam it shut.
I read it once. I think I was 16.

Such Nice Boys, I'm Sure...

Our Guys by Bernard Lefkowitz
1998
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: I'm thinking about it...any suggestions? It will be gone by Wed. no matter what.

In honor of Switzerland’s refusal to extradite the lovely Roman Polanski I am getting rid of OUR GUYS. I mean, who cares? Really. As Whoopi Goldberg said, “It wasn’t rape rape.” Whatever the fuck that means!



In OUR GUYS the author leads us through his exploration of a brutal assault that occurred in 1989 when a group of wealthy teenage boys raped a 17 year old disabled woman with a broomstick, a baseball bat, and their selves. The boys had grown up with her. They knew her, and their parents knew her. The author spends many years doing research and conducting over 200 interviews. In the end, he uncovers a school board, parents, and a community that tried to cover the whole thing up. They were not successful in that endeavor as this book was published, a movie was made, it was turned into a LAW AND ORDER episode, and it made national headlines. I still think they ultimately won. The boys were punished far more lightly than they should have been. At the publishing of the book, charges were dropped against a couple of the boys and some others were up for an appeal. In 2005 Richard Corcoran, Jr (his charges had been dropped and he had won a $200,000 settlement from the whole ordeal) shot his estranged wife and boyfriend before killing himself *. Another student involved, Chris Archer, was accused of rape again when he went to university in Boston. The charges were dropped. 13 boys were in the basement when the young woman was brought in to be abused. It seems that most of them (if not all of them) received a slap on the wrist and a lot of bad publicity. It probably wasn’t rape rape. You know?

When will we stop worrying about the lives and careers of the rapists over those that they victimize? I think back on my own rape and how expensive it was. I went to the Emory Emergency Room for a rape kit, and I was promptly sent a customer satisfaction survey and the bill. My financial backing to pay the bill fell through, but I thought I would have some time to figure it out. Nope. I got a threat that I would be sent to the creditors. I am lucky enough to have a support system and so was able to get out of that hole. Not everyone has people who can or will do that for them. You cannot be raped if you are poor**. I believe the fee was around $500 and it was only so cheap because I did not get the rape kit that you need to file a report—which can be $1,000+. How much did my rapist have to pay? Nothing. I never saw him again, and I hope it stays that way.

So, fuck you Mark. Fuck the guilty people of 1989 Glen Ridge. And FUCK YOU Roman Polanski. As for Switzerland, you have really let me down this time.



*http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2005/02/08/2005-02-08__89_rape_suspect_shoots_2__k.html.

**http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-health-and-money/2008/2/21/rape-victims-can-be-hurt-financially-too
If you have been raped or someone you know has check to see if you have a local rape crisis center. Many of them will foot all or a large part of your bill, as well as send someone to make sure your rights are protected. Because I live in Georgia I would like to give a shout out to the Dekalb Rape Crisis Center.

Lesbianism, Masturbation, Rape, and Gillian Anderson (Agent Dana Scully)

ALL of my X-Files books

Method of Disposal: Donate. I know. I know. Should I really donate all my old, over-used X-Files books? Is there anyone out there who would want them or am I just wasting some person’s time who has to unpack them all? I cannot help it. I cannot throw them away, and I am convinced a nerd like me will meander into the thrift store, find them, and proclaim that day as the luckiest in their life. I am. I told you, I cannot help it!

Weight: 21 lbs and possibly some tears. Please note that when stacked up they are almost the same height as my pit bull.



I am donating my entire X-Files book collection--at least I hope I found them all. I have been collecting them since mid-1990, and they have lived with me in a variety of different places. They have been hidden away in condos, pushed aside in apartments, and—surprisingly—put on the main display bookshelf at my current house. They are episode guides, Gillian Anderson biographies, a complete set of young adult books, and so and so forth. They are fiction and non-fiction. They are mostly awful and some are, secretly, really good. Or they were ten years ago.

I feel a special affection for the X-Files still. I believe it to be my first full-blown obsession. It is strange since I rarely watch tv, hate almost all television series, and struggle to overcome my disdain for most science fiction. Except when something catches me off-guard, as it does from time to time, like the X-Files. I am into the X-files because I find it entertaining, but I also have key points in my life that are tied to my fascination. I will tell you just a few.

Gillian Anderson not only helped me realize I am a lesbian, but she also helped me discover the joys of masturbation—through no fault of her own, of course. I was in the bath one day when I was a “pre-teenager”, and I thought about something I had done as a young child that felt really good. I tried to remember exactly what it was and, as I was figuring it out, here comes Agent Dana Scully waltzing into my brain. I had a fantastic orgasm. Got out of the bath tub, put some puzzle pieces together, compared those pieces to other pieces of my life at the time, and made two of the largest and most important realizations I had ever made and possibly ever will make. I love that woman to this day, and I will love her when she is much older, wrinkled, and beautifully-aged. I am loyal to her for always, despite the fact that I do not know her at all.

I also learned that while I have no desire to turn on the television I have in my living room I can watch The X-Files for days on end, weeks even, without a moment of boredom. I have the complete set of DVDS, which I do not plan to give away. I had surgery on my nose the summer in between graduating from high school and going to college. It had been shattered by a stranger at the neighborhood pool several years before. He did not like that I was a lesbian and, though he was several years older than me, he took it out on my face. The recovery period was a month with no heavy-lifting and no masturbation/sex. It was awful. My only saving grace was the pain medication and the constant X-Files marathon I had going.

At the end of my senior year in college I was raped by a stranger and had to go to the emergency room for a rape kit. As the doctor performed my pelvic exam and as I waited and waited and waited for a number of tests, words, and questions I was allowed to watch whatever I wanted on television. I did not care, but the friend who brought me turned it on anyway and there she was. Agent Dana Scully. I laughed. I watched it until we were done, and I was allowed to go home. I remember being so happy that life was like that or at least tv was—with all its reruns. I felt transported.

What is even sadder is that I can think of a couple other moments where The X-Files played some role in my life, but I have listed the important ones. I have embarrassed myself enough. Except I am not that embarrassed, not really, just loyal. Loyal, amused, and sometimes in love.

These books weigh 21 lbs when set on a scale. Before this entry, all of the books I had let go of only added up to around 30 lbs. I have almost doubled my number. I am sad to see them go, but I am trying really hard not to think about it anymore. I can feel myself starting to change my mind, but I won’t. I am determined.